May 30, 2009: New Home
We have finally moved into our new farm. Phew! It was really sad to leave Brynberllan, and Mike and Nora. Living there was the biggest treat! We miss seeing Mike and Nora everyday, and we even miss the westies. We do not miss Cian squeezing under every fence imaginable and running off in search of sheep at his whim...or running like the wind to try catching him. The pups are a bit more contained here.

We did most of the move ourselves so we have rediscovered some long lost muscles. Most of our belongings have been sitting in storage in Swansea for quite some time so we had to borrow Mike's stock trailer to move everything. It took two trips and some expert space management by Kelvin to get everything to the new farm. Luckily the weather held out for us. The day after we moved saw torrential rain for a good part of the day.

In a short space of time we have got the cottage all set up, except we are still waiting for some of our furniture to arrive. Unpacking our belongings from Canada was fun! We have not seen our belongings for over 2 years. The things we missed the most were our books. Our bookcase arrived in good order, for the most part. Kelvin assembled the bookcase and just as he proudly announced how good it was that he numbered all the parts, he realized that he had assembled some of these parts upside down. It took another 2 attempts before the bookcase was assembled correctly and we could put our books on the shelves. Ah, that was sweet. The shelves are a little empty as we donated many books to a local school before we left Canada. No doubt these empty spaces will be filled over the coming months and years. We have one room in the cottage that we call our library. If there is not a book to your taste in that library, then we'll eat German sausages for a week.

We were not too happy when we unwrapped our dining room table as the movers have smashed the two extension leaves to the table and it will likely be impossible to replace these. The table was custom made and was our boardroom table in our office in Canada. It is made with Canadian maple. A huge table when at its full length it is now the size of a typical dining room table. It is still super but it now does not seat 12 people, as it was originally intended to do. Ah well. The only other thing the movers broke were some of the boardroom chairs that went with the table. It is not the end of the world but surely disappointing. Amazingly, our artwork arrived unscathed.

While the cottage is almost shipshape, the same is not true in our living area! There are boxes and boxes of 'stuff' everywhere. It is going to take some time to sort out this area as we have to put on our creative hats to figure out where everything is going. At the moment, our computers are propped up on cardboard boxes as we have yet to find all the parts for our desks. It is one heck of a mess.

Speaking of German sausgages, we had our first guests in the cottage this week. That was fun as we all sat down to a super BBQ. Our friend, Kerstin, provided organic, handmade German sausages for the dinner. Oh my goodness, they were the best sausages we have ever had. Our next trip to North Wales is going to see us coming home with a huge order of sausages. We intend on having lots of BBQ's. Angie's sister gifted a brand new BBQ to us and it is fantastic. (Bailey doesn't look too happy in the photo but that's because there was no food cooking on it at the time the photo was taken).

Of course we got to play with dogs and sheep. Now sometimes things don't always go to plan when you are training dogs. We had one wayward sheep who decided to bolt from the group, jump a fence and stand on the roof of the shed. Of course it was Angie and Jamie who can be blamed for this little escapade. Today this same ewe decided she didn't want to go training so she smashed another fence to get back to the remaining sheep still in the field. If she doesn't smarten up, she'll be chops soon - or gifted to Kerstin for her magnificent sausages.

It has been go all week! The last couple of days has seen spectacular weather with the sun shining and the temperatures in the mid-20s (celsius). We have been outside every minute of the day getting some grass, weeds and overgrown areas under control. The dogs are thrilled that we have beaten thigh high grass into submission around one of the ponds. The pond area has become an instant play area for the dogs. Blade and Tim are real water lovers, while Meg, Sioux and Jamie tip-toe around the sides. Jamie will have nothing of the water, although he does love the stream that runs behind the house and through the middle of the garden. Bailey is thrilled as there are frogs to play with and lots of things to explore. The other night Bailey caught a rabbit and by the time Kelvin caught up with Bailey, she had eaten half of it - fur and all. Now that gives a raw diet new meaning.

We have also been clearing a shed of junk that the last owner's left for us. This is where our kennels are to be built. Once the shed is cleaned up, we'll be concreting the floor - and that will happen this coming week, we hope. This will be squeezed around shearing.

Over the last few days we have walked pretty much every inch of the property several times over. The dogs love going on these excursions and already have their favourite spots. One area they like is walking up a stream on the far side of the property. It is nice and cool there.

The chickens have made themselves right at home. Our numbers doubled while Angie was away in Scotland...although judging by the egg on the left of the photo, the size of the eggs has declined! We think this one came from one of the younger members of the family. There are 9 new chicks as well so eggs are going to be in plentiful supply soon.

Well, that's our week in a nutshell.