The Nature of Skull Creek

Our land is such a beautiful place. We have found so many lovely living things. Our fields seem to be almost 50% wild strawberries. We have found tiger lilies...Saskatchewan's provincial flower. We have also found more Saskatoon berries than a person could ever pick even if the season lasted all summer. Frogs everywhere. Garter snakes. Skunks! lol! And if you are real sneaky you can even spot Whitetails. We have a badger hole that might account for our lack of gophers, although we haven't seen him yet. We had a muskrat but he seems to have vanished. The wild ducks and dogs are getting along better now. The dogs have quit chasing and the ducks have calmed down. I think the part of nature that I dislike the most is the ants. They are a little out of control on the land and even took over our dingy. Although I do admire their perseverance. You can burn them, poison them, spray them and stomp them and they just come back like nothing happened. I flipped the dingy over 3 times showing them off to people and each time they would just collect the spilt eggs and start the colony over again. Within hours they would be back to normal. I find it to be very fascinating. 

Till the cows come home......

YAY! Our cows are coming home! Dave bought me two Dexters for my birthday and they are finally bred and ready to come home. Ulma is a registered yearling heifer and Tundra is a 2 year old heifer. Both are pure black. I am hoping to go and get them this weekend.  I am borrowing a trailer from my buddy Lori. *sigh* I wish they were not almost 6 hours away. Oh well! This will hopefully be the last long drive I need to go on for a while. 

Stupid dogs!!

I had been so proud of them for the last few weeks. They only walked to the neighbors once and never did it again. They stayed on the land and never left. Well yesterday around 8:30 right when I was getting Jimmy into bed I got a call from my neighbors saying that the dogs were chasing their heifers!!! ARGH! It was just stupid Maddie doing it but Jane was with her. Mercedes was a good girl and stayed home. Maddie is the leader so I had to tie her up. Next week Dave and I are going to work on making a huge kennel to keep her in until we are actually living on the land. Darn. I was really hoping to get away with leaving them loose. I was not happy having to get Jimmy up and drive the 50+ kms back out there right at bedtime. Well, there is nothing I can do. Maddie ruined it for herself. 

Last Sunday...

Last Sunday was awesome! The kids and I did some laundry, went to Jumbo Beach, drove to Silver Birch Bible Camp to check it out (Morgan is there this week, but we wanted to make sure of where it was) and for supper we had a BBQ on our land. Here is a video from Sunday.

Oh darn!

I just realized that the videos in the last post were accidentally set to private. My computer automatically makes them private when I upload them to Youtube and I forgot to fix them. I hope they are fixed now. 

What we have been up to..

Well, I started work Monday July 29th. Canada Day was great! Here are the pictures from that day. 

Oh and last weekend Jimmy and I spent two days out on the land just relaxing and cleaning up a bit. The neighbors didn't like the idea of us sleeping out there so they invited us over for the night!! So we had a sleep over at the neighbors. It was nice and I really like them a lot. They are going to be great neighbors. 

Jimmy's favorite food is hot dogs. I know they are not the healthiest, but hey, it's summer right?? Rules don't apply. Here he is enjoying himself. We also went to the lake closest to our land and I let Jimmy go in the water for a bit. 

Sorry!

I really have no time to post! I got a job at the hardware store in Loon Lake and by the time I get up, get ready, take Jimmy to daycare, drive 45 minutes to our land, check the dogs, work for 8.5 hours, check the dogs again, drive 45 min back, pick up Jimmy and make supper my day is more than a little gone. 

Everything is going great! Jimmy and I spent last weekend on the land and I got Canada Day off work due to the daycare being closed. Dave got yesterday off too and spent some time with us. Parade and fireworks were good. I have pictures of it all I hope to get up tomorrow. 

Good deals all around!

I have been having some amazing luck. I was disappointed that I ended up forgetting all the kids medicine at the old place. Things like tylenol, cold medicine, etc. I also had noticed that I was running low on my stockpile of toys that I like to keep around for kids to take to birthday parties. I buy things as I find them on sale and send the kids with a good present I only paid a few bucks for when they attend a party. Well, I went up town and saw that the drug store was having a sidewalk sale on and selling things at rock bottom prices. Toys that were regularly $10.99 were now a dollar! They had kids medicine on for really cheap too! I got the kids vitamins, tylenol, allergy relief, cold medication and everything. I also got so many future gifts it wasn't even funny. But it will all come in handy sometime. That's for sure. I ended up getting $274 worth of stuff for $67! And no tax! 

And then this morning as I was drinking my coffee I realized I had no where to put it. No end tables, no coffee tables and no kitchen table. I was thinking about how nice it would be to have just a small coffee table or even a TV table. Just something to set beside my chair (no couch either).  Another thing I noticed that we needed was a small garbage can. I thought I would take Jimmy out to some garage sales tomorrow and see what we could find. 

Well, I took the garbage out to the dumpster today and I noticed two black metal legs sticking up. I know how wasteful people can be so it wouldn't have surprised me if it had of been a table in good shape. I looked at it as best I could considering it was covered in garbage. I walked around and thought about it and decided to heck with the neighbors I was going to go for it. I had to stand on the part that the garbage truck arms go into and try and grab it. I ended up dropping the table, half falling inside the dumpster and then onto the ground. So much for trying to be inconspicuous. I figured the damage was done so I didn't even look around. I just grabbed my perfectly good table and walked into my apartment like I owned it. 

