Last three weeks --> hope you like (cat) pictures!

Wow, here I am again, already. Don't ask me where if found the time and energy. Just enjoy it (mostly the pictures :) )

I was at Gord and Ann Striker's house and farm from the 16th of April till the 7th of May, so that makes three weeks. They live in Frankford, Ontario and milk around 50 cows at 6 in the morning and 16.15 in the afternoon.

Next to milking and other work at the barn, my weeks were filled with computer work and trips to cities. When the sun was shining too nice and I was too sick of the computer and my report, my buddy Baxter the boxer was my first and best volunteer to go with me on walks and runs, to explore the land around the farm. I've been told that he misses me... Next to the picture of the Striker's house you see the provincial flower of Ontario; the trillium. How nice.

The milk barn; tie stall, pipe line milking and with two rows of cows, facing eachother. The biggest brown picture is the milk barn, seen fram far away in the back of the fields at night. The white round one is the new barn for young heiffer and bulls and some dry cows. You see Gord milk a cow with the bucket milker, a good way to keep milk from for example treated or fresh cows from getting into your tank.
As I mentioned, I've had the opportunity to go and visit some beautiful Canadian cities. In the first week a went to Earl Vander Meulen (see earlier posts) at Wednesday night, and after a three hour sleep at the couch we were heading towards St. Hyacinth, Quebec. There was a sale and show for Jerseys, Ayshire, Short Horns, Canadians, Brown Swiss and that was it I think. We arrived at 6.30, the cows were just back from a shower (I'm serious!) The cows get clipped with a precision that you would think the clipper's life depends on it and when the cows are finally ready, there will be somebody watching them constantly in case they poop and lay down in it. The other job is to try to feed them as much as you can, so they look nice and full in the show and sale...
On our way to the show we passed beautiful Montreal, during the day I had more time to read about it and when we arrived in our hotelroom at night I knew that I was going to Montreal the next day. Too bad for the show. The city is filled with fighting history, and musea about it. I've also been to some nice churches and other building, I walked a lot and enjoyed going my own gang for one day again!

At the show in St. Hyacinth I met a Jimmy who told me that some of his family and friends rented a bus to go to Quebec City. The Holstein Breeders Club had their annual meeting overthere and Timmy's uncle did earn a Master Breeder Shield. The end of the story was that I could come!First beer in the bus popped open at 7 am, and we had 7/8 hours to go....
You see the view from our hotel room, so nice that I decided to fall a sleep in the window the second night. Next morning I've seen the most beautiful sun rise you can imagine. I'm not even going to try to describe it...
Again a lot of history with fighting people, the old battle fields (the Plains of Abraham) are a nice park right now. Our hotel was next to it. All the people from the bus went on farm tours on Friday and a diner/pary at night. The tickets were all gone, so the next morning I was the only one who was alive early. I enjoyed myself with seeing more of this beautiful city (it is the nicest one till now and the changes are pretty small I'll find a nicer one here) and we left the city around noon. On our way home I've seen 15 deer and two beavers!!!

It was time to go and see Ottawa, Canada's capital in the last week. Ann took me and her grand daughter Kaiti there on Tuesday. We left at 7 am, took some nice roads and stopped here and there for little stuff that there was to see. Arrived at 11.00 and after 'some' security we were able to talk to an advisor of one of Canada's ministers. After that he gave me a Canadian flag, super! Ottawa is called the city of tulips and everybody knows which nice friendly people started that ;) We had passes to go to question hour, it was difficult to believe that those guys and ladies are ruling this country... There was some serious stuff going on, but next to that I felt like home, during debating at C.S.R. in Delft.
We left the Parliament buildings at 15.30 and after almost half an hour walking we had exactly one hour to visit one of the most well known art galleries in the world. Some modern art; definitely interesting! And lots of older art. I think; the older the better. But who am I? I was pleased to see many Dutch paintings;
I was so excited to see this one.... It was incredible how I missed home as soon as I saw this one painting...
After a mall (all musea were closed after 5 pm) and an hour (!) looking for our car (we parked it somewhere under the ground) we drove home again.

In the barn at the Striker's, there were six nests of kittens, with around 25 kittens... One mom died, so I put the four of her in the fort of straw bales where three other moms already had there kittens. And mom number four got in and had three more... The scared one is Boots and the one with the big mess is Minnie (light and red) and Sally (dark) with a lot of kittens.

This is Pepper, Boots again and Snoopy nursing the two siblings of Boots.

If you want to adopt this little one, just contact me, I'll see what I can do ;)

A man that I met at the curch came by one of the first days and dropped me off a mountainbike!! It was just in one word fantastic to be able to bike on the hills and on back roads.

There was one cat living inside of the house; Shrek.




And here you see Ann and Gord, proud standing by there farm sign.
I'm sorry, I still don't have time to explain everything, but Sunday afternoon (7th) I ended up at a mall in Guelph, where Vicki Garrett picked me up and dropped me of at here room in a student house. The rest of the week was office work, I got picked up at 8.15 and was home at 17.00. And after some days filled with computer work I was able to print my report last Friday. I got a ride to the Garrett's with Jae (Vicki's boyfriend) were I was able to have a good sleep. Saturday night picked up by Tammy, and Tammy, Kaiti and I left on Sunday, after a Mothersday brunch with the whole family, towards Niagra Falls. On the way we enjoyed the African Lions Safari. Our hotel room view was awesome, again! Saw the lights on the falls, had diner in the Rainforest Cafe, with thunder storms etc and today we went to a bird zoo something, had a 3D ride down the falls, took pictures of the falls by day, again, and left to Niagra on the Lake for the Butterfly Conservatory. Beautiful!! It was a nice relaxing weekend, we had a lot of fun!
So, and tomorrow morning the big trip 'out West' will start. Dietrich (the guy that took me to the car show, see if you can find that story on my blog...) and I are leaving early tomorrow. We don't have too many plans, but we would like to end up in Edmonton (3500 km West of here) after a week or so. I hope that I've got time to show some pictures and share some stories with you once in a while, but I wont promise it!

I'm going to bed now,

Lotte