Emil Sings. Not Workplace Friendly.

"Mom. Mom."
"What?"
"Mom. I learned a song. I'll sing it for you."




Emil still thinks "swear words" are hilarious, and anything to do with shit is ... worth a giggle.

Perogy Master

Everett's been in the kitchen again

Some time ago I learned that a lady I've known from my youth makes and sells her delicious perogies— it may well be a full-time job for her, since those and her cabbage rolls are so popular— and I decided to purchase a bag of each, every month. They are always a treat and, taken from the freezer, the perogies help make up a quick meal and the cabbage rolls, baked with tomato juice, make a tasty casserole.

Then Everett took it into his head to make perogies more often. Above is a batch he made last week, when we had run out of cheddar cheese. So he made his filling of plain potatoes, with salt and pepper. I swear those were the best perogies I've ever eaten. Without any of the usual garnishes, including butter or onions or bacon bits— they were that good.

It's doubtful he'll get interested in making cabbage rolls, more's the pity, and so I shall darken Mary's door again and see if she'll let me back on her customer list once my boy leaves home in a month or two.


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I've been slowly reinstating my blogroll, now at the bottom of the page so it is less of a distraction for me, but if you're looking for some reading, scroll on down and give some of them a try. Also, if your webpage isn't listed there, let me know— or give me time. I haven't put all my favourites in yet. All in good time, my dears, all in good time ....

Lake Property in Saskatchewan for Sale

My new toy

An old-fashioned bike: no hand-brakes (that takes some getting used to after all these years), no 3 or 5 or 10 or 18 speeds. Just ... down the road I go.

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Yippee, it's Friday! Considering I hardly know which day is which anymore, I almost always know when it's Friday and the beginning of the weekend.

Went to Margo yesterday to have a couple new tires put on my minivan and get a tour of my sister Karen's new house, which is being built on the shore of their resort development on Margo Lake. Scott is drywalling there at the moment and will soon be painting the vaulted ceiling. It's a lovely large house but I won't get excited until there are kitchen cupboards, flooring, and the painting is done. Till then houses under construction kind of all look the same, to me.

Lakefront lots at Margo Lake are selling for $50,000. The other lots are $30,000. Lake property in Saskatchewan is hard to come by and ridiculously expensive nowadays. Even at these relatively low prices, I can't afford one and Karen won't give me a Drastically Reduced Family Rate! I'll fix her: once the fancy mansion is finished, I'll just visit far more often, that's all. Heh. Not that it's easy to catch Karen at home. Considering we live 20 minutes apart, we don't get together very often. She is a busy, busy girl.

Yesterday from her kitchen window we watched a mother fox overseeing her five kits as they frolicked over by the machine shed, walking in, out and around stationary tractor tires as if they owned the place. Cute little jiggers! I remarked that they look like a cross between a dog and a cat.

It's another sunny day here, but the wind is still like icy little fingers poking at you. We need some heat now.


✿⊱╮ Listen to this episode of Tapestry:

An interview with Cristina Nehring, author of A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century

http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/ 

For some reason this link embedded above doesn't work; if that's the case for you, too, you'll have to copy and paste the link into your browser. Sorry about that; I don't know why it is. Anyhoo, the conversation is worth a listen.

✿⊱╮ This morning Everett saw a moose with two calves on the other side of the dugout. He hollered in time for me to jump up and look through the office window, catching only a glimpse of a swift shadow flashing into the trees.

Bottlecaps and Superheroes

Everett's found bottlecaps, all washed and dried

Uh huh. Bottlecaps. He doesn't care where they're from, he's collecting them in an old roasted-peanut jar. It used to hold chewed gum. Now that was a pretty collection to peruse, as you may imagine. Then suddenly he decided they were out and bottle caps are in. First he noticed caps on the dirt floor of the quonset, where Scott must huck them when he cracks himself a beer out there. Then he hit the jackpot, he said, when he started looking into the boxes of empties.

He came with me on my "medicine walk" yesterday, and from the moment we left the driveway till we got back 45 minutes later and sat down for a few minutes in the swing, he talked. His question out the gate was “Who’s your favourite superhero?” My answer was “I don’t have one; I don’t even know who-all there is to choose from.” He proceeded to list several dozen of them, along with their superhuman abilities. I tried to pay attention but my mind wandered more than once. He was still talking about superheroes for a while after the walk. Important subject to an 18-year-old, I guess! Or my 18-year-old, anyway.

Walkabout

Haven't found a place for this old thing; stuck it in the bush for now.

"I do not even know what this is," said the Bad Farm Girl. "A rake?"

