Waiting unpatiently....................

Today has been a day of waiting.....for the company to come and clean out the septic system and now for the company to come and deliver the dumpster/ bin/ skip..........they couldn't give us a time so I have to wait in until it is delivered as I have to show them where we want it.........it is bigger than the crate that brought all our furniture from Scotland!!!!

I am looking forward to having it here...being able to clear this place out of junk......all the barbed wire will be gone........old machinery from around the acreage........rocks.......fence posts.......the carpet from the garage......who the hell carpets their garage??????????????

So anyway I am bored, tired, grumpy and stuck here waiting for the dumpster to be delievered........tonight I plan to escape for a while :) Yay :) I love being at home when its my choice but if I am 'stuck' at home it feels so different..................

The stress of back to school.......

All I keep hearing lately is about back to school time............and it all seems so stressful.....and yet again I am left wondering how it got this way.......how on earth society sees this as normal......

Worrying about which pre school to choose, what labelled clothes to buy......which supplies to buy....how to find the money for school fees, struggling over before and after school care........planning lunches and morning routines..............

This morning on Global they did a section on back to school wear.....he said that it doesn't have to 'break the bank' and then they showed kids dressed head to toe in Diesel and other labels.......and the cool thing now is to leave the sticky labels on the hats!!!!

What????????????????

They asked the child models if they were looking forward to going back to school...two girls said yes but the one boy looked really sad and said 'no not really' and Lorraine gave him a hug and said 'He REALLY isn't looking forward to it'................that poor boy....still two weeks of dread before the big day.

I don't know.........I'm so glad we are out of the whole 'back to school' circus now...that my children can be children and relax and not stress......that our summer can last as long as the good weather lasts....that we have our trip to look forward to once the school kids are back 'inside' lol! And that we can enjoy the library, museums, pools and parks in peace again with likeminded families :)

We have so many plans to look forward to...so many exciting things to do and try and learn.......all at our own pace, in our own time, with the people we choose to be around........thats what childhood should be about!

Tuesday says goodbye.............

You dump, we pump................

Because we live so far out from the city, we don't have city water or city sewer.......our water comes from a well.....luckily ours is a great well and the stream it hit isn't high in iron or anything......it goes through a filter in the house and is safe for drinking (although we don't) and safe for using in cooking etc etc.......water pressure is good too :) the well works great and when the temperature gets below -20c we just switch on a lightbulb thats down the well and thats enough to keep the pipe down there unfrozen.

For sewage we have a septic system.........this means that all our waste (from toilets, washing machine, bath etc etc.......) goes through pipes into a tank under the ground which is in the woods near our house.................

This tank is concrete I think and has two sections separated by a wall that doesn't quite meet the top........waste goes into one side where it kind of sits until it dissolves into the water and flows over the separating wall bit into the other side of the tank...this watery waste then goes through a pipe that allows the watery stuff to seep out into the soil..................

Needless to say the trees in that part of the woods are very healthy....very fertile soil :)

It doesn't reall smell......occasionally if you walk down at the very bottom of our yard you get a slight whiff of something...............but it isn't foul smelling......................

Every 8 months we have a company come out with their tanker and they suck out the tank of all the main waste that hasn't dissolved in that way and they empty it out.....then I have to flush the toilets and run the taps to get some water into the system again and its all done :)

Simple :)

You have to be careful what you put down the toilet....tissue has to be septic system safe and thats about all you can put down........but we aren't too careful about amounts......and we flush for pee and poo :) some people say if its yellow let it mellow if its brown fluch it down...but I like to flush each time :)

We use a lot of water.....baths, showers, washing machine etc etc.........but thats actually a good thing because it keeps the septic system working well :)

In the pictures above you can see the truck down by the septic system........the area where the system is with its healthy trees, Abigail watching...and also the slogan on the truck that my kids love.........'You Dump - We Pump'..................

I totally recommend this company if you need one in this area.......it was the same man that came last time and he's great...answers all your questions and doesn't look at you as though you are crazy when you ask silly things :) $120.

Elk on the move.............

On the traffic news this morning they said that a herd of Elk was on the move on our road!!!!!! Silly me I didn't realise they were 'wild' around here....................I know they have them in Elk Island Park...we've watched them scoot across the frozen lake to Astotin Island before........and I know they have them in the National Parks in the Rockies but I didn't realise they were just wild around the place................

Kind of cool to think there is a herd so close........................

Unless of course they meant there is an Elk farmer and he was moving his herd but the way they said it, it sounded like the herd was wild and on the move and they weren't sure where to..........

Blah!!!!!

Today is not a good day in this household.....we are all VERY grumpy and tired and irritable..............we were in the centre of a nasty thunder storm last night for several hours (think strobe lighting, loud thunder, high winds, hail and lightening hitting ther field behind our house, the field at the side of our house, behind our neighbour Lori's house at the front of us and also not far to ther left of us either...basically circling us but LUCKILY not us or our land......anyway it was bad enough for us to get the kids from their beds and carry them downstairs........the storm had been with us a for a while before the weather network even mentioned it was happening.............

The wind was so bad that the window grills/ mesh thingies got sucked out!!!!

Laura - the storm was right over us for almost the entire evening and it wasn't until VERY late that it moved away..............I took a couple of pictures through the window but when I saw the lightning hit the field behind my house it spooked me and I was scared to go too near the window lol ......especially when we watched the meshy things from the windows get sucked out and blow across the yard.........................so I have two crappy pictures of sheet lightning that I took before going downstairs!!!!

All I kept thinking was that my lovely little house has no protection!!!! And when we had been having dinner the birds around here were acting crazy which kind of freaked us all out to begin with......so many birds and they were acting bizarre and then they vanished!

One good thing though was that we didn't lose power...didn't lose satelite signal for tv and after a quick phone call this morning my internet access was back up and running :)

Anyway......late night = miserable kids and miserable me.......

Today is my Nephews 5th birthday.......so we phoned and said Happy Birthday and Abigail got to sing over speaker phone while in England they were singing and blowing out the candles on the cake so that was perfect timing!

Then Laurence chats with everyone over there and I can't believe the things he is saying.......that he's done nothing lately...that we never do anything.....that he has to do workbooks (????????????????????)

Makes me kind oif wonder why I bother doing anything with them at all :( I know its because he's tired and its his weird middle child way of getting attention and kind of showing off.....but it hurt. I think we do a lot......even on days at home we make things or play games or do stuff outside.......

His best friends parents work all day then come home and go out with their friends...his friends are on their own all the time........................weekdays and weekends...they never seem to even see their parents......

Anyway.....I know its because he's tired and grumpy and I shouldn't take it personally..........

Bed early tonight.......for ALL of us!