Tuesday 30 August 2005
PM

The portulaca are only now, in this yard anyway, beginning to come into their own. Planted too late, not as much sun as they like, so on, so forth.

Here in my swing, it's so peaceful. A vehicle just roared by, but sounded like a distant jet. The wind is coming through the trees in waves, shaking the leaves on the east side first and then gradually rustling the ones in front of me, and finally rattling the ones on my left.

Nights have been balmy. Gorgeous coupla days, may they last long.

*** *** *** *** ***

Wednesday 31 August 2005
PM

Not to be. I woke up at midnight and went around the house, shutting windows against the rain. It looks positively drenching out there, and I haven't peeked beyond the door since this morning, when the boys left and Sara the Hound poked her head in for a quick pat.

Now, though, it seems safe to go without an umbrella, which is a good thing, because I don't have one. Saskatchewan people don't always have umbrellas; it's rare you see one in use around here. They'd probably blow away if you walked down the street with one. The umbrellas would blow away, I mean. Though with the wind in these parts, it wouldn't be such a far stretch to imagine taking flight oneself.

Tuesday 30 August 2005
A.M.

It was almost dark when I opened the gate across from our driveway and pushed the wheelbarrow over to the manure pile. I was about to add the last essential to the new flowerbed.

Something buzzed around my neck as I dug the shovel into the pile of black nutrient, but I ignored it while filling the wheelbarrow only halfway, so I could still manipulate it without it tipping over. I headed for the gate again just as Scott came up behind me on the little tractor. He was dragging the yard so that water from the next rain would run off where he wanted it to. He stopped to ask me to turn the shovel blade, but before I could get to it, the pup snapped at the air next to my knee and there was a burning sensation. I shrieked in shrill surprise.

"Did Sara bite you?" Scott asked.
"No, something stung me," I said, just as there was another hot jolt behind my knee, "and it must be in my pant leg!"

Out in the farmyard, I quickly kicked off my shoes and shucked my jeans. After turning the pant legs inside-out to determine there were no more wasps or hornets or whatever I had disturbed at the manure pile, I put my jeans back on. But not before thinking that not only is it a good thing to always wear clean underwear, but this was one time I was glad I'd been wearing *gauch, period!

* Saskatchewanese for women's panties or men's undershorts

Monday 29 August 2005
2:42 p.m.

I should be working.
But it's too nice out!

So I'm working on Irene's Oval. She just gave me a bunch of lilies, a miniature bleeding heart, some carnations, and poppyseed.

One new flowerbed a year seems to be standard.

Last summer I put in Marilou's Crescent: daylilies, brown-eyed susans, speedwells, lambs' ears, blazing stars, showy stonecrop. She gave me all these after I helped her put the greenhouse's extra flowers into the ground in August. Here it is:

The grass needs trimming.

The new one is at the upper left of the picture, and shaped like an egg.

Sunday 28 August 2005
10:29 a.m.

Above is one of my favourite paths to walk on. The horses keep it well mown, the wild purple asters are full-blown bushes in the trees, and before I know it I am at the creek, which still has water in it this summer. Every year since I've moved here, it's been dried up by the end of July.

Yesterday I was treated to a display of dragonfly lovemaking. There must have been a dozen couples putting on a show for me as I squatted by the water's edge to watch them. I am not sure if one eats the other's tail or what; but that's what it looked like.

This afternoon I'm off to dig up perennials from the flowerbed of a lady who is moving out of town. This means I have either to prepare a new flowerbed in our yard, or plant them out in the garden until I decide where to put them permanently.

Time to get outside. Been in this chair too long already, and it looks gorgeous out there.

~ The Biker King, now ~

Saturday 27 August 2005
10 a.m.

When I first started journalling online some, oh, seven years ago, it was with the hope that my entries would provoke feedback in the form of mail. (I have always loved to get mail, and I still check for new mail first thing every morning.)

It took a long time, but now the journal entries do get mail responses quite regularly, which is one of my rewards for taking the time to do it. It is gratifying to have my effort appreciated, and wonderful when someone writes and tells me something about his or her own life so that the seed of friendship is sown.

Just as I wonder if readers are sick and tired of all my pictures of the sky, I discover that some of you take almost as much pleasure from seeing these skies as I absorb while walking beneath them.