Golden Grain Farm, a graveyard for old machinery, buildings, and vehicles

The littlest granary

Behind the barn

Behind the granaries that Scott says "have to go."

Western Spaghetti

Everett spent the day raking and bagging grass clippings

Part of the herd cleans up across the road

This came across my Facebook page today:

Most Recent Bloomage

Crabapple tree

Rhubarb patch

Please excuse me. I am watering and hoeing and digging, in between working in my office four hours a day, preparing suppers, doing dishes, wiping counters, sweeping floors, folding blankets, dusting, and squeezing in 45-minute walks. And so on.

Sensational Sunnyday

At my home away from home: best pal in the world Cathy & her daughter Emma

11:28 a.m.
   Been outside weeding since I got up, with coffee or toast in one hand. Or been inside tidying the kitchen, livingroom or boys’ room, and rousting Everett from his bed. Putting things in order while enjoying the pure pleasure of doing so. There is always a nagging feeling that I “should” be doing something else, something more, something that’s waiting, but I tell myself to smarten up and acknowledge the equal necessity of exactly what I am already doing. It’s not like I’ve been sitting on my ass staring into the computer screen all morning, or sleeping, or watching TV.
1:05pm
   Called to see if Emil would like a visit today, since he didn’t want to come out this weekend. But the household is headed off to Wynyard to see the RCMP Musical Ride, and he is quite excited. I’m excited for him!

Every spring the Musical Ride tours Canada and draws in capacity crowds:

The Ubiquitous Outdoor Bulletin Board

In Kelvington, Saskatchewan

When I was doing some research for an article on the tv series Little Mosque on the Prairie, I came across a video about the sets and settings for the episodes. The filmmakers were chuckling about the unlikelihood of the existence of an outdoor bulletin board as shown in the fictional town of Mercy, Saskatchewan, because out in the weather the notices tacked up on the board wouldn't last long.

However, there are outdoor billboards just like it, all over the place. When I noticed this one on Kelvington's main street last weekend, I snapped a photo for evidence.

These two lovebirds were taking a break in front of the drugstore:

Newborn Alert! Newborn Alert!

Hayes Christopher, my second great-nephew

OhmyIhavetogetuptoKelvingtonandholdhiminmyarms!

AlsoneedtodrivetoRockCreekandkissthatlittleHeatherBaby!

IfeelaRaisinTourcomingon.

*raisin=newborn

First day of the new walking routine

Flower bed: dandelion-free zone (that's a laugh)

Home Again

Everett tackles the brush pile from several summers of gardening

This photo wasn't taken today; hell no. Today it's winter without snow. Cold, grey, windy, and miserable, with rain threatening.

You can see we have a serious dandelion explosion. I actually like them—till after they've seeded out, that is. Then they're ugly. And they will take over your grass if you let them. Those you see here surround my flower beds on three sides (though the bed is curved), and the greenspace you see is only a fraction of the area. Scott is going to bring over some cows to "clean it up." I'll be happy to have them there, but worried about the garden. Cows respect an electric fence, but only when they want to. According to someone, maybe someone local or maybe Temple Grandin, cows know that the jolt from the fence only stings for a short blast and then is over. If they want what is on the other side of the fence bad enough, they will take the risk. Or if something spooks them, they are less afraid of that wire fence than of being eaten. I will watch from my high tower (that's funny, Pamelo Jo, about your dogs announcing Your Highness), ready to run out and chase them off. There's a lot of good 'eatin' in my flower beds.

This happens to me after beginning to weed out dandelions every summer: when I close my eyes, I see one as if it's a mandala; you know, with spokes of energy shooting out from a central core, as the dandelion leaves appear when they are still young and you look at them from above. The image is compelling because I'll see it in my mind's eye often during a day. It's even come to a point where I'd like to change the image because I've seen enough damn dandelions that day.

I'm still moving plants out there, and impatient to get them all moved, and taking deep breaths and reminding myself to relax about it. It's only May! I'm only one person! whose hands actually got to the point the other evening where they hurt, from hoeing and digging.

Good Report: was in the city yesterday for a stress test to get a baseline on my heart health, for my doctor. All's well but I need to get in shape, he tells me; walking 45 minutes a day, four days a week, should do the trick, he says. He's all about prevention, he says.

I'm looking at the great outdoors this morning and thinking shit, how am I going to force myself to go down the road in that furor? Apparently I need to toughen up if I want to live to be an old lady. Which I hope to do, since a card reader told me I would (live to be an old lady) when I was 18 or 19. She was my friend's grandmother and used a plain deck of playing cards. Now, in those days, how old was an old woman? 65? 70? My friend's grandma was in her eighties, if I'm remembering correctly. Anyway, the other things she told me were true, too; they've borne out over the years since.


