Camera woes

 Ahh... the last pictures of my cameras life.... At least it's one to put a smile on your face :)

Well... the lens is shot on the camera. As expected that takes 6 + weeks to send away, repair, send back, etc. And quite a bit of money. 6 weeks without a good camera isn't going to work.... We have other cameras but only the two old Kodak easy share cameras that are terrible for animal pictures because you have to be perfectly still for it to not blur- and there is a delay in between pictures.... and then we have our big professional cameras and lens which are for travel... we lost our "in between" camera.

So Kevin ordered a new Canon G12 - which we'll get in a week... His son will bring it up with him on Sunday. In the meantime, we'll still send the G10 away to get fixed, but I'll only have to deal with the little Kodak for a week. So while there is suffering, it could be worse. Kevin said this morning, me not having my camera, is like him not having his tractor - it's an important part of daily life here! Before the blog - we used these Kodak cameras everyday however... and they went on two trips to Alaska, so although the technology is old I guess the cameras have been pretty good to us. One is pretty much dead so the one I'm using is alright but it eats batteries... We are talking two a day. I'm still a little heartbroken over my G10 but I'm excited to get the new camera too and be able to play with it next week...

Brie

Buckwheat (in full rut)... pretty hunky huh?

Lambie

Horace with his mouth full... as usual

who's hiding in the bushes?

Basswood (see his heart?) and Mini Nut cleaning up leaves

Bulrush

It was beautiful again today, so Kevin worked on the Argo, which is also broken. Anyone who lives on a farm knows that when there is real work to be done, everything breaks down. Otherwise everything runs fine - it's just when 100 things are about to happen and you need everything working, that you end up with troubles. Murphy's law. 

I tried to drive the Argo yesterday and couldn't get it turn - an Argo drives like a tank, it's got two levers instead of a steering wheel, so it's a little more difficult and I haven't driven it much on grass - only on snow, so I thought it was me, but it was fighting me hard. I switched places with Kevin and I drove the tractor and he took the Argo... I was happily driving along our bush trail when he came flying back in the Argo (he was ahead of me) and said it was done... it was going to quit. So he came back to get the mule.  We need it this coming week... this weekend marks the major start of wood gathering, no more little stuff, we need to get in major logs and loads to get ourselves ahead... So hopefully we'll get it fixed.

We use between 3-4 full cords of wood for the house... which isn't bad, we heat entirely with wood and keep the house at about 80 degrees in the wintertime... I'm not kidding either, come visit, and make sure you wear layers. We keep this house warm enough the Prairie dogs think it's summer and the Kakarikis feel like they are at home in New Zealand. 

We usually have a cord and a half in reserve also, already split, in case one of us gets sick, we get a bad storm, or something stops us from cutting wood. We used up our reserve last winter because I was laid up all winter, we didn't get half the wood cutting done we usually do. We also need at least 1 cord for maple syrup, so we'll split around 6 full cords. We never finish our wood splitting in the fall - we just get ready and get a supply so we are not pressed, we split all winter because we need something to do, and it gets us outside working even if we don't want to. Imagine how lazy you'd get if you didn't have to work in the bush in the winter? Plus winter is the best time to be in the bush.

 Tomorrow we have company coming over, our cousin is bringing his daughter who is visiting from Sweden  with her little boy. The little guy is lactose intolerant, so I had to make some cookies he'd be able to enjoy. How could I not have cookies for the little guy? I may be a lot of things, but I am not heartless! 

So I made a batch of peanut butter banana cookies for him. I was just about to head to the basement and start digging out my vegan cookbooks - I have one specifically on baking, when I decided to taste one of the cookies (to be honest they didn't look up to par) and it was actually quite good. They have less sugar, so they are a little less sweet, but still sweet enough, and the banana is actually really nice in these cookies. 

I then made a batch of good old molasses cookies for my kid.

I also learned a very dangerous thing today. I found out that in about 20 minutes you can have homemade caramels. And good ones. They tasted good to me. A little too good actually. You can find the recipe here. Just be warned, if you like caramels you probably shouldn't have this kind of information handy. Thankfully for me, I can't handle too much of a good thing. They are adorable though, hand wrapped as gifts. I love this idea for Christmas. How cute are these?

I played around with the Kodak a bit this evening and got this picture of Douglas and I shaking hands...

And one of Norman looking like a goof...

And then the batteries died again... all I can say is, I'm glad we have a large supply of batteries here and rechargeable ones too.