Every time we go for a drive, we see wildlife. Yesterday it was a bald eagle and a golden eagle, and a coyote. The camera is never ready, and I am driving, so rarely do we get a closeup. By the time I’ve got the thing out of my fanny pack, turned it on, and stopped the van, the beasts have made their escape out of range of a decent photo.

A small flock of birds has stopped at our yard. This morning we watched them through the kitchen window as they flitted about the bare trees. It was impossible to get a good picture; my camera doesn’t zoom in close enough, and the birds blended into the background of grey branches and white sky.

Almost immediately after I left the window, Barney called out “A bird hit the glass!” and I opened the window to see if it was on the ground next to the house. It was, and the only movement I could see was its breast, breathing, but judging by the angle its neck was tucked backward into the snow, its neck might be broken.

What to do? The cats do not generally hang out behind the house, so they were not there to run in and end the bird’s life. It might just be stunned, might be knocked out, and should be left alone for a few minutes in case it could sort itself out. I asked Barney if he’d like to do a healing meditation with me, and we joined hands and together visualized sending green light to envelop the bird, and said a short prayer for it.

We looked again, and the bird was sitting upright. It didn’t move when I leaned out the kitchen window to snap a picture, nor for a long, long time. But finally when we looked out again, it was gone.

What kind of bird is this? The males have a red head, the females (I assume, but don't ask me why) a yellow one. They are a little smaller than a robin, but not much. I must get a Birds of Saskatchewan book!

We’ve had snow since yesterday, so that means these photos are already out of date and I’ll have to get out there and take some new ones. Above, the neighbour’s farm seen from out in the stubblefield when Barney and I went for a walk, is now covered with white fluff. But here it is anyway. Farmbeau thinks all the snow’s going to melt. I don’t. It’s the end of October. It’s time it came and stayed. .

Barney and I are off to the doctor’s office this morning. Farmbeau thinks it’s time I had this cough looked at, since I’ve had it for six weeks. I'm taking his advice. And I want the doc’s opinion about Barney’s once-a-week horrible log, and his lack of olfactory sense. He claims he can smell nothing at all. Even when he’d come in after school when I was baking bread, and exclaimed “Ooh, bread!”, it was the heat that tipped him off, he said, not the smell. Poor bugger.

My first drive in snow each year is always a little nerve-wracking. Just the change, I guess, because I don’t lack confidence in my winter driving. Also, I have great luck. There are some kind of angels looking out for me on the roads. I’ve had several close calls in my lifetime.

Farmbeau and his dad are working at the dugout today. They have to take some kind of equipment out of it before it freezes in. Ah, but it made a pretty glass just a week ago at sunset.

Best away. Have to run into the other town first, in the other direction, where the library has gotten in a book I ordered. The Lovely Bones

When we get home, Barney will have to pull together his Halloween costume, which shouldn’t take long. His friend is going as a duck hunter, so Barney is going to wear a Daffy Duck mask and that’s it, he says. .

Gotta bolt.

The right side of my body is taking a shitkicking.

When Mom and Dad were here on Sunday, I had set a box of chopped, bagged tomatoes (the last of them, thank fucking god) in the porch, to be taken to the other deep freeze, which is in Farmbeau’s garage in his parents’ yard. When I was getting something for supper out of the deep freeze in the porch, I stubbed my toe. Fuck, that hurt. And it still hurts, three days later. The ache has gone up the right side of my foot. I can still wiggle my little toe, the one that got stubbed, so it isn’t broken. Okay, it doesn’t really hurt. It just aches a little. The kind of hurt that I almost like, because it reminds me that particular part of my body exists and I can baby it a little, but it doesn’t hurt enough to make me suffer anymore.

Yesterday I woke up with a sore right arm. I must sleep on it funny sometimes. It ached all day and still, this morning. This happens periodically and I wonder if it’s from using the computer mouse, or if it could be something to do with a cyst that has been on my right wrist for many years. The cyst itself is rarely noticeable, but every once in a while it will swell and ache.

Then last night, as I was about to close the fridge door, I whacked my right knuckles on a kitchen chair. My hand was literally numb for about 10 minutes. I had to ask Farmbeau to come up and wash the romaine so I could keep up my preparations for a late supper, though I couldn’t use that hand for a while. It throbbed for at least an hour, though I was able to cook with it again after only a short while.