I also thought that I saw a nice looking TV tray in there. I wanted some time to regain my composure before going out to try for it. I waited until dark and when I went out to get it I found a good surprise! Now on top of the TV tray was 2 full garbage bags of pop cans! There has to be at least $30 worth. So looks like I got some perfectly good furniture and $30! Oh and I found a nice small white garbage can. That's right! I found all the things I wanted for the apartment for free right outside my door!

Got a job, a haircut and weathered a storm!

Okay, I didn't get the haircut. Jimmy did. And he was SUCH a good boy! He even sat totally still for the clippers. I was so proud of him! You can see all the pictures here.

And I got a job at the Hardware Store in Loon Lake. I start on Monday. I have no idea if it's full time or what! lol! I just walked in and asked if they were hiring once they completed their new store (before fall) and they said they were hiring NOW! lol! He didn't even want to see my resume. How cool is that? It's a good thing Dave and I did so much shopping there and we got to know them. Jimmy starts at his daycare on Monday and I am actually happy that he is going to get out and play with other kids. The daycare seems really nice.

And today Jimmy and I went out to the land to check the animals and we got caught in a cool storm! I have never seen so much water/hail come down in such a short amount of time. Every dip became a river. The cow trails even turned into rivers. The thunder and lightning were really bad too, but they don't show up in the video.  Check it out and read the description for more info if you want. 

Fishing!!

So I have a confession to make. I have never caught a fish. I have gone fishing at least 15 times and have never ever caught one. I have gotten many bites, but nothing ever stayed on the line. So when people tell me they want to go fishing I often roll my eyes and think about what a waste of time that is. I don't make a very good Saskie. 

So yesterday Dave wanted to try fishing where he has actually caught fish before. We went out about 3pm and I was sure that we wouldn't catch anything. Isn't there some sort of rule about only fishing in the morning or the evening? I have to admit that I wasn't very optimistic, but if anyone could do it, Dave could. 

We went out to Backwater Creek which is really only a few miles from the apartment and is surrounded by farms. The creek doesn't seem very big or very deep. I was thinking that if Dave DID catch a fish it would only be about the size of a minnow. 

Now you can imagine my shock when after only about 15 minutes Dave landed a big Jack just about longer than Jimmy!! Jimmy was excited until it landed in the grass. Then he nearly had a fit when it was flopping around with it's big teeth showing! 

It wasn't much longer until Dave caught another one!! Not as big, but certainly big enough to eat. For some reason this one scared Jimmy even more than the first one. It took a lot of convincing to get him to sit close enough to the bigger fish for a picture. I had to pretend to pet it and tell him how wonderful it was. Wont be long until he is a good little fisherman. Hopefully better than his Mom! 

Father's Day

So on Saturday Morgan had a birthday party to go to in Saskatoon so I snagged her from her Dad for the day. She wasn't originally going to be able to make it, but Dave and I decided we should grab Jimmy and the chain link dog kennel I bought. We wanted to get him back for Father's Day. I had forgotten about Father's Day when I left Jim in Saskatoon.  So on Saturday we made a run down to Saskatoon with the truck. It was a bit nerve wracking driving back because the poles were sticking a good 5-6 feet out the back of the truck. At least they were pointed up in the air so cars would drive under them and not into them. Once again *I* was driving. How come I always get stuck driving? lol!

So on Father's Day Dave decided he wanted to take Jimmy fishing after he showed him how to chop down a tree?? Well it was POURING rain. Like ridiculous amounts of rain. There was only so much fishing a person could do. We don't have a boat and there are only so many good places to fish from shore. We went for a drive to find a lake. I think we left around 1pm and ended up driving until 8pm! We drove way West of Loon Lake and down through the Bronson Forest. We took some interesting side roads, stopped at a neat little store and generally just enjoyed our 'rain day'. Dave did a bit of fishing but didn't catch anything. But that was okay, we had fun anyway. I think the highlight of Dave's day was when he found some sort of rare orchid. It happens to actually be in the area where I shot the video near the bridge. I am so glad we got a chance to tour around our beautiful country and enjoy this new place we call home. 

Watering the lawn!

Dave has been on one of his weeks off and we have been having way too much fun. For the first half we were childless so we just camped out on the land and enjoyed the benefits of our hard work. It was blistering hot the first couple days so one evening (Thursday?) at around 6:45pm Dave got a bright idea that we should get a water pump to water the pastures. We called Princess Auto in Lloydminster and they said they had them on sale! But they closed at 9pm. For some reason we decided to just jump in the car and GO. We made a 'hot shot' trip straight to Lloyd and back. We almost blew it because Dave thought we could get oil on the way home. He was leaving Lloyd and I reminded him that it was almost after 10pm and we would be only going through small towns. NOTHING is open after 9 in a small town and you would be lucky to find a store open that late. 

We got it all running first thing in the morning and Dave decided we needed more parts. I think we made at least 2 trips into the local hardware store to get more stuff for it. We ended up with an actual usable irrigation system with hoses coming off everywhere. I think we can now water 275 feet out. But I could be wrong on that. It's sure fun on a hot day!  

