Wednesday, November 29, 2006

We Got Some Snow

Lookin like Christmas here in Canada. Less than a month away, I can't believe how fast time is passing by. We got about 6 - 8 inches of snow early this week and are gettin more as I type. Not too bad but it has everything lookin like winter now. Don't have the internet at home up and runnin yet. I have subscribed but there is something wrong with the computor. It won't dial up so it is in the shop for diagnostic work. I am hoping it is a "try to figue things out" but I am pretty darn sure it will be "diagnostic" work (see previous post for explanation on diferences). Everyday they tell me it is going to be ready tomorrow. May just save up and buy a new one if the cost gets too high to repair. I was over visiting ND Homekeepers blog and they are feeling the effects of the snow and cold like us (maybe a little more than us).

I have been fellin poorly over the last week. Got some kind of flu or cold. Cough until my sides hurt. This has caused me to be a bit on the lazy side. Still been goin to work but when I get home I don't have much left. The family has been good to me and helped all they can. I need to get the tractor goin this weekend and clean up the snow though.

Wifes birthday is comin up. Maybe I will get her a new pitch fork. What do ya say Tom? How do ya think that would go over? It will mean a night out for some supper. We usually go out twice a year for a supper. Mothers day and the Wife's birthday. I won't say how old she is but she is a year younger than me and I'm a year younger than the Northern Farmer (I think).

Had a neat thing happen to us the other day. A real example of what country folk are all about. One of our neighbors phoned us up and asked if we had any eggs to spare. Her hens could not keep up with her customers demands. We had some so she said she would drop by and pick them up. No one talked money. When she got to our place she asked what do you sell your eggs for? Wife says a $1.75/ doz.. She says she sells hers for $2.00/ doz and insists on payin us the same. She would have it no other way. Said she was happy we could help and asked why we sold our eggs so cheap. Well, actually most of our customers whine about the price now and we don't think they would buy at $2.00/ doz. Said if we want she will sell all we have for $2.00/ doz. Now she could have easily givin us the price we asked and we honestly wouldn't of cared one hoot. What do you think our opinion is of this neighbor? She was and is good people. I have stood behind some people in at a checkout who have held up the line for 10 min. because they are questioning a dime difference. And those people weren't wearin no bib overalls either, if you get my drift.

This is goin to be short, I got to get back at er. I put one of them counters on my blog to see if anyone actually reads this stuff. Think I am up to 17 and 16 of those was me seein if anyone had visited. Talk to ya all soon. Things couldn't get better n this.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Weekends here.

Friday evening here in Cooks Creek. We got a little snow last night but nothing really to speak of. Glad the week is over and I can spend the weekend working around here. All in all the week was good. Work went well except for 1 job that has been beaten me up real good. We have a truck in the shop that has a parasitic draw on the batteries (kills the batteries). Hours of diagnostics has me about where I started. Don’t you just love that word? “Diagnostics” When you “diagnose” something you charge a hundred dollars an hour. If you “problem solve” you can charge fifty dollars an hour and if you are “trying to figure it out” it is free. They all mean the same thing but we like to diagnose stuff more than trying and figure stuff out. I’ll get back at her Monday and get er done for sure. Just need to give the head a bit of a break and start fresh.

The young uns all got mid-term report cards this week. Youngest and oldest did ok I guess, nothen to write home about but my middle daughter did real good. Got to be proud of her. She is the comic of the family. Always pulling something on somebody. You got to watch your back with that one. Don’t get down on me for the way I talk about my kids. I believe in telling it like it is. They do poorly, I say so. They got to know that I say what I mean. When they do good and I praise them they know it is the real deal. The gals are downstairs doing supper dishes and singing hymns. As I sit up here typing this I got to smile and think how good we got it. We ain’t rich but we are happy. Maybe we are too slow in the head to know how bad we got it and don’t know enough to be sad. Yea, we got it good and I know it.

I was reading a blog today at lunch about a lady who is going through some tough deal. She is one tough gal. She has her faith to help her but all the same she is tough. When I say tough what I really mean is strong. I could not go through what she is going through and keep on goin like she does. She wrote a real touching blog and I had a lump in my throat after I read it but I didn’t get the impression she wanted people to feel sorry for her. She was just tellin her feelings. When you hear about stuff like what people are going through it makes you appreciate what you got. I guess you got to have some bad times to know the good times. I don’t think it would help much coming from me but I even said a little prayer for her and her family. Ya never know. Couldn’t hurt.

Tomorrow I got to get that trailer completed and out of the shop. I will tell the story about this trailer another time. The short version is I bought it at a farm auction and I’m a dim wit. Then I got to build some nesting boxes and service my truck. I like working in the shop Saturday afternoon because one of the local radio stations plays the old country music. Looking forward to it.