So okay, that’s it for the trials and tribulations of my right side. But it is definitely the right side getting beat up, heavily so, though now the attacks are moving to the left and have come as far as the centre. Today my throat is sore and the back of my neck hurts, migrainelike.

I still don’t know what my body is trying to tell me. Straighten up and fly right?

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1:30 pm

So Petra returns a phone call I made to her yesterday, and we hang up and I call back. Our long distance is paid for at a flat rate; hers by the minute. We talk for an hour. At the end of that time, my sore neck is gone.

What is that about? I, and my neck and shoulders, relaxed while we were chatting?

The neck thing is hard to figure out. I ate a good breakfast at about 10:00 -- a scrambled egg, with bits of bacon and green onion in it, and two slices of buttered wholewheat toast. Plenty of protein, I’d say. By the time Petra called, my body had had several hours to assimilate the fuel and set my neck back on track, yet it had not. I was seriously considering taking an anti-inflammatory rather than feeling shitty all day.

But we get off the phone, and I am full of piss and vinegar again.

I don’t understand my body. I think highly of it — its overall robust health, its beauty, its generosity of creating my two offspring — but I do wish it would speak English to me.

~ Jill’s husband has been raising elk for their antler velvet, which has medicinal qualities. This one was pictureworthy, apparently, because it is particularly large.

My sister Suzanne took the digital camera out and got the photo while I went into Jill’s house to help her prepare for the potluck. I’ve seen elk before, so I declined Suzanne’s invitation to go with her. It was too frigging cold out.

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Suzanne’s friend T has recently been to Holland. She said the first thing she noticed there was that everyone is slim and fit. She surmised that it is because, though they eat rich food, their portions are tiny in comparison to the way we eat. And they walk and ride their bikes everywhere.

They serve tiny cups of coffee in the restaurants, and charge four dollars for them. Refills cost the same. She had caffeine withdrawal.

She went to a bar that charged 80 cents to use the bathroom. At the rate she has to pee when she’s drinking, that got expensive.

Their yards are tiny and their homes are stacked on top of each other, she reported. They can hardly imagine the space, the individual personal or family territory, we have here.

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“Annie realizes she’s known for some time, but hasn’t let what she thinks of as her ‘forward’ self know, the self that stands between the world and her inmost needs. What an idea, a forward self that can’t be allowed to know the whole truth, and an underneath, further back self, in touch with absolutely everything” - Secrets in Water, by Barbara Sapergia

in a movie theatre i see myself onscreen in a black dress, undulating underwater. i see don then, in the same place, walking with his crutches, slightly distressed.

the film has been run as the precursor to the feature movie. i am completely surprised by it, and disconcerted. i don’t like the film, but apparently when it was made i signed a standard release allowing the theatre manager to play it.

Dreamer’s Dictionary
~ movies ~ the omen depends on whether or not you enjoyed what you saw. if you did, the augury is one of pleasant social times ahead. but if you were depressed, displeased or disgusted, you are being warned against being deluded by a dishonest avowal of love or cheated by an insincere declaration of friendship.
~ black ~ bubble, bubble, toil and trouble will be yours if you dreamed of anything black, unless you saw it at a funeral, in which case it predicts success, especially in love affairs.
~ dress ~ to dream of having or seeing an attractive new dress augurs some immanent social satisfaction. an embroidered dress signifies casual sexual pleasures.

My Interpretation:
- it’s a statement about my attitude toward don. his condition is something i signed on for before being born, perhaps, or at a soul level; a prerequisite, an appetizer, a forerunner, something essential to the feature movie of my life. the black dress is my attitude toward him-- that he is both a pain and a pleasure -- and i may wish he didn’t have c.p. but it is an unalterable condition of our lives, that i agreed to
- both of us underwater says something about our emotional states. we have similar states? feel things the same? that it’s a spiritual lesson for both of us?

why would i have a dream like that; i already thought that is the case, am aware of my attitude and feelings about this fact of our lives. is the dream simply reflecting that? or is it working something out; is my subconcious trying to make me aware of something else? or prophecying something?

dreams. i love ’em. but don’t usually see clearly what they mean till months later.

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barney and i went for a walk down a gravel road and then cut across the stubblefield to come back home. we talked about technology. it started with him wishing there was such a thing as a light sabre, like in the star wars movies, and i said someday there probably will be, that technology is advancing quickly.

