Sharp Knives

"A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one," said a stranger to me as we perused the items on a market vendor's table.

I purchased a paring knife and a sharpener. The paring knife is used daily in our kitchen, but the sharpener? I never think of it.

Till recently, for some reason. So I sharpened the knife and, sure as shit, cut my finger while chopping fresh garden tomatoes for a rice and bean dish I was making for supper.

It was no big deal but did break open the next day and bleed all over and make it difficult to handle bread dough and pat and roll and shape it into loaves. They might be pretty ugly loaves, I thought, but then: Oh well. This batch is for Everett and he couldn't care less how it looks. And neither do the rest of us.

When Emil is here, he often likes to make toast for his breakfast.
I always say, "There's peanut butter in the fridge, and homemade jam."
"Mom," he tells me. "With other toast, I like to put stuff on. Yours is good with just butter."

Hip Hip Hooray! Handles

One rainy day a week ago, Scott got busy and put the cupboard door handles on.

And how lovely it is to open drawers quickly and conveniently again.
Heavenly handles.

Gussied Up for the Wedding

It's the big day! Gunnar and Melissa are getting hitched.

I wore my three-inch-heel Clarks sandals (won by entering a contest on Schmutzie's blog; sheesh Elan, you seem to have a large influence on my footwear!) around the house for an hour or two every day this week to get used to them (since I hardly ever have reason to wear dress shoes). Things sure do look different from a higher vantage point; you've heard me say that before if you've read my blog a long time. Could this be why tall people seem more confident than short ones? Because the material world looks smaller and more manageable to them? That's my theory.

I tried on my black skirt to make sure it still fits well and it does, more than 15 years later, woo hoo! I think back to the lengthy expedition embarked upon to purchase this skirt, needed for a musical theatre show I was in. I must've gone to two dozen different stores and tried on three times as many skirts before finding one that hung right. And you wonder why I don't enjoy shopping ... .

Here's my outfit:

I brought along a black denim jacket in case it's cold in the hall — could be, if there's air conditioning and you're me — or if it turns out to be a cool day. And then there's the evening, which will definitely be cool. So I'll need it, sooner or later.

Here we go! It's going to be a long day. Let's hope everything goes off without a hitch, except for the hitching that is wanted by the happy couple.

Veggies

Of course there is great personal satisfaction in growing and harvesting a vegetable garden. 

There is also a goodly amount of stress, back pain and exhaustion ... the weeding, the picking, the processing to keep for winter. 

Scott never got his garden area prepared in time to plant anything this spring, but thinks next year will be different. 

Meanwhile, generous acquaintances share their garden bounty, for which we are most grateful. Tomatoes that don't taste like wax! What a treat!

I will probably end up freezing these tomatoes whole, once they're all ripened. 

I'm on the road to Calgary today to attend my stepson Gunnar's wedding tomorrow. Scott left Wednesday to transport fresh beef roasts for the supper. Everett's staying out at the farm to look after the dogs, feed the barn cat, and generally keep an eye on things here at the house.

Few of the family from here, many of them farmers, are going to the wedding, considering it's in the middle of harvest and they can't afford to risk their annual income. If it's a rainy weekend here, maybe Scott will be able to enjoy himself and not constantly be worrying about the crop he is not home to take off. Not that I wish for rain or frost! Just saying that's about the only way he's going to feel okay about being away at this time. It will be nice if he can relax and have a good time.

Candy

This week I have two days to do the work of three days, since tomorrow I'll be travelling.

One might think I'd go into the office a day early, but my desk doesn't start seriously collecting material till Wednesday, so a Tuesday stint wouldn't solve the problem.

I went in yesterday as usual about 9:30 and was reading and scribbling and organizing things when the power went out all over town. It remained out till five o'clock, so the entire town pretty much shut down. You can't collect money without a computerized till, apparently!

After a couple hours of doing what I could without the use of a computer, I came home and started reading one of Gerald Durrell's books about collecting animals for a zoo. Durrell is a charming writer with a real appreciation for animals and their characteristics, and quite entertaining, but I'm struck by the self-serving arrogance of humans in thinking it's perfectly all right to capture wild animals and remove them to a strange country to spend the rest of their lives in an enclosure. I cannot understand how we ever thought that was all right to do, and how we still rationalize it. Who do we think we are?

