Sprained Wrist and Another Missing Duck

Well, yesterday was a bit of a bad day for me.

In the morning, I went down to the front pond to break the ice in the "duck pool" area (the "duck pool" is a kiddie pool size area that I have been breaking the ice on daily so the ducks can grab a quick swim. ). We had about an inch of snow overnight and I misstepped and stepped onto the thin ice area and boom, I went straight through into the pond. Damn

I now know that the pond is about 3 feet deep about 2 feet from shore.

Falling into the pond sucks, but it's not the end of the world cause the house is only a 30 second walk away. Unfortunately, I hit my wrist when I fell and woke up today with it badly bruised and swollen. I think it's sprained, but not sure. I put ice on it and have now wrapped it. If it gets worse, I'll head to the hospital. It's definitely not broken.

To make the day worse, Peanut, my last Muscovy girl has disappeared. Mama Muscovy and the new duck Figgy are still there, but Peanut is gone. We searched all over yesterday, no signs of struggle, no blood, no feathers, nothing.

I have no idea where she went :( I'll of course keep looking!

These Muscovy ducks are killing me. They are really hard work. The ducks in general are WAY more work than the chickens are.

Sigh ... good thing they are so cute.

Hope you all had a nice Holidays! Hugs and love!!

Photo Box and Etsy

I've been working away on my Etsy store, and I've been working away on a friend's Etsy store, and I've also been adding a friend's stuff to my Etsy store ... Oh my! The work really never stops.

As you know I opened a Etsy store a couple of months ago and I have slowly been adding products to it. A friend of mine wanted to open an Etsy store and didn't know how to do it, so I'm helping her get her products in her store. She has a lot more products than I was expecting! I've already put on close to a hundred products. Thankfully I think I'm almost done and its always nice to help!

Another friend sent me a pile of chainmail stuff they couldn't sell, so I spent the last two days putting all of it on to my store. It takes me about 15 minutes to place each ad (taking photos;cropping photos; adding photos; filling out the ad; researching shipping prices etc), so it's a lot of hours of boring tedious work.

I was having a horrible time taking quality photos of the chainmail jewelry so I made a photo box ...

To make a photo box, I simply used an old small clear plastic bin. I cut a spot in the top to lay a light, and taped white paper to the back and floor. It was super easy and works great!

This pic shows the spot I cut for the light

And here's the light being placed into the space I cut for it

And here's the finished light box! It made a huge difference on the photos!

So here's my improved Etsy store!

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheHappyHippieHaven

the Dwarven Hall Forge is my Friend's stuff. Check out the whips he makes!

Hugs and love!

My New Muscovy Duck

Duck, Duck, Goose

On Monday past we had a big snow storm. My three Muscovy ducks; Mama Muscovy, Peanut and Popcorn (her two daughters) were at the back pond. Mama Muscovy is very stubborn and refuses to go in the coop. Her two daughters always listen to her :(

I checked the Muscovies Monday late morning, just when the storm was starting. I brought them some food and as normal they came over, tail wagging and ate. I patted Peanut and Popcorn. I told them to be safe and I left them I spent the rest of the day fighting to keep my driveway clear for the Fedex guy (bringing the heater). 

When I went to check on and take food to the Muscovy ducks Tuesday morning only Peanut was there. Mama Muscovy and Popcorn had disappeared. The pond is 99.9% frozen (or was then) so I walked all the way around the pond calling for them. They always come swimming/flying over to "duck, duck, goose" I couldn't find them anywhere.

We caught Peanut and brought her up to the other ducks, the Saxony and Indian Runners, so she wouldn't be alone. Muscovy ducks are pretty snotty; they only like other Muscovy ducks. They don't seem to like other ducks breeds. Muscovy ducks are racist! :) I swear my Muscovy ducks think the Saxony ducks and Indian Runners are complete idiots. They tend to keep their distance.

We spent hours every day during the week searching for the two missing ducks. Couldn't find them anywhere.

