This past weekend, Jenn, Hunter and I were invited to go see some little show called “Ovo”.  It was put on by a troupe of acrobats called “Cirque du Soleil” or something – ever heard of them?  No?  Me either.   Even still, they managed to pack the performance tent with close to four thousand people and they put on one amazing show.

Honestly though, and without hyperbole, I saw things there underneath that tent that I didn’t think the human body could do.  Some of the acts were unbelievable because of the muscle control and flexibility required, while others were incredibly well choreographed and expertly timed.  All of the acts, however, were astounding because of the amount of physicality and skill packed into each segment: it was very likely that we saw some of the best acrobats and performers the world has to offer.  The entire show was amazing.  I could go on and on about how entertaining it was, but I don’t want to spoil it for any who may see this post before they see the performance.  Suffice it to say that I loved it, Jenn loved it and Hunter loved it and we are very grateful for the invitation.

We were not allowed to take video or photographs inside the performance tent, so I made a little video of my most recent run with the dogs instead.

Sheesh!  It’s already November and I haven’t yet posted anything about running our dogs.  What’s the matter with me?

Well, part of it is that Jenn and I had decided in the late summer that we were going to downsize some of our animals and try to get some work done on our house.  We only have three chickens left; the others were sold, and we only have one goat – the infamous Ty.   That leaves the dogs. 

Originally, we were going to not focus on racing this year.  Instead, we were going to have fun runs – like camping, icefishing and daytrips – with the dogs, but when a friend, after hearing our plan, asked if he could use our dogs to run a race this winter we felt it to be an all-round benefitial idea.  He could help train and condition the dogs, the dogs would get out on runs, and we would not feel guilty about not running our dogs as much this winter. 

This is our string of dogs that we are training this year. 

Then, Jenn came up with the idea that we were going to try a different method of training.  She’d heard about this eleven-day cycle that is used by some mushers who do races similar to ours.  Basically, the eleven days are broken down like this:

• Day one: long, slow distance run.  We try to keep the dogs between five and seven miles per hour for an hour.
• Day two: rest
• Day three: rest
• Day four: another long, slow distance run.
• Day five: rest
• Day six: rest
• Day seven: Speed run.  We keep the dogs running at between 14 and 16 miles per hour.  We do this for four miles.
• Day eight: speed run.
• Day nine: speed run.
• Day ten: rest
• Day eleven: rest.

When the next cycle starts up, the distance is increased by a mile and the time spent running the long, slow runs is increased by half an hour.  In theory, we are working two different muscle groups on each different part of our training and we are giving plenty of rest for recovery and muscle building.  So far, we are really pleased with what we have been seeing.  Another nice thing about this method of training is that we have a concrete plan: in years past, I would just try to get out as much as I could with the dogs and, as our past racing track record shows, I was evidently not allowing the dogs’ potentials to be reached.

I wish this trail was longer.  We can only use it for runs up to eight miles or so, but it’s so nice to run on.  It’s a seldom-used concession road that only really sees traffic during hunting season.  We use a trail that comes off of it and goes four miles into a cut-block to a nice turn-around so that we don’t have to manually turn the team around on the road.

So, with the help of James, our friend, we are having a great season so far and the dogs are looking every bit the honest dogs we know them to be.

This is the part of the trail that goes through the cut-block.  It is still nice and wide, well packed and enjoyable to run.

The end of our second 4-mile speed run.  The dogs finished looking really strong, I thought.  James is driving and Hunter’s friend, Emily, is riding with us.  She was covered in mud and had a great time.

I sliced my thumb open at work two days ago – they’re still talking about it, I did such a good job – and it’s a pain to type so this will be short. 

Unlessofcourseyoudon’tmindallthewordstogetherbecauseIcan’tusethespacebar.

“The goat who thought he was a dog.”  I thought this would be a good title for the post – maybe even a children’s story.   You know the kind of story: where the goat does foolish things because he thinks he’s a dog and I could write them down in a lovingly charming way, so as to make his foolishness endearing.  But it would be hard to compare Ty to a dog because even though I’ve known some idiot dogs, Ty has them all beat.

In a way, though, I sort of feel bad for the poor guy.  Afterall, his life of late reads like a Greek tragedy: we killed his sons, banished his wives and daughter and left him to rule an empty and desolate land alone.  Well, it isn’t empty and desolate, but it certainly isn’t a goat Wonderland, either.  So, now he spends his days wandering around but mostly lounging outside the dogrun - his new, adopted home.  And when a select few dogs go on a walk, he follows along behind trying to fit in.  Like a big, shaggy dog with horns.