And now, to work.

This garter snake is about two feet long and likes to lounge under the lilac trees.

10:44am
Ducky Doodle woke me this morning by jumping up enough to put his front paws on the side of the bed next to me; he wanted to go outside. Why he wakes me instead of going to Scott, who is already up, I do not know. He seems to stay in his crate in the closet as long as I am in bed, too, even though Scott is up and will pet him to his heart's content if the dog is on his lap as he watches TV. How do dogs think? Does Ducky think I need to be the one to let him out, so that I will know where he is? Or what? It's a mystery.

Last night Everett and I were sitting on the couch.
Me: “Yawwwwnnnnn… doodledy doodledy doo…” (or somesuch)
Everett, looking at me with disgust: “You even have to turn a yawn into a song!”

Ah, my teenage boy, these are the things you will remember about me, perhaps with a smile, after I’m gone. That I danced around the house when the music came on, that I belted out bits of tunes in my most operatic voice — all the things that drive you crazy right now.

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Don't forget, Joanne Bohl is blogging under Out Margo Way, in the column there on the left.

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Mark of True Friendship
Me: I’ve gotta shop for something to wear to my nephew’s wedding this summer.
Cathy: You can shop in my closet if you want.

Six Years

Everett wipes the raindrops off his glasses. He has started a load of clothes in the laundromat across the street, and joined me in the cafe for a bite to eat, killing time till they need to be transferred to dryers.

Noon
Six years since Mom died. While she was sick, I used to try to imagine what life would be like after she was gone; I tried to imagine the future without her, five, six, ten years after, and was unable to. Here it is, six years, and it still doesn’t seem real. Oh, it’s real. That’s not the right word I guess, though it brings a hot tear to my eye.

I sent a short memoriam verse (author unknown) to the paper:
Sometimes a note of a song 
brings us a thought of you.
Sometimes a flower as we pass along,
Or a sky that is azure blue,
Or a silver lining in the clouds
When the sunshine's peeping through.

Scott's mom called, asking if Everett could help plant her garden today. I said I’d bring him as soon as he was dressed. It’s sprinkling out there, and cold, but she was bent over the ground when I dropped him off. It’s raining hard enough near Yorkton to bring the farmers in from the fields, but here they’re still out. A news article today says about 43% of this area’s crops are in; it’s late enough that there will be a lot of worry about fall frosts.


8:34pm

From Everett's side of the café booth

Home with clean laundry and an extra boy for the weekend, and thanks to the rainfall the young leaves on the caragana trees have doubled in size in just a few hours. And the scent out there ... glorious. Now just to put up with anxious grumpy farmers who can't finish seeding till the ground dries out.

View from the pickup window at Scoops drive-thru

Message left by sister Karen on answering machine this morning:

"Sorry to call so early, but I'm leaving for work right away. Cara had her baby last night, a boy. They haven't named him yet, and the nurses have been too busy to weigh him. Bye!"

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Came home with two dogs yesterday, so that was a relief. Old Casper's got some good days ahead yet, apparently, and only needed her nails cut and an antibiotic against the infection between her toes. Ducky got heavily sedated and his four lower incisors pulled out by pliers. He was a tongue-lagging sack of lard after that, but looks good as new today.

That ye pet-owners may covet our veterinarian:
The Bill
14 pills: $4.20
2 rabies shots 36.00
sedate dog, pull loose teeth 10.00
clip toenails 3.00
Total: 53.20
(taxes extra)

Hounds

Pete

The house where Emil lives has a supervisor; actually, three, who take turns staying at the group home for several days in a row. They work 24- or 36-hour shifts, and often bring their pets with them. I'm fond of all the dogs, of course, but absolutely adore Pete, who has the softest, most pettable fur and is full of piss and vinegar. He gets quite excited whenever I (or anyone, I suppose) comes to the door, and yaps up a storm, and jumps all over me, and I love it. I could just eat him up.

Today is a dog day. I was up early to run into town for a lab test at the hospital, and now am breaking my overnight fast with a fried egg and two slices of buttered toast made from Everett's delicious wholewheat bread. Next, we'll put a collar on Ducky and a leash on Casper, and heave her into the back of the GM before heading for Kelvington, where Dr Rob, the best vet in the world, has his clinic.

Poor old Casper has sores on her feet and has been limping around. I've been reluctant to take her in, because I'm afraid Dr Rob will say it's time to put her out of her misery. She is about 15 years old and fairly stiff already at times, due to arthritis we suppose, but has really failed lately. She still has happy, bouncy days though, so it's not as if it's easy to decide to end her life. My hope is that some medicine will fix her up and she'll have some good times left. Scott, however, doesn't think she'll make it through another winter.

