The last ride of the winter

With the March thaws cycling was once again possible , most of the snow has melted , Geese and Robins can be spotted everywhere , and my horses come back from their paddocks covered in mud, all signs to hit the road again !!!!. 
I have managed to get out a few times but nowhere as much as last year and I don't think it's because of any drastic climate issues , no , this year there is just not that huge motivational factor of getting ready to cross the country by bicycle . Instead I have been looking at doing a week long trip in Newfoundland , a mix of cycling, hiking and sightseeing . It is my first choice as I really regret not spending a bit more time there last year , I have looked at europe also but maybe next year. And now that my friend Ed has signed up for yet another crossing of the country ( his third in a row !!!! ) I probably will meet up with him in Tobermory and ride a couple of days with him just to get a taste of touring again. 
But neither trip needs an immense base of training so I can afford to be wimpy for now !! and pick my spots , last Sunday after a couple of missed opportunities I threw caution to the wind and headed out for a invigorating 44 km ride over the hills of King City in +5 degrees , last year I would have considered it a warm day but this year it was chilly ! 

Here I am post ride warming up in my kitchen with a hot cup of coffee that Evelyn made me when she saw me come in , not frozen but definitely chilled !!!

But I should not complain , because as I wright this from in front of the comfy warm fireplace I am watching the snow come down and blanket the farm in white , dam !!!


Today is the pups birthday they are three year old !!!! , I still call them pups as Jack Russell's don't mature till they are about five , now having said that I must also say that oppose to humans where the female of the species matures way before the male , in Jack Russell's it is exactly the opposite !!!!,  Brinx is more tempered , better behaved and less of a risk taker , Montana is an explosive suicide waiting to happen !

The day they arrived home , so cute and manageable then !

Mother Nature plays with us !

Slowly but surely spring is creeping near, this week brought the first Canada Geese in the skies above with their most welcome and enchanted honks, at the same time, today together with warmer weather came a late season snow storm carpeting us once again in white, the gloom of winter lingering . 

Mother nature plays with us, bringing hope for the much desired arrival of spring blossoms, green pastures and dry roads ! but demanding patience and respect of her might, and so we wait knowing that soon, very soon she will release us from her wintery hold so that once again we may play in the sunshine. 

Closure

Today my broken legged horse left, making the long trip down to Kentucky were she will start her new career as a broodmare. With that comes closure to the hardest six months of my working life, not because she was a difficult patient, on the contrary she was one of the best lay-up horse I have ever worked with, but her condition required a lot of extra attention over an extended period of time, this extra workload she brought to the farm was just a little more then what I could handle by myself, that together with being drawn and quartered by the weaning in December which left me with a nagging injury to my ribs and the return of my allergies made for a very long challenging six months. 

Now hopefully thing can return to a more manageable state and I can start enjoying work again. Spring is just around the corner, green grass and warmth and biking!!! My ribs will finally get a rest as my Cuban vacation is back on, sitting in the sun drinking piña coladas should help heal them. And I can forget the last six months ! .

Oliver if well and growing quickly , I have him for one more week and then together with his Mom we will be off to Kentucky , in the meantime here is another picture :

Oliver, Montana and Brinx

Mary Anne , nice hearing from you !!!

Finally a Foal !!!

Monique and Evelyn helping Poebe dry Oliver a few minutes after he was born.

Finally after what seemed like an never ending wait Poebe had her baby , 1.30 AM on the 21st , exactly twelve months from the day she was bred ( a looooooong gestation !!!!!!! ) 

But the wait was worth it as now Oliver has joined the herd .

Oliver attempting to get up for the first time as Mom watches over him

I spent almost the whole night up with Mom and baby grabbing an hour of sleep finally at 5 in the morning , then it was back to work . By the end of the day I was zonked !!!!! and by 7.30 fast asleep in my bed !!!, oh it was soooooo nice to be able to sleep the whole night again !!!

Today I'm feeling much better ( rested ! ) , even managed to go to a spin class this evening !!! .

Here are some pictures of Oliver's adventures from today: 

Brinx checking up on Oliver 

Brinx and Montana waking Oliver up from his nap

A day old and already running outdoors with his Mom

Brinx playing with Oliver 

Life is on hold for the moment

Foaling season has arrived and with it " night watching " which stretches the working day to basically 24 hours minus the little bit of shut eye time I manage to catch here and there. 
At the moment I am waiting on Poebe to foal and she is making me wait !!! , she was due on the 1st of February and still is not quite cooked !!! . So skiing , spinning , romantic Valentine dinners and now very possibly Birthday, are all on hold until after the delivery. 
Equine births are an explosive and quick affair , I would say that 95% of the time everything goes according to plan and there is no need for interference , but when things do go wrong there is a very small window of opportunity to right them and therefore that is why the 24 hour watch on the expecting mothers .  


