What happens in Fergus, stays in Fergus... unfortunately

Jeff and Sean- Crazy Buggers

On Friday morning I left North Bay and headed down to Fergus, Ontario in order to attend the Scottish Festival and Highland Games. As I'm a student, I have had to work full time throughout my "summer holidays", and consequently have had Not Much Fun all summer. So I was really looking forward to this weekend!

I went by myself, and I really wasn't worried about being alone. I have always enjoyed doing things by myself, and I also happen to know that Scots are generally a kind and hospitable, as well as highly entertaining breed of people. You simply couldn't ask for better drinking partners! So I had no qualms about the thought of attending the games alone. I knew I'd have a great time regardless.

As it was, the first night I was there I met a wonderful, kind, and hilarious group of people, with whom I ended up spending most of my time for the rest of the weekend. Several MacDougalls were especially kind to me. This family kept me fed, and warm and dry. They even gave me a dry blanket on Sunday night after my tent was crushed by an especially nasty, thrashing storm, and all of my bedding and clothing were soaked through ankle deep in water.

The music was amazing, and it was a rare moment that you would suddenly stop and go: "Hey! I don't hear bagpipes anymore." They even played throughout the night, and you would only notice if they stopped. I left the festival grounds on Saturday morning to go swimming in the river, and even though I knew I was surrounded by silence, I could still feel the pipes thrumming in my head.

I realized that in Fergus I was happy, Really Happy, in fact. I hadn't realized until this weekend that I haven't been happy for quite a while. It is scary for me to know that I won't be able to go back there probably until next year. That seems like way too long of a time to spend away from people I have come to consider good friends in just a matter of days. I cried upon leaving this morning for home. I think now that I am going into a sort of withdrawal of happiness, that I was riding on a high of fun and friendship, and now I have to be prepared to brace for the low of returning to my normal life. Well, what a fucking drag.

I feel like I left something behind in Fergus, but I know that I have everything I brought with me (I just unpacked it all- soggy as it was). But I have the feeling nevertheless, that I MUST go back. I believe I will make this trip every year from now on. I think that with the quality of the company, I would have a blast everytime, and hopefully continue my new friendships.

I am an Auntie!

The above picture is of my sister in law Kayla, my brother Michael, and their newborn daughter, Haven.

It has been a while since I've had anything worthwile to post about, but I think my brother's new baby is quite deserving of her own feature on my blog.

Her name is Haven Gloria, and she was born early Saturday morning, July 25th, 2009. My goodsister has since announced that she is Done Having Babies and quite frankly I don't blame her.

It will likely be a while before this baby has any cousins on our side of the family, so she is getting terribly spoilt! Just today I saw some books that I couldn't resist getting her. One of those Spot the Dog books with the flaps that you lift up, and a dinosaur colouring book! Her dad always loved dinosaurs when he was little. I imagine that's a genetic trait.

I still like colouring books though, so by the time she's old enough to hold a crayon, I will maybe have coloured some of the dinos for her.

This next picture features myself (Caitlyn), and my wee niece, Haven!

Canada Day and Pantalaimon Steals a Sandal

I had today off thanks to the stat holiday, so took some pictures and videos and I decided that it would be a good idea to start up a YouTube account for all my videos. I put a few videos up already featuring the ferrets and the dogs. You can see my YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/feminabifrons In the meantime, check out this video of Pantalaimon stealing a sandal!

My little "helper"...

So this morning my parents left for Vancouver to visit my sister for a while, leaving me in charge of the 3 ferrets, 2 dogs, and 2 horses. My brother promptly arrived to drop off his dog, Guiness, so that I wouldn't get too lonely. Thankfully, because it's Canada Day, I have today off to spend with my furry family.

Now, because my parents were gone, I thought it would be a special treat for the ferrets to get to run around upstairs (which they normally aren't allowed to do). Things went smoothly at first, so I decided I would be safe to leave them unsupervised while I hopped in the shower.

WRONG. When I got out I found Jean Luc digging frantically in the Aloe Vera pot! He had uprooted about 6 Aloe babies, and dumped all the soil on the living room floor! I'm sure my mom is cringing if she is reading this.

In all fairness, I had been meaning on doing this myself, namely, removing the Aloe babies and transferring them into their own pots to be given away. So Jean Luc was really just helping me *g*.

Too bad I didn't take a picture of Jean Luc before throwing him in the shower, he looked like quite the little rascal, with his muddy paws and face. He had rings of dirt around both eyes from sticking his face right into the soil. Alas, at the time I didn't find him cute.

The New Toy

A few days ago I received in the mail a parcel from Natalie Fontane, the creator of Scrivener's Retreat. Natalie has a wicked sense of humour which comes through in her business of creating handmade plush toys for ferrets or other carnivorous pets.

I had recently painted one of her ferrets, J-Ho, onto a canvas bag for her (which she aptly named the Ho Bag) and she kindly agreed to send me a surprise toy for my three ferrets to enjoy (a.k.a. destroy).

I won't keep you in suspense- she sent us a plush T-Bone Steak with a squeaker inside! This is the first squeaky toy that my boys have encountered, and they love it when I squeak it for them (or they hate it- either way they attack the thing). They haven't figured out how to make it squeak themselves yet, so for the time being it is a toy reserved for ferret/human playtime. And seeing as how their human is currently occupied at the computer, the ferrets are decidedly NOT playing with their Steak, in favour of a Stinky Old Boot of my dad's.*g*

To see Natalie's shop, check out her blog, where she has posted links to her webshops. http://scrivenersretreat.blogspot.com/

In the Beginning...

Welcome to my first ever blog post. As I'm no longer using the FBook, I wanted to have a place where I could post pictures and items of interest, so that family, friends, and likeminded people could see what I'm up to and what interests me.

First off, I'd like to post a link to my Etsy shop. I'm constantly jumping between different crafting hobbies, so there is usually quite a variety of handmade items available.

I currently have several hand-painted ferret items for sale, which sell quite well (that is to say- occasionally).

So please take a look at the items which I currently have listed. You should be able to simply click on any of the pictures to the right of the screen and you will then be redirected to my shop.