~ Saskatchewan's Rocky Mountain Range ~

Friday 26 August 2005
9:26 a.m.

We didn't get a break in the clouds and rain till suppertime, and I'd been inside all day. The soft, slanting sunshine put gastric pursuits at the bottom of my list of important things, so instead of putting potatoes on the stove to boil, I headed out for a walk.

The north and east skies were filled with incoming stormclouds though. It appeared we were in for another deluge of rain. There didn't seem to be much wind where I was standing, looking north when this picture was taken, but the grass and trees were really talking.

I tried to get a picture of the raindrops sparkling across the top of the oat field as the sun through thin clouds in the west danced over it, but my camera didn't catch the gently waving sea of glittering lights. One could stand out there forever.

Below, the camera is pointing northwest across the clover field. If we'd had this rain a few weeks ago, they would have gotten a second cutting from this field.

The dog bounds through this field, bouncing up at butterflies, grasshoppers that leap out of her way, and dragonflies. It's like she takes flight for a few seconds herself. She's wonderful entertainment ... it's a bit like watching a figure skater, with all that speed and grace.

In the last few days she had lost some of her puppyish exuberance. She was not jumping up on people so much, and was sticking closer to me on our walks. But by the time she'd waited all day for me to go out, she was so excited she was right back to her old self.

Lately she's started "talking" to us in a kind of growly whine. What she's trying to say, I have no idea. Her English isn't very good yet.

I couldn't stay out long. We had plans to watch a movie with the boys after supper, on their last night before school started. So I had to get the ball rolling.

They were out the door this morning to catch the schoolbus at a quarter to eight. I carried Emil's backpack, weighted down with paper and pens. The bus didn't arrive till a quarter after, so we stood underneath the poplar trees, out of the rain.

And I have the house all to myself!