An exhausting week!

We are 3/4 done our excavation. What a lot of dirt! Chris and Alvin have been moving about 20 dump truckloads of dirt a day. About six inches below the surface is a layer of ash from the mill fire in 1973...the one just before my father bought into the business!

I think Chris is very tired. This last week has been a lot like work! I have been running children back and forth to Kamloops for Heritage Fair commitments and tomorrow Chris and I split up as I take Katie and Helen to Katie's District 4-H Demo event in Ashcroft and Chris takes Stephen to the last day of Heritage Fair activities in Kamloops.

Next weekend we start to get the lambs. We will have seven of them! We now have a family ewe lamb named Whiskers (story to be told in a week's time!) and a Freisen (dairy) lamb that we will raise and breed in 18 months time. I am slowly getting organized for our flock and have been learning about worming medications, best kinds of hay, and organic grain...

Countdown to the fowl deed is -5...emotionally we are steadying ourselves and I think Chris and I have divvied up the jobs for Wednesday when the kids are at school. We will NOT post pictures of our poultry harvesting day. I will post a link later to an excellent blog by an American woman who goes step by step in butchering and eviscerating poultry. (Eviscerating: my new favourite word.) Can't wait for it to be over. We will never get Cornish Giants again. To avoid the sense that we hijacked the Ark and mucked with Noah's chicken selection, we are generally prepared to sacrifice net meat production next time by perhaps selecting a heritage breed...

Chris is already asleep and I will be close behind. I'm enjoying the red tulips and yellow daffodils given to me by Katie's friend Christine. I couldn't find my vase so they ended up in my green Denby water jug, along with some evergreen branches Christine thoughtfully (and artfully, I might add) added to the bunch. They are beautiful. They are sitting right next to my early Mother's day present from Helen: last-forever tissue paper flowers, arranged in a paper macheed pop bottle. Beautiful in all its purple glory!

Happy Mother's Day!