It was worth it.

I am not a morning person.

Especially when the days are so short.

Not even a glorious sunrise quite makes up for having to be heading out so early, on icy roads.

But it was worth it.

I just spent the day at one of the nearby towns, and am proud to say that I have officially passed my non-restricted firearms safety course; an early Christmas present from my husband!

I just have to mail in the form to get my license, which might take a few weeks, or a few months, to get processed and mailed to me.

Once I get that, I can legally buy any hunting-type long rifle or shotgun.

Now, I learned how to shoot as a child, and a lot of the rules we have now didn’t exist back then. There wasn’t much I had to “unlearn”, though. With the written test, I only got one answer wrong, and it was a silly one. It was a true/false shotgun question, and I am only slightly more familiar with them than I am with a muzzle loader! 😀 I’ll be getting a prize in the mail, though!

The practical part of the test had me handling weapon types I’d only ever seen in movies until today. Thankfully, being unfamiliar with a weapon did not generally result in lost points.

One thing I found interesting, particularly as someone who lives in the boonies; as long as we meet some pretty basic, common sense safety precautions, we’re pretty much wild west out here. Especially if there is a concern about wild animals in the area. While the list of restricted weapons and ammunition is longer here in Canada, and pretty stupid (some are banned basically because they look scary, and there’s even an air rifle that reaches only 350fps that’s banned. My crossbow does over 400fps!), thanks to the gun registry being rightfully thrown out, as long as we’ve got our license and keep it up to date, there are not a lot of restrictions.

Granted, we don’t have the budget to actually buy a rifle any time soon, but once I get the license, at least it will be an option. We also want the girls to take the course, too, though for the cost, it would be just one at a time. Which is fine. As long as I’m not the only one in the household with the license.

I am quite happy. It was worth it, and allows us to eventually get one more type of tool needed for living out here.

On a completely different note, today is the first Sunday of Advent, and while I was gone, the girls were kind enough to bring the bins of Christmas stuff up from the basement. Time to start some cat-proof decorating! 😀

Oh, and on another completely different note, and one that I was actually kind of expecting.

I got an email from our vandal’s lawyer, rather late on Friday, wanting to talk to me on the phone. Sure enough, our vandal did NOT agree to the conditions, so we do not have our Peace Bond against him. His lawyer will call me on Monday (tomorrow) to tell me what happened, and to talk next steps. I expect he will suggest mediation, which is where our vandal and I sit down with a third party, who tries to get us to work something out. Which I would be willing to do, if we were dealing with someone rational, but we’re dealing with someone who can’t accept responsibility for his actions, things everything is everyone else’s fault, and believes he’s entitled not only to what’s on the farm, but to have complete access to everything here, any time he wishes, as if we weren’t living here – except that I’m supposed to invite him in for tea after he verbally abuses me and vandalizes stuff. So I don’t see that mediation would be of any use. Which would mean going to trial, and the earliest court dates that are being booked are a year from now.

Well, we’ll see what happens when I talk to the lawyer on Monday.

*sigh*

At least as long as this drags through the courts, our vandal is behaving and leaving us alone, even if he does sometimes still phone my mother and leave nasty messages about how horrible we are. Ah, well. It is what it is. We just go along the best we can, while this drags on!

The Re-Farmer

Morning

My husband is a morning person. He says views like this are part of what makes it so great.

I admire the view, to be sure, but if I had to choose between doing my morning rounds really early and getting shots like this, and bed, I’d choose bed. LOL

The Re-Farmer

Good Morning

20181207.sunrise

After feeding the critters and doing my rounds, I got to see a lovely sunrise this morning.

I noticed something interesting while walking around the spruce grove.  On the north side, there are always lots of deer tracks, between the grove and the apple trees.  The south side usually just has a few tracks from the deer jumping the gate, or down the path to the barn.  Today, I was seeing new deer tracks on top of my own boot prints along the south and east fence lines.  The deer are taking advantage of the paths I’ve made through the snow!  I find it interesting how wildlife in general will take advantage of what us humans have done, whether it’s using roads and driveways to get where they want to go, or my own boot prints to avoid stepping in snow.  Seeing the cats do it is sort of expected, since they’re so much lower to the ground.  I would not have expected it from a tall, leggy deer. 🙂

The Re-Farmer

Smoke on the water

My daughter had a slightly later shift today, so the sun was well up by the time I got to the beach.

During the drive in, we could see the haze of smoke, everywhere.  The lake was no exception.

20180810.lake.reflections.haze

Normally, I’d be able to see at least a bit of the other side of the lake from here.  Especially when the water is so calm.

(I believe there is an advisory against going into the water right now.  The birds are pretty, but their fecal matter can result in E. coli problems.)

20180810.beach.haze

The camera on my phone automatically “clears up” images taken in fog or haze.  The trees in the distance were not actually as visible in real life as in the photo!

While walking along the beach, a splash of colour caught my attention.

20180810.beach.painted.rocks

Someone left a bit of cheer for others to enjoy. 🙂

I hung around town long enough for the post office to open, and for the postmaster to put out the mail, so I wandered over to the marina and sat by a fountain (and added a Pokemon into the gym that is there, which was controlled by my team at the time. 😀 ).

