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2005
Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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We're a little late getting out our
Xmas page this year - but better late than never. Hopefully everyone
had a happy holiday. Ours was for the most part happy but extremely
busy.
We started out January 2005
with snow and ice - not very nice weather. In the midst of the bad
weather, the Township started installing the long awaited speed tables on
Zero Avenue but had to stop because of the snow and low temperatures.
On January 5 we lost our friend Kathy Wilson, a
fellow llama breeder and artist. She
was the person that introduced Shannon to lampwork beads. She will be
missed. The next day there was a car accident right in front of our
house - yet another of the "speed and pass with cars coming" that happened
over and over on the road in front of our house. Then a week later
there was a fatal accident further west on Zero Avenue - our critics quickly
tried to blame it on the speed tables that were being installed on Zero
Avenue, only to find that the accident happened right between them and had
nothing to do with the speed tables.
As the temperatures began to warm up, we had periods of very heavy rain and
some minor flooding.
At the end of January, one of our alpacas aborted a baby girl so we thought
that we had basically lost a year of breeding with her. Little did we know
what would happen later in the summer. More on that below.
Brant was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century as he had to
learn how to work a digital still camera for his job as a location scout.
He received it for Xmas 2004 and he gradually got the hang of it. He
has now mastered the art of digital stitching etc. and even has a website
for location photos -
http://www.brantlocations.com
In Feburary, as Carly and I were going out the door to work, I slipped on
the back stairs and went flying through the air, landing on my right knee on
the concrete deck. That has haunted me ever since, as I've gone
through physio and had xrays, MRI's etc. The outlook isn't great and
it appears to be something that I'll just have to live with from now on.
The spring was very quiet - Brant was very
busy with scouting and I was tied up with FilmFLEX -
http://www.filmflex.ca
In March we celebrated my birthday - we
won't say which one but I'm old. Very old. And every year makes itself
known on a daily basis.
In April the girls celebrated their 23rd birthday - kind of hard to believe
they are that old. Carly was still doing her
CCAE Meloche Monnex
Fellowship
at BCIT and generally enjoying it. Shannon was still at University
College of Fraser Valley working towards her degree and teaching
certificate, while also working as an assistant in the Arts department.
In mid April, Marilyn Ross held her annual Fibrefest at Agriplex in
Abbotsford. Shannon again had a booth there. I came for a day
then had to go to Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters
Convention. As I had never been to Las Vegas before, it was really
interesting.
I went with Gary Johnson and
David Griffiths from work. We had a great time, drank too much, ate
too much, walked to far, and came home exhausted but happy. One of the
highlights of the trip was going to a shooting range and shooting a nine
millimeter handgun. Not sure how that happened.
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Shannon's cat Cry, who had
miraculously returned in 2004 after disappearing for six weeks, was going
downhill slowly. Finally Shannon took him in and had him put down.
He was fifteen years old.
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In May, Mom turned 88 so we went out
for dinner and had a good time. She's actually doing better than she
was last year and continues to improve her walking. We found a wonderful
podietrist who has been able to give her special lifts for her shoes which
have helped alot.
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At the end of May, Carly went to Banff
to the last of the conventions for her Fellowship.
In June our alpaca babies began to be born. Remember the female that
had aborted her cria in January? She
gave birth to a beautiful large baby girl. She had been carrying
twins, and had aborted one and carried the other to term. Chances of
doing that are one in a million. After that the babies started to arrive
very quickly. There are photos of them
here. By the end of June we had six little babies running around.
Brant, his dad and brothers and Ross went up to Ucluelet in June for their
annual fishing trip. They didn't do quite as well this year as last
fish-wise but a good time was had by all.
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| I did a silly thing in June. I
made a deal with an alpaca breeder - he could have twelve of my female
llamas and I would take three of his alpaca males in trade. Only
problem is that he didn't sign the contract before he left here.
Obviously I should have laid down in front of his truck so that he couldn't
leave before he signed, but I trusted his word. Bad idea. Then, still
thinking that we had a deal, I bred that male alpaca to all my female
alpacas. I have now started legal proceedings against him and it's
cost me hundreds of dollars and many many hours of frustrating time. We go
to the first step of the court battle in March. Not a lot of fun.