On Thursday, Peanut the lone Muscovy was so depressed and lonely I decided to put an ad on Kijiji to see if I could find her a Muscovy friend. Friday night I got an email from the lady at the feed store in New Glasgow; she has a Muscovy for me. 

Saturday morning we picked up the Muscovy. She's a lovely white and black. Her and Peanut got along immediately. 

About an hour after we got the new Muscovy home, who shows up at the back pond, but Mama Muscovy! Holy shit! 

It took us about two hours to catch Muscovy Mom. During that time we fell (through the ice into the pond or from the ice into several inch deep puddles of ice water) at least 50 times (no exaggeration). We chased Muscovy mom from one side of the pond and back again (and again and again and again). We managed to herd her into the forest where she couldn't take flight. We are all wet, frozen, bruised and battered, and downright exhausted. Trying to catch a duck that doesn't want to be caught that can fly is brutal hard! Damn her and her awesome flying ability! Damn us and not being able to fly! But YAY!! for human intelligence and determination. WE WON!

Mama Muscovy is now safely at the front pond with her daughter Peanut and the new Muscovy lass Figgie. 

There was no sign of the other missing Muscovy today. We will keep looking!

Mr Heater Review

This is my Mr Heater propane cabinet heater. It hooks up to one of the large BBQ propane tanks. The heater has three settings- low, medium and high, and produces some serious heat. It came 98% assembled, all I had to do was put the bottom on and the wheels. The wheels actually work pretty good. There is a small propane smell when the heater is used, but the heater has a low oxygen shut off, so if the oxygen levels in the house drops too low the heater will immediately shut down. I also have a CO2 detector just to be extra safe.

This heater makes about as much heat as a woodstove does. It is super hot when you are close up, even the cats sit at least two feet away. If you get too close you will get burnt! It is hot and would start a fire quickly if something touched it. 

It's a great warm heater, but definitely dangerous and needs to be taken very seriously. I would not suggest it for a home with young children. I would recommend it for my off-grid friends in need of more heat and for my camping friends.

The Mr Heater cabinet heater cost about $200

 This is the back of the heater. As you can see the propane tank fits nicely in the back. It was super easy to hook up.

This is the Buddy Mr Heater. It takes one of the little cans of propane (which can get pretty expensive), you could also cheat and get the hook up hose to use one of the big tanks of propane. I haven't use it yet, so cannot give a review on heat produced. It looks a great size for camping. The Mr Heater buddy heater costs around $120

This is the electric space heaters I usually use. I like them cause they are nice and safe. The cats can actually sleep right against it and not get burnt. These heaters cost about $0.10 an hour to run and do a solid job keeping a room moderately warm (not super warm)

My Heater Hoopla

The old farm house I lived in near Sarnia had oil heat; it cost $800-$1000 to fill the oil tank and even with me keeping the thermostat as low as possible I still went through a tank every 2 months. That's $400-$500 a month for heat! I found getting a few good electric space heaters worked better and cost my half that oil cost me.

My new Nova Scotia home of course has oil heat ...sigh. What a pain in the butt. Oil here in Nova Scotia is about the same price as in Ontario, so I figured I wouldn't even bother with it. I figured I'd get a couple of good electric space heaters.

The two electric space heaters I have work ok, but they are not enough for really cold days, and of course when the power goes out, which is does a lot here in Nova Scotia, they don't work. 

I decided I needed a third heater, one not run by electricity. I researched the crap out of it and found a propane heater was by far the best way for me to go (comparing price/safety/heat generated etc). 

There are only a few companies that sell portable propane heaters, I found it was a toss up between Mr Heater and DynaGlow. Mr Heater has a better section of propane heaters than Dynaglow does, but Mr Heater had a fair amount of complaints about the pilot light not staying on, on their heaters. However, DynaGlow also had similar complaints 

Both Mr Heater and DynaGlow sell a propane cabinet heater for around $200. I decided that was the style of heater that was best suited for me. I checked all over New Glasgow and sadly no one sold one. All I could find in New Glasgow was Mr Heater's small buddy heater, which was not what I wanted. To get a cabinet propane heater I had to order it online.

