Missing Monte

We were parked down by Monte's place while Scott did what he could to take apart a beaver dam one evening.

This past January was two years since our friend and neighbour Monte died suddenly. He worked for a farmer just north of our place, and often drove past me when he was on his way to or from the field or the shop where they worked on machinery, repairing or getting it field-ready. When Monte wasn't in a hurry, he'd stop and chat for a few minutes. We'd known each other since we were teenagers; and Monte and Scott had been neighbours and friends since they were little boys. 

One time Monte said, "No one would miss me if I was gone tomorrow."

"That's not true, Monte!" I told him.

And it isn't true, either. We think of him often and we do miss him.

Monte's road; click to enlarge.

The dam is about two feet high.

Scott got the water flowing, but by early next morning the beavers had it dammed up again.

You Comment, I Reply

Wisewebwoman has left a new comment on your post "Lost Day": 

I just had one myself, a bad attack of IBS when I was planning on shopping for groceries and urgencies. Slept 3 hours solid in the afternoon, unplanned days off, feel much better now and hope you do too, so sorry you missed the theatah.

Yep, right back to normal the next morning. It's good to be alive and feeling normal, ain't it?  Glad you've improved too.

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Annette Erickson has left a new comment on your post "Lost Day": 

It is beautiful and your pic shows it. I have a good idea of the sound effects so I can hear them just by looking at the picture. 

I just love it. Sounds like being in the jungle!  No monkeys screeching, no lions roaring, no elephants trumpeting, but so many different birds ... not to mention the frogs ... it's quite heavenly.

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Teresa has left a new comment on your post "Lost Day": 

Sorry to hear of your troubles and missing out on the fun. Hope you are feeling better. 

Good as new. Well, almost. Woke up "neckish" this morning (Mon.) but it looks like it's going to smarten up. Fingers crossed.

Lost Day

Yesterday was an unpleasant waste — the usual affliction that often tends to hit me on Saturdays — why is that, I wonder? Is it because I've just spent three days in an office chair?  As usual, I'm never sure I have the real answer.

I laid on the couch most of the day, where I could hear the TV, and later when I moved to the bedroom was when I almost fell asleep and started feeling, if not 100%, at least as if I wasn't suffering anymore.

At about 5 o'clock I felt hungry as opposed to nauseated at the thought of food. A good sign, I figured. Maybe I'd nibble on some sausage and crackers, make a speedy recovery, and have time to get ready to go to the dinner theatre we had tickets for.

It was not to be. I missed our evening out, watching Scott's brother Bruce onstage in a musical comedy put on by the local theatre group. While amateur theatre in my experience tends to drag a little, being a musical adds life to a show, and I would have enjoyed at least the musical parts of it. As it was, my ticket went to waste.

Down the road with Scott one evening while he dug out part of a beaver dam. Click image to enlarge. Looking at it small does't do it justice. It was beautiful out there. I said to Scott at least twice, "Man, we are lucky to live here." I guess my snapshots don't do it justice; not least because you don't get the sound effects! The birds are a glory these days.

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Maggie Turner has left a new comment on your post "Prairie Chicken": 

Thanks for the pics of the prairie chicken, they remind me of partridges which abounded around my Granny and Grandpa's house, and we had many a meal. My Grandparent's always ate their own meat, mostly wild game, and Grandpa butchered it all himself. It sure gave us a healthy respect for what was involved in putting meat on the table. I am not a big meat eater, I owe to the family hunters Grandpa and my Dad, and eating our beloved cow Maybelle on the farm where I grew up. I really don't know how people raise an animal with a name and personality, and then eat it, baffling. 

Yes, that part is difficult to understand. Farm kids go through the experience early — of raising an animal and then having to sell it or let it be butchered. Scott still has a hard time with that because some of their cattle are quite tame and many are like pets ... they like to be scratched, and they have names and definite personalities.

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Wisewebwoman has left a new comment on your post "Mulie Mama": 

She's a wee beauty, I hope she finds a good birthing spot. And a doulah. A good doulah.

And I hope she doesn't like the taste of my flowers!

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Lorna has left a new comment on your post "Mulie Mama": 

Happy Mother's Day.

Thanks, Lorna. Same to you! 

We're just about to take Scott's mom out for lunch before stopping at a family greenhouse to pick up a thing or two, though I'm cutting seriously back on annuals this year. I swear, I am. 

 I'm starving! Two inches of farmer's sausage (yuk; but it was handy) and a fistful of soda crackers for supper last night just didn't cut it. I didn't have the energy to prepare anything properly, and Scott was going out for supper, and had just come home to clean up and go out the door to the dinner theatre show, so I was on my own. 

Mulie Mama

Yesterday morning as I drove to town, I thought I could see a tinge of green in the distant poplars. It was so faint that I could have been imagining it. But tonight, there is no doubt: the leaves are popping out.

Before pulling into our farmyard I thought I saw a deer standing behind some bush across the road, very still, watching. I stopped and looked, but she was so still she blended in with the grey trees.

Not long after, I headed down the driveway for a short stroll, and there she was, watching.

I stood still and snapped a picture. 

And zoomed in a little. Click to enlarge. Isn't she beautiful? She's a mule deer. 

By the time I zoomed in for the close up, she'd been spooked. Darn it.

She has been in our yard several times over recent days. Scott says she is looking for a safe place to give birth. She has checked out the area next to the barn and I've seen her bounding out the driveway. 

Sometimes I think I should add a "Wild Animals I Have Seen Today" feature to this blog. Usually it would just be birds, I suppose. But lots of them. Lately there's been some kind of swallow-tailed light brown, small hawk about. Hunting the songbirds, I suppose. I'm still waiting to hear a sora and will be sorely disappointed if one doesn't come here this year. The snipes are back, though, with their constant woo-woo-woo-woosh high above as they dive for their supper. Here's one taking a rest:

Prairie Chicken

Four days of the week belong to me. When the weather is fine, I am outside as much as possible, although sometimes early in the spring there isn't much to do out there except walk around.

