Christmas Visitors!

Joanne, Vaun & Teagan came for a pre-Christmas visit, this was their first trip to the ranch. We had a good two days with them, opening presents, skating and visiting.


The kids exchanged gifts. Teagan got some new dress up clothes.


The girls on the trampoline.


All the kids on the trampoline.


The cousins sitting in front of the fireplace.


Vaun, Jo & Teagan in front of the fireplace.

Hockey Day on the Ridge

With the streak of warm weather lately it was hard to get the ice thick enough, but Mother Nature came through with some -22 temperatures the other morning; I took advantage and laid the water too it!


Its not the Colesium but we got ice!


I strapped the blades on to show the youngsters how its done!


Its been a few years since I skated, I was pooped out. The girls were having more fun body sliding than trying to skate on the uneven surface. Kirby wanted to know how I was able to skate on the rough ice, "many years of skating on backyard rinks!" (thanks to dad), was my answer!

Country Christmas!

We are looking forward to our first Country Christmas On The Ridge. Today it was just above zero, with a sunny sky, so we decided to go out across the road and take a traditional family picture.

No props here, that's a real hay bale we're sitting on!

For those that aren't color blind, here's a color shot of the rug rats, they look cold but they're really not!

Rinky Dink!

Warmer weather lately has slowed the progress of the backyard rink. I've been putting down at least 3 layers of water a day but lately its been getting up above 0! The only saving grace is that I positioned it right behind the house so the sun can't get at it so I don't think I'm losing any.


Me and my hose!


Today Blair was itching to try the ice out, it was a little on the rough side and he broke through in a few spots, but he still wanted to carve it up. If you look in the dining room window you can see he has a spectator!

Santa's Visit!

Last weekend was the "Police Kids" Christmas party at the Hockey Hounds arena.


Blair played some hockey.


Erinn tried ice skating for the first time and absolutely loved it. Mom didn't get to help much, she kept getting shooed away until finally it was just Erinn all by herself.


And of course St. Nick came for a visit and the kids brought some presents home.

Rink Progress!

If you look at yesterday's picture of the rink you will notice the lack of snow. I spent an hour shovelling snow from the ditch on to the rink so I could pack it down to get a good base. When I come in to take a break, I'm checking my email and when I look out I see this;



So, in the end I didn't have to shovel!


Here's what things looked like when I finished packing it this morning. You see the snow angel in the middle? This afternoon I will be putting the H2O to it!

White Stuff!

Yesterday we got a good dump of the white stuff!


The yard gets better looking all the time!


You can see I got the icicle lights on the kids' playhouse.


Nice to see something other than dirt in the backyard!


You can't beat country living. While I was taking this picture the coyotes were howling down in the valley; AWESOME!

Winter Everlast!

"Dad, can you make us a rink in the back yard?" Blair asks.
"No son, we never get winter long enough" I reply.

Well winter has lasted for 2 weeks now, with no end in sight, so I'm building a rink!
It started out as 10'x30', than I decided to go big, we have the room for it!


Here is the before picture, 20'x30'. I've been hauling water to top up the tank and today I will begin flooding!

Christmas Decorating!

Over this past weekend Carolyn & the kids were busy with decorating the house for Christmas! My job was to bring home the tree; since I'm the best at picking them out!

I remember when we lived in the bush and getting a tree was much more enjoyable and rewarding. We would take the snowmobile, the sleigh and an ax and spend the afternoon hunting for the perfect one. Now its drive to the Superstore, pick a tree that is wrapped tightly in mesh and looks like all the rest, bring it home and hope for the best!

Well this year I decided we would get a tall one, since we've got 9 foot ceiling in the house. The sign says "White Pine 5.5' to 7'", there is only one that's taller than me (5'8"), so I think its gotta be one of the 7 footers. I pay my $30 and bring it home, hanging out the back of the truck.

When I get home I haul the tree in and try to stand it up; its too tall, so I get my hand saw and saw 6 inches off the bottom. When I go to put the stand on it won't fit now because I sawed too much off! So, I find the part I sawed off, nail it back on, put the stand on and lop off the top 6 inches, now it fits perfectly. I get the thing stood up and hide the trimmings just as Carolyn & the kids pull into the garage; "Nice tree dad", "Nice tree honey, looks like it just fit"!


Notice no angel on the top? I guess Carolyn said it wouldn't fit!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Like father like son! When the snow arrived the first thing Blair wanted to do was go for a bike ride. Now he wants to know why we can't get a snowmobile, I told him because we never get enough snow, well I might have to eat my hat on that comment if this keeps up.


Who looks more excited?


The best part about this is you can't see the city!


Hey, it looks like winter!


Boy the yard looks nice, I was getting tired of that same old shade of brown!

Lights Out!

Last night I was laying in bed reading, my nightly ritual before sleep arrives, and one of the smoke detectors chirped. Carolyn awoke immediately and suggested I check things out, so with my headlamp on I ventured down the hall to see what was up.

We are apparently used to the peace a quiet; for one Carolyn woke up right away and secondly I walked through the upstairs, into the basement and didn't even realized my computer was off and the house was in total silence. I went straight to the kids bathroom to see why their nightlight was off, thinking the bulb was dead I walked back into my office and flipped on the light switch, when nothing happened it finally dawned on me that the power was off!

No big deal! I crawled back into bed and continued to read. "Its gonna get cold in here!" Carolyn thought out loud. "Not for several hours" I replied. The temperature was down to -11 (outside) but unless the power was going to be off all night I wasn't too worried. I got up and looked out the windows, the lights were on all around us, only those on the ridge were suffering from this unexpected power failure!

