Backwoods Wife

Aquarium!

Okay, I just have to share some photos of our trip to the Vancouver Aquarium.  It was a little bit intense keeping track of seven children, but all eleven of us went in and eleven came out, so I guess we did alright!  There were so many interesting and beautiful creatures to see.  I'm sharing some of the photos over at the Imagine Childhood blog today.  Hop on over and have a look!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whoopers!

Sunday afternoon Dwayne, Dad, the kids, and I went for a hike to the Salt Plains in Wood Buffalo National Park.  We were very excited to see something extremely rare while there - whooping cranes!  We spotted a pair off in the distance.

You could make out the white dots without any additional visual aids, but with binoculars and the mounted binoculars for sightseeing we were able to see much more detail of the birds.  This sighting was a first for Dwayne, the kids, and myself, and a second sighting for Dad I believe.  (For those of you interested in learning more, National Geographic's current issue has an article about whooping cranes.)

We told friends of ours at dinner and now they are going to try to squeeze in a visit after work one day this week in hopes of catching a glimpse of the cranes before they fly to Aransas, Texas for the winter.  I don't have any pictures of the cranes as they were pretty far off in the distance, but here is some of the other wildlife I spotted. ;)

We visited the salt mound down on the flats and tasted the very salty red plants growing alongside Saline Creek.

We were hoping to visit a fresh water spring as well but we didn't bring our rubber boots so we had to pass on that as it involved walking through a marshy area.  Dad tried to find us a way across and wound up with a soaker.  Note to self: always bring rubber boots or an extra pair of shoes to the salt plains (Dad did by the way!).  Between the mud and the water, it's a good idea. 

We missed the fall colour this trip, the Salt Plains are particularly beautiful when the trees are covered in orange and golden leaves.  Next year!

 

I think I just squashed a shrew...

I went outside with the baby a couple of minutes ago to shut one of the windows and check on the outside temperature. I slipped on my leather, shearling-lined moc slippers, one of which I flipped over outside on the back stoop. I went down the steps and around the side of the house to shut the window, and then headed back for the stairs. There was a tiny, dead rodent on one of the steps. I don't think it was there when I went out the door. I'm sure I would have seen it. This leads me to believe that I may have squished it when I walked out the door. Maybe it was hiding under my slipper and I chased it out inadvertently and stepped on it???? I have no idea how it got there. It definitely has not been chewed by anything. We don't have a cat, but our neighbour's cats do visit from time to time. Maybe it was a "gift" from one of them? But it looks more like it was squashed by something or someone. Weird. Now I have a strange mix of feeling bad if I did kill it, and feeling a little grossed out that I may have stepped on it. I should have taken a picture! I've already tossed it out in the woods. It's tiny but I think I can find it. Yup, here it is. You can see how tiny the little rodent is and how it might be hard to tell whether I trampled it or not because of my cushy slippers...this side actually doesn't look as smooshed. That little pointy, white thing near its pointy, little nose is a tooth!

If you want a closer look, click on the photo to enlarge it.