On Tuesday, a hot day, I worked five hours from my home office. I set the stove timer for an hour at a time and after each notifying ping, I went outside to move the sprinkler (Scott thinks if we deep-water the lawn, maybe it will choke out the dandelions), stroll to the end of the driveway, rake leaves off the flower beds, pull some quackgrass from the perennial bed, move some pots, stand on the step and watch the ducks and mudhens fighting loudly (lots of violent splashing!) in the dugout in our back yard, and so on. There is a lot of action out there, in the sky and on the water.

The white-throated sparrows turned up in the yard on Tuesday. Like the robins, which seem particularly large (must've been some good eating in the southern hemisphere this winter), they will hop from tree to tree alongside me when I'm walking. I can't help thinking they find me as curiously fascinating as I find them.

One evening I took a leisurely walk to the north.

I didn't notice anything special in the flooded ditch east of our yard. 

Spruce grouse or, as we call them, prairie chickens, apparently don't like to be ignored. Normally they seem very timid, but this one made a point of calling me back. I didn't even know prairie chickens made this particular loud sound! But I turned around and went back to see what the noise was, and here was this chicken demanding my attention:

A beautiful bird, but no wonder I didn't see it standing there on the branch, still as death.

We stood looking at each other for quite a long while. I had time to zoom the camera in as much as possible — still not enough, but best I could do!

Click to enlarge.

Finally, little Ducky Doodle came trotting along, catching up to me, and the prairie chicken decided to make its exit, and flew back into the bush.

There has been a lot of breast-pounding going on all around our yard as a prairie chicken tries to attract a mate. Or maybe there is more than one male around; who knows. They all look the same, right?

On Tuesday afternoon I had the pleasure of seeing a male, beside our house, with his neck ruff extended in a black circle around his head. He had his eye on a chicken that was crossing our lawn and followed it, haltingly but with great concentration, into the trees. Fingers are crossed that it was a female and that the boychik managed successfully to make his case. If so, we will be seeing the parents with their chicks in a few weeks. It's been a while since we've had that pleasure; you'll recall that our chicken patriarch lost his family to a road grader one winter several years ago and has been lonely and alone ever since.

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You comment, I reply:

Maggie Turner has left a new comment on your post "Maggie Turner Answers 5 Questions": 

Thanks so much much Kate! You have some humdinger ideas, you do! 

I'd love to take credit for the idea but saw something similar elsewhere and thought "I could do that!"

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Lorna has left a new comment on your post "Trigger Alert: Garter Snake Photo": 

Wood ticks would do me in. On the other hand, I can make teenagers stop harassing the homeless at the Rideau Centre. 

Then my hat's off to you. Wood ticks creep me out, and freak me out when I find one on MOI.

Maggie Turner Answers 5 Questions

Not long after I first learned that people were keeping journals online, I came across the webpage of John Bailey (Old Grey Poet), who lived in Britain with his partner Graham and their grand Maine Coon cat. I followed John's blog and when after several years he decided he'd had enough, he stopped writing there. Maggie Turner and I, faithful readers, have been missing him ever since, but at least we have each other! Maggie's journal has been at the top of my reading list for many years now.

When I discovered her webpage, she was living with her husband and their cat in Ontario's lake country in a house heated by a masonry stove. They recently moved to the city, into a small house named Mist Cottage in memory of their cat, whose life came to an end at the same time as the couple's country life. They are still adjusting to the changes, still unpacking, and Maggie is still approaching every detail of her days methodically, with great care and practicality.

One of the things I like about Maggie's blog is that she writes about everything she (they, often) is tackling, so that I feel I am getting an actual taste of her daily life. I admire her ambition when it comes to repairing and renovating; nothing seems to daunt her. She diligently does her research and then takes the first step and carries on till completion (while I, in comparison, often don't take that first step because the number of them seems overwhelming). She is frugal as well; money is never spent carelessly, although quality is a priority. Maggie shares those kinds of struggles and that keeps me in her corner, rooting for the pair of them as they march thoughtfully through their life together.

1. What flowers, if any, will you plant this spring?

I want to plant scarlet runner beans, which are not flowers exactly, because you can eat the beans.  The flowers on the scarlet runner beans are so pretty growing along the fence. I can look at them out my kitchen window in the morning all summer long; the colour hits me like sugar in my morning coffee.

I want to plant nasturtiums, because I love the leaves as much as the flowers, and I can eat the flowers, but I never do.

I want to plant borage for the bees, and because I find it beautiful.

2. Do you have a #1 must-see, can't-wait-till-later blog right now (not a relative or close friend, though it can be themed and does not have to be a personal blog; of course, my blog is disqualified so my feelings cannot be hurt -- hee!), and why does it keep you coming back for more?

A must-see blog!  Truthfully, all of the blogs I follow are must-see blogs, if I know there is a new entry up I am chomping at the bit to read it.  The most-read blog would be "The Walden Effect" http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/, only because Anna and Mark both post daily.

3. What are your other common stopping places on the Internet? Please list up to five and give me their urls. I'm sure you've got at least that many.

My most visited stopping places are the weather web sites.  I check them as soon as I get up in the morning.  I favour both:

Environment Canada http://weather.gc.ca/canada_e.html    and 

The Weather Network  http://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/

I check for new blog entries every morning.

Frequently I am using my account at Ancestry.ca to work on my genealogy book, and checking realtor.ca to see what the market is doing in my areas of interest, which is how I found the little house we live in, and our Camps, two plots of land we purchased for camping.

