My life has changed!

Hello, everyone! I apologize for vanishing off the face of the inter-webs for nearly a month. I've been very busy, and I have some exciting news to share! 

When I created my blog, the tagline was "The daily musings of a duck loving pet shop employee embarking upon Farmerhood" While I was driving home the other day, I realized that that tagline no longer applies to me. I'm still a duck-lover, that's never going to change. And I am no longer really embarking upon farmerhood. I moved off the acreage to live in the city with my boyfriend, so apart from my gardening, I'm not much of a farmer. And I am no longer a pet shop employee. My 2 years of employment in the pet shop industry has come to an end, as I have been hired at a Veterinary Hospital. Let me tell you, it's been a rough month, but I am coming around and loving my job. 

So, at the end of April I graduated from my journalism program. I now have a diploma, and it was an awesome feeling to complete my schooling. I was so done with school. Right after graduating I was hell-bent determined on getting a job at a veterinary clinic. 

Me, late April 2015:

Believe it or not, I was hired on the spot at one of the city's most popular 24hr emergency veterinary hospitals. This is a big deal! I was hired as an assistant to the hospital's AHT's and Veterinarians. It is my job to: 

• run lab-work 
• complete lab paperwork and enter results in the system
• maintain the lab equipment  
• write discharge notes and instructions
• trim nails 
• restrain animals
• clean kennels 
• walk dogs 
• bag deceased animals
• make memorial paw prints after a pet dies  
• tend to the patients' IVs
• feed the animals admitted in hospital 
• call in and tend to all strays and wildlife
• manage paperwork create discharge bins
• make and sterilize surgical packs 
• prep animals for surgery
• set up, assist in, and clean the surgical suits 
• and much, much more. 

I am now on rotation work (5 days on, 5 days off) and I work 11 hour shifts. Labs and surgeries prove to have rather steep learning curves, and I've been flooded with so much information.

Me, after learning about all my responsibilities:

I pretty much spent my first shift bagging dead cats, which I found incredibly difficult. I love animals very much, and I get attached to the patients rather easily. I get tremendously sad when I watch animals die, and I find it to be difficult to bag them and bring them to the morgue. 

Me, every time an animal dies:

Me trying to pretend that I didn't see an animal that needs bagging: 

Me, when I actually have to do the bagging:

After I put someone's pet in the freezer I feel like:

On one of my first shifts, I had to bag up a hare and her baby. Both were euthanized in hospital, and I was rather upset as the baby hare was just brand new and healthy. After bagging both up with the most tender care, I carried them downstairs to the morgue. Unfortunately, I forgot the code to get into the morgue, and couldn't get in. I ran back upstairs, and to my complete horror, couldn't find a single co-worker. Everyone was gone. There wast a veterinarian at the computer in triage, but he didn't know the code to the morgue. So I spent close to 15 minutes running around the hospital with dead bunnies in a bag, looking for someone who could help me get into the morgue. Fun stuff right there. I went home and cried that day, actually. 

While it's taking some time for me to get the hang of things, I'm really learning to love my job. I love my scrubs, and I love being with animals all day. Unfortunately, 90% of my patients bite and/or scratch me, and I am covered in cuts and bruises. I love it though. Animals are the best. I sincerely don't mind being covered in fur and having my arms and hands bedazzled with band-aids. I like working the centrifuge and using the refractometer to identify the USG of a urine sample. It's so cool. The only thing that's quite daunting is the amount of lab results I have to manually enter to patient files. On my last shift I had an actual mountain of paperwork. 

When I see stacks of paperwork on my lab desk: 

I'm so stoked with my job, and I feel confident that I am in my career. I'm currently deciding if I want to go to school to become a Vet Tech, or if I'm gonna go balls out and go for the full meal deal: 

DANIE THE DVM.

Gardening is awesome

Hello Everyone!

