I go out to help move calves from stall to stall after some barn cleaning, and to match their mothers with them for the night.

I’m inside the barn and, in an adjacent roofed section, Loverboy is yelling back and forth with Pa, who is outside in the corral herding the cows toward the door.

They go by the number of the tag on an ear, so Pa yells “Ten!” to Loverboy, and he yells “Second-last stall!” to me, then comes in and says “When we say the one with the big tits, we mean the cow, not you!” and grins. I chuckle and shake my head.

A little later, we’ve got half the cows in and Pa yells from outside “the one with the big bag!” and Loverboy looks at me and says “He doesn’t want to say ‘tits’ when you’re in the barn.”

****

While the shit was being bulldozed out of the barn, I could have picked up a pitchfork and lent a hand. That is, if I was someone else. Our Kate here, she is not about to shovel any shit. I kept my scarf up over my mouth and nose.

Those are big goddamn animals. I was nervous in there. I like them well enough, but on the other side of a fence.

Sunday

Loverboy went out at 2 a.m. and came in again at 2:30 and woke me.

“Can I take your blow-dryer out to the barn? I want to dry that calf off. It’s mother isn’t looking after it, and it’s wet and cold.”

Confused and more than a little dazed, I struggled to remember where the blow-dryer was, then told him and fell asleep again. At 4:00, I got up and threw a couple logs on the fire, and found myself disgruntled because I was putting wood on the fire in the middle of the night and my fella was not in the house yet, but outdoors somewhere in 30-below weather.

There are six calves in the barn now, where they are kept during the day while their mothers spend the day outside to be fed and watered and are brought in each evening to be with their babies. There will be another 45 calves here this spring, if all goes well. I promise, I’ll get some pictures. Usually when I go into the barn to see them, they’re curled up in the straw at the back of the stall, where it’s dark and all you’d see is a lump of brown.

By sometime today, he’d got the calf standing, Pa had fed it some colostrum he had in one of the deep freezes, and its mother was starting to take a little bit of interest in it.

[the window in Don and Barney's bedroom]

It sounds like today Loverboy has organized himself, his dad, and his brother -- the cow men -- to take turns getting up in the night to check cattle. Good thing too, because they’re all going to be operating at pretty low energy for the next two months if they don’t get smart about it.

“Kate, get up and see this!” It was Loverboy, who thought a five-year-old cowgirl in a big hat and white skirt/suit, singing “Put Your Hand in the Hand” with guitar accompaniment by her 13-year-old brother, was the cutest thing going on TV this morning.

It’s Telemiracle time.
For the past 27 years, the Kinsmen clubs of Saskatchewan have put on a televised telethon to raise money to help handicapped children and their families. It runs about 24 hours and on its stage, in Regina one year and in Saskatoon the next, parades amateur song and dance talent from across the province as well as the rest of the country. For months beforehand, local community groups and schools all over the province raise funds in a myriad of ways and, between performances, step onto the stage for a few moments to present their cheques to the emcees.

Bob McGrath, of Sesame Street fame, has been involved since the very first telemiracle. Other familiar faces on the Canadian celebrity scene are regulars too. Across the bottom of the screen is a running printout of names, locations, and amounts of donations made as people call in to make their pledges. We’ll be making our own phone call later today.

Saskatchewan, one of the poorest provinces in Canada and with a population of only one million people (sparse for its size, and losing people by droves every year because they migrate out to find work), manages to raise millions of dollars for the handicapped each year by this method. It’s impressive, really.

My sister Jill probably sang on this stage at least once.

A class of elementary schoolchildren raised funds via a penny drive in their little town. They collected 47,000 pennies. There are all kinds of creative pursuits involved in the raising of money, but one thing’s for sure -- the people of Saskatchewan, struggling themselves, give.

Books, books, books! At the library I asked “Can I stack these on the corner of your desk for now?” after my armload left my briefcase free to slip off my shoulder too often while I browse the non-fiction section. An acquaintance -- a singing Baptist ex-landlady -- came in, saw the pile and was shocked at how many books I was taking.

“Looks impressive, doesn’t it?” I said, smiling.
“But I might not read them all. If a book doesn’t grab me by the end of the first chapter, I don’t bother finishing it. Too many books, too little time, to waste it on books that don’t excite me.”

That, and I won’t have to go in for a month or more. As I finish with them, I drop them off through the bookslot when I go to town once a week. I phone to have the librarian renew the ones I haven’t finished with.

"Women Who Love Books Too Much" is the title of a book I actually own. There are plenty of those, too, and right now I have no shelf to put them out on.

Loverboy is a builder, but one with no time to do everything asked of him. The callers who make every evening in our home an exercise in phone-answering must take a number and get in line, just like the rest of us who have been waiting for him to fix and construct things.

Here is the newly upholstered old couch. That's Beckster, Tiny Dancer, when I looked after her the other day.

