Paper is finished

Well it took a week of 11 hour days but I finished my paper yesterday. If anyone wants to know anything at all about saponins, you can come to me. So now that that is done I will regale you all with my birthday BBQ.

Jenn and I went for a delicious pot luck BBQ with the rest of my lab gang down in Cambridge (about an hour south of us). I had a delicious double cheeseburger and tried some interesting salsa that Dr. Lee got from a military biomedical research company (?). It had hints of honey and cocoa. Then came my cake which was adorned with sparklers. It was delicious (we also had a cranberry cheesecake later around the fire). And I got a 8 GB memory stick which I think they knew I needed because my last one died. I had brought my dead one into the lab to look under the microscope to determine if it was a damaged circuit. Anyway the rest of the evening was spent around the fire.

And if that was not enough, Jenn took me out to a apparently famous breakfast spot in Kitchener ("Country Boy") the next day and made me a roast with homemade rolls and pumpkin cheesecake for dinner! So it was a great birthday.

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes.

P.S. - Here is a picture of Jennifer and Cooper trying out the new sleeping bag.

Canada Day Festivities

Jennifer had to work on Canada Day. So I was on my own for the morning's festivities which started off with a rubber duck race. For some reason the duck race took place in a little, stagnant drainage ditch. So we had 100 rubber ducks pretty much not going anywhere until the Drayton fire department fired a hose into the ditch. But alas my ducky got stuck on a reed.

After the race it was off to admire the antique tractors. Yes there were tractors dating back all the way to 1956! Then came the local arm wrestling competition of which I did not partake.

After all that fun I decided to check out the "exhibit" center. There were booths for quilts, vegetables, what to do in a power outage, and my favorite, Alpacas! They are a smaller, friendlier, less ugly version of a llama.

Later that day when Jenn got off work we went down for some BBQ'd burgers and fries and homemade strawberry pie. We were worried the fireworks might not happen as there was some light rain but it was a spectacular display considering the rural surroundings. Unfortunately my pictures don't do them justice. And that was Canada Day in a nutshell.

Oh and I made guacamole that weekend too. Killed our second and last blender while doing so. Apparently the avacadoes weren't quite ripe enough. Wasn't great. C'est la vie.

Another birthday gone by.

Well it has been a month since our last blog post and a lot has happened, so I will start chronologically with one post each day for the next few days so as not to overwhelm you all.

Our trip to the small south-western town of Virden Manitoba to visit the Kilford clan was a lot of fun. We spent most of our time at a cottage on picturesque Oak Lake. The weather didn't cooperate with us the first night, but as the rain poured down it did not dampen our spirits.

The next day the weather improved somewhat and I was introduced to the game golf. But this game had no clubs and the golf balls were tethered together with rope. It is similar to the game of horse shoes and despite being a noob, I actually one a game or two. They told me Oak Lake was shallow but I figured it couldn't be too shallow for a swim. I was wrong. At the deepest part of the designated swimming area, about 30 metres out or so, the water was not even waist high. But it was still quite refreshing.

The next day I was introduced to several dozen Kilford decendants who showed up for grandpa Harry and Grandma Hazel's 60th anniversary. Luckiily Jennifer had made me a family tree beforehand so I wasn't entirely bewildered. The number of gophers at the park almost outnumbered the guests. I had never seen so many in one place. But best of all was the enormous array of delicious food as it was a potluck.

The following morning Jenn and I contributed to breakfast with a very large fruit pizza. I wish we had taken a picture of it as it was a work of art. After breakfast, cousin Carla and her husband Jesse, both arborists, gave us a demonstraion of ascending a tree. Then we all took turns getting in the gear and attempting, albeit poorly, to pull ourselves up using rope leveraging techniques that are not designed for sandals. After that it was off to the golf course where we played a game of best ball and Jennifer, never having actually played a game of ball before actually had the best ball on numerous occasions. That evening I had deep fried turkey for the first time.

Virden itself was a quaint small town. It has a new fancy restaurant that we went for appetizers for and then it was off to the horse races! Rhoda had given us 2 dollars that she instructed to place a bet with on horse number 3. The horse's name: "Roadhouse Rhonda". Thinking it had to be a sign from the horse gambling gods we made a semi-sizeable bet for us (5$) and that lame horse came in second last!. Oh well.

From what I saw of Manitoba it was a beautiful province and I had a great time. So perhaps we'll have to make an appearance for the 61st anniversary too.

Countdown to Virden, Manitoba

Only 9 more days until we leave for Virden for Jenn's grandparent's 60th Anniversary! I'll be able to knock off another province I've been to. It has been a fairly mundane month otherwise.

Jenn had a couple of interviews yesterday that went well. They both have their pros and cons but they are both small animal only so she is still keeping her eye out.

I had a 45 minute presentation I delivered this week to my proposal advisors that went well I think. Other than that I have been fairly busy in the lab trying to develop a new mucous stain, ewwwww. Actually it is interesting research. This is a picture I took of some gut cells that were stained. Mucopolysaccharides are stained red and nuclear material blue.

From the kitchen, I made hummus this past weekend and Jenn made onion rings. Both very delicious. Hummus is a little spicy because Jenn and I confused the chili powder and paprika. Must get around to labelling that bottle as that was not the first time that has happened.

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.