I've found myself in an emotional crisis over the past week. Currently, gardening (for the first time ever) is my reprieve. In all seriousness, 

gardening is improving my quality of life

I mentioned in my last post that I've started a number of different herbs and vegetables. I also mentioned that I placed a big beautiful butternut squash (BNS for short) close to my BNS seedlings. Y'all thought I was crazy but this morning I awoke to two big beautiful BNS sprouts! The role model squash has been working fabulously! On the topic of butternut squash, my boyfriend doesn't like the BNS shortening. He thinks it sounds like a disease or something else that's quite terrible. 

My current dilemma is the fact that I want to cook the role model squash for dinner tonight. I'm planning on making a butternut squash curried lentil dish. But I don' think I can butcher the role model squash in front of the seedlings! I can't do that! Boyfriend said that if I cook the role model squash, the little seedlings will refuse to grow. 

That's all I have to live for!?  They'll cry, as their little tender green selves witness the massacre of the adult BNS. I'm hoping that they'll be slightly uplifted by the smell of curry and perhaps they'll dream of one day becoming a beautiful, delicious meal. 

Butternut squash seedling has a beautiful golden role model

I've actually become so excited by the potential of having a bountiful garden that I went to Home Depot and purchased more seeds (and 3 strawberry plants). This afternoon I started 4 pumpkins and 4 watermelons in jiffy cups.

Once I get start working the soil outside and prepping the beds, I'll just have to wait till the last frost before I can move my seedlings to the great outdoors. I plan on keeping my terracotta herb garden indoors, but I'll also plant some herbs outside.

Parsley is sprouting like crazy in my indoor garden

If everything goes according to plan and my seeds all behave, I will have a beautiful garden and many vegetables and fruits to eat. I'll be growing: 

-Purple Carrots
-Carrots
-Peas 
-Butternut Squash 
-Sweet Pumpkins 
-Watermelon 
-Strawberries 
-Beets 
-Lettuce 
-Mini Bell Peppers 
-Basil
-Parsley
-Dill 
-Rosemary 

I'm so excited I can't even wait. I plan on sketching out my garden plan tonight, and I've been reading and studying gardening online. I am convinced that I will have an amazing garden, and this hope and excitement is helping me pull through my emotional crisis and my physical pain. Endometriosis won't stop for my garden, but my excitement for my garden is overcoming the endometriosis blues. 

Strawberries, role model squash, and makeshift greenhouses all chilling in my kitchen

Last summer I started this blog to document my transition to farmerhood. I've since moved into the city with my boyfriend, but perhaps I can maintain my farmer status through my vegetable garden. I'm also planning on getting a duckling (or two. or three.) but I'll have to be extra cute to get my boyfriend on board.
 
Ideally I want a mallard duckling, but I think the only way to do that is by egg-napping a duck nest and I'm not terrible enough to do that. 
SO-- if anyone can hook me up with some duck eggs and an incubator I will be SO THANKFUL. Just don't tell my boyfriend. Or my landlord.

I will be happily blogging about my garden through the spring and summer. If all goes according to plan, we will be eating well at the end of the season!

Building the Fence

Hello again, people. 

I'm blogging so much right now because I have oh-so much work to do which means I'm compelled to procrastinate big time. 

This weekend was quite eventful, and I want to share my Saturday with you. 

We're well into autumn here in Southern Alberta and we've been blessed with a gorgeous, long lasting Indian Summer (God feels bad about dumping snow on us in summer). Here at Castle Lakie, we decided to make the most of the beautiful weather. 

My friend and I decided to go out to the local Wolf Dog sanctuary. I'm doing an article on the sanctuary for a news assignment, and my friend, who is my manager at the pet shop, is of course a big time dog lover. So we went on a date and patted some wolf dogs.

making friends

Our visit to the Yamnuska Wolf Dog Sanctuary was actually really educational. For $40 we had a 50 minute long "tour" of the sanctuary. We got to sit in one of the enclosures and watch the wolf dogs, and handed them out some treats. What I liked most about the experience was what I learned. 

When I was a child, I saw this movie called The Never Ending Story. I was utterly horrified with one of the characters, the black werewolf named G'mork, or, "the Creature of Darkness." 

I have nightmares about this motherfucker to this day.