So here's another one, taken about a mile and a half north of here, while out biking.

~ 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!

 
Tuesday 23 August 2005
~ early afternoon ~

From the Touchstones:
For a change I remembered to bring a small notebook and pen on my daily walk, to write down what I see. A couple weeks ago it was the mother coyote. Last week it was a speedy red fox that Sara chased out of the clover field. Yesterday she raced a badger to its hole, just outside the yard.

Gophers being as numerous as they are, the badgers have moved in to fatten themselves up for winter. I was glad the badger won the race. It would’ve taken a round out of Sara. But without her, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed it.

The ditches and meadows right now are exploding with wild purple asters.

On a morning walk through a pasture yesterday, there were three red-tailed hawks coasting and whistling above my head. When I’d stop and look up to watch the undersides of their stretched-out wings, they’d be silent. When I’d move again, they’d call some more, as if to say Hey! Where are you going? Look at me!

The sky is very dark all around this big rock I am perched on, and there is thunder in the southwest. I suppose I’d best make my way back to the house, where Everett is baking bran muffins and where I should be getting to my desk.

Thunder travelled from the south all the way across the western sky. I am waiting for lightning, not seeing any.

From the house:
Managed to thin a few of Pat’s carrots and take the tops to the stallion before the rain began. I’ve been enjoying the crashing and growling coming from the clouds, and now don’t want to go inside. So I am under the roof on the deck — all too close to various metal things — Emil’s crutches leaning into the corner, some wheels for Scott’s scaffolding — but I feel safe, though the last crack of thunder was close. Still, there are higher things nearby for thunder to strike, and I’m wearing rubber-soled shoes.

Wow! VERY close!

Wonder if this storm will miss 22 so Scott can finish swathing up there.

Some of the thunder continues so long it sounds like a jet crossing the sky.

Evening, from my bed
Today would be Mom and Dad's 47th wedding anniversary. His day was "tough," he said. He went out and bought a single red rose and put it into a vase next to Mom's picture on the mantel.

We got about three inches of rain this afternoon. The corrals are flooded; the cattle are knee-deep in water and muck. There were tornado warnings in the area, so maybe I wasn't imagining things when I wondered if that last photo I took was the beginning of a funnel cloud.

The thunder is still crashing out there! It reminds me of freight cars banging together in a railyard.

~ Grandma's back door ~
~Emil's crutches hooked on the railing ~

Monday 22 August 2005
8:37 a.m.

Another weekend over with, a new week begun. I will be playing catch-up with my work in the early part of it, as I didn't accomplish much last week. The days are too short to do everything I want to. Organizing myself so as to fit it all in is the next step; then to make myself stick to any kind of scheduled routine ... well, if I ever manage that, it would be a miracle. Why do I even dream of it?

Last night's sleep was fitful because I had been searching out beef jerky recipes with a view to marketing the farm's meat product in a different way. Making beef jerky is a time-consuming, labour-intensive job; selling it would take a day out of my week. Already I don't seem to manage my time well enough to do all that is important to me; and here I am, thinking of adding another project to the mix. When I don't like handling raw meat at the best of times, to start with!

What was I thinking? It's simple; I wanted to help relieve some of the stress around here. But in considering it, I must've added to my own. I fell asleep after reading numerous recipes with great interest, picking up preparation tips. But during the night I kept waking up, feeling pressured and burdened by the idea of it. That's me, Idea Girl. It's a pretty good idea I had, maybe, but the doing of it would mean setting aside other activities that would give me more satisfaction and have too long been set aside already. My plan was to spend the summer taking it kind of easy, except for my part-time work, and then in September when the boys go back to school, to get at a couple things I have been putting off for several years. Already I can't figure out how I will find time for them all. Well, two or three projects I want to spend some time with.

Priorities being what they are, this means I am letting go of some of my internet-related activities. Have already begun the purge of certain habits. Gone for a week or two already, they are not yet missed and perhaps won't be. I've decided not to pick up my volunteer involvement in the community this fall, either, so that I can move ahead with my personal projects. The volunteer work was not very time-consuming, but it was one more straw that could be removed from my back, and so for now it has been.

