Progress in Pics

I spent some time gathering all the "big"(tennis ball) and "huge"(basket ball) rocks on and near the driveway. Most of the big rocks were dislodged by that plow driver but the huge ones have just been along the side near the bushes and I figured I might as well grab those 4 or 5 while I was at it. (For reference, the rocks surrounding the raised house area are "ginormous" and those gravel bits are about as big as a finger section each.)

The garlic are about three inches tall already and the onions are bouncing back as well. Sorry no pics of them right now but I didn't think of it while I was outside today.

Peppa has settled in to our routine but has developed a lil kitty cold (feline upper respiratory infection). The SPCA did warn us that she get it after being in the shelter with so many other cats. She's doing well and her only symptom is a runny nose(clear) that makes her sneeze, so it's mild and should pass in a week or three. Gotta say that sneezing cuddle bug does mean I've woken up in the middle of the night from getting sneezed on... not fun... but I am very happy that she likes us so much already that she's picked her spot to sleep being between our pillows.

Hugslut mounted a floating bedside table and it's perfectly level. We decided to get a wall mounted cabinet so the drawers in the bottom of the bed weren't blocked and I really like it. It's a gazillion times better than the large cardboard box I've been using this past year. :-)

We're having a contractor in to change the drafty garage door in the basement to a nice sealed "garden door" style double door that leaves plenty of room to be able to roll in wheelbarrows or the lawn mower or whatever.

It's framed, anchored, and sealed in place which is all that's happening today. Tomorrow he'll be back to finish the wall with insulation and particle board on the inside and all the siding on the outside (the vapour barrier is already in place of course) as well as installing the deadbolt.

Right now, with a feed bag wadded into the deadbolt hole and no insulation... it already feels so much warmer in that room than when the garage door was there.

It was a bit of a bumpy ride today. At one point the smoke detector went off and we couldn't silence it because of the smoke coming from the contractor's chainsaw. That's right... He was using a gas powered chain saw and the only reason you can't really say it was indoors is because there wasn't a door at the time.

We had to stand on the deck for a few minutes for the basement to air out enough because the silence button does NOT work on gas smoke. Somehow it knows it's not burnt dinner.

Tomorrow I'll be trying to carve a path for the goat yard fence behind the shed/barn because her gotcha day is fast approaching, and maybe I'll get to stapling the hardware cloth down around the greenhouse to keep the voles or squirrels or whatever out.

Some big news and a lot of little bits

Feb 19th the snow melted just enough that the chickens came out for a scratch

I know it's been about a month and I have been so busy, but at the same time, nothing much has changed. Well, there are two pieces of big news, but I'll save that for last.

The solar company had sent an electrician to add a sub-panel and actually wire the solar panels to our breaker box. About two days later was that freaking scary day I told you about last time where I thought power was still flowing though a flipped breaker. All that's left to be generating our own power is for NSPower to come out and replace our regular meter with a net/2-way meter but I have no clue when that's gonna be.

This is part of the the driveway plowing aftermath on a melted and drained day. We're going to have to have the whole thing re-graveled. I'm getting someone to come give us a quote for that soon, but it's still the rainy season so the quarry isn't open right now (not safe for the big machines) so the work will be later.

A while ago (end of Feb?) there was a little bit of warm weather and I spent a whole day tackling a bunch of household chores/repairs/spring cleaning. I washed the windows and their frames, adjusted The Cantry™ door so it actually latches, dusted everything, swept & mopped including sweeping the basement, and finally got around to the stairwell lights. These lights have been slowly burning out one by one but now they're all working, and all LEDs, so I shouldn't have to change them again any time soon. :-)

Before

After

~ ~ ~

Okay, both parts of our big news are because we were searching for a dog. We've been visiting the SPCA whenever a pooch caught our eye but they were often adopted the day before, and once the hour before we could get there. There were other dogs, mostly beagles, but we were looking for a collie, a retriever, a rottweiler, or just a mutt that has the same sort of people focused and happy to train personality.

Getting disappointed with not finding a dog for us, I looked at kijiji. and found a dog that would be lovely for us... but he was part of a pair and the owner would rather they go together, and his partner would NOT be happy in our home. Apparently she was super triggered by "tech noises" so our home where even the coffee pot beeps twice a day just wouldn't work. 

While I was on kijiji I spotted an ad for a white goat. I mean we were GOING to do meat rabbits this year but... goat! So we got in touch and went out so see.

The white goat in the ad was quickly bought but the owner said that the black goat would be ready for purchase in a month.(Beginning of April) A month suited us just fine as there's plenty of prep work we need to do. Her name is Star and she's friendly to us, a great mother to her kids as well as patient with other kids in the herd.

So I've been working hard trying to make sure the shed/barn is ready for her as well as re-learning everything I'll need to know for her care.

Now the second part, just this weekend a border collie was up on the SPCA website and we were going into Yarmouth for goat supplies so, we stopped in at the SPCA and learned that unfortunately he was a bit too much for us. He came from a severe situation and we knew we didn't have the experience to help a dog who wasn't house trained and couldn't even handle the word no...

That said, while we were there waiting our turn to talk with the receptionist, Hugslut found the tiniest(6lbs), sweetest, friendliest black cat named Peppa.... and since we both fell in love with her, we adopted her and went out to buy cat supplies as well as the goat supplies.

Exploring every dark crevice

Sitting on the couch for petting

watching bluejays through the deck door this morning

Peppa spent all of her first night exploring the house and cuddling up to us for petting. In the morning it was clear that she did eat the few kibbles we left out and used the litterbox so we know she's settling in. Her first full day here(today), she did eat some wet food in the morning and has spent most of the day sleeping as well as watching us and cuddling close to hang out. You can look forward to many photos of our dainty lil Peppa.