Thursday 22 Sept 2005
2:42 p.m.

Dead cow sizzling in cast iron for lasagne.

I put in one hour’s work before going out into the sunshine at noon.

Today’s first stroll presented a sky full of migrating geese, whose squeaky door-hinge, boy-changing-to-man breaking-voiced honks filled the southern air for a good 10 minutes as they crossed my line of vision. I had just climbed through the barbwire at the north end of the pasture when I heard them in the distance, and I turned and lifted up the binoculars hanging from around my neck. They were too far away to get a photo, but the sound and its duration were enough.

When I couldn’t hear them any longer, I crossed the summerfallow field north of the pasture. There were tracks out there that I didn’t recognize. They had to have been made by a heavy animal like a cow, but there haven’t been any cattle out over there recently that I’m aware of. That’s probably what it is; if not, there’s some big animal loose out there. There has been a lot of rain in the past while so little sloughs have formed in the fields and here you can see where the animals sauntered over for a drink.

By the time I got to the road, lined on both sides by poplar trees bedecked in their best autumn leaves, I had exhausted the camera battery and couldn't get a picture of them, dazzling in their fall hues of green, red, orange and yellow.

A little further on, a huge grey heron lifted off from the creek and flew, never very high over the ground, to just beyond my sight.

Sigh. Is it lovely here, or is it lovely? People who think there is nothing to see in this province ... haven't seen this, or heard it, or smelled it. Oh, the sweet fall scent of — of what? I don't know what it is, but it is intoxicating —

And now, back to work.
 
 

Tuesday 20 Sept 2005
8:35 p.m.

It was my second short walk of the day, and it brought a gift. I was standing by the corral, having just fed the horse my apple core. He’d knocked it to the ground and nibbled at it, then showed me his teeth a couple times as I stood watching to see if he’d eat it. I stepped back in fear of a horse bite; maybe he’d get cranky if he didn’t get what he expected. It didn’t occur to me till later that maybe he was giving me his best smile so I’d pick him a handful of green grass, like I always do. I laughed when I thought of that. Maybe it was his attempt at charm, at putting his best face forward. He never did eat the apple core. What kind of horses don't eat apples and carrots? I thought those were treats for horses.

When I heard what sounded like turkey gobbling coming from high overhead, I looked up, then bent my neck backwards to watch a flock of almost a hundred large, long-necked birds fly over the yard, north to south. Cranes, is my guess.

Now Playing: Clannad. There is music in my office again. Woo hoo! And all I had to do was crawl under the desk and plug in some wires. Don’t ask why it’s taken me over two months to get around to it.

Wednesday 9:24 a.m.

I will be spending a couple hours working with Scott today. Grunt work, lifting bricks from old patios and onto pallets to be hauled away. It will be a change in my routine and will help him out. He’s got to pour new concrete patios.

~ getting machinery ready ~

In spite of all the rain we’ve had in the area recently, some farmers have been able to get out into the fields and start the harvest. Our own menfolk were combining and baling yesterday afternoon and evening. Not one of them had eaten supper, so I packed up hot roast chicken, boiled potatoes (from our garden), apple pie, and coffee to send out.

Delivering meals to the fields during harvest is standard practice for farm wives, as the hour or more of combining that would be lost by coming in to eat could easily mean a crop yield loss of thousands of dollars. They’ve got to get the crop off while the getting’s good, and they’ll go without eating if they have to, to do it.

For these guys, that’s more foolish than for most. One is diabetic and should never skip a meal; for all, hunger drains one’s energy and alertness, which is essential when operating large machinery.

Rarely do I go for a walk and not take this path, heading south, before turning east and toward home on the grid road that runs past the farm. Once I get out on the road, there is a spectacular view across the fields. Below, looking west, is the best direction to see some stunning sunsets.

Best get out of my housecoat, into some old jeans, and dig up some work gloves for handling those bricks. Scott will be back from doing chores, and ready to go, in about 10 minutes I suppose.

Monday 19 Sept 2005

A trip to the city almost always includes a trek to Home Depot. The place is always overrun with people; look at this parting lot on Saturday afternoon.

