NEWS

Dear everyone;

Without preamble: on Sunday, January 6^th, we GOT ENGAGED. For realsies! (more on that inside joke later) And this is our engagement story.

If you've followed our Facebook link to get here, welcome to our blog, started last October as we began WWOOFing through eastern Canada. We decided it would be much easier to tell our story as a blog post, but we will be posting extra photos on good ole FB pretty soon. Thanks for coming by and helping us celebrate!

We could get into the thousands of sweet, sappy reasons we love each other and decided to get married but when people get engaged, all of that stuff kind of goes without saying and so we will spare you the details. For the record though, we have been together for four fantastic years, and while we had already talked about spending the rest of our lives together and decided that we would, in fact, like to have a wedding someday, the where/when/how questions were not broached. We've been pretty busy since 2009, and our life together was focused on more immediate and (dare I say) practical things, like graduating with our B.Sc.’s and finding jobs and travelling. However, while Moragh was away working at camp last summer, Emily decided (with much freaking out and excitement revealed to very few people) that she would take that opportunity to have an engagement ring made without fear of Moragh finding out. 

Emily took a drawing to Jeanette Walker (Walker Studios, Charlottetown, PEI – walkerstudios.ca) and Jeanette gave her back a beautifully crafted ring, of which there will be photos later in this post. Emily was able to pick up the ring just after we returned from New York (which is where this blog started), and she took it with her in her backpack as we started our WWOOFing adventures in October.  The ring stayed in Emily’s bag, with many nerve-wracking moments of near discovery, until just after Christmas when she decided that she had found the perfect proposal spot: Moragh’s family’s cottage, which is not only an enchanting setting in the winter but is close to Moragh’s heart and the best place to plant memories like this one.

Gorgeous.

So, a trip to the cottage was planned for Moragh, Emily, Emily’s twin sister Sarah, Sarah’s boyfriend Ayden, and Emily and Moragh’s mutual best friend Jessie. Sarah was “in the know” from the very beginning, and she informed Ayden of the plan the night before the trip. Jessie, on the other hand, was told of the planned proposal on the car ride up to the cottage, as Moragh was standing outside the car pumping gas, which made for a bit of stunned silence for the rest of the drive.  Sorry ‘bout that, Jess.

Two days after arriving at the cottage, Emily put her plan into motion. She wrote a series of ten clues for a treasure hunt that would eventually lead to the proposal. Ayden kept Moragh distracted outside building a snow fort while Sarah and Jessie helped to hide clues around the cottage and surrounding property. Then, as Emily tried not to throw up from nervousness, the hunt was announced to Moragh and she dove in to it like a kid on Christmas.

Reading the invitation to participate in a treasure hunt. No suspicions over why it was only her.

She was told she needed to suit up in her onesie (Emily was wearing one too). Absolutely no hesitations.

First clue: found!

Second clue: harder.

Success!

Emily made some of these pretty difficult.

This one was a word scramble.

And this one was hidden outside!

Having such a great time :)

This clue was hidden in our car, and it led to Sarah's bra ;)

Almost there, Moragh.

"This one's really hard, guys."

Reading the last clue, which was along the lines of "Won't this be a great memory to look back on, the day we did a treasure hunt at the cottage and at the end Emily got down on one knee and pulled out a ring?"

One of the rules was she had to read the clues out loud as she went...

...and the penny drops.

She said yes! And then the hugging went on for about ten minutes.

Note: what she said first was "Emily, are you for realsies right now??" and no one will ever let her forget that :)

Sarah had her head in the game!

Snowy champagne cheers-ing.

Smiles everywhere :)

Everyone so happy :)

This is more accurate though.

The ring: 14k rose gold with a 5mm sapphire in the centre flanked by trees. Our birthstones (aquamarine, topaz) are set in the roots of the trees to symbolize our beginnings and the trees become one canopy at the top. Sapphire was chosen to represent Moragh's love of lakes and rivers and Emily's love of the ocean (plus we both just like blue). The area surrounding the trees and sapphire has been textured with real PEI sand. 

huge thanks to Jeanette Walker of Walker Studios!

Predict-a-question:
No, we don't have a date set for the wedding but we hope to manage it by 2015. We plan for it to be a relaxed and fun party to celebrate our love and everyone else's. No, we don't know what season for sure; no, we don't know who we will ask to be in the wedding; no, we don't know what we're wearing; no, we don't know where the wedding will be; no, we don't know what colours we want; no, we don't know. :)

Thanks for reading, and leave a comment if you'd like! We plan to keep up on the blog this summer, as our lives pick up speed once again.

All the best,
Moragh and Emily

Snow?