Home Depot offered the DynaGlow cabinet heater for $199.99 with free shipping. Home Hardware offered the Mr Heater cabinet heater for $194.99 with instore pick up. The Home Hardware is in Stellarton about a ten minute drive from me. I picked buying the Mr Heater from Home Hardware as the online reviews gave me the impression the Mr Heater was better than DynaGlow, and I thought Home Hardware was a more trustworthy company than Home Depot was ....

I ordered online on Saturday, November 28. Home Hardware took my money on the Monday, said it should be in, in 3-7 days from the order date. 

Around 4pm on the tenth day, I finally get the email it's in. yay! I'm so excited! and just in time! It's suppose to be -20 with the wind chill in just a couple of days,

My son headed into Stellarton first thing in the morning to pick up the heater. He got home with the box, we carefully put the bottom on, hooked up the propane tank and the pilot light would not stay on. As soon as I let go of the knob thing it went out. :(

We googled the problem, did their whole trouble shocking thing. Heck, I went to the store and got a whole new tank of propane just encase our tank was too low. Nope,  nothing worked. The pilot light would not stay on. 

Well, that's just depressing.

We carefully took the wheels back off, packed the stupid heater back up in the box, and my son took it back to the store.The customer service person not only wouldn't take it back , he was rude and insulting to my son! He told my son that because we had ordered it online we had to return it via online.

My son came home incredibly upset. I cried. I was so upset. All the upset made my sarcodoisis flare up big time, so in addition to being horribly upset I also ended up in major pain :(

All I'm thinking is now I'm going to have to wait Gods know how many days to get my money back so I can order yet another heater. How long is all that going to take? Another ten days?  It was Wednesday night, we have -20 temps on Saturday, that doesn't leave me enough time to get a new heater. 

And how dare someone be rude to my son!! When he was polite and did absolutely nothing wrong! Seriously, I'm a mom, anyone who is rude to my son I want to beat the crap out of! 

So, I freaked. I had a meltdown and I yelled at every person I could find to yell at. I wrote Home Hardware a nasty email and demanded a full refund immediately. I found the Home Hardware Facebook group and bitched on there. I found the Mr Heater Facebook group and bitched on there and gave them a really horrible review on their heater. 

Mr Heater responded almost immediately to my freak out and apologized for their heater not working. They stepped right up to the plate and told me they would overnight Fedex me a brand new heater immediately. They had hoped to get it here before the weekend's cold spell. I sat here all day Friday waiting for the heater to show up and yep, you guessed it, it never showed up :(

Meanwhile, Home Hardware head office has emailed me and has apologized. They forwarded my very upset email to the owner of the Stellarton Home Hardware. The owner of the Stellarton Home Hardware was fantastic. The rude employee was fired and the owner gave me my money back in cash. 

The weekend went by, no Mr Heater. Monday I spent the whole afternoon fighting to keep my driveway clear just encase Fedex showed up (we had a snow storm on Monday, got a bit more than half a foot of snow)

Tuesday, the Fedex guy showed up around 9am.

Not only did Mr Heater send me an awesome new cabinet heater they also sent me a Mr Buddy heater! FOR FREE! WOW! That's basically $300 worth of heater for free! YAY! What an amazing company!

The heater works FANTASTIC! Holy shit! I should of got one of these years ago, they rock! It gives off HUGE heat! I'll do a full review on the heaters on my next post as I think they would be great for my off-grid and camping friends.

So, it took me from Nov 28-December 13 to get the heater I wanted. It cost me a shit load of tears, upset, frustration and yelling, but I finally got it! And I actually got it for free. WOW!

I am happily warm :)

New Rescues

Good day wonderful friends! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

I got two new rescues on Sunday, a dog and cat combo.The dog is a three year old Beagle/Husky cross, and the cat is a two year old grey tabby. The dog, Lulu is a real sweetheart, very gentle and kind, but she is very poorly trained and very hand shy. She's nervous around fellas as her original owner (who was a guy) hit her.

