We’re keeping faith though. We must! At some point we WILL see the light at the end of this, seemingly never ending, tunnel!
As we’ve been discovering, even the flat ‘barren’ land in these parts isn’t so ‘barren’ after all!
We’ve been on the prairies one week today! I thought I’d share a little about it now that we’re getting into a bit of a groove.
There’s been one huge downfall in this entire move. Battles we’ve had to deal with concerning ‘big’ companies. I’m only going to share about this here because we’re really beginning to wonder if this is a ‘normal’ thing, or if we’ve just got some kind of fluke bad ‘luck’ going on!
We’ve been building fences since pretty much the day we arrived.
When I say “we”, I can’t truly include “me”, since most of the work has been done by our son Joshua, his friend Steven, and some help from all three of the younger girls.
And I must not forget “The Beast”, who also helped, lots!
We’re so glad the decision was made for Joshua to drive “The Beast” to the prairies with Steven, rather then spending twice the money to have it shipped there. We honestly can’t believe how well it made the trip! And speaking of making the trip, that’s where my title about “other additions” comes in.
I bet you thought I was referring to renovation types of additions.
Our family seems to have this… tendency? habit? I’m not sure what you’d call it, but this knack for adding to our family.
Joshua’s friend Steven just happened to come home to the Island (Vancouver Island, where we just moved from) the weekend my dh arrived to help us move, the same weekend our eldest daughter left for her big move to Ontario to become a nanny for relatives. He popped in for Easter dinner after having been away to work on the oil fields all winter.
Then he stayed around to help me with the packing. And he stayed around to help Graydon (dear hubby) with any work we needed to get done to prepare the property to be a rental. And from there it turned into him making the drive with our son, since we didn’t feel comfortable with Joshua making the drive halfway across the country alone.
And now, today he just finished his first day of work at a full time job for a local electrician my husband met through the church here, so now he’ll be staying.
We thought our family would have one less person at the dinner table with Alesia (dd) in Ontario, and now we’re right back at 7 around the table again.
I think that’s kind of funny.
So, Steven is here until mid summer, when he needs to go back to school. He’s apprenticing as an electrician, and our son Joshua begins his first day at work tomorrow as an apprentice Ag Tech with John Deere. Things are shaping up!
These “boys” have had a very busy first week on the prairies though. Building fences, preparing a chicken coop, pulling old wagon tires out of the slough, a constant fight against beavers, and not to mention all the unpacking, and unpacking, and did I mention unpacking?
The day after we finally arrived on the homestead, 2 days after the boys (we planned it this way just in case Joshua’s “beast” didn’t make the trip), Graydon (dh) had to get right back to work on night shifts. 6pm to 6am. No “honeymoon” period here! Unfortunately! I told dh 4 days in that I was beginning to feel like I moved to the prairies alone. lol Well, with the kids, but no hubby! It’s been so long since we’ve lived together that I was really looking forward to… well… LIVING together!!
We’ve made the best of it though! It’s been a long time since he’s had home cooked meals, so even though dinner has to be served at 4:30 to eat together, I’ve enjoyed cooking some big meals once again and having everyone (well… except our eldest dd) here to enjoy them. Plus our new ‘addition’, Steven.
Prairie… paradise…? Is this really all that we hoped for?
My husband and I made a quick trip to the feed store yesterday to pick up new halters for the horses.
We normally use rope halters, but the horse movers require the horses have regular halters for the trip.
One of our five horses has never been in a trailer before, she was born to us after we rescued her mama when she was about 4.5 months pregnant, although we didn’t know she was pregnant at the time.
So we’re not real sure how all the horses will do with the loading, and the trek halfway across the country!
While we were there our farrier’s daughter happened to be working and I asked her if she could recommend something natural to help with the horses possibly anxiety.
She said yes, she had just the thing. It’s called “chill”.
My husband then proceeded to ask her if his wife (me) could take it too.
Good thing I’ve got a great a great sense of humor!!!
Sad thing is, it was a great question!
Yet, here we are, years later, FINALLY moving and Alesia has moved onto Ontario a week ahead of us, while we’ll be going to Saskatchewan without her.