When we got home, Tanya had baked a birthday cake for Scott and the famdamily gathered at South Forks to partake of it. Below, he is having a chat with his 96-year-old grandmother.

Thursday 15 Sept 2005
1 p.m.

Looks like it was a gorgeous sunrise. Not that I was up that early; no, Scott was, and he must have stepped out on the deck to take the photo above. That is the view from my office window, mind you, though the sky is in its full white brilliance now. If it snowed tomorrow I would hardly be surprised. It’s gloves for this kid on my daily rambles from this day forward.

Who knew you readers would be so interested in the big kitchen makeover? Certainly not I. At least, I didn’t expect the men to be so much inclined to see the outcome. Another lesson learned, was that. (A John Baileyism, not?)

So here you go. You asked for it.
Here’s the room before we painted. Note the Lazywoman Curtains — a sarong tacked up over the window.

Now here it is in its half-finished glory. The cupboards have yet to be done. First I have to remove the doors and drawers and sand them down. I’ll get around to it -- I made sure of that by taking off one door, so it will drive me (or someone I live with) crazy until things are put back together again.

And here, to show Katherine that the woven potholders she sent me are in everyday use and not just hanging on a wall brightening up the place, is yesterday’s pot of bean soup.

Is my life exciting, or what? Truth be told, I wouldn’t want it any other way, right now.

 
~ removing the porcupine quills from my little
buddy, Sara, the reincarnation of Annie Doodle
the Dumpling Dog ~

Wednesday 14 Sept 2005
9:50 a.m.

My workday starts in 10 minutes. This has to be fast!

Did it freeze last night? We expected it to, so covered our tomato patch, and picked Pat's tomatoes and pulled her onions yesterday afternoon. But it was raining when I came upstairs this morning, so couldn't have frozen.

It won't be long till the flowers are toast, but I still stroll around the house, deadheading, admiring, and dreaming of next year's planting.

Everett and Zander are errand boys, on their way to the barn to deliver vegetable peelings and crushed eggshells to the chickens after school.

I've got Everett home today, pampering himself so that his sore throat and slight cough don't turn nasty.

Monday 12 Sept 2005
1:58 p.m.

In a small kitchen, organization and tidiness are essential. They are not always in effect at my house, but when they are, the kitchen is a delightful room. Now that it’s painted, one doesn’t feel as if entering a dark cave when it’s time to make supper or wash the breakfast dishes. It’s become a pleasant place to cook, eat, and clean. There is more light.

When I slide dishes into their tight spaces, for instance into the plastics drawer that I have partitioned using a discarded shoebox, I think of my mother’s and grandmother’s kitchens. We are the only ones in our homes (well I guess Dad now) who know where every food-storage or prep item is, down to the tiniest twist-tie. I suppose this is true of most people who spend at least an hour a day in their kitchens. (Not that Grandma does any more, but she used to. Now it’s Meals-on-Wheels for her three times a week, and M-o-W’s leftovers the other days.)

Scott is only slightly exaggerating when he jokes that although he lives here too, he is never sure where anything is, because I am always reorganizing and finding new places for the sugar bowl (even I am not always sure where this is, because it is so rarely used), the corkscrew, the coffee. Improve, improve, improve! Or in my case ... where the hell am I going to squeeze in this new pizza board?

Grandma washes and dries bread bags and tightly wraps them, one after the other, around an empty paper-towel roll. You can pull off one bag at a time; very handy. She has a tiny kitchen too, and everything fits into everything else like those Russian dolls, or lines up in a neat row. Every cupboard space is filled. I’ve been using her kitchen for so many years, I know it as well as my own. Nothing but the paint has changed for as long as I remember. Well, why try to improve on perfection? Grandma is a pro.

Mom had nice big kitchens with tons of cupboards and counters and storage in their most recent four or five homes. Space wasn’t an issue, but she was picky about where everything went. The last time they moved, from Salmon Arm to Kelowna, it was me who unpacked the carefully marked boxes and put away the kitchen utensils, the teapots, the Tupperware, the pans. I assumed Mom would reorganize after I was gone and she had some time, but she told me last year that I had chosen just the right place for it all, that she hadn’t had to relocate a thing. We must have had similar kitchen sensibilities.

