May 23rd Weekend

I finally got a weekend where I was both off and able to enjoy some nice weather!! I had decided that I deserved a little time off so I finished work early Friday afternoon and spent the entire afternoon with Bailey. I went for my first ride of the season which was a little bumpy due to my being out of shape and Bailey being slightly hesitant of what we were doing but we smoothed out enough to have a good time and after wards Bailey got a bath.

Saturday Robbie took me for a tour of the lab where he spends most of his days; It was lab-like, and then we went for lunch at a sketchy looking establishment called the "Fat Cat" which specializes in donairs, gyros, souvlaki and shawarma. We wanted shawarma but ironically they were out so we ended up with some gyros which were very yummy, plus a steal of a deal at 2/$6 (except Robbie forgot to show his student card so we paid $7.90)...Still not bad.

That afternoon we decided to take a spontaneous trip to Elora, which is a small town about 30 minutes from Drayton, to hike around the Elora Gorge Conservation area. There is an actual gorge through which the Grand river runs and there are some nice trails with beautiful scenary. The sun shone all day and there were very few bugs. We are thinking about taking a weekend to do some camping and maybe some tubing down the gorge.
http://www.grandriver.ca/index/document.cfm?Sec=27&Sub1=124&sub2=0

Today was less eventful but still enjoyable. Robbie spent the majority of the day working in the lab and I went for a second ride on Bailey. Robbie has gotten it into his head that it will be fun to dye his hair Dark Brown so I'm going to do it for him but I'm a little scared so I will keep you all posted on how it turns out.

Victoria Day Weekend

We have both been so busy with work/school that we have not been up to much since the last post. My associate had a death in the family but for some unknown reason she didn't think twice about leaving for the ENTIRE week, meaning I have been the only equine vet on duty and that I have been stuck doing the on-call for the past eight days excluding Thursday, which my boss was "nice" enough to cover. To say the least I have been busy and I am hoping that she has the decency to show up on Tuesday.

I am sad to say that I have managed to kill my healthiest tomato plant in an attempt to transplant it into a larger container. Despite our valiant efforts to stabilize the stem which snapped in half, within 20 minutes it was limper than a wet rag, so it does not look too promising that we will be having fresh home grown tomatoes anytime soon. On a brighter note we enjoyed some home grown Swiss chard with dinner tonight and it was delicious. Mom was right though, alot of fresh leaves shrinks significantly once cooked.

While on a walk today we came across a side table that was being given away for free so we now have a new to us table which Cooper appears to enjoy and I have discovered that biking in the wind, up hill, when it is hovering around freezing, is not an enjoyable experience. (The weather has been unusually cool). I have been going to palates class every Thursday, but I am still waiting for my yoga matt to get here in the mail, then I might be motivated to do more exercises at home.

I hope that every one had a great long weekend! I should go save my cinnamon buns before Robbie eats them all!

Chicken soup and canasta

Being the frugal shopper that I am I thought I had found a great deal when I found a large package of chicken for under three dollars. What I found out is that chicken necks and backs have very little meat on them. What meat was on the many-boned carcass was mostly fat and cartilage. So Jenn had the great idea that I should make homemade chicken soup. I decided to make it in the slow cooker and it was delicious with the homemade biscuits Jenn made. Last night our taste buds ventured to South America with a stir fry marinated with a honey/habanero pepper sauce imported from Costa Rica (a saporous, spicy gift from Rhonda Brown ;).

Now I'm going to let Jenn tell you about her weekend emergency surgical adventure. It involved bones, blood, and Butorphenol.

I did feel a little like a super star on the weekend but I guess I should hold off on the gloating until I recheck my patient at the end of the week. A small yearling paint tried to jump over the breast bar while in a trailer and got her legs hung up over a partition. She had a large laceration over her hind cannon bone and after thorough examination had also fractured her medial splint bone (which is vestigial in the horse but would be equivalent to the long bone in our index finger). So with 10 or so onlookers and Robbie as my "technician", I dropped the horse outside on the grass and cut out the broken end of the bone. Then I got creative and borrowed some guys dremel tool and smoothed off the remaining bone and then sewed the leg back up. The horse woke up and got back on her feet and was able to walk back to the barn. I felt just like James Herriot. So now I just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the wound doesn't get infected. I think that Robbie secretly enjoys coming with me on calls.

Robbie again. So apparently James Herriot is some old school vet who is famous for writing many veterinary inspired books.

Destruction, Mayhem, Carnage: Drayton, 2009!

