Birds!

The Bag Lady has been attempting to take a picture of the birds that visit her feeders and finally managed to get one a) that is reasonably well-focused, and b) in which you can actually SEE the birds. The Bag Lady has numerous pictures where the lighting makes it impossible to see anything other than the shape of said birds. (She also has a few taken mere milliseconds after the birds have flown away.....)

But her persistence has paid off and she finally got a shot of these Evening Grosbeaks and Common Redpolls on her deck under the feeders. (feel free to click on it to enlarge it so you can see them in blurry close-up.)

Pretty, aren't they?

Days are Getting Longer!

The Bag Lady is happy to see that the daylight hours are getting noticeably longer now. Can spring be far away?
Well, yes, actually. Spring doesn't arrive in the Bag Lady's neck of the woods until sometime around the end of March.... err.... April.... umm sometimes not until May.
Sigh.

A Peek at the Past

In keeping with her about-to-commence position as curator of the about-to-commence museum, the Bag Lady has been doing some historical research about the area where she lives. The first settlers arrived in this area early in the last century, but the population was sparse for quite some time due to a difficult river crossing.

The Bag Lady found this passage interesting and thought she would share it with you because it illustrates the hardships faced and the ingenuity employed by our ancestors.


There were no fridges or freezers in those days, so the pork was salted and put down in a big wooden barrel. We often put a chunk of moose meat in the brine as well. We fried some of the meat and put it in crocks or cans and covered it with melted butter or lard.

We were short of jars for canning fruit, so we took the necks off large wine bottles by wrapping a few rounds of string around the bottle, putting coal oil on the string and burning it, then turning the bottle over in cold water. The bottle usually broke off quite even. A little rub with some sand paper made the top smooth. We cooked wild berries quite thick without sugar and filled the bottles. We then took a square of brown paper, dipped it in skim milk and put it well down the sides and across the tops of the hot jars. They sealed good and kept real well. There were lots of bottles left in a shack that was once owned by a Mr. B***

In 1937, we moved to a different location and put the crop and garden in. There was a beautiful garden spot there that would grow anything without danger of frost. We seeded the field by hand, broadcasting the seed from the back of the wagon. We got a good crop of oats.

In 1939, we homesteaded on a different quarter. We camped there for awhile and did some brushing by hand. There was a very small shack on it, so we ate in the shack and slept in a tent. I had no oven to bake bread, so often took it to a neighbour's to bake it. I even baked it in a trench dug in the ground. We never had baker's bread. We often made biscuits or bannock on the campfire. We always had a cow along, so had plenty of milk, cream and butter.


Another woman describes how she and her husband built a log shack with a pole roof, and covered the roof with sod. When it rained, the water (and mud!) would come through, so they would put the tent that they had lived in the previous year over their bed to keep it dry! They would keep moose meat on their roof in the winter to keep the dogs from eating it.

Hope you enjoyed this little peek at the past. The Bag Lady is thinking about making this a regular part of her posts here.

Ch-ch-changes

The Bag Lady was really pleased yesterday afternoon when she went to pick up her mail and discovered a parcel all the way from New York City! Quite some time ago, she won a giveaway on Sagan's "Living Healthy in the Real World" blog. Sagan was giving away the "Flat Belly Diet" cookbook, and the Bag Lady was thrilled to be one of the recipients! The Bag Lady could definitely use some help in that area (can anyone say "apple-shaped"?) The publisher of the book tried more than once to send the book to the Bag Lady via FedEx. Unfortunately, FedEx does not deliver to people who live in rural areas, and returned the book to the publisher, so the Bag Lady gave the publisher the address of her workplace. She waited and waited, and asked pissed off the girls who work at the front desk several times if her parcel had come. She finally decided that it wasn't coming at all, and had resigned herself to that fact. BUT, thanks to the determination of Liz C., who works at the publisher, the Bag Lady now has the book in her hands!! And can hardly wait to try the diet! So thank you, Sagan, and thank you, Liz!

In other news.........

Lots of things have been changing in the Bag Lady's life. Last summer, she was approached by the president of the Museum Society in the community where she lives, who asked her if she would be interested in becoming the curator of the new museum. Her first reaction was one of incredulity, coupled with an immediate desire to say yes! She told him that she would have to think about it, but that she was intrigued by the idea. She has pondered and thought, and discussed it with a variety of people and has finally decided to take the bull by the horns... err.... give it a try. All of which means that she will probably be even scarcer around the blogosphere than she has been recently. But she will still be around occasionally, especially when she has something she absolutely has to share with all of you! (And if she fails miserably at the curator job, she will come whining back like a whipped pup.....)

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

The Rancher has been doing some clearing on the ranch, and took the Bag Lady for a walk on the weekend so she could see what he had done.

It's difficult to grasp the scope of what he's done from these rather poor pictures. It was a cold, cloudy day and there isn't a lot of contrast between the sky and the snowy ground!



This is swampy land at the edge of the existing pasture, but now that it has been cleared it can be sown to grass and give the cows a little more room for grazing.


The Bag Lady has a busy week ahead of her with working, and appointments and meetings, so will likely be scarce around the blogosphere.

I Has a Sad

The last of the Cartwrights has ridden into the sunset.

Timberwolf!

The Rancher was working in the bush yesterday and had a visitor.



He happened to glance out and saw this wolf practically right beside the machine he was operating. The wolf passed by and went on his merry way.

(Hopefully, the Bag Lady got it right this time and everyone can see the picture!)



Later in the day, the wolf returned from his travels, and again passed right by the Rancher's machine. The Rancher grabbed his phone and after a little trial and error and fumbling around due to not being accustomed to taking pictures with his phone managed to capture this image. The Rancher said the wolf was much closer than this, but moved away before he figured out how to take the picture. He even tried to get the wolf to stop by whistling. The wolf looked at him, but had his own agenda and, like celebrities everywhere, ignored the paparazzi and carried on his way.