~ from a calendar illustrated by Saskatchewan kids ~

Between four and six o’clock on weekdays I am in the kitchen doing dishes and making supper. The boys get off the school bus around then and can rely most days on finding me there. Everett is likely to settle in at the table for a hearty snack, and if Emil hasn’t headed straight out for a walk around the farmyard, he unfailingly beelines for the tub (as much as Emil can beeline; he doesn’t move too fast at home), passing through the kitchen twice on his way. I try my damnedest to be there, available.

Mom heard that it’s a good idea to set aside 15 minutes a day for each child, when they know you will focus on them and they can tell you what’s on their minds. This is my variation.

I heard that boys and men are more comfortable talking if they are doing something and not looking directly at you. For instance, walking side by side or even driving together will put them at ease to talk. Girls and women are more likely to speak their deep truths when they are eye to eye with someone.

***

The leaves came out a couple days ago and the grass has greened up. One evening after a day of light rain, there were so many long worms on the ground it was impossible to avoid stepping on them without tiptoeing, eyes on the ground. Good eatin’ for the birds; they’d be fattening up their babies.

•••

One night I spent a few minutes reading journal entries from a year ago. While they bring back memories, they seem to introduce new facts too, as if I don’t recall everything as it really was.

Maybe it takes a hell of a long time to process this stuff. My heart still squeezes, remembering much of it.

Yesterday I went to see an old schoolfriend whose mom died recently. I wanted to tell her what we found out from Cheryl about Mom, about what she is doing now. “Because if my mom is okay, so is yours!” I said.

***

Looks like another trip to Saskatoon is imminent. A swallowing test has been prescribed for Emil. It will take no more than a half hour— if you don’t count the highway and city driving. The specialist looking into Emil’s frequent and severe colds (this winter there were only two; perhaps the nasal spray helped?) was told that Emil coughs and clears his throat when he eats. Something may be going down the wrong pipe, which could be related to his respiratory pattern.

***

I have come to dislike the thought of travelling, perhaps because my trips already are frequent. I suppose it keeps me from becoming a hermit out here.

Cheryl said she takes all her travelling in stride by meditating every day. Years ago she said if she doesn’t meditate at least 20 minutes daily, she’s no good.

***

Everett:

Jack, my Siamese fighting fish, did something that kind of scared me a little bit last night. I was going to feed my fish and I didn’t see Jack. I asked myself, “Where’s Jack?” Then I saw him stuck in the plastic seaweed. It looked like he was dead. Then he realized, “Hey it’s food time!” and darted to the top of the fish tank.

We got to Grandma’s new home at the lodge about 8 last night, and she was already getting ready for bed. We didn’t stay long. We’d taken a slice of fresh, warm apple pie along for her, and Everett perched on her bed while Grandma and I sat in her two rockers.

Twice she touched his knee and asked Everett, “Who are you again?”

“Everett,” he said, smiling slightly.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You’ve changed so much since last time.”

Indeed he has. He towers over his great-gran now (so do I, and he’s as tall as me) and if you don’t see him for a few days, you can see a difference in him. I took this picture as we were leaving, just before I hugged Grandma goodbye and she held up her little face for a kiss.

• < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > •

This morning I was awake before Emil and Everett called me up to the porch for a faceful of boy smooches, but I didn’t go upstairs. I’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour last night, read cowboy murder mystery Holmes on the Range for a while, and had no problem falling asleep. But I laid there after waking and thought, what do I have to look forward to today? I imagined what I had planned and it didn’t make me eager to get up 'n' at 'er. Yet if anyone asked me, I’d say I love my life, and mean it.

Saturday 29 April 2006

Just back from Rosebud Greenhouse, where I picked up at least four cardboard trays of tomatoes and peppers for the vegetable garden, along with a few herbs and numerous flowers. I couldn’t help myself. I know some of you understand.

You see, this year I finally get my grubby little paws on an end of the garden that the tractor will stay out of because I have to put perennials there — having no other prepared flower beds to transplant them into, as is the case. Owing to the flooding — and sadly, there are still two pumps near the house going almost non-stop to move water away, and our living room and bedroom are still torn up.

But the bright side ... heh heh heh ... a large new space for flowers. Bwa ha ha! I can hardly keep from doing a little jig.

Tsk. Just as I brag that I've updated every day for a week, I fall off the horse and leave these pages blank for seven days. I should be ashamed. I'm not, of course, but I should be.

