Opération couture

Machine achetée samedi, tissus reçus aujourd'hui, canapé coussins nus depuis des années et mercredi tranquille surtout ! il était temps de s'y mettre.

Alors ce n'est peut-être pas le patron le plus technique du monde (un rectangle ouvert au boit genre housse de couette) mais je suis bien contente du résultat.

La couleur est assortie aux colibris et fleurs du canapé

Le tissu, de la toile de lin enduite Téflon sur l'envers s'intègre très bien au reste et est impérméable donc protégera un peu le siège des accidents. Pas trop dur à coudre non plus.

La machine fait le boulot proprement et je n'ai pas trop eu de mal avec la tension des fils, ma hantise.

Inauguration de la pince à pressions : trop simple :-)

Reste donc les coussins du dossier à recouvrir mais j'avoue hésiter un peu à le faire avec le tissus rayé rose qui est assez fin et surtout donne un effet un peu caméléon. Mais que mettre sinon? Réflexion en cours donc.

they talk about me

A famous french website about Working Holiday Visas around the world asked me to do an interview about my Canadian experience because they found it so cool. I t was cool to live it indeed.


Here  is the link about it : http://pvtistes.net/canada/interviews/clemence-cowgirl-a-meadow-lake-en-saskatchewan/

I will always miss some of the ranch life but things change and I have pretty nice plans comming this summer too. So Marilyn, Bruce, Kelly, Jane, Val, Maria, Leila and of course April will have to wait for now but I'll come back one day, for sure.

this is what you get from living on a ranch for a while

western intoxication.

Even happy and successfull at home, you need, at least I need, some of the down to earth ranch work. living around livestock and taking care of it, nature all around, keeping your eyes wide open everyday to enjoy the beauty of it and take one thing at a time to either enjoy or deal with it.

anyway, I got one step closer to my fare share of western life : my very first ranch saddle. It's old and not fancy but strong and in a good shape. 

here you go :

A year ago

A year ago I was flying off to Canada. It seems both so close and so long ago. So many things happened in a year, how much did I change... It is hard to believe, who I was just a year ago.

Working all the time, on night and day shifts. Both physicaly and emotionally exhausted by my work at the hospital. A complicated social life between my shifts, my overtiring family and a crappy relationship. No personal home, only a box in my sister's room but a big dream in front of me. I guess that is what kept me going because, today, I can't see how else I could live that life.

Then, it took some time but I healed and found myself back in a cowboy country, northern Saskatchewan, riding horses and sorting cows. It's amazing how true the "own less, live more" saying happened to be true for me.  Yes we had to share a bathroom between 10 people, corn and peas were considered veggies and high speed internet meant a 30min drive but the life was just at the right speed, slow enough to enjoy it and still with somewhat unpredictable in order to not getting bored.

Because I wanted to build something of my own by myself and that my home is in France I came back and started working on my 2 years project : have a house, a practice, (useless) animals and eventually a familly. That is what we call settling down!
Practice and family are on their way. As to the house and pets, I need to sort the first two first.in order to see what I'm standing at. So now I'm stuck in a big lonely flat but it's still way better thant the box in sister's room.

And I suppose my life and me will be a lot different in a year too. I hope not only to grow older but up still. If not, please remember Canada and Cologne. :-)

Home

I flew home last friday from Montreal where I stayed two weeks in city rehab.
The journey home was pretty tiring bus subway bus+traffic plane train and more traffic home. So I'm back with family and friends and that feels good. The city and pollution gooing with it not so much but that the way it is...

- 30, how does it feel?

COLD !

this has been the forcast for about a week :

you don't see the wind chill here but it was below 40 I promise you. this is no joke!

so no need for me to stay longer to tell you about the winter cold of northern saskatchewan. And for the quality of my test (or maybe because it's fun and paid) I worked outdoor three  whole days.

-30 how does the everyday life go on? here are written the results :

1- don't complain, it's only november. so yes, it's going to be worse. and yes, you europeans, it is possible.

2- dress up warm and loads. forget about fashion or confort, you are trying not to loose any bodyparts here!

it means : long johns (good quality ones) + jeans + insulated coveralls and good socks (1-2pairs) + winterboots (usually neoprene insulated at least 6mm on the sides and 1,5cm on the sole plus ruber). that's for your legs. Then you cross each top layer with a bottom layer (everything really tugged in). So on top : thermo long sleeved t shirt, 2-3 fleeces, a scarf (I personally wear a thin buff tugged in my first fleece and a big cotton scarf on top of everything that I raise up to my nose and ears), a warm toque (forget single knitted one who arent wind proof), mits (gloves are too cold) and a big (remember the layers) insulated jacket (not that thick actually) with a hood, just in case.

So yes forget about shape, everybody looks bulky, remember the color of you friends toque because that's about the only fancy item you can wear. the coveralls are all, in the begining, either either black or light brown and in the end either white (snow) or dark brown (cow shit).

3- go slow and think about your future.