We might be able to hook up the internet here this weekend. You see, we don’t have the internet at our place. What I been doin is puttin my blogs on disc and puttin them on the net at work. Well we may just sell the farm and go whole hog and see if we can subscribe to the internet. The main reason is for the kids school projects but I also want it to research farm stuff and now blog.

If anyone happens to pass by this way I would like to welcome ya and invite you to set a spell and say hello. Always could use some new friends.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Gettin an Education

Wed. evening I had to go to a town about 15 miles from our place to pickup a set of plow shears for a friend’s brother. He needed them to be built up and reshaped. My friend’s brother had phoned around and as it turns out this business is about the only place in the country that knows how to do this type of work. Now, I live fairly close to this town so I volunteered my wife's services. The next time she went to town she could drop off the shears. She did and they got done and now were ready to pickup. My instinct was to ask the wife to pick them up. After careful consideration I decided maybe I would do it myself. No use taking advantage of the old gal like that. Besides if she went to pickup the shears supper wouldn't be ready till late. I sure do hope if there are any gals reading this, ya all have a sense of humor. Back to the point I want to try and make. Anyway I call up this ol boy and tell him I want to pickup the shears, what time you open till. Says he is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, lives above the shop. Good deal, so after work I head for town to pickup the shears. I get to the place and go in, doors open but all the lights are off. I hollers a couple of times and someone hollers back. Then this ol boy comes down out of the ceiling. He is moving pretty slow. He turns on the lights and it was the most beautiful sight ya ever rested your eyes on. An old blacksmith shop. Now if there is one thing I enjoy it is worken with metal. There it was, every old tool and piece of equipment needed to be a turn of the century blacksmith. The ol fella (Paul is his name) told me he had been doing this for 48 years. Now imagine if ya could apprentice with this gent for a year or two. You couldn't buy an education like that if ya paid a million dollars. No college, university or book could come close to supplying you with the knowledge that was in that old fellas head. Now, my young lad was with me and I got to thinkin on the way home if Paul can hold on for 8 more years I will go to him and pay him whatever he wants and put my son with him for a year or two. How could I ever do better than that for my boys education. Unfortunately I don't think Paul will be able to work for many more years (my opinion). While we were talking he also told me there wasn’t much work for a smith anymore. Most just throw away and buy new. He does have a couple of sons who he said are not interested in smithing. When he puts his anvil and hammer away the knowledge that is going to be lost will be criminal.

Anyway back to my point (if there is one), as I said before, while I was driving home I got to thinking about education and how a person gets educated. It has been on my mind allot lately. You see, my oldest daughter will be finished her schooling this year. She has to decide what to do after school. Now I am going to be honest here and tell ya I want more than anything for her to go to university and get a degree. That has been my dream for her whole life. I wanted it bad and have saved a tidy sum of money and done without so I can make it happen. One problem, it is my dream, not hers. She wants to work with horses. She is horse crazy. Don't know why or how it happened, she just is. Anyway, at lunch time on Thursday I sit down with my lunch and pull up some of my favorite blogs. The Northern Farmer blog has a young lad posting. The post hits me like a ton of bricks. The lad is doing an apprenticeship at a farm. I am not sure of all the details but what I can gather he is working for a farmer for a year now and is learning the ropes. It was suppose to end after one year but he is staying on a spell more because he feels he has more to learn. The deal seems kind of informal but is the education this young fella is getting any less than a university/college education. I suspect not. I got the feeling he loves what he is doing (must or he wouldn’t be stayin on for a longer period). In my experience if he loves his work he is going to be darn good at it. Society says to be successful you need a formal education. Is this lad going to be successful? After reading his post and thinking about Paul and his blacksmith shop (suspect Paul didn’t go to college) I wouldn’t bet a plug nickel against it, that’s for sure. I am not sure a formal education is the only way anymore. I am going to have to ponder this a bit. The way I see it, for my daughter to be successful she needs to be happy, not rich. As for society’s idea of an education, well lets just say her old man was never one to worry about following what is expected. I don’t know if anyone will ever read these ramblings but it does help put your thoughts in order when you write things down.

Hear there may be a storm on the way tonight. Coming out of Montana. Shouldn’t be too bad. It’s the ones that come out of Colorado that worry me. Might be driving in the snow tomorrow. Been getting spoiled with the warm weather we have been having here in the North. Making us soft. I can here someone playing Christmas carols on her flute. Must be my oldest daughter, Collamity Jane. Talk to ya all soon.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Them Darn Kids

