Back on the acreage April 28 - May 2, 2018

April 28

Now that we are settled at home it's time to get to some serious yard work. Dave installed the mower and bagger on the tractor to get up some dead grass, leaves and snow mold. We usually only bag the first cut or two of the year as it's way more time consuming.

Farmer Dave

I took on pruning of some trees and push mowing the small, fenced back yard and the front lawn.

Glad we got an early start as I need to wear a mask because of my allergies and it's supposed to get up 28C this afternoon.

Note the ice on the pond in the background

We worked hard until 2:30 and hit the showers to get ready to go for a quick visit with our friends, Paul and Diana.

Dave cleans up pretty good!

Paul's battling cancer right now and we tried to time our visit according to when he feels his best.  It was so good to get to hug them both. The entire time we were away our hearts were with them. Our plan was to stay only a short while but Paul insisted we stay for dinner. It was 28C and we spent the afternoon on their lakefront deck and BBQ'ed some supper. All of our hearts were happy. 

      Sunday we slept in a bit and decided to take a day off. After our morning coffee and walk we took a road trip to Cold Lake. It is only 45 minutes away and has a few more amenities than Bonnyville. We had lunch at a fabulous Mexican restaurant, Mamacita's.

Dave is excited for lunch!

The best homemade iced tea ever!!

 Dave, as always, had the burrito meal and I tried the beef fajitas this time. Both were fantastic! This place is the real deal. Always amazing. After lunch we did some shopping at Canadian Tire, Winners and Sport Chek. On our way home we stopped by Kent and Rachelle's to visit the grandboys. 

Nathan...

and his fish :)

Nathan has always loved animals and is a natural researcher. He takes great care of his fish. He is very interested in nature and collects lots of cool stuff like frogs and rocks etc.

Dominic

Dom and Darth Vader (Poppa Dave)

Dominic is all about action and action heroes. You never know who he will be dressed up as when you come by but Spiderman is a favourite! Love those two :) After our visit we went home for supper and a movie. Great day!

April 30

We spent part of the morning making phone calls and booking various appointments. We met up with Derek, one of Dave's favourite work buddies and our "adopted" son, for lunch a the Neighbourhood Inn. Of course I forgot to take pictures. After lunch Dave drove the tractor over to Howard and Chris's cabin to clean up their yard before they come up from Edmonton. I went into town and did some groceries and errands and came home to start some meal prep. Quiet night.

May 1

Didn't take any pics again today as it was just more yard work. We also sat down and started making plans for our garage build for Pineridge. We need to get our building permit application in fairly soon so we can secure someone to do the concrete. They get busy very fast in the summer around here. We decided on our size and design easily and called Woodland Lumber to organize trusses and materials. It got tougher when trying to decide where to place the garage on our lot. Looks like we need to do a road trip to get some measurements. 

May 2

As Paul and Di are in Edmonton Monday-Friday for his treatments we loaded up tractor and lawn gear on a trailer and went to their place to do some mowing and pruning for them. It was another warm, dusty day so I masked up again. 

Before

After

Before

After

There was tons of leaves and dead grass and we got to as much as we could. I was doing the push mower and was very appreciative of the cool breeze coming across the still icy lake. Diana's parents live on the same 66 acres, about 1.5 km away and had invited us over for lunch. We loaded up the trailer when we finished and headed to Allan and Denise's (aka Grandma and Grandpa) Dave and I have been lucky enough to have been made part of this family. The love we feel here is truly appreciated and we have had too many great times to count. Of course Grandma laid out a huge lunch including her homemade meat pie (tourtiere), her world famous buns and, especially for Dave, her carrot cake. 

Denise, Allan and Dave

Grandma packing up some fresh, homemade buns for us to take home. Yay!!

We totally stuffed ourselves. Grandma sure knows how to cook and bake!! Always so good. While visiting we noticed that their yard could use some work too so we offloaded the tractor and Dave went to work.

Allan checking Dave's work

Denise approves. Love that smile :)

While Dave was mowing we moved their patio furniture out of the garage and set it up on their front deck. After a bit more visiting we grabbed our bag of buns and tray of carrot cake and headed home. After such a huge lunch we only needed buns with peanut butter for supper that night...and another piece of carrot cake! lol