And finally, as promised, here are some pictures of Ty.  Everybody, this is Ty.  Ty, this is Everybody:

Here he is: the great, lumbering beast.

Trying to fit in with some of the calmer dogs. 

Gilligan trying to herd and Ty having none of it.  They’re quite the pair, these two: each convinced their way is the right way, but neither is willing to listen to the other.

…really having none of it.  Watch out, Gilligan, I think he’s about to make his point!

Lastly, here’s our guy, back from a car ride to town.  Well, okay: he didn’t go to town.  He just snuck in when Jenn was busy unloading the car.  But you weren’t sure there for a minute, were you?

A little while ago, Jenn said that it felt weird to have outgrown some of our dogs  and I knew what she meant.  We have some dogs in our yard that, for various reasons, don’t make the starting lineup anymore.  They are either past their hard-working days and ready for their pension or they are not able to keep up with our team’s endurance or speed.  It was a hard decision to make, but it was a necessary one: we put some of our dogs up for adoption.  Of all the responses we had, one of them was from a new musher who is looking to start a team of dogs.  I wonder if, after visiting us, he has changed his mind.

He showed up to meet the dogs on Sunday afternoon and we thought it would be fun and benefitial to have him go out with me on the fourwheeler and run the dogs we were adopting out.  We introduced ourselves and headed to the dogyard.

I made sure that Ty was put away.  That bastard goat had already confronted one team of mine a few days earlier on the trail and I was not looking for a repeat performance.   Especially with company.  The fourwheeler was ready.  The dogs were ready.  Jenn was already hooking up some dogs and the commotion in the yard was at its pitch.  I had just hooked up Mouse when I turned around to see Ty, that friggin’ bastard goat, sauntering towards the middle row of dogs; all of which were losing their minds at this unexpected but definitely welcome meal headed their way.

Here was the dilemma: the goat had to go, but how to accomplish this?  I can’t walk up to him because he’ll just run away, knowing I’ll just put him back in his pen, but I can’t shoo him out, either, because he’s headed right for three dogs who are well-fed but willing to make room and I don’t have time to get on his other side.  I opted for the grab-n-go approach because necessity overruled trickery and finesse.   At this point, Jenn is holding out the line of dogs that are already hooked to the fourwheeler – they want in on the action – and so she can’t help me and our guest was probably wondering what he’d gotten himself into.

I position myself between the two rows of dogs and say, on the outside: ”C’mon Ty, it’ll be okay.  C’mon over here.”  But on the inside: ”I swear to God, you stupid goat, if I get my hands on you… how can you be so dense?” and “You cloven-hooved idiot!  Get over here before they kill you!”  He stopped and looked at me, unsure of what to do next.  Somewhere inside that wee little brain of his, a synapse flickered briefly and he realized he was amid ancestors of his ancestors predators.  While he let that thought sink in, I used that opportunity to grab him by the horns and try to drag him out of the run.  But Ty is as strong as he is dumb so it was not easy and Dekker, one of our new aquisitions from last year, managed to grab his ear.  In less than second, Dekker had the bottom two inches of Ty’s ear in his mouth, while I had Ty by the horns two dogs away.  Losing a third of his ear didn’t seem to phase Ty: he still fought and struggled against me as I dragged him out of the run.  He still didn’t want to co-operate once he was out, so I had to haul him all the way back to his pen, snorting and grunting.  I glanced quickly at his ear: it had stopped bleeding already but would have to wait for attention until I was done with the dogs (it got some antibiotic spray when all the commotion had died down.)  I ran back to the dogyard, continued hooking up the dogs with Jenn and then jumped on the fourwheeler with our guest and took off. 

It wasn’t our best run, but it was a good one and I’m glad it was good because the dogs that we gave away ended their time with us on a positive note.  I’m glad to have had them in our yard and I’d take them back in a second but they just didn’t fit with us anymore and they wouldn’t get the attention they would deserve from us if they stayed.

We offered four dogs that he could choose from  and in the end, he decided on Mouse, Lacey and Taiga.  I wonder if he’d have taken a goat, too?

Mouse

Taiga

Lacey

Friday, Markstay:

I don’t know what I have done to anger the Fates so, but they have conspired lately to turn my life  into a series of Comedies of the most absurd kind.  Take for example today. 