Going to back track a bit...

I have the internet here in the apartment, but I am not in the apartment that often it seems. I am going to break up the next few posts in to updates from the last week until we get caught up. It's way too much to put in one post. 

Anyway, on Saturday the 13th I left my place in Quill Lake first thing in the morning and ran my kids to Warman to be in a parade with my family. I got there JUST in time...well almost. I had to chase the parade a bit with the kids. But they got to ride in most of it. It was really fun for them and standing and watching the parade gave me a nice break from my stress. After the parade I had to go

 and borrow my moms van and run to Saskatoon and get Dave's big tires and take them back to my moms. That was the last of the stuff out of storage in Saskatoon. I was supposed to get some help loading the tires, but I ended up doing it myself. Then I had to pick up a cat and take it to Meadow Lake for Lori. I ran back to my moms with the tires and the cat and took Morgan and the dogs up to Meadow Lake with me leaving Jimmy at my moms. Morgan and I got to the land and got the dogs organized with lots of food and water. Then we headed to the apartment and Lori met us there to get her cat. Morgan and I spent the rest of that day organizing stuff and then we had our first night there. The next day her Grandma picked her up and I got a ride back to Quill Lake with Jason. I got to Quill Lake around midnight. Then I had to get up at 5am and get organized because my horse hauler was supposed to be there at 6:30. I had to run and feed the neighbors cat and then get the horses all ready to go. It was so stressful trying to make sure the last of everything was packed. My horse hauler ended up taking a LOT of stuff inside his truck. He was really nice about it. We just ran the horses straight up to the land and only 

stopped for gas. And when I say ran, I 

mean ran!! That guy drove 130km/h all the way up, sometimes going 140km/h! . I followed behind in Dave's car. I was almost scared it would blow up! I had my cat with me and I arranged for my friend Lori to meet us on the land to grab my cat and all my stuff out of the horse haulers truck. It worked out perfect! 

I had my job interview on Tuesday and so far I have not hear back. 

Last post for a while...

Well, Dave's car is ready to go! Everything went well with getting it paid for and on the road. Today was Track and Field for Morgan and Kindergarden graduation. I had NO idea that was going to take from 9am until 3:30pm. I still had to close out my bank account, arrange for my mail to be forwarded, buy tie down straps and load the vehicles. Needless to say I am a bit behind. The car and van are so packed it's not even funny. I am leaving here about 7am tomorrow and I have about 1 hour of packing left and about 1 hour of cleaning left. I am about to pack up the computer and get that over with. Busy busy weekend and then I can relax a bit.

Oh and just a bit of good news! I applied for a job I really want and they called me today for an interview! I go Tuesday at 9:15am! Wish me luck because this job is more than perfect for us. I really hope this is one of those things that is just meant to be. It's feels like it! 

Anyway, I have no idea when we are going to hook up the internet. So I will just say goodbye for now!  

Getting down to the wire!

Most of the stuff that is left is packed. Van is loaded and there is just enough room for the dogs. I wish there wasn't quite so much stuff left! :( I could really use the time tomorrow to pack and finish, but Morgan has Hi Lo (track and field) tomorrow morning and then Kindergarten Grad in the afternoon. At least this will give me a chance to say goodbye to everyone. I think the plan is going to go just the way I thought it was. I will take the kids to Warman on Saturday morning in time for the parade (which means leaving here around 7am). Then I have to go back to Saskatoon, move Dave's tires out of storage so we can get rid of that storage, pick up a cat for my friend Lori in Meadow Lake and then head up to Meadow Lake Saturday afternoon. I will have time on Sat and Sun to unpack stuff and do some final fencing on the land. Sunday night late I am getting a ride back to Quill Lake and then Monday morning I follow behind he horse hauler with the car (and the very last of the stuff). 

So that's the plan for now! 

Not sure how to coordinate all this...

*sigh* Dave's car is fixed. He just has to pay for it and get plates on it then we can get it out of here. I also have a van, two kids, 3 dogs, a cat and about 2 van fulls of stuff left! lol! My Mom also wants the kids this weekend because it's rodeo weekend in Warman. Thinking if Dave manages to get his car plated that I can take the kids and his car to Warman Friday night and then take it up to Meadow Lake Saturday evening. I can drop Morgan off at her Dad's and I can catch a ride back to Quill Lake. Then I can bring the van up on Monday when I follow the horses. That should work, but I don't know about leaving the dogs here for the weekend. And who knows if Dave will be able to pay for that car. 

Oh and I just called the horse hauler and the price went up with the price of gas. It's now $4 a loaded mile. Great. I expected it, but I didn't want to hear it. Another $325 is NOT going to be easy to find. UGH!!!!!!! I just want this nonsense to be over so I can quit shelling out the big bucks. Hauling our stuff up there has already cost me almost $900. 

I have to just keep telling myself this will work. 

Most stressful weekend ever.

I honestly have never been so stressed out in my life! I know this because it was the first time in my life I was actually so stressed I was sick to my stomach and spent more than a little time in the bathroom. 