The rest of my time online is spent randomly researching ideas, like how to remove mildew from a trailer canopy, trying to reap the benefit of someone else's experience.

4. When you go to a potluck meal, do you have a best dish that you usually take? If so, what is it and do you share your recipe? If so, please do.

Ah, the potluck meal.  I used to love potluck meals.  I think the last time I participated in a potluck meal I took along Guacamole and corn chips, that was over 23 years ago, I don't remember what recipe I used.  These days we make Guacamole by adding tangy salsa to mashed avocado, it is quick and very tasty.

I stopped going to potluck meals because I found that if I relaxed and enjoyed myself, I had a tendency to try one of the tasty dishes.  I have anaphylaxis, which I acquired suddenly in 1984 (quite the year for such a development, shades of George Orwell).  I am deathly allergic to a preservative that is used in a lot of packaged foods, and is even used in the packaging itself.  Eating at a potluck dinner is like playing Russian Roulette.  I love life, I don't eat at potluck dinners, no matter how sure the cooks are about what is in their food; I lived through one mistaken memory about ingredients and won't chance another.

Since all that is left to enjoy at potluck dinners is the excellent company, I do focus on that, and that is where my problem lies.  I relax, I enjoy, I forget vigilance, pop a lovely looking bit of food into my mouth, and there I am, wondering if I am going to make it, sometimes heading for the hospital just in case.  Not fun.  The other down side of potluck dinners for me is that when I don't eat people want to know why.  I explain.  They feel bad for me, bless their souls.  Not fun for me, or them.  I try to focus on social events that do not involve food, and I am here to tell you that there aren't many events like that... humans love their food!

5. What's your idea of a fabulous holiday? Is it one you have already taken, or one you hope to take before you die?

My dream holiday is to travel with my little travel trailer, across Canada, visiting people I've met online, distant relatives I've only corresponded with, Museums, Archival Libraries, Music Festivals, National and Provincial Parks, and towns where my ancestors and distant relatives settled.  I'd like to journal the whole experience.  Then I would like to come home to my cozy little house.  I hope to live long enough, and stay healthy enough, to see Attila retire and have the opportunity to follow our dream.

And there you have it Kate, thanks for asking!

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Would you like to visit Maggie's blog for yourself? CLICK HERE.

Trigger Alert: Garter Snake Photo

Saw my first bumblebee of the season on Sunday. Wonder what they are finding to eat out there. Kinda worried about them. Haven't noticed a single thing blooming around here yet.

Made Shelly's recipe for gingerbread but even after baking them an extra 10 minutes they are soft and gooey and not like hers at all. Not sure what I did wrong. They're delicious so it's no loss, but I'll check my ingredients list against her original and if it's not a matter of mistaken copying on my part, I'll add more flour and set the oven temperature higher next time. Then I'll post the recipe over at Stubblejumpers Cafe for those who are interested. Once I get a handle on it, the recipe for these cookies is a keeper.

This little fella scooted out of my way when I strolled across the road toward the hill in the old farmyard. Made me screech! Not afraid of it. It surprised me, that's all:

Click to enlarge if you want to see its little face looking back at you. 

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But frick! Just found a wood tick crawling on my throat. FarTA! Now that freaks me out every time. Might have to start living somewhere else in the summer. Honest to God.
Says she who strikes out across the tall dry grass, well aware it's prime woodtick habitat but thinking, "Not gonna let those little bastards keep me from livin'."
Unless, of course, they do.

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You Comment, I Reply

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Wisewebwoman has left a new comment on your post "You Don't Say":
I love the calendar pic. Joyfully "springy" - we need more spring in our lives.
XO
WWW
PS Moose count by me one year was 16!! One charged my dog on my meadow, saucy thing. This year 0.

Surely that low count will soon be remedied!
I haven't seen a moose in our yard for quite a while, but Scott says there was a mule deer in my perennial bed early this morning and a whitetail by the quonset.

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Prairie Child has left a new comment on your post "Method Dishwashing": 

Haha- great post..... I do the dishes very similar to you..... Must have been 4h, although I can't say I sweep the floor.....

And I also hate dog licks..... Gary lets the dogs slurp all over his face ..... Ick. I think I might try licking his face and see if he lets me...... I'll keep you posted. I might be offended if he doesn't! 

Heh! Be sure to wag your tail at the same time. I'll be waiting to hear. 

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Julie has left a new comment on your post "The Way You Make Love": 

K, I find you very generous and kind. It's not about tit for tat, is it? 

Right you are; it's not. And thanks. I'm happy to hear you think that.

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Annette Erickson has left a new comment on your post "Method Dishwashing": 

I tend to agree - there's a method to washing dishes. Only makes sense - doesn't it?

Dog slobber referred to as "kisses" still boils down to dog slobber if you ask me. And I love dogs. 

There are probably as many different methods as there are people.  For instance, I used to know someone who always washed dishes in cold water. Imagine how that felt on the hands.

   I love dogs too, but like you say ... slobber is slobber.

Method Dishwashing

"How come you're just getting started?" she said, picking up a dishtowel. "I thought you'd be half done by now!"

The leftovers were put away and the dirty dishes were stacked next to the sink, which was full of soapy hot water, cutlery and cooking utensils. The table, counters, stove and fridge handle were wiped down, and the kitchen floor may even have been swept. I had just plunged my hands into the suds, and Shelly had left whatever she'd been doing with our friend Cathy, with whose family in rural Manitoba we'd just had a splendid meal, and come to help.

"Just doing it the way my mother taught me," I replied. My friend had been five when her mother died of breast cancer, and had probably had to find her own way through housework. The bulk of it had very likely fallen on her and her sister, the two youngest in a farm family with four older boys.