Sigh ... if you need to hit a dog to get dominance you are doing it wrong! I have been doing dog rescue a good twenty years now and I have NEVER had to hit a dog ! NEVER! And I take in problem dogs! Dogs require a solid dependable pack leader. A dog should respect you, not fear you. The moment you hit a dog you went from respect to fear. If I can retrain an adult dog with aggression issues without ever hitting the dog, there is absolutely no reason everyone else cannot raise and train a puppy without violence.

So this is Lulu. She's a cutie. She's just a bit taller than my Pug and weighs about 40 pounds.

And this is the kitty. She doesn't have a name yet (I wasn't told her name when she was dropped off)

They are both awfully scared right now. It must be horrible to be taken from your home and dumped off with a stranger :(  They'll take a week or two to settle in, but they'll be fine. They are now surrounded by love :)

Have a great Monday! Hugs and love!!

Busy Week

Hi! Hope you all had a great week!

Mine was crazy busy. I pretty well got nothing done, but my driveway.

Last Sunday we got quite the ice storm, I spent Monday cleaning up from it. My driveway was drive-able Tuesday till about supper time than it was covered in a bout a foot of snow. I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shoveling.

Between an 800 foot driveway and a foot of very heavy wet snow, I had to focus completely on it and my critters, no time for anything else.

It's Saturday morning now and thankfully my driveway is drive-able again. I have some offline work early afternoon, but plan on spending the day catching up on all the computer work I fell behind on.

I am looking forward to a mellow day. My body hurts all over from shoveling. It could really use a couple of days off.

Here's some pics from the last couple of days:

The first pic is of Kappa Cove- the small front pond.

This one is of my Muscovy gals on the ice at the back pond. Muscovy mom has been taking great care of her two daughters and they are really enjoying the back pond.

 This is Turtle Lane. I shared a similar pic on my last post. The trees on my last post were covered with ice, now they are covered in snow. I am happy to report that sense this pic was taken all trees have been cleaned off and the trees are back upright again.

First Nova Scotia Snow

Yesterday we had our first Nova Scotia snow storm. It rained all morning and turned to sleet/snow in the afternoon. As you can see in the pics everything got covered with ice really bad. Now I understand why there are so little Maple Trees here; hard wood would snap too easy. Most of the trees pulled down by ice are birch trees so are bendable. Once I knocked the ice off they snapped back up. 

The storm was super cool. It actually thundered and lightening for several hours during the snow storm. How unusual!

Unfortunately I was not able to accept some work today as the fella would never of made it down the driveway. 

So, here's some pics. The first three are of my driveway. Most of the trees I have back up now.

This photo is of Turtle Lane. WOW! I have never seen anything like it before. It was breathtaking!

And Kappa Cove. It is completely iced over, though the ice is thin and fairly easy to break through.

You'd think I took the photos in black and white! Everything was so surreal this morning!

New Internet

Well, I got new internet today. I sure hope it works better than the crap I had.

I had Xplornet. Xplornet is a satellite internet service. I was getting a whopping (insert sarcasm) 50 GB of bandwidth for $82 a month. For some reason I am yet to figure out, I would hit my 50GB limit within two weeks and than get my internet throttled for the last two weeks. I have no idea how we were hitting 50GB in two weeks! We didn't download anything! I think they were scamming us. It makes no sense! In addition, the internet goes out all the time here, its very frustrating.

I now have Seaside. It's a radio tower internet service. It's $50 a month for unlimited bandwidth. I have had bad luck with radio tower internet before, but I figured Xplornet was so bad, what did I have to lose!

Thankfully Seaside gave me a two week free trial, so if it sucks I can cancel and it won't cost me a penny! YAY!

$30 a month is a considerable savings and having unlimited internet would be sooooo nice! I really hope it works ok so I can keep it!

I expect that Seaside will be just as bad as Xplornet when the weather sucks. I expect Seaside to be just as slow as Xplornet. But I figure $50 for unlimited crappy internet is better than $80 for 50GB of crappy internet.