I got the U-haul around 5 on Friday. I was going to just take my van in and leave it there, but a friend offered to drive me into get it! Thank you Ursela! I loaded some stuff into it on Friday and then tried to focus on getting some stuff ready for Morgan's party on Sat. Sat morning came and I  THOUGHT my family (who had come into a motel Friday night) was going to come over and help. My mom, Carla, my little brother and his girlfriend did, but my sisters wouldn't. I could have really used their help even just getting the kids organized. But no. They said they would come around 1pm and I needed their help at least doing the scavenger hunt. The party was going to start at 2, so at 1:30 I finally stopped packing and ran out and hid the stuff with Carla (family friend). My mom was making cake and muffins in the house. My sisters finally showed up a half hour LATE and left back to the motel as soon as the party was over.  I understand my one sister had a sore back, but they could have helped with something. :(  For the record they did help take the kids around on the hunt, but that's fun so it doesn't count! lol! 

 I went and picked up the picnic tables from the Fire Department. They rent them out for $5 a day. Got the party going. It was a smashing success. A nice break from the stress of the move. 18 kids showed up and all of them got pony rides and had a blast with the scavenger hunt. Then the party was over and it was time to get serious. Seriously sick. My 'help' left and I wasn't sure how I was going to get anything loaded. My friend Heidi was at the party and a friend offered to take home her kids so she could help. Thank you Kim! I ended up losing the U-haul keys for about 45 minutes and I was a wreck thinking I had accidentally packed them. UGH! Heidi started helping me get my room done and we found them under my chair. We had to take the picnic tables back and I stopped by Ursela's to see how much of my stuff she sold at her garage sale. I had a check and $15. Well $15 is what I owed on the picnic tables. Heidi suggested that we just drop the money off then since I had it and we were in town. When we went to Robs house to drop off the money Heidi asked him if he would quickly just come and help us load Dave's HUGE table saw. He came right over and we got it in pretty easy with his help. Thank goodness for him! He kept us from killing ourselves. THANK YOU ROB! Heidi, Carla and I  loaded stuff until 7pm and then she had to go and get her kids. When she got there they were asleep so she CAME BACK! What an amazing friend! Thank you Heidi! Around then my sisters thought they were going to come over for supper!!!!! Are you joking? They couldn't understand when I said "Find your own food!!" Sorry sista. No help, no food.  The rest of us had a really nice BBQ! We finally got done loading around 10:30. Without Heidi and Carla it wouldn't have gotten done. 

I managed to convince Carla (who came with my family to the party) to leave early Sat morning. Really early! lol! I picked her up at 5am (after I got about 2 hours sleep) and we headed to Saskatoon with the u-haul. I had to get all of Dave's stuff (and a little of mine) out of a 10 x 10 storage unit that was packed FULL. The only way to get into the storage place was to back in. I had to back that U-haul between a gate that had about 6 inches of clearance on each side and then all they way down a long row of units! Got it done, took us an hour and we loaded all the stuff. I dropped her off on the way out of town. 

I got gas just outside of Saskatoon and the darn thing took $200!!! I burned up a half a tank (according to the gas gauge). I was a bit freaked thinking about it costing at least another $200 to get to Meadow Lake and then adding more once I got there to make sure it was the same as when I got it. It was gas so you can about imagine how much I thought it would take. 

Would you believe I got over 200kms (125 miles) before the gas gauge moved off of full! When I got to Meadow Lake I still had 3/4 of a tank and that's what it had when I picked it up! So driving 540 (335 miles) in that beast only cost $200 total! That's not bad at all! That U-haul was 34.5 feet long from bumper to bumper. 

When I got to Meadow Lake I had found some help to unload the U-haul. A friend suggested I try calling Multiworks and see if they could find me some guys! Well it worked (Thank you Darwin!) I had two guys help me unload and they were good and strong and worked for $10 an hour!! 3 hours of unloading only cost $60! Thank goodness because after paying for the storage unit in Meadow Lake (something I forgot about), I was about broke. 

Unloading took forever. I had rented a 15 x 7 unit and I knew that not much was going to fit. The u-haul was also packed all mixed up with half needing to go into the apartment and half needing to go into the storage unit. We basically had to unload the entire U-haul to get to it all. We made 3 piles, storage, apartment and I don't know! lol! Once we got almost everything out and onto the ground we could figure out how best to pack the storage unit. And WOW did we pack it. It was tight! I kept all my horse stuff up at the front so I could get it easy. I don't have a tack room so right now if I want to ride I just go and get my saddle from storage and take it out. I also left a bunch of stuff up at the front that will go out to the land right away. And Dave's tools are near the front so he can get them. The back is packed with stuff we don't need for 6 months like Dave's 500lb + table saw and Christmas decorations, etc. 

Then we had to put all the stuff for the apartment back into the U-haul and take it over there. We forgot the dishwasher was on wheels and I turned one corner and we heard this BANG! Oops! I ran back and opened the door and the dishwasher had slid across so hard we broke off a wheel. Sad, but at least that was the only think I noticed that got broke in the whole move. 