100 years ago, a woman and child walking down the road did not even imagine silver jets ripping through the sky and going around the world. they could not realistically conceive of cars that go 200 miles per hour, or telephones and radio and TVs and computers that communicate from one side of the planet to the other in mere seconds. an astronaut walking on the moon wouldn’t even be a science fiction character in the minds of our earlier mother and child. And only 100 years from now, there will probably be a society right here where we live, living with inventions that right now we cannot even imagine.

“like flying around with jet packs, with no pollution?” he said.

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two scientists at the university of alberta have discovered a way to create electricity using water but not magnets, and apparently this is revolutionary and may mean that large amounts of water won’t be necessary to create electricity in future.

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Mom, Dad, Suzanne and Jodi arrived yesterday around noon. I had gotten the kitchen cleaned up and the floors swept, and was making banana muffins. They hadn’t eaten lunch, so I said I’d make some sandwiches as soon as I got the muffins into the oven.

“Oh, I don’t know if I want to wait that long, till your muffins are done,” Dad said.

“No, no, I mean I’ll make the sandwiches as soon as I get them out of the way here and into the oven.”

“Oh, okay.”

They sat at the table and chatted with me while I finished mixing the muffins and put them into tins. Mom held up a clear plastic bag and started digging in it, then said “Do you want this stuff now? Maybe I should wait till you’re finished there.”

“Yeah. No rush,” I said.

She went with Barney into the office/living room and pulled out a quilt she’s made for him. Then she pulled out a book and a pink thing, left the bag on a chair, and came to the kitchen table. She couldn’t wait.

“I brought you this,” holding up the pink thing. It was a pig, to add to my collection.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A recipe-card holder.” She showed me the clothespin inside.

(Barney says later to me, “You like pigs a lot.”
“I don’t!” I told him. “I mean, I like pigs okay, but not especially. Farmbeau started buying them for me because of something we used to say to each other -- that we were ‘pigs’ for each others’ love. And now we buy them for each other once in a while.”)

“And this,” Mom grinned. It was a book called Recipe for Raising Chickens. Barney has been reading it every chance he gets, since they left. He’s been reading it out loud, he’s been exclaiming in wonder, and I have been too. Who knew chickens were such interesting creatures?

We had a quick and easy lunch of open-faced canned-ham sandwiches, with garnishes of cottage cheese, dill pickles, and pickled beets. I went downstairs to the bar fridge to bring up low-alcohol beers for Mom and Dad and I. Dessert was chocolate-chip banana-bran muffins hot from the oven.

Barney brought a kitten from the barn loft to show Jodi, and she really liked that. She is not a very smiley little girl. She looks so serious all the time.

They had been here only about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, when Dad announced that they should get going. He took Jodi to the car; Suzanne followed; Mom stopped off at the bathroom. I told Barney to show Mom the basement before they came out, and walked Suzanne and Dad out to the driveway. They loaded themselves and the little one into the car, and Dad said impatiently toward the house “Come on, Grandma!”

It was as if they had an important appointment to go to, when all they would be doing was taking Suzanne and Jodi to Jill’s and then going to Grandma’s, themselves. It would simply be more sitting around, visiting, for the next few days.

Mom came out after a few minutes, got in the car, we said our seeyoulaters, Suzanne looked at me with an expression that said she felt funny leaving already, and away they went.

I thought yeah, dad, what *is* the big hurry, anyway? sheesh!

I mentioned that later when Farmbeau asked me if they’d gotten here, and he commented that Dad probably couldn’t stand to be here because he disapproves of Farmbeau somehow. I don’t think so; if that were the case, Dad would have found a way to tell me so by now. He is just that way. He can’t sit still unless there’s a TV in front of him. He hadn’t gotten that far at our house yet.

Farmbeau assumed my feelings were hurt, and I had to explain that I hadn’t been complaining. The visit had been short and sweet, and I would see Suzanne later. But it had been a particularly telling illustration of the ants in dad’s pants, so it stood out to me.

I feel kindof sorry for Dad, actually. That he has to be on the move all the time, feel like he’s going somewhere, and can’t seem to relax and just ‘be’ without a constant source of entertainment.

We are all like this in some ways. Farmbeau is like that with his work. He works and thinks about work, otherwise feels he is not doing what he ought. Me, I am addicted to thinking. I rarely still my mind.