Back to town I went when the grocery store opened up; I needed grub for Bob the Barn Cat and some for myself. And then I spent the next three hours in the office, when the phone was not ringing! It was heavenly quiet. My desk (one of two that I use; little greedy guts) is fairly far back in the room, which is quite large, but during the day there is a lot of coming and going and a phone constantly ringing, and while I like chatting with customers who come in and have no problem working amid the intermittent commotion, it's only when there outside of business hours that I notice how pleasant it is with no added noise.

Today's going to be a long one, because I won't be leaving the office till I've done everything possible to enable my co-workers to get the job done tomorrow, a day that all hands are required, without me there doing my part. I'm tempted to take Ducky along so he won't be stuck in the porch too many hours. Hm. Don't think the office cats would appreciate that much.

Grasshopper candy

Everett brought these out the other day. They really do taste like cotton candy.

Eye candy? 

Brief Glimpse

No sooner did I leave a comment on someone else's blog, saying that seeing a moose around here nowadays is hardly a reason to pull out the camera anymore, than I saw this young feller as I was walking home after Everett drove past.

Mind you, I'm not completely full of baloney, because I already had my camera out and slung by a string around my wrist. Figured I might as well take a picture.

The dogs didn't notice him, and I hurried quietly past, thinking of the stories I've heard about people being chased by moose in the fall, and how even if there was a tree within reachable distance I likely couldn't climb it anyway. 

He stood still and watched me for a few moments before turning and disappearing into the bush.

Disturbed from his willow-munching.

Texting Machine

Me, 3:56pm:
Come for supper and I'll make spaghetti. Also have bread for u.

Me: 4:56pm:
Just took bread from oven. Come get it hot!

Everett, 5:20pm:
Just got your message. I better head over quick.

It was a windy day, which meant a reprieve from mosquitoes, so I went for a walk. Made it to the correction line 15 minutes away and was on my way back when who should come up behind me but ... Hungry Man!

"Go ahead," I said. "Bread and butter's on the counter."

So off he went, and I walked the rest of the way.

And this is what I found when I got into the house.

"Mom? Your bread gets an S. That's one level higher than an A. It's Stupendous."

The Trickle-Down

On the last night Aunt Reta was here, my younger siblings Karen and Cameron joined us for supper. JOAN, you were missed!

But we got Reta to take this picture for you. Almost as good as being here... ?

Three Stooges (Don't I always say this? Time for some new material.)

Reta stayed with me the first week she was here in Saskatchewan, and there was a lot of idle chat, interesting (to me) nevertheless. We talked about the old house on the farm where Grandma and Grandpa lived when Karen and I were little girls, and what it was like for Reta and Mom, growing up there.

Grandma was a fussy housekeeper who made regular meals and kept the house shipshape but did not do outside work. The girls also did not; they helped indoors, and my uncles Neil and Bruce helped in the farmyard and in the field.

Lunch was sometimes carried out to the field with Grandpa in the morning, but when the evening meal was ready, it was always at a certain time: suppertime.  If Grandpa was in the field (the boys were younger than the girls so maybe they weren't yet out there), Reta would be sent out to the hill to wave a flag so he'd know it was time to come in. And this he did, because Grandma's schedule was to be respected. Also, there was no running water (just a hand-pump in the kitchen), and water had to be heated on the woodstove, and no one expected her to be washing dishes at 9 o'clock at night. She was not like me; she would never have left the dishes on the counter overnight and gone to bed. No women in those days would have done that, just as most now probably do not. Grandma would have been up cleaning the kitchen at midnight if that's what it took. Grandpa had enough respect for her work and for her to make sure that didn't happen. And clearly he appreciated those meals.

The first time I made a lunch for Scott when he was working out in the farmyard, and he didn't come in when I called, I was offended. How rude! I thought. I've gone to the trouble to make lunch at lunchtime, to ensure everything's on the table hot and fresh, and ... he couldn't care less. He'll eat it cold when he gets in, when he finishes what he's doing. His work is more important than mine.

To him, that is.

It's a different way that our families have, I see now, of looking at things. Perhaps a different valuation of "women's"  and "men's" work?