It only took about another hour to get everything into the apartment. I was in a bit of a panic because I had a ride back to Quill Lake that was going to leave around 5.  We got done at 4:50 and we were going as fast as we could! Heidi's man Jason was in Meadow Lake helping his Dad and it just happened to work out! Sure beat taking the bus home at 8am this morning! I would have still been on it. Thank you Jason! I got the U-haul washed off and cleaned out and was on the phone with Dave when Jason called me and said he was ready to go. We both got to the U-haul place at the same time. Hows that for great timing? Then we headed to Saskatoon and picked up my kids who had stayed with my family for the day. (They had stayed in the motel with them the night before and then they just took them to Saskatoon with them.) I was SOO happy I didn't have to drive home. I was just dead after all that. We finally got home around midnight. Thank goodness I had a foam pad on the ground I could sleep on. Morgan was on the couch (my Dad is keeping it) and Jimmy was in his playpen. It's sure weird having no stuff left in this house. 

So that was basically my weekend. At least it is DONE. I just have about a van load of stuff her to take with us. And the three dogs, the cat, 9 horses and Dave's car. We should all be done in a week.

So I would like to thank Heidi, Jason, Louise from Multiworks, those two awesome guys (sorry I forget your names!), Carla, my Mother, my brother James, his girlfriend Pheadra, Darwin, Ursela, Kim and Rob for making this weekend possible. Sorry if I forgot anyone, but I don't think I did. 

Oh and I promise to get the pictures from Morgan's party up soon. 

Packing packing packing!

UGH! We have so much stuff!! You have no idea how many toys a daycare can accumulate in a year. My mother would send me all the good toys she would find at garage sales, etc. I have a whole basement full of stuff that we do not need! I am also one of those people that tends to keep more stuff than I should keep and buy more stuff at the dollar store than I should buy! It's not that bad, but a LOT has to go. I found the perfect solution! Tomorrow the whole town of Quill Lake is having a garage sale. I am taking some of my bigger more expensive stuff in for a friend to sell. The rest is getting donated to the church my family goes to (and anything that doesn't sell tomorrow). They are having a garage sale soon to raise money for the church. Everyone is asked to try and donate some items to sell! Well I have many many bags and boxes already packed for them! My front porch is loaded with stuff. It really is a big relief to unload so much extra stuff. Thank goodness Morgan is on board with the whole project. She is happily donating anything she hasn't played with in a while. She is actually getting rid of a lot more than she really has to. Fingers crossed we can get rid of enough that this will all fit into the U-Haul (we also have a 10 x 10  storage in Saskatoon that has to fit in the U-Haul and half a tack room full of stuff for my horses that has to fit). Good thing we are not taking half the furniture. I want different stuff anyway so my Dad might as well keep it. 

UGH! I hope this works...

My family is coming out for Morgan's party on the weekend. They have agreed to help load the u-haul I am going to rent. I am not sure WHO can follow me up to Meadow Lake with my van on Sunday and help me unload it. But I think we can find a few people. This should work. It's going to cost a fortune so it had better work. I think we are going to give up our storage place in Saskatoon and just rent one in Meadow Lake. It's stupid to have all of our stuff in Saskatoon. Unfortunately we have to rent the biggest u-haul and it's probably going to be packed full. We have things like a ginormous table saw and a plastic play house! lol! Those things alone will take up a quarter of it. 

Good and Bad weekend

So lets talk about the good stuff first. My ex husband and I managed to get a large holding pasture built near where the house is going to go. I would guess it's about 30 acres and has a large pond in it and lots of trees for shelter. It goes down a half mile, across two hundred feet or so and back up. We put in about 100 posts. It's just one wire for now, but as soon as I save up some more money it will be two wire and eventually a three wire because of the cattle that are coming. Well, the fence is just about done. I have to do some fencing in the trees to keep them from walking around the pond. Wont be a big deal. We put in a few gates at each end and kept the fence 16 feet away from the perimeter fence so we can drive around the land and not worry about horses getting out. 

I also managed to secure us an apartment in Meadow Lake. I am not overly excited about living in Meadow Lake, but I will get over it. The apartment is in a good location, clean, bright, spacious. Well....as spacious as a one bedroom can be. Ya, we are going to be living in a one bedroom. It will be okay though. I will fix it up so we all have our space. I also applied for a few full time jobs in town. Hopefully I get one soon and get a daycare secured for Jimmy. (Morgan will be at her Dad's for the summer). 

And now for the bad part! lol! When I drove up to camp I couldn't see our 'house'. Couldn't see it. Couldn't see it. Ummmm...... Yup! It was GONE. Left trail though so I could find it. :( Must have been a CRAZY wind. I can not believe it just up and took off like that. We had a tarp attached to the bottom and a ton of stuff piled on the tarp. It was also staked down. It should have never ever taken off. I can't believe people have these things set up all the time with cars in them. Scary. I am just so glad w

e were not in it. The tent weighs s

o much that a leg bar to the head would be a bad thing. It's broken and if we ever do get it fixed I wont be comfortable sleeping in it again. Certainly not with the kids. Here are some pictures of the destruction. It was impressive! Pictures

*sigh* And the container that had our blankets in it was flipped over. I didn't know until it was time to go to bed that that meant they were

 soaking wet. So I slept in my van with no blankets. Oh well. Dave says it my 'First night alone on Skull Creek initiation.' I lived so I passed! lol!

Never a dull moment....

