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September 29, 2005
Teenagers and Wild Oats
Phew...the last little while has been pretty busy with harvest and a wedding. Last week we managed to finish swathing the canola (swathing = cutting it into nice rows...for those of you like Tom who don't know what we're talking about) combine most of the barley before the wedding, and so far this week we finished the barley and combined the wheat. It made for a couple extremely late nights but it has been great to be getting so much done.
FOR MORE PICTURES FROM THE LAST COUPLE WEEKS, CHECK OUT THE GALLERY
We'd hoped to get going on combining some of the canola yesterday but it still is a little bit tough, so we'll probably get started on that tomorrow......
.....which means that we were able to come into town today and use Justin and Shannon's computer to update our website....SEEING AS WE CAN'T DO IT AT HOME WITH THE FREAKIN' PHONE LINES BEING DOWN AGAIN!!!
Anyway, what else is going on....oh yeah, I'm going to be teaching all of next week at the local junior high school...everything from cooking and drama to gym and math, so that should probably come pretty close to pushing me beyond the limits of my sanity (cooking and drama???are you kidding me?)
Other than that, there isn't really all that much new to report. Paul and Jisca are doing quite well working for Mo's uncle, although we don't get to see very much of them. They go to work early and finish around supper time, whereas we have tended to get work started a bit later in the morning (once the frost dries off) and work until 10pm-12am........I guess we won't get tired of each other before heading off travelling ;-)
Posted by David at 6:16 PM
Justin Duff and Shannon Esau tie the knot
Well, after all the planning and preparations, the wedding day was a success. There were still a few leaves on the trees to make the pictures beautiful. The wedding took place in a beautiful log church that used to be a ski lodge and needed very little decorations.
FOR MORE PICTURES FROM THE WEDDING, CHECK OUT THE GALLERY
I was the Matron of Honour and my sister-in-law Crystal was the other bridesmaid. The colours of our dresses were beautiful and combined with the candlelighters dresses, we represented the colours of fall very well...
David played piano and sang for the ceremony...alot of it was orginial compositions. It turned out very nice and Shannon was quite thrilled.
My nephew Sean did a great job of being the ring "bear"...(he told my dad that he should be the dinosaur for Auntie Shannon's wedding).
We had lots of family up for the weekend, some of which are still here hunting. It was really good to see them again and have a chance to spend a bit of time together.
Posted by David at 5:59 PM
September 22, 2005
First day of Fall?!?!?
Happy first day of Fall!...although it seems like we've already had Fall and are now moving towards winter as almost all the leaves are gone. The phone lines and internet are back working here so its good to be connected with the world once again.
The last week has been pretty fun - we had some bad weather last Thursday and Friday but that meant we had some good hunting - I got to go on a wolf hunt at Maureen's brother's place and went elk and coyote hunting with Dad Esau a few times...............
..............It was really cool to hear Dad do his elk calls and then hear another elk respond a short distance away. We were all dressed up in camouflage and had one elk come up to within 30 yards of us so that was a lot of fun. On Sunday, we kept playing and we all (Mom and Dad, Mo, David, Paul, Jisca) went riverboating on the Peace and Beatton Rivers for the afternoon. It was another great time - we saw a pile of wildlife (a couple moose, some deer, and 8 bears) and had a hotdog roast along the river.
More recently, Mo and I have been working alot of hours this week as I finished all the swathing (barley and canola) and she was ran a combine. We'll try and wrap up the barley combining today and will leave the wheat for next week - the timing has been great, as Mo's sister Shannon is getting married on Saturday and we need to be helping out more with the prep for that.
Anyway - hang tight, we'll be in the "big city" next week and will update the photo gallery with a ton of pictures, both from our most recent adventures and with wedding shots.
Posted by David at 11:47 AM
September 14, 2005
.......COUNTRY LIFE?!?
...Well, we're still swathing - or at least trying to. It started raining yesterday and is still pretty gross today so we're shut down for the moment. To top it all off, the phone lines have been cutting out for the last two days so we have no way of calling out or taking calls in...or using the 56K internet. All that being said, the leaves look beautiful, we saw some absolutely amazing Northern Lights on Monday night, and Paul and Jisca arrived safe and sound from Montreal.