And now ... now it's time to prepare my desk for work.

Sunday 21 August 2005
11:43 a.m.

When we were in Manitou Beach we had supper at a Mennonite restaurant where the owners were guitaring and singing as their customers ate. Later the husband of the duo came over to chat and when he found out we had a child at Camp Easter Seal, said he knew someone who'd gone to camps there till he was 55 years old. We hope, for Emil's sake, that that is still a possibility. Camp Easter Seal is the highlight of his life.
 

Two of the stories we heard are that the main building was either once-upon-a-time a railway station, or it was a luxury getaway for Japanese tourists.

It took some time to get Emil off the circular driveway and over to our van, as he needed to say goodbye to all his cabin counsellors (pictured below) about 10 times each. He also wanted to say his farewells to several other campers and counsellors. 

"I'm so sad camp is over for this year!" he whines, but to comfort himself adds, "I can always go back next year. That's something to look forward to, right?"

***

On Friday night I watched Beyond the Sea,, the movie about singer Bobby Darin. I didn't know much about him, but as an actor Kevin Spacey is the tops. Who knew he could sing so well? Of course, a one-night movie rental doesn't do; I kept it a second night so I could watch the director's commentary. Spacey was the director too; his favourite word is "remarkable."

My favourite scene in the movie is right near the end, when Young Bobby Darin sings and dances with Old Bobby Darin. They pull off a great song-and-dance number, which I replayed several times. Mom would have especially enjoyed the youngster's performance, as she always loved the voices of little boys. Catching myself feeling sad that she won't get to see it, I imagined she was with me, watching. Well, she might have been! I will imagine the same thing when one day I finally get around to watching Coronation Street again.

Friday 19 August 2005

At suppertime yesterday, Scott announces he's going to drive up to the north pasture to check on the cattle there, and I invite myself along. I enjoy these rides beneath the big sky in the old truck, as we rattle and bump slowly over the rough pastures and the trails that cross them.

Scott is in his glory with someone to tell things to, remarking on the condition of the fields, the (“$!*?%#!”) millet that has found its way into the crop, and various other aspects of his work, things I have never thought of. There's more to it than sticking seeds in the ground and taking a crop off. It’s obvious that he knows his business, and I think, “There is a lot to farming; the dumb farmer reputation is ridiculous.”

When we see the cattle and he calls, they begin to come toward us. We drive to the herd and stop the truck, and Scott gets out and walks among them, making sure there are no injuries or illnesses, that all is as it should be. He greets individual cows and calves fondly, says a few words to me about this or that one. I can see that he enjoys these lumbering beasts and feels an affection for them.

We linger there while he counts them; it takes a while, because they mill around the truck, sticking their noses on the front grill, watching us with their thick-lashed, soft brown eyes. When we finally drive on, they follow the vehicle. Scott says with a smile, “What do we need a herding dog for, with cattle like this?”

Along the fenceline there has been a lot of wildlife traffic. He points out the many patches of bent grass. Some kind of animal has been bedding down there, he tells me, and something’s been digging in an anthill. A bear? He stops the truck to have a closer look and to check the electric fence. It’s working well, so the bear, if that’s what it is, will stay outside it.

Behind us, we can hear the quiet thunder of hooves as the cattle make their way toward the truck. He counts them once more as they get close and then, since there are only 40 and he thinks there should be a few more, he gets up into the truck box and counts again.

When we’re ready to leave, the motor won’t start. He tries several times, but no luck. Up comes the hood and he fiddles with the carbureter. I get out, button up my jean jacket, walk around the truck, stand by helplessly. He has begun to curse; they have just done repairs on the old beater. Fortunately, I brought the cellphone so the kids could reach us. He suggests I call his dad to come and pick us up. Unfortunately, a recording comes on and tells me we have no pre-paid minutes left to use. The phone is useless. We shake our heads in disgust.

We push the truck a little ways; it still won’t start. It would be a couple miles to walk, at least, to a phone. But I think, several times, “He’ll get it started.” And he does. That's my farmbeau. I have to jump up onto the front bumper and lean over the hot engine, worried about falling onto it as I fasten the lid of the carburetor back on while he keeps the motor running from inside the cab. Finally, and with two big sighs of relief, away we go.