December 20th 2009
MORNING: Up bright and early at 5:00AM, made myself a coffee and settled down in my favourite chair to check my email – poop! – we are down to crawl speed due to our “Fair Access Policy Threshold” being exceeded for the broadband quota provided by Hughes Net. Out in the boonies you do not get much for your $300/month, just 500MB/day and if exceeded you have to wait a full 24 hours before broadband service is restored! So who is the culprit? Well, it is a tossup between our crew loading tons of pictures on Facebook or the shuffleboard champ playing games on the computer – my guess is that it is a combination of both :0).
5:40AM and Chef Kim has arrived to prepare Mums/Kids (MK’s) breakfast, he sure is a hard working reliable guy! I take this as my cue to commence the brownie point mission of making a cup of tea and taking it to Nan in bed; we had set the alarm for 6:00AM since a goodly number of MK’s told Jaranya last night that they would be turning up for the Ruesri Dat Ton session, a Thai self stretching exercise, scheduled for 7:00AM this morning.
Off I went, camera in hand, heading for the Baan Thai to take some pictures of who ever turned up for the Ruesri Dat Ton session , on the way over I saw the tractor heading out with a 1500 lb round bale of hay. I haled the tractor to stop and took a picture of two of Glen driving the tractor; he invited me to hop aboard to go feed the steers with him – which I did (…first diversion of the day and it is not even 7 o’clock yet!). It was fun driving over to the far field with Glen, he pointed out several animal tracks on the way and I was able to get some neat photo’s; just as well I have a good flash because the sun has not come up yet!
We fed the steers and on the way back to the hay barn Glen dropped me off just across from the Baan Thai so that I could go see who turned up for Ruesri Dat Ton. I was pleasantly surprised to see some Mum’s and kids following Jaranya as she demonstrated the various moves.
After breakfast some of the kids wanted to get up on a horse so Glen brought two of the gentler horses over to the Dove lodge where the kids took turns to ride around bare back. Most of them had never experienced riding a horse before, with or without saddles, and it was a delight to see how much pleasure they derived from it.
Phew!!!! – TGILunchTime
AFTERNOON: Oh poop, I fell asleep after lunch and missed out on the falcon flying and sled rides behind the snowmobiles :0(, but Nan was out there photographing away so I will get copies of some of her shots.
We learnt something late in the afternoon that probably any self respecting photographer already knows and that is, if you want to take photographs of Christmas lights, you do not wait until it gets completely dark but instead make use of the light that directly follows sunset; you have a good half hour of useful light that makes the picture look better while at the same time showing off the lights. Tonight we could not take full advantage of that because I did not have an attachment for my tripod, consequently the camera could not be held steady enough even at ISO 3200. Tomorrow we are off to Vancouver and you can be sure I will be coming back to EVR with the attachment!
EVENING: Dinner was great; Smoked salmon and asparagus salad for starters, turkey/brussel sprouts/sweet potatoes/carrots/green beans /cranberry source for main course, and for dessert, pumpkin pie.
Tonight is show night; Nan has compiled a slide show of pictures taken over the past two days, 195 pictures! – and that is after some serious culling, must have taken over a thousand pictures! J Everybody loved the show, especially when their picture came up. When it was over we had some nice things said to us by everybody in attendance and handed a card with some very nice thoughts expressed in it by each of the Mums. We handed out some small gifts to the kids and so ended a beautiful day.
PS Caught one of the Mum’s red handed heading out of the Dove lodge with a whole cake :0)
That’s a fine looking smile for 5:40AM !
On the way over to the Baan Thai I spot Glen heading out with a bale of hay to feed the steers, I jump up on the tractor and go with him. It is still dark at this time of the year untill after 7:00AM
On the way over to the far field we pass the Look-out lodge and found that one of the single mums had left her car right in our track, Glen and I both had the same sense of humour when we saw that so made it look like we was dumping a 1500 lb bale of hay right on top of her car 
. What we did not know was the mum who owned the car was sitting outside having a smoke – it really had her concerned .
