Ladies Retreat

I am off to a Ladies Retreat 2 hours from home. It is a yearly tradition that a church puts on. Ladies from all over Ontario as well as Quebec and the USA attend. With over 600 ladies it can't help but be a fun filled time.

We will arrive at approximately noon and the first thing on the agenda is Lunch. We will then meet in the auditorium for songs, skits and lectures. Then we will have Supper. After supper we will again meet in the auditorium for more songs, skits and lectures. At the end of the evening we then proceed back to the gym for Bed-Time-Snack.

Day 2 will begin with Breakfast. Then off to the auditorium for more songs, skits and then we will break into smaller groups for more lectures. Once we have completed that part we are back into the gym for Lunch. After lunch we are back to the auditorium for more lectures and departing words.

The day will end at about 2:00pm with a 2 hour trip home. Well, at least that's what it should take. We always end up shopping on the way home and a 2 hour trip turns into 4 0r 5 or even 6 hours. It's fun.

I'm not sure what I enjoy more about the weekend.
Could it be: the great speakers (lady speakers)
the fabulous singing,
the hilarious skits
the excellent food (served by the men of the church)
the good fellowship
the fun shopping on the way home
or just getting away from "it all" for 34 hours.
Not sure which I enjoy most but it is well worth the trip.

Number Seven

This is my seventh post. The number of completion. Does this mean I'm done? Even though I have not been a faithful daily blogger, I sure hope not.

The children had another 4-H meeting this week. Since Princess Weah's calf is just newborn, I think she is only two week old, she gets to name her.

She is a beautiful fawn colour with big brown eyes and long eye lashes. I'm talking about the calf. She is a Jersey.

Princess Weah gets to name her but the name must begin with "E" because her mother and grandmother's names began with the letter E. I suggested Ester but Weah came up with the name Elmo. In a way I hope Weah's suggested name wins out. I guess she gets the pick a weird name gene from me. I have named three of our cats in the past. Their names were Winston, Walter and Norman. We won't find out who wins the name game until the leader (owner) of the calf does a name search to make sure there are presently no other Ester's in the herd.

I'll have to keep you posted on the winner

Candy

Bobby and I just got back from picking out his 4-H calf for the year. She is a beautiful Holstein born in November of 2005, named Candy. She is predominately black with white markings. I can't wait until we can get her to the leaders farm so we can start working with her. She has four months to grow before we have to show her at the local fairs. It should be interesting to see how tall she will be by then. I have a feeling she will be taller than Bobby. It will be interesting.
This is Bobby's first experience with Holstein's. The past two years he has shown Jersey's. So we thought we would give the Holstein breed a try. They are a nicer showing animal, in my opinion. Then again I grew up with Holsteins.
When we start working with Candy I will post a picture of her.

Lazy Saturday

Well it's Saturday afternoon and I feel I have not accomplished much of anything. But I always feel that way when the house is clean. It had to be clean this morning because we had 12 people here for a 4-H meeting.
I think the meeting went well. We went out to the orchard and looked for some bugs, found scab (that's a fungus) and took leaf samples to look at them under the microscope. Unfortunately, we did not find any Leafminer eggs under the scope. I was hoping to. They make a really neat popping sound when squished.
The clubbers then came back into the house and we made pie dough. I put it in the freezer so next month we will make some apple pies.
Unfortunately, I forget to have the kids judge something. I'll have to make a note to myself for next time. In 4-H the members are required to attend a judgeing competition. I think it is great. After all, everything we do in life requires that skill. When you go to the grocery store you judge which apples or lettuce or meat or whatever to purchase. When you buy a new vehicle you have to judge which options are important. When deciding on a spouce you judge which qualities are important. Etc, etc.

I spent the afternoon working on my scrapbooking. So I guess it wasn't a wasted day after all.

Cutting Grass

Dear little Bryan is growing up.
Even though it didn't rain today as forecasted I thought better of cutting the grass while the kids were at school. I knew if I did this I would be in really big trouble when Bryan came home. You see, even though he is only eight years old, he has discovered the joy of cutting the grass with the riding lawn mower. So even though it is now raining and miserable out he is out there enjoying himself immensly.
Oh to be eight again!!

4-H is fun!!

Our older children are involved in 4-H clubs. Sometimes I wonder if they are involved in too many.

This Saturday they have an apple club meeting. I am the leader for this club. Wonder why? Could it be because we have 200 acres of apples....hmmm. This will be our second meeting. The first meeting was a tour of the Norfolk Fruit Growers Association packing facility. It is a huge storage and packing facility where our apples and about 30 other farmers apples go to be stored and packed. It is a co-operative. They pack 1/3 of all Ontarios apples and ship apples all over the world. Our largest customer is England.

For our second meeting the kids will be collecting spur samples from the apple trees. Spurs are the first blossoms and leaves that come out in the spring. We will then look at these under the microscope for the eggs of the Tentiform Leafminer. They are an indirect apple pest that are scouted for at this time of the year. The Tentiform Leafminer is an indirect pest because when the egg hatches the larvae tunnels into the leaf and first feeds on the sap in the leaf. As they grow they then feed on the inner tissue of the leaf. This damage reduces the amount of photosynthesis that occurs and thus can result in smaller fruit size. The kids should find this very interesting. It's neat just to look under the microscope at anything.

Tomorrow night Bobby and Princess Weaha have a 4-H pumpkin meeting. Everything they do will be pumpkin. For the achievement they have to enter something pumpkin in the Caledonia Fair.

In two weeks they have conflicting meetings. They have a Llama and calf club meeting on the same night. We'll probably opt to go to the calf club meeting. It is closer to home.

And so the fun begins.

Teets

At supper tonight the usual question was asked...."what did you do today, mom?"
My reply was that I counted pigs and after lunch I counted teets. My youngest, Bryan, asked ever so innocently..."what are teets?" I responded that they were the things that baby pigs got milk out of.
My oldest, Bobby, then asked how many teets a pig was required to have. I then proceeded to tell them that a pig needed a minimum 12 teets to get a tag. But sometimes a pig did have less than 12 teets but she could not be sold to a customer. My husband, in his infinite wisdom, said that pigs with less than 12 teets were boys. To which I replied that this was not the case because after all he had teets.
Bryan (the innocent one) looked at daddy and asked...."can you feed baby pigs?"
That was the end of the conversation...... :)