A drive with Scott usually results in quite different photos than what I normally take. Here, we actually drove out onto some farmer's stubblefield to get a close-up of this old building. Why, you ask? Because the roof is being held up by the one remaining wall in the middle of the house, and apparently this is a notable thing.

Yesterday Everett made a huge batch of cookie dough, determined to get his fill of dough-eating, uncooked. I insisted he make enough so that there would be plenty of cookies for their school lunches this week. Today he ate some raw dough but restrained himself. "I wasn't going to make a pig of myself," he tells me now, when I ask. "Someday I will, but today wasn't the day." Instead, he rolled it up into balls, then flattened it into cookies and baked them. Dee-lish. I swear, no one makes a better cookie than that kid.

When I saw Grandma yesterday she said her right leg has been bothering her a lot, and when she got up to walk I could see it was painful. So today we went down to the drugstore and bought the shortest cane they had, and then went to the doctor's office for a look-see. Grandma had a stroke when she was in her fifties and periodically since then her right leg and arm have felt weak or achy, so I figured this was probably related.

The doctor pronounced that using a cane is the best thing to do, wrote her a prescription for pain, and sent us on our merry way. When we pulled up to the lodge where Grandma lives, she said, "What are we doing here?"

"This is where you live," I said.

"Hmph. I've never been here before."

"Grandma, you've lived here for more than two years."

We went in the same door we always do and walked down the hall. She veered off to the left toward her room and remarked, "I think this is the way we go."

I hung her coat up and she laid down on her bed for a little leg and foot massage. When I had to leave to make it to the drugstore before closing, she accompanied me a-ways down the hall, as usual. When she saw Esther, who is wheelchair-bound, Grandma showed her the cane and said, "I have to use a cane now."

"Best thing!" Esther replied.

Now Grandma just has to remember that she has a new toy.

In the past week, Grandma has misplaced her wallet and been discovered outside without a coat on. The latter is particularly worrying as the seasonal temperatures drop. We don't know if she will do it again, but chances are that she will, since she has lately been confused about where she needs to go for her meals. Sometimes she wonders aloud whether she needs to go outside somewhere; she forgets that meals are served in the dining room down the hall from her room.

The home care aides will let us know if it happens again, but in the meantime they have taped the sign above to the inside of her door. I stopped in this evening after an afternoon at the hospital visiting a patient in palliative care, followed by a quick trip to the chiropractor in Watson for Scott, and found Grandma getting her hair done.

This lady, Donna, comes to the lodge every week so that the seniors don't have to go downtown to get beautified. "I like to keep her all dolled up," she said about Grandma.

The wallet hasn't turned up yet. Grandma has no idea where she might have left it, as she has no memory of leaving the building.

I did a more thorough search of her room, and didn't find the wallet but did come across the gloves she couldn't find last winter.

Waiting in the van for Scott at the end of the day, while he's in with his chiropractor in Watson

Waiting in the van for Scott at the beginning of the day, while he's in with his chiropractor in Canora

Visiting Floyd in a nursing home in Yorkton

Going home through Canora, a yard in town has a collection of fairground stuff

I accompanied Bev to a trade show in Porcupine Plain, where her T.E.N.S. machines sold like hotcakes

On the way home, after Miss Bev racked up 18 sales

Emil has just realized he has tickets to the Neil Young concert in his hand, after Gord arrived last night

The boys are off with their dad to Regina to see Mr Young, and Scott and I are heading for Saskatoon to see Passchendaele, Paul Gross's new movie, in the theatre.

My cousin Lynn has an organic apple orchard here in Saskatchewan and since she's home this weekend, she brought apples ... lots and lots of apples. (Shelleeeeee..... come back and help me make pies!!!!)

But there will be no baking today. I'm going over to Golden Grain Farm to transplant perennials away from the house and out to the garden so they won't be disturbed when Scott gets around to digging around the foundation. Everett has gone next door to help Scott's mom and dad dig up potatoes. Scott's out doing something with cattle -- the never-ending something to do with cattle -- and Emil, well, he's sitting behind me on the couch looking up to doing very little.

Yesterday we heard there was a forecast for a foot of snow, but later in the day it was changed to no snow. I haven't pulled up any flowers because they are still blooming profusely and I can't do it -- I just can't do it -- when they are so happy as they are and still so beautiful. If we get a snowfall before I get them out, then c'est la vie. I'll clean them up in the spring instead.

And now, on with my red rubber boots and out the door I go.

Over at Golden Grain Farm, the previous owners created a dump site just feet from the well, from which they drew their drinking water. Test results showed contamination, so not only has Scott been cleaning up the dump, he's built the well up so that groundwater can no longer get into it. He's pumped it dry and given it a shock-chlorine treatment.

The same day the big machinery came out to work on the well, it was used to build up the driveway. Late this afternoon Scott was over there floating a load of gravel on top of it.

While he rode the tractor around, I snipped flower seed for spring planting.

The weather has been such that the garden is still flourishing. A day or two after Shelly left with her tomatoes, I took a couple grocery bags over, thinking to pick the last few that were large enough to be worth my while. I came home with about five bags full. Yesterday I brought up the ones from the storage room and spread all of them out in the sunroom to ripen. The chopping has begun; frozen into two-quart bags, we may have tomatoes for sauces and salsa through next summer.

Emil's "resting" in his room, Scott's stretched out downstairs in front of the TV, and Everett's making a big batch of brownies. I'm in my pyjamas and thinking about climbing into bed to read for a couple hours. Brownies and milk will be my bedtime snack. Mmm, life is good.

My old pal Shelly turned up with her daughter Becky on Friday to pick up her tomatoes and spend the weekend. She came bearing not only apples and a peeler but flour, sugar, and foil tins, and on Saturday morning she made apple pies while I washed dishes and wiped counters, trying to keep up with her flying elbows. By noon there were eight pies ready for baking.

(Reta, are you jealous?)
(Almost 30 years ago when Shelly and I visited my aunt and uncle in Sheveport, Louisiana, Shelly made apple pies that Reta announced were the best she'd ever had.)

The girls left for Edmonton on Sunday morning and I caught a ride as far as Cathy's in Saskatoon, where this photo was taken. Scott arrived in the city that night and we shopped for flooring on Monday before heading back to the farm.

His upper spine has been bothering him for a couple weeks and on the way home he began feeling unwell due to it. I recalled a chiropractic office recently opened in Watson so we stopped to see if they could have a look at him. They could, and after a treatment he is now lined up for two or three per week for the coming month. Since driving exacerbates his discomfort, I took him to yesterday's appointment and while he was in the clinic I toured the town.

Unfortunately the museum had closed at 5 o'clock but one of these days we'll go an hour earlier so we can visit it. It's in this bank built in 1906:

This old church had some nice stained glass on its sides as well as the front but they didn't show up well in photos.

Looks like a little dusting might be in order.

It rained this morning so the harvest is at a halt for now. The wind hasn't stopped blowing hard for about four days. Thousands of snow geese are hovering above and landing in the fields on their way south. During supper tonight, after dark, through the open window we heard them honking as they flew over the house.

Everett won't admit that he's enjoying school this year, but what he's learning in class is being passed on to me here at home with some enthusiasm. I had not realized all the political shenanigans that went into the creation of the First World War, for example. I am getting an education, or at least a high school refresher course, secondhand.

At harvest time, everyone is in a hurry.