Even now, I'm just about to begin my day's deskwork and am allowing myself a short distraction just to say hello. Life is good and don't ask me how a person who only works part-time can have such a busy life. How do women who work full-time do it? I have no idea. How did I do it when I worked full-time? Don't remember. Am just glad I don't have to, these days.

Our basement is still torn apart. God knows how long it'll be that way. My office is piled high with stuff.

But the boys are home and in school, and the sun's shining. Everyone's healthy. My great-niece (or nephew) will be born next month and will live only a half-hour's drive from me, so I'll get to cuddle him/her often. My sweetie's walking around the house with his shirt off. Like, I have nothing to complain about.

Meanwhile, back to work I go.

~ Kathy

Thurs 20 April

“You should update more often,” you said.

Well, here I am. It’s been a full day, 100% pleasant, with my “paperwork” done, warm sun, a drive to town in the afternoon with my sweetie, a visit with Grandma at the lodge, Scottie’s cow ‘n’ calf tour before supper, and a sunset stroll ending in a ride through the pasture on the ATV. What’s not to love? You’re all jealous.

The one thing I didn’t do was any dishes. If I was a “good” woman, I’d do those now instead of sitting here, eating rice crackers while I wait for the water to boil for instant orange cappuccino. Tsk. Twice as many tomorrow.

• < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > •

What’s a cow ‘n’ calf tour, you ask?

Cattle farmers do it on a daily or at least regular basis to check their herd’s health and safety. There could be a sick cow or calf out there, especially after it's been raining so much. Calving is in full swing here — about halfway through, maybe — so Scott will walk or ride the ATV through the pastures to make sure a cow hasn’t decided she wants to give birth at the far end of the field. That far away, in the bush by herself, coyotes could be a threat to a newborn calf. And if she has trouble with her labour out there, the farmers will be less able to help her.

“That one’s making bag,” he’ll yell to me, sitting behind him on the machine. Her udder is beginning to fill with milk, so he knows she’ll be ready to calf soon. They’ll keep an eye on her and when she looks like she’s close to labour, they’ll start putting her into the barn at night. Or they’ll fence her into a pasture nearer the yard, where they can check on her easier and fewer coyotes dare slink about in the wee hours.

He’ll talk to one yearling among all the virtual lookalikes, and it will stop and listen, knowing he’s speaking to it. "You'd like a good scratch, wouldn't you," he'll say, and walk slowly up to the beast and rake its bony brow vigorously with his fingers. "That feels good, doesn't it."

“Big puppies,” he’ll call them, or “little farts,” he’ll say about the smaller calves.

But “Stay close to me,” he says when we walk near young calves. “One of their mothers might decide to go after you. You’re different.” I follow as close to his heels as I can. One of my borrowed rubber boots sticks in deep muck and my foot pulls out; he has to stop and give me a balancing hand while I stick my foot back in the boot and wrench it free.

There’s a calf born today that he wants to get into the barn with its mother for the night, but the cow — a carefree heifer just hours ago — doesn’t want him near her baby and lets him know, whirling forcefully to face him, lowering and shaking her head. He’s been warned. He snatches his cap from his head, shakes and snaps it in her long face, tells her “Just go! Your baby will follow.”

But she is not leaving that calf, wobbly and all legs, even two steps behind her. She's "a good mother," they'll say about her later. But good mothers can be dangerous. It takes some considerable coercing to get the pair herded into the barn, and requires Scott’s dad’s help. The hat gets a workout and the cow gets an exacerbated tongue-lashing.

She’s a first-timer; tomorrow night, the calf will be waiting for her in the barn, and she’ll know the barn means a straw-bedded stall and some of that “chop” they all love so much, and she’ll be standing ready at the door to go in.

It was suppertime Monday when I took this picture looking through our kitchen window. Those swamped trees are 10 or 15 feet from the west wall. You see the birdfeeder stuck onto the glass, and the two lit candle flames on the table next to me.

Scott has shovelled out a second trench through the bush and a friend brought us a third pump to use. This trench is swiftly moving water from the south end of the garden to the ditch along the road running past the farmyard.

I’m told that our yard will look a bit like a construction site this summer, because the weeping tile around the house has to be replaced and you can’t even re-seed grass the first year. Maybe because the ground needs time to settle first? I’m guessing.

“Fun and games,” as Scott says.

I was up till three in the morning, but didn’t have to do anything as the water minded its Ps and Qs, although it rained, and hard, the whole time. I tried to watch a horrible old movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum, called Sacred Ceremony.Very poor. Yikes. Fortunately I have a new stack of library books and was reading Thirteen Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell. It’s not any great mystery — yet — but it beats that tale on TV. Oy.

