We arrived to a warm greeting from Carol and Pete, who live on the outskirts of Cochrane on their small farm. Good thing the greeting was warm, because the temperatures were bone-shattering cold! In fact, they’d been that way for over a week. Records were broken, teeth chattered, and Lil’ Black froze solid — we had to push him into the garage to bring him back to life.
All this brutal temperature made it nearly impossible for our homeowners to get their RV ready, so it took a few extra days before we said our goodbyes, and finally moved in. When we did, it was very much like coming home — this is the fourth time we’ve looked after their place, afterall.
This odd lifestyle of ours has us visiting new places, and living in different spaces, all the time. But it’s always nice to come back to a place we know and love. Most especially, we love all (OK… most) of the animals here — and there are a lot!
The weather started frigidly cold, but soon see-sawed to unusually warm. With the disappearing snows, we got the covers off all the outdoor critters, and contended with a yard that turned increasingly mucky. Lots of mud, mixed with, well… you know 💩.
The inside zoo was full of all the animals we knew and loved. But one change from previous sits was the birds were both free to roam, AND still had their flight feathers intact. This meant they could fly around the house — which they increasingly did. Jade decided he liked me the most, and while Merlin occasionally ended up near me, he (happily) chose Ann to be his new best buddy.
The birds are much happier being free, which means they are a lot less squawky, which means we are much happier. This is definitely better for everyone. But Merlin insisted on being with Ann almost everywhere she went, including in the kitchen. This made for awkward times while trying to do things, like bending over to reach a pot. I came back from barn duties one morning to find all the animals in a kerfuffle, Ann nowhere to be seen, and blood all over the floor.
Merlin had grabbed a hold of Ann’s nose, leaving torn skin, and a bloodbath in his wake.
Merlin wasn’t trying to hurt Ann — if he had wanted to, he could easily bite right through her nose. He was on her shoulder when she bent over, and started to fall. So he just grabbed the biggest thing he could find 🤥. But after this, and following one more incident where Merlin did the same thing with my ear, we decided to block the kitchen so he couldn’t fly in. But he continued to seek out Ann in the living room whenever she was around.
While the indoor adventures kept us busy, the outdoor critters also needed attention. Carol has gained one extra horse since last we’d been there. So this makes for three horses and two donkeys. In reality, the outdoor animals were easy to manage, even with Tucker’s special food/medicine needs (he was on a special diet). What was less easy was the huge temperature swings, along with a few good snowfalls.
When we first arrived, the temperatures were dropping deep into the -30ºC overnight. Then it warmed up with daytime highs into the mid +teens. Then a it went back down into the deep freeze for a week, then back up. Up, down, up, down... All the while dumping snow quite regularly. Welcome to the new normal of weather in a world of a rapidly changing climate.
One of the joys of being at Pete & Carol’s farm is that we are close to Calgary, and can share our temporary home with family and friends. Happily, we had a few visits from ‘the fam’, with Monique, Phil, baby Olivia, and Granny Donna coming out. This was followed by a visit from Peggy & Phil (Sr.). Later on Peggy & Phil came back, bringing grandkids Vida and Theo with them. Cailan made a trek out to see us, and we even hosted a dinner with nearly the whole extended family showing up. It was great.
The days on the farm take on a certain rhythm. We soon established the pattern of Ann doing the morning Tucker feeding, horse releasing, and barn & area clean-up. She would feed the donkeys more straw if needed. I would then go out to clean up the yard, including the donkey area, and make sure they were well stocked with straw for the day. Then I did all the pooper-dumping onto a pile that grew, and Grew, and GREW! The evening ritual saw me bringing in all the horses in from the outer field, feeding Tucker his special slop, forking more straw for the overnight, and generally rearranging the electric fencing to keep them all close to the barn.
Rinse, and repeat… It gave us plenty of time to spend with the outdoor animals, which was really lovely.
The days moved on and all too soon our home-owners were back, and we had to say goodbye to all the critters. It’s always a bit sad in departing, but it’s very likely we’ll be back … someday. For now, we headed to Calgary for what we’d hoped was a quick stop, but due to a snowstorm, turned into a few-day layover. Somehow, Ann got through it, with a ‘little’ help.
We left Calgary in-between snow storms, and we headed east towards our next home/farm sit in southern Ontario. On the way though, we had to stop in on our friends near Rossport. But more on that in the next post.
