#2.) I am cooking a free range chicken in the oven whilst we speak. He hasn't got away from me yet. The chicken seems perfectly happy to sit in my 350 degree oven, so I'm guessing his "free range days are over." Ohhhh, I get it, he was allowed to forage for his food and wasn't kept in a barn full of his best friends before they chopped off his head. I still remember when my mom and dad killed chickens in fall..lawdy there was so mucha squawking going on..you would have thought someone was getting murdered. Dad always invited me out to watch them walk around without their heads....I think we had the same sense of humour. "Dad"..that one is going to hit a tree." "No he won't, he's heading for the neighbours." Today, those memories are a little unsettling. And just after they were killed and quit walking around, like chickens with their heads cut off, they would pluck..em. (are you eating?..don't) Then it was time to pluck them in the sink in the kitchen. Stinky Stinky Poo. The last part was to hold them over an open fire and burn of the the rest of the feathers. Damn it I hated that. I might order Pizza...
#3.) If you are still here. I have an issue with road signs. SIL Sheila and I did a road trip to Hippychicks new digs on the farm about two hours from the city in Ridgeville Manitoba. The blind were leading the blind. Before we started, I told her we would be making a left hand turn in a town called St. Malo. We motored on, and on, and on, yakking, and yakking and yakking. Then I casually mentioned that I had not seen a sign indicating St. Malo. OOPsie...she said she had seen it about ten minutes ago..well hells bells that is where we were supposed to turn! So, we turned around and went back where she saw the sign, and it said ST MALO..26kms ahead..arrrrr..jeezzzz
So, we turned around again and kept on going until we figured out where in the hell we were going. Okay, that's not true, we finally did get to St. Malo, and took the by-pass road that didn't lead into town, and then started to second guess ourselves. We didn't have a map or a GPS system, because we don't like knowing where we are going. So, we turned back ONCE MORE, and went into town and stopped at a little Meat Shop to ask for directions. The sign outside said "Butcher Wanted"...Sheila who is totally pissed off at her job in the city decided to ask for directions and fill out an application for the butcher job.
Alrighty, the people who were running this store had just bought it and didn't have a clue where Ridgeville was!! F*k. When we were coming out we pounced on an old man pulling up to the shop, and asked him directions. He said, he was just visiting his son and didn't know. Well, did we just enter the TWILIGHT ZONE? Is there anyone here who REALLY lives here? The ole guy said we should just turn down the next road and go into town and ask someone at the Co-op, they would know. So we drove into the parking lot; I didn't want to have to go into the Co-op and look stupid, so I jumped out of the car and grabbed the first guy getting out his car to go into the store....I think I scared him. I said, "Excuse me, can you give me directions to Ridgeville". He stepped back, and then I got the Twilight Zone feeling...zombie like. But, no, his kids were just trying to get out of the car and sort of pushed him back. But he still looked confused, and then I said we were coming from 59 highway, and were told to turn into St. Malo when we saw the sign (but not go into the town) and then keep on going down that highway. He said you were just on the highway to Ridgeville, you should have not come into town like you were told. Okay... so we aren't roadies just yet, this is our first trip. EXCUSE OUR IGNORANCE.
We get back in the car ..drove a half a mile when we saw the sign that said Ridgeville. Fudge, we kept second guessing ourselves. And we kept on driving, and driving, looking at cows grazing, newly baled hay.. rolling hills, bush, cows grazing, newly baled hay... rolling hills, bush ...and we looked at each other, and asked "when will this lovely scenery ever end and should we phone 911 because we were lost and the cows started to look menacing. Just as we were breathing into paper bags, we came upon a small intersection, and it said Ridgeville 20 kms. Good grief Charlie Brown, we took the bags off of our faces and booted SIL's old beater in that direction.
We could see the grain elevator in the horizon, and we knew a town was close at hand. When we got close enough we could see the grain elevator had not been in operation in about 20 years. TWILIGHT ZONE....... We inched into town. We started down the main drag, and most of the buildings were derilect. Further down, was a lumber supply store, but we couldn't really discern if it was viable, and then down the street was a Community centre "which displayed in large letters" BEER VENDOR"...so we knew someone had to live here...Hippychick!! It's a dying Manitoba small town, the elevators have been relocated and people have moved on. Janis (hippychick) wanted someplace for her retirement and chose this little tiny town of about 30 to do that. Farmers from around the area still come to town, but most go to bigger centres. This is a place where everybody knows you name. Most of the buildings are in disrepair.
So, we finally found her house at the edge of town. It was a gem. It is a modern farm house, with all the charm of the old days within her property. She has done and amazing job of clearing out the yard and adjacent property she bought. She only lives there 3 days a week for now, and will retire in May and live there permanently after that. She is not new to farm life, because she grew up on one and still has the know how to deal with it. She isn't really farming, but it is a homestead without all the amenities of the city.
Okay, I've been talking too much...lets see some pics
Back of the house
Garden and fields up yonder as they say.
I would love to explain all the pics, but blogger won' t let me put text in between them.. I hets you blogger smogger. But its the town, her house and garden... Isn't it grand. She has some guts, and I admire her. We had best meal on Saturday too. She got some smoked ribs from a Hutterite Colony about a mile from her house, and made fresh green bean soup ....just like home.
Mary Lou.. my blogger mentor just explained how to separate the pic's so I will comment on them. A day late, I know.
This is the side yard with vines growing over an arbour...so pretty.
A bridge that goes nowhere, but hey you never know when a flood could occur.
Her Country kitchen, this house is so bright an airy, it feels like home. The cabinets are out of the 50's...with "whatnot" shelves beside the kitchen window, and the hardware on the cabinets still have little press locks on them to open and close them.. too cool.
A picture after our lunch, with friends who dropped in from the city, SIL Sheila, my driver, is in the background and Janis is the blonde on the right.
After some consideration when she bought her property, the town of Ridgeville said if she wanted to buy the property beside her that was over grown and had a old building on it, for a $1.00 .. she did. So now she owns this property too. She has cleaned it all up and it looks great. She just has to wait until someone burns it down, but for now it's a painting waiting to be painted. They used to fix tractors etc in there. I should have taken a picture of the front, and then you would be able to see the old square store frontage with the sign on it.
You can see she has a lot to mow... I suggested getting a goat. This is a pic of a non functioning church across the street. Something about flooding. I don't know where the 10 people in town worship.
This is her Cistern. She doesn't have a well so water has to be trucked in from the guy that owns the hardware store in town. If you look close you will see a happy head ...that covers the cistern. (note to those that don't know what a cistern is...it is a underground water tank for those that don't have water in their town.
I don't know what this is...but it looks happy.
Kohlrabi....and cabbage ... yum
The pic on top of this one is of her greenhouse where a pumpkin seed grew before she even moved in late spring, and it overtook the entire greenhouse...one pumpkin seed!!! Can you see my reflection in the greenhouse window?
More cabbage....the deer ate all her beets! Buggers!
Hippychick and Sheila digging carrots., while I was doing...nothing.
3 comments:
What a trip. This was a really nice blog. You are always such a hoot.
I laughed out loud at your traveling adventures. You can drive there next time with no problems, right? :-)
What a wonderful place she's found for herself! She's going to have so much fun doing it up the way she wants.
Oh My Dad would cut their heads off and throw them at us and they would chase us all over the yard! He was SICK!
as for putting comments between pictures...after you have uploaded all your pictures, you can then go into the post and edit, and you can tell where each pictures code is and then place your curser there and add comments. I leave a double space between the picture and the coment.
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