Dear Dave,

To minimize driving this summer, how about if we take the kids to BC and bring them to you on our way back (around July 7 or thereabouts), and then I'll apply for Don's camp from August 5 to 12 and you can camp there with Barney, and I'll pick them up and bring them home from there. That will give them two or three weeks here before school starts, which I think would be best for them although I know it's not giving them all summer at your place.

Would that work for you?

Kate

None knows the day that friends must part
None knows how near is sorrow;
If there be laughter in your heart,
Don’t hold it for tomorrow.
Smile all the smiles you can today;
Grief waits for all along the way.

Today is ours for joy and mirth;
We may be sad tomorrow;
Then let us sing for all we’re worth,
Nor give a thought to sorrow.
None knows what lies along the way;
Let’s smile what smiles we can today.

- anonymous

Have you been scratching your head wondering "What the heck did I do with my aloe vera gel?" Ma found it on the floor in the porch over at South Forks (the big house where you stayed) so it is now here.

Since you left I have been thinking quite a bit about what it must be like to live "on the road." My days of doing that were back in the late '70s and early '80s, and while I wanted to be free to bugger around and see the country, I remember walking through residential neighbourhoods of towns or cities at night and looking through the occasional window to a warmly lit interior, and longing for what appeared to be a certain warmth, comfort and rootedness.

I have never really had that until moving back here in September, near to where I grew up. Except for when I lived in Saskatchewan, I never really felt "home." But of course, there is no such thing if your heart and soul is not settled and firmly rooted in yourself. Perhaps you have reached that place and feel at home wherever you are. I hope so.

For me, home is now where my children are, in many ways.

That said, I was not kidding about making a small teepee and getting poles and strapping them to the roof of your car! Quite a few years ago I got my hands on a book about sewing your own teepee, getting poles, etc.; making your own is the least expensive way to go, as opposed to buying one readymade. I have always meant to do it, and never had a perfect location to set it up -- that was my excuse for not getting around to it.

If you are at all interested, let me know and I will show the book to you when you come back through.

The short movies Loverboy took of the concert turned out on the dark side but we've kept them anyway because they contain a lot of laughing. I can email them to you one at a time if you like, but I imagine they will be long downloads. Let me know if you'd like me to try.

Well, time to get up from this chair. The kitchen is stacked to the ceiling with dishes, as usual. I look forward to the day when we build a larger kitchen and have space for a dishwasher again. Oy. They're neverending.

I hope your travels are going well, your muffler is back in place and didn't cost you too much to fix, and you are relieved to be getting somewhere closer to the mild BC winter.

Kate

Tuesday, Feb. 18

We arrive home yesterday afternoon, driving through fairly heavy snowfall, and Loverboy suggests I go with him over to the other yard and get some of the wood we hauled in last Sunday.

He wields the chainsaw, I load the blocks of wood into an orange plastic sled and pull it behind me, by a string, back to our place.

As I’m walking down the driveway between the two yards, huffing a little because the wood is heavy, I think about how I prefer this to where I was last year, living in a little town in Alberta, with nothing to do outside but go for a walk among the people and the houses. This is a vast improvement in lifestyle, for which I am most grateful to the powers that be.
Here is Grizzly Pa coming alongside his old farmtruck, last Sunday when the three of us went on a woodhaul for about two hours.

This is Loverboy and his dad pulling down a tree Loverboy felled and which consequently got caught in some other trees.

We were just a few miles from here, in back of another farmer’s yard. He came over and introduced himself to me, because he knows my dad. It is good to be home.

I came upstairs this morning to find Loverboy had written me a poem of declaration and promise. Always it comes back to this, laced with the warmest affection and hope.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

For Cissy, I am putting together a sampling of all Joni’s CDs that I possess.

We have had the 200-disc player for many months, but it was only Thursday evening that I finally chose 100 of my favourites and slid them into the slots that will be their new home for a while.

The next day I woke up with the neck thing and after a couple hours realized it was not going to go away and took a pill. Then I laid down on the couch under a blanket with Joni’s CDs playing through from earliest to latest, from start to finish, and listed my three favourites from each CD. I laid there till 1:30 when my neck had stopped aching and it was time to go to town to pick my son up from school and run a few errands.

Of course, I was not even through half the stack of 17 CDs piled in square columns on the coffee table, so the next morning I listened to another one or two before coming upstairs to make banana pancakes for my sweeties.

It has been a very pleasant journey, this listening, for Joni Mitchell’s songs and particularly her singing of them are the most beautiful blend of lyrical imagery and musical heart. My soul moves when I listen to that woman.

It is a joy to introduce Joni’s music, to imagine someone else discovering Joni’s genius for putting subtleties into words and touching the spirit.

I am missing the CD versions of some of the albums I used to have on vinyl or on tape, so sorry Cis, you will hear no samplings from Clouds, Miles of Aisles or Mingus. But you will have a collection of over 50 of Joni’s songs, and when you purchase one of her CDs you will find yourself diving into a treasure trove.