3:15 pm
the view from my window
and i’m sitting here in my housecoat
or it’s half on, half off
as it’s hot in here
and i’m letting my bathwater cool off
before i get in

jack and dawna came over last night
it’s hope-inspiring to see them
married over 20 years
still holding hands, smooching in each other’s direction

farmbeau called home after supper last night
to ask me to phone and invite them over
jack was home, dawna still at work
and she had told him not to worry about making supper
that she would come up with something when she got home

i said you are pretty lucky to have her
he said oh i know
then added
any man who is loved by a woman
is lucky

we laughed
but i thought it was sweet
and that he appreciates her

i joked
don’t tell farmbeau,
he might expect the same from me

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They see me, and come over.
The Big Belgian stands right in front of me so the others can’t get my attention.
Her hooves are the size of my head. Her head is the size of my body!
Well okay, I might be exaggerating a little. But just a little.

After loving her up some, I step around to the other side of her. I am singing and humming one of Minstrel’s new songs, and this is how the horses look at me:

Not so much different expressions on their faces than on Barney’s when I am making up songs and yodelling and singing opera.

I love this:

just click on the horses

it is time to fill the wood ring again
for fires to be lit in the late afternoons

there was frost on the ground and the vehicles
at 7:30 this morning

i went with barney to see the youngest kittens
heard him saying
wake up sleepyhead, what’s the matter with you?
and when i got up into the loft had to tell him
its body, still warm, was lifeless

why did that have to happen, mom?
it was my favourite, it liked me the most

maybe it was sick
maybe this, maybe that

you better feed the other two
in case something’s happened to their mom

i took a shovel and he carried the kitten
and a hole was dug next to the garden
and the body laid in it
oh how i hated to cover it with soil and leaves
but that’s what happens, barney said,
comforting me.

then he went out to feed the remaining two kittens
bereaved
some cat food soaked in milk
they promptly dunked themselves into
wet feet

i walked around the outer perimeter of the farmyard
with an orange scarf over my ears
to the horses
talk to them, sing to them, rub their sleek necks,
stroke their long noses

the big belgian gives me a horse hug
then nearly crushes me into the fence as she swings
her huge head over mine

a bald eagle flew over the trees behind them

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email to the travelling minstrel,
who stopped in sunday night:

thank you
for songs spent singing, dancing, and joyful
while drying dishes
as barney washes them

really
i need that
who doesn't

the opening cut
beautiful!
great song

you left your sunglasses
do you want me to mail them

the second song
what do you call that doo doo part
is it the chorus?
anyway, it's a real singalong-er
good workout for the harmony hummer

i have to get one of these CDs for my sister
you met her last time
maybe it will inspire her to sing with me again
(she sings to perform, i don't want to,
i need a singalong-campfire buddy)

best order it from you directly or where?

barney says as we listen to the fourth song
"he sounds like fred penner"
i say what?
he says well, he sings sort of the same songs and sounds a bit like him
hm says i, i'll have to keep an ear open for that

hey that fred, he writes some catchy tunes too!

the sixth is a song i imagine singing
as a lullaby for children
even with 'everything you do is wrong'
because kids feel that way often enough

and the last song on the CD
pretty
'love food' i was singing the first time
ha!

well i'll get this sent
suffice it to say
i am enjoying this new collection
and any singer with whom i always sing along
with such pleasure
is much, much appreciated

breathe deep
smile

kate

8:30 a

awakened this morning at 7:45 by don dragging his feet into the bedroom to give me a goodbye kiss before going back up to the porch to put on his jacket, harness (for the seatbelt), braces, and shoes before going out to catch the bus.

then he missed it. fortunately, farmbeau was going to town and gave him a ride in.

i kiss my son goodbye each morning before he goes out the door. when i’d drop the boys off at school, i’d kiss them goodbye. farmbeau has been supervising don this month as he gets ready for school, and letting me sleep. but if i’m still in bed, don doesn’t go out of the house without coming down to give me that goodbye kiss or at least calling me to come and give him one.