I got in from helping a friend move and it was early afternoon.  A perfect time for me to lay out the platform for the woodstove downstairs.  I went down into the basement and began to unpack my tools when I heard the dogs barking, which is something they don’t normally do, unless there is an animal around or, rarely, there is somebody in the driveway they don’t recognise.  I could see no one, so I assumed it was an animal – and by the way they were barking, a big one.  I ran upstairs and out towards the dogyard, just in case there was a dog loose because, judging from their increasingly excited sound, something was still going on. 

A tuft of six-foot tall grass blocks  a straight-line view of the dogyard from our house, but once I rounded the corner, I saw the cause for the excitement.  It was our male goat, Ty.  He was standing a few feet from the gate of the dogyard, staring in, much like that simple kid we all knew did when he saw something just beyond his comprehension.

I don’t know what goes through a goat’s head in the course of a day, but it can’t be much.  Here stood our Ty, looking ponderously in at twenty-two dogs intent on at least getting a bit closer.  Within tasting range closer.

I clapped my hands and said “TY!” in a loud voice.  He seemed startled at hearing me and turned to run away, so I chased him and clapped my hands the whole way hoping to impress upon him that with 38 remaining acres to roam, the dogyard should be avoided.  He bucked as he ran and bleated his little bleat – a sound not unlike a soft, maniacal laugh that ends in a snort.

Back in the house I went.

Not five minutes later, the dogs start barking again.  And I go outside again.  And there is Ty.   Staring in at the dogs. 

I could let the dogs bark all day if they wanted to.  I don’t really care – I barely hear them.  But our neighbours do.  As do the people across the river from us and I expect that they would care, which means that I kind of have to care.   So, off I go again to scare away Ty.

“But wait,” I hear you ask, “don’t you have two fenced in pastures with a barn in each for the goats?”  To which I respond:

“Why, yes, dearest reader, I do.  But that G-D goat can climb the fence faster than I can fix it.”  It’s here that I’d like to point out that I haven’t been outsmarted by a goat, just out manoevered: afterall, he’s got all day to devote to planning his escape.  Me, I have other things to concern myself with.  In all of this, I don’t bother trying to re-pen Ty.  He’ll just escape again.

I lack the fenceposts to stiffen the fence up: Ty escapes by putting his front legs on the fence and standing on it so it sags.  Then he just sort of lumbers over it.  More fence posts would be helpful as would the time to install them.  Another answer is an electric fence – which we have most of the parts for – but again, I lack the time to put one up.  But, if I did have the time, I’d rig it up special for Ty: I’d wire it into the 60-amp service we have at the house.  Jenn and I would be eating fried goat for dinner.  Next year we plan on having the lower field enclosed by electric fence.  That shouldn’t take long; it’s only a few acres in size.

Me chasing that stupid goat around the yard continued until it came time to feed everybody, which is to say I spent the better part of my afternoon running after a goat, clapping my hands, looking every bit the poster guy for institutionalization.

Tomorrow is the Great Turkey Roundup, so I hope to have nothing to write about that.

Saturday, Markstay:

You’re not going to believe it.  I didn’t believe it and I was there.  Nothing happened with the Great Turkey Roundup.  Not a problem anywhere: in fact, we we’re even ten minutes early leaving the house.  I know – amazing.

We caught and loaded our birds and planned to leave the house at 09h00.  We were smart and locked the turkeys in their coop the night before so it was just a matter of grabbing and putting in the truck.  We had been warned that the cut-off for processing was twenty five pounds and as we loaded the birds it seemed more and more like we’d be having to do the work ourselves.  Some of those birds were heavy.  And flappy, which didn’t make the task any easier.

At first, I would just grab the bird around it’s wings and body and carry it to the truck, but that featherless, snakey neck of theirs always seemed to position their heads right at my eye level and I don’t trust those peck-y buggers.  They’d peck at the rivits in my pants or the buttons on a jacket and seriously, with a brain little more than a nerve with a knot tied in it, what’s preventing them from having a go at my eyeball?  I started to carry them by their legs, upside down.  This reduced the flapping considerably, too.

There’s a pretty picture.  The turkeys finally loaded into the back of the truck.

Next was a dozen or so of Jenn’s laying hens.  She’s sold all but four now and those she’s keeping for us to have eggs through the winter.  We were going right by the buyer’s house that morning so Jenn said she’d drop them off.  After grabbing and wrestling with turkeys, these wee little hens were almost like chicks.