It pleases me to think that, and to know that I have her hands, her voice, her love of fabric and music, and some of her always-a-bright-side attitude which, until she was dying and her friends started naming her most appreciated qualities, I myself had not consciously noticed. There are even a few who insist I look like Mom, which is hard to believe after being told all my life that I am the spittin’ image of Dad. But some see otherwise.

Nowadays, as I go about my tasks in the kitchen, tucking an apron in here, a wooden spoon in there, I imagine that some of my skill at creating order comes from my mother and her mother, and that Mom can peek in and approve my daily efforts more now than she could before.

Saturday 10 Sept 2005
8:05 a.m.

Had half an entry written and the power went off (thunderstorm) and then flashed on again. But the entry was lost. Darn. I was sure I had most of it saved. Anyway, I’ll try again while I wait for Everett to get out of the tub and eat breakfast so we can head over to Karen’s. I want to work on my quilt and Everett is going to bring a cat or two back to repopulate the farm with felines so he’ll have some tame enough for cuddling.

My boy Emil, he loves loves loves little old ladies. Here he is with Aunt Jean, my great aunt, who is 91. We were just leaving the care home in Saskatoon and she had walked us to the locked door, as she always does.

She doesn’t like it there; hasn’t been there long, but although it provides all meals and cleaning, she doesn’t have the space or privacy she had in her last place. She’s also quite hard of hearing and her sight is poor, so it’s more difficult to form new friendships.

“I hope I don’t live much longer,” she told me. She was nestled into her lazyboy chair in the middle of her one-room abode, and I was sitting on her bed, leaning toward her.

“What? It sounds like you might be depressed,” I replied.

“No, no,” she insisted. “I just don’t think people should live so long. When you can’t hear and you can’t see, and you can’t do much of anything, what’s the point?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but it wouldn’t be unnatural to feel depressed right now. You don’t much like this new place. Are you lonely?”

“No no, I’m not lonely. Don’t worry about me.”

“You can always come and live with us, you know,” I said. “You don’t have to stay here. I’m always home.”

“You are not!”

“Well, pretty much I am! I could be if I needed to.”

“Hmph. Where would you put me?”

“We’d build you your own room, and bathroom.” Her main beef about the new place is that she doesn’t have a private bathroom. It is shared with a dozen others.

“You don’t want an old woman around all the time.”

“Why not? It’s not like you’re one of the cranky ones. You’re goodnatured and pleasant.”

“How do you know?” she laughed, and I laughed too.

“Yeah,” I came back, “you’re always on your best behaviour when I visit.”

“That’s right,” she said. Then, “Don’t worry about me. Judy’s invited me too; I have a place to go if I want to. But I’m all right here. It’ll take a little time to get used to.”

“Well, just remember what I said. You’re welcome with us any time.”

We don’t have our rotten deck replaced yet, let alone finding time and financing to add a room with a bathroom, but in my typical way I rush in where angels fear to tread and trust that a way will be found if there is the will and a need.

Indeed, I did forget something important on my list of manna from heaven yesterday. Gord brought two brand spanking new mountain bikes to the farm for us. Judging by their tires, they had never been ridden. It is hard to imagine why anyone would be discarding them, but someone had; fortunately for us. They are ducky on these gravel roads.

~ wild raspberry bushes all around our yard ~

I rode a six-mile rectangle yesterday afternoon after the bus dropped the boys off from school at 4 o’clock. It was a glorious ride until I got tuckered about five miles into it, after a strong wind came up and I couldn’t get the gears to change to make pedalling easier. I am so inept at things like that; lately I discovered that machines don’t cooperate because I don’t press and hold their buttons hard and long enough! Such a simple reason, and all this time I’ve thought I had a mechanical handicap. I guess I have, but it’s not difficult to change. Just gotta be less gentle, more forceful.

