Oh Canada! Feeling like a girl…

Being in Canada was very different from everything I was used too! (And yes If you haven’t read “Oh Canada, part one, I would recommend you do that now…)

The first day I arrived I got a bit of a culture shock but Mavis, Chris and Wendy were so sweet that I didn’t feel completely as an alien, and yes the hundred horses and the beautiful landscape helped too! With me arriving there were 3 students on the farm and one girl’s was there a week, and she did not look happy, i thought.

Oh my, my heels...







Within another week she decided to go home. This was pretty eye opening to me, because I still had a hard time with the loneliness of the country and the lack of other people besides the family and us, but I was determined I wouldn’t fly half across the world and then wimp out because I felt home sick!

And of course there was Fox Trim Classic, the MOST BEAUTIFUL stallion in the world (how a girl get’s a horse), even prettier than the horse in the movie the “Black Stallion”, and Kate (the other student) and the family. Our days were pretty full and long. On breeding days we would start with “finding” the horses out in the pastures. Try to locate the head mare and lead them back. We had to do this on foot, and it was always a long, long walk to find them and a long but little shorter RUN back to keep up with all these mares and fillies. Yes, at that age I had really good stamina…

The Mares going back to their pasture






One of us would start helping Chris with the breeding and the other girl together with barn manager Barb, would start cleaning out the stalls, after we were done with chores and breeding we would ride the horses that needed training. This could be anywhere from 5 to 10 horses a day. And as a cherry on the cake I got to ride Fox Trim Classic. After two weeks I started to feel pretty happy being here; Great people, great animals, I got lot’s and lot’s of mail (hehe, the good old days) from home and in the evenings I had time to relax and think about my life (which is very good for the inner self).

Kate and I got along really well and on Saturdays we would get Chris’s truck and we would drive 20 miles to the closest town and eat at the local hamburger joint. NO, they did not have a Mac Donald’s so you can imagine how “big” that town was… Being from the Netherlands I still had the need to dress up every now and then, and with dress up I mean, put on my short skirt and my high heels…

Yes, THE truck....









Kate would tell me I was nuts, but I felt it was important to feel like a girl every now and then to keep centered. This was my center piece, 13 cm or 5.1 inches, heels! And yes it would take some time to get in that huge truck (being used to all the "little" cars in Holland), but if Kate would give me a push it would work out great! It didn’t help I just got my drivers license a couple of weeks before and the truck would be popping out of its gear, like, every 10 minutes… So besides getting in, driving it was equally as hard…

Getting out was the easy part… you just slide out… but you had to make sure your skirt doesn’t ride all the way up over your buttocks…

So we would drive to town, slide out of the truck with as much grace as possible, eat a burger and watch cute Canadian boys in their trucks drive up and down Main Street….

We tried to enter a bar once but I can’t remember clearly how that went so I assume we didn’t get far (being only 19 and all…).

Those boys diving up and down Main street were! And I honestly think, they had never seen a crazy Dutch girl with crazy high heels in their town, and all I can say I NEVER seen teenagers driving UP AND DOWN the street ALL EVENING for fun!?! I asked Kate what was up with that and she explained that that was what the teens would do because it beat sitting at home and they were not allowed to go out to a pub, club or bar, like we did in Holland. I have to say it was pretty funny to see the same faces checking you and the rest of the town out, turn around at the end of the street and drive by again. And this would happen every 10 minutes for hours!?! Kate and I could not stop laughing and we had a really good time.

I know... I know...

We didn’t stay for hours but long enough to enjoy and after a little push and pull I was back in Chris’s truck, we would drive our assigned route, up and down Main street, and headed back to the safety of the farm and watched Austin Powers on the VCR with Chris, which by the way I did NOT get the first 2 times watching…

Life was good in Canada

...

Tractor disaster! Driving in circles...

Oh, I was so happy!

It was my first time in this wonderful country named America and I LOVED every single moment of it!

Of course it was not only pleasure, you got to earn your way around (no matter where you go) and so I was “helping” my uncle and aunt baling hay for their horses.

Note the “helping”…

Feeding time at our farm








As you might know by reading Tractor Disaster (if you haven't yet, please do!) I was not the natural that I would have liked to be, but I had some more experience driving tractor back home in Holland and my uncle thought I was ready for the real work!

My aunt and uncle had a field a couple of miles away from the farm and it needed to "be done". Making hay bales is simple, first you cut the grass (usually done by a pro, my uncle, otherwise you have too much grass left standing in the field), you wait a couple of days or hours depending on the weather, you rake the grass (throw it around a bit so more air can get underneath and it will dry better) and then you make little dunes (rows of grass piled together so you can pick it up easily) where you can drive over with a tractor and baler and make hay bales!

And yes all of this gets done with a tractor and a piece of equipment and it really is, lots of fun… if you do it right…

My task for the day was making dunes (rows) of grass, so my uncle could come later in the day and start to bale the hay and we would load it up and bring it back to the farm. My uncle dropped me off in the morning, showed how everything worked and I started driving around the field.

Manure hauling on the fields








It was beautiful weather and I saw deer, flowers, birds and grass, grass and grass! I and was fantastic! The field was a bit rolling so I didn’t get the feeling I was doing the same thing the whole time, every hill brought something “new”… And the rows of grass were perfect and I really thought my uncle would be so happy to have these perfect rows so he would be done in a swiffy and have perfect grass bales!