Jenn’s chickens awaiting transport in a dog crate to their new home.

It had been raining all morning – hooray for the Ontario autumn – and as we left the house with a full coffee, dressed kid, load of turkeys and chickens and ten minutes to spare, the rain stopped and the clouds parted.  We drove in a rare beam of sunshine. 

“Something is bound to go wrong.  I hope those turkeys pass.” Jenn said, referring to their weight.

“Yeah.  We’re pretty organised today. ” I commented, continuing with “I might as well drive us into the ditch now.”

We offloaded the chickens to their new owner and headed to the turkey killin’ place.

A great line up of vehicles awaited us when we got there.  Most of them had a turkey head or two peeking out of some sort of makeshift enclosure.  There was activity at the door so Jenn went to see how backed up the place was and to let them know we were here.  As it turned out, they were an hour behind schedule because of the size of some people’s birds.  They were just not able to process them fast enough to maintain their times.

The guy in the white is the meat inspector and he’s headed to our truck to check out our turkeys.  The door where we unload the birds is open and processing takes place to the right of the door.

The three of us watched as a truck unloaded it’s cargo.  Then another, then another.  It’s pretty much the same for each bird: grab it by the feet, hold it upside down so it stops flapping and hang it by it’s feet on a wire frame.  Within the span of ten seconds, the bird is dragged over an electrocuted sponge and is killed.  Very quick, very efficient and judging by the speed with which it happens, painless.

The truck before us pulled in and parked his acre-sized trailer by the door.  He, his wife and their son jumped out and started unloading with all the precision of a military drill squad.  At one point, a flapping wing took the lady in the face, knocking her glasses so they were half-cocked on her nose and cheek.  She didn’t miss a beat: grab turkey, pass; grab turkey, pass; grab turkey, pass (nudge glasses back with shoulder); grab turkey, pass.  Added to the smoothness of their unloading was the fact that their turkeys all looked to be within a half pound of each other.  “They’ve done this before.” Jenn said to me; and it was good that they had done this before because they had sixty five birds in all to unload.  Grab turkey, pass.

Now came the moment we had been dreading: the woman in charge of the kill floor came out to organise the next batch; that being us.  We opened our truck and she laughed as she saw our birds.  Not good.  “I’ll take them this time, but next year, nothing over twenty five pounds.”  Thank God.  Grab turkey, pass.

With our birds sent to their final destination, we drove away happy to have raised them and glad to have them all accepted.  We’d be back for 15h30 to pick them up and deliver them to Jenn’s customers.

This is one of the larger turkeys that we delivered.  It was a “twenty-five pound plus” bird since Jenn’s scale only went to twenty five.  We weighed ours on the bathroom scale when we got home.  It was 33 lbs.

As I leapt out of bed Friday morning, wide awake and eager to start my day, I thought to myself:

“Self, after your coffee and morning feeding chores, after you get the kid’s snack and lunch ready and drop her off at school, you just have to make a quick jaunt to town, pick up a few sundry supplies and head back home.  You ought to have that woodstove chimney installed in time to pick up the kid from school, you handy fella, you.”

However, after dropping Hunter off at school – she doesn’t get a bus in the morning – I arrived home and found out that we were going to town to look at a kitchen table and some colours.  “Good.” I think to myself,  “I was already going to town anyway.” 

Jenn, my darling wife, is a shopper.  I don’t mean that she likes to wander aimlessly around a mall, but rather, she likes to compare.  To find deals.  To research and know with great certainty that what she has bought couldn’t be had at any better a price.  She likes to kick the proverbial tires and take her time.  I, on the other hand, can’t be bothered.  If it’s there and we need it, I buy it.  Which is probably why we have a fourwheeler that took two years to get running and why we lost money on a Volkswagon Jetta that we never drove.  It’s also why I’ve been cut off of most of the financial dealings.  I’m the downburst that flattens the forest of household economics.

As may be imagined, then, from the previous information, we were not on our way to look at a kitchen table.  We were on our way to explore to the fullest extent the selection of tables that Sudbury’s finest (and not so fine) furniture stores had to offer.

The ‘Jenn’ that sits on my shoulder and makes me behave is telling me that I’m not being entirely honest.  We actually were looking at a kitchen table that she had already picked out.  I think she just needed me along for a signature. 