“okay mom, you can come and give me a goodbye kiss now!”

i don’t know where he picked up this kissing-me-goodnight habit. at his bedtime i am often downstairs and, if so, he makes his way laboriously down there to give me a goodnight kiss. only me, no one else. i’ll often go meet him on the stairs so he doesn’t have to come all the way down. when i say what about farmbeau, aren’t you going to kiss him goodnight too? he’ll giggle and go give him a smooch.

i don’t recall ever teaching him to do this, and it’s surprising that he does because he’s never been one to whom showing affection comes naturally. he didn’t, like the rest of us, know how to hug without thinking about it or pick it up by observation. he still doesn’t hug normally and easily.

i’m a fairly optimistic person. i look on the bright side; i assume that the universe will take care of me and mine. not long ago, i said i thought i had a pretty easy life and someone asked “even with don the way he is?” and i said yes, he’s an unusual challenge of course, but he could be so much worse off, and many are, that i feel we have been lucky. she thought i was a real trooper when i said that, but it’s true — i’ve been to the glenrose, i’ve seen the kinds of lives some people have to live, and i know don is one of the lucky ones and, by extension, so am i.

but when i get sick, as i have been for several days, fear and doubt get their foot in the door of my consciousness. last night before falling asleep i remembered that i could die any time, unexpectedly, and i still haven’t got an insurance plan or a plan, period, for making sure don is taken care of financially throughout his life.

and i’m ashamed of myself. this is not something i can leave to destiny and faith to take care of. this is my job, my responsibility. i know if i died tomorrow, dave would take care of him and barney. they’d have suzanne and her husband looking out for them, they’d have mom and dad, jill, everybody doing what they could. farmbeau would try to be there for them, too, if dave would let him.

but i still feel that i absolutely must not let these children down by dying before they are grown up, and i have to come up with some sort of plan to support don in case he cannot support himself as an adult. i have to figure out a way to do it from my grave!

12:30p

Taking a breather here. Literally. My lungs are not up to snuff with this cold having moved downward, so even going up and down the stairs leaves me panting.

I looked around the kitchen this morning and almost threw my hands up in despair. Where to begin? There were two sinks and a counter full of dirty dishes, and Farmbeau had filled the draining rack with ripe tomatoes. There were frying pans with cooked-on eggs on top of the stove. There was no place to move anything to in order to start the cleanup job. I nearly gave up before even starting.

But ahead I went. Half the dishes are washed, dried, and put away. Barney offered to help; now he’s busy chopping up tomatoes. I’ve got a batch of wholewheat bread on the rise, and dirty dishes soaking in hot water while I rest for a few minutes before carrying on.

2:30 p

Been out for a walk, and roped myself into pickling cucumbers for Farmbeau’s mom and dad. Not sure I’ll get around to that today though, without wearing myself too far down. I’ve done well to get the kitchen cleaned and will have accomplished enough when that nine loaves of bread come out of the oven.

At 3 o’clock, I am going downstairs to watch Coronation Street, and nothing and no one is going to stop me. I will not even answer the phone during the half-hour that it’s on.

2 pm

wet day, no rain, just waterlogged ground and dripping trees and grass

joni mitchell is singing the gorgeous old crooners with a symphony orchestra
~over~ you’re my thrill
~now playing~ at last
~ on deck~ comes love
all found on the CD, Both Sides Now
i love it

god no, that fish tree is not in my house!
my friend’s husband, a hobby taxidermist, made it
he fishes a lot
this tree stood behind our heads when we slept at their place on our way to bc this summer
it is so ugly (i find dead fish ugly, i really do -- i don’t ‘get’ why anyone wants them on a wall) that i couldn’t resist taking a picture

but it fits in with that wet theme for today
doesn’t it?

* * * * * *

my beautiful boys are doing dishes behind me, and i want to join them

love
k

On our way to pick corn at Dawn’s, we passed this farmyard that no one lives in any more. So many of them.

My grandfather built this grain elevator with his two brothers. It was the first elevator in the district (I am sure I read that in the local history book), and privately owned. If you aren’t familiar with grain elevators, you may not realize how large this one is. Compared to the ‘company’ elevators that later proliferated on the Prairies, this one is small. They can be 150 feet tall, and seen for 20 miles or more. (There is a mirage thing that happens, too -- where you can see the elevators of a distant town, and you shouldn’t normally be able to).

But to see this elevator in the distance ... you can see it for a long ways away. I’m going to drive in for a better look. My cousin, who owns the land now, told me I could.

One evening we took a drive out to the north place, so Farmbeau could look at the cattle that are grazing out there.

My flower beds were not thrilling this year. No excuse. I watered. I fertilized. I started with the best soil. Hmph. These are the flowers at South Forks.

I have had this mug for over 20 years. I reach for it every morning to pour black coffee into.

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