So today I had to leave Quill Lake as soon as Morgan got off school and hustle to Saskatoon to drop them off and then onto Llodyminster where Dave is now living. And then at 6am I am leaving for Meadow Lake to do that fencing. In Saskatoon I was supposed to get the rest of Dave's stuff out of his old place so that someone new can move in there. Well....I got there and there was no one there! Dave's keys were safely locked inside the house! DOH! I ended up going through a TINY window in the basement that was about 18 inches square. Just as wide as my hips. It was down a window well and the window well and the window sill had sharp edges. And once you wiggled through it was an 8 foot drop to the floor. Once it was already too late and I was dangling with no way to get back up I wished I hadn't gotten myself into that situation! lol! I only scraped up one arm and I managed to get Dave's stuff out. Ya, breaking into someone's house is only for brave (stupid?) little people. I think the part that bothered me the most was all the spider webs I had to touch and get in my hair. I have NO clue what someone of normal size would do down there if they ever HAD to get out through the window! Scary!

I got his stuff out in record time and managed to hurry all the way to Lloyd to see Dave for about a half hour before he had to go to work! lol! Oh well, at least he has his stuff now. ;)

Happy Birthday Morgan!

Today my little girly turns SEVEN! I am sort of sad because seven is BIG. At least when she was 6 she still seemed like a little kid. But 7 isn't really that little. *sigh* Today she got one present from me in the morning and a present at school. My mom is taking her out for supper today I think. I had to drop her off at my Mom's today with Jimmy because I have to spend this weekend fencing on the land. We are having a BIG party for her next weekend! :) I can't wait. 

Silly Dog

Well, Maddie is special. Real special. See for yourself. Video of a special dog. 

Learned a new skill today!

Today was the day I KNEW I had to get Dave's car into the shop. It's been sitting in the pasture here for 2 years and the darn thing needs to come with us when we leave. It's not a bad car and it will be really cheap on gas! Well, after a few weeks of trying to get someone to come and get it I finally realized I would probably have to take it in. The mechanic explained to me exactly how to drive (steer/brake) the vehicle being towed and I got Dave's friend out here to drive the towing vehicle. I was more than a little scared going down the road with about 5 feet between us. Don't worry! The kids were in the towing vehicle.  :) We only had to take it a few miles. I actually pulled it off and the rope never jerked once. The car got safely to the mechanic. Now I officially know how to drive a vehicle being towed with a rope! 

I also taught my two yearling horses to load into a trailer today. That is a skill they are going to actually need in a few weeks when we take them on their big trip to Skull Creek Ranch! 

So now we are two steps closer to getting out of here with everything! ;)

Back to work!

Dave just had his first after breakup shift last night (12-8am.) I am waiting to hear how it went. I am glad he is back at work, but sad that he wont be around as much to work on the land. Hopefully now we will manage to come up with the money we need to get this show on the road. It's not going to be cheap hooking up power, water and septic. But I have faith we will get it done....eventually! :P 

I spent the weekend in Saskatoon helping Dave pack his stuff and get just about everything out of the room he was renting. I have to go back there on Friday and get the rest cleaned out and then book a carpet cleaner, etc. But then at least it will be done and we can hopefully find someone else to move in there before July 1st. That will save a bit of money.

I also managed to find an apartment in Meadow Lake. Not ideal, but it beats a tent. It's just a one bedroom and we have to sign a 4 month lease, but that should be just about perfect for when we are getting our trailer. I just wish it wasn't a good 25 min from our land. :( I am planning on getting a full time job ASAP and I already found a daycare for Jimmy (Morgan will be at her Dad's most of the summer). There are over 50 job openings in Meadow Lake, so hopefully it's a case of I just have to pick where I want to work. 

It's now less than 3 weeks until we get out of here. I have no idea how I am going to move the furniture. No idea where we are going to put all of our stuff. No idea how any of this is going to work! lol! All the plans I have had so far have fallen through. But I am not worried. If you know us then you know that things always manage to work out. 

Just Click!

In case you haven't figured it out yet (and some people haven't) you can click on the highlighted words on the blog and see different things. I just started that a few blogs ago. 

Farrier Visit

Well there wont be much to write about the land for a while seeing as neither me nor Dave is going to see it until the middle of June. :(  

I eventually want to have a trail ride business on the land as well as some other horse related enterprises. At least I have enough horses to keep me busy. I currently have 10 here. 7 of them are at least mostly broke. That should get me started. ;)

Today I noticed that my yearling filly had a bad crack that must have shown up over the weekend. It wasn't like that before I left. I called my farrier to see if he could come out sooner than June 4th (next scheduled visit) and he was actually able to come out TODAY! So I got her, her brother and a paint mare I am boarding fixed up today. It was nice to get it done. 

Not cool.

I guess it's snowing pretty bad up there right now. I think Dave is giving up and going home to his place in Saskatoon. He needs to get ready for work next week anyway. I just got this lovely picture from him. Glad I left when I did! lol! So much for global warming. 

Back from a stinky weekend!

So I went out there this past weekend. I got out there late Friday night. So late in fact that it was technically Saturday morning. UGH. Someday I wont have to make that drive anymore. 

On Saturday Dave and I drove into Loon Lake to check stuff out. 