It wasn't till quite some time later that I remembered it wasn't Mom who taught me how to do dishes. I learned my method in the 4-H Club that I joined at age nine in our little village of Margo. The club was a going concern back then; probably every kid in the community was a member. My first two years were in the cooking courses, and doing dishes in a practical way was part of the first year's lessons.

The method, you ask? As if everyone doesn't follow the same one! Well, do you?

Clear the table and clean the kitchen first, so you have wiped your counters and table, etc., with a cloth soaked in hot soapy water and you have a pleasant place to do your work.
Then wash the silverware, followed by the glassware. All this while the water is hottest and cleanest. Then the plastics, before the water gets greasy. Then the pots and pans. Voila, tout fini.

Just this morning as my coffee brewed, I washed, dried and put away the few dishes Scott had left in the sink last night. For me, one secret to enjoying this duty rather than finding it endless drudgery is to wash dishes often, while there aren't many, instead of in one big production. The other secret is not to hurry while thinking of other things I want to do instead. It also helps to be listening to some good radio or some music I like, but nowadays I just open the window and listen to the frogs and birds. It sounds like a jungle around our yard.

"Why does the dog get these nice dishes!" she exclaimed.

And to this same friend, my dear Shelly, I replied, "Because I have to see the dog dishes every day."
This is my way of handling the fact that the alternatives would be ugly. Old plastic bowls are ugly and so are discarded pots that we might otherwise use to feed our pups, and the commercial pet food bowls that people buy are not anything to swoon over, either.
If I have to see something every day, let it please my eye.
There's a matching platter still in the cupboard, rarely used. I've had them for more than 25 years.

I didn't say, "If you want them, take them," which, since she seemed to think they were such nice dishes, I would have if I'd thought of it.
I didn't think of it because you could sanitize them 10 times over in industrial-strength liquid and I'd still not eat off them after a dog has.

Of course I know that many people let their dogs eat off the dishes that come off their dining room table, or out of the roasters they've cooked their meat or casseroles in, and they wash these in hot water afterward and a dog's germs won't kill ya, so what's the big deal? No doubt I've eaten off the same dishes as a family pet many times while visiting people's homes. I'm just glad no one has reminded me of that while I was chowing down on the delicious meal they've served me, as it would ruin my appetite. Dogs eat cat shit if they can get it and lick each other's asses and their own genitals. I don't want to eat from the same dishes they do; I don't care how well the items have been sanitized. Just one of my funny little quirks. And I have a few.

Another is that I don't like it when dogs lick my skin.
"Their germs won't hurt you," say those who allow dogs to wash their faces for them or lick their mouths, and even encourage it. Yuk.
Here's the thing: I wouldn't like it if a human licked my face either.

The Way You Make Love

From A Year With Rumi, Daily Readings translated by Coleman Barks:

The way you make love
is the way God will be with you.

*This is Rumi's variation on the golden rule.

It has given me pause.

Thank you, Julie, for making a gift of this book some years ago.
You've given me many gifts! and I haven't kept up the balance from my end.
I'm concerned that this may be one of the stories of my life ...
I hope not.

End of the Driveway This Evening

My camera has a shitty recording function. Besides picking up the barely there wind as if it's a 100km/h gale, the sound fades to nothing before coming back.
Better than nothing though!

You Don't Say

Emil applied to Camp Easter Seal's early August session and has been waiting anxiously since January to find out if his application is accepted.
This week an email came, saying that particular session is full but inviting him to a later one.
What would the travel days be? he was anxious to know. The calendar came off the shelf so we could see whether I'm working on the days he'll need rides there and back.
Turns out they're Wednesday and Friday, both working days for me, so other arrangements will have to be made.
The organization that employs and houses Emil also takes responsibility for this kind of transportation (he pays for the driver and the fuel), so they can be asked to put rides in place.

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Each year the local credit union solicits photographs from its customers and turns a dozen of them into a calendar, which they distribute at the tellers' wickets. While flipping its pages these ducklings caught my eye — the motion, the looking-outward — it's perfect.

Click to enlarge.

Thou hast written ...
I reply ...

Maggie Turner on "Favourite Bloggers Reply": 

Since you introduced me to kitchenblogic and Kathy Kate, I have followed her blog on an RSS feed. I enjoy kitchenblogic because she speaks from the heart. I've hear the phrase "dance like nobody's watching", kitchenblogic "writes like nobody's reading", even though she knows they are. 

All that, plus she cracks me up!

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Teresa on "Two Moose": 

Beautiful but scary beasts. 

I should be more scared. And I would be if I wasn't in my car or if I was walking and a moose came toward me instead of going the other way, as they always have.

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Lorna on "Two Moose": 

They're sort of galumphy aren't they? 

Yep. They're quite the beasts. 

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Wisewebwoman has left a new comment on your post "Two Moose": 

It's strange. I'd see so many and now? Not any. I would amuse myself by posting the numbers spotted throughout the year but nare a one for so long.

Strange is right. I thought Nfld was overrun with the big Ms!

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Two Moose

It's been quite a while since I saw a moose.
There are moose tracks everywhere, but that's been it.
Till yesterday on my way to the office.

Click to enlarge.

Reply to Comments

Rather than respond to comments below them, so that if you only visit this webpage once in a while you have to go back through old entries if you want to know, here are my replies to comments over the past few days:


Lorna has left a new comment on your post "Me & Pete":
they looked like they were having a good time. I just hate camping, but I get it that other people enjoy it.

I like nothing better than sleeping in a warm, dry tent. Can't think of the last time I did, though. Sometimes on a summer afternoon I go lie on the bed in the camper out in our yard, with all the screened windows open, just because. 

Teresa has left a new comment on your post "One of My Favourite People":
Belated Happy Birthday to your sister. 