Having now purchased a fairly nice table for a pretty good price (see?  I told you.  It was priced at just above ’scratch n dent sale’ price) we looked at a chair that had all the colours Jenn was thinking of for the living room.  “We’re not actually looking at the chair, right?” I asked.  “No.” she replied.  “Phew.”  I said.  Quietly.  The colours were tolerable, so we meandered our way across town and into another furniture store.  Now that that she had me out and in the routine, Jenn was going to make the most of this trip.   We browsed around the store looking at ugly chesterfields and loveseats.  And then it happened.  To understand fully the magnitude of this event, there are a few important details I feel are necessary to describe before hand.  We have been staring at a half-done living room – drywalled and mudded ceiling, patched hole in the wall where the window was and is now drywall and mud, mudded and sanded window – for almost a year and a half.  We haven’t done anything about it because ‘we’ have been waiting to find the perfect area rug that has all ‘our’ colours in it.  ‘We’ heard somewhere that it is way easier to find your furnishings first and then match your paint to them instead of trying to match furnishings to paint.  At least, that’s what all the cool interior designers are doing.  So, ‘we’ have been looking for the perfect area rug: this one has browns that have too much yellow in them; that one has a funny feel; this one has a good feel and a nice colour brown, but it will probably get dirty easily. 

You can well imagine, then, my shock when the perfect rug met us face-on in the store.  It was exactly the colours Jenn had just shown me across town, it was a swell feeling rug and it looked like it could stay fairly clean.  Plus, it was on sale.  I expected to be walking out of the store with a rug.  Nope.  And I’m still not sure why.

At last we were done with the furniture shopping.  We drove to the hardware store.  Jenn stayed in the car.  I was in and out with my drill bit so fast you’d think I stole it.   We headed home.

I now began to tackle the woodstove chimney.  I marked my circle for the hole in the wall and I then used a hammer drill to drill out the perimeter of the hole in my concrete block.  A 10-inch hole takes a long time to drill out if your only drill bit is half an inch in diameter, so I only did the outside and then I used a cold-chisel to bash out the rest.  The end result was a round hole in the wall.  Mission accomplished.

After marking out the hole by tracing the diameter of the thimble flashing and adding a quarter inch to the outside of the circle, I began perforating the brick with a half-inch drill bit. Yeah, it took a while.

Finally.  Light through yonder window breaks.  Well, okay, it isn’t a window, but if it were a cloud, it’d be like one of those “Jesus loves you” postcards.  Y’know: Heavely beam of light shining down … okay.  Forget it.

Next came the thimble flashing, which goes through the wall and houses the insulated stovepipe.  A few concrete screws on the outside and a minor modification on the inside and the thimble flashing was done.  It was now time to install the wall-support for the chimney.   Since I didn’t have enough stovepipe to pass through the wall, I put down my tools and waited until Saturday to get another length and finish the job.

Thimble flashing installed.  Now, it looks sort of like a porthole.

 
Saturday came.  I helped a friend move a hot tub in the morning and bought my stovepipe and headed home.   I was just getting ready to mount the wall-support when my neighbour came over and told me that he’d just had a bear on his deck.  It was headed our way, he said.  I didn’t pay much attention to the information until the dogs started to lose their minds barking.  I found out that the bear had, moments before, passed behind the goat pen and had made its way up behind the dog run.  Any bear that is willing to come that close to the dogs and my neighbour’s deck needs further investigation, so I grabbed the trusty .30-.30 and a few shells and headed down the trail.  Hunter was inside with Gilligan and she said she’d wait inside until I got back.  “I’m fine, daddy.”

I never did see the bear again.  So, back to work on the chimney.  The wall-support and the roof edge didn’t seem to agree so I had to measure them to make sure I could run the chimney all the way up without having to cut a hole in the roof.  I couldn’t.  Dammit.  I had to figure out another way to mount this increasingly bothersome pipe. 

It is now Sunday and because of the problems I had earlier with the pump, Stupid Friggin’ Pump! I decided to check on it, just to make sure it was working alright. It wasn’t. It was leaking out of the pressure release valve, which is sort of ironic since we don’t have any water pressure at all. Even before it started to leak. So, before I could get to work on the chimney, I had to deal with this new problem.

In the end, I managed to mount the pipe to some stiff angle I salvaged from scrap at my jobsite.  Yes, I went there on a weekend, a usual no-no for me.  But, the pipe now goes through the wall and is resting on the wall-support.  So much for having it done by late afternoon Friday.

The culmination of a weekend’s worth of work. 

Wow.  I’d almost forgotten what this site looks like. 