We are getting ready for a small snowstorm here - so excited! Might turn out to be a lot of freezing rain but we'll see. We finished building bunny feeders for their new pens inside the barn and will be moving them inside before the snowfall tomorrow.

While Diane had time off this weekend, we went for a drive to check out the view of the St Laurence. It was wintry and beautiful, with many more islands than we knew existed and lots of interesting ice formations on the shore. We saw an island where apparently thousands of Irish immigrants were once quarantined and died of typhus. There is a monument to them there now. And of course, Mont Ste Anne and the rest of the Canadian shield look surreal.

We have also been listening to a lot of traditional Quebecois music (plus a little chiaque from NB) and had a jam session in the kitchen today...all three of us on spoons. Diane has been great to share her knowledge of Quebecois culture and the French language. We have even started to dream - and sleeptalk - in French.

All in all, we're having a very relaxing time here and are enjoying our cultural immersion. Hopefully the snow delivers tomorrow!
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

Internet Caps

Being from the Maritimes, I don't really have a concept of "limited" internet, but apparently it exists. Our host Diane pays for 3 GB of internet per month and any data that goes over that will charge her an arm and a leg. So. This limits out blogging ability, especially uploading pictures (I'm even writing this on my phone, which uses the Bell network instead). We didn't know about the cap for the first week so we were streaming music and videos etc...so we are going to really try to not use much data for the rest of our stay. We'll be able to write a few posts though! But maybe no more pictures :(

Anyway. It's snowing! Time to rake up bunny poop.

Cheers,
Emily
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

La Rafale

We stopped for Tim's in Grand Falls, NB.

Miraculously, we made the six hour drive from Harvey, NB to St Raphael, QC without incident.  The car is still performing relatively well, and we remembered to fuel up before crossing the provincial border (gas is like 5 cents more expensive here). We left Harvey around 11:30, and it got dark at 4:30 Quebec time, AND we didn't even have a map of Quebec, but we didn't get lost. We did stop at one gas bar to see if they sold road maps but they didn't - the old guys inside asked Moragh where we were headed, and when she said St Raphael they pointed in four different directions. Apparently there's a few. Not surprising, since every town is St or Ste somebody or other, they had to start repeating names at some point :) Anyway, all of that aside, we made it to La Rafale quite easily.

Diane, our host, owns 97 acres just outside St Raphael, 20 minutes from the highway and about 65 km from Quebec City. She took a year off work (she is a biologist) last year to really focus on her farm, which she would like to improve in a number of ways to ensure that it will support her as well as bring in some profit. She is back to work now, Monday through Friday, and left us alone today to explore and get acquainted with the animals.

These are Ameraucauna chickens, they lay blue eggs! Or they would, if they were laying eggs right now. They are all either finished laying for the season, still too young, or male. The orange and green one in the middle of the photo is boss rooster Ferdinand, who keeps everyone in order. The two chickens who are behind him directly to the left and right (black one and brown one) are the adult hens, who are looking after the four younger hens (three behind and one in front). Missing from this photo are two younger roosters, who stay well out of Ferdinand's way.

And then there's these little ones :) Coco and Rico (cocorico is the French expression for cockadoodledoo). They are still babies, even though they have all of their feathers - they still peep! Diane hatched them with a incubator and they imprinted on her...and were rejected by the rest of the flock. So they hang out together and aren't very good at being chickens.

Emily giving a pecking lesson.

We spent some time today using our hands to show them what to peck and scratch at. They love hands and will follow them as if they were a mama chicken. They also like to try to eat your hair, your fingers, your eyeballs, your jeans, your shoelaces, your gloves, and anything coloured. Someone is reading this and saying "sounds like all chickens, haha" but the difference here is that these guys are so damn persistent! At the end of their lessons, we picked them up (they freaked out) and held them under their heat lamp until they fell asleep in our hands. We are the new official chicken-sitters.

Cameras are delicious too!

The black rabbit's name is Obama.

Diane also raises rabbits (for meat)...

Cayette, Chocolat, Labrune, 'Ti-gars.

And Dexter cows (also for meat). They are quite small, almost miniature, and the bull's name is 'Ti-gars (say "tee-gah"; like petit gars = little boy). 

There is also Motton, the biggest barn cat we've ever seen. His paws are huge and fuzzy. He is too heavy to hold for long periods of time! We're thinking he must be at least part Maine Coon...but his fur and body shape aren't quite right. His name means "furball" or "matted hair" - Diane has to SHAVE him every spring.