I'll pass that on, T! She'll be tickled.

Maggie Turner has left a new comment on your post "One of My Favourite People":
When I see a photo of someone, I always wonder who took it. This matters to me, because what I see is how the person in the photo feels about the person taking the picture. The photo gives you a little window into the relationship between the person photographed and the photographer. Lotsa love in this one! 

Well I think she likes me! Judging by how good she is to me, I'd have to say so. 

Lorna has left a new comment on your post "One of My Favourite People": 
She's lovely. I wish I had my sisters nearby. 

Yes she is. A real sweetie.
It sucks to have a sister far away.
Our younger sister Joan is coming out this summer, so we're looking forward to some "sista time."

Wisewebwoman has left a new comment on your post "Favourite Bloggers Reply": 

I do visit this blog when I get a minute and added to my list thanks to you. I love the pic of your mum. I want to live in her dimple.

Kathy makes me laugh out loud all the time, and you know that is one of my favourite things to do!

That photo of Mom was taken a few weeks after she was diagnosed with kidney cancer. My sister Karen and I took Grandma to visit her in Salmon Arm, B.C., for a few days, and our aunt Reta came up from Phoenix, and sista Joan came from Kelowna, and I think even our brother Cameron drove over from Edmonton. We all (except Cameroni Bumboni) sewed with Mom one afternoon or was it for a couple days? and it was a memorable time together. 

kitchenblogic (https://kitchenblogic.wordpress.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Favourite Bloggers Reply": 

Love it Kate! Thanks! 

Hey, thank YOU. And I still want to know which flowers you plant.

Male northen shoveller duck in our backyard dugout. Click to enlarge.

Favourite Bloggers Reply

Do you have favourite blogs that, the moment you see they've been updated (if you keep them in a revolving list like I do, below), you go and read?

I sure do, and I'm going to share with you my favourites, plus their authors' answers to 5 simple questions I've asked.

The criteria for choosing my favourites:

1. They update frequently.
2. They don't have one particular theme; for instance, I have several favourite tarot blogs in a list down there, but they don't qualify for this exercise.
3. They aren't relatives. If I see an update from one of my sisters, I'm there, baby! There is no holding me back. Even if they were shitty writers (which they aren't), I'd still be reading a.s.a.p.
4. That these bloggers are excellent writers goes without saying, but even more important is that they share their firsthand experience. It could be now, it could be remembering past history, it could be dreaming about the future ... but it's personal, forthright, and full of heart.

The others will follow as time permits, and here's the first one:

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Allow me to introduce you to Ms. Kathy at Kitchenblogic.

Kathy taking a stadium tour.

I've been reading Kathy's blog for so many years, through all its incarnations, that I'm not even sure anymore how long it's been. Twenty years? Now that's saying something, to stick with a blogger for that long, don't you think? I love personal, first-person writing, and I can get caught up in a blog for a month or a year or even a few years, but my interest can wane and often does. I don't know why; it just can. But reading Kathy is like reading the blog of a sister or a close friend, and my interest doesn't wane. Ever. That's because she's smart and funny and if she didn't live as far away as Minnesota, I would be dropping over for coffee every chance I got.

Kathy had a bout with breast cancer a few years ago, and hearing about it from her point of view was enlightening (on top of being a huge worry; it's difficult to watch someone you care about go through hell). She had the courage to share her experience and to write about her anger as well as her fear and loss. And she did it with humour. I admire her chutzpah.

Well, I could sing Kathy's praises for hours, but it seems to me that the practical thing to do is to let her speak for herself.

1. What flowers, if any, will you plant this spring?

That's not the best way to start a conversation with me, Dear Kate. I. Hate. Gardening. It's sweaty and it invites bugs to climb on me and bite me. Gardening makes me swear. I have this little garden at the front of my driveway where I used to plant a little garden of annuals. I would be planting and cursing, cursing and planting. My neighbor Vern (who died several years ago) used to like to sneak up behind me. "I wanted to see if I could learn any new swear words," he once said. That little garden now has perennial grasses.

My husband, Nugget, and I live on three quarters of an acre where 75% of it is wasted on us. We enjoy the fire pit and I enjoy the patio for reading. The only gardening I do is filling the pots with plants I buy from a close friend who owns a nursery. It's ironic that one of my close friends owns a garden center. 

2. Do you have a #1 must-see, can't-wait-till-later blog right now (not a relative or close friend, though it can be themed and does not have to be a personal blog; of course, my blog is disqualified so my feelings cannot be hurt -- hee!), and why does it keep you coming back for more? 

I don't read blogs like I used to (probably because people have moved away from blogging) but there are a few I'm still following (including yours, of course). My must-read blog is byebyepie.typepad.com, written by "June Gardens." June is a 50-year-old Peter Pan who fusses about her hair and every other little thing. She's got an amazing one-sided conversational writing method and an incredible lack of empathy. Some days I love her. Some days I want to punch her in the curly hair. 

3. What are your other common stopping places on the Internet? Please list up to five and give me their urls. I'm sure you've got at least that many. 

With apps on my iPad, I don't browse much on the internet. Right now, the only tabs open on my computer are Facebook, my blog (kitchenblogic.wordpress.com), my Google calendar and Gmail. The 5 apps I use the most are Facebook, Goodreads, Pinterest, YouTube and Zoom. (I use YouTube and Zoom to meet online almost every day with my friend Claudia, who lives in New York - I'm near Minneapolis. We do yoga together.)

4. When you go to a potluck meal, do you have a best dish that you usually take? If so, what is it and do you share your recipe? If so, please do.

