Cover Song

Have you ever heard a song, learned it, sang it for years, then found out that you were singing it wrong?

Isn't that the worst?

That happened to me a lot as a child, I think because children have a small vocabulary and are not used to the grammatical rules, so they just insert words that they recognize for the sounds they don't. e.g. "I've got the peace that passeth understanding down in my heart" translates to "I've got a piece of pasta under sanding down in my heart." Who out there knows what I'm talking about?

Sometimes, when my own kids make these mistakes, I don't want to correct them right away, because it is so cute and fun. Jabin in particular, who has been singing from such a young age, has made many of these fun substitutions. However, most of them have faded from use as he learns the real words.

There are a few phrases that he has clung to, however, despite being told the correct ones. Here are the classic "sounds-alike" lines from Jabin's versions of some old childhood hits:

"The Alphabet Song"
".... Q, R, S,_ T, U, V,_ W, X,_ Y and Z. Now my know my A-B-C's..."

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"
"... how I wonder what you are? Up a up a world so high,..."

"Jesus Loves Me"
"... Yes, Jesus loves me, before the Bible tells me so." (Doesn't make for good rhythm, but it's still true!)

He has also begun composing his own songs. This morning, on the way into town, he ran through his round of traditional favourites (all of the above, plus "Johnny Appleseed"), then started improvising. It went something like this:

(with a lilting tune)

Jabin's Song
I love everyone in the whole world
All the mans and all the moms
And Jude and Noah and Emily
And I love everyone.

At that point, he got distracted by Noah, who was still singing Johnny Appleseed quietly to himself in the backseat.

It is pretty tough to compose with another song in the background.

Happy Tuesday, friends.

With Heavy Heart

When Jude was still a small infant, I was still doing Pampered Chef shows and business fairs quite frequently. While I was attending one of these fairs--Jude in tow--sometime in the spring or summer of 2003, a tragedy happened. Many of the demonstrators had their children running around outside. We were in a small school gym in a rural community in central Alberta--you know, the kind made up of many acreages close together. One of the small kids had been minding their own business, playing, when a medium-sized neighbourhood dog came up, unprovoked, and took a large chunk out of her face.

As I clutched Jude to my chest, I shivered with fear that something like that could happen to the precious baby in my arms. The event cast a pallor over the mood in the gym for the rest of the afternoon.

Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes you wonder if bad things like that could have been prevented. Had that dog been a biter before? Could the owner have prevented that little girl from going through life permanently scarred? I guess I'll never know.

Yesterday, Shiloh had to die.

After pouring as much time and love into him as I could this past winter, he was finally starting to bond to me, as well as the rest of the family--but he was my shadow. Anytime I came out the door, he came running from wherever he was (usually barking at some far-away animal to make sure they didn't even think about coming in his territory) to follow me around the yard. His head was just the perfect height so that he could slobber on my hanging fingers as I walked, asking for affection and attention.

Yes, he still had a long way to go, but all of his flaws seemed to be things that could be worked with--he was still in the habit of chewing on (okay, mostly licking, but it was still a violation of their personal spaces) the cats whenever they were outside, mostly for his own entertainment. (I still don't know why those kittens, who are now nine months old, don't just give the dogs a solid, all-claws-bared swipe at the nose whenever they try that and "tune them in," but maybe they were cowed from too early of an age.) He still got a little aggressive while playing with Koda occasionally, but Koda is now big enough to hold his own, so that wasn't a huge worry. He still got a little too overprotective of his food, snarling and baring his teeth at any animal that looked like they were thinking of sneaking something from his dish.

But he had also learned to come when called. He was staying around home. He managed to go through the whole weekend of wiener-roasting without trying to steal anyone's hot dog (a huge improvement from last summer). His incessant, deep-throated barking kept dangerous wildlife (including the garden-molesting deer) away--and I was getting kind of fond of his singing. ("Your dog would be a singer," commented Jason wryly one evening, as we listened to Shiloh calling back to the coyotes underneath our bay window.) And he was beginning to become loyal to the humans that kept him--namely, us. Even Jason, who has disliked Shiloh since I brought him home last summer, admitted that he was beginning to think that he had the potential to be a good dog.

Unfortunately, this past weekend also revealed a fatal flaw.

He tried to bite one of our male guests. He succeeded in biting Jason (all because he came out of the house with a hat on, therefore looking "strange") through his jeans, actually scratching his leg. The next day, he nipped at the gravel truck driver twice while Jason was standing there talking with him.

There are a lot of faults that you can work with... but if your dog is a biter, you just can't risk that someone's kid will go home with part of their face missing.

Jason borrowed a friend's .22. He took Jude and Shiloh out to the very back of the property, leaving Koda howling on the leash.

Later, with a voice strained from emotion, I asked Jason, "Did Shiloh take long to die?"

"No," he said quietly. After a pause, "You know I didn't want to have to do that, right?"

A tight nod. "I know."

Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes, we need to prevent worse things from happening.

The hard choices are the ones that hurt either way.

April What?!

I have spent most of the weekend in a state of disbelief that not only was there no snow on the ground, but the weather was warm and mild enough to allow us to entertain around our fire pit not one, but both days.

We had originally planned to host the inaugural wiener roast for our fire pit (at least, the first one with guests) on Saturday, inviting the Stanleys, whom we see often, and the Joes, whom we do not see often enough. When it came down to the day, only the Joes were able to attend, and we had a wonderful afternoon visiting with them and learning more about them, getting a start on our base tans and trying not to show concern about all of our children's perfectly normal but somewhat dangerous antics--climbing up on top of the Sea Can, rolling our big inner tube (the kids use to jump on) all over the yard, playing in our piles of clay, sand, and dirt. It was great.