It looks like this will go on for many more months to come. It has
left a very bad taste in my mouth for the llama and alpaca world. |
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July was and interesting month.
We continued our shearing - often hot, hard work but necessary for the
alpacas and llamas. We celebrated Brant's birthday with a barbeque for
the family and Carly and Shannon invited some friends for a bonfire by the
pond.
Carly went to Europe on her own, on an organized tour. The day after
she left for London, I woke up at 4 am, turned on the TV - and learned that
there had been a bombing. I phoned a friend that has been in London
many times, thinking that London is a big place and it probably didn't take
place anywhere near her hotel. It happened a block away. We
weren't sure where she was, all we could find out was that she had checked
out. Here boyfriend, Darryl Wethersett and I did a lot of phoning.
Some frantic phone calls to London and Europe revealed that she had gotten
onto the tour bus and left about an hour before the bombs went off, and was
on the way to Europe at the time. They were using her hotel in London as a
triage centre. Then ten days later she returned to London - arriving
back the day the second bombs went off. Although she had a great time
in Europe, it kind of cast a pall over her visits to London. We were
very relieved to have her come home. |
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| Also in July we got involved in an
alpaca rescue and brought home some very sick animals. They had been
basically abandoned by the owner and one in particular looked like she
wouldn't survive. With a lot of TLC, force feeding etc.
the alpaca finally recovered and it
doing fine now. |
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| We had our last two babies in July,
bringing our total to 7, with six girls and one boy. There's nothing more
fun than watching a bunch of alpaca babies playing in the late afternoon in
the field. |
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| In August, we got a phone call from
someone that had bought one of our alpaca fibre boys the previous year.
He was the heaviest fibred male on the farm, and the only reason he wasn't
our herdsire was because his mother hadn't been registered, so he couldn't
be. He had the sweetest temperment, and when we sold him in 2004
we had gone and helped the people that bought him, making sure that they
knew what to do with him and the rest of their new herd of 20 odd animals.
Now they said he "wasn't doing well". We went to their farm and were
appalled. It had been very hot for six weeks and none of their animals had
been shorn. When I asked why, he said they "hadn't learned how" yet.
Fozzie, the male
we'd sold them, was round like a ball with fibre. He was dark coloured
and was sitting down propped up against a fence, in the final stages of heat
stroke. We took him home and sheared him without being able to
get him on his feet, then hosed him down for an hour. He is doing
better, but we're still not sure about his long term prognosis as he may
have suffered liver damage. |
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In August, Brant and I went to Seattle
for a few days. We saw a baseball game the first day, which went 14
innings. The next day we went to see Bruce Springsteen. It was a
great concert. Then we came back to Vancouver and a week later saw him
again here.
Later that month we celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary., just a few
days after attending the celebration of Kent and Sherrie's 25th anniversary
at the Capilano Rugby Club.
While we were gone, our remarkable cat Velcro disappeared - we assume eaten
by a coyote. He was a good boy and we miss him.
Shannon's boyfriend, Richard Radford came home from the cruise ships and
spent most of the summer with us. He bought some interesting toys and
we were soon being buzzed by remote controlled helicopters and high speed
remote controlled dune buggies.
In early September I had a farm related accident. I went to push
Carlos' big butt out of the way and heard a sharp popping sound.
Unfortunately the popping sound came from me, not him. I had detached
the tendon in the middle finger of my right hand, creating something called
a "mallet finger". I had to wear a splint for six weeks, which turned
into nine weeks, which turned into twelve weeks. Finally the plastic
surgeon said it really wasn't going to work, so my middle finger now has a
permanent droop and will probably be like that forever. Ouch.
In September I was in charge of the
Langley Township Agricultural Tour - it was a lot of fun. We had about
70 people who went from farm to farm all day, sampling product and meeting
the up and coming farmers. In the evening we went to Aldor Acres where
dinner was served. Everyone appeared to have a good time. After
dinner I fell in love with yet another orange tabby kitten, and Brian
Anderson stuck him in the car with me at the end of the evening. So Muffin
joined us. He's possibly the most laid back cat I've ever seen - in
direct contrast to his predecessor, Velcro. |
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The rest of the fall was very quiet -
I continued working on FilmFLEX and Part Time Studies at BCIT, Brant was
very busy with scouting.