This demonic death wolf has occupied my nightmares since I was 6 or 7 years old. To this day I will occasionally wake up screaming, wrapped in the sheets in a cold sweat because this thing is lurking in my dreams. I'm not even kidding or exaggerating, I find this "G'mork" to be utterly terrifying and it makes me queasy to google pictures of that fucker. 

How 'bout another because I like to torture myself? Oh yeah, he talks.

Right, so because of this thing, I've grown up with this fear of wolves and big black dogs that look like wolves. To me, there is nothing scarier.

Me, every time the Never Ending Story is on TV.

Of course I was happy and excited to see the wolf dogs, but part of me was wary and, I'll admit, a bit scared. However, learning so much about High and low content wolf dogs was really interesting, and getting to pat some of them made it a bit better. 

 

I learned that wolves really don't like dogs- not at all. Breeding is hardly on a wolf's to-do list when they see a dog. However, it happens where people intentionally breed dogs with wolves, thus creating "wolf dogs".  The Low Content Wolf Dogs (more dog than wolf) were friendly and ate treats out of our hands and let us pat them. The High Content Wolf Dogs (more wolf than dog) wouldn't come too close to us, wouldn't eat treats out of our hands, and were skittish and wary when we moved too quick. 

This is Zeus, a high content wolf dog (he was my favorite)

After taking some photos and learning lots about wolf dogs, Steph and I headed back to my place to watch the boys build the fence and pat the horses. 

Boyfriend spent the day with my dad, and they were supposed to be building a fence. We're still pretty new to this whole farmer thing, and our inexperience showed when Dad and Boyfriend tried building a fence together. 

A day of hard work and a couple pegs to show for it.

Dad + boyfriend + tractor + heavy machinery = broken things

"Let's build it going that way."

"Hmm. Looks like we broke the post pounder."

They did actually break the post pounder. I felt so bad for them. 

This was my contribution to the fence.

Both were in a pretty bad mood by the end of the day. I was hoping that they were bonding or something but they were really just breaking heavy machinery and stuff. #Farmerhood

Fuck this I'm going home.

We will revisit this fence problem on a later date. 

-Captain Lakie 

 

Farmerhood

Hello, beautiful people! 

I know it's been so long since I last posted and I apologize! So much has been going on, and that's no excuse to not blog (on the contrary, that's exactly why I should be blogging!) The real reason why I haven't been updating this online diary is because I've been too lazy to upload my iPhone photos. So I've had no pretty pictures to post. And what's a blog without pictures? Boring. That's what that is. 

BUT I have finally forced myself to upload those pictures and here we are. Gather 'round, kids, it's story time.

So a couple weeks ago, in preparation for the colder months, we purchased a whole lot of hay to keep our horses fed over the winter. Now, prior to our hay delivery, I had spent a night in Urgent Care due to uncontrollable pain and persistent vomiting (more on that later). So as you can imagine, I wasn't ready to haul around 60 pound square bales. So instead I enlisted my boys to do the heavy work for me! 

Our dear farmer friend Brad supplied the hay- he grew it himself on his own land and believe you me he's very proud of this. He got the boys to load up the trailer and then drove it over to my place. I sat atop the hundreds of bales and watched the men do their sweaty farmer work and I liked it too much. 

Farmer Brad tossing a bale

Brad and my boyfriend- I told boyfriend that I like him as a farmer *wink*

Among my crew of manly hay-fever struck muscle men were brother (not so muscle-y) and my two long-time friends Joel and Gerrit. They're brothers and we grew up together, and as far as the four of us are concerned, we're all siblings. 

Brad and I are supervising the boys.

My boyfriend and Gerrit are stuffin' hay in the shed.

Gerrit!!! Hold the wall!!!

The boys filled up the hay shed (with some minor difficulties) so the next step was putting the remaining bale in the barn. I was having way too much fun taking pictures of the boys (especially my boyfriend... *wink wink*). I wasn't much help anyways because I was high as a kite and I had a serious case of the giggles.

Dear Boyfriend, you make a hot farmer. Let's investigate this further.