Guess what? try to run with deep fluffy snow or ice on the ground and so many clothes on. Yes it's heavy, both too big and too tight and slippery. So after 5min you pretty much feel like a 90 yo grandma racing with her stroller in the retirement home. 

sweat is the cherry on top. yes, because running cows on usually means that you aren't a Rothshild's relative so no brethable light strechy 300$ clothes for you. Don't complain you'll get to experience something very special! getting cold after putting your jacket on again. When you sweated so hard and took it off to cool down and not getting wet, did you foret that it's 35 below ? yeeeeees. so now you just put on a jacket coming straight out of the deep freeze (even worse, deep freezes usually run at -28). Bravo Einstein. ;-) Unique feeling brrr. But you'll smarten up and next time only take it out for a very short amount of time or just open it or just run even slower. Cows are falling down on the ice at every run anyway.

4- discover that water freeze up instantaneously.

the feeling that your nostrils are sticking inside? don't worry they're just frozen inside. Your eyelashes too? the same, it looks nicer though. oh and your hair or any loose fabric is doing the same too.

It is so quick that they have a heater to rests the seringes and vaccines against when you aren't stinging the animal. overwize...it'll freeze.

4- drink lots and warm

bless your coffe thermos because without it ... it'll freeze in 5min.

It comes to a point that it doesn't matter that you are actually drinking hot water without herbs in anymore (they quitted flavouring the water after the 5th refill) because 1. it's warm 2. you're thirsty.

Actually I only realised how dehydrated I was after 2 days. Maybe for the better because getting to the washroom with that many clothes is like the rest : it takes a loooong time!

Anyway, I drank more coming home yesterday than after the thurst-ride in july.

5- life is a blur.

Because your nose feels so sticky and froze, you breathe hidden behind your scarf with your mouth open. Consequently, your scarf become a rigid shield (not bad) and you have a nice fog just in front of your face everytime you exhale. so basicly all the time because your out of breath because it's god damned hard to run!

6- you're played out three times faster.

and you don't want to get out of bed the next day or rather untill spring, it goes without saying why.

7- free iceskating

with a car, unwanted, uneventfull.

how do you think the roads are after 2feet of unplowed fresh snow? and -30 30 times runover snow? clean, white and very icy. What can the dpt of highway do about it? throw some sand on top to feel not really totally useless? now you have a brownish icerink instead of old plain white.

8- feeling very european

by getting stuck at work with a reluctant car. What? you forgot to bring an extension cord and plugged it in? ha-ha. We'll give you a boost anyway and ask about it tomorrow. (yes EVERYBODY at work (gently, because they're canadian and great people) asked me the day after).

by complaining and really struggling with the cold

because IT'S NO FUCKING HUMAN TEMPERATURE!

9- be proud to have lived such an extreme life. (ok maybe it isn't that adventurous, people do that all the time here but it still feels very out of my confort zone! :p

=> I've earned my new awesome (no nobody is allowed to differ) belt that nobody here will see before april seeing what the weather is like.

getting to the point

Two weeks after my theory hunting course I reached the pratical one. So, on a cold sunny afternoon, I was fetched up from my comfy next to the stove armchair to go target praticing! So I awkwardly grabbed the .22 rifle, let Leonard dug into the burnbarel for some innocent cans and let's go.

Steadily resting on the truck's spare tire in the box, I loaded the rifle, streched my leg way back, leant down to spot the fast moving obective in the scope, put the rifle back up high on my shoulder, check the target again, squezze (don't pull! Len insisted on that) the trigger and ... off goes the can, deadly wounded straight in the middle of its round belly.

That first shot did feel awkward. I didn't grow up with firearms. I must have seen a rifle once in my life before coming to Canada and it hung high up by the ceiling in my grand mother's country house. So holding a gun for me is like as we say in French a chicken holding a knife. I don't  know what to do with that long feared heavy piece of metal - actually now I do. After 20 shots, I felt more comfortable with it and quite liked it.

I'm looking forward to hunt something (easy) now. No idea if it is going to happen here.

We did went for a hunting trip the next day near Maidstone (2hours south west) because there was only three days left on the season for mule deer. To be allowed to shoot mule deer in that specific area, hunters have to apply for a draw tag. As the name says it, the 200 tags get drawn and if you are lucky, you get one and can go hunting in that gorgeous country.

Hunting rules are area, specie and tag specific. I tried but didn't understood/registered all the rules for our  mule deer hunt. What I got from it :

you can shoot either a buck, a does or a foan

only one animal

quad aren't allowed to hunt (you can't carry a gun on a quad here) but you can use one to drag back your prey.

horses are allowed to hunt and pack out your animal.

hunting in a truck is allowed (and commonly done)

dress code is jacket and hat either red orange yellow or white. As long has you are hunting (carrying a gun, packing out meat) it is mandatory, even in a vehicule.

how does a hunting day goes? depends on lots of things I gess.

you can't call mule deer => no sitting and waiting

this area is big with lots of open spots and heavy bushes => googling ++

this truck is rubbish in snow + over a foot of snow, drifted by the wind => we had to stay on the main paths

no quad, no horses to bring the animal to the truck => if we shooted something then, better don't be it too far from the truck (1mile big maximum)

so in the end very little spots to usefully shoot something and bring it back.

We saw lots of deers (18 at the same time) but they were either to far away or not worth shooting (the deepfreeze is still pretty full and if needed whitetail deers are all around here).

I spend a very sunny day sleeping, reading and screwing up my knitting work in the truck. lazy but after 6hours it gets really boring. Anyway I am really thankfull to have had that opportunity and would like to go hunting for my self at some point in my life. I believe I'll like it.