Fingers crossed!

Hugs and love!

Health Update

Hello Friends! Happy Weekend! I hope you all had a fantastic week!

I have had a bunch of people asking about how my health is doing so I thought I'd just make a quick post to give you all an update.

The sarcoidosis is in my lungs and lymph nodes.I have pain inside my upper body almost every day of the week. Usually it starts around half way through the day and increases as the day goes on. The more active I am the more pain I end up in. Two-three advil or a cannabis cookie will generally take away the pain; on a really bad day I may need both the advil and the cookies.

In addition to the pain, I am dealing with some breathing problems, nothing serious at the moment, but I have been noticing it getting worse over the last month. I'm going to need some special steroid ( Prednisone ) drugs in about a month to get it back under control. (It's just something that is probably going to happen for the rest of my life. The steroids help for a few months than it flares up again)

I am also dealing with crazy temperature changes; intense hot flashes and freezing cold, plus sleep issues and severe exhaustion (It don't matter if I sleep 2 hours or 10 hours, I'm always tired). The exhaustion is probably being caused by lack of oxygen.

I find I have 2-4 hours of energy daily. 2-4 hours that I can get things done every day, and then I'm done for the day. Simply out of energy.

Some of my problems may be coming from a thyroid issue. Thyroid problems are extremely common with sarcoidosis. I am going on Tuesday to get some tests done for it. The hot flashes, extreme cold, and exhaustion could be caused by an overactive or under active thyroid.

I am also dealing with some serious anxiety and depression problems, which is extremely unusual for me. I have never had a mental health issue in my life :(.  The Doctor believes that is ether coming from the thyroid issues or its PTSD from living in Coe Hill (or both).

Unfortunately all my health issues, mental and physical, can be traced back to Coe Hill. The specialist believes I have had sarcoidosis for several years, but it never got really bad and was always healable, until Coe Hill. Between the stress, the mold (in the house and in the forest), the wood smoke and the cold (the house ended up being a three season home, not a four season like I was told, so come winter with no heat source but one poorly set up woodstove, I froze), the sarcoidosis got pushed into overdrive and is now really pissed off :(

Stress and sarcoidosis don't meld well, and the stress in Coe Hill was higher than I have ever dealt with in my life. The people who owned the property yelled at me and belittled me constantly for the first 4-5 months (until I blocked them). It got to the point that I was actually fearful to even go on Facebook and every time I saw that I had a "Private Message" I felt sick to my stomach. Even today, I still get ill feeling when I see I have a Facebook private message, I think someone is going to yell at me.

To add to my stress, the solar panels didn't make enough energy for me to work. (I actually knew that was going to happen (that there wouldn't be enough energy come winter) and told the property owners that I could not move in with the solar panels the way they were. They LIED to me and promised more would be put in ... of course it never happened.) The piece of crap generator that came with the house was just that a piece of crap and kept breaking down (again, I got blamed for that too cause somehow I wasn't "using it properly"). Everything is so very stressful.

I couldn't work online, was going broke (went broke), kept getting sicker and sicker, my stress levels kept rising, I lived in constant fear. I was terrified for my family.

When I finally got out of Coe Hill, I was so messed up that I would start shaking in terror at the slightest thing. A big noise would send me into a panic attack. The slightest mean word would bring me to tears. I barely slept. I couldn't concentrate and found doing my online work very difficult. Even today I still have 3-4 panic attacks a day and am lucky to sleep 3-4 hours a night.

Hence why the Doctor thinks the anxiety attacks and depression I have been struggling with may be PTSD.

Who would of thought that so much damage could be done in only 8 months.

I'm ok and will be ok. I'm getting better every day and will eventually get back to myself. I'm friggin' tough as hell! Of course I will get through this! I thank you for all your caring and kind words. Life can be tough. We all need a little help sometimes.

Hugs and love!
Trish

Busy

Hi! Hope you are all doing fantastic! I've been having a pretty good week. I have been working on my Etsy store, wildcrafting (for my Etsy store) and breaking paths and clearing shoreline at the back pond.