It has been a while since I’ve had the time to write a post – it’s not that there hasn’t been anything to write about – because we’ve been busy with processing chickens, harvesting our garden, trapping three evil raccoons, fixing up the dogyard, repairing our fourwheeler (after getting it back from being repaired, I broke it again) and the big one; renovating our basement. 

Before I write any further on the basement I’d just like to acknowledge that when we moved here four years ago there were a few people who helped make our purchase possible.  I don’t want them to think that this was a mistake: we’re happy with the house; it just needs a lot of work.

Right.  The basement.  It’s a disaster – and not because it’s mid-demolition right now, either.  I mean prior to having it’s walls torn apart and the floor ripped up.

When we lived in the Yukon, our last year was spent in a cabin I’d built over the summer – well, really, two months at the end of  a rapidly disappearing summer.  In fact, the day I put the roof on, it snowed.  Those who have seen it might describe it as small.  It was 16′x18′ with a small loft, which, by my calculations is 432 square feet of usable space.  So, to say that storage space was at a minimum is not exaggerating.  Then, we moved to our present location where our living room is almost the same dimensions as our cabin.  We also have a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom plus a basement.  It didn’t take long for us to make the upper part of the house home, but the basement – that extra space, that easy to ignore expanse below us – became our storage space.  And when you have the room, it’s amazing how much junk a person can collect.   But we didn’t treat it like a good place for storage, with shelves, cabinets, organisation, no; we treated it like a hole in the ground with a ‘Fill Wanted’ sign out front.  And so, here we are: four years of accumulated stuff and a basement in serious need of work, but before the work can begin, it needs to be organised and before it gets organised, it needs to be cleaned, but cleaning it would be so much easier if it were organised.  Y’see?  It’s sort of like the snake that swallows its own tail: it has no beginning and no end.

So the plan is this: get the woodstove installed to help with the moisture problem.  Then, start in the little room that houses the pump and some accumulated stuff.  Once it’s cleaned and re-done, we can make it a storage room: complete with shelves and organisation.  Then, on to the big job of tearing out the rest of the basement and building two bedrooms, one for us, one for the kid.  If we plan it right, we might even have a nice, cozy sitting area by the stove for those times when a book, a fire and a coffee or hot chocolate are called for.  Or a beer.  I’m not fussy.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

So far, I have torn out an eight-foot by twelve-foot space to expose the block walls of the foundation and the concrete pad underneath the subfloor.  It was no surprise that there were wet areas and rotten wood under the subfloor; afterall, I found a crack in the foundation that I could see through.  Right outside.  Seriously.  It’s one of several cracks – hopefully no others are right through.  I have fixed this problem by digging to the bottom of the foundation and putting some torch-on Blueskin over the crack and several feet to either side of it.  I protected the patch with two-inch styrofoam insulation.  That ought to stop the water in that area.

This is the section that I have been working on.  You can see the rotten wood on the old 2×4s and the stained block from the moisture.  Other than that, there were no surprises.

Another thing that would be benefitial to stopping the water in the basement is some eavestroughs.  Ours are busted and bent so water just pours down the foundation wall because there is nothing to take it away.  So, I’ll have to fix that, too.

I also had to remove some old plumbing.  It was a continuation of the main line to the hot water tank and sink in the kitchen, so I had to cut the line and cap it beyond where it went to the tank and kitchen.  I was reluctant to solder a cap on because I would have most likely burned down the house.  I have a knack for this sort of thing, it would seem.  I tried to fix an outside water bib this spring and just about caught the house on fire, so I wasn’t going to try again.  Especially when the piping was so close to the 30-year old wood.  It’s not that I can’t solder, it’s just that any wood above two feet from ground level in the house is tinder-dry.  Luckily for me, there is a force-fit product that eliminates the need for soldering.  Good thinking on someone’s part there.

This is an example of the proximity of the plumbing and the dry wood.  It’s right against the foundation wall in most cases and very close to the wood everywhere.  I know there are fire blankets for this sort of work, but I figure if there’s a need for the blanket, maybe I’d better not do it.

So, that is where things stand at the moment: one section of the basement that looks like a bomb went off in it and the section that I have started to take apart. 

Next weekend we drill a hole through the block wall to install our new woodstove chimney pipe.  Tune in then for what is sure to be some kind of foray into the realm of the unplanned and unforseen.