~ this was drawn by a fairly young student somewhere in the province ~

I have received quite a bit of mail in response to my horse dream ... it’s fairly obvious where your interests lie. I don't know about you people. Apparently we need to examine this dream a little more closely!

From The Hidden Power of Dreams— How to Use Dreams on your Spiritual Journey, by Denise Linn ~

Horse:
- expanded sense of self
- freedom, movement
- questioning another’s motives; “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”

In chapter 15, “Dreams of love and sex,” we find this ~

“In some dreams, one may experience making love with an individual of the same sex (or the opposite sex in the case of a homosexual). This isn’t necessarily latent homosexuality or latent heterosexuality. Rather, it is most likely a desire to attain those qualities represented by the lover.”

Well, I’d like an expanded sense of self, and freedom and movement. Who wouldn’t? But I am not aware of questioning someone else’s motives.

(Oh wait. Yes I am. Fancy that.)

• < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > • < <> > •

Swabbing the Decks update:

Spent part of the evening cleaning out a trench that Scott dug out to the ditch to drain water further away from the house. Came in wet and muddy, but not cold. Wore winter’s ski pants and jackets; toasty. The dampness and scent out there took me back to my early Katimavik days in 1978, when required to climb down a wet rock wall. I was terrified, and was surely the last one down. But oh, northern New Brunswick is a rich and pungent place. It was as if I had entered a fairy tale.

11:14 p.m.

Scott is trying to get some sleep while I stay up to make sure no more water gets into the basement. It is seeping in again and not to be trusted. There were fast and heavy rains today, and even some snow. Now it seems the rain isn’t going to let up for a while and the pumps, if doing what they’re supposed to, aren’t saving the day.

Best get back down there. I figure a check every 15 minutes ought to keep the waters at bay.

"Back! Back, brief waters!"

My day? Oh, a trip to the hardware store in Wadena this morning to pick up a new float for the sump-pump outside the southwest corner of our house. It's in a four-foot-deep hole Scott dug yesterday, and I've been checking it every 15 minutes all afternoon to make sure it's working. Water has stopped coming in on that side, but is still coming into the storeroom at the east end of the house.

Redpolls have been having major battles at the bird feeder! First time I've seen them this year.

This weekend we had a flock of brewers' blackbirds cackling in trees around the yard. When you're outside you can hear geese and ducks in droves in the field south of our place. It's surprising how audible they are, given the distance.

I've heard cranes flying over too, but not seen them. They fly high.

There's a very large woodpecker — the western flicker is our guess — that has been landing on the house in the past few days too. That, we don't need.

When we were driving home on the highway from Margo on Saturday night, the frogs in the ditches and fields were so vocal that you could hear them through the closed windows of the van and the road noise. Little buggers.

My wakeup call came at 7:30, not long after a strange dream wherein I’d had a loving sexual encounter with a female horse. Whatever the hell that means!

“You’d better get up, Kathy.” It was Scott leaning over the bed. “We have to move everything out of the bedroom and get the carpet up before it gets wet.”

I laid there with my eyes open for about 15 seconds to take that in, then heaved myself up and started carrying books, shoes and bedclothes upstairs and into the boys’ room. Thank goodness they aren’t here this week; we’d have no place for them!

After about half an hour of passing each other on the stairs, the room was bare and Scott began pulling the carpet back. I came up and made a pot of coffee and started a batch of bran muffins. I was quite calm about the whole thing until he told me all three flower beds I’ve put in next to the house will have to be torn up and moved.

“Oh, no!” I whined. “The garden is saturated ... where can I put them all?”

“Better start thinking about it,” he advised.

My panic was shortlived. My first urge was to phone Mom; as soon as I remembered that it isn’t possible, I also remembered that we are safe and that everyone dear to me is healthy. We are also far better off than people up at Red Earth First Nations Reserve, who were bused out of their community yesterday. They are in shelters in Saskatoon with only what they could carry; what we’re dealing with here is small potatoes in comparison.

Fortunately our household has a man who knows exactly what to do to minimize the damage. He’d been up dealing with it for about three hours before he finally woke me. He’d heard rain and gotten up to check, and voila ... more water coming in. And another inch is forecast, although the sky doesn’t appear threatening.

At the moment Scott’s about three feet from the corner of the house, digging a deep hole from which, apparently, he plans to pump water out and away from the house. My job for now is to go downstairs every 10 to 15 minutes and vacuum up (see that yellow upright tube in the picture?) water that’s seeping in in two places.

