March 2013

Visiting Comox

A Brief Walk in Stanley Park

The days are getting nicer and Claira's sleep pattern allows for longer excursions. We decided to go out for a walk around at Stanley Park.

It's still cold (hence the warm jackets and blanket) but it was nice to get outside and see some water and sky. It won't be long now before spring is here!

Visiting Comox

We normally go up to Comox for Christmas but this year we were stricken with a bad cold or flu and didn't want to share the disease. Better late than never, we went up to Comox and visited some of the family. I took the Friday off and we got on a reasonable ferry to head up island.

My grandparents were our first visit. Claira is about 8 months old. My grandparents first saw her her in August when she was about two months old and saw here again in October at my cousin's wedding. Claira is trying to stand (not yet taking steps) and doesn't seem to mind going to new people.

The IGA down the street has a nice take away hot Chinese food so we picked up dinner and had the Millard family join us at the grandparents for dinner. The public swim at the pool is "the place to be" so we all ran away for a swim. After a swim (we met my cousin Jessica and her daughter Lexi there) we came back to the grandparents for more visiting. We had three of the five great grandchildren in one spot - not a common occurrence.

Lexi is about 6 months ahead of Claira - she is walking.

You really get a sense of how every kid different. Nara didn't like soothers - she found her fingers pretty quickly and didn't need a substitute. Lexi likes her soother during the day, but doesn't sleep with it. Claira uses a soother at night, but almost never does during the day.

These kids are still to young to really "play" together, but Lexi was definitely interesting in Claira.

We were staying with the Millards at the family farm. New this year, they have a larger flock of laying hens. Nara and I went out Saturday morning to "do some work" on the farm.

I actually learned a lot. A mature bird lays about 300 eggs a year. Most of the laying happens in the morning so you don't generally collect eggs until well past nine - no sunrise chores here (except opening the hen house which is automated). When you collect eggs, some of the eggs are actually quite warm in your hand. You actually spend some time training the birds - if you have a bunch of juvenile birds, but no adults, you need to train them to lay eggs in the house rather than all over their enclosure. You also want to be sure to not train them to eat eggs - chickens love to eat up a broken egg.

After the eggs are collected, they are washed and graded. These are farm gate sales so each box should have some little eggs and some bigger eggs. Eggs that are obviously misshapen (very elongated, wrinkled, splotchy colouring) are fine to eat, but aren't sold - they are eggs for the farmer. These are organic fed free range eggs (not cheap) and they sell out quite quickly.

After "chores", we decided to go for a walk. It's still early spring so everything is wet, wet, wet. Nara feet came back soaking wet, but she had a great time going for a walk.

Over the weekend we had more visiting - so much so we couldn't see everyone. Traveling with young children often constrains the timing - you don't want to mess up the nap schedule or the feed schedule and kids must have clean diapers before they go in the car. Thanks to the Millard family for letting us stay at their home and eating their eggs. Thanks Grandparents for letting us visit with very little notice!