For those of us who are die-hard adventure seekers and thrill-junkies, nothing can beat a midnight splash from a normally unavailable water source.  Especially on a hot summer night.  And even moreso if the hot summer night is a rarity.  As kids, we used to sneak into quarries, the golf courses (looking for balls) and other peoples’ backyards that had pools.  It was all great fun, but I’m older now and other water venues beckon.

Take last night for instance: it was nearing two in the morning and I was soaked.  If anyone should want to repeat my follow my example (which I don’t recommend) simply follow these easy steps:

1. Work all day in the sun, facing a stainless steel (read: highly reflective) wall. 
2. Ride your bike back to your truck (5 kilometers – not a great distance admittedly but you’re out of shape)
3. Hear your phone ring in your backpack while you are riding your bike.  Answer it on the last ring, but there is nobody there.  You immediately call back, since it is your dearly betrothed trying to reach you, but in the ten seconds it takes to do this they have now stepped away from the phone and can’t be reached, either.
4. Think of reasons why they would have called and then not answered after such a short time.  It could be an emergency of the child, dog, chicken or goat variety.  Afterall, even your kid who is usually on the computer at this time, doesn’t pick up the phone when she hears it is her dad calling.
5. Stress about this all the way home.  It must have been a big deal since there wasn’t even time to leave a message.
6. Intermix your stress about the emergency with the stress of having to fix a broken water pump – a job you’ve never done before but one that needs doing because your house currently has no water and so, by extension, neither do any of your animals.  (Luckily, we have great neighbours who let us use their outside faucet for water.  But still, that is not a fix for the problem.)
7. Get home hot, hungry, tired and stressed.
8. Nurse a really foul mood for an hour and alienate your family.  (This step is optional but understand that if you follow it, you will be enjoying the water alone.)
9. Look for things you will need to complete the pump repair.  For fun, intentionally misplace a moderately useful item – like, say, a light source and then spend an hour looking for it.  Continue to look for it in only five spots again and again and again.  Feel your frustration grow.
10. Make sure that every fitting, hose and clamp that has to be loosened is well seized, corroded or otherwise stuck fast.
11. Resist the temptation to fix the problem with a 22 ounce framing hammer.
12. Realize that even if you do manage to get everything disconnected, your pump-fixing knowledge is now spent.
13. Make a phone call to the only guy in the world you know who can help with this sort of thing. 
14. Hope he is home.
15. Hope he doesn’t mind answering many questions over the phone.
16. Feel relieved when he says “Bring it over.”
17. Speed into town at 21h00
18. Make sure you have the necessary washers, leathers, gaskets for the pump and eggs, potatoes and a bottle of Crown Royal for the pump saviour.
19. Stand around for 3 hours, feeling as useful as nipples on a bull, while someone else does your job for you.
20. Offer to help.  Say things like “I can clean the threads on that bolt.” Or; “I can pick up that rag that fell.” 
21. Feel like the biggest tool in the shop.
22. Thank him profusely for his help.
23. Thank him again.
24. Drive home.
25. While driving, play a fun game of “Let’s see how long we can keep our eyes open for.”
26. Once home, stumble your way across the minefield that is your driveway, stepping over toys, rebar, and miscellaneous junk.  For added enjoyment, carry the heavy, leaking pump in the dark – because you forgot to leave the outside light on and you intentionally misplaced your headlamp earlier (see above, step 9)
27. Once inside, follow the previous step, replacing the driveway with the livingroom, kitchen, back hall and basement stairs.  (Make sure that there isn’t one light source at all to guide you.)
28. Re-install and prime the pump. 
29. Question the logic of making the priming hole slightly larger than the diameter of a pin.
30. Wait, with your finger over the priming hole, for the pressure to build.
31. Once the pressure has built to a sufficient enough level remove your finger and replace the priming hole stopper. 
32. Understand why the hole is so small.
33. It is now almost 02h00 and you are soaked.

For those brave enough, complete the following steps for an even more thorough soaking:

1. Be unable to sleep until well past 03h00. 
2. Finally drift off.
3. Be awoken an hour and a bit later with the following information: “The pump is running like crazy and nobody has used the water.”
4. Leap out of bed – still mostly asleep – and run down to the pump room.
5. Hear before you arrive the sound of water spraying everywhere.
6. Realize that a gasket hasn’t sealed like it should have. 
7. Try to reach the power shut off through the relentless stream of 90 psi spraying water. 
8. Wonder if this is safe. (bzzzt)
9. Do it anyway.
10. Live to tell the tale.
11. Look for some way to contain the water that is still spraying everywhere.
12. Realize that you can’t
13. Drape the pump with an old towel and let it drain – mostly - onto the concrete slab and run to the drain under the floor, half a house away.
14. Say “F*** it, that’s good enough.” and head back upstairs to bed. 
15. Search for a towel to dry off with because you are naked and wet. 
16. Be unable to find one.
17. Say “F*** it, that’s good enough.” and go back to bed anyway.

