Not What I Bargained For

What a glorious weekend we had here in Central Saskatchewan. The sun shone brightly and now so does my neck. I am an avid sunscreen user but it seems so odd to use sunscreen when there are still little patches of snow in shady spots.

We spent most of the weekend outside enjoying the warm weather. Almost too warm, but I am not complaining. Saturday found us meeting up with our daughters family and perusing the annual Montgomery Garage Sale for hidden treasure. I spent 75 cents. Woohoo! I guess my mind was thinking, as I examined each thing I picked up, was "Do I really want to pack this up and transport it to our new home?" Clearly the answer continued to be "No."  Still, walking around with my kids and their kids was so nice.

Sunday we headed out to the farm. We like to call it the farm as that is what it will one day be when we get the chickens and the goats. Who knows? Maybe a cow one day. This is only the second time I have seen the land and the first without snow. What an exciting day! We had a bit of trouble with the trailer swaying behind the truck. Paul brought up a shed package that he bought from Costco and a trampoline for little Miss A. It took us a bit longer than expected and we were 5 minutes late for an appointment with the law office to sign papers. Only in small town Saskatchewan would someone meet us on a Sunday to do so. I was very appreciative of that.

Paul was meeting a guy up there to discuss building a road and he had to figure something out in the basement for another guy. Sump pit I think. Athena and I pulled on our rubber boots and away we went, traversing the property.

We made several observations:

•  There are literally hundreds of wild rose bushes
• Acres of Saskatoon berries
• Pussy willow all over the place
• Aspens, poplars, birch and maple.
• Alpine strawberries

And that is just what I could identify without anything being in leaf yet. But the biggest delight of all is that we found not one, but two babbling brooks, one on either side of the land. We followed them down all the way where there was a little waterfall with a pool and on the other side it flowed down to a little pond with cattails growing in it. Oh joy. We hadn't bargained for water. Now we can get a duck or two!

The land seemed to go on forever, as far as the eye could see. I was awestruck that this belonged to us. I can't believe after all of these long years of wanting to live in the country that my dream was manifest. I still get goosebumps when I think of it.

Athena wished we could just move here right now and I wondered aloud how I was ever going to get her inside to do her school work. She said I could find her playing at the waterfall. Of course I would.

Now for the not so great news. We found an awful lot of this:

If you know anything about animal scat, you will know that it belongs to this guy:

I suppose having all those Saskatoons is what brings him here. Oh dear. Didn't count on that. We also found deer prints, moose prints and all the scat that goes with that. We found coyote poop too, riddled with fur. At the back of the land we found evidence of a deer kill. Dried hide with fur. Pieces the size of a dinner plate. Exciting stuff for a kid and her mama nature lover.

On our way home, tired from the two hours of walking up and down hill and vale, I pondered what I was going to do about the bears. Any advice?