Family history can be quite the eye-opener, and it surely does bleed into our attitudes in the present, but until now this is one area where I didn't understand why it is the way it is. I told Karen about this conversation and she said Well yes, if I make a meal and Dick doesn't come in and eat it at mealtime, it pisses me off.

Now we know where our expectations come from. They have leaked down through the generations. Realizing this has made me look at a number of other things from an altered angle, too.

Karen also played the piano for us. She knows "one" song, she said, and played it, and then after a few minutes jumped up exclaiming "Oh, I know one more!" and played that too. You won't see her performance here, but the link to it will be in the monthly NEWSLETTER I'm sending out tomorrow. If you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for? You don't know what you're missing. I mean, literally.

From where I sat in the car when Reta went into the service station to buy her bus ticket to Saskatoon on Wednesday morning, I could see Scott and his brother Bruce when they arrived at Leonard's house, where they are working on an addition. Here, Scott and Leonard have a quick chat before they get down to business.

Wildlife I Have Seen

Back when I first started reading blogs, they were called "online journals" and there were only a handful of them.
One writer, who called herself Firedrake, always rode her bicycle to and from work and when she blogged, she'd list the roadkill she'd seen that day.
Sometimes I see quite a lot of wildlife and it has occurred to me to list them, in a kind of hearkening back to Firedrake and wondering what ever became of her and her blogging habit.

I saw this beauty while leaving my sister Karen's one afternoon. I stopped, turned around and went back to try for a closeup, but naturally it flew off. I could see that it didn't have the markings of the red-tailed hawk that is so common around here:

It doesn't look like any of the hawks in my Birds of Saskatchewan book. Anyone know?

And then one day at the news office:

CLICK HERE to read about this friendly Canada goose that followed me from a neighbouring yard to the front step of the Wadena News.

Cow Cud and Hay Rake

While Scott was hooking up the hay rake one afternoon, I asked him the cow-cud question:
Can they chew their cud, standing up?

Checking the cattle at our place one morning before leaving for work, to make sure all is well.

"They can," he said.
So now we know. I must remember to tell Emil.

Meanwhile, in the farm-machinery education department, in which I remain a novice:

He's about to hook the tractor up to the hayrake. I know what it is because he said, "I thought I'd rake some hay while the sun shines" or somesuch.

He's driven the tractor and hayrake across the road and opened the thing up, and now ... don't ask me what he's doing.

If Only Mosquitoes Were Edible

Last Friday we put in a 10-hour day at the news office. There hasn't been much of that lately, but sometimes it just works out that way. Alison was working on another publication so we didn't have her help, and that slowed things down.

I left the office about quarter after eight that night. It was rainy and cool, and Emil was waiting for me at the group home.

"I thought you forgot me," he said, laying down his crutches so he could put on his "outside" shoes. (For the benefit of those new to this blog: Emil is my 27-yr-old son who has cerebral palsy and developmental delays.)

I got him and his two bags loaded into the truck and then drove to the store, and he waited while I popped in for a few groceries. The Co-op is open two evenings a week now and it's great; it's about time, too.  Emil loves to go in with me and walk up and down the aisles looking for acquaintances to talk to, but it was late and I was tired and it was rainy and so I convinced him not to, this time. Then we drove slowly home through the dark and wet.

But we got a shock when I parked the truck in the yard and opened the door to get out. The mosquitoes swarmed! And that's not good when you've got Emil. I can outrun them, but he can't. He's slow getting in and out of vehicles and he can't really run, and they were ravenous. I grabbed a few bags and sprinted to the house, then back out with insect repellent to spray Emil before they sucked the poor lad dry. I sprayed myself too, but still they bounced off my face and neck. And when I reached behind the seat to grab the last few grocery bags, I could see hundreds of them swarming around the truck's interior light. Crazy!

When we got into the house — and of course another thousand got in as Emil made his way through the door, because there is no hurrying him — I spent the first half-hour at home swatting mosquitoes when what I really wanted to do was collapse into a chair with a glass of red wine.

