OLD LEONARDO'S FARM - E-I-E-I-OOOOOOOOO - OUR ROOSTER SINGING HIS HEART OUT

          It's Monday and the weather is being cooperative - it's supposed to be rainy today and it's rainy - everything is sopping wet.  I don't believe we've had more than 3 days in a row that was sunny this summer  - but rain - no problem; I don't know why I bothered with the rain barrels, our well was never threatened of going dry.  The moisture was so dense in the deep grass that the frogs outnumbered the grasshoppers - had to be careful where you stepped.  Guess I'll have to rethink my plans about harvesting the apple tree today - looks like a day to finish off tidying up the garage after all the building that took place during the summer and then clean the stove pipe and reattach it to the chimney - won't be much longer before the air-tight wood stove will be crackling regularly.  I take a lot of delight in sitting near the air-tight, listening to the fire as it feasts on the wood and watching the flames dance erotically amidst the smoky atmosphere.
          I just heard one of the roosters crowing and rather than sounding as if someone had took a sharp knife and slit his throat, he actually had quite a harmonious sound - with all those hens constantly adoring him, he probably thinks he's an upcoming rock star - he's definitely not a rapper - no, closer to a tenor singing his own personal aria inundated with the melodious clucking of his harem - Bach's Barnyard in D Minor comes to mind.  The chickens are probably wondering why I haven't let them out yet but I'm keeping them inside the coop a little longer now, not because the daylight is getting shorter every day but because I would like them to lay their eggs first - a few of them before I blocked off the bottom of the barn were laying them under there and I don't need them to start laying their eggs somewhere in the pasture - lots of deep grass and bushes nearby.

 Before and After Photos of the Attached barn - Glenn McLean's Barn Recycled

           I'm hardly a carpenter but I have to give myself a wee pat on the back for a job well done, that is if we don't get a huge dump of snow this soon to be arriving winter and it collapses.  I'm a little concerned about that because the rafters are only true 2"x2", spaced every 2'.  However that being said, since I built a fairly good sized feed room inside the barn, almost all of the rafters have been braced.  The door in the back leads to the chicken coop, which is perhaps a touch too small.

         Most of the building in the barn is over except for a small manger, apparently Freya doesn't like to eat anything she steps on and for the life of me I can't imagine why, especially since she was lapping up the paint out of the bucket and licking it off the boards as I painted them.  I've also caught her nibbling on my shirt and my pants, so I have a little difficulty understanding why she won't eat any hay that she's stood on.  I could understand her behaviour if she soiled the hay with urine or poop but when it's not really ruined - oh well, that's a goat for you.  I've noticed she hasn't been bothering Luki (her protector) too much lately and I think that's because the dog has learned to gobble up his food right away, not taking his time nibbling on it any more.  I wouldn't be surprised once the temperature dips well below zero, when I enter the barn, she isn't all snuggled up to the dog - he has an extremely thick coat.

          I had an article published about our costly road trip last year, when we moved from Nanaimo, Vancouver Island to Fosterville in a magazine called Our Canada.  A number of years have passed by since

I'd had an article published in a magazine, so I have to say it felt pretty good.  I'd like to get some of my short stories and children's stories published too, but I'm not very good at going about finding a publisher and maybe in this day and age of the computer, having Ebooks and Audio Books might be a way to go about it.  If anyone out there that reads this blog has any personal experiences acquiring a publisher, I would really like to hear from you.

          The photos in the article, which are pictured here are of "Buddy", our big old diesel truck.  The largest photo was taken during one of his several and I might add costly break-downs and the smaller one is when he tangled with a semi just outside of Thunder Bay.  The crazy driver in the big rig tried passing Buddy when we were making a left hand turn off the highway and then blamed me for the accident when it was Sarah who was driving.  We had a pretty good laugh when he tried explaining to the cops I was driving because I don't know how to drive an automobile - only ever had a license to drive motorcycles.  And there's a couple of good reasons why I never learned how to drive a car, the first one being, when I was a lot younger, I was a teeny-weeny bit wild and the second reason is because I can fall asleep in a heart beat.  As hard as this is to believe I actually fell asleep while driving my motorcycle down the highway, luckily, when the wheels hit the loose gravel on the side of the road, I woke up in time before a serious accident would have occurred.  I can't imagine what the passing motorists thought as they drove by my bike parked on the side of the road and saw me curled up in the ditch fast asleep wearing my rain gear; it was raining pretty hard that day.

          I can hear a couple of hens clucking away, they must be thinking about laying some eggs, doing their job, which reminds me, it's best that I start doing something a little more productive around here too.  (If you would like to read the article just click on it to magnify the photo.) - cheers - eh!