Back to civilization!

Hello everyone! 

I am happy to report that I survived my trip to the Albertan wilderness! I am now warm and showered, tucked away in my bed with my little yorkie dog by my side. 

My three day trip in yellowhead county was really cool. Cool, like, it was cold. But it was also really awesome. We're getting a gorgeous Indian Summer here in Alberta, which I love. It's the 11th of October today and it got to be 20 degrees Celsius in the mountains. What!? That's incredible.
I mean the weather was all over the place. We had frost, some rain, sunshine... typical for the Rocky Mountains. 

we get pretty sunrises and shit

So I went on this 3 day trip to do some documentation for a huge class project. While I will not disclose the angle I'm taking on my article online just yet, I will be happy to share some pictures from my trip!

Now, it's important to note that my guide owns a family owned outfitting company that usually takes large groups on these mountain tours. He was extremely nice and took just me out when the season was technically over. I though this would be perfect and fantastic because I'm essentially allergic to humans. Realistically this meant that dinners with the guide and his wife were super awkward. Like super quiet awkward silence. The sounds of clinking utensils on plates was deafening. 

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning!

Day 1:  Wednesday, October 8

I got up at 5:00 am to drive 6 hours to Brule, Alberta, where my outfitter is based. My drive was uneventful and absolutely beautiful. I am convinced that I live in the most beautiful province in the world.The Rocky Mountains are breathtaking. I started my drive in the dark, and drove through the mountains as the sun rose. It was absolutely stellar. When I was in Jasper, I caught a glimpse of an enormous elk buck laying in a thicket. About an hour or so later, I slowed down to look at another large buck, this one walking along the side of the road. 

The Canadian version of having an amazing rack

I am absolutely kicking myself for not stopping my damn car, getting out, and actually taking a good picture. Realistically, this was a cool opportunity. It's not every day you get to see an elk (or wapiti, if I'm going to be correct here) with such a gorgeous, full rack. 

Random fun fact: in the UK, "elk" is what they call moose. 

Here in the great white north, we call our Wapiti, elk. Because we like to make things complicated for the tourists. 

Really, though. Wapiti is the correct term for these critters. They're super cool. What's even cooler is the sound they make, called "bugling". 




When I arrived at the ranch, I met my guides. After eating lunch in their house, signing a waiver form, it was time for me to pay for the trip. The guide's wife was kinda funny about it, and was like, "do you have your wallet with you? You'll be paying with visa, right? If you give me your card now I'll just run it through online." This trip literally broke the bank for me, but who actually wants people to know that they're super poor? So I told her to wait one moment, I would go out and grab my card. When I handed her my visa I was like:

After the money part was taken care of we loaded the horses into the trailer and started the first leg of our journey. Lucky for me, the guide's wife had a little Australian shepherd dog named "Tri." I prefer canine company to human company, so I was perfectly happy to have this little thing sitting in the back seat with me.

she was my best friend during the trip

We hauled the horses up north a bit, then our adventure began. On the trip we took 4 horses with us. All 4 of them were Percheron crosses, all mares. My guide rode Belle, his wife was on her horse Fashion, I rode Moon, and the pack horse's name is Taeo. We rode for about 4 hours on a relatively steep incline, deep into the bush. 

I am a weathered rider, but believe you me my ass was damn sore at the end of that ride. The western saddles we rode in were well used and hard. I'm not accustomed to western saddles, as I usually ride bareback.

The view was absolutely gorgeous, and it was cold outside. I really enjoyed the whole thing, to be honest. 

my view up the mountain

at the base of the mountain there were lots of aspen thickets and saplings

my favorite photo from the trip, this pretty much sums it all up.

our view of the valley as we climbed up the mountain

When we got to the cabins, I was tired (a full day of traveling, first by car then on horseback!) and I was well ready to get into bed. It was freezing up there...! The cabins were in a small clearing in the forest, completely inaccessible by truck. I was under the impression that the cabins were unheated, so I pretty much fell over when my guide said that he would "get me fired up," (meaning of course light the heater in my cabin). 

there seems to be a horse standing outside my window.

this is where I lived for 3 days

  