On Friday I missed a good picture of Scott and his buddy Rick standing in the middle of the slough in the bush behind the house. They had their rubber boots on and were standing watching a pump do its work of emptying the slough further away from the house, and looked just like two little boys out playing in the water.

Looks like it’s going to be another gorgeous day. I’m not being tongue-in-cheek, either. Hauling Rubbermaid buckets full of my belongings out of the flooded storage room and onto the deck to dry off will be almost pleasant activity. Scott’s sister Tanya just called to arrange a family meal next door at suppertime. We’ll miss the lunch at Karen’s, unfortunately.

Last night we picked Grandma up and drove her there to spend the night so she could attend the Easter breakfast and service at her church in Margo. Our aunt had suggested that we leave her at the lodge without disturbance for a couple weeks to get oriented, but neither Karen nor I could stomach the thought of her wandering the hallways alone there while many of the other residents have been picked up by their families for Easter Sunday. What if Grandma felt nobody wanted her? We’re not taking that chance.

She was happy to go, although on the drive to Margo she did ask about five times in fairly quick succession if she had locked the door to her room. We assured her that she had. Her memory is terrible ... terrible, I say!

I also took a second rocking chair to her room, against the orders of same aunt, who thought it wasn’t necessary to add anything to the existing “mix” that Grandma is getting accustomed to. Obviously she hasn’t visited and had to sit on the bed or a hard kitchen chair for more than a few minutes! I want to be comfortable when I call on Grandma, and now the two of us will be able to sit and relax in the privacy of her room and have tea or watch TV or whatever she wants to do. Well I hope not the TV; Grandma likes game shows and sports. But anyway, whoever visits her will be able to relax enough to stay a while instead of hurrying away because all they’ve got to rest on feels like a roost.

Grandma seems very happy there. She’s been so busy that she’s turned down company at least once, and when I phone she’s often not in her room. They have bingo twice a week, a rotating denomination of church service every Wednesday afternoon, and a band that comes in and plays on Fridays. These are all right up Grandma’s alley. One of her dearest friends is right next door, and there are a good handful of Margo seniors living at the residence too. It’s just what Grandma needs. She told me last night that she thinks she’s gained weight already, from all the regular meals. I hope so. She’s nearly lost her false teeth too many times to mention, lately, and I assume that’s because she’s gotten so thin. She can stand to gain quite a few pounds.

Well, I’m off to get dressed and see what else I can do. Maybe something outside.

~ Three rings, three daughters ~

12:54 p.m.

Dad was ready to pass on Mom's rings to her daughters when we were all together in Kelowna last week. He was worried we might fight over them, he said.

I may have said out loud, "You still think we're 10 years old, don't you?"

But for sure I said something like, "Knowing my sisters, they would be more likely to say 'Here, you take it' if there was any dispute. They're very generous women."

Mom had three rings that had meaning to her. One was her engagement-wedding set; the other was her family ring; the third was a ruby ring Dad gave her for their 40th anniversary.

"I would prefer the engagement set," I told them, "but would not be the least bit disappointed if I didn't end up with that one. They're all pretty."

However, they both graciously let me have that particular set, and slipped the others on their fingers. Karen's wearing the ruby and Joan's wearing the family ring.

We did visit a psychic reader, whom I've known for over 20 years and whose insight has always been accurate for me. She gave us some information about Mom (or Mom gave her the information, which she passed on to us), including what her dying had been like for her, what she did for a while afterward, and what she is doing now — what her "job" is right now. My friend also said that an aunt who recently passed over is with Mom, doing the same "job," which has to do with holding infants that have recently died until they remember they are not infants but old souls.

That will be Aunt Jean, of course; this bit is what silenced any doubts I had. You couldn't say this to any family and have it be true; before November, you could not have said it to our family. We had no aunt who'd recently died.

Mom also made a joke we were to tell Dad about his guardian angel having grey and bedraggled wings because Dad's wearing him out after all these lifetimes; this is exactly the sort of quip Mom would make about Dad when she was alive.

We didn't tell Dad, as we are afraid it will upset him. He doesn't believe in things like this and would be angry and irritated that we let ourselves be "duped."

It does seem a shame not to tell him, though. Maybe one day I'll screw up the courage to do it and take the consequences.

This information has lifted a huge weight of grief from me. I needed to know that Mom is and now I do. I don't need her to be here.

I think Dad needs her to be here, so maybe this information wouldn't have the same effect for him.

We'll be spending the rest of the day hauling wet and ruined stuff to the dump. It's another sunny day so it will be an enjoyable drive. Scott thinks some water might still come in, so we're not out of the woods yet.