Chicken Little in Penticton

The little Chickens arrived and are doing well. It is probably the heat of the lamp, that makes them behave so weird...

Congratulations to the Bucher Family

March 26th 2009, shortly after 2p.m. at the Beaulieu hospital in Geneva, little Pierre could not wait to see the light of the world. And here he is, 49cm (19,29in) tall and 3,28kg (7,23lb) strong.

All the best to Gilles, Siata and Lyna, who now has a little baby brother.

I wett I wär en Teddybär

Last night we had an unexpected visitor. He was going for the tinfoil where we wrapped our shrimp and salmon to barbeque last week. We don't keep our regular garbage outside, just the clean plastic and aluminum. A big mistake, as we found out. The bear took off with one of the bags (of course, the one with the tinfoil in it). In the meantime we collected all the waste he left behind and took it inside. A couple of minutes later, he came back for dessert. But no luck this time. He sneaked around the house and finally gave up the hunt and dissapeared into the darkness. With all the excitement happening, we had a hard time to go to bed and calm down this night.

Digg'n and smok'n

Last week we prepared Darin's property to plant 90kg of potatoes. Getting the rows in a line, putt'n compost on top an till the whole mix into the ground. Then digg'n the wholes and throw in the potatoes with a cup of organic fertilizer and more compost. Finally closing the wholes and worry about irrigation... Darin had to rent a machine to dig the trenches, where we put in the pipes. Michael, my co-worker and sommelier was building the smoke-house, which we placed out in the field where we will be smok'n our meats and vegetables in the near future. At the restaurant we started our planting beds with the so called square foot gardening. This is a method out of the States, where a different plant grows in every square foot. It is much more compact and efficient then conventional row-gardening, easy to maintain and uses less water. All this hard work makes hungry and ends in our traditional sandwich-lunches.

Dance Artistico

Last week, the Mission Dance Centre had it's annual spring show with Dance Artistico. The first half was all about Alice in Wonderland. A performance were all the students of the school played a role, even the little ones. The second half was a potpurri of different choreographies with a piece out of the Giselle ballet, Swing, Contemporary and of course Flamenco performances.

My first hit

Living in a rural area might be nice, but has also certain disadvantages. On my way to the Restaurant, I hit a deer that jumped right in front of my car. Luckily for the deer, it was killed instantly. What surprised me was that the police did not investigate any further. They only wanted to know the location of the deer so they could phone the conservation officer to take care of it. My next call went to the insurance company. That only took me five minutes to get my claim number which I need for the auto-body shop. Now I have a so called "curtesy car" until mine is fixed again. Too bad it has got these stickers on it!

Surprising return

After a long day of aircrafts, terminals and packaged meals, we are glad to be home again. The snow has melted and the chicken coop is half way done - what a nice surprise! Our landlord was quite busy during our absence. The driveway is also fixed in certain areas and one part is even being rerouted for easyer access.