Ranch Hand

Wow what an experience.  I spent the last two weeks helping out a cattle rancher.  I started out fencing and learned what it takes to build a right proper cattle fence.  I have participated in two cattle drives, no three cattle drives and two roundups.  It really gets your adrenaline and heart pumping overdrive when a 1000 pound cow decides to go through the space your standing in instead of around, to watch as the massive animals bend steel gates simply by moving.    Did you know that it is a requirement of the Cattle Coop out here to brand all cattle involved?  Beastly you say?  I would agree and having now participated in the activity I am quite qualified to make the opinion.  I was stuck branding, but truthfully the other tasks being performed simultaneously are worse.  If someone could develop a method of permanently tracking cattle without branding I would be the first to rally the cause but until then disease and crime must be kept in check and branding works. 
We rounded up a young moose that was trapped inside the large sheep pasture.  I have fixed waterers, run an antique post pounder and cut hay. If only I could work at the job all year round and get benefits, especially health benefits as most of a ranch hands day is spent in hazardous pursuits.  I suppose I could get work but most places want you to live onsite and that would defeat our purpose for being here.

Why is the animal called a chicken?

Because it is!  It was a new beginning for our chickens yesterday.  They have finally grown enough to allow them outside.  We opened the hatch and waited....and waited....and waited.  The birds were too chicken to go outside.  Finally a brave one dared the jungle of high grass that waits for them outside and by today they were all making little paths through the high grass.  Where we lived on Vancouver Island were no predators of chickens.  Where we live now has more predators than I can list easily.  Some are owls, weasels, and hawks.  Now I am not talking about the odd hawk you might see, our fence posts around here are dotted with them.  Anyway, because of all the predators the chickens need to be enclosed to be safe, if you want them outside they must be netted in.  Well the area around the brood/laying coop is netted only 3 feet off the ground and has no human entrance.  This is why the grass is so long.  We have a couple of other bird areas and next year we hope to have turkeys and ???  Anyone have any suggestions?

lightening

Holy doodle have we been entertained lately!  This part of Alberta seems to have an abundance of weather.  The lightening and thunder concert the other night was so powerful you could smell the air burning.  Our clothesline was melted  everywhere it contacted metal.  Fortunately nothing critical was damaged.  On another note, donkeys have been on our minds lately.  No real practical reason for us to have donkeys and not being a "pet" person I don't understand the need, however, suffice to say donkeys have been located and are being transplanted from a place no longer able to care for them and brought to our place next week.  Hmmm this means I have to scramble to put together tractor modifications for large round bale movement, complete the manufacture of a trailer for said round bales, locate a source of suitable round bales for donkey digestion.  Turns out donkeys don't like high protein food which is of course what I have easy access to!  And they say you have to join the military to have "no life like it".  At least the waterer is working, now if I can just solve the occasional sediment problem in the well water.

Chickens

Well we finally got some chickens, they are not what we wanted, they are not even what we ordered but hey we now have chickens.  We have made great contacts in the Alberta chicken world and we will be ready next year to get the kind we want.  Of course Amanda has totally gone into "mom" mode and is checking on the chicks every half hour to make sure everything is ok, bless her she is an amazing person.  We found out we have a rare gopher living on the property.  It looks like a chipmunk (for those of you who know what they are).  So far I have found no use for any of the civilization (did you know civilized by definition just means skilled at the art of living in cities?) skills I have picked up living in cities for the last 20 years but working with farmer ben for the last two weeks has taught me a whole plethora of useful skills for living on a farm.  Ben is great person to know and always has patience to teach an old greenhorn like myself.  He didn't even bat an eyelash when I got the tractor stuck yesterday and when the PTO shaft broke he just said "it happens".

Weather

Today's was spectacular.  From sunny and blue, through hail, rain, thunder and lightening and back to sunny and blue...all in half an hour.  Seeing fork lightening is a joy i forgot about while living on the rock.  Today was simple pleasures, finish readying the chicken coop, visit with family and generally remind ourselves of why we are choosing to live as we do.