...Enter Puppy Number 2!

-Meet Rex! He is a Border Collie/Lab cross. He's a week younger than Chester, which makes him 8 weeks old today. He's very playful and loves to have attention. Both puppies get along very well, which is nice for all involved ;-)

Chester

Hi Everyone, meet Chester! He is the newest member of our menagerie - at least for the next few minutes, until Dad goes out to get Rex. I got him yesterday, on his 8 week old birthday. Since Vic and I had been fencing all day, we figured we'd like to go out for supper. When we found out that Mom and Dad were going to a Shakespeare play, we decided to take all the kids. So the five of us went out to a little Chinese restaurant in a nearby town. Afterwards we went to pick up my puppy. We spent almost an hour on the farm playing with all the puppies and doing paperwork and just chatting with the breeder. Then we drove to the farm(where I work) and showed him off to my boss and his family. It was past 9 o'clock when we finally got home with him and then we had to figure out where exactly he was going to spend the night. We had been sooooo busy with fencing that we hadn't exactly had the time to set up his pen.

So I slept in a tent with the puppy! It got a little interesting during the thunderstorm - Chester really didn't like that. It got even more interesting at about 3 am when he decided that he had had enough sleep and started climbing all over me and chewing on my nose and fighting with my blanket.

Now he is quite attached to that tent; and, as you can see in the picture above, he likes to sleep curled up close to it.

And now off we go to get Rex!!!

...from farm work to school work...

Second cut is done. The fence is fixed -somebody caught the rake on the fence and took out quite a sizable bit... (that somebody wasn't me!) and I have at least 2 days off, maybe 4! Don't get me wrong here. I love working on the farm. Its amazing and I learn so much, but I haven't had a decent night's sleep for a WEEK! and I'm tired.

'out of the frying-pan and into the fire' ...from farm work to school work... Chemistry, English, French, Dutch(for my Holland trip) and an online course will keep me very busy for the remaining weeks of summer. My goal is to get far enough ahead is those subjects so that when I go to Manitoba in the fall and Holland in the winter I won't fall too far behind.

My goals for tomorrow are to write a Chemistry test and an English test and to finish 2 assignment for English. I also want to sign up for the online course and work on some French. Will that actually happen? I really don't know. It is possible... I think!

On the weekend I'll be getting a puppy. His name is Chester and he will be 8 weeks old on Friday. He is a purebred Border Collie and very cute. Mom and Dad are also getting a puppy this weekend. Their puppy's name is Shaggy (at least that's what he's called now). He is a Border Collie/Lab cross and is also 8 weeks old.

Thanks to all you who have left comments or emailed me... I enjoy hearing from you!

A Passport... finally!

Finally, after over ten years of not being able to leave the country, I applied for a passport. It was surprisingly easy: get 2 pictures, fill out the form(the online printable version makes it a breeze), and get someone to be your guarantor and sign the form and one of the pictures.

Ok, that wasn't so bad, but I didn't have great hopes for my time at the passport office. Well, they surprised me. I was in and out in a little over 15 minutes! Now all I have to do is wait for it to come in the mail!

And that's one more thing crossed off on my "To Do Before Going to the Netherlands" list.

Our Darling Buddy!

Buddy

Just recently we got a second dog to be a companion to our Buddy(a border collie cross). Her name is Hanna and she's ten years old. She is a purebred Australian Shepherd. I don't have a picture of her because, for 10, she's very, very active.

Robots

Recently I have been having quite a few discussions both on online forums and in person about Robotic Milking. I have been priviledged to work with Lely robots and have developed a huge facination for that type of thing. Below are two videos, one of Lely's Astronaut A3 and one of DeLaval's VMS. Enjoy!

School's Out!

Now that I have finished school for the year, I'll have more time to work (and ocasionally bring my sisters to the farm with me), to preserve, to care for our 2 day old meat chicks, to practice organ, flute, guitar, classical recorder and fife, and to just relax. Hopefully I'll either pick up Judo again for the summer or start my childhood dream of taking horseback riding lessons! One other thing I'll be doing is figuring out how this whole blogging thing works, so bear with me as I stumble around...