Everything here at Golden Unicorn Farm is coming along fine. The black flies and mosquitoes have arrived; instead of fly swatters we use baseball bats to keep them under control – a bunt only gets them mad, so one has to think about hitting a homerun in order to do any sort of damage to the pesky critters. Since they like to flit around a person’s eyes and mouth, I managed to inhale a few, one of them tickling my tonsils so much, I almost choked. We’re still awaiting the bats, which at one time I thought were a nuisance. However, since little flying insects are delectable morsels to the winged creatures, a highly featured item on their menu, I’ll be applauding their arrival; perhaps spread a few condiments about the yard so the wee pests are tastier for their palates.
"Big" Brother Larry
Although the bats still haven’t flown in, my brother Larry, via Air Canada, flew into Moncton, NB a couple of days ago. He’s from Stirling, Alta and had gone to Buron, Newfoundland to work on a duplex he’d bought about ten years ago; the foundation needed repairing. So you can imagine my excitement when we went to pick him up and he stepped off the plane with his carpentry tools and said, “I’ve come to give you a hand little brother.” I’m the older brother but he’s definitely the big brother and a hard workin’ sheep rancher to boot – if anyone can give me some pointers on how to get this little place built up and operational, it’s Larry.
Besides being a sheep rancher, my big bro was once a lumberjack, so almost as soon as his size 12’s climbed out of our diesel truck, he surveyed the lay of the land, seeing the pasture stretch into the forest and being a man of few words said, “Let’s go find the end of your property line. Our fifty acres at the base of Green Mountain is narrow and long – only about 750’ wide at the turn of a road and about ¾ of a mile in depth. He felt at home in the forest climbing over boulders and wind-blown down trees as I scrambled to keep up with him. Mentioning occasionally, as he pointed to a cluster of tall evergreen trees, “They’re certainly marketable,” I felt a twinge climb up my tail bone and nip me at the base of my neck. I mean, Lenny being Lenny, and Sarah being Sarah, my wife and I didn’t buy this beautiful chunk of property to knock down the trees for money – we’re just attempting to make our place self-sustainable – acquire a few animals, chickens and such, plant us a big garden – hopefully make a few bucks off our talents. After following a blaze through the forest that a surveyor had marked we eventually came to a small tree wearing a bright fluorescent pink ribbon. I told Larry this was as far as I came before and thought this was the end of the property but I was unable to find the surveyor’s metal blue pin that the previous owner had told me about. While I stood next to the tree sporting a pink ribbon, Larry stomped around in the brush for a short time until he found the final blue marker and to celebrate, we knocked back a couple of cold beers and attached the empty bottles to the tree wearing a pink ribbon – like a bear to honey – I won’t have any difficulty finding that marker again.
Unfortunately, except for my brother’s day of arrival, the sun has yet to peek through the clouds – rain, rain and more rain – a cold wind has been howling as well. However, despite the inclement weather we are keeping busy. Larry constructed an eaves trough over the house’s entry way and where the shop door is located – so nice not to have to stand there fumbling with keys while the rain pours off the roof in torrents and down my neck. Although it was mostly a drizzly day yesterday, Sarah and I worked inside. As she went through a load of boxes from our journey out here last year, I began painting the interior of the enclosed porch. We are planning to open this area on Saturday mornining at 9:00am as a small gathering place for the locals to visit over a hot cup of coffee and one of Sarah’s fresh home-baked goodies.
Larry and I were hoping to climb “Heart-Thumper Hill” today and try to dig out some beams a neighbour said I could have for the new barn I’ll soon be constructing. Of course they’re lying at the bottom of the rubble of a huge old barn, which he had bull-dozed and was going to set afire, but since it’s pouring, we’ll just have to content ourselves with some inside work. That’s the thing about having a farm – work is never over – it’s a daily job.
No comments:
Post a Comment