Small cabin, but I had about 40 roommates. Not even kidding or exaggerating. I literally had about 40 fucking flies in there with me. I didn't even know flies existed in October. The cabin was freezing when we arrived, but after the heater had been turned on, suddenly the whole damn room was filled with the deafening BZZZBZZZZBZZZ of 40 flies just waking up from their winter slumber. I hate flies. I'm utterly terrified of bees, so anything that makes a buzzing sound is scary to me and I don't like it. I initially started smacking flies with the readers digest magazine that was on my windowsill, but I didn't like being that close to those creepy little fuckers while I kill them I have an irrational fear of them touching me.. seriously. So I ran over to the main cabin where the guide and his wife were staying, and I asked them if they had a fly swatter. They pointed to where it was. I snatched that thing up, now armed and prepared to commit massive fly murder. I wasn't able to kill all of them, as these things just kinda came out of no where and multiplied of something. So I had to deal with those stupid, filthy, shit mongering assholes for the entire trip.

Day 2:  Thursday, October 9

Day 2 was my favorite day out of the whole trip. After breakfast, the guide took just me for a ride. Oddly enough, when it was just he and I and the dog, he chatted quite a bit more than he did when his wife was present. We rode well up the mountain on Thursday, and we had the most gorgeous weather. See, I love autumn for a number of reasons. First of all, I love the colors and the smells. I also love how you get a mix of different conditions. The morning was cold and grey, and it was almost eerie when we walked out horses through the fallen leaves and ventured out into the grey mist. By afternoon, the sky was bright clear blue and it was hot out, like 20 degrees Celsius.

my guide and his horse, Belle. We stopped to fix a barbed wire fence at the beginning of our ride.

The ride up the mountain was gorgeous and peaceful. We saw a chickadee (one of my most favorite animals ever) and a pair of grouse. Unfortunately that was all we saw for wildlife the entire trip (more on that later). I was chipper and excited day 2, so I took a lot of pictures.

"Magnificent Moon"

Failed attempt at a selfie.

We stopped for lunch on "paradise ridge," a gorgeous spot over looking the surrounding mountain range, Wilmore Park and the valley below. 

Belle grazing on our lunch break.

my guide, Tom, and half of Moon's head.

my lunch buddy. I pulled her onto my lap to help keep me warm.

The view from paradise ridge

The ride down the mountain was actually my favorite part of the Day 2 ride. We did a bit of the descent through the forest. The horses took their time picking their way down the rocky path, and I was very impressed with how clever they were about where they stepped. Belle seemed to be better at her job, as she didn't trip and did it at a good speed. Moon, however, was about as clumsy as I am (she full on wiped out twice) and she had two speeds: slow and slower. 

At one point, it got so steep that we had to dismount and lead the horses down the narrow winding slope. Allow me to share the photos that ensued.

Moon says: "I don't wanna."

Tom and Belle leading the way

Moon: "maybe if I hide behind this tree she won't see me"

Bell's bum

Moon: "are you @#$%ing serious right now"

Moon: "excuse me but I'm a princess."

Moon: "If I must..."

Belle is such a good girl.

Tom thinks I'm weird...

Even the cowboy and his Belle stumbled a bit down this path

Of course I wiped out pretty hard.

me: "MOON MOVE YOUR ASS." Moon: "NO."

Yay we made it!

Of course my endometriosis acted up a bit on the trip, and I experienced quite a bit of pain on our way down the path. When my body experiences too much pain, I just kinda vomit. So of course we're like, 10 minutes into our descent and I just started shaking and threw up the lunch that I just ate... I wasn't too happy about that. But walking down the slope was a blast (by walking down the slope I mean falling down the slope and dragging Moon down along with me). I was happy when we got to the forest below and mounted back up for the rest of our ride. We lost a lot of altitude and it was hot in the aspen forest. I didn't have to wear my toque and winter jacket, so I felt nice and light.

POV on my magnificent Moon

Riding through the sunshine

Dinner that night was super awkward. Although, there was cheesecake for dessert so I was stoked about that. But there was hardly a dinner conversation so I was happy to take my pain killers and visit with the animals.

Taeo is such a pretty girl!

Little Tri, nicknamed "Piglet" was my best friend on that trip.

Day 3:  Friday, October 10

The last day was all about riding back out to our starting point. No scenic route, no tour, just get on your horse and take the shortcut back to the truck and trailer.  Poor Taeo had a heavy load on the way down, as the guides were closing down for the season and had some stuff to take back. 

Taeo knows what's coming...