Last but definitely not least, there are the dogs. Sirius, the husky, is 13 years old and used to be a sled dog on a team of 28. She is very old and gentle and moves slowly because her hips are failing. Sammy is the white Westie terrier, and he is a rescue from a home where he was under a lot of stress, and so he is a bit neurotic at times (does not like men, does not like shouting, barks randomly) but is also very sweet. The Corgi is Bean, she is a beautiful Canadian champion but could not be bred and so was living in a kennel where she had to fight for her food - Diane rescued her as well. Finally, the Chewbacca-esque mixed breed is Poopsie. She is a Doberman Pinscher/terrier cross that Diane took in from a previous home. In this picture, they are all begging for pumpkin. Pumpkin.

So, there are lots of animals here to keep up busy! Our responsibilities this week are mostly to look after all the animals morning, noon and night, and also small repair and cleaning jobs around the farm. Plus cooking :)

Hope everyone is well! We're still having a great time.

Christmas is coming!

Quebec!

We made it, without incident! We are now in St Raphael, 65 km from Quebec City. It's wonderful here. We don't have the internet password yet but when we do we'll post a more elaborate update! For now, here's a picture of our cute bedroom :) a bientot!
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

Goodbye New Brunswick, Bonjour Quebec

We're on the road again! Heading to a farm in St Raphael, QC. It's an hour east of Quebec City which means we have about a six hour drive today., yikes. We'll be stopping in Grand Falls to see the waterfall etc and do a few errands but other than that it's straight on to La Rafale (the name of our new place).

Goodbye, Maritimes. We don't know when we'll see you again.

We still like each other, so far.

Winter WWOOFing

When we were telling friends and family about our plans to go WWOOFing through October, November, December and maybe the new year, we heard many skeptical questions along the lines of, "It's going to be winter, will they even have anything for you to do?" Haha, you silly people. We're getting busier and busier as the season goes on.

For one thing, routine tasks take much longer when the temperature drops below zero. Feed and water buckets freeze and need to be thawed twice a day. Animals such as the horses and cows, which usually get their water from the ponds and streams outside, now need to be given water as well. Eggs need to be collected more often, some animals need more feed. Your fingers turn numb and clumsy, making everything harder than usual to complete (try tying a hitch knot while your fingers are numb inside bulky work gloves). Water really does get everywhere and freeze at the worst times, causing equipment malfunctions (we've had the tractor, the chainsaw, and a washer we use for vegetable break on us in the last few days). All of these added time-sucks mean that what would have taken us half the morning to complete might take us all day.

She blends right in, wha?

We spent the last couple of days clearing brush from field perimeters, to keep the trees from encroaching on the cow pasture. We collected any evergreen boughs that were cut and spread them over the planted garlic beds. Contrary to what we believed, the boughs actually provide shade to keep the beds frozen. If the garlic beds were to thaw on a particularly sunny or mild day in mid-winter, the baby garlics would start to grow, and be "winter-killed" when the ground became frozen again. The evergreen boughs help to ensure that the beds don't thaw before spring.

The brush we were clearing was in the middle of the cows' pasture. They have acres and acres of fields to graze through, but of course they had to be right where the action was.

This is the bull. He is kind of derpy. His horns are intimidating but he is not aggressive at all....so far, anyway.

This is after he rocketed up and down the row, mrrping.

We're also still attending the market in Fredericton on Saturdays, so Thursdays and Fridays are full of harvesting, which Rex was eager to help out with. We picked lettuce and spinach from the greenhouse today, and will be taking carrots, kale, and eggs as well. Maybe onions.

Speaking of Fredericton, we were there last Saturday and we still haven't put up pictures of it. It was our first time to Freddy and we both really liked it. Adrian was with us and we had a great time walking around the waterfront and downtown area, sightseeing and shopping.

This was the old train bridge and is now part of a system of walking trails. It was pretty neat to walk across, and we even saw a bald eagle :)

Emily is conjuring her leaf minions to attack.

And this happened.

Oh....okay.

So besides regular chores and brush clearing, we have finished the firewood for the season (yay!) and Adrian and Ted have done some work on leveling an old shed on the property. We've been cooking a bit too, since Louise is away in New York this week, and are quite happy to be back in the kitchen :)





We went for a walk to Frog Lake today. Ted said to walk west from the house and we'd hit it in no time. The picture to the right is what is to the west of the house.

Sometimes you're in the right place at the right time with a camera.

It was a bit of a brambly bushwack at times but it did end up being a very nice walk. We went in the late afternoon so the lighting was beautiful.

We eventually came out of the woods and onto a road (Frog Lake Branch, indeed). After half an hour of walking, it was getting very cold but we were determined to find the lake that Ted had assured us was "right there".

And we did find it. But much further away than we had been told. It was worth it though, it was a beautiful view in the sunset.


That's it for now! It's snowing here and we're tired and going to bed. News soon about our next move (Monday!).