Whats up with the weather these days

Today, Monday April 23, 2012, it is snowing in Kingston ON. It’s April for goodness sakes! Don’t get me wrong, I love snow but only for the months that it is supposed to be here (November, December, January, February, and a little bit of March.)

This past year has been crazy for weather. We barely had any snow at Christmas time then in March 2012 we had summer weather! Highs of 25 degrees calculus!

When I s this crazy weather going to end? I hope it does soon! Sailing weather is on the way; I am so excited for it. This year it’s the 200^th anniversary of ‘the war of 1812’. Many ships were involved in this war, there are many reenactments happening this summer. The St. Lawrence II is going to be re-painted for these reenactments and many of her crew will be dressing up as well. It is going to be a great summer. 

Farm!

Hello again, over the past few weeks on my farm there have been a lot of new faces.

Yes that means babies!

I have many different animals on my family farm. We have Goats, Cows, a dog, cats, ducks, and an alpaca.

So far there is only about 4 goats left to have their kids. Right now, we have 9 healthy baby goats. Out of all of them my favorites by far are Paisley and Cooper.

The thing so unique about these kids is they had to be bottle fed for the first few weeks of their life. Paisley, a sweet little girl, her mother didn’t want her so we took to feeding her ourselves.

There is special formula milk for baby goats that we tried to feed her but she didn’t like it at all. That’s when we decided to milk her mother and feed it to her from a bottle.

 She is so used to people feeding her she loves being with people. 

Now Cooper. Cooper is my other favorite. Cooper started off being really sick. His mom wasn’t making enough milk and he wasn’t getting the nutrients he needed. When I found him I knew that there was something wrong. I stayed at my dad’s house for a week and took care of him. I fed him a bottle about 3-4 times a day and I started to see a huge improvement.

He is now a healthy boy, and very friendly towards people to. 

Dreams

I can’t wait for summer! Can you? There are so many things to do in the summer. Sailing, camping, going to beaches, as I was talking about before my passion is sailing. Someday I hope to sail the world. I want to sail on as many tall ships as possible.

I believe in following your dreams. Someday I dream of being a paramedic and sailing around the world. Both very different, it is going to take a lot to be able to fulfill both dreams but I am up for the challenge.

I often wonder if there is a way for me to do both at the same time. I think with my other passion of helping people and sailing.

I have always been told as long as you follow your heart anything is possible. I hope that is true in this case.

Sailing and helping people will be amazing someday.

Wave over Wave

Wave over wave, sea over bow… (Great Big Sea). Being out there on the water, nothing out there but you, the wind, and the waves. Is the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced!

I am sitting at the bow, waves rolling over my wet suit, up and down up and down. “Ready About” is called. I jump up and run over to my station. I wait for my call.  “About ship helms a lee”, “Tack the Jib”, “Let go and Haul!” I let my line off and run to the other side to haul in the other side.  The massive sail came around. “Tack down” I call. This notifies the others that are working on the lines that correspond with the tacks they can now haul in the rest of their lines.  I make fast and start to coil my lines. I then help with coiling the other lines. The tack went so smoothly.I go back to sitting at the bow, waves rolling over my head… Wave over Wave, Sea Over bow.

Mother Nature

This week I have decided to blog about something other than sailing. I want to talk about the weather and how crazy this year it has been. This winter has been like spring and today Friday, February 24, 2012 it is snowing like mad outside. In Kingston and the area they are calling for close to 5cm of snow by this afternoon. In total throughout the next few days we are supposed to have about 10cm! That’s the most snow we’re going to have all winter.

I think Mother Nature is really confused. Lately it has been so mild that it was like spring. The trees were running and the robins singing. Yes the robins have returned! And now it’s like winter again! Lake Ontario never froze over!! 

I hope that Mother Nature can make up her mind soon! She is confusing a lot of people and animals. I hope that next year we will have a more “normal” winter or at least more “normal” weather seasons!

 (A picture from a couple of years ago)  

Sailing Sailing Continued

  

Hello again, earlier this week I was blogging about sailing on the St Lawrence II, her sister ships and some different rigs.  Today I am going to continue.

Playfair and Pathfinder. They are both brigantines like the St Lawrence II very similar because they are sisters! The St Lawrence II is the oldest. Pathfinder is the middle sister and Playfair is the baby.

I have already talked about the St Lawrence II my last post so today I will start with Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is 72’ overall, 15’ wide, and has over 2,600 square feet of sail.  She was built in 1963 in Kingston, Ontario.

Today she looks like this:

Playfair is 72’ overall, 15’ wide, and has over 2,600 square feet of sail. She was built in 1973 in Kingston, Ontario.

Today she looks like this:

So here I am talking about sailboats but I haven’t said anything about sails.

Standard sails on a brigantine are: Jibtop, Jib, Fore stay’sl, Course, Top’sl, Fisherman, Main stay’sl, Main, and Gaff top’sl and some other sails.  

To be continued…