I tend to vary dishes I bring to potlucks but I think the one that I've made the most is Ina Garten's Lasagna with Turkey Sausage. The recipe can be found on the cooking blog I used to keep with my family: 

https://cookingwithfamilyandlaughter.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/lasagna-with-turkey-sausage/

(Used to because I'm the only one submitting recipes now)

5. What's your idea of a fabulous holiday? Is it one you have already taken, or one you hope to take before you die?

I have two favorite vacations - the many times I've gone to New York City (number unknown!) and the time Nugget and I went to Oslo for his work and where I met my relatives (my grandfather emigrated from Norway in 1905 and we had a family reunion on the farm where he was born in 1883!) I would, however, like to take a dream vacation in an all-inclusive resort on some beach with turquoise waters before I'm too old to enjoy it!

***

Thanks very much, Kathy, for taking the time to reply to these questions. I see that you will be planting some flowers ...  and I'm still curious to know which ones!

One of My Favourite People

Guess who turned 55 today.
I had to book three weeks in advance to get lunch with my sister, social butterfly that she is.
We went to one of the cafés in Wadena and had an hour-and-a-half gabfest while filling our faces.

Not that damn camera again!

I better not see this in the newspaper, Kathy.

Oh all right, get it over with. 

Me & Pete

We've never met, but we've known (of) each other for about 25 years. He lives up near Whitehorse and has 18 sled dogs and is a guide.

After he steered a group of Japanese tourists through their filmed wilderness experience in northern Canada, apparently he has a following of admirers among Japanese viewers.

Aside from seeing what Pete looks like (other than the odd head shot on Facebook) and sounds like, I most enjoyed watching how the Japanese words appeared written on the screen as the tourists spoke and laughed, and seeing Pete's shoulders shake when he laughed.

Five Years Ago

Sometimes for the pure hell of it I skip back to entries made on this day last year, five years ago, and so on. It's always a bit of a surprise to see that five years have gone by, when what is written for that day seems like such a short while ago.

Here's what was posted five years ago; a revisit for those of us who loved her:
GRANDMA'S OBITUARY: http://goldengrainfarm.blogspot.ca/2011_04_22_archive.html

I put a little memoriam in the paper to mark five years.

Our Kids

I thought he was being a worry wart until I watched the news that night and saw the photos of two men (one originally from this neck of the woods) who have been kidnapped in the Philippines for ransom and are being threatened with gruesome execution if it isn't paid.

Shit! Our kids are travelling in Asia right now.
Stay calm, I told myself. Stay calm, or Scott will not sleep until they land at an airport in Canada.

"Worrying won't change a thing," I tell him, well aware that anxiety does what it wants. Go ahead, try to boss it around. Good luck.

"Your job is just to picture them arriving home safe and sound," I say. "They're in no more danger there than they are here, or in Calgary traffic."

Still.

Badgers & Gophers

This is a badger hole right at the edge of our road. It's quite large; you can't tell from this picture, but that hole is about eight inches in diameter.

Badgers are ferocious but I can't help myself, I go look anyway, trusting it will stay below if indeed it's even still there. Probably not.

Scott says badgers can hear young gophers in their underground burrows, and they very quickly dig straight down — making a hole like this — and slurp them up.

It's turned cold and windy here again, dammit.
I turned up the furnace when I got home tonight. Down-filled jacket in the morning, I guess.
But after the warm few days we've had, the snow's gone from all around the yard and the driveway's dried up. I didn't have to wear my rubber boots to the office today. Woo hoo! Yay, Blundstones!

Also, Dad's coming out near the end of May for TWO MONTHS. This is a minor miracle, as he hasn't wanted to spend that much time here for more than two decades. It'll be nice to have him around for so long.

Indulging the Self

So yesterday I did most of the dishes, though not all. Today I'll get them polished off.
I didn't bake bread; it's not essential, after all, and if we don't have homemade bread, so what. Besides, we still have a full loaf.
I felt like making cookies, so that's what I did instead, while thinking fondly of the friend who gave me her recipe for oatmeal cookies. She is over 80 now, and I have the recipe in her handwriting.
I went for three — count 'em, three! — walks, instead of the usual one. I rambled north, I rambled, south, I rambled east, and I rambled all around the perimeter (or as close to it as I could get, considering all the sloughs on our property) of our "back 40." God how I love rubber boots. You can go almost anywhere!
Oh, and I did work for two hours; I wasn't totally self-indulgent. Responsibilities are responsibilities.

At one point our old dog Jenna Doodle was barking like crazy; I could tell she was mad. When I went to see what it was all about, from the back step I saw a very large white coyote making its exit from the swampy area just behind the dugout that's behind our back yard. We live in a wetland, y'know. It's bird city around here — fabulous! so much birdsong now that I went downstairs and brought up the window screens so I can hear the birds while I'm in the house — and yesterday the frogs started their spring courtship songs. Before long they'll be so loud it won't matter if all the windows are closed, we'll still hear them out there. It's a wondrous time of the year. Robins are singing their territorial songs; chickadees are doing the same; there are even some bird calls I don't recognize. Scott says he saw but hasn't heard the sora, one of my favourites. I'm waiting ... .

Click to enlarge

Also, the endless flocks of snow geese are now flying over. They fill the sky for as far as the eye can see. I stand there amazed.

We went for a short drive last night so Scott could check on some cattle that are about to calve — indeed, the first one had — and he asked if I'd gotten a picture of the trumpeter swans that flew over my head. I must've thought they were geese, because I didn't notice them.

Yeah, that's my exciting life. Other than that, the only thing more happy-making these days is that my sister Joan keeps sending me these hilarious distorted-face videos of herself on Snapchat, making me laugh out loud and appreciate her more each time. I can really use these laughs! and am most grateful to have such a fun-loving person in my life. Thanks for these little pick-me-ups, Joanie!

