There is something kind of wonderful about going into a long weekend with absolutely no plans.
And by “no plans,” I mean we didn’t have anywhere we had to be. We weren’t going camping, we weren’t travelling, and there wasn’t some big event pencilled into every day of the weekend. We love camping and getting out and doing things, but every once in a while, it’s really nice to look at a three-day weekend and realize you don’t actually have to go anywhere.
Of course, this is the Funny Farm, so “no plans” doesn’t necessarily mean we did nothing. In fact, we got quite a bit done.
The chicken coop got cleaned out—and when I say “we cleaned out the chicken coop,” I obviously mean Addy cleaned out the chicken coop. The goat area got tidied up, we puttered around in the garden doing a little maintenance, and I made cheese. Because apparently if there is milk in the fridge, I will find a way to turn it into cheese.
Addy did have one thing he wanted to do on Saturday. He headed into Fredericton to meet up with “the guys” at Second Cup. Their friend Shaun is moving back to Ontario, so this was a chance to squeeze in one more coffee date before he left. Jessie was there, and I think Nathan may have been there too, but I wasn’t there, so don’t quote me on that.
I stayed home, made a couple of rounds of cheese and, at some point, sat down to look something up on YouTube.
What was I looking up? Excellent question. I have absolutely no idea.
You know how sometimes you sit down because you need to learn how to do one specific thing, and then you look up and somehow two hours have passed? I’m pretty sure that happened. I’m sure I learned something very useful. I just couldn’t tell you what it was.
There was, however, one other thing going on behind the scenes that weekend. I had been putting feelers out in some of the New Brunswick poultry groups on Facebook because I was looking for guinea fowl. More specifically, I wanted younger guinea fowl—guinea keets.
And I found some. Even better, they were only about half an hour away.
So on Saturday, our perfectly quiet, no-plans long weekend naturally resulted in us bringing home three new animals. Because of course it did.
Meet The Dodos.
We have no idea yet whether any of them are male or female, but they’re still young enough that we have plenty of time to figure that out. They’re mostly feathered now, although their little necks are still a bit bare, and they haven’t developed the white faces and red wattles they’ll eventually have as adults. Right now, they still very much look like awkward juvenile guinea fowl, which honestly only makes the name Dodos seem more appropriate.
It was actually pretty exciting bringing them home because, believe it or not, we haven’t added a new animal to the Funny Farm in quite a while. There was a time when it seemed like we were constantly bringing something new home, but things have been fairly settled lately. Apparently we decided that needed correcting.
The other big thing on our minds is getting ready for a camping trip at the end of August. We’re heading to a Renaissance Faire, which we’re really looking forward to, but getting away for a few days when you have a homestead full of animals isn’t as simple as packing the camper and driving away.
First, you need someone willing to take care of the Funny Farm. And I think we found her.
Her name is Eve, and wonderfully, she lives right on our road. Eve comes from a family that raises chickens, so she’s already comfortable around livestock and knows what it means to take care of animals. The one thing she had never done before was milk a goat, and that’s a fairly important skill around here at the moment.
On Sunday morning, Eve came over for her first official Funny Farm training session. We did the full tour, went through the morning chores, showed her where everything is kept, and then it was time for Milking 101.
I have to say, she was a really quick study. Milking is one of those things that feels completely normal once you’ve done it a thousand times, but when you’re teaching someone who has never done it before, you suddenly remember how many little things there are to explain. Eve picked it up really quickly. More importantly, she was patient, calm and kind with the animals, which makes me feel so much better about the idea of leaving everyone in her care.
Allie, however, apparently decided Eve’s training needed an advanced component. Every once in a while, while Eve was standing beside her, Allie would casually try to sneak in a cheap shot with her horns. Nothing says “Welcome to the Funny Farm” quite like having to keep one eye on a goat who has decided to test the new girl.
Thankfully, Eve took it all in stride. We’ll do some more practice before we leave, but I am so relieved to have found someone nearby who seems comfortable with the animals and willing to learn our routines. It’s one more big thing checked off the Renaissance Faire list.
Then Monday rolled around, and the weather was… well, not great. It was one of those grey, crummy days that doesn’t exactly inspire you to head out and do much of anything. Since it was a statutory holiday, most things in New Brunswick were closed anyway, so we stayed home. We puttered, did a few things around the house and didn’t run around trying to squeeze one more activity into the long weekend. The weather and the holiday basically forced us to slow down for a day, and it was perfect.
After the long weekend, the rest of the week kind of flew by.
The milk certainly didn’t stop just because the holiday was over, so I kept working my way through what we had in the fridge. This time, that meant making yogurt and then straining some of it to make Greek yogurt. At this point, a good portion of my summer seems to be spent looking at milk and thinking, Okay… what am I going to turn you into today?
We’ve also had a lot of wet weather lately, which has at least come with one little bonus: the fire ban was finally lifted. We love our little fire pit, so whenever the weather cooperates and we both have some time in the evening, we’ve been trying to get outside and have a fire. Nothing fancy. Just the two of us sitting beside the fire at the end of the day, enjoying being outside and winding down for a bit.
