Good Food is Everybody's Business
We, at last, found a pony for Lisa, a beautiful five year old chestnut gelding, with a million dollar disposition. Lisa named him “Big Fellow,” but mostly he was just called “Pony.”
Granville Island Public Market is just a short water taxi ride from the sparkling, jewel-like towers of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, and a comfortable stroll from neighborhoods of stately Victorian homes. The city is a beautiful contradiction and Granville Island – and the Public Market – was built to honor both the new and the old.
By June, it was time to take “Cat” to the vet to be neutered, so he would not be straying from home. Slowly, perhaps, we were learning to avoid some of the pitfalls that come with having a menagerie. We had not yet reached the threshold where we could bring ourselves to eat our own lambs. Hypocrites that we were, we marketed the ram lambs, from the past spring, to Wilson & Co. at Albert Lea, MN.
Opie was a constant worry; he was determined to run over anything that moved. We wondered if he might have had a high fever when he was affected with founder, and that perhaps that could have caused changes to his brain and the change in behavior. Whatever, he was certainly a problem.
Sometimes once just isn’t enough… you have to go back for more! We’ve visited Aphrodite Café and Pie Shop in Vancouver BC before, but we couldn’t pass up a second visit. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty, what better model for a restaurant that serves meals and treats for omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike?
Shortly after we returned from Milwaukee the oats harvest was under way, loads of combined oats were being hauled in from the field, and blown into the grain bins in the granary. A substantial amount of grain was spilled on the ground during this process, so Opie had to be kept away from the area. We had been shutting the barnyard gate and letting him be loose in the barnyard, but now he had to be staked out again during the day. At night, some snow fence was set up around the spilled oats, and we shut the gate and turned Opie loose. Little did we suspect that as darkness fell, he was pushing his nose under the snow fence and eating oats.
All the neglected projects were getting fairly well caught up, and we were settling back into our usual routine, when I got an early morning phone call from another friend in Milwaukee, with terrible news. Our friends had gone on their camping vacation, and after the first day at the lake, had been on their way to pick up some groceries, when they had a car accident.
It was a very big week for Lisa. In addition to having her Uncle Bob, Aunt Stacia, and Debbie visit, which was exciting enough, they had brought her a very nice bicycle, she had lost her very first tooth, and the day after our friends left, her new horse was delivered! How much more could one stand?