Ahhh, water.  Isn’t it refreshing?

A long time ago – way back in my college days – one of the courses I took introduced me to Permaculture.   A very brief description of Permaculture is that it seeks to design human settlements and continual agricultural systems that mimic the different ecological zones around the world.  What works here in Northern Ontario wouldn’t necessarily work in Equatorial regions, nor would methods used for semi-arid locations work for areas that receive a lot of precipitation.  Permaculture is a very interesting philosophy, especially if a person is interested in increasing ones self-sufficiency. 

One of the items that Permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison discusses in his book “Permaculture” is the use of chicken tractors.   I know it sounds like a wee farm vehicle, suitable for operation by poultry, but it is a pretty effective way of tilling soil, keeping grasses in check and fertilizing an area. 

Originally, Jenn and I let our chickens free range.  They were able to wander the yard and eat grass, bugs, seeds – anything they could find.  But, then we planted a garden and, contrary to the harmonious scene described in the Permaculture book (where the chickens wander through the garden, eating pests and weeds, scratching the soil and fertilizing it) they instead ate a good deal of our tomatoes, pepper plants and carrots.    Now, we have a fence around our garden and netting over the raised garden beds so the chickens can’t get to them.  We also covered over the areas that the chickens have for foraging outside the coop because they were flying out, over the fence – a feat Jenn has been assuring me for the past year and a half will stop – and getting eaten by a fox.  Since our laying hens are now confined to an area, we didn’t think it would be wise to put our meat birds in with them, because even though the hens have a spacious area, adding another forty birds to the equasion would be too much.  We decided to put the meat birds in the chicken tractors instead. 

There they are: the chickens in their chicken tractors.  A simple affair, really, but pretty effective nonetheless.

This is the first year we have used a tractor exclusively for housing the birds.  In years past, we have used them only for roosting at night with the chickens loose and free to roam during the day.   Now, however, the birds are in the tractors full time and we move them twice a day.  We throw their feed on the ground so the chickens have to hunt and peck for it and even though the chickens are not on an area for very long, they have made an impressive dent in the lower field. 

The lower field is just over two acres of semi-decent hay; it has a lot of timothy in it, vetch, clover and some buttercup and it is way too much for the goats to keep down.   The chickens, though, have cut a swath through the long grass, eating the seeds and bugs, and some of the grasses.  I can see how, if someone wanted to till an area for a new garden, chicken tractors would do a great job. 

It’s clear from this photo what the chickens are up against: a field full of grass and only eight weeks to mow it down.

The Horde advances…

…leaving a trail of vegetation destruction in their mighty wake.

Among the many benefits of keeping chickens this way is the ease of cleaning: just pick up one side of the tractor and move it to clean area and then repeat with the other side.  Presto! New, clean area.

I should have built one more tractor and moved some of the birds to it, just so they’d have a bit more room, but they all fit nicely a few weeks ago, I had run out of material and they go in for *ahem* ‘processing’ next Wednesday. 

If you are interested in making a chicken tractor or two, don’t copy my design.  Do an on-line search because there are a lot of better designs out there.  I will say this, though: the next tractors I build will have a lid that lifts up on them, not a door on the side because it is too difficult to hang a waterer from a hook when you have to crouch down, lean into the tractor and try to find the hook by looking out of the top of your head.  A top-mounted flip up door would be so much better.  My advice, free of charge.

I buried Hudson today.

It was harder than I thought, and I expected it to be tough. He went quietly at the vet’s after a morning of being led around by a blanket under his belly so he could pee one last time on his domain.

I’m not as sad at the fact that he’s gone as I am at the selfishness of how I feel. I’m sad because I’ll miss him, not happy that he’s finally young again and able to run around wherever dogs end up, with working eyes, ears and hips. But really, the whole dog/person relationship is based on selfishness, isn’t it, because they give us far more than we can ever give them.

Jenn has been very supportive and Hunter was able to give Hudson a hug and thank him for being her friend. We’re all going to miss him.

- Bye, Hudson. You were the best dog and friend anyone could ever ask for.