Well, where to start??? I suppose the beginning will do, which kicked off with an invitation from Sheridan to go to Calgary for September long. My obvious response was 'Hell yes!' but I had to check with Perry to see if we were busy. And of course, the one weekend I want to go away we are working…urrgghh!! So sadly for me I spent the weekend baling instead of partying it up in Calgary. With the only positive I can see from it being the one in my bank balance. So whilst sitting in the tractor Friday night (feeling slightly sorry for myself) I had an awesome idea that brightened my spirits…BEER!! So I have now started packing beers with my lunch to make me feel a little better about baling until all hours of the night.

One of the fields we were in was absolutely HORRENDOUS to bale. There were massive tyre ruts from when it was sprayed in the wet and it was ridiculously rough. To give you an idea of how bad it was in that particular place I baled 85 bales in about 10 hours (and that's probably being generous). I then moved onto another field after that where I did 104 in 5 hours….crazy huh? These have all been fields that other people own but Perry is baling because they don't need to straw. So I guess it's a win-win for everyone.

Now with Dad's visit, let's just say my luck with airports seems to be continuing….or lack there of I should say. Anyway I headed off on Thursday at about 4pm to pick up Dad from the airport. He was arriving at 6:30 and I was pretty sure I was capable of making my way there to collect him without too much fuss. Mum on the other hand was extremely concerned about whether I would make it or not, and Candice tells me she was constantly calling her to check what I was up to. I arrived at the airport and it said on the screens that his flight was delayed, so with little else to do I sat down and waited, and waited, and waited. But he never appeared. When the customs people came out and said there was no-one else to come through I figured he must have missed his plane or something. I tired ringing mum to see if she knew anything but couldn't get onto her. I then rang Candice, who immediately went into her 'airplanes are evil' mode and started freaking out and thinking he had crashed or something. She then went on to tell me not too call Mum 'cos she would panic…yeah right, like I wasn't already dealing with an anxiety attack from her. Anyway I managed to find out through the airline (who initially thought I might me a stalker) that he had been booked onto another flight that would get in at 10:45pm. So I went to a pub for dinner and a few beers while I waited for him to arrive.

I head to the airport at 10:30 and this time his plane is early. Awesome!!...hmmm not quite. Turns out he has missed his flight again and won't get in until 2pm the next day. Very frustrating (for dad more than me I think). I went down the road to a motel but the only rooms they had left were $200. By this time it was 11:30pm and I just wanted to sleep and the back of the van looked good enough to me. Luckily there happened to be a blanket in there as it is starting to get quite cool at night time. The next day was filled in with breakfast at Macca's (where I stole free WiFi) and some shopping before going back to the airport and FINALLY picking up dad. All these delays meant his two day visit was restricted to only 1 day, which kinda sucked. He still managed to see some cows, pick up a load of bales with Perry, help Bob and I fix a fence in the feedlot and go to a hockey game. So overall not too bad for one day I don't think. Obviously more time would have been better, but I think he enjoyed what he got to see as well as talking to Perry about what they do and why.

Life has since continued with more fixing around the yard as well as hauling bales back to the yard. I have now graduated to picking bales, which involves putting them in two rows of 13 and loading them on the truck. It is actually a lot more fun than it sounds, and probably one of the more enjoyable jobs I have done in the tractor. Plenty of visual progress I think! Also there have been a couple of days this past week where there were wind gusts up to 70km/h, so there are defiantly some advantages to sitting in a tractor.

I have once again been negligent in taking my camera with me and regretted it very much one day. I was on my way down to check some cows and had a thought that I should have brought my camera cos I would probably see something interesting. About 5 seconds later I come up over a little hill and there is a moose about 50m in front of me eating in the trees. He didn't hear me coming and I got quite close before he noticed me, which was pretty cool. Even cooler if I had my camera I suppose, but anywho lesson learned for now.

This weekend I spent in Lumsden with the Beechy people. One of the girls turned 25 and they all came out to have drinks/party with her. It was quite a fun weekend, although I managed to completely wipe myself out. The boys had been given some raspberry vodka from someone and it was pretty lethal stuff. Managed to wake up without a hangover though, which was rather convenient. I am now on my way back to Moosomin and am dropping off at one of the grocery stores to by a pumpkin for pumpkin soup. They don't eat pumpkin at all here, which I think is strange, so I am going to show them how good it is!!