In October Shannon participated in a craft fair in Fort Langley which was
really interesting. It was a gathering of all the major bead makers in
the province. There was a lot of very innovative work there, and
Shannon's stood out. She has since been invited to be a guest artist
for B.C. in a new book on lampwork bead making.
Brant was involved in the Langley Township Film Committee and had several
meetings as they tried to come up with a new policy for filming in Langley.
Despite the howls of protest from our opponents, the speed tables on Zero
Avenue made a huge difference to the traffic here and have been a major
success. Finally the cars were slowing down. There are still
some idiots, but the majority can't be bothered slowing down those few
kilometers per hour to go over the speed tables and so have gone elsewhere.
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| Cats - yes, let's talk about cats.
In 2004 we ended up with a stray cat that gave birth. I had found a
home for her as well, and my mom didn't want her to go. So she stayed.
And got pregnant before we could get her spayed. So this time, when we
gave away all the kittens, Shannon wanted to keep one for her boyfriend
Richard. Only problem was his parents didn't want it at their house,
and Richard was going back to sea. So we ended up with Muk Muk. Then
we found out about cat physiology. She got pregnant the day after she
gave birth to Muk Muk and friends. This time she had them behind a wall in
the barn and it took weeks before we could get them out - all eight of them.
In the meantime, one kitten from the previous year had disappeared so we
kept one of the new kittens, Man Down, as his replacement. A week
later the original one, Draven, reappeared so now we have two black cats.
Then Carly decided she wanted to have a kitten so she kept a cute fuzzy
little one - then decided to move out and couldn't take him with her. So now
we have Pedro. And at that point we finally got Tiffany in and had her
spayed so our kitten production is officially over - thank god! |
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| November was a nasty month weather
wise - we had snow and freezing temperatures. And, like that Joe guy
in L'il Abner, there was no snow to the west of us, no snow to the east of
us - but snow that remained here for several weeks. |
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In December, Carly moved out to a
basement suite in Burnaby, about five blocks from work. Her commute
now takes about five minutes. I stopped by our old house in Burnaby
and took a couple of photos - the people have extended the house out to
encompass our old sundeck and it looks very well cared for.
Carly and I went to Victoria on a BCIT recruitment drive in December, and
had high tea at the Empress Hotel.
In the middle of all that, the sale of my mom's property to a neighbour fell
through. I advertised it on a new service called
http://www.kijiji and was overwhelmed by the
response. We ended up with competing bidders going against each other
and finalized an offer on December 23. A lady in Cranbrook has
purchased the farm and takes possession in February. Our friend Carol
in Creston was very helpful by taking the successful bidder down to see the
farm.
Christmas went well - everyone got lots of neat presents. Mom had a
special wooden plaque made for each of the kids and her sister, based on a
photo of her dad and a pack train in the Rockies. Everyone loved them.
On December 28, Brant and my mom were both here while Shannon and I went to
a movie. At 11 p.m. someone came up our long driveway, past my mom's
place an her car, around the back of our house - and stole our van.
That's the first time in fifteen years that we've had any kind of prowler
trouble here. We've always had a dog until last year when the last of
them died so we are now thinking about getting another one. The van
was recovered several days later but it's very creepy to have someone make
that kind of effort to get onto our property. We have spent a lot of
money on new security features so hopefully we won't have a repeat of that. |
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| We've broken just about every
temperature record out there for December and January. Yesterday it
was 52' F outside which is unheard of here for this time of year. We have
tons of rain also from the Pineapple Express. The flowers are already
starting to grow so hopefully it won't get really cold again before spring
or we may lose some plants. But give the choice between snow or 52' F, I'll
take the heat. |
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| So we made it through to 2005 - Brant,
Mom and I spent a very quiet New Year here. Brant is back scouting
again - it's been so busy in the film industry here - and I'm back at work
at BCIT. Carly and I are going to Las Vegas in mid January to attend
the NATPE convention - I've wanted to go there for twenty years so it's now
or never. Carly has never been to Las Vegas so that should be fun. |
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So that's our story and we're sticking
to it. We made it through, and we hope you all did too. Merry
Xmas and Happy New Year - we'll be back again at the end of 2006!
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