These are Birch Polypores. They are one of the major things that I am selling in my Etsy store. People use them for craft and jewelry making. They are also suppose to be crazy good for you; one of those "super" foods (those you don't eat them, they get made into a tea,tonic or tincture.)

The big polypores you see in the pic sell for $10-$25 each.

The back pond! I have shoreline! We manged to clear about ten feet so far. We are just gonna keep working on it till the snow flies, hopefully we can get at least another ten feet cleared. 

 The path to the back pond :) I can walk from my front door to the back pond in under two minutes. It's a lovely walk! The dogs of course love it! There are a lot of ticks sadly I took one off myself today and I take them off the critters daily. My hens need to work harder!

My hen Willow hurt her foot again so is in lock down. She's a house hen for the next week. She actually laid an egg in the house today! :)

And now for some duck pics ... :)

Goobles and Ethel

The ducks coming up to the house :)

My Muscovy girls. I LOVE my Muscovies, they're the best!! :)

 And I leave you with Walter the Rooster. Hugs and love!

Etsy Store

I opened an Etsy store today :)

If you don't know Etsy is an online market place for handmade and vintage items.

I'm selling wildcrafted crafts supplies in my Etsy store. So, stuff like birch bark, moss, polypores, mushrooms, feathers, sea shells etc.

I only got two items in my store today because I spent most of the day working on the path to the back pond. Its suppose to rain all day here tomorrow so I'm going to spend the day working on it tomorrow

https://www.etsy.com/ca/people/burdicktravis?ref=hdr_user_menu

It's in my son's name cause its important that some of this business stuff is in his name. He does just as much of the wildcrafting as me! :)

Have a great day! Hugs and love!

Spread Some Love

I don't know about all of you, but I'm a little sad and confused over Trump winning the USA election. I get the Clinton wasn't great, but seriously, Trump?? The man spews hate and is certainly not qualified to be President. He has no emotional control! I just don't understand it, its like a bad joke that just won't stop ...

So, how do we fight fear and hate? With some love!

A dear friend of mine Dani has had some serious health issues this last month. She is a small business owner and runs a seamstress shop in SW Ontario. She's a good person. She is a mom. She has already survived  cancer, she is a strong person. She is a member of my religious community (hence the photo on her GoFundMe :) You know us crazy Pagans! Dani vends her awesome handmade clothes at fests. She is an amazing designer and seamstress.

She needs some help.

She had a crazy big cyst in her stomach removed Friday past. She's in a LOT of pain and simply cannot work. She just needs a month off. You'd think she was asking for a friggin' miracle- Unemplyment is giving her $200 a month (Ya, that's no help); can't get disability because it's short term; and cannot get Welfare unless she sells her business ...

If you are looking for a good deed to do, here's a great one. You will seriously make her cry with joy if you can donate even a small amount. I was in her place last February, I know how she feels. It's truly horrible.

Here's her GoFundMe page:
https://www.gofundme.com/ys2ce844

Spread love :)

Hugs!

Sigh

Sigh, the ridiculousness never ends.

As you all know I purchased a truck from my neighbor well over a month ago. I got it so I could hopefully get a plow for it so I could use it for the driveway.

The truck was only $400, purchased "as is"

The guy I purchased the truck from didn't bother to clean it or even remove his personal property from the truck (despite me paying it off over a two week period and him knowing damn well when I was picking it up). I was kind enough to put all his personal stuff in a box and returned it to him. I didn't need to do that. Legally everything in the truck was mine once I made the final payment, was given my receipt and the keys. The guy didn't even say thank you!

Now, the guy actually wants to come over and trade the tires. He says he meant to do it before I purchased it, but didn't get it done. So, he wants to come remove the good tires that are on the truck and put on crappy tires ... is he fucking kidding me?

This guy needs a serious reality check! to say the least!

I am so sick and tired of people trying to bully me and take advantage of me!