The event of the week was that I did manage to get out on my 8 hour day off on Saturday and meet up with fellow Tour du Canada veteran  Ed . We where going to meet at the Hunt Pub but at the last minute I realized it did not open for lunch so I did a quick internet search for Pubs in the area and came up with "The Dub Linn Gate Irish Pub " in Vaughan , it suited the purpose as it was somewhat between us and more importantly it offered a large selection of beer on tap !!!!!

We had a great reunion even though there was just two of us ( we are working on getting more fellow riders there next time !! ) , time flew by as we chatted about everything under the sun and yet we did not manage to solve any world problems as we downed two very large pints of  Hoegaardens !!! ( a very nice Belgian wheat beer ) Before I knew it Evelyn was there to pick me up ( my car did not want to start today , that is a whole other story for another day ) to witch I was very grateful for as poor Ed had to walk around Ikea for a while before venturing to drive home !!! 


Also of note this week is that after a six month lay-up Biasca finally got the all clear from the veterinary when the X-rays taken last friday showed her leg sufficiently mended to be able to be turned out and feel the sun on her back once again. 
So yesterday we bandaged up her front legs , filled her up with tranquilizer and put her out , actually she dragged me me all the way to the paddock with me struggling for dear life to hold on to her !!!!, six month of being cooped up equals a very unstable and volatile  thoroughbred !!!!! But everything went well and she now will slowly build up turn out time until she can rejoin some paddock mates and return to normal horse life.

Catch up entry

Ok , I've been a bit slack in keeping up the blog , sorry !!!.

The biggest event that has occurred since the last entry is that I now have been here working at the farm for 20 years !!!, quite amazing for me as I kind of called myself a drifter , I guess I can't do that anymore !!!

I'm doing well , in a much better mental state at the moment !!!, physically still struggling even though I've been busy spinning and skiing !, but this not so young body is a tough one to punch back into shape !!!, and years of horse abuse doesn't help, but I will get there !!!

Bob, Ryan, Evelyn, Mark, Deb, Jake and Mary 

We have been up to the Pefferlaw Forest twice now , both times invited by Bob and feed by Bob !!!! First time was back mid December and we hiked , a great time had by all !!!

Our next visit up was last weekend , this time we brought our skies and on a beautiful sunny winter day we all headed out to the forest again and spent a marvellous afternoon skiing !!! I got some good pointers from Bob and Mark and after a 7 km outing ( during witch we lost and found the dogs ! ) I know I need longer poles and a lot more practicing before I can call myself a cross country skier !!!!

And as usual after following Bob on an "easy outing" , it took me two days to recover !!!! , my legs and groin were sore !!!!

On the bread making front , I think the bread maker has a twisted sense of humour !. My next attempt was a cinnamon raisin loaf , I followed the directions to a T, even putting a bit less flower in to correct the density issue from the first loaf, everything was going just fine until it came time to add the raisins, as per instructions the machine beeped at the appropriate time and I dumped the raisins in and promptly the machine stooped mixing !!! ???? ( %@&%#!!!) . 

I ended up with a very tasty cinnamon loaf with raisins on bottom !!!!

Waiting for the bread to be done.

So I decided to dig out the old bread-maker that has sat in the cupboard since we moved into the house five years ago. After a quick trip into town to buy yeast and shortening I was ready to measure out the ingredients into the baking pan, insert it into the bread maker and press the start bottom , I know the lazy way but at least it will be fresh !!!! I'm making an Italian herbed bread with basil, thyme and marjoram in it , it smells good but I still have to wait another hour before its ready, so I can't tell you how it tastes , no picture either !! I'll let you know in the next post how it turned out.


This was a week of recovering from a nasty cold , I almost didn't make it to work last Sunday and it took all my strength to finish the day, the rest of the week was a slow recovery and that recovery was mainly thanks to all the drugs Evelyn kept pumping into me !!!

And today was the first day back to the exercise regime as I did no skiing or spinning during the week. It snowed most of the morning so there was a thick carpet of fresh snow to break through and boy was that work !!! . We were out for about two hours going around the outer perimeter of the farm, it was fun , I managed to stay on my skis this time !!! and it was Evelyn's turn to take a couple of small tumbles !! 
By the time we got back I was soaked from the inside out with sweat, I'm going to have to learn to dress better !!!
Here are some pictures of our outing  

Out of control on the down hill !!!!

Oops !!!

Puppies to the rescue !!!