Onward and forward down the winding road. I decided to walk ahead of the tractor the rest of the way to get some exercise.
I get to open the gates
The steers start to follow the tractor knowing that breakfast was being delivered.
After hay has been cut, dried and the rolled up, it is held together with binder twine. Glen is seen here taking the binder twine off of the bale so that it will come apart when the steers start to eat it. We will be getting another 20 steers within the next two weeks and after they arrive the bales will be rolled out across the field to provide more space between the steers to help ensure they all get their fair share.
First come first served – yummy yummy
…..on the way back, same car but different scene
The Ruesri Dut Ton session is well under way by now but I did manage to get there before it was all over.
This can be a tricky movement until you learn how to keep your balance
The two young girls that attended the one hour session loved it!
At the end of the session music is played and it is free style dancing
This is the youngest mum with her baby, 17 years old; she came with her mother who has a 12 year old boy.
Can we talk about this?
Glen brings out two of the horses for rides
Mum’s looking happy
You can get over anything with a little help from your friends
Happy
Looks like they are all talking about it
In the summer this is a mighty fine place to sit around a camp fire
Looking back at the hay barn before heading to the Dove lodge
This little girl loved playing the piano and played several tunes, her mum said she loved music so we may follow up to see if we can help her get some lessons.
Relaxing….
A horse was brought over to the front of the lodge for some more riding
Woaha there big fella
This little guy was thrilled to be on a horse and from the look in his eye it is my guess that some-how he will remember this experience and become quite the horseman!
Lots going on this morning, the pool table being another favourite place
Why can’t I play?
During most of the day you can always find some-one using the swimming pool, it is great to see people getting pleasure from it.
Look at me mum
Not sure what is going on between mum and daughter in this one…
The young guy on the left is the one that whipped me at a game of shuffleboard! I never did find out how good he was at chess
Exercising on the railings
Between Nan and I we took many swimming pool shots so have dropped another one in
Off we go snow shoeing with one of the border collies
The hot tub was another favourite passtime
This is the little guy that loved being on the horse – gets on well with border collie Jack too
We have ten border collies at our ranch and are always a big hit with everybody
We have 29 chickens, that have laid 28 or 29 eggs every day all winter!, as well as five pet turkeys plus four chubby Toms that will not be seeing 2010 
– we did nit tell the kids that though
Looks like nine of the ten border collies made it into this picture – and yes, they are all super friendly
TGILunchTime!! – that was a VERY busy morning Snowmobile rides and sledding scheduled for the afternoon!
And away we go – to keep it safe for the young ones we used the runway.
Waiting for their turn on the snowmobile
Hang on tight!
….and away she goes
My guess is that this one was just a photo op
It gets dark early this time of the year so we took some photos of the Christmas lights – this one being of the Dove lodge
The Dove lodge and the Chef’s cabin to the left
The Baan Thai and two cabins to the right
Chef Kim preparing dinner
Turkey Dinner tonight and grandad border collie Jack has taken up position by my chair!
Chef Kim had prepared a very nice turkey dinner that we all enjoyed. After dinner it is show time!
The Baan Thai has a multi purpose room which tonight is being used for presenting a slide show of pictures taken over the past two days.
Numchoke set up Nan’s computer to project the images on a 13 ft wide screen
We made sure that everybody was included in the slide show – just as well since all like to see themselves up on the big screen
We gave each of the kids a small gift at the end of the slide show.
BUSTED!! – I had left the slide show right after the gift giving and caught one of the Mum’s heading back to her room from the Dove lodge with a whole pie!
It’s not just for me – honest
And so ended a lovely day.
Related posts:
- Single Mums weekend – last day
- Single Mums weekend at EVR
- May Long Weekend, and Beyond
- Thanksgiving Weekend at Echo Valley Ranch
- Never a dull moment!
Tags: Ruesri Dat Ton, single mothers, steers
What an amazing time you must have all had up at EVR. Great shots! I loved them all!
One word! FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!