Of course, now that we have babies on the homestead again, our quiet evenings also include regular trips over to check on The Dodos.
We’ve housed the guinea keets in what we call the white chicken coop. It’s the little original coop that our bantam chickens used to live in, and it had been sitting empty for the last couple of months, so it turned out to be the perfect place for them.
For now, they’re completely locked inside the coop. They’re still small, and guinea fowl are definitely not an animal I’m interested in accidentally releasing onto the property before they know where home is. The person we got them from suggested keeping them under a heat light for a little while longer, but they’re already fully feathered and we’ve been having some pretty hot summer days. With the coop closed up, ventilation for good airflow and lots of fresh water, they seem plenty warm enough without adding a heat lamp into the mix.
So far, The Dodos are doing really well.
And then there was Addy’s foot.
One day Addy came home from work complaining that his heel was hurting. At first, we wondered if he might be getting another gout flare-up, except this time around the heel or ankle. We did what any highly qualified medical professionals would do and asked Google whether that was possible.
Google said yes. Mystery solved! Except… not really.
His foot kept getting worse. He drank more water and tried to stay off it, but he was really sore. Eventually it was bad enough that he missed a couple of days of work.
I encouraged him to use the virtual doctor service I have access to through work. He did, but after talking to him, they basically said somebody needed to actually examine his foot. Fair enough.
The problem around here is that getting into a walk-in clinic isn’t always particularly easy. Sometimes going to the emergency department actually makes more sense. You might be there for a long time, but at least the hospital doesn’t close while you’re still sitting in the waiting room.
Eventually, Addy took himself in. They examined his foot, did X-rays, and, after all of our theories about gout, it turned out he had badly sprained his foot and ankle, with a lot of the pain concentrated toward the back near his heel.
Which brought up a fairly obvious question: how did you manage to badly sprain your foot and not know you sprained your foot?
I had already asked him whether he remembered hurting himself, and he couldn’t think of anything. But after he spoke with his boss, he remembered an incident at work several days earlier involving a misstep off the back of a utility trailer and the walk-along tractor rolled over his foot.
And then it clicked. He HAD hurt his foot.
Apparently, at the time, Addy’s response to hurting himself was essentially, Well, anyway… and he just kept working. Then five or six days later his body finally got around to informing him that perhaps that had not been the best decision.
So, thankfully, we finally knew what was wrong. Unfortunately, a badly sprained foot requires pretty much the exact opposite of what you normally do when you work on a farm or live on a homestead. He needed to rest it.
That has meant a lot more of the chores have landed on my plate while Addy has been trying to stay off his foot, keep it elevated, and ice it regularly. And naturally, the timing couldn’t be better. We have a camping trip coming up. We’re going to the Renaissance Faire. There are things around the property we need to get done before we leave. We’re training Eve to take care of the animals while we’re gone.
And now one half of the Funny Farm workforce is hobbling.
One of my coworkers recommended an air boot we could order online, so I ordered one for him. It arrived on Sunday, and thankfully it has made a noticeable difference. It gives his injured foot a lot more support when he does need to be up and moving around. It certainly doesn’t mean he can go back to walking around normally—he still needs to limit how long he’s on it, put his foot up and keep icing it—but the extra support seems to be helping.
I have to admit, watching him walk around in that thing made me a little jealous. Where was this magical air boot when I sprained my ankle?
Of course, there was one small problem with the whole “Addy needs to stay off his foot” plan.
We were hosting a staff barbecue.
Not our staff, obviously. The Funny Farm currently has a staff of two, and if Addy and I want to have a staff barbecue, we can just make burgers for dinner.
This was for the staff at Earth to Belly Homestead, where Addy works as the manager. A few weeks earlier, the staff had gone into the city for drinks with the farm owner and everyone had a really good time, but they’d also been talking about getting together for something a little more casual—a potluck-style barbecue where everyone could bring something, hang out and enjoy an evening together.
So we offered to host it at our place. This decision was made, of course, back when Addy still had two functioning feet.
The original plan was Saturday, but as the week went on, the forecast started looking questionable. We were seeing somewhere around a 60 to 75 percent chance of thunderstorms on both Saturday and Sunday, which isn’t exactly ideal when your party plans involve a barbecue, lawn chairs and everyone hanging around outside.
On Wednesday, we made a last-minute decision to move the whole thing to Friday. We let everyone know, and thankfully quite a few people were still able to make it despite the change of plans.
On Thursday, after spending most of the day resting his foot, Addy ventured out for one very quick Walmart trip to pick up the last few things we needed. Then Friday arrived. I worked my regular day, and we told everyone to come over around 6:30 or 7:00 that evening, which gave us just enough time to get everything together.
Joshua helped us set up our pop-up shade beside the house near the driveway, and we pulled out all our little outdoor chairs. Everyone had been told to bring chairs if they had them too, so gradually our little barbecue area came together.