I'm getting Moon all ready to go

Taeo taking a drink in the creek

I love it

I'm not the type of person to get homesick. On the contrary, I love travel and adventure and I love flying from the seat of my pants. I believe that's how that expression goes. However, this trip was so awkward that when we got back to the ranch I was dismissed rather quickly and I wasn't inclined to stay long. I got into my car and got the hell out of dodge. The drive through the mountains was gorgeous of course! I wish I could just travel forever, always. No work no school, just travel.

It's Adventure Time!

What time is it? 

Adventure Time!

What's adventure time?

It's the best time!

Readers I am officially 7 hours away from my trip! THIS IS SO EXCITING! I leave at 5:00 am tomorrow morning for North West Alberta. I have a 7-hour drive ahead of me, and I'm feeling pretty nervous excited. I love road trips... when I'm asleep in the backseat. I'm not big on distance driving and the longest drive I've ever done was a 3 hour road trip to our mountain house. So this should be interesting, to say the least. 

me when I try to follow a map.

Essentially I will be away on a 3 day long pack trip. A guide is taking me into the wilderness, on horseback. I'm doing this trip for a year long project, like I explained in my almost adventure time post. The whole point is to get the most gorgeous striking photos of the Canadian wilds for my online magazine, which celebrates southern Alberta's pet and equine community. I figured a horseback trip would be a great spread and also perhaps an excuse to get away from everything for a few days. Plus, I'm seriously hoping that we'll see lots of wild life on this trip. Alberta is home to all sorts of amazing critters, including but not limited to: grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, moose, cougars, wapiti, and... wild horses. 

I can't even tell you how amazing it would be to see wild horses on this trip. However, I don't want to express how much I want this because, you know, Murphy's Law. 

Speaking of Murphy's Law..... wanna guess what happened to me today? 

I woke up feeling like I had the flu/had been hit by a truck. This can only mean one thing... 

achy joints... feverish body aches... bad pelvic pain... cramping... nausea.... 

 I got my fucking period.

Really? Really??? For those of you that don't know, having your period while you have endometriosis is absolutely horrendous and just about the worst thing ever. How bad? Allow me to sum it up the best I can ... internal bleeding. Severe inflamation. Death. 

Really, though. It's like my body went: "HMM. How shall I screw us over today?" Like what the hell??? There are grizzlies out there! Oh my god a grizzly will smell my period and eat me. 

I'm so upset about this but I'm trying to remain optimistic. Problem is, my condition has been declining steadily over the summer. I had an appointment with my specialist last week and he thinks that it may be time for me to have another surgery. It's possible that the endometriosis has moved onto my bladder, and that's why I've had so much pain and difficulty while peeing and why I was pissing blood a couple weeks ago, as mentioned in the Snowtember and my trip to urgent care post. Regardless, I've been trying to keep it together and today I made sure to get all my ducks in a row, so I could sleep worry free tonight and leave tomorrow morning without complications. 

my clothes all packed up for my trip-- lots of warm layers!

So, like a responsible car owner (?) I had my lovely little Mazda serviced today. By the way, and just so everyone knows, my car's name is Curtis, named of course after Curtis Glencross of the Calgary Flames (my favorite hockey team). 

I loved Curtis Glencross before it was cool to love Curtis Glencross.

    

Ahem. Anyways, I brought my little black car to the lube place (what the hell else do you call it???) and had an oil change done. Because I'm lazy I said yes when the guy asked me if I wanted my windshield wiper fluid topped up, and yes please check my tire pressure. $105.00 later my car was clean and good to go. Now, cars really aren't my thing, and I get really nervous in these garage oil changey places because really I don't know what's going on. To sum that whole event, here was my tweet from this afternoon, while the oil change was under way: 

 

And by "smart questions" I meant,"miss would you like me to top up your windshield wiper fluid?" and "shall I check your tire pressure today?" it was all very nerve wracking don't judge I'm shy. 

 

I would love to keep blogging (I really don't know when or how to shut up) but I am utterly exhausted (got to bed at 3 last night-- long story) so I NEED to get some sleep now. Good night everyone! You'll hear from me on Friday evening (assuming I don't get eaten by a grizzly)! 

IT'S ADVENTURE TIME!

-Captain Lakie, the Silly Mallard

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 

 

My night at the drag show

Hello beautiful readers. 

Christ almighty do I have a story for you. There's no way to ease my way into this disaster of a tale so I'm just gonna launch right into it. 