We decided to be tourists and stopped at Steele Narrows Provincial Park. I had no idea what Steele Narrows was and I joked that maybe it was about that Sam Steele guy. Shows 

how much I actually know about Saskatchewan history because the park IS named after Sam Steele. I always attributed him to the gold rush. I would have never guessed he spent time in the Loon Lake area! 

After our drive Dave and I decided to take a hike on our land and do some more exploring.

The dogs started to get excited about something right in front of us. Dave was certain it was a bird so he was encouraging them to 'get it'. Whoops! That was stupid. We realized too late it was an angry skunk. Two dogs got hit point blank and one either didn't get hit that bad, or didn't notice she did. It was a long stinky walk back to the creek. And the creek certainly did not help that much. I had a headache all day from the smell. 

 Dave got quite a bit of work done this weekend. He finished smoothing out his rc runway sand and a log drag. Today he plans on putting grass seed down and then it will be done. We also marked out part of the driveway so that the grater can see where to go when he comes to scrape it out for us. I spent some time clearing out some horse trails by hand. I just broke off all the dead branches I could and yanked out the small dead poplars. Trails are looking better already. 

The dogs got in quite a bit of training over the weekend. I am now trained on how to not leave my shoes out. Maddie has a serious shoe fetish and any shoes left out will never be the same again. I only had to wear my shoe for a few hours before I couldn't feel that the insole was chewed. I was also trained on how to put the cooler away at night. I guess if you leave it out the dogs can and will get the lid off and eat all the meat. I had no one to blame but myself when we had to eat instant noodles in a cup for brunch. Noodles don't taste that bad when you wash the down with grassy coffee. Ya, grassy coffee is what happens when the dogs train you how to put the plastic container of coffee away. They chew it up and add a little grass. You are

 guaranteed to remember to put the coffee away after that. Oh and you can't leave tea towels on the back of the chair. The dogs really work their magic on that one. The tea towel can never be used again. Hows that for training me to clean up? Dave didn't really need much training. The dogs have already been training him for two weeks so he keeps pretty good track of his stuff. The only thing they trained him on was how to look first before you tell the dogs to 'get it'. 

Getting ready for another great weekend!

So I got another picture from Dave. He built a stone walkway across the creek so you can now walk across without having to wear rubber boots. That's a bonus! He also just sent me a text saying that he is getting a grater in next week to grade us a driveway. That will make things much easier when we bring in the sea can we plan to use for storage. 

So Morgan just got home and we are leaving in a few minutes. I have the van TOTALLY loaded including a cargo carrier filled with stuff on top. Morgan is off to her Dad's again and Jimmy is going to my Moms. I will be spending the long weekend with Dave on the land.  I'll be back Monday night with lots more great pictures! 

BRRRR!!!

I just talked to Dave and he is pretty cold! I guess it's snowing up there right now. Neither of us thought there would be snow this time of year, so I am not sure what winter gear he has. I am going up there tomorrow, but I am going to leave my son Jimmy with my mom this time. It's not fair to make a short guy sleep in a tent in this weather. He will be MUCH happier at Grannies!

Dave just sent me this cute picture of my dog. She appears to be wrapped up in one of the good blankets on his bed! I bet she really loves Dave now. 

What is that?

     Dave is still out on the land. He is getting to know the place and currently working on smoothing out a runway for his RC plane. He didn't get much done today because he woke up to SNOW on the ground! Yuck! Quill Lake isn't much better. It's -2C (28F)here today with a bitter bitter wind. Yesterday was +20C (68) with a warm wind. I don't get Saskatchewan weather sometimes. So Dave just sent me this wonderful picture of a....grub? from his Blackberry. Ya,  I am glad he picked it up and not me. Knowing him he probably kept it as a pet. lol!

Edited to add...

Apparently Dave has watched WAY too much Survivor Man. He ate it. Said it didn't taste too bad. So much for a pet. :( 

The name

How did Skull Creek Ranch get it's name?

Well, Dave and I have been discussing a name for a future place since last September when we had seriously thought about moving to Fort Nelson and buying land there. He wanted something to do with oil (of course! lol!) and I wanted something that would sound good with livestock on paper.  We never really thought we would come up with a name we both liked, never mind one we LOVED. Well, we decided on our first camping trip up there to let the land name itself. One of the first things we stumbled upon was a cow skull in the creek. I jokingly said we should call it 'Cow Head Creek Ranch' because 'Horse Head Creek' is just east of us. The skull find was the first thing on the land that spoke to us. We knew the name had to have something to do with that. Suddenly out of no where Dave said "How about Skull Creek Ranch'. I said I LOVED it! It was perfect. Gave the place a real western feel. And that was it. We had our name! Now we will have Skull Creek Dexters and maybe someday things like Skull Creek Trail Rides, Skull Aerial Photography, Skull Creek RC Club, Skull Creek Fjords......the possibilities really are endless. 

Another fun weekend!

