The last two or three days, when not stone-picking, A---- and Mr. B---- have been stretching the barb-wire with which they are enclosing the property; and there has been great chaff about our "Jehuship." The wooden posts along which the wire is run are put in the ground, and they then have to be rammed down with a fearfully heavy wooden mallet, which I can hardly lift. To get purchase on the mallet A---- mounts into the waggon, which accordingly has to be driven quite close up to the post without touching it. The two old mares we drive are more than difficult to turn or stop to a nicety, the result being that once I went too near and broke off a piece of the waggon. Another time, after a corner-post had been driven in most securely with props, E---- drove up against it, taking the whole concern away bodily. The weather is quite delightful, no mosquitoes as yet to speak of; but the two big marshes on either side of the farm harbour them dreadfully. Wild duck also abound in these marshes; there are thousands about, and we have found many nests and been revelling in the eggs, a delightful change to our regular _menu_. The nests are very difficult to find; we two went one afternoon in the buggy to look for some, and the men declare we looked in the marshes themselves for them, which was not certainly the fact; though after driving round all the outsides, and not having been warned that the marsh on the eastern boundary of the farm was very deep, we came home that way, not at all liking the water coming up to the axle-trees and the horse floundering about at every step. To turn back was as bad as to go on, and as we saw wheel-tracks along the fence we stuck to them, thanking our stars when we got through safely. * * * * * June 12th. We have had a real visitor lately--I mean one who has brought a change, and a toothbrush; and for the auspicious event we rigged him up a stretcher bed, the most comfortable of things, canvas stretched on to a wooden frame, with a mattress on the top. You could not wish for anything softer. He was one of our ocean companions; his nickname of Mike still sticks to him. On getting to Winnipeg at night he had great difficulty in finding our whereabouts; even at the Club he was told the only W---- known kept a store in Main Street. Luckily from the Club he went to A----'s livery stable, which is exactly behind it, where a man offered to drive him out forthwith, having driven another man here only four days ago; but he preferred waiting till the morning, getting here somewhere about 9 o'clock, when he was set down immediately to work to stone the raisins for a plum cake, and when tired of that had to help A---- planting potatoes. He declares he never will come here with his best clothes and a "boiled" shirt on again, as we have worked him so hard.