My dear friend from high school is a tremendous up-and coming drag queen. His show stopping personality- named Misty- is drop dead fucking gorgeous and comparable to Nicole Kidman.

So my friend Funny Bunn and I went to see Misty perform last night. This was our first time ever at a gay bar and it was a little bit too exciting. We came up with stripper names for one another (of course she is Funny Bunny and I am Honey Bunny, like on the Twitter). We pretended we were a grouchy lesbian couple and commented on how all the men in the bar were prettier than the women.

I was drinking pineapple Bacardis like I was 18 again.

I'm going to be honest and tell you guys that Misty was absolutely amazing. Easily the most talented and gorgeous queen there. Even the host was enamored with her.

Stacy's mom has it going on!

Her pregnancy skit. Hilarious- and gorgeous.

...and a face full of crack-cocaine.

Misty made her own dress for this bit.

I was completely and utterly dumbfounded by how beautiful, talented, and outright amazing his performance was. Er, her performance. Seriously, it was jaw dropping. I have never seen a drag show before (unless of course you count Ru-Paul's Drag Race). I was in a fantastic mood and beaming with pride when we left the bar after midnight. 

Now here's where things started going south.

It was late on Sunday night and I had worked all day. I was tired and knew I had class at 8:00 am the next day. So needless to say I was quite happy to drop my friend off at her car, which she had left in a parking lot so we could take one car. Now because I live way out of town on my little farm, and because she lives waaaaaay in the south end of the city, we had to pick a sort of "half-way" point to meet. Unfortunately, said "half-way" point was in the shady south end of town and it was late and we were dressed for the bar. 

You can imagine our reaction when we discovered that Funny Bunn had left her keys in her ignition, locked in the car. 

well we fucked up.

So we decided that the best course of action would be to sneak into her Dad's house and take the spare key. But of course our story can't end here, so of course her father didn't actually have a spare key. 

So we called AMA and waited in the parking lot. What time frame did they give us for their arrival? 30 minutes to 2 hours. Really? Really? It's 1 in the fucking morning how could it possibly take 2 hours? Send the janitor over with a clothes hanger we can jimmy the door for christ sake. 

except this is us and we're too fucking retarded to break into a car.

We decided to run across the street to the gas station to go pee while we had the chance (because hell knows how long we would have to wait...) 

So it's really freaking late and there's no traffic. We cross one street without a single car going by, but decided to walk a bit up the grass median because there was a fence ahead of us. Of course a fucking cop car pulls up, pulls over, and the window rolls down. Now I'm trippin balls because I was dressed in my old restaurant hostess outfit (short black skirt, black shirt, knee high boots....) and I'm like: 

Oh Christ this cop thinks I'm a prostitute. 

What did he have to say? He friggin barks at me to use a crosswalk. 

GEE THANKS OFFICER. 

Onwards. 

We get to the gas station, and allow me to reiterate that this is a shady part of town and its late and we're dressed for the bar. So of course there's this gross older fellow thats on drugs and/or alcohol hanging around in the dark. He sees us coming and calls to his friend: 

"Hey! We've got a couple of hotties coming over!" 

Well let me tell you I was in no fucking mood. So I said yelled:  

"FUCK OFF"

And he yells over to his friend: "Oh she's coming up fast and she's trouble." Once again, I was in 

no mood. So I snapped at him, I swear to God, "You shut the fuck up I will punch a bitch." And guess what, guys? He actually shut the fuck up. It was glorious. 

 

We walked back to the shady parking lot without another incident, and AMA actually showed up within reasonable timing. So it was after 1:00 when Funny Bunny and Honey Bunny parted ways. It took me over half an hour to drive home and I am happy to announce that it was an uneventful drive. Funny Bunn, however, got a speeding ticket on her way home.  

I was up at 6 for class and alas, here I am, blogging... in class. I'm really good at managing my time in case you were wondering. Ha. I have a ton of work to do before I leave for my trip on Wednesday. I shall end this post here and get to work. 

Have a lovely day, people. Seriously hope your day is better than last night. 

-Captain aka Honey Bunny 

PS: Someone was literally shot in that part of town last night. Nice, eh?

 

My boss is an enigma.

Hello, people!

This is potentially the shortest oddest post I'll ever put up on my blog, but what just happened is so weird and funny that I need to share.