At 3:30 am I awoke to my clock flashing "12:00", I got up again to check on things, the kids nightlight was back on and everyone continued to sleep soundly; they hadn't frozen to death during the power outage. I climbed back into bed, set my clock to the correct time and picked up my book to where I had left off.

At 5:30 I awoke once again, this time my clock was black, I got up and went for a walk, again everyone around us was alight but we were left in the cold & dark! This time I set my alarm on my cellphone for Carolyn & the kids so they would get up in time for work & school and climbed back into bed.

When my cellphone alarm went off at 6:55 once again my clock flashed "12:00" and we hadn't frozen to death in our sleep! I guess living in the country we will have to get used to these power outages, hopefully they don't last too long though!

IT FINALLY CAME!

Finally my wish came true, I even stayed up late last night (11pm; I'm getting old!), reading in the front room, enjoying the peace and serenity of the ridge, but I missed it!


Here's what I saw when I got out of bed this morning; a winter wonderland (well as good as it gets for Southern Alberta)!


The house looks good surrounded by the snow covered dirt, the yard looks soooo nice!


You can tell how excited I was, the sun was still low in the eastern sky when I took these pictures!


Our view looking to the North from our back fence.


Our view to the Southeast from the road in front of the house.


While I was out enjoying the snow, the rest of the family was hunkered down in front of the tv staying warm by the fireplace!

Little Visitor!

Yesterday we had a little visitor come see us, Abi & Mary came out from Bow Island to see the house, Mary hadn't seen it yet and I had only seen Abi once since she arrived just over a month ago!


Erinn always wants to hold Abi, her little 'girl' cousin, both are very happy they finally have a 'girl' cousin on the Van Ham side, which has been inundated with boys. They were elated when their cousin Teagan arrived on the Zimmer side! According to Kirby & Erinn, if each of their auntie's (that would be 4 aunties) have one more girl than they will outnumber the boys; I doubt very much that will happen though!


Kirby will make a good mother some day, she loves holding and feeding Abi, she was so proud that she put her to sleep and was even giving me pointers when I finally got to hold her!

Berry Pickin!

Today was Erinn's day off school, so her and dad hung out; we went in to town to visit Mama and Mommy, who were both working. Than we went for a load of water and when we got home we decided to do some chores around the yard. While loading the garbage on the truck Erinn came up and said she found some "berries" growing in the backyard, she showed me one of the "berries" which looked alot like deer poop!


Here's Erinn with a pile of "berries" that she found in the backyard, coincidentally, close to where the deer have been hanging out!


Erinn and Sugar with yet another pile of "berries", these one's were much larger and juicier than the other pile she found. I will let you know how they tasted after we wash them up for supper!

Oh Deer!

This morning we awoke to deer in the backyard, they have come before, in fact one day while eating supper 11 appeared from the valley, including a nice 5x5 buck. In the herd is an old doe with a bad front leg, as the rest hopped the back fence and dispersed into the adjacent field, the crippled doe stayed and fed off the grass growing on the mound in the backyard.


This is the crippled doe's fawn, she came for a visit a couple of nights ago too.

Two's a Crowd!

Over the weekend I was able to get the garage organized so we can fit both vehicles in there, this will be good since winter will arrive one of these days and I don't want my water tank freezing up!

Its a little crowded for the truck but the plan is to get it insulated and the gyp-rock up, than I can build a mezzanine, like we had at our place in the city, that will get everything up off the floor. Once I get all this done than we can bring the kids' cats home from the farm; Blair won't have to sneak them home in the truck anymore!

Back in the 21st Century!

Well we finally got back into the 21st Century, no more snowy CTV or CBC, no more $600 cell phone bills and of course my beloved Internet and email; which I can't seem to live without!


This is our radio dish for bringing in our Internet and VOIP phone. As you can see it is mounted on the back deck and pointed North towards the Platinum tower near Vienerville. Until we got the satellite TV installed we were watching most of our programing over the Internet. With the VOIP phone we saved $500, installation cost from Telus, not to mention the $30 a month phone bill with unlimited, free, long-distance calling!


Our Bell Express VU dish which just catches the satellite in the southern sky. No more complaining from the wife and kids that they have nothing to watch! When I'm home its only ever on 2 channels; WildTV (nothing but hunting) and World Fish Network (you guessed it, nothing by fishing)!

Chores!

Besides hauling garbage into Dunmore once a week, some of the other chores I find myself doing on my days off are; hauling compost out to the back, taking the recycling into town and hauling water! This in addition to the "honey-do-list"!

This is the easy way of hauling water, 1,000 gallons at a time! If I fall behind I borrow a friends tank and trailer. Our cistern will hold 3,600 gallons. This saves us $75, the cost of getting a water truck to fill the tank when the low level alarm goes off at 1,000 gallons remaining.

We purchased a 185 gallon "turtle tank" that sits in the back of the truck, with this I can keep the tank topped up by hauling a load on my way home from work.

The cost? 1,000 gallons costs $4 and the "turtle tank" costs $1 to fill!

As the Sun Rises!

Its a little easier getting up out here, the sunrise is just as spectacular as the sunsets! Especially when I don't have to go to work!


The eastern sky starts to brighten as the sun begins its journey across the southern sky.


The kids rush to board the bus on their commute to school.


I sit at the kitchen table to eat breakfast and stare out the back window as people speed by on the 120 and the distant Trans Canada Highway.

Who's been sleeping in my bed?

Erinn had to give up her bed over the weekend so her little cousin Ben could sleep there, she slept in her sleeping bag on the floor in mom & dad's room.


We had some entertaining entertainment on the ridge while Ben was here.


Ben is quite the little singer, even though he can't talk yet!