My brother had fun standing on the bales while Brad drove through the paddock.

My cozy barn was filled with hay by the time the sun had sunk over the mountains.

I'm really enjoying my journey into farmerhood, and I love watching my boyfriend take his first few tentative steps along with me. 

I'm really loving this new lifestyle, and I feel like perhaps I'm turning into a real farmer. Why? How? Well the other day at work, this little girl came into the store with her mom. She was so cute, asking questions like "Where are the animals in here?" She was quite upset that my shop doesn't sell live animals and she was continuously asking for different animals. 
"Excuse me, are there any kitties in here?"
"Excuse me again," (she actually said this, it was adorable) "are there any cows in here?" 
Finally she got it that there were no animals in my store, so then she asked: 
"Excuse me, are there any farmers in here?" 
So of course I said: "I'm a farmer!" Well she looked at me long and hard and the look of befuddlement on her face was so cute. She had nothing else to say so she grabbed a bison tendon dog chew and declared that it was her magic wand. Ha!

Cheers!

Castle Lakie and Chicken Dinner

Good evening Liebens!

How is everybody? I'm in a good mood today! I had a really nice relaxing day off. To wrap up the evening I decided to play outside! 

I absolutely love when we get an Indian Summer here in Alberta. Today was one of those most beautiful autumn days... Picture big blue skies, green grass, golden leaves, and all the wonderful smells of autumn. I was sitting on the back deck with my little Clancey, who might I add, made a full recovery. 

I decided that I would love to go ride my horse into the sunset. It was a weird feeling, riding my horse around my own back yard! It was surreal and blissful. I rode my horse up to the living room window 

and giggled as I spied on my mother and brother in the kitchen. My little dog Clancey is very very protective over my family and I, and he wasn't particularly happy that I was perched bareback atop a big horse; far too high off the ground for a little yorkie dog to do any protecting. 

The curious Clancey watches Scooter and I through the window

Off into the sunset we go!

What a beautiful evening. And I can honestly say that this whole Farmerhood adventure is going over quite well! Dinner tonight is roasted chicken with mushroom rice, asparagus, and garden salad. Puppy supper is Merrik's Wingaling with fresh chicken mixed in. Right now I'm relaxing with a glass of wine while dinner cooks. Oh, bliss. 

Welcome home, Ponies!

Good evening beautiful people! How is everyone?

I'm feeling a whole bunch of things right now... Like, I've felt either ends of the spectrum. I had a total of 3 mental breakdowns today, but I also had an amazing and memorable evening. Allow me to elaborate.

My first and dearly beloved hamster, Sunny, is very sick right now. Sunny is my white and golden long haired Syrian hamster. I bought Sunny in 2013 from the pet store I used to work at.

Look at that cute face!!!

Since bringing him home, I've learned that Sunny has chronic respiratory problems, likely athsma. My poor little guy had a weakened immune system and catches my colds. He's sensitive to temperature and humidity, and his athsma flares up when it gets dusty. I love my little "Sun-Buns", and I've been absolutely heart broken since he got sick again. It kills me to see him struggling to breathe and sneezing all the time. He's lost so much weight and his fur is all rumpled. I've been giving him antibiotics, and hand feeding him nutrient and calorie rich foods, like egg, yogurt, spray millet, and lettuce. His condition seems to improve, then it quickly declines and I fear for his little life. Then he'll pick back up again and I feel optimistic. I really hope that he'll pull through. I don't want to have to make the decision to put him down. It's such a heartbreaking thought and it's had me emotionally wrecked all day. 

I had three breakdowns, the first occurring on my way to work. While on the phone with my boyfriend, I just burst into tears and bawled about how much I didn't want to go to work. When I finally did get to work and I saw how much stock came in, I burst into tears again. I looked at the towers of 30LB dog food bags and wept like a child. Later that afternoon Sunny was on my mind and I was scared that he had passed away while I was at work, then what I would have to do if he didn't get better. So I cried and then my nose bled. 

