Happy Canada Day a day late from the farmette! I intentionally got this red verbena with white baby's breath to have some of our country colours in full flight for the day. It worked, for once.
Summer is here for sure, with temperatures in the mid-20s pretty much all the time. Which means the flowers are blooming, cascading and going wild with colour.
Here's a higgledy piggledy bouquet I put together late yesterday from bits and bobs around the property. Zinnias and cosmos from gramma's grave bed (actually just a remnant pile of topsoil beside the garage), yarrow from the front bed, and hydrangea from the west side bed. Plus a few bits from the baby's breath in the pot above.
Today's post is going to be like the arrangement - a bit of this and a bit of that from the week.
Last weekend, I went to see niece Rachel compete in a barrel racing/pole bending competition in Markdale. She's now the vice-president of her association, so she spent a lot of time helping out with raking up sand after competitors dug big divots around the obstacles.
Here she is on Trigger, finishing her barrel race heat - and heated it was all day. Thanks to her foresight, we managed to stay cool under a pop-up canopy she takes everywhere. Sister Sandy, Uncle Paul and Aunt Carol Ann Thornton were there, too, along with Rachel's new beau Zach.
I especially like the wee ones - whose moms have to help out with running the shortened courses.
This little guy was so happy, he was actually singing the whole time, while bouncing up and down to the rhythm of the tiny pony. What fun.
We finally got our furnace replaced. Duane told us last fall that, while she was doing pretty well for a 25+ year old heater, she was not going to be long for this world. So, we crossed our fingers through last winter and resolved to get a new high-efficiency replacement this spring. Well, spring segued into summer, and the big changeover was executed on Friday.
Some cats were not impressed. Wilma wedged herself, terrified, behind the television cabinet in the sunroom and the two young boys - Calvin and Fred - took refuge upstairs. Beatrix was already lumping on our bed so continued her usual habit and Hobbes took all the noise and palaver in stride.
Noisy it was. The men had to drill through the west side wall to vent the furnace. Three layers (!) of brick and two of wood meant that the whine of the machines went on for about an hour.
It's kind of comforting to know that our wee farmette house is so solidly constructed.
The professionals started at about 8:30 a.m. The entire project - taking out the old furnace, putting in all new piping and installing the new one - on a raised cement bed so it will be less likely to get damaged from the (occasional) basement flood - was done and dusted by about 4:00 p.m.
The new one has eight (!) fan settings - from a hurricane to a whisper, and it has a two-step heating arrangement in which sensors detect how cold it is. If it's spring or fall, with milder temperatures, the furnace goes on low. If it detects Arctic frigidity in the house, it ratchets up to full blast. Cool, eh? Or, rather, warm, eh? They also re-attached our central air conditioner, which we got from Duane back in 2012. It is keeping us cool on those suffocatingly humid, hot days.
So that's it for this week. Lots of activity on and off the farmette. Hope everyone's healthy and happy for this Canada Day weekend.
Gratuitous cat photo courtesy of Fred, who still likes to relax in the washing machine once in a while.
