Challenge: Squeeze more out of life

The title of this post is a reference to the heightened level of activity in my life for the next little while. It all kicked off this weekend with a corporate event on Saturday afternoon. I had to attend because the two athletes my employer sponsors were making appearances there and, as the golfing one has said, I am the official "handler". The golfer was the first one to show up. He greeted me with a warm hug. The last time I saw him we were sitting on a golf hole for five hours in damp, cold weather. Through some getting to know one another better questioning I discovered that I probably played hide and go seek with him and some other neighbourhood kids when I was 13. Winnipeg is just too freakin' small.

After the event I headed over to Nigel and Susan's house that they were moving into. I had wanted to come out in the morning to help them with the move but the plans got sidetracked by the corporate duties. I was too late to be useful although I did bring a package of hot dogs and buns that the crew ate with relish (well actually I didn't see anyone put relish on their buns but I heard that the food was very much appreciated). Once the crew of parents was gone I sat out on the front porch with Nigel and Susan and drank--get this--a beer. I didn't even hate it. Well, afterward my stomach protested the unusual presence of a carbonated liquid in there, but going down the beer was actually approximating tasty.

On the way home I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up a bag of cauliflower and some other things to make cauliflower soup. It turned out tasty and there is enough to sustain me for a few days.

I retired to bed early so that I could get up early on Sunday for my planned excursion to the country. Today was the first ever Open Farm Day in Manitoba. Organized by the provincial government, a number of farms across the province opened their doors and hearts to the general public. I saw this as a perfect opportunity for a Sunday adventure. I picked out three farms I wanted to visit, plugged the coordinates into my GPS and hit GO!

It was a beautiful drive out. I had the music on, the sun was shining and warm and the trees are all turning colours now. I had one dark thought as I approached my first destination--what a better way to lure an unsuspecting city girl to a remote location where no one will hear her scream. But those thoughts passed quickly as I got out and saw families playing with lambs and a group of ladies hand spinning wool.



The sheep farm I stopped at was fascinating. I got up and close with some merino sheep and couldn't get enough of hearing them bleating.



I watched the farmer shear one of the sheep who didn't seem to mind at all.



I listened to him talk about how he takes care of his animals. What a science. They eat mostly hay and grass, a seemingly simple diet, but if the hay isn't good that year it affects their coats which then affects the quality of the yarns. I could have stayed and listened to him talk for longer but I ducked out and headed for my second destination.

I should note that I had to do some work to plot my route into the GPS device. Farms of course don't have normal addresses, the once I visited were on rural roads that you can't really search for on the GPS so I consulted Google maps based on the directions given in the Open Farm Day booklet, and then found this java script for finding the coordinates of the location.

For the first farm the coordinates were almost right but some directional signage helped me get the right turn off. For the second farm I was way off. I turned where GPS lady told me and headed down a gravel road which eventually turned into a black dirt road. I turned off of that road onto another gravel road, but when GPS lady told me I was to turn right and arrive at my destination, there was no road to turn down, only ditch and fields.





So I retraced my path. As I was driving down the dirt road again I was smiling. I was a girl and her Chevy pick up, cruising through rural Manitoba singing along to Belinda Carlyle on the radio. Sometime's it's fun to be a cliche.



After some sign reading, some highway crossing, some map consulting and turning around, I got back on track. I figured it out myself! I soon arrived at my next stop--a pig farm specializing in natural and humane farming practices.

I toured the barns. Yeah, they didn't smell so sweet. There were pigs of all sizes, from some wee little piglets that had only been born around 10pm the night before, right up to the massive boar. Before I left I bought some pork chops because the farmer promised that his pork tastes nothing like the mass produced stuff you buy in the stores. My mom is always lamenting that her daughters have probably never tasted real pork since the stuff they sell now isn't like what pork was before people started going crazy for super lean meats.




On the way to the main highway from the pork farm I noticed some horses grazing in a pasture. I decided to pull over and go meet them. They were so beautiful. One of them I took a special liking to. She was blonde, like me, blonder even (if horses can be blonde, I don't know what the proper horse term is for a fair-coloured pony. I'm a city girl). She came right up to the fence and even nuzzled my ear. If I was a horse I'd want to be like her.





Driving home I thought about the career path I am on and how I got here. I realized that if I were the person I am now back in high school when I was choosing my path, I don't know that I would have known what I wanted to go into. Maybe I would have gone into something in the faculty of agriculture, or culinary arts, or something in the sciences. I might have even taken some poli-sci or history classes. I have no regrets, but I would love now to have a year that I could spend exploring all my different interests.

Tomorrow is the first day of the 2010 Writers Festival. Remember how much fun I had volunteering last year? I'm doing it again, which will make for a very busy week. Hopefully something blogworthy happens.