Done ! a new chapter begins

My last day of work is over ! I am done, I can't believe it. Tomorrow it's already October... The time just flies like crazy. Now, my holidays start. I can do what I want, sleep in almost everyday ;D Just enjoy my life here. I know now that I am off work the time will fly faster then before. :( and soon it's time to go on a plane again.... I just put that all the way back in my head and just enjoy ;D

a long day

After a night of almost 10 hours of sleep and a fast breakfast, we left for an auction near Edmonton yesterday. The goal was to buy a tractor with a bale loader in the front. The drive was not too bad, the sun was fighting with the clouds and finally made it... Unfortunately, a chilly wind was blowing. The auction wasn't good organized and soon 2/3 of the visitors left the place... This auction was a bit boring and I am not sure if I would want to go to another one.... Anyway, finally the auction guys drove down the row where the tractor was located and soon the tractor was sold...- to us ! Mission accomplished ! It was time to go home, well first buy a part to fix the cow trailer and my groceries and of course have supper.... It was a loooong day.

trailer accident

Back to work and it's already 3 day over. The weather is nice sunny with a cold wind today. One of the Quarter horses (one of my favourite :(  ) had an accident in the trailer yesterday. He kicked and got his leg over the divider and couldn`t get it back again. The trainer took him to the vet. Now, the swelling has to go away first before the vet can figure out if the stifle (knee) is broken or not. So, the horse is on stall rest for a while.

trail rides in the mountain

The next two days we went for trail rides again. One was around 5 hours and the other one 3 hours. Unfortunately, some of the horses got cinch sores :( So, we had to choose trails where it`s not too much up and downs. I really enjoyed the landscape and the riding. It was so nice to see all the bush, little hills all the rivers and creeks... I wished my holidays would be longer then just a week... so much to see and explore... The weather was moody. The mornings started usually with clouds, hanging deep and around the mountains and also wind. Usually the wind died down till around 11 am and sometimes the sun came out... I have to say we were lucky that the weather was mostly good. I had a hard time to come back to the civilization :(

The next morning I was up first. Time for feeding horses and clean their spots. After a late breakfast, water the horses and visiting, we decided to go on a trail ride. Most of the trail rides start with crossing the creek. No problem for `my`horsey. Dusty is an old pro when it comes to mountain trips. ;D We managed all kind of landscape, up and down hill, (thick) bush, meadows,... even the one steep hill which we had to go down. I was too surprised to be afraid of it. All I thought was 'really ?' and down we went the hill...Dusty did a good job ! We rode for 4 hours ! Everyone, horse and rider were tired. After supper someone had the idea to enjoy the view from the rock behind our camp... And of course everybody wanted me to come too (and that after a T-bone steak for supper !!). I made it up the hill. I was totally not in shape for adventures like that. The `up`-part was not that bad but the `down`- part was ! Loose rocks everywhere and sometimes your foot was just sliding down hill :( With a little help and lots of laughing I made it down to the bottom again.

Mountain trip one week

Finally, the trip to the mountains began. We packed everything in the trailer, loaded the horses and left for the Hummingbird staging area in the Rocky Mountains. The view on the way to the campground was awesome ! Hills, bush, creeks, meadows,... and all the different colours, colours of the fall. Great ! The campground was at the foot of a mountain. No neighbours :) only sheep on the mountain. Across the road a big parking lot, the bathroom and the Hummingbird creek. We set up the tents, got the hi-line set up for tying the horses and enjoyed a nice evening with BBQ food.

one week in the mountains

After 3 days off, I worked 3 days and now I am off again, this time for one week ! Holidays !!! :D Our day was filled with packing all the stuff we need out in the wilderness, tents, sleeping bags, tack, hay bales, feed buckets,... the horses got shoes and we had to fix a fence at the cow pasture so these guys will stay in there while we are gone. The weather is hot and the sky is without a single cloud. It was around 30 degrees C today. Way too hot for me ! There was no breeze on the top of the hill when we were fixing the fence ! Good thing there were some trees which gave at least a bit shade. So, we will head out tomorrow as soon as we are all done in the morning. I look forward to that ;D

blue bird

Sunday means a day of rest and be a bit lazy ;D it was pretty humid today and every movement made you sweat. 10.30 am time for the Sunday service down in the little church. There was this cute, funny blue bird in the flower bed in front of the church. I just had to take a picture of it beside me. ;) It's potlock every first Sunday of the month, so it was potlock today. Everybody brings food. Its nice to have lunch with the people and have a little chat. Two of my friends and I were playing badminton. It was a good excercise for us. Unfortunately, we worked up a sweat, it was still pretty humid. We tried to figure out what to do in the afternoon. We decided to bring salt to the cows. The one herd didn't wanna move and so we left the salt in a tub and visited the other herd. Unfortunately, they were in the hay field where they had fun eating the baled hay. We ended up chasing them out of the field and fix the fence.

sale and a chase around the hay field

After breakfast we grabbed our things and got ready to go to an auction sale in Buck Creek. The weather was beautiful, sunny with no clouds but windy ! We arrived at the sale place around 10 am, we had enough time to park the truck and snoop around a little bit before the auction started. Our goal was to buy barrels and lumber... We reached our goal ;D In the afternoon we had enough from the sale, greasy doughnuts and stuff. I was in the mood for ice cream, a delicious treat on a warm day. In my opinion, there is always time for ice cream, year round :D Our next project was haying as soon as we made it home. My job was raking again. So, I took off on the tractor with the rake. Flipping two rows together...  The 'baler man' was chasing me around the field. The scoop is that I rake two rows together and he bales it. All the other hay was already baled and so there was just the hay I was working on left. And sense I have to do double the work then the baler person, he had to wait a few times till I was done with a row. Twice he was right behind me on the same row which was a bit unfair... I have only a small tractor and the one for baling is bigger :(  So I felt a bit chased... but it was fun, he never really got me :D