20180810.frog.fountain

It still feels weird to see the bright green frogs.  They used to be just the brass, which developed a natural patina.

I still like them.  Because they’re frogs. 😀

I headed home shortly after this and was able to stop at the post office.  Sadly, my husband’s CPAP has not come in yet.  The company could only guarantee speed of delivery within the US.  Once in Canada, they have no control over how quickly something gets delivered.  Usually, packages get processed quickly.  Much faster than envelopes, anyhow.

Usually.

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Morning on the lake

The lake was so very calm this morning!

20180809.beach.sun

I had the beach to myself, except for the seagulls and a woman doing yoga in the sand, while oriented to the sun.  The sand looked like it had just been groomed, too.

I found some pretty rocks while I was walking, including one larger one I might try painting on. 🙂

It almost makes me want to be a morning person.

Almost.

Gzzzzzz……

The Re-Farmer

Morning Rays

I visited the beach after dropping my daughter off at work today.  It was so beautiful!

20180804.beach.sunrays.1

After the storms last night, the lake is very calm this morning.

20180804.beach.sunrays.2

Though I am far from a morning person, I enjoy driving my daughter for her early shifts and being able to visit the beach this early.  I hung around, taking photos, playing Pokemon Go, and looking for interesting rocks, for about half an hour.  By 8:30 a.m., the beach was already getting crowded.  There were even people playing beach volleyball!  Well, it’s Saturday on a long weekend, so I guess that’s to be expected.  Especially a festival weekend.  There’s an annual festival held on the first weekend of August in town that has been going on for the last 80+ years here.  I remember going to it as a child and teen, and it seemed to get smaller and smaller every year.  By the time I moved away, I honestly wondered how much longer it would continue.  Trends changed over the years, though, the the town wisely took advantage of them, and incorporated a viking village with re-enactors (turns out there’s a whole community of re-enactors that travel from festival to festival across Canada), complete with mock battles.  It’s become quite huge.

Which means we’ll be avoiding it, as much as possible! LOL

As early as it still was, I headed home faster than usual because of the growing crowds, where I found another ray of sunshine waiting for me.

20180804.teeny.tabby.peaking

Teeny Tabby is so adorable!

The Re-Farmer

Morning at the beach

A couple of photos of the lake, taken this morning.

20180728.beach120180728.beach2

The water was so still this morning!

While it’s usually quiet in the mornings, there isn’t going to be any swimming for beach goers for a while.  Several beaches at this area of the lake are now closed.  It seems some pipe got damaged, resulting in untreated sewage draining into the lake.  From what I’ve read, the water tests were still testing safe, but the province closed some beaches to be on the safe side.

This is unusual only in regards to the cause.  The usual reason for beach closures are high algae levels, which has been an ongoing problem on the lake for decades, or high e. coli levels from bird poop.

And that, kids, is why we use chlorine in pools! 😉

The Re-Farmer

Windy Beach

One of the bonuses of dropping my daughter off at work for an early shift is taking a quick stop at the beach before heading home.

It was very windy off the lake today, making for some awesome waves!

20180720.beach1

As I parked, I could see a guy struggling through the waves near the water line, carrying an oar and dragging what I at first thought was a kayak.

20180720.beach2

Passing him on the sand a few minutes later, as he fought the wind to put it on its wheeled carrier, I saw it looked more like a surf board.  So I’m guessing it was a paddle board.

20180720.beach3

The combination of the lake’s size and how shallow it is, makes it one of the more dangerous lakes to sail on in rough weather.  Today wasn’t too bad for boats, but I would not have dared go out there on a paddle board in these conditions!

It sure is beautiful, though.

The Re-Farmer

Beach Views and Power

After dropping my daughter off at work this morning, I went by the beach and took a bit of a walk.

20180714.beach.sun

I was able to catch a whole lot of seagulls, just as they were taking off!

This morning, our power was hooked up to the garage and barn.  Yay!

20180714.pole.bottom

In order to detach the existing line from the old pole, the old pole had to be pushed down.

Despite being broken already, it was not easy to do!  That core was still hanging on pretty hard.

20180714.pole.top

That platform that broke off the top of the pole once held a bird house.  My late brother built the birdhouse, then scrambled up the pole to install it, many years ago.  We didn’t have a ladder tall enough to reach all the way, so he climbed the pole itself for the top few feet – somehow bringing the bird house and the tools he needed at the same time!

The new pole is even taller, so no normal vehicle going under there will ever get caught!  And there’s almost no sag in the middle at all, either.

Then the power got hooked up to the barn, which meant new line from the main pole to a secondary pole, then to the barn.

So happy it’s finally done!

Unfortunately, there seems to have been an unexpected victim of the power being shut off twice while the work was done.

My husband’s CPAP no longer works.

It wasn’t on while the work was being done, but there is still power going to it.  Perhaps a fuse got blown?  No matter.  It’s dead.  And he just got replacement hose, nose piece and filters for it!

Thankfully, now that my husband is sleeping on a hospital bed, he can adjust it to sleep in an upright position; he should be able to breath that way until we can replace the CPAP.  We do have insurance that covers most of the cost, but we’d have to buy it first, then send in a receipt.  So that will have to wait a couple of weeks!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer