Long Underwear in May

So ... at twilight yesterday I wore my super-duper winter parka, fur-trimmed hood pulled up over my head, to go for a short walk. Just to the end of the driveway, because my legs were cold. And it's stupid to be walking on the road with dogs near sunset. That's dangerous. So I didn't leave the yard.

It is May 14, and this morning I am wearing long underwear beneath my jeans.
Just sayin' ... frigate!

We have had sightings of great white egrets around here. These are rare. I've yet to see one. Scott says he saw a flock of swans the other day.

And now, to work.

Cow Communications

Ready for another week: the dishes are finally done.
Now, if only they'd stay that way.
Ha!

Friggin' old dog barked herself hoarse last night, so that neither of us slept very well.
Of course, we were both too lazy to get out of bed and tell her to be quiet.
Which might have worked. Old dogs aren't stupid.

This old dog is going to finish her second mug of coffee, soak her head, and get off to work. Looks like another sunny day, but cool ... so then, it's not difficult to spend the day indoors.

Scott, quizzical:
You know that old cow I told you about, that didn't have a calf last year and seemed depressed?
Well, she had a great big calf this morning, and she looks like a different cow. She was eating her afterbirth and looking at me ... (makes face like happy, relieved cow, all pleased with herself).
Cow communications.
It's calving time, and Scott is gone at five every morning to check on the birthing situation before coming home for coffee and breakfast. I get the reports.
Funny how those calves can get up so quick after they're born and run after their moms.
Three days old and already hard to catch.
Cute little buggers.
That one that wouldn't let her calf suck? She's taking him now. 
And so on. He's got a pasture full of pets over there.

Tea-Drinkin' Witches

Best wary of people, but makes me sad all the same

4:30p.m.

My day so far:

*four hours uploading pics and articles to Wadena News

*a walk in the cool grey breeze with the doodling dogs

*spellchecking, space-checking, changing font and size, saving and printing Uncle Carl’s chapters to be read on the page

*one load laundry in washer, one in dryer

I still have to do dishes; they haven’t all been washed at one time for an entire week. Been working at ‘em in fits and starts.

Simmering roast chicken bones all day; took frozen beans and rice out to thaw, will throw ‘em into broth for soup.

But at least there’s a cup of tea in hand; didn’t stop and take a do-nothing tea break this afternoon, though. Tsk. Know I should.

OK, gonna.

Boy

Boy came downtown for supper on Thursday and I, driving home, pulled over to the side of the street to take this picture of him ambling back to his hidy-hole.

* * *

I suppose someone will remind me: man.

But I am his mother. To me, he's not only man and boy — he's baby, sweet child, innocent heart-opening joy — the list goes on and on and on, as every mom knows. I have the loveliest memories of him at all ages. He was the cutest little chubbybum, with rosebud lips and big eyes. He presented me with dandelions and stuffed toys and tender caring. He was a very affectionate, softhearted, kind kid, and still is. Deep down. Heh. (I'm kidding. I see it all the time.)

Dear You

Shelf-challenged.

It's pretty incredible in our skies right now.
The snow geese -- well, they are flying over in endless fragmented flocks of dozens if not hundreds of birds in each -- it's enough to make your mouth hang open.

I'm reading the fifth novel in the Buckshaw Chronicles series. Bless yer wee heart'ie, Bev, for the introduction and the loans. These are really clever murder mysteries that are an absolute pleasure to swim in. They are just so richly detailed and elegantly written and wry and funny.

There is a lonely spruce grouse thumping its chest in the bush next to our house. We hope it manages to attract a mate; we think it's the one that lost its entire family to a grader blade this winter, on the road outside our driveway. It makes itself at home in the yard; kinda like a chicken you don't have to fence, feed, water or clean up after.

After work it was pleasant enough outside to take a leisurely stroll past the flower bed, and see that the oriental poppies are up, and so are some maltese crosses, and blue flax. As soon as there's a warm day I'll start pruning back the dead stalks and leaves from last fall. Looking forward to that.

There's the door, sounds like Scott has arrived.
Talk to you tomorrow,
K.

S-H-I-V-E-R M-E T-I-M-B-E-R-S

My dressing room.

Two men in camoflauge were grocery shopping in the same aisle as me. Hunting snow geese is permitted in the spring as well as fall, they said, when I asked about their attire.
They have no trouble finding their way around the countryside out here, they said (they are from Florida); our roads are laid out in squares so it's easy.
How do we keep warm?
They had a cool winter in Florida too.

Brrr.

West of the house

The bird life is pretty incredible right now, but also ... the frogs! Whodathunk they'd be up and around during this cold?

In Memory of My Mom

 Hurray! Hurray!

It's the First of May!

Outdoor screwing

Starts today!

-with gratitude to Joanne Bohl, Mom's best friend, who told me Mom phoned every year on this date and recited this little ditty.
(image: facebook)

Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

Another snowfall overnight. Betcha don't really want to click & enlarge.

 Well sure, I wore my parka and snowboots and a tuque to go for a walk. But the birds are abundant — happy, noisy and busy out there — it’s quite the thing. Blue herons are back, and northern flickers, and robins in flocks, and the red-winged blackbirds are chattering up a (gulp, I hope not) storm. At this point, weatherwise … we just don’t know what's what anymore.

The Canada geese waddle off the road before the dogs can reach them. 

And fly just a little way - glorious creatures.

My back is 100% better, thanks to Destination Health in Wadena. Improvement began the day of the first appointment for a shiatsu treatment, continued to the second one a week later, and the third week’s alternative therapy (applied by some kind of machine-thingy that the retired physiotherapist swears by, but can’t say exactly how it works; only that it does, and I agree) put me over the healing top by the very next day.  I had been suffering for more than a month, and it was only getting worse. 

I was beginning to wonder whether I'd ever feel 55 again. I was getting disheartened, and worried. But mostly, I was moving slowly, painfully ... and why? It's a mystery to me. Or was. Elaine (physiotherapist) explained what had likely happened to some tissue between joints, all due to Too Much Sitting without perfect posture. This has long been causing me problems even though I'm attentive to my posture. Or thought I was. 

Just a thin skin of ice on the water in the ditch.

What a relief it is to feel normal again. Not only can I walk, but I can walk straight! I can sit comfortably for more than five minutes, and can have a night’s sleep without waking up every 10 minutes to change position.

Why, this renewed human body almost inspires me to bake bread. We have been missing the homemade stuff around here in recent months. But let’s not overdo it, girlysue; washing dishes and putting one of my Aunt Marj’s frozen apple pies into the oven oughtta be just the ticket. I may even make a spaghetti sauce in advance of tomorrow’s after-work supper. Between that and washing the dishes and listening to the cacophany of wild birds flitting all over the yard, this day off should be just right.

I am really pleased to have this treatment clinic right here HANDY in Wadena. What a switch from always having to drive at least a half hour, and usually one or two or even three, for anything you need help with, be it dentist or chiropractor or whatever -  you're driving. Not that I don't like driving, but I like any sane-minded gal prefer the Sunday afternoon meander over the medical trip often accompanied by a bunch of shopping (might as well pick up items we can't get out here) that leaves you exhausted by the time you're back in your vehicle heading for home. No friggin' thanks.

Door for a Fairy Family

Image from Facebook; suggested one build these tiny doors and put them on trees. 

"I know exactly what that is, and how to fix it, and what you need to do so it doesn't happen again. I see this all the time."
That was the therapist at Destination Health in Wadena after I described my back troubles to her.
She explained what happens in the body to create this discomfort, treated me, and demonstrated the specific daily exercise that will heal and hold things in place.
When the allotted hour was up, I handed over $65 with pleasure and relief. If she is correct, it is money well spent.

My Place, of a morning

It's been a restful four days off.
My back is much, much better, so I could actually enjoy doing next to nothing.
It must still be healing, because I haven't had much energy, but that's fine: no pain to speak of.
Ah, to be on the mend. Thank goodness. What a relief.
I'll go today for my third shiatsu massage. They are rather uncomfortable, what with my back and feet having so many tender spots, but it's worth it to be able to move like a normal human being again.

I managed to get the dishes done.

Scott brought a tractor over and cleared snow away from the house.

This dark-eyed junco hit the livingroom window and was stunned for a while, but eventually got up and flew off.

Gord (my wasband) was out from Edmonton to spend a couple days with Emil and Everett. He played Easter Bunny and brought chocolate eggs when he drove Emil to the farm yesterday.

Something happened yesterday morning: I started slogging out the porch. After carrying some six large garbage bags of recycling out to the car and letting the roomba do its thing, I felt I'd accomplished quite a lot that was overdue. Now maybe it won't feel quite as much as if I'm walking into a garbage pit when I arrive home from work.

If this book doesn't make you laugh out loud ...

... then you are a curmudgeon of the highest order.

I especially recommend Dickinson's chapter about her cat Pumpkin.

Maybe THIS was the Last Blast

Last week, the snow was almost gone.

Today it's back. Six or eight wet, heavy inches of it.

Unabashedly Joni

Yep.
I love it.
Love it. Love it. Love it.

This particular song is one of her collection of covers of classic jazz tunes.
Fabulous. One of my favourite of all her albums.
If you love crooner tunes, and Joni's way of singing a tune, well then you've already got this CD:
 Both Sides Now. Read the Rolling Stones review by clicking on the link.

I haven't been listening to much music lately, probably because it's not convenient (I don't have a sound system setup that suits me) and also because silent surroundings are restful, appreciated and rare.

But after listening to the song above just now, and getting so much pleasure from it, I may just pull out my Both Sides Now CD and bask in it over the weekend.

Seventy Roses

Someone gave his mother 70 roses for her 70th birthday.

Men's Haircuts

At the Wadena News there is a well-loved regular feature page called Looking Back, where excerpts from every decade since 1908 are published.

This week there was no space for it. Readers will notice and worry for a moment, but few (if any) will contact us and say What the hell. Put that back. 

Farmers: stewards of land, scourge of trees

La di dah, another day.
Another farmer has knocked down another bunch of trees on his land. It turns my stomach every time I drive past it. The first time, I nearly cried.
Farmers, like all of us, know that trees are essential for soil conservation. They provide a windbreak that we quite badly need around here.
They provide habitat for wildlife.
There is more to know about the importance of trees, of course, and farmers know it as well as any of us, if not better.
And yet they bulldoze those trees to get another few acres of croppable land.
It means more money in their pockets.
The bottom line is a big bold one.

Spring's Sprung

The trees are great big junkholders.

You might have some doubts as you look around my yard; however, out where we park, there are patches of grass appearing.

I have been walking shaped like the letter C for the past day.
This afternoon I went out into the sunshine, down the street to Charlene's clinic, and had my first shiatsu treatment. That's what it was, wasn't it, Charlene? Anyway, I got up off that mattress about 10 times easier than I got down onto it. Thank the goodness. I have been in a bad way for a couple weeks already, and the treatment gave some relief.

What whiners we people who hardly ever have an ache are, eh?
You'd think it was the end of the world.
I am still walking bent sideways though, and it is weird.

Monday

Need I say more?

Old Man Gary

Joan threw a surprise party for Gary's 50th birthday. Look how happy it made him! What a sweetie she is. Joan YOU ARE THE BEST.

Joan is my youngest sister. I like her blog COLLECTING HAPPY and could only like it more if she wrote five times a week.
However, she's a busy girl.
We take what we can get!

Johnson Brothers Elevator

The story's up on the Wadena News blog:

CLICK HERE.

Chef Emil

Emil making his breakfast this morning.

Which reminds me: it's suppertime.

We had snow today.

Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers

On the other hand, if it weren't for Facebook, I may never have seen this:

http://www.wimp.com/jumpinjive/

and it may well make all the scrolling past garbage worthwhile.

Watch all the way to the end; they get very athletic.

Blort

We are back in the deep dark depths of winter.

I am losing interest in blogging, and in Facebook and Twitter, the latter two being mostly time-wasters anyway, with very little substance. 

Hm. 

The Mild Mists of March

It won't be long till there are wild birds out there and the frogs will be croaking like crazy. 

From a journal handwritten in 1977 north of Arcola, Sask.:

“December Fifteenth.
Walking in the hills, an entire network of paths; they are always on the move. Coyote tracks, fox, rabbit turds, elk shit, squirrel tracks – enchanting… until I thought ‘They’re following each other around…’ "

2:39 p.m.

I am making a big pot of fagioli soup and does it ever smell good, reading Uncle Carl’s manuscript (more than two-thirds through; just finished chapter 42) a second time, sipping on a tea made with spearmint leaves, raspberry leaves, rosehips and a pinch of commercial blueberry tea.

On My Walk

These unused granaries are in a field north of our place. I see them from the road. Never walked in there, though drove past from the other side one day last fall after helping herd some cattle. 

We had a week of melty dripping balmy watery spring weather. Fabulous.
Then we had a weekend of winter days again, and apparently there was complaining.

I hear there is at least one duck back.
And today on the way home we saw a pair of Canada geese.

These things make us happy. All of us.

Shortest Walk Ever

At 8:10 a.m. I put on my boots and parka and yes, ski pants, and went outside. Scott hoped to be picking me up at quarter-after so he could be on the job in town at 8:30, and I had to fill the bird feeders first. When his half-ton didn't appear as expected, I walked to the road and back about six times for something to do and for the sake of walking. The dog got bored and waited for me in the middle of the driveway. 

Next thing I knew, it was 3 o'clock, I was at my desk at the office, and it was almost time to come home again. My kinda day.

Four Deer in Jenna's Headlights

Click photo to enlarge

The deer have just stepped out of the bush, crossed the snow-filled ditch, and will turn and trot south to the end of the road. Jenna and I will turn back the other way and head for home.

The Office

On mornings I walk to work, I sometimes enter through the front door. 

This painting on the south side of the building is of a cattle drive at Wadena in 1901.

The streets and everywhere you walk are terribly, terribly icy. I could have skated to the office if the ice wasn't so lumpy. The above photo was taken later in the day, when ice on the sidewalk had melted. It really did feel like spring for a while there. Water dripping noisily from roofs and eaves. Jacket open, no gloves, but the wind still blew and you needed to cover your head. After dark the breeze must have slept, and making my way through the streets was relaxed and slow instead of crisp and hurried. A welcome change. Unexpectedly a relief.

Twisted Teapot

image from the web

"The trouble with you staying here on Thursday nights," says my son Everett to me, "is that we stay up too late."

We'd been talking and laughing for hours, and neither of us wanted to call it a night, but it was a "school night" after all, and so around 11:30 we wrapped it up. He ascended to his mattress on the floor upstairs, and I stretched out on the mattress on the living room floor. The lad still doesn't have his house set up in any manner I find comfortable, but he's content and that's what matters.

Yesterday he got a haircut and had his ugly beard shaved off, and now he is a babyface again.

Flower Gown

Image from Web; click to enlarge.

We all need a little inspiration.
I put a few seeds into pots this past weekend.

Someone unplugged the Deep Freeze

A most beautiful day, when tea on the back step was called for. 

I had been to town in the morning so Everett would have the car for his driving test. He passed it, and I hopped into Little Green and toodled back on home.

I turned north down the sunny pavement with water laying all over it, and drove like a little old granny through the shiny melty land.

Look at that snow go!

Kathy's Roof

Scott swept the snow from the roof on a lovely spring day.
It's snowman-making weather.

Wadena of a Morning

It's a 10-minute walk from Everett's place to the news office.

Joni sings: Just Like This Train

http://jonimitchell.com/library/video.cfm?id=373

Brenda's Roof

How gorgeous are these willow ptarmigan ... CLICK IMAGE for full story on Brenda's blog.

Thursday Already

Faerie door, image from the web

We all have 'em, right? Those dreams wherein you have murdered someone years ago and they are buried underneath a floor somewhere and you shudder to imagine what will happen if they are ever discovered.

When awakening from this dream I have to think about it for more than a few seconds to reassure myself that I have never murdered anyone.

Perhaps I had this dream again last night because of some office talk about Brian Dennehy, the actor who played serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who buried his victims in his basement. Dennehy's portrayal was so chilling that I can't see the actor without remembering it. He scares me.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Here. Have a happier memory:

All too soon it will be gone

Click to enlarge.

I never get tired of snow sculpture. Or should it be called wind sculpture.

Driving Practice

Turning onto mainstreet Wadena

It's coming down to the crunch. My 21-yr-old son has to get his licence, or he stands to lose his job.
He has put it off, put it off, put it off, until now ...
And so, I drove into town on Sunday and sat in the passenger's seat while he drove around for three hours.
I drove in again yesterday after he got off work, and made him drive for an hour.
And will do the same tonight after the News office closes.

He bitches about it. He doesn't want to. It's so boring. He's got better things to do. And so on.

I say, "You think this is my preferred method of spending time?"

Finally he gets it. This is not for my benefit, but for his.

Okay, maybe it IS for me. After all, do I really want him to lose his job and move back in with me?

Nope.
Love him dearly, but it's best when he's in his own house.

Alisa Burke's Studio

These may be just the ticket for the recycling that clutters up my dwelling before it is taken to the depot.

Is there anything Alisa Burke can't do?

She must be the most fun parent, ever.

Now, I just need ...

* canvas (bet there's a potato sack around here somewhere)
* paint (what kind?)
* brush
* person who sews

What makes the bag hold its shape around the top? A certain stiffness of canvas?

Is there a paint that is washable?

Careful how you place that postage stamp

Click HERE to read a review at the Washington Post.

From To the Letter; a Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing, by Simon Garfield:

In 1938, what may be the most useful manual of all was published in Shanghai. Written by Chen Kwan Yi and Whang Shih, Key to English Letter Writing was a guide that served double duty: it taught the Chinese how to compose personal and business letters in slightly creaky English, and it provided its English readers with invaluable insight into personal and corporate Chinese customs we may not have otherwise been aware of. Unlike Anglo-American guides, these letter templates did not usually concern misfiring sons and their long-suffering fathers, or how best to address a duchess. Instead, the examples were both more mundane and, conceptually, more profound.

Upside down, top right corner = Write no more.

Upside down in line with surname = I am engaged.

Centred on right edge = Write immediately!

At right angle, top left corner = I hate you.

 The stamp-tilting tradition is maintained today in situations where mail is subject to external scrutiny and censorship, in particular in prisons and in the military.

Tickle Me Ivy

What? Can't a gal have a fabulously relaxing day?
This one is.
It is super cold out there, 40 or 50 below, but through the window? Bright and crisp and sparkling.

Old Bartley Place

The old Bartley place, painted by Carl Morris, was built by my great-grandparents in 1914(ish) and still stands

Heart in Hand's most recent blog entry lamented the loss of frequent posting by bloggers, and I have to agree. Facebook has taken the wind out of many writing sails, from what I can see. But whatever: it is what it is. The time for some things just passes, and this has to be accepted.

I return to regularly updated webpages; others fairly quickly fall off my radar.

It was late when I got to bed last night, and considerably later when I got to sleep. I didn't let the wakefulness make me anxious; after all, I told myself, I am resting. Bet I was snoozing three seconds after letting myself off the gotta-sleep hook.