Well we finally have our power restored after a day and a night without it. Sadly the popsicles did not survive. However we are still on a boil order. It was quite the maelstrom. The thunder, lightning and wind hit like a miniature hurricane. Shingles were flying off roofs (and at least one roof blowing off), trees torn from the ground, and a Home Hardware gazebo in ruins. The power conked out mere minutes after the storm began and Hydro One reported that it would not be restored until 12:00 noon tomorrow. Thank goodness for small favors.

In other news Jennifer has a free yoga mat on its way. And all I had to do was eat 5.2 kilograms of yogurt. Free yoga mat = 30$. Eight tubs of yogurt = 32$. Apparently because the receipts I sent in didn't actually say "Astro Zero" yogurt they were not valid. Well I had promised Jennifer the mat so I couldn't turn back now so I bought four more tubs of yogurt and cut out the UPC's to send in. Oh, and did I mention that I had to eat all eight tubs of yogurt because Jennifer had contracted a parasite (cryptosporidium sp.) from one of her barn visits? She is all better now though so she better enjoy her yoga mat.

Hmmm just heard some thunder. I better wrap this up. Last thing I need is an electrical surge killing my computer along with the power.

A Capital Time in the Capital City

Last weekend Robbie and I drove to Ottawa to spend the Easter weekend with Laura, Ian and Mandy. We left Friday morning from Drayton around 930 am and drove the 6 hours to Ottawa arriving around 430. Laura and Ian had a delicious turkey dinner waiting for us and Laura had even baked a pumpkin pie!! Conveniently it turned out that Mandy lives only a few blocks away and was able to join us. The entertainment consisted of us helping to put the dinning room table together as apparently is was much too difficult for 2 engineers. We ended the night by going out for drinks and the Fox and the Feather and crashed at Laura and Ian's.

Saturday we did a walking tour of the grounds of the legislative buildings and down around some of the market area. There was a large but peaceful demonstration going on in front of parliment (which Laura was disappointed at when discovering that it was not a parade) against the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka....lots of flags and lots of shouting. We also went on a tour inside the legislative building which was very impressive and consisted of the "center" block, the library and the peace tower. The architecture was beautiful. Ian met up with us later for lunch at Darcy McGee's and then we all went to the Natural history museum to take in some dino's, mammals, birds and a special exhibit of Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees. Mandy cooked a delicious dinner and we stayed in, drank wine and played Apples to Apples. Laura and Ian were the official champions.



We stayed over at Mandy's that evening as we had to leave very early, 5 am, to drive to Toronto for brunch with Robbie's aunts and other relatives. Brunch was delicious, although I think I was still full from the past 2 days, and then we participated in their tradition outing of bowling. Good thing Robbie and I had been practicing up, we didn't even know there would be bowling, but we were probably the best ones there. Must have been first timers luck.

We were exhausted by the time we got back to Drayton, but we had a wonderful time. Thank you to L, I and M for letting us stay over!!!

Elmira Maple Syrup Festival

Well as the title says, this weekend Elmira was host to the annual Maple Syrup Festival which is apparently a really big deal around these parts. Naturally Jenn and I were in attendance. We left early with visions of stacks of pancakes drizzled with maple syrup in our heads but when we got there the array of food was overwhelming. So instead of pancakes we shared homemade apple fritter, then Jenn decided to have gyro (no surprise) and I started out with a German potato pancake with sour cream and maple syrup. I followed that up with a massive turkey drumstick.


Despite it having been very cold the street was packed with throngs of people bused in from Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph. After eating we joined the crowd to watch the annual pancake flipping contest for which teams had to flip pancakes with everything from tennis rackets to SCUBA flippers (on their feet).


Due to the cold and my being somewhat lethargic from consuming a large quantity of poultry we opted not to go on the sugar bush tour and instead opted to top off our trip with a fruit and whip cream covered funnel cake. And of course we bought a bottle of maple syrup which Jenn used to make maple curried chicken tonight. So we basically had a weekend of gastronomic overindulgence.

Oh and I should mention that my sister, Penny, was on TV square dancing with her students. Yup, square dancing.

Mechanics are thiefs in greasy coveralls.

So I took my car in today to find out why the engine light was on. After "scanning" it all they could tell me is that it is something to do with the exhaust system but it should be nothing to worry about. If I wanted them to fix it, they said it could cost anywhere from 50 to 300$ because there were a number of things it could be. So they basically charged me thirty bucks to tell me they don't have a clue.

But got some good news in the form of a 12, 000$ research grant. Plus my brussels sprout casserole and zesty tomato pork chops were delicious!

Jennifer has become a knitting machine. She would put little Guatemalan sweat shop children to shame.

Cooper is ignoring his recently grown cat grass completely. I tasted it and I must say it lacks much flavor so I don't blame him.

So now you' re caught up.