So obviously I told the neighbor NO and obviously he's all pissed off now.

What the hell is with people? So frustrating and upsetting.

Oh well, such is life. If I catch the guy on my property i'll sick my ducks on him LOL

Thanks for listening to me rant! Hugs and love!!

The Pond

Today the new ducks got the go to the pond! YAY! They of course LOVE it! Most domestic ducks only get a little kids swimming pool to play in so having a whole big pond is awesome :) Ducks are not quite as crazy as chickens when it comes to accepting newcomers to the flock. My Muscovy ducks gave the newcomers a bit of a rough time, but overall everyone is already getting along pretty good. In a week, they'll all be best buddies :)

Here's a short video I took at the pond today.

New Ducks!!

Some pics of my new ducks- The three blacks are Indian Runners, their names are Yacko, Wacko and Dot. We believe the drake is the one with the green head.

The other two are Saxony ducks. The drake is the dark coloured one. Our beloved Saxony drake, Mikel, passed away last month, so we needed a new Drake. The Drake's name is Goebbels and the lady Saxony duck's name is Ethel.

They have to stay in the coop today, but should be able to go to the pond tomorrow :)

Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Blessed Samhain!

Today, we honor all those who have passed away during the last year, the last turning of the wheel. I have had such a bad year, but thankfully got off lucky this year death wise. This year I remember and honor two hens, Alice and Lennon, and four duck, Mikel, Fred, Shaggy and Scooby. Thankfully I lost no humans or furbabies this year (just featherbabies)

At Samhain, we also remember and tribute our ancestors. Today I remember my father who passed away 11 years ago, my Grandmother who passed away 15 years ago, and all my ancestors, grandfathers and grandmothers that I have never meant. Today, I honor them, and thank them, for without them I would not be.

Today, the veil between the worlds is thinnest. Today, the dead return to greet the living. Today, we remember and we honor those who have gone before.

Even if you are not Pagan, please take a moment to honor the sacredness of the day. It's not all about candy and commercialism, it's much deeper than that.

Hugs and love!

Ducks

Feeling blue? Gets some ducks! Always makes you feel better!

No, I didn't get any new ducks on the weekend. I getting them on Tuesday! "Deadpool" and his lady, two Muscovy ducks, a drake and a hen.

The white duck in the pic below is the female duck, her names is Nibs

 And this is Deadpool. He's a drake. He's will hopefully help keep all my girl ducks safer.

I get them Tuesday evening, so I'll try to post pics on Wednesday.

Hugs and love!

Sarcodosis Specalist

I went to see the Sarcodosis specialist at the New Glasgow hospital today ... boy, did that suck huge.

The Doctor told me that taking six Tylenol a day for the rest of my life (for the sarcodosis pain) was safer for my body than eating one marijuana cookie daily .. what a twit! Seriously, this Doctor knew absolutely NOTHING about medical marijuana; I'm OK with her knowing nothing, I'm pissed that she knew nothing and still felt like her opinion on the topic was valid, even after admitting that she had never researched it! Ridiculous! It you know nothing about something, than you should shut the hell up! Worst yet, there were medical marijuana pamphlets in her waiting room!  Why the hell is she advertising something she knows nothing about and obviously doesn't support?

So, after the Doctor floored me with her lack of knowledge on marijuana, she tells me to go get blood tests done (which I just had done 4 months ago, but ok lets do them again). she sends me to a closed blood clinic and she gave me the wrong blood work papers!

I took a pic of the blood work forms that were given to me ... ummmmm, that's NOT my name on the sheet! Not even close! (so, I'm assuming the guy whose sheets I have has mine).

So, the whole thing was a complete waste of my time and energy, not impressed. I won't be hurrying back to that Dr anytime soon. 

To top off my crappy day: I got mail from our wonderful government and I owe $250.00 from last year's income tax ...  seriously?! How the hell is that even possible? I was very sick for two months last year and couldn't even work, and was so broke I couldn't even afford my prescription meds! Craziness! I'm contacting some Government idiot on Monday and arguing about it,!