Our ice maker had been chugging away all day in preparation. Did we fill the cooler with ice? Well… we covered the bottom. That counts. We tossed in pop and water, and with the drinks cold-ish and the chairs assembled, we were ready for company.
And then came the food. So. Much. Food.
We put chicken skewers on the barbecue along with beef burgers, and Addy and I made one of my favourite easy appetizers: little Caprese skewers with mozzarella, a fresh basil leaf and a cherry tomato, all drizzled with balsamic glaze. If you’ve never made them, I highly recommend it. They’re ridiculously simple, they look fancy with very little effort, and they are SO good.
We had watermelon, people brought dishes to share, and before long there was more food than any of us reasonably needed—which, in my opinion, is exactly how you know a potluck is going well.
Because Addy was still nursing his injured foot, we had a slightly different division of labour for the evening. I stood at the barbecue and did the cooking while Addy sat down.
I know. Shocking.
But it actually worked out perfectly. He got to sit with his coworkers, socialize and enjoy the evening without spending hours standing on his injured foot, while I kept the burgers and chicken moving on the barbecue.
People ate, talked and hung out, and it turned into exactly the kind of relaxed evening everyone had been hoping for. Best of all, no thunderstorms. The last-minute switch to Friday worked, plenty of people were able to come, there was an absurd amount of food, nobody went thirsty, and despite one of our hosts being temporarily down a foot, the whole thing went off without a hitch.
Yay us.
After the barbecue excitement, we still had one more thing planned for the weekend. Sunday was birthday day!
Well, technically, my sister Kristel’s birthday is August 11—which is actually today as I’m sitting here writing this—but Sunday was the day she had off work, so we decided to celebrate a couple of days early.
We packed up some chicken burgers and pork skewers, I stopped and picked up a couple of nice steaks, and we headed over to Kristel’s house to make dinner and spend the afternoon together.
Considering the forecast had been calling for a fairly rainy and miserable weekend, the weather on the drive there was surprisingly nice. It was partly cloudy, the sun kept making an appearance, and by the time we got to Kristel’s, it was actually warm enough to get into the pool.
So, naturally, Kristel and I did.
We splashed around for a bit, everyone hung out, and eventually we got dinner going. Between the chicken burgers, pork skewers and steaks, we had ourselves a pretty good birthday feast. And obviously there had to be cake. We brought a Black Forest cake and some ice cream, sang Happy Birthday, ate entirely too much and had a really nice visit.
Happy birthday, Kristel!
Eventually, though, it was time to head home and put the Funny Farm to bed for the night. And that’s when the weather decided things had been a little too peaceful.
Holy smokers.
The skies on the drive home were absolutely incredible—and also a little terrifying. There were severe thunderstorm warnings around us, including in the direction we were heading, and the farther we drove, the more dramatic the sky became.
At one point, a friend from our Star Wars group sent me an alert saying that minor rotation had been detected in the storm. And I swear we drove right under it.
I grew up on the Prairies, and I’ve seen funnel clouds before. Looking out the window at this particular formation beside the highway, I started wondering if that was exactly what we were watching develop.
I grabbed a quick photo and some video as we passed it. The rain became absolutely torrential, the wind picked up, and the clouds looked like they were pulling together in a way I really did not like. I don’t think it ever fully developed into a funnel cloud—at least not while we were watching it—but for a few minutes there, I was definitely looking around thinking, Are we in a disaster movie right now?
And then, almost as quickly as we drove into it, we drove past it. The rain eased, the sun appeared again, and enormous thunderheads towered in the distance, catching the sunset and turning shades of pink.
It was absolutely beautiful. Beautiful in that slightly unnerving way where Mother Nature reminds you that she can put on one heck of a show and scare the pants off you at the same time.
Thankfully, the rest of the drive was uneventful. We made it home safe and sound, with just enough time left in the evening to head outside, check on everyone and put the Funny Farm to bed for the night.
And really, what a week.
We started the August long weekend thinking we weren’t going to do much of anything. Instead, somewhere along the way we brought home three Dodos, trained a new farm sitter, made cheese and yogurt, discovered Addy had apparently been walking around on a badly sprained foot, hosted a staff barbecue, celebrated my sister’s birthday, ate more barbecue than anyone reasonably needs and possibly drove under the beginnings of a funnel cloud.
Apparently, we still need to work on our definition of “no plans.”
But honestly, it was a great week. A little chaotic, a little unpredictable, full of good food, good people, new animals and the usual assortment of things we definitely didn’t see coming.
Pretty much exactly what we’ve come to expect around here.
If you made it all the way to the bottom of another Funny Farm adventure, thank you for spending a little piece of your day with us. I love being able to share the big moments, the little moments and all the ridiculous stuff that happens somewhere in between. We’ll see what the FunnyFarm has in store for us next week.
Hopefully, it involves fewer injured feet and significantly fewer rotating clouds.