First Fire

There are tons of things to do indoors today: work, bread, dishes ... that's just the essentials and not the "could do" tasks and projects ... but it is far too gorgeous out there. I'm not ready to make myself stay in. Or maybe I just can't do it. My inner child wants to be outside in the sun and my grown woman does too.

Yesterday:

Me & the Trees

"Think of it as a day of rest," she said, when I told her over the phone that yesterday had been "wasted" with a migraine. Thank you, Shelly; that's a much better attitude.

But today, now ... today! I'm fit as a fiddle and was out the door and walking down the road in the sunshine. My spring/fall jacket was off and on a few times; so was my tuque; but that's Saskatchewan weather. It's not a lot different in full summertime. The wind blows, you're cold. The sun comes out, you're hot. Back and forth, off and on; the temperature fluctuates.

It's so nice out today that Scott's gone to town for wieners so we can make ourselves a little fire and roast them for supper. It's a perfect time to be out there, enjoying the days before the mosquitoes come out.

It was jarring, when I went north, to see that a bunch of trees have been knocked down on the other side of a field since last time I looked that direction. It always feels like an affront, one about which I can do absolutely nothing. I'd like some kind of environmental controls to be put in place by the government so that there are limits to the amount of trees farmers can bulldoze from their property. (Are they really gonna take them all? as Dennis Lakusta's song says.)

Sure the trees belong to the landowner, who needs (does he really? it must pay; it costs plenty to get rid of trees, and heaven knows farmers don't like to spend money for no good reason) the acres to grow crops. But I don't think the landowner actually "needs" to take out so many trees, does he? And in the long run, owning property shouldn't mean that you have the right to fuck it up for the wildlife whose habitat has already been decimated, and to increase soil/wind erosion ... and these things do matter, not only now but to future generations. There oughtta be a law, since it does look, alas, like far too many landowners don't give a shit about any of that.

I know, I know. They've gotta make a living. Money talks, and I understand and empathize. Nevertheless, I'm going to start writing letters to government. It never seems to make a difference, but maybe someday, someone with a brain and power will listen and act for environmental responsibility and integrity. I'm not holding my breath though. In the meantime I'll still feel helpless and hopeless whenever I see these wide swaths of mature trees biting the dust, and farmers will go on clearing trees while thinking of themselves as stewards of the land.

Mottoware

In June it will be a year since I took Mom's mom's mother's mottoware from the top of the fridge and shoved it into boxes under a bed so that Scott could install the new kitchen cabinets.

"I need a favour," I said to him this morning over coffee. "Please get the shelves up so I can display those old dishes again. I hate having them shoved away out of sight."

"I'm trying," was his response.

Fair enough, I thought.

I need a retired boyfriend with carpentry skills. Know anyone?

Already Gone

The way things were a couple days ago.

Oh yes, they are always changing.

It drives poor Scott nuts. 

I like a change though, even if it's only the living room furniture and doodads. 

I moved the dragon tree further right, where there is more light -- even though it's further from the window.

Who was Here

It was Sharon Butala's memoir The Perfection of the Morning that reminded me that everywhere I'm walking, there might have been a teepee camp or a well-travelled hunting path.
I live on territory that was once occupied by the Saulteaux.
What were their lives like?
They were peaceable, I imagine, because they had figured out that fighting with your neighbours means loved ones are going to lose their lives, and who wants that? No one. It's better to be civil and trade fairly for what you want and what you need. It's obvious.

Oh beauteous darlings

It's a damn good day

Water laying on the ice

Dark-eyed junco in the bath

Katej

People are always asking me, "Do you prefer to be called Kathy or Kate?"

I don't have a preference, but my family calls me Kathy.

There are some old friends who call me Kay, although I don't think I ever really felt like a "Kay." Kate feels more right, for some reason; more me. (I answer to Madam Editor too, since Alison -- Madam Publisher -- has been calling me that since I started at the newspaper two years ago.)

When I was 19 and embarked on the nine-month KATIMAVIK volunteer project (the little sojourn that somehow got translated, by gossip and rumour around here, into me being part of a "cult" that handed out flowers at the airport; hilarious! i still can't help laughing), there was a group of 30 of us. In that group were three Kathys, and two of us lived in the same household, so to make it easy I took "Kay" as an identifier. (I realize now that it wasn't at all necessary, but then I probably thought "K" would be cool). Among that group of people, I'm still known as Kay by most.

Then when I got connected to the internet for the first time and needed to come up with an email address, naturally I tried for Kathy and KJohnson and KathyJ and so on, but they were all taken and I'd've had to add a number in order to use my own name, which is an overly common one. I didn't want to use a number, so kept trying variations until finally hitting upon one that was free: katej.

And so, in email, I began signing myself as Kate. It only made sense. And now it's what my fingers type out automatically and it's how my online acquaintances know me.

And that is your little bit of Kate-age for today.

Now: last night's supper dishes to do (Emil thoroughly enjoyed that chicken) and I plan to bake bread and get out for a walk and do laundry and change bedding; oh, and must fill those bird feeders again, and not to forget — I've got to work for a couple hours, too, on the NEWS webpage and the archives. When you line it all up like that, it looks like a busy day ahead, doesn't it!

We've Got Robins

This blog has, according to Stats, had almost 2000 pageviews today. Why? I can't think of one good reason why there should be such a ridiculously high number for this little ol' bloggy thing. Did I inadvertently write a porny title or something? 

In the back yard this morning was a flock of big fat robins; they looked twice the size that robins normally do. What's up with that?

Three things always remind me of my friend Luanne, whom I spoke to on the phone earlier today:
1. I'm baking bread. Lu's a bread-baker too.
2. I'm putting on the winter scarf she gave me when I asked for it because I loved its colours.
3. I'm listening to Eleanor Wachtel interview an author on CBC Radio. It's something about Wachtel's conversational tone.