Cherry on top, one of my dearest friends told me her boyfriend sexually assaulted her five year old daughter! Oh my fucking GOD! I just want to rip the guys head off! What kind of sicko does that!!??

So, ya, seriously bad day. Thankfully its over!

Red Maple, Autumn Colours and a three Rail Fence

Hi! Hope everyone is having a great week!

I have been searching for Maple trees near the house (for early spring tapping). It's important to get them marked now (while they have leaves). There are not a huge amount of Maple trees on my property, most are Birch, but I managed to find a few.

The tree shown in the photo below is a red maple, also called a swamp maple or a water maple. Unlike a sugar maple, red Maple is a soft-wood. Thankfully red maple can still be tapped! It has pretty well the same sugar content as sugar Maple does 

(Photo below) the red leaves are from my tree, the green leaves are from Google. As you can see, they don't look exactly like traditional Maple leaves look.

This is a traditional maple leaf (From a tree in my yard)

This is a photo of my driveway this week. Not so much orange and red, lots of yellow. Birch leaves turn yellow, not red or orange, and as I have piles of Birch, Autumn here is more yellow than in Ontario. Still beautiful!

Yesterday's chore- a three rail fence to block off the side path from ATVers and dirt bikers.

I hope you all have a great day! I have an appointment with the Sarcodosis specialist this afternoon. I'm pretty well in constant pain so hopefully she'll be able to help! Fingers crossed!

Hugs and love!

Rail Fence

Hi! Hope everyone is having a great week! Here's some fun stuff I've been doing lately!

My son and I put up a rail fence. I have never put up a rail fence before, but it was pretty easy. I watched a YouTube video. :) It took us about two and a half hours to put up the fence. We have piles and piles and piles of dead fall and downed trees so it took a bit to dig through all the wood to find what we needed.

The fence didn't cost me a penny and was made with very minimal tools. I pushed on the fence and it didn't fall over; I'm not sure how it will stand up to a big storm, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

To make the fence you need:

Wood "Y" pieces (where the branch breaks into two, making a "Y"). We used seven on our fence.

Straight sturdy yet bendable wood branches about two-three feet long. These are to make the "X" that goes over the bottom rail and the top rail rests on. We used 14 (seven "X")

Long thick branches or trees for rails. We used four that were 10-15 feet each.

1. Point the ends on all the Ys and Xs

2. Carefully hammer the Y branches into the ground. These are to set your bottom rail on. Put one in the ground every couple of feet.

3. Put the bottom rail/tree/branch on the Ys. The YS will lift the bottom rail slightly off the ground. 

3. Hammer into the ground the two-three feet long branches so they make a X over the bottom rail. Make one "X" every couple of feet.

4.  Place the top rail/branch/tree on the center of the "X"s. The top rail/branch holds down the X which holds down the bottom rail.

I hope that made sense!

The fence is obviously not to stop the critters! :)

Hurricane Matthew

Good morning Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a nice Thanksgiving. I don''t celebrate Thanksgiving, but had a nice quiet weekend .. until yesterday. Hooo boy! Yesterday was quite the day!

We got hit with the tail end of hurricane Matthew yesterday. I had no internet from about 8am-2pm, and than had no power from 10:54pm-5:30am yesterday/today.

We got about 120mm of rain yesterday, plus 70-100km winds. Storm wise I've seen way bigger, but rain wise, holy cow Nova Scotia! WOW! That was a LOT of rain! Very cool!

Kappa Cove, the pond near the house, totally overflowed. The whole end of Piskie Point is submerged. I almost lost my cement bench to the pond, but thankfully my son moved it in time. The baby ducks had to be rescued and carried to the coop, but the adult ducks spent the day/night on the pond. One of my hens almost fell in the swelling pond, but thankfully I was able to grab her up before she drowned.

There was a pile of trees knocked down last night. We had to remove four trees from across the driveway this morning. I'm sure there are piles of downed trees throughout the forest.

I took a few pics of Kappa Cove yesterday:

Hugs and love!