To fill several spaces in the newspaper we were working on that day, Rita and I perused several copies of the Wadena News archives from 1915, 1919, 1935 and 1965. You could read these things all day; they are chockful of entertaining stuff. We had several pages with big fancy ads for the town fair this weekend and needed something to go with them, so we thought some scans of old ads and articles about the fair would be perfect.  

The Cuzzes & their Kids

My cousins were born when I was in my early teens, and some of them have parents who still live around here so they come to visit them from time to time, as it should be.

I'm always saying "Phone me when you're down and I'll drive over to see you."

But do they? No, never! I find out they were here ... after they've been and gone.

Maybe I'm supposed to get a message from this, but if I am, I ignore it.

Finally I gave one of them (Karla, this means you; I also gave Uncle Neil a poke so we'll see if it made a dent) "shit." If you can call it that. It wasn't shit, really, but I made sure it was heard, is all.

I don't expect them to come and visit me, because they are spending time with their parents and this, also, is how it should be, and I don't want to take them away from there and make them run around the countryside even more than they already are.  But I would go out of my way to have a short visit with them and see their kids once a year, you know? So PHONE ME ALREADY!

Bless her heart, Karla did give me the heads-up one day last week as she was packing up to leave her mom's the next morning, so I hopped into the truck (a.k.a. the Big White Bus) and beat a path to Aunt Shirley's door in Margo.

It was a visit that was short and sweet, as they were busy, but I got to give them all a hug and that was the main thing.

Karla's boy Paxton with his grandma Shirley, my aunt. Everyone says he reminds them of Uncle Bruce, who was a "little bugger" as a boy. "You never knew what the hell was going to come out of his mouth," Dad said, remembering. I don't know if Paxton is the same way, but he sure is huggable. 

Karla's girl Gracie, a real sweetheart.  They'd just been out picking crabapples and were cutting them up to make juice.

Blossom Fudge Brownies

We had a few cold mornings when I actually turned the furnace on. Once the chill was off, so was the furnace, but later when I was still finding it cool it seemed more sensible to use the oven for something. So I dug out one of the recipe cards in Mom's handwriting and made these brownies.

I can't figure out why they're called "blossom" fudge brownies. It seems like a pretty straightforward brownie recipe, to me.

front

back

Who needs icing? I didn't bother with it.

Also, I had to bake them an extra 10 minutes. You know — if you're going to try it.

Then I did a serious purge of the old wooden recipe box that used to be Mom's, and threw out recipes that I never make or that I have on file on the computer or on the STUBBLEJUMPERS RECIPE COLLECTION webpage or, simply, recipes that can easily be found online if ever I want to make them. The box was overstuffed to the point that I seemed to be filing things behind the wrong letter half the time anyway.

 Maybe I'm misremembering, but it seems to me that this recipe is better than the one for brownies over at Stubblejumpers. Though you can't really go wrong with brownies, can you.

Banana Split Boy

The thought of eating a banana split never appealed to me. Then I had one and was pleasantly surprised at how delicious they are.

I haven't had one since, but nevertheless I said to Everett that we should go down to the dairy bar one evening this summer so he could sample one.

By the time I ate a chicken burger I was too full for dessert, but he still had an appetite after his deep-fried perogies and his mozza sticks, so he went up to the counter and got a banana split.

The verdict?
Ah. Okay. 

Cows and their Cud

Emil wanted to be sure to see Aunt Reta one more time before she leaves this week, so on Sunday afternoon we climbed into the half-ton and drove out to Neil and Rose's northeast of Margo, my home town.

On the way we passed several swathers out cutting canola, and a small herd of cattle.

"Mom," says Emil. "Do cows chew their cud standing up?"

I don't know, says I. They probably lie down to do it, says I.

"Shayla, Kathy Hoffman's daughter, says they chew it standing up too," he says.

Maybe they do, says I. We'll ask Scott. He'll know for sure.

Stay tuned for the definitive answer from the Cow Boy himself.

My cousin Heather and one of her two girlysues were leaving Neil and Rose's around the same time as Emil and I were. 

When we got home, my brother Cameron arrived from Alberta to spend the night.

Making his breakfast this morning

Today he's gone golfing — it's a gorgeous day, not too hot, not too cold, and not too windy — and then will go see Neil and Rose, and I expect will be back here sometime tomorrow, and Reta too.

