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.
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!
Tags: chicken(3), eggs(2), farm(2), reflection(1)
People: Claira(9), Nara(9), Lexi May(7), Edna(3), Philip(1), John(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2023 to 2005 > March 2013
Last Modified Saturday, January 28th, 2023 at 22:52:33 Edit
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