My boss, the owner of the pet store I work at, is an interesting fellow. 
Imagine a tornado. This is my boss.
Seriously, he looks like he's just walked through a wind tunnel and when he's in the store I just follow behind him cleaning up the mess he leaves in his tornado wake. (Bless you, sir, you're hilarious). The other day the poor guy thought he was having a heart attack (no he just had a coffee on 2hrs of sleep). So now that you have a general idea of what my boss is like, let me tell you what he just did. 

He drove all the way to the store from hell knows where, pops in, says "Hey Danie I brought you a present," then puts a juice box down on the counter. Before I can even open my mouth to say anything he's like "oh shoot," and looks at the box before saying "oh good it has a straw." 

Seriously. 

Here's the proof: 

Thanks? 

Weirdest thing ever. He literally just came in to give me a juice box. 

Possibly the most adorable thing that's ever happened but so so weird. This guy is hilarious. Needless to say his juice box visit literally made my day. My whole day is made. Thanks, Boss! 

-Captain Lakie, the Silly Mallard

Adventure Time! (soon, very soon)

Hello, everybody! How are you beautiful people doing?

I'm excited to share with you a really cool little piece of news. *ahem* are you ready to hear it?

That's right- I'm going on an adventure!

Allow me to elaborate. 

I am currently studying journalism in college, and this semester I've got a theme for all of my news stories and articles. Because I love animals so much, and because I'll be studying Animal Health Technology following my graduation in 2015, I'm writing most of my articles on animal and pet related topics. Originally, I wanted to go on a cattle drive for the Live Blogging portion of my class. Apparently, city folk book these cattle drive vacations 15 months in advance, so it was impossible for me to get in last minute, even though I have over 10 years of horse riding and handling experience. So with that idea out the window, I was deflated and at a bit of a loss. 

I did some digging around, and ended up finding a company that does guided rides deep into the Albertan North Western wilderness. I called the company right away and some grumpy cowboy answered and told me that he was doing his last ride of the season. Lucky for me, he was willing to make an exception and take- get this- just me out on a guided ride. I just about died. I was so thrilled! 

So its absolutely last minute (my favorite!) and I'll have the most amazing project (assuming I actually take pictures, shoot video, and do work on this trip). 

I leave for my trip on Wednesday. It's a 7-hour drive to the ranch, and from there we'll trailer the horses further up north. Our ride will last 3 days, and in that time, we will likely see a bunch of wildlife (including wild horses). 

OH. MY GOD. I CAN'T WAIT.

   

  I was super stoked about this whole thing. Just me, pack horses, and my cowboy guide. My teacher, who is lovely, was concerned and frowned deeply and was concerned that I would be raped and told me to please for the love of god be safe. I am less than concerned about that, and more concerned that I may perhaps freeze in the unpredictable Canadian wilderness. I will be packing plenty of Under Armour warm tech clothes, Helly Hansen under layers, my North Face lined winter jacket, gloves, mittens, a toque (so Canadian, eh?), and my riding boots. 

looks cold out there...

I really feel that this will make for a most epic final project. The countdown is on!

Throwback Thursday

Good evening, readers! How are you beautiful people doing today? 

So those of you who are on the twitter are likely familiar with "Throwback Thursday." 
I am a nostalgic type of person and I'm always happy to look at old photos and reminisce about the "good old days."

Of course I'm also not too sure what I want to "throwback" to today. After some thought, I decided to show my hamster's baby photos. 

Oh my god that sounds so lame. My hamster's baby photos????

*ahem*

Really though, not much else comes to mind and Sunny's baby photos are really the only "old" things I have on this laptop. Realistically this is so not "old" (Sunny is hardly even 2 years old), but he's damn cute and I freaking love rodents. So alas, I shall blog my hamster photos. 

If you're a rodent fanatic like me you'll probably enjoy this. 

We were excited new parents taking this little baby home! (may 2013) Look at those dumbo ears!

Sunny exploring my bed for the first time!

Baby Sunny meeting Annie

Sunny the cat wrangler sitting on his new kitty friend

Baby Sunny discovering his favorite treat- popcorn

Little Sun Buns munching away on lettuce for the first time

Sunny and Annie sharing a box fort

When I made Sunny a Persian rug...

When Sunny still hadn't grown out of his dumbo ears

All congested during his first cold, the poor little guy

A cleavage hamster is a happy hamster!

Oh god those photos bring me so much joy. I love my little munchkin. Weeheehee! 

Cheers!

-Captain Lakie, the Silly Mallard