Fountain Valley Beaver Dams

On Friday Hubby and I took a couple of trips up to the beaver dams in Fountain Valley.  Every year on a continual basis we have to rip sections of the dams apart or the Ranch seriously lacks for water.  If there’s an abundance of water it’s fine but when there’s a water shortage the beavers do not like to share and keep building dams that get much too wide.  We find draining off some of their water helps down here quite a bit.

We go to Fountain Valley Tree Farms which is on private property and we have permission from the owner.

A beaver lodge.

Digging out one of the many dams.

It doesn’t take long and the water quickly subsides.

It was a tad breezy while we were there.

We managed to get one beaver.

The beaver tail.

The topside of the beaver’s back foot.

The ponds the beavers have created have increased quite a bit since last year.

Hubby with a pulaski.

Mikey holding the beaver.

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Fountain Valley Trip

Last Saturday my cousin-in-law Gloria and I headed up to Fountain Lake.  We stopped along the way at Cinquefoil Lake and took some pictures of the Trumpeter Swans.  Cinquefoil Lake is where the Ranch gets its water during the summer months.  The cows also range up here for a spell.

Hubby and I travelled back up to Cinquefoil the next day because I was wanting to get closer to the swans.  As luck would have it they were much closer and I zoomed in to get some pretty good shots of them.

I always thought they were snow geese even though Gloria said they were trumpeter swans (but she’s a Yankie and I always bug her that she says weird things) mind you she says the same to me about my Canadian upbringing. LOL  Anyhoo I did a quick search on Google and found out she’s right, I’m wrong, sorry Gloria. :)  The Trumpeter swans have black beaks and their beaks are much longer than the snow geese.

Gloria and I stopped at the small campground near the end of Fountain Lake.  That’s ice you see because it’s freezing up there and I was so glad I wore my coat and gumboots, yes occasionally I even wear my rubbers off the Ranch!

Gloria standing on the shore.

Fountain Lake is quite a beautiful place and many people come up to ice fish in the winter as well as camp in the summertime.

The water is crystal clear even though the bottom looks kinda yucky.

A few pictures from when Hubby and I drove up on Sunday.

A bulrush (or it’s a cattail) along the shore of Cinquefoil Lake.

An long ago abandoned building with snow still in the trees.

Closer to home and looking up through the trees.

Hog Feed

Last Tuesday I took a quick trip to Kamloops to pick up a mini bulk bag of hog feed.  In the truck Hubby put a tarp, tie down strap, and a bit of baler twine “just in case it rained.”  And RAIN it did!  But as I stood in the box of the truck holding onto the tie down strap, with the howling wind and stinging rain pelting my face I wondered “how on earth does this thing work?”  Actually those weren’t quite the words I was thinking but I really can’t post my exact sentiments here on my family friendly blog.

I tossed the neatly gathered strap on the floor of the pickup box and settled on the baler twine.  Having no knife, I weaved it in and out of the grommets of the flying helplessly in the wind (matching my hair) tarp, tying it alongside the truck rack where I thought it would be secure.  Okay… everything tied down… I’m back in the truck and on my way, I’ve got just over an hour left to drive and then I’m home.

About 20 minutes later I’m watching in my rear view mirror as the tarp twists and turns beating the sides of the pick up box, darnit!  I pull over at Venables Valley Road, a small turnout where three weeks ago Hubby had just finished working.  Climbing up into the back of the truck I see the tarp has lost all it’s grommets and they are now floating freely up and down the baler twine.  One side of the vinyl tarp has pretty much turned into what I would consider shredded wheat and there isn’t much strength left to it.

I again grab the tie down and try as I might I cannot figure the darn thing out!  Why does my Hubby assume I know these things?  When I get home I should hand him a ball of wool and a pair of knitting needles and say “knit me up a sweater.”

Standing there I’m thinking what the heck can I do to get this tarp to stay over the top of the hog feed?  I decide to search the glove box and find a roll of black electrical tape, and the bonus was finding a small pocket knife that I could use to cut the baler twine.  I wrap the tarp with the tape, cut the baler twine, tie everywhere I can with most of the grommets missing on one side, add some more tape, and hope that will do, besides the rain was starting to die down.

The “Farmer” look.  In my next life I’m going to drive a Corvette!

Things are not looking good here.

Now ya’ll think this is where I’m supposed to say “It worked!” but unfortunately it did not and when I pulled into the driveway the tarp was lying in the back, or I should say a piece of the tarp was lying in the back, God only knows where the rest of it was?  So the reason for this blog post?  Well I’d like to apologize to anyone travelling Highway #1 between Venables and Lytton and also Highway 12 who was subjected to seeing any of my flying tarp, or heaven forbid, it didn’t end up across their windshield! :)

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And the snow melts!