Bunny Heaven

(Hendrik's words in orange.) Almost two weeks ago we lost our bunnies. While we were sleeping one night, our neighbours' dogs managed to tear apart the metal fencing we had around them for their safety. Both rabbits were lost. The smaller of the two, Henry, was definitely a goner. We knew that as soon as we saw the white fur all over the place. We weren't so sure about our big grey bunny Digger though. There was only a tiny bit of grey fur in the enclosure, and that could have been from him shedding. We searching for him and called for him but finding a bunny in the forest is much like finding a needle in a haystack. (We later found out that Digger lived a few days in the wild before the dog found him again. Our neighbour found him about a week after the initial incident and said that he didn't think he had been dead for very long.) Dwayne and I were both pretty upset over the whole issue and Dwayne felt bad because he had built the pen and felt that somehow it was partially his fault. If you saw the dog, you would know that not much but a steel wall would keep this dog from something she really wants. Very friendly but very, very strong - and huge! We had to tell Hendrik that the bunnies were missing. We told him that the bunnies had escaped and that they were lost. "The bunnies got out. I'm going out to look for them." It became evident that we were going to have to tell him much more as he told us he was going to go into the woods and find them. He told us he was going to go into the woods and down the road and look for them. "I am going to walk to town and see some bunnies on the road." (There are bunnies who live along the highway just as you get into town.) The last thing we wanted was him getting lost or struck by a vehicle, so we told him that the bunnies were dead and that they weren't coming back. He seemed to understand this fairly well. (We had a funeral for our family dog last summer and he remembered that.) We picked a whole bunch of colourful pansies and put them in the bunny pen. "This would be a nice place for a picnic Mommy," he told me. Later that day, he still wanted to find the bunnies and wanted to know where they were. We told him they were in bunny heaven. "Let's get in the van and drive to bunny heaven." We tried to explain that you can't drive to bunny heaven, that bunny heaven was up in the sky somewhere. We told him that just like we can't go and see Grandpa Raymer in heaven yet, we can't go to see the bunnies either. "I want to go to heaven. I want to see Grandpa Raymer." We talked about how we will see Grandpa Raymer again someday but that it wasn't time for us to go to heaven just yet. Here are a few things Hendrik said to us that day: "We can't drive to bunny heaven. It's up in the air. I want to go in an airplane and look up there. The stars are in the air. " "I will fly up in the airplane and I will see. I will look and see if I can see Digger and Henry. I will go up in the airplane. The airplane is at the airport right now."

A new home for Digger and Henry

Over the past couple of days Dwayne has been working on an outside pen for Digger and Henry(among many other things!).  Today the boys moved in!  Henry seems to prefer it outside, Digger has been hiding out in the little house.  I'm with Digger, the mosquitoes are THICK today.

Word of Thanks

Yesterday Hendrik and I ran some errands, including picking up an additional mosquito net to install over his bed in the loft.  We had a small one over Riley's crib and then a larger one that we were using to cover our bed and Hendrik's little bed, which we had smooshed against the side of ours.  Now we have one for each bed.  Much easier for keeping the bugs off and out and all of that.  After Dwayne hung his net up for him last night Hendrik happily exclaimed, "Thank you for my nasty mosquito net!" Perhaps I should explain.  The "nasty" adjective is tagged exclusively to the word mosquito.   The mosquito net is actually quite nice, lovely in fact.  Some people might even describe the whole mosquito net-draped look as romantic.  However, around here they are practical first and pretty second.   We have been referring to the mosquitoes as "nasty mosquitoes" because they have been chomping our poor, defenseless little people.  Apparently we must call them that a lot because Hendrik never simply says "mosquito", it is always "nasty mosquito". There has been a lot of gratitude around here for mosquito nets, nasty or otherwise. :)

I spoke way, way, WAY too soon

Oh the mosquitoes.  It's like we're camping.  The other morning I woke up at 4:30a.m.  This may not be out of the ordinary for some people but it certainly is for me.  Just ask Dwayne or my parents or my sisters or practically anyone else who knows me.  Brutal.  Dwayne woke up shortly after me and by 5:15 we decided we might as well get up seeing as we weren't going to be sleeping anyway for all of the buzzing and insect killing.  There were clouds of them in the house. We spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out where they were coming in and filling in any little gaps that we found.  Then we drank a lot of coffee.  Then we waited until nightfall to see if we had improved our situation. Well.  There was slight improvement but still a crazy number of mosquitoes getting into the house.  Today there was more inspection and sealing up around the outside of the house.  Again we have to wait. As I am sitting here typing I am being swarmed.  I think I have found the source.  They seem to be coming in through a small gap above the picture window in the living room.  In log homes you need to leave room above the windows and doors for settling and shrinkage of the logs.  The space is filled with fiberglass insulation and covered with wood trim which seems to be fine in the cold but not enough to keep the mosquitoes out.  Dwayne is spray foaming the outside of the window right now and hopefully we will see a marked improvement. Tonight will tell.  Wish me sweet, mosquito free dreams!

Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, and then a lot fewer mosquitoes

Sunday night and Monday night were awful, awful nights for mosquitoes.  The local populations were in full force and we had a gap somewhere that was allowing a steady stream of the pesky creatures in.  We looked everywhere, secured and re-secured screens on the windows, checked for gaps around the doors, etc, etc.  After 2 nights of killing 3 to 4 DOZEN mosquitoes each evening we finally found our gap.  We had moved the the water lines for the kitchen sink this spring and hadn't sealed over the holes.  The mosquitoes were lurking in the cool, dark crawl space under the house and then easily flying up into the kitchen through the little holes.  Last night Dwayne filled the holes in with spray foam.  ~*~BLISS~*~  We only killed 3 or 4 mosquitoes before going to bed.  Ahhhh........

Creepy Crawlies

Bug season is officially here! In addition to the mosquitoes we now have carpenter ants (some of which are flying as the queens are trying to establish colonies), regular ants, assorted beetles, wasps (regular size and the giant queens flying around again), oodles of spiders big and small, and your staple house flies.

I'm not so much afraid as a bit disgusted. I don't mind seeing them go by but I don't like being surprised by them. There was a big nasty spider in a dish on the shelf the other day that I almost grabbed when retrieving a bowl that was stacked inside said dish. For some reason I took a look back into the dish after grabbing the bowl and saw it hunkered down where the bowl had been. Ew, ew, ew. I thought it was dead at first so I blew on it to make sure. It moved. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Thankfully Dwayne was inside and I made him squish it. I'm not a fan of the squishing. I don't like the feel or the sound if the bug/spider is big enough. I'm more of a catch and release kind of gal.

I don't want the kids to be afraid of bugs and spiders so I try to show repulsion instead of fear when a reaction is necessary! ;)

P.S. Happy Birthday to my bug loathing sister Lindsey!!!

Heralds of Spring

This week we went to what is affectionately known in these parts as "The Snake Pits". It is a favourite picnic spot officially known as "The Salt River Day Use Area" just inside Wood Buffalo National Park. It is a fine example of karst topography and there are lovely hiking trails that range from 700m to 7km. We often picnicked here when I was growing up - winter, spring, summer, and fall. Hopefully our little family will continue with that tradition.




We decided it would be fun to take Dwayne's parents to see the snakes. We had to take advantage of it while the garternsnakes were still at the caves. It's not something you can plan or schedule. The snakes' migration is completely weather dependent and so each year is different.


These little guys are a sure sign that spring has arrived. They venture out as the snow melts and the weather gets into the double digits to sun themselves on the exposed rocks and brown earth. After a week or so of sunning and snuggling up to potential mates they make a several kilometre trip to their summer grounds. I didn't realize garter snakes swam until today. They actually go down a steep cliff, swim across a small river, go up a cliff on the other side, and then slither on down the road to their favourite vacation spot.


After viewing the snakes we had a hot dog roast at the fire pit and the older kids had a great time running around the flat area overlooking the Salt River. We brought a ball along and Hendrik and Riley had great fun chasing it and each other around. Abby had a good nap. :)






While we were there several other families we knew arrived with their little ones to see the snakes. We were lucky enough to be there when one of the park wardens (who was fittingly named Birch) arrived, excited to talk with the kids about the snakes. He picked one up and let the kids touch the snake if they wished. One of the kids asked if the snake had a name. The park warden said he didn't think so. Hendrik piped up, "His name is No Feet." (No Feet is the snake from the "Little Bear" series.)


After several trips up the trail to see the snakes it was time to go home. Hendrik was heartbroken. He did not want to leave the snakes. He sat beside me on the benches by the fire pit sobbing and sobbing. Mid cry he looked up at me with a very serious face and said, "This is no laughing matter," and then resumed crying. Oh my!


The kids were pretty exhausted at the end of the afternoon and we thought that they would likely fall asleep in the van during the first few minutes of the drive home. Wrong! There was a great deal of sadness from Hendrik about not seeing the snakes again that day and some sympathy sounds added by Riley. We stopped at the drug store on our way to Mom and Dad's for supper to pick up diapers and these little guys as a suprise...


Hendrik has named them "No Feet" (from "Little Bear") and "Kaa" (from "The Jungle Book"), respectively. :)