First Day of School for me...

School started officially for me today with a trip to Expo Champs in St-Liboire.  It's basically an agricultural Expo where different people in the domain provide information and services.  It was quite overwhelming as there was so much to see, but also very interesting.  I now have brochures for educational purposes coming out of my ears so to speak... LOL  I even got a free standard size loaf of whole-grain bread from a specialized manufacturer.  There was so many different types of agricultural/farming equipment on display...  this one huge machine for processing cereal grains was particularly impressive.
This is the view from up top of the back of the machine...

This picture was taken in the driver's seat... yes, I think I'll do pretty well driving a tractor :D

Backfire... WitchHazel 1; The Man 0

The Man hasn't been very supportive of me in regards to the course I will be taking.  He keeps saying that he just can't visualize me doing maintenance on tractors, shovelling horse shit or anything like that.  Today he decided to be a smart-ass and tried to prove his point by asking me if I wanted to "learn" to change the oil on the car... little did he know is that I learned how to change the oil on a car before I ever even met him, and his plan totally backfired on him.  The look on his face was priceless when I competently changed the oil on the car with confidence all by myself.  The only help I needed from him was to loosen the bolt in order to drain the oil because we didn't have a longer ratchet handle and I couldn't get enough torque (he even had trouble loosening the damned bolt).

Needless to say that now he was forced to admit that perhaps he was mistaken in his original opinion.

And so it begins...

This past Thursday I attended the orientation session at the CFP des Moissons which is the school through which I will be taking my Animal Production course.  I met the teachers, and learned a lot more about the type of things I will be learning throughout my training.  All I can say is WOW... it is a little daunting as there is so much to learn, but basically by the end of this course it looks like I will not only be able to more than competently care for horses, but I will also be a little bit of a "jack of all trades".  I will learn to drive a forklift, drive a tractor, and maybe even a truck.. I will know how to grow good quality food for the horses... right down to being able to accurately calculate how much fertilizer I'll need to prepare the field for planting.  I will learn basic plumbing, welding, "oxycoupage", maintenance and repair of farm equipment, and so much more...

My classes start on Tuesday, and although I'm nervous as to how I'll handle the new schedule and all the work (especially because my courses are ALL in FRENCH) , I am very, very, very excited