On the home stretch I noticed a hunk of porcupine tail on the road and figured someone must have run over one. Not much further on I noticed the dog, who had been running beside me most of the way, was not on the road. I had to call her about three times before she came dashing out of the ditch. When she finally got close I saw that she had porcupine quills stuck in her face and back. So when we got back to the yard I snipped off their ends with a pair of scissors, and pulled each one out with pliers. Sara was no worse for wear, but little Zander boy (Grade 2), who was playing outside with Everett, was quite excited. He carefully collected all the quill pieces to take to school for Show ‘n’ Tell today.

~ from atop the "touchstones", a slightly
raised vantage point on my shorter walks ~

Any day now, everything should be turning from green to gold. My little backlog of photographs will be outdated. So I'm sticking them in this morning, before it's too late.

Here's Everett, my littlest sweetie, doing his two-dollar job -- which he did only once in all of August.

He's so peculiar. He likes to wear plaid, flannel shirts and buttons them up as high as they will go, usually. Even on sweltering 90-degree days, I have to push him hard to go change into a T-shirt.

Right around the time of Hurricane Katrina (named after me, obviously), we had a strange storm here. The sky was an unworldly colour, and within one week we got six inches of rain, which is probably more than our area got all summer.

Now the fields are wet and the harvest is delayed, while we have had frost warnings some nights. Have only covered the tomatoes two times so far, and there are still strawberries ripening in the garden. And the flowers around the house and in the yard are only now looking as impressive as they should have all summer.

Tuesday 6 Sept 2005
12:31 p.m.

The boys spent the weekend in a cabin at the lake with their dad, who drove seven hours to be here. We had a nice visit while the kids were packing up their stuff after school on Friday.

He came bearing gifts, as usual. He is still a garbage collector, and can't bear to see perfectly good items relegated to the landfill site, especially when he knows someone who will appreciate them. So I was the beneficiary of a couple CDs, an Urban Peasant cookbook, and an overnight bag. And probably more goodies I am forgetting at the moment.

I'm so glad the hostility and hard feelings have passed and we are friends again.

Gord mentioned recently that he has no pictures of the boys when they were younger, and I said I'd go through the photos and sort and divide them. I haven't done that yet, but I did send him home with one of those frames full of small snapshots. I scanned a couple of them for your enjoyment.

Above are Emil and Everett when they are about six and ten. Below, Emil and You-Know-Who. These were taken in our back yard in Alberta about 10 years ago.

Now I'm off for my second walk of the day. There's a blazing ball of sunfire out there and a brisk cool wind, but I come in so refreshed and ready to "hit the books" that it's worth it. So this is my half workday break.

Friday 2 Sept 2005
A.M.

A couple weeks ago I attended the funeral for the father of my very first buddy.

It was in my home town, in the same church where we had the memorial for Mom. Grandma and I walked over and sat in a pew surrounded by the parents of my once-upon-a-time classmates.

It was more difficult to keep my emotions in check this time. I was familiar with all three hymns and so could sing them, as I could not (and wouldn’t have dared because of what singing can do to my self-control), at Mom’s. Two of the hymns happened to be ones that were put on the tape we made for Mom last winter.

Afterward we gathered at the tiny town hall for lunch, and I had the pleasure of talking with the family members after many years of not seeing them. There was no comfort to offer, because I know how they were feeling. You don’t get lifted out of these emotions, you just live (or die inside) through them.

I was on a discussion list about kidney cancer while Mom was sick. There were some 600 members worldwide, both cancer sufferers and their loved ones. A man in the western States also had it, and his wife and I corresponded. He lost his life shortly after Mom went for her ride in that chariot I saw in my meditation. His wife, Linda, sent me the following poem:

The body is not the man or woman;
It is only the clothing of the man or woman.
What we call death is really the laying aside
of a worn-out garment;
And it is no more the end of the man or woman than
It is the end of you when you remove your coat.
Therefore you have not lost your father, mother, husband or wife;
You have only lost sight of the cloak in which you were accustomed to see him or her.
The cloak is gone, but the man or woman who wore it is not;
Surely it is the man or the woman that you love and not the garment.