Yep, perfect it was…
I don’t remember how many hours later, my uncle comes with the big tractor and baler and stops in the field.

HE JUMPS OUT AND COMES WAIVING HIS HANDS AND SCREAMING FROM THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS, RUNNING TOWARDS ME!!!

“Hmm, what is he doing…” I thought…
So, I stop. Turn off my tractor and get off…

“What do you think you are doing???” “Hmmmm, making nice perfect rows, so you can bale your hay???” (I am miss smarty pants) “YES”, he yells. “The rows are great but look at that tractor?!?” So I turn around and look at the tractor… and I don’t see anything wrong with it…“Just LOOK AT IT!” my uncle insists… And then I see it… The tire is flat… And not only is the tire flat, the rim is bent… And not just a little bent, NO COMPLETELY BENT…

"Euhmmmmmmmm…. how does that happen???” I ask him with a face as red as a lobster…

Did I tell you my uncle is a fantastic guy?

Harvesting grain and straw for our cows







He took a couple of (deep, very, very deep) breaths and explained to me that, THAT happens when you drive around for several HOURS with a flat tire…

Then I had to explain to him why I did not notice…
Well, I really didn’t know. Like I said, the field was not completely flat and I was just focusing so much on making these prefect rows and enjoying the nature and wildlife I just hadn’t figure out why I was leaning to the right like… A LOT!!! Not even when I switched from going round in right circles to making left circles…

My uncle had to get a whole new rim, and yes tire too, and I felt really, really bad. My uncle did let me “help” some more with the hay bales, but I didn’t drive too much tractor anymore those months.

And yes it is Friday so let's hop! Farm Friend Friday.... See the button (Yes i did it!) and the Social Parade (button will follow!!!)

….

All I ever wanted… Was a real kiss!!!

All I ever wanted… at age 14… was a real kiss!

Nope, not a kiss from the guys in my class (who were boy friends but NOT my boyfriends, big difference at that age) not a kiss from mom or dad and not a wet, all over your cheek, kiss from grandma (although I loved those)! NO I was ready for my first real boy kisses girl, like in the movies, kiss!!!

Bastiaan & me Kissing!







Whenever a boy or girl from our class would have his or her birthday everybody would be invited to his or her birthday party and it would be lot's of fun but nothing too crazy. On this particular Friday evening my neighbor boy had his party and I was allowed to go! And I just knew this was gonna be my night!

All my girlie classmates had had their first “real” kiss, and yes by this I mean all the most popular girls (yes, peer pressure is everywhere even in The Netherlands) and I just desperately wanted to get it over with, so I could talk about “that” feeling and the of course, GORGEOUS boys, me and my girlfriends would be dreaming about!

This was a very special party because there would be boys out of the BIG city coming! Not the hillbilly boys that were my classmates, noooo REAL BOYS!!!

I had this in the pocket!

I put my best looking jeans on, stuffed some extra pads in my bra… (Yes, I know)… Gave my mom and dad a kiss and told them I would be home by eleven. My friend picked me up and with our bikes, as in bicycle, and we rode the half mile to my neighbors house.

The party was in full swing but they boys from the big city had not arrived yet… Good thing cause I needed to prepare. The big thing, or so my girlfriends told me was, if they boy in question would ask if I would like “to go out”, that meant he wanted to kiss me and I better put a piece of gum in my mouth if I wanted to make sure this was gonna be a good first kiss..

“Oke!”, I had it all under control…

Bastiaan & me almost kissing at the farm in the snow!













Finally the boys from the big city arrived! Two handsome blond guys and 3 dark haired, even more handsome guys. One of the dark haired guys was the captain of the soccer team and he, according to my girlfriends was "the one"! After some initial shy introductions i learned his name was Robbie, he was 15 and loved playing soccer.

The rest of the night I was pretty nervous, but I “slow danced” on Roxette, Toto and Duran Duran and even did some sitting on the couch discussing latest “best shows on TV ever” with Robbie. It was almost eleven and I was freaking out a bit because he hadn’t asked me “the thing” yet! Desperately I looked to my friend and she was just shaking her head… having an “I don’t know” look on her face.

At ten minutes to eleven I went outside to find my bike and figured this was not my night after all and tinkered with the lock. Robbie who followed me like a real gentleman, helped me and while we are standing there, he asks me; “do you wanna go out?”…

My response: “Hu? Why??? We are already outside???”
He was looking at me if I just landed on earth from another planet, and for a moment I thought I was…

And then IT hit me!!! He was asking me to do some kissing!!!

Oh, I was NOT prepared at all!!! First off; how could I respond after I asked this incredibly dumb question and second; I did not have any chewing gum!!! Anywhere!!!

He came closer and closer, took my hand…. Put his other hand on my back… and we kissed…

I still had one hand on my bike…

At our wedding day KISSING in front of our farm!






YUCK!!!! my gosh, all this slime…. And this tongue…. And this slime… YUCK!!! And why is he acting like our almost broken, clothes washing machine on spinning cycle with that tongue… YUCK!!!!

This was nothing like in the movies!?!
I think it lasted 3 minutes... Tops…

I grabbed my bike, hollered to my girlfriend to get her butt and bike and speeded away, home!

I never saw Robbie again, and it took quite some time before I ever wanted to kiss a boy again.


...