I'm baking a batch of bread to send home with him. It'll be out of the oven in an hour and then I'm heading outside. It's just the right weather for this Goldilocks to take a walk.

Whenever my ex-hub Gord is out here, I give him several loaves of bread and say "Give Cameron a loaf or two."
Cameron says, "What? That s.o.b.! He never has. He's not getting any of these."
They live in the same condo complex in St. Albert.

Old Dog New Trick

When you are an old dog with a limp, you don't stop having that irrational love for taking walks with your humans. Stay home? Skip it? Never!

I say "irrational" because Jenna Doodle is a farm dog, which means she is outside all the time (except in thunderstorms when she is terrified, and in 30-below when the heated pad in her insulated doghouse might not keep her warm enough) and she can go for a walk any time she pleases.

And yet when I go out and she and Ducky Doodle think I might be going for a walk, they both frisk and leap about like pups. They are so excited and happy that their enthusiasm rubs off on me. I guess it's a dog thing, that's all. A walk with the pack, perhaps, is more highly valued than a solitary wander.

Pulling the "age card," when I get tired and sore I lie down in the road and wait, knowing that Kathy and Ducky will pick me up on their way back home. - Signed, Jenna Doodle, age 13 (at least)

Handle Hopes Dashed

So I'm just getting my teeth into that Charleston Attic website when Scott comes home and starts frying up side pork.

"What are your plans for the rest of the day?" I ask, still in my pyjamas and housecoat. "It's your night to have supper with Grandma, and you'll go in an hour early to visit your dad. Anything else?"

It's rainy so he can't hay or make bales;  he was in town already this morning, working on a house addition.

"Maybe I'll get these handles on," he says.

"Woo hoo!" I think, but don't say. We've had them for two or three weeks now, but he's been busy.

What I say is, "Oh! I'd better get these dishes done then." Why I think he'd need a clean countertop, I don't know; he takes the doors off and the drawers out anyway, right?

But anyway, the dishes need doing so I do them.

Alas, I am meant to be disappointed, because he takes quite a while weighing just where and how he's going to place them on the wood, and then he has a little nap, and then someone asks for a favour and he leaves the house to do it, and then he delivers the favour before heading for Kelvington to do his visiting and supping.

Sigh. Maybe tomorrow.

Charleston Attic

Look what I've found!

"Charleston, home of twentieth century artists, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and their daughter Angelica Garnett, was the Sussex retreat of the Bloomsbury Group. It is now a successful house museum, and from April 2014 will host a series of Heritage Lottery-funded curatorial internships. This blog is a record of our work cataloguing, researching and interpreting the Angelica Garnett Gift from the Charleston attic – overlooked by a bust of Virginia Woolf."

https://thecharlestonattic.wordpress.com/

There goes the rest of my morning.

Furnace in August

I thought twice about it, but then I did it: turned the furnace on.

This girl ain't walking around a 67F house all day.

Even if she did sleep till almost 10 o'clock, and only got up then because little Ducky was scratching like crazy at the porch door and when she let him in, she found he had torn into a bag of garbage Scott left in the porch so she had cleanup to do. Goddamn dogs (and men).

Now Scott, he left the house at 7:30 (she knows because that's when Ducky asked to be let outside and she got up the first time) and must've gone to work. No weekends off for that boy.

Plug-Ins

How many times have I gone to plug something into a wall socket, and had to pull the end back and turn it around so that the appropriate side goes into the slot that fits? A thousand, I'm sure. It only takes a second or two, but it irritates the hell out of me.

I'm one of those people who, once they have a goal, has some trouble re-setting it. Tunnel vision? One-track minded? Inflexible? I am getting where I'm going, come hell or high water; sometimes I can't even see that there is a ferry I could take, rather than forcing my way on foot through the waves and getting soaked over top of my waders.

A sensible person would examine electrical plugs and sockets and see if there is a visible sign clearly indicating — and quickly — which side goes into which side of the socket. It's probably simple and obvious, if I'd but take the time for a closer look. One side is wider than the other, and maybe it's marked on the rubber. And probably the wide side always goes on the right.

It's all in the details, and in slowing down and paying attention to them.

Elegant lavatera