I did get to leave work early, which was fantastic. I stopped by  michael's arts and crafts store, to try to cheer myself up. I love making scrapbooks, and I have this unhealthy addiction to scrapbooking stickers. So I spent some time picking out stickers and I started to feel a bit better. In the meantime, I discovered that my favourite scrapbooks are on buy one get one. I wanted to get the lilac coloured one and a black one soooo bad. But I didn't really want to pay $30 bucks. The struggle. Next I went to homesense and bought a mirror for my makeup vanity. I also sent to Pet Smart and bought this adorable little fleece blankie for Sunny. It's baby blue and so comfy. I figured it would be a cozy little blankie to wrap him up in while he gets his antibiotics and hand feedings. 

Christ almighty! Castle Lakie has the worst internet ever. Like it takes a solid five minutes to send a tweet. I'm trying to look up funny pictures but I can just go ahead and forget about that idea because it'll take a hundred damn years to load. 

Sorry guys, if this post makes no sense whatsoever I apologize. This is me right now: 

I'm in no state to be blogging. OH WELL. 

The highlight of my day was finally moving the horses so Castle Lakie. Scooter and Bella are happy as clams and I can't freakin believe that my horse is in my yard! This is a dream come true! 

To celebrate, I drank a glass of wine while sitting on my horse, Scooter. Then I rode Bella, my mom's horse. What a great evening! 

My pain has been so bad lately. Last night it woke me up and kept me up. The pain was so much I couldn't get up to get some water to take my pills with. So I suffered until I managed to nod off again. Lifting all that heavy dog food at work really isn't doing me any good.  So that brings me to where I am now... In bed, high as a kite, blogging. 

As of right now, the way I'm seeing things, Sunny is alive, Scooter is in my yard, so life is good.

Good night Everyone! 

-CaptainLakie 

Moving in

Good evening, Liebens!

So much exciting news! First and foremost to report is my current living situation. See, for the first time in over 10 years, I've moved! And goodness does it ever feel strange... This new room of mine is gorgeous- it's like a little studio apartment. Sleeping in a new room, a new house, makes me feel as though I'm in a vacation house or something. But seeing my furniture, sleeping in my bed... It's so odd. Pardon me, the last time I moved it was 12 years ago and I was 10 years old. I barely remember the experience. 

I love my new room, and I've been having a blast getting it set up this weekend. There are many things that I love about the new house and my new room. I am particularly excited about my makeshift makeup vanity. 

Ain't it pretty?

My new place makes me feel like royalty so from now on, I shall refer to my house as 
Castle Lakie. 

What I am most excited about is embarking upon Farmerhood. Err... I believe that's the correct term? This new house we've moved into is on an acreage, complete with horse pasture and *drumroll* a barn! This means I can keep my loyal steed, Scooter, in my own goddamn backyard. 

Scooter is my best friend, truly the love of my life. So having him so close by (AKA 10 feet out my back door) it's.... well frankly it's fucking amazing. I CANNOT WAIT to trailer my horses over (this weekend perhaps). I can only begin to imagine the kind of shenanigans we will get up to...

We're the shenanigans type.

Unfortunately, I've been rendered just about useless thanks to my diseased pelvis. My endometriosis has been flaring up really bad these past couple days. Between hauling around 30lb bags of dog food at work and moving boxes around my new house, my pain has been flaring so bad lately and- surprise- I've been bleeding rather heavily. My pain reached a lovely level 9 yesterday, which has made enthusiastically unpacking boxes and building cheap ass Target furniture rather hard. 

For those of you who don't know, a 9 on the pain scale is a big fucking deal. I found this hilarious endometriosis pain chart on the twitter and I think it's worth sharing:

The last time my pain had been this bad, I reached a 10 and fainted and vomited in the back room of my old job at a different pet store. After a 10 hour shift My Beloved took me to the hospital where I was put on a morphine drip. (I was fired from that job the next day which  almost makes that the worst 48 hours in the history of my existence).  

Anyways...

I still don't have internet (I drafted this post on Monday, August 11th) but when I get connected, I promise to share pictures of Castle Lakie. 

Until then, take care and thanks for reading! 

~Captain Lakie