The last couple of weeks them 3 kids of mine have been trying my patience. Now don’t get me wrong I have 3 good young uns. They work hard, do not too bad in school and listen about as good as any kid listens. The problem is they take my stuff (tools) and don’t put them back. What got me going on this post is a bunch of incidents that have happened over the last couple of days. My boy is a typical 9 year old. We live in the country so he has to make his own fun. No young fellas his age next door. We don’t encourage TV and video games as a form of entertainment. So what is a fella to do? Well last night I came into the house from the shop about 9:30. Usual night for me. As I come in I meet my oldest daughter and notice 3 of my 4 bale hooks are missing from their hook in the garage. Ask her where they are. She tells me she last seen her brother with them at the round bales. Well this is the last straw. I head into the house and find him snuggled down in his bed sawing logs to beat the band. Wake him up. Where’s the bale hooks. He tells me he had them out on the round bales and was using them for steps so he could play on the bales. Ok, go get them. Yep, get up, get dressed and go get them and put them back where they belong. So he does. I was hot. One thing I didn’t mention in my introduction is I got a bit of a temper. Same deal the night before with my oldest daughter. I come into the garage and there is the electric fence stuff all messed up layen on the shelf and bench. She was doin some fence repairs and when she finished she just left the stuff scattered. What do ya do with kids like that? Foster home? Ground them for a month? Well after I get my bale hooks in their rightful place I go into the house to sit and have a cup of coffee before I go to bed. The kids are always bringing papers home from school and yesterday was no different. One of them had brought a pamphlet about crystal meth home. I picked it up and started reading. While reading I got to thinking about my kids. Now these three know what a days work is. My boy is up at 5:30 every morning feeding chickens. He does anything you ask. The more you heap on him the harder he works. Girls are the same. Both can cook and bake and sew, can process broilers, fence, tend animals etc, you get the picture. All three have outside work to give them some spending money. I don’t give them no allowance. Don’t believe in it. You work you get paid. That’s the way the world works. Even for kids. Don’t want them getten the idea somebody owes ya a livin. On Saturday we took my sons alum. can collection and in. A years worth of collecting and crushin cans netted him $123 dollars. He knows what a dollar is worth that is for sure. I know they ain’t doing no drugs because they don’t have the time or money. Well I am sitten there drinking my coffee and I turns to the wife and says I may have overreacted with the boy a bit. She says yea, maybe a little. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not letting up on them. Still expect them to do what needs doin but maybe they I won’t send them to a foster home or ground them for 6 months. Maybe things aren’t that bad. They sure could be a lot worse after reading the pamphlet. Don’t believe its luck that has made them the way they are. In my opinion comes down to values and family support. I may blog on that some time.

Friday, November 17, 2006

An Introduction

Hello, My name is Guy, This is my first try at blogging so hold on and we will see where this takes us. I got the idea to do this from reading a few blogs that really impressed me. Northern Farmer http://www.scepaniakfarms.com/blog/and KS Milkmaid http://www.fullerfamilyfarms.com/topics/blog/ are neat blogs and I find them both entertaining and educational. These folks are what I call good people. Never actually met them but kind of feel I know them through their blog. They don't know me from a hill of beans. Got the feelin if the world was full of these type of people things might be a whole lot better. They seem to know what they want and it aint nothin fancy. Just want to live a good life with their families. This in a nut shell is where we come from and want to be. Guess that is why I enjoy their blogs and in around about way their company. If you are into fancy holidays and possesions this ain't the blog for you. If you want to talk family, work, good food, homesteading and such, you may want to set for a spell.

Any how, I live in a rural area of Manitoba Canada on a small farm. Closest town is Cooks Creek. 1 General Store, 2 churches, a museum and an old folks home. Real big town. I'm married and have 3 children. I guess me and my family are about the closest thing there is to a good old fashion hillbilly. Me and the wife both work out. We try (and I do mean try) to farm. Not very good at it yet. That old joke comes to mind when I talk about us farmin. Someone asked what I would do if I won a million dollars and I told them I would just keep on farmin until it was all gone. When I thought of doing this deal I thought I would have lots to say but all of a sudden nothen. Lets see. Told ya all I have 3 children. 2 girls and a boy. Wife and girls are into horses. Son is into working with his old man in his shop and dirt bikes. Our life is about as simple as it gets and we like it that way. We watch almost no TV (except racing and rodeo), eat mostly food that has been either raised/killed by us or by one of the local farmers and work. If I go to sayin something you want to comment on feel free. I got big shoulders and can take the good and the bad. Please, no bad language or disrespect to my family. Ya got to appreciate that. A day in our home starts at 5:30 am and usualy ends about 10:30 pm. Between those times we eat, work and enjoy each other as a family. Work is not a 4 letter work in our deal. Work is what keeps us going as a family and what gives us purpose. The busier the better. Now I am not sayin we don't sit and listen to some good music in the evening. Heck we do that most evenings but it is usually for an hour or so before we hit the hay. Have to unwind before you retire or your mind just keeps a workin and you can't get to sleep. Some will know exactly what I am on about and some will be a wondrin what is he talkin about. To those that don't understand you all ain't workin hard enough. Well I am going to post this and see what happens. I will be back in a day or so and start sharing some of my life experiences with ya. Like anyone wants to here about this. Talk to ya ll later.