No Vacancy

After a long day foraging for food, 13 chicks rest every night with their Mama.




Quarters are getting quite cramped but the nursery is full with Granny and her 5, almost grown, chicks.




"Hey Lady, can you build a bigger box for us?"




Finally settled in... "zzzzzzz..."



For more pictures visit my flickr site.

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A boy and his hat

This afternoon, while out searching for the perfect "Window" shot, Jevan and I spot the horses across the field.  He quickly begs "Mama, Mama, can I run over and see Cinnamon?"

"Sure go ahead" I reply.

Off he runs as quickly as he can.  Within seconds his hat, actually Dallas' old cowboy hat, is spinning off his head and heading for the ground.



He screeches to a halt and places his hat as tightly as he can, there's tons of poop on the field and he doesn't want it to end up green.



With both hands holding it down he darts off again.



Things appear to stay put and he's almost made it over to the horses.



Bliss for a boy... hat on head, horses at hand :)



Back in the barn corral I see one of the white horses standing by the old maple tree.  It's amazing this old tree is still growing but it hangs on year after year.  I think this shot looks like something out of a fantasy book and Sydney said I should clone a horn on the horse so it looks like a unicorn... I think I'll leave that up to the imagination.




As I was saying earlier Jevan and I were looking for the perfect "Window" shot.  That's this weeks assignment over at DPS "try to make a window appear interesting."  Did you know that trying to photograph a still six year old is impossible?  Yup you might as well try brain surgery because you'd have better luck.  I took a few shots of Jevan and most were blurry or he is looking pretty uninterested.

Take this one for instance:



Oh the excitement screams from his face ;) I'd show you the others but who wants to see blurry pics?

I'm getting frustrated and losing patience... hey I never said I was the perfect Mother :)  But then my highly photogenic loves her picture taken and will do whatever I want daughter comes along.  If you only have sons I feel for ya 'cause daughters always try to please their mother's no matter what.... well until they hit the age of 14 and then they don't get their brains back until they're about 25... really.

So where was I?  Oh yeah, looking for that perfect Window shot.  Scouring the ranch I find a window intact, a rare thing!  Ooooo the excitement, lol.  I tell Sydney to stand in the window, look out, snap about 10 pictures, and I have, what I think, is a great shot.  Yup thank goodness for daughters :)




For more pictures visit my flickr site.
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You know it's cold....

Brrrrr.... it's getting colder out there!  I took these pics after dropping the kids off at the bus this morning.









Pops still has the pipes on the fields and every morning for the last few it's been like this.  Another sure sign of winter is the cows coming home and there's quite a few in already.

Other news:  Dally is having another baby!  Yes I'm shaking my head too :)  She is due in May so her kids will be 17 months apart... she sure didn't take after me :)  Between Dallas and Jevan there's 19 years with Sydney in between.  If you asked me having two kids in diapers at the same time is a scary thing... I hope she has fun LOL!

Yesterday I whipped down to Abbotsford to pick up Aunty Helen, but this time instead of being by myself Grandma tagged along.  Hubby is working about an hour out of Hope so I stopped in at his motel and dropped off a parcel for him.  Unfortunately our schedules are different and I didn't get to see him but he'll be home on Friday.  It was a beautiful drive down with the sun shining all the way there and back.

My kitchen counter is coming along nicely and I have running water at my new sink... yaaaaa!  Such little things get me excited but asked any woman what it's like to have no running water, heck no kitchen sink, all weekend and see how she feels ;)  A few more days and I think Tom will be finished... well as finished as things can be for this house :)

One last picture today...  As always the dogs jump in with me every morning to head up to the bus (the bus is no longer coming down the driveway), the ride is so short I don't know why they bother but I guess it's faithfulness.  Anyway here's Doolittle waiting in the back of the truck for me.


To see more pics at my flickr site click any picture.
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Connected Classroom

On Wednesday night, Sydney, Jevan, and I attended a meeting at Lytton Elementary School.  The meeting was all about the "Connected Classroom" and it was really interesting.  LES has joined Ashcroft and Lillooet in a partnership to tie the classrooms together using software and broadband.

While we were there all three classrooms were connected and we were introduced on the big screen.  Top left: Aschroft, top right: Lytton (the three of us are in the bottom right corner), and bottom left: Cayoosh (Lillooet).



Miss Downs, principal of Ashcroft Elementary, spoke in length about the technology and I can see this leading to great things.  Although the picture was a bit pixilated the quality of the live streaming was actually quite good.  Mrs Haller, Sydney's teacher, told us the only other place that is currently doing this is in Quebec so it's a real honour that Lytton was chosen.  The kids designed a banner and Sydney described the meanings to the other classrooms while we were there.



Sydney was also issued a laptop and was proud to show me :)  My oh my, times have changed since I was in school!



Another interesting thing was the "Smart Board."  You can use your finger or a pen and draw right on it.  Eventually I believe the smart boards will be connected to the other classrooms so each class can see what students are writing.


Technology has certainly hit Lytton School and it's great that Sydney is right in the thick of it.  :)
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