FOR MORE PICTURES FROM THE LAST WEEK, CHECK OUT THE GALLERY
I'm doing a bit of substitute teaching in town so I can use the internet at the library or at friend's places (thanks to Shannon's office I was able to download a few pics). Today I taught grade 8...
a bit rough but I got the guys in line after I laid down the law and said "I'm the sub and can throw you all out now without having to deal with the consequences tomorrow"...........the tougher challenge will come next week when I'm supposed to teach a kindergarten/grade 1 split class - I'm freaking out a bit about that one but I'll survive.
Dave
As for me, we got rained out last night so I got my first day off today. It was nice to get some other things done around the house. I've been putting in some pretty long hours on the swather...imagine having gone only 50km after about 10 hrs of driving...could be a little discouraging...but it's interesting how the brain can go into cruise control after a couple of hours...and I'm very thankful for the one AM country radio station. It's a good thing no one else can hear me out there belting out Shania Twain...I'm pretty sure it's a little scary.
We're also busy with the preparations for my sister's wedding in a week and a half. Everyone's getting very excited about it...hopefully it'll rain so we can get the time off to go:o)
Mo
Posted by David at 2:41 PM | Comments (1)
September 10, 2005
Week 1...Swathing...
Well, we reached the end of our first week in BC...Mo and I spent the time swathing canola (well...Dave spent time busting swathers) and running errands in town...thankfully our car passed its BC inspection - so now the big challenge will be selling it. We've got 3 weeks left until we have to have it sold so hopefully something will come up by then. We should have a few new pictures of farming by the middle of next week...
Posted by David at 9:17 PM
September 7, 2005
Caronport, SK to Clayhurst (Fort St. John), BC
WE MADE IT - 5,382km, 3 Dairy Queens, and 1 hail storm later, we have arrived safe and sound at Maureen's family's farm in Clayhurst, BC. The drive from Caronport (Dave's parent's place) to Calgary was...ummm...boring, but the drive through the Rockies was amazing!
FOR MORE TRIP PICTURES, CHECK OUT THE GALLERY...THERE ARE 3 PAGES OF PICTURES SO YOU MUST HIT THE ARROW BUTTON ON THE TOP RIGHT CORNER OF THE PAGE TO GET TO THE MOST RECENT PICTURES!!!
We left early Friday morning, Sept 2nd, and made it as far as Lake Louise (Banff National Park) where we spent a very cool night (3C) in our tent. Saturday we spent the day driving through the Rockies to Sexsmith, AB where Maureen went to Bible College for three years.
It was great to be back in the mountains again - the views were amazing and we thouroughly enjoyed the drive, with the exception of a massive hail storm near Grand Cache that forced us to drive on the highway at 30km/hr (check out the pic in the gallery). We were able to catch up with some of Mo's old friends in Sexsmith before driving the last 2 hour leg to the family farm in Clayhurst, BC on Sunday, Sept 4.
Since we've been home we've already done a cattle drive, picked weeds from the fields and run the swathers on Dad Esau's canola crop...we'll be sure to keep busy over the next few months and hope to have another post along soon!
Posted by David at 8:01 PM | Comments (1)
September 1, 2005
BLOG UP AND RUNNING
HEY ALL...WELCOME TO OUR BLOG. WE'LL BE UPDATING IT AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE OVER THE NEXT YEAR OR SO, SO PLEASE CHECK BACK OFTEN FOR PICTURES AND UPDATES...ALSO, YOU CAN EMAIL US AT dmthiessen@gmail.com HUGE THANKS TO MATTHEW HARMES FOR HELPING US GET THIS BLOG UP AND RUNNING!!
Posted by David at 10:57 PM | Comments (4)
Time up in Caronport
Well, we're off to BC tomorrow...but we spent the last day hanging out with family, getting some last minute stuff done, and shooting skeets...
Check out the photo gallery for today's pics
http://www.mennoboy.com/gallery/Caronport/100_3215
Posted by David at 10:35 PM