The kids and I headed out there Friday when my girl was done school. We packed up a ton of stuff in the van, took it to storage in Saskatoon and then loaded up the BBQ in storage to take out there. I also had to pick up a cat in Saskatoon for a friend in Meadow Lake and bring it to her. Thank goodness the cat slept all the way up. My daughter Morgan went to her Dad's for the weekend so I met him in Meadow Lake too. I really wanted to see Dave on his birthday to wish him a happy birthday in person. Well....I actually got there at 11:53pm. 7 minutes to spare! lol! And I was rushing the whole time to get there. That is a LONG drive up there from Quill Lake. It's 517 kms or for my American friends it's 321 miles. 

We didn't get that much done when I was up there. We did a lot of walking around, planning and figuring. We also worked with the dogs so we can leave them loose during the day and they wont take off too far. Saturday morning we went into Loon Lake the back way and we were happy to see that it was a VERY short drive with a nice reward at the end. We went into a number of different general type stores and it was nice to see that 

we are only 6 miles from pretty much anything we want. A few stores are even open on Sunday! We went to the post office and got our new box number so we can start getting mail switched over. 

On Sunday Russ (my ex husband) brought my girl out there. I wanted to spend ALL day on Mothers Day with my kids. Russ helped us with a lot of the planning and he liked our spot for a house. We talked about getting some fish since Russ has done that before. We decided we better check the depth of the dugout to see if it is deep enough to sustain them. I brought out a leaky rubber dingy and Dave used that to go out in the pond and measure the depth. He didn't get TOO wet! lol! We were happy to see the dugout is 17 feet deep. That should work!

I couldn't stay too long on Sunday because it's a long drive home. Russ stayed LATE with Dave and they got a fence brace built where the fence was cut to make a new gate. They also built a new gate and got a bunch of wood chopped for our cook fire. 

So it was a good weekend although it went fast for me considering so much was taken up with driving. Soon I wont have to do that though. 

Unstuck!

So Dave just got unstuck a short while ago. He broke down and called a tow truck. At least he had the fence cut and the trail cleared for them! 

Happy Birthday to the team

My team just turned a year old. Aldor's birthday was April 30th and Athena's is May 5th. They don't know it yet, but I am hoping that in a few years they will be a great chore team. They have the same Norwegian Fjord sire and their dams were Quarter horses. Right now they are with me in Quill Lake, but hopefully soon they will be on Skull Creek Ranch. I think they will enjoy being able to play on 160 acres. 

Boys will be boys

I just got a call from Dave. He got the truck stuck but good in the creek halfway along the north fence. Which means he is about as far away from the road as he can get. It's starting to rain and he is pretty wet. The only way he can really get out is if someone comes and helps him cut the fence in the south west corner and drives up to where he is. He got just about across all the wet area so having someone come in the way he came would be a bad idea. I am calling people in the area right now trying to get him hooked up with some help for tomorrow. It's nearly dark so he will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Working the land by hand

So Dave is on his way up to our land right now to work on it for 2 weeks. He bought a 20 x 10 portable garage to live in. Cheaper and bigger then a tent, and will have some use when he is done living in it. His plan is to make fire lines to hopefully keep our place from burning if the neighbors land goes up. He has a gas weed eater, a pickaxe and a shovel! He also wants to clear trails, plant wildflowers, and put grass seed down on the bare spots. Other projects will be clearing a spot for an RC airplane runway, putting in a wire gate where the new driveway will be, and building a bridge out of cut poplars. I am going up on Friday for the weekend to give him a hand. 

Puppies!

After spending a weekend out there camping we quickly realized that we would need something to protect us from coyotes. It doesn't help that neither of us has a firearms license yet. I don't mind one or two skittish coyotes, but I DO mind a pack of bold ones. After doing some research we figured that our best defense (and the most fun!) would be some dogs that are bred to protect people and livestock against predators. We wanted some that would be old enough to work this year, but young enough to mold into what we wanted. We also wanted some that were raised with some sort of livestock. I found the perfect puppies just ten miles from me at a Hutterite Colony. They are 6 months old, raised with sheep and already take their jobs seriously. They are Great Pyrenees Akbash cross. Both females. I bought them for Dave for and early birthday present! I kept them at my place in Quill Lake for a few days and then they went to the place Dave is renting for a few nights until he takes them with him when he goes back to the land. We both LOVE the show Deadwood and so we named them Jane and Maddie after characters on the show. Jane is the shorter haired one, Maddies is the friendly fuzzball. Both puppies are really coming around after being raised in a sheep pen, which is normal for the breed. We want them to be socialized and happy to be with people. They both walk on a leash already and Jane will already jump into the van when I ask her to. You will be hearing lots more about the dogs as time goes by!

Getting started.

Well, this is my very first entry in my very first blog (so please forgive a few things until I figure it out better)! We are starting a brand new adventure and I want to have a record of our progress. I figured this was the best way to do it and I can share it with my friends. Right now Skull Creek Ranch is little more than some land and a dream. But we are dreaming big and have big plans for the place. First and foremost it's going to be our home. I can not wait to live there. Soon! We have been working on getting the place since last November and March 15th 2009 160 beautiful acres became ours. And I am happy to say that just yesterday Dave put in an offer on a beautiful mobile home and we should be living in it late summer or early fall. There is a lot of work to do before then. The land is not serviced, we don't have a main gate and nothing is cross fenced. But we will get there!  The pictures in this post were taken during a camping trip on the land April 25th and 26th.