when it is cold outside

it's gotten cold. reeeeal cold. we're all working our winter wardrobes out. i'm wearing my snowpants basically all the time and paul is looking like a Stanfield's spokesmodel in his all gray, long john outfit. the wood burning stove is roaring all the time. the river is frozen and begging to be skated on.

everyone's mostly been working inside the house - working on our cold room, butchering ducks, fixing the leaky bathtub.

i'm still on the reading train, i had put a bunch of holds on books at the library so i have to keep up with them. i'm halfway through American Gods by Neil Gaiman. it's pretty wild.
also reading a book called Natural Birth Control Made Simple. sometimes i feel like all the women i know are way ahead of me on the fertility/cycle awareness... but better late than never.

dogs and photologs

one of my favorite part of the wwoof trip was all the dogs we encountered. they were seriously all so great. farm dogs are so balanced and healthy, i guess because they have such a strong sense of purpose (protect the farm... supervise farmers) and the dogs at golden ears are no exception.

i love these dogs more and more every day. when we first got here in the summer, there were up to 20 people living on the farm, wwoofers staying for a week and then moving on, and all kinds of visitors. keiko and ella seemed indifferent to us for the most part, and i was kind of bummed out. but now that we've been almost constantly for 6 months and we are down to about 4 people in the house, i really feel like we are tight "pack" full of respect and love. they are very different from each other, but both so well behaved.
in addition to these two, we are dog sitting a black lab named contessa. she's been driving us all a bit crazy with her neediness and her apparent lack of farm sense. but even she had a great day; she caught a mouse and we've got her into riding in the back of the truck.
we just took the dogs for a walk and came across a neighbour walking his three insane pomeranians. they were squeeeeeling like crazy and yipping and pulling all over their leashes. contessa ran over to investigate but after i called her back our three unleashed dogs pretty much just walked on by leaving them all in a small dog frenzy. i was proud of our dogs and kind of disturbed by the neighbour dogs. yikes.


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since i de-activated my facebook account i thought it might be nice to have somewhere else i put photos. i haven't organized this at all or figured out how to use it so much yet but i'm sure i will soon - a flickr account

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in the last few weeks out of different dumpsters in kamloops, we've found 50 boxes of pot of gold chocolate, tons of orange juice, a box of boxes of deeeelicious high quality cheesecake, a huge fruit picking ladder, a big aluminum ladder, brand new boots, a fire proof safe still in the box, and a bunch of other random stuff.
so... i guess i am basically suggesting that if you aren't already dumpster diving, maybe it's something to consider, especially if you are broke.

the kootenos

i just got back from a bit of a trip; paul and i went to the kootenays to help our friend Markus clean out his property which he finally sold. the whole trip wasn't super enjoyable for me, because, for one thing, i don't like travelling that much. i mostly like staying where i live. i feel like i am typing words of sacrilege, but of course there are exceptions, or i would still be in calgary.

anyway, we set off in the farm van, which although i am grateful for its use and that it held itself together the whole time, it's so loud. it seemingly has no muffler, and the whole thing creaks and flaps faithfully along.

on the way we stopped at Half Way hot springs, which were amazing! we didn't take our camera down with us: this is the only good photo i could find of it, THIS IS NOT ME OR MY PHOTO (and this person is obviously a prude):

the whole thing was really amazing, hippie made, nobody around, friggin' hot.

after that we drove a bunch, had a big bonfire with markus, went to some dumps, visited nelson, realized nelson is just another city where you can spend money, spent money, drove some more, got sick, visited a sweet glass blowing shop, read DUNE, and finally came home.

we have a bunch of tools, books, and other useful stuff that markus was getting rid of, and it was nice to visit with him, but i am happy to be back on the farm. i always dreamed the kootenays were really magical and special, but i found out they can ALSO be haunted and creepy.

squash and stoves

we had a big day with a small crew on the farm today.
four of us made another big dent in the garlic planting job this morning. finn and i cut down the asparagus so the hearty asparagus beetles have nowhere to hang out for the winter, and then we headed in for a fantastic lunch.

pretty much every meal these days features some type of squash, since we have a whole cold room filled with different varieties including: butternut, spaghetti, acorn, blue hubbard, dumpling, and giant mayan squash (which are SERIOUSLY huge).

after lunch we harvested all our carrots, rutabagas, and celeriac (aka knob celery, apparently. never seen or heard of this ugly root before). we stocked everything (700 lbs i guess?) into our new root cellar (pictured below). so exciting.

it's starting to be a bit wintery here, so a very welcome addition to the house in the last few weeks has been a wood stove and chimney. below is a crappy photo.



been playing hockey once a week with the ladies team, and i am a total goofball on the ice, but so is everyone else. we've lost two games already, but i'm pretty happy just being on a team.

also been reading a ton lately, i just started reading my first science fiction novel, DUNE. it's very well known, very popular, and really unlike anything i normally read. in my quest for more reading material i've signed up on this website that's basically like a facebook about books, if anyone else is on it, add me. http://www.goodreads.com/snekels