Wow, one day of heavy snow and the next day it melts so fast I’m thinking “Did it really snow?”

This was an accident involving a local Highway 12 resident on the day it snowed, previously we had nothing, nada, not a lick of snow, and haven’t had any for over a month.  That’s Hubby heading over the bank to make sure no one was in the vehicle… there wasn’t.

A RCMP officer from Lytton came up shortly after we arrived to check things out.

Then yesterday everything warmed up and all that snow had to melt… and it melted fast!  It was running off the rooftops of every building on the ranch.

The above pics were snapped right beside the chicken coop.  The chickens seemed to drag their butts sticking around their house most of the day until the snow was gone.

But at least they kept laying eggs!

This year’s Pigs

On Wednesday we unloaded the six new pigs.  They had been sleeping in the stock trailer for three nights because Hubby was out of town working and we needed the pig pen finished before we could put them in.

Their bedding area is pretty much finished, other than it needs a bit of cover on one side.  Their pen is large logs placed together because Hubby said there’s no way he’s building a new fence… seems to work okay and there is no way, no friggin’ way, I’m gonna be chasing pigs all over this ranch like I did last year so it better work!

Pops backs the trailer in and Hubby opens the door.  You can see they’re roaring to go. ;)

Coaxing them from behind they are pretty hesitate to leave the comforts of the trailer.

With a surprised look Teddy comes to check things out.  (When I went to check on the pigs the next morning Teddy was sleeping very close by… he sure does take to the pigs well.)

With much more coaxing, and very loud squealing, two of the pigs are out… but then one decides he’s having nothing to do with this and he heads back in!

After getting a bit forceful and closing the trailer door they have no choice but to check out their new surroundings.

While the kids and I keep the pigs at bay, Hubby puts the last log in place.

Sammy, our banty rooster, is chased by Goofy and hops up on one of the logs.

He quickly scoots across the pen with one of the pigs hot on his trail.

Deciding this isn’t the place for him he leaps out of there in a quick hurry.

In the morning I check on the pigs to see if they like their new bed.

All seem pretty comfortable.

One of the reasons we got these pigs so cheap is that most of them have hernias… and one has a rather large one between it’s legs.  The pigs don’t seem bothered by it at all and run and frolic all over the place.  The hernias will not affect the meat in any way so we really couldn’t pass this deal up because two of them are almost ready to butcher.

Another Bake Sale

On Tuesday the May Day Princesses had another bake sale but unlike last time when Sydney called me the morning of the bake sale, I had lots of time to whip up Peanut Butter cups, Chocolate Cracker Bars, and Microwave Fudge.  This time they didn’t sell out, I think mostly because lack of people.  They should have scheduled the sale for when the Paralympics Torch run came through earlier in the day, because by 3 o’clock most people had left.  The leftovers were saved for the dance later that night but I’m not sure yet how it went.

Mrs. Adams, Sydney, and Savannah outside the Lytton Hotel.

Something different for this bake sale was that Robin’s Grandma had brought in sushi.  Okay I broke down and bought some because in all my 44 years I’ve never tried it… and now I know why…. it wasn’t for me, blech.  Wednesday morning Grandma popped over and I gave it to her, she quite enjoyed it.

Jump!

This weeks assignment over at DPS is “Jump.”  Yesterday Sydney and I headed out to the horse pasture and I snapped a few pics… but I’m not happy with any of them.  I waited until around 4 o’clock when I knew the sun would be in the right spot but things just didn’t work out. 

Here’s Sydney jumping from one of the fences.  The sky is way blown out and Sydney looks like she’s jumping “up” rather than down… and do her feet really look like they are in the air? 

Sydney threw some sticks for Blue but do you know how hard it is to photograph a jumping Blue Heeler dog??  This shot was about the best I could do.  He sort of looks like he’s walking on his back legs and I think it’s because he just doesn’t jump near as high as he used to… most likely because he’s packed on a whole lotta weight since he was neutered!

So now we’re on the hunt for a “jump” shot… and I don’t have a clue what to do.  Anyone want to throw out a few suggestions?  If all else fails I will go with one of the above shots so please feel free to comment on which one and the most votes wins. :)

UPDATE:

Dallas dropped in for a quick visit today so I got her on the trampoline and took a few pics.  I’m liking this picture! :)