Since they hadn't been able to come on Saturday, we invited the Stanleys over on Sunday afternoon, and also another family that are soon to be our neighbours (they are moving into a house two miles away) that we have been wanting to get to know better--Scott and Krista. They have three kids, including a son who is pretty good friends with Jude, so we are glad to have them living so close to us now. It was another afternoon of getting sun and fresh air and fellowship--wonderful. The kids got even dirtier--so dirty that Scott joked that his kids had to walk behind the truck when they left, because they were too dirty to even ride in the box! (Don't worry, they were in the cab as they pulled out.) I was a little sleepy and dopey, as I had been up early to lead worship team at church that morning, and too much iced tea on Saturday afternoon meant I didn't get to sleep particularly early. That's okay, though--it was good to have a restful, uplifting time with friends.

The bad news from the weekend is that my dinosaur of a camera--a Kodak Easyshare that my mom bought me in 2002--finally died this weekend. The light metre went whacko, and every photo I take is a field of white with hints of shadow here and there. I wouldn't be too upset, if I weren't going on holiday in only two weeks! I was really hoping that my next camera would be a nice SLR, but for now, I'm going to have to go buy some cheapo point-and-shoot. Fortunately, the cost for equal technology to what I had is about and eighth of the cost now! Funny how that happens. (The model was a pretty nice mid-range model for point-and-shoots when I got it. Now, I'm not even sure I would be able buy something as low-mega-pixel as that, even in the kids' camera section!)

So, that's my blurb. I'm really hoping to get into my garden today and start playing in the dirt. (On April what?!) This is something most people do not do around here until the end of May, usually. My chicks are doing fine, growing strong. Jude is on his last week of Phonics, and after this, he will only have to finish up math, plus we will do some review of stuff from our year, but we will essentially be finished school. Now, I'm just working on getting my taxes done (on time!) before I leave on holidays. Even close to on time would be good.

How was your weekend, friends?

Chicks Ahoy!

I got my chick brooder made on Monday. It's not pretty, but it works!

On Wednesday, we went and got our first batch of chicks from local producer Doug Fergusson. There are several little dark Speckladies--Rhode Island Red crossed with Cuckoo Maran (including a rooster--would he be a "Specklad"?)...


...and a few chicks that were (if my memory serves me correctly) crossed between a Light Sussex and a Rhode Island Red. The little rooster chick is all fluffy and golden, just the way you imagine a chick to be...


...and the two little pullets were brown and patterned and pretty.


One of them wasn't doing so good when we picked her up (at four days old), and sadly, didn't live past Thursday morning. However, the other little girl is alive and feisty and doing well! That makes 7 chicks in all, now.


Two of the chicks were already two weeks old, so they are losing their down and getting feathers, and look like porcupines on a bad hair day!

They are so much fun to watch.


Nala thinks so, too.

All the girls are going to be kept as layers when they get older, but since these boys are all relatives (by their daddy) to the girls, their fate is our freezer by fall. We will be going to pick up a couple more chicks in a few weeks of a different cross, and we can keep that rooster for the purposes of the self-renewing flock I am beginning to build.

We will also be getting a bunch of commercial chicks for our meat birds for next winter, and just raising them as we raise the heritage breeds--soy-free. Eventually, I want to build my flock to the point that we can hatch our own chicks in the spring to supply our meat for fall, but that may take up to a couple of years. We'll see--I still have so much to learn!

This last week, I've been cramming my brain full of chick-feeding philosophies. I can't get any soy-free feed here, so I went to the UFA farm supply store, and came home with 25 kg (about 50 lbs.) each of cracked wheat, cracked corn, rolled oats, and oyster shell! Since these chickens will be on pasture for the summer, that oughta last us well into next year! Grit was supplied by the pet food store, and I have been experimenting with what works and doesn't as far as feeding. I'm hoping that my experiments don't result in high mortality rates!

So far, so good, though.

So far, so fun!

So much to do...

Jason had an extra-long weekend this weekend, with both Friday and Monday off. With me still being a bit "under the weather", this has been especially nice.

But, in all honesty, the weather has nothing to do with it. In fact, we have been watching the last remnants of snow melt away from the shadows, and our yard dry up over the weekend. The sun has been inspiring lots of motivation to get started on the umpteen spring projects I've been thinking about all winter. Here is just a smattering from the list I put together for myself for the weekend (just so I would remember them all):

• Build chicken brooder
• Build chicken tractor
• Make garden box covers (to protect against the deer)
• Make a proper compost bin
• Make front room drapes (The sun is back, and already there are days where our living room is a bit unbearable--we need some kind of solar regulation, here!)
• Build clothesline
• Trench phone lines (Looking forward to no more dropped cell calls!)
• Build a permanent chicken coop (for winter)
• Plant garden
• Build porch (This is actually Jason's project exclusively)
  
• Maybe even build a root cellar?

That's besides whatever landscaping and other yard improvement work we can squeeze in.

I just have to remind myself: Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither does the Winters Homestead need to be.

I'm Still Amazed

When I sit and really think about it, I am still amazed at what the God of the universe did, just so He and I could be friends.

Are you amazed, too?

I've Been Everywhere, Man...

visited 19 states (38%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Okay, not quite...

visited 5 states (14.2%)
Create your own visited map of India


visited 5 states (2.22%)
Create your own visited map of The World

... or not even close. But hey, it was kind of fun figuring out how many places I had been!