If you're interested in tarot cards, I've been including one-card readings in the STUBBLEJUMPERS entries. Any café worth its salt should have a card reader, even if it isn't a Russian tearoom. Please remember, I'm not Blondi Blathers (except on Twitter, where @blondiblathers is me). I have placed her as a character into my childhood memories and used some people and experiences in my life to fill hers out, but that's it. Over at Stubblejumpers Café, I'm just watching Blondi and the others and writing down where they go, all in the service of practice writing in the third person.

This afternoon a chicken is roasting with potatoes and carrots for an early supper before I have to drive Emil back to town to be ready for his work week, which picks up again tomorrow. His dad's coming out from St. Albert on Friday to spend the weekend with our boys, and Emil's pretty excited about that.

From the Corner

When Emil and I got home from town last night, it was damn cold out there. I was sure it had to snow. By this morning it hadn't, but looking through the window and hearing the wind blow, the great outdoors was not in the least appealing.

I went out anyway because the bird feeders were empty, and discovered to my pleasure that the day is mild even if there's ice in the breeze. The air is as soft, rich and sweet as it might be in a magical fairyland. I couldn't resist a short walk.

Never, never go outside without my eyeglasses, I tell myself. But sometimes I just want to set my face free of the things and away I go, knowing better. And each time, I regret it.

Today there is a joyful twittering in the trees across the road, but I couldn't see what kind of birds were making it.

Will I ever learn!

Nothing to Tell

When you don't get to the office till 10, and you've a full day's work to do, and you stop once to walk through snow, slush and water to buy buns and slices of ham to eat at your desk, and you take an hour for your regular shiatsu treatment, well then you don't leave the office before seven o'clock like I did tonight, and when you get home you wash some dishes and eat some chicken noodle soup with crackers for supper and then sit down and watch a movie and before you know it, it's past 11 and your eyes are pressing down and you know bed is going to feel damn good and even better because the radio will be on and will talk you right to sleep.

Bon soir, mes amies. Á la prochaine ... .

Out and In

Yesterday I could walk out past the barn on bare grass.

I'm told the woodticks are already out, which means it's time to start adding bitter citrus oils to my bathwater again, and slathering wrists, ankles, neck and hair with oils the ticks don't like. Gross things, and we have been overrun by them in recent years.

Today it's snowing and everything is white again, including the sky. I don't want to go out. But the birds have been so active at the feeders that, even though I just filled them yesterday afternoon, they are almost empty. Darn hungry, those little beasties.

One of the best things about going outside when it's cold is coming back in.

Activity Around the Yard

Sure, Mr Doodle does a lot of lying about, but he seems to be the only animal doing so.

Outside, a pair of magpies is making a nest in the row of lilacs near the back step. That won't be good. I thought about knocking it down before eggs are laid, but I don't want to hurt their feelings. They've done a lot of work! Alas, it would be the smart thing to do. Their noise drives us nuts enough when the nests are quite a bit further from the house. Scott always threatens to shoot them, but never does. This is the kind of man I like: one that takes no pleasure in killing, even when it may be a solution to irritation.

With no cats around the yard these days — something got our tomcat Bob and dragged him off to the chicken coop this winter — the smaller wild animals have become less shy. I got my first glimpse of the rabbit yesterday afternoon:

I won't be too happy when it discovers my flowers this summer. Click for a better look.

At one point I could hear noise east of the house, but there being no window anywhere in that wall, could see nothing. Thought maybe I was imagining things, or maybe a vehicle was on the road on the other side of the bush. Was about to put on a jacket and boots and go see, when the noise moved to the back of the house. A certain someone was close to being stuck out there:

Through the office window

Me & Frazey Ford

It was the rawness of her voice, the emotion in it.
Where was that? Somewhere in Edmonton? I seem to remember her onstage but, like many memories, they aren't reliable. Maybe she was on TV. It was a long time ago.
What struck me most, next to her singing, was that she was on that stage in front of a full audience and she was missing — if I remember correctly — her top teeth.
Onstage singing without your teeth. Now that takes nerve!



Another thing I'm noticing a lot of lately is that women are no longer wearing loose, dark clothing in an effort to hide "extra" poundage. Nosirree! They are putting on pretty duds, tight ones, even, and letting it all hang out. Gotta admire that kind of self-respecting, take-me-as-I-am courage. It's well past time we stopped hiding ourselves away, as if we're not perfect enough.



Could I be completely wrong about the teeth?

Cool Spring Day

At this rate it won't be long before all the snow is gone. However, it's still cold out there. The wind pretty much slices into your eyeballs. I don't much want to go outdoors, even though the sun is shining and I know from long experience that once I'm out there I'll be as content as could be, as long as I'm dressed warmly. 

So I'll go, and see what I can see. 

Last night I left the office and stopped over to see Emil, who's had a cold all week and wanted his mom to make sure he's all right. After picking up a bag of groceries,  I drove out of town. Nearing home, I saw an owl perched in a treetop. Maybe this is the one I've been hearing; the one that left its wingmarks in the snow along the driveway. 

Because I had a few things to bring in, I pulled right up to the step and got a start when a large bird flew past, right in front of the car. The prairie chicken! Oh how nice it is to have chickens we don't have to look after. We are careful not to mention it, though, to Emil, for he is afraid of chickens. We don't know why, but he is. He only likes to eat them. If we got chickens for the coop here in the farmyard, he'd think twice about coming for a weekend. I guess we could call it by its correct name (spruce grouse?) and maybe then he wouldn't make the connection.

Now well on its way out

And now, to compile and send out my monthly newsletter, Kate's Five Things.
See ya later.