Down On The Farm

   Well, here we are in a new abode. It's been a month since we stayed in one place for more than a week and it's nice. We get to unpack our clothes, get comfortable and relax. It's not like having our own place but it's much better than living out of a suitcase.

  This time we're taking care of a farm east of Stouffville, ON. We're milking the cows, slopping the hogs, feeding the chickens and shearing the sheep. Ok. Not. But it is a farm, just no longer a functioning one. The owners retired from sheep farming last fall so we're at the vestiges of a farm. It's a 90 acre property, half pasture land and half forest. Outside the house is a pond with the obligatory bullfrogs.

It's all quite charming. Oh, and there's a pool. I mean, why would we agree to sit for someone who didn't have a pool? Sacrilege.

  Since it's a farm there's a barn... or two... and barn cats. And pigeons. The owners asked me if I knew of a way to get rid of pigeons. I thought you could get some kind of ultrasonic  repellent but that will get rid of the cats too. They like the cats, so I checked reddit. Here are some of the solutions I found there:

• Shoot paint balls at them
• Buy a hawk
• Cover the roost with Vaseline (they slip off when they land)
• Play Michael Bolton records
• Kill one and leave it as a warning
• Napalm... but only in the morning

I forwarded the reddit thread to the owners.

  There's a few cows here as the owners are leasing some pasture to a friend. So it looks farm-like.

But mainly there are two old dogs to care for. Heidi, who's a 13 year-old Maremma herding dog (no, I'd never heard of that before), seems not long for this world as she's barely able to raise herself off the floor to go outside.

She's a sweetheart but she's worked hard her whole life and is enjoying her retirement. Lucy is a 12 year-old Munsterlander Pointer (never heard of that before either).

She's still pretty active and is always up for a walk. They have very specific routines and it's taken us a few days to sort it all out. You know... old dogs and new tricks.

  The house itself dates from 1860 with a recent addition.

It's quaint and full of squeaks and groans and bouncy floors and doors that creak. I think that's called "character". I call it very much in need of maintenance. I'm finding it a bit frustrating because I want to fix everything... and then I slap myself. It's the kind of house that, back when I had a British car, we would have said it had "shipwright's disease".

  Imagine going into a ship's hold to fix a lightbulb. When you try to unscrew the bulb it breaks off in your hand. Once you manage to extricate the rest of the bulb from the socket you see it's rusty and melted. When you try to replace the socket you find melted and corroded wiring. You end up re-wiring the entire ship because you thought it was a good idea to change a lightbulb. That's why I'm not going to fix anything here. One of the toilets doesn't flush properly and, when I took the lid off the tank everything was rusted. I stopped and put the lid back on. Smart, yes?

  The other thing is, it's very much an "old people's house". For starters, they have a landline. Every flat surface has some kind of medication bottle on it. There was a used toothpick under one of the dining room placemats. They have a bunch of tchotchkes on top of a cabinet that rattle against each other when you walk on the bouncy floor. They have what may be the very first flat screen TV ever manufactured. I'm not sure it's even HD. Staying here makes me feel 90 years old. Yeah, I know. If I was twenty years younger I'd say this place made me feel 65 years old.

  It is, however, a gorgeous property with the house surrounded by gardens and lots of trees. Penny and I have taken some short walks near the house but the hot, humid weather and the mosquitoes have discouraged us from going farther afield. With the weather forecast to cool a bit next week we're planning to douse ourselves in bug spray and hike off to the back forty. I'm sure Lucy will be up to it.

  Regarding our future plans, we're now booked through the end of October. We've managed to secure multiple sits at a home near Newmarket (with a pool) as well as a week and a half near Ottawa (with a pool), where Jen and the boys will visit for a few days, and another in Kelowna (sorry, no pool), where Bryan and Sheila of Yellowknife fame will join us. You'll remember we saw them in Calgary last summer where we played board games and shared tales of belly button lint. If you missed it you'll just have to go back in the archives. It frightens me to think of it. The lint, not the visit.

  Anyway, the surest way for me not to feel old is to lie in the sun and have a few umbrella drinks by the pool and I think that's this week's plan. Cheers!