Ducky, on the other hand, seems as spunky as ever but there were a few days last week when all he wanted was to be outside. That was not so surprising, as it was nice weather and why wouldn't he want to be out with "the girls?" But he wasn't interested in his canned food, which looks so appetizing it could pass for a meaty stew for humans. Then Scott noticed that Ducky has lost a front tooth and has another one quite loose. Oh oh. His breath is not rotten, so we wonder what is going on there.

And now, to see if my little penguin niece (expecting her third baby next month) is home and ready for perennials. We'll go dig some up before we leave. It's turning into a glorious day of sun and heat and it will be hard to settle down into this office to work when we return. Or perhaps it will be easier because it'll be so damn hot out I'll want to be in here where it's cooler.

The tractors are out in all the fields now, the poplar leaves have all come out and the ditches, emptied of water, are green. Scott's gone this morning to pick up some oats for seeding, for feed for the cattle. Life in Saskatchewan is in full swing.

Froze Hard

Bleeding heart bush, third plant to bloom this spring

Good thing I got this photo, because last night we had a serious freeze. Today the bush is drooping, hangdog, a broken shell of a plant.

***

Done work for the day, about to go outside in the cold sun with a travel mug full of hot tea.

But first:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LI'L SIS!

Isn't she cute? Turns 43 today, if I'm not mistaken

Everett made you something:

We'll eat them for you

Here's the recipe he used:

Chocolate Chews

1 c milk
1 c cocoa
4 c brown sugar
3 c peanut butter
3 c oatmeal

Preheat oven to 325F.
Mix milk and cocoa. Add remaining ingredients. Put one-inch balls on greased cookie sheet.
Bake 20 minutes.
When warm they will seem almost toffee-like on the inside; when cool, they are chewy.

Cats and Flowers and Birds, oh my!

Purple martin house awaiting paint job, and Ace

The kittens born last spring have names that start with an A, so we'll be able to figure out how old they are in years to come, and maybe even remember who their mother was. Last year we had one batch of kittens— a litter of five— and three have so far survived farm life, which takes its toll on barn cats. Perhaps when they go hunting across the road or in the fields, they get lost. But I doubt it. It's more likely that foxes and coyotes get them. Even the odd speedy vehicle past our driveway hasn't left a cat carcass yet.

Everett holding Alice; Ace has to get into the picture

We seem to have two year-old females, one of whom, Ash, is shy and timid compared to her siblings. I expected they'd both have kittens this spring, but no ... no sign of plumpness in either of them.
Their mother, however, is busy with this year's offspring in the attic of the tractor shed behind Everett. She's got all the little Bs well hidden.

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Holey sheet, it's cold out there today. The thermometer in the Chev said 6 degrees, according to Scott, who left here shortly after seven this morning to meet with a customer. I will be bringing my one tray of bedding plants indoors tonight, in case it freezes. Did you notice I said one tray? When I say I am simplifying and paring down, it is no joke.

I have been digging holes under the oak trees and digging up perennials to relocate there. It may well be the only safe place in the yard, if Scott does as he intends to, which is re-level the entire lawn and garden area so that the ground slopes away from the house. Last summer it was too wet to do anything; this summer we wait and see what happens groundwater-wise.

Under trees is not the best place for flowers, what with the heavy shade and the thirsty roots of the oaks, so only plants that I think can handle it are going there: delphiniums, columbines, maltese crosses. They may not thrive, but at least they won't be plowed under... they'll have a chance. They'll get lots of light in early spring before the oaks leaf out, and in the summer they'll enjoy dappled shade, which flowers seem to love, and the rays of the evening sun will slant beneath the oak branches.

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No use talking to me. All I think about at this time of year are flowers ... and birds. A male baltimore oriole visited the oaks this morning, black and bright orange. There are about two dozen American goldfinches around the yard, chasing each other at lightning speed through the branches. Chipping sparrows have arrived, and last week I saw a couple Harris sparrows. When I sit out on the deck overlooking the slough, a song sparrow perches nearby in the lilacs and sings for me. There are woodpeckers about, and a pair of magpies is nesting in the tall elms on the west side of the yard.

Out on the dugout yesterday I saw—aside from the redwinged blackbirds and the numerous species of ducks and the Canada geese pair, who only seem to visit long enough to preen themselves on top of the muskrat house— a sora sneaking along behind the thin grass on shore. A sora is more often heard than seen. This one plopped into the water and swam across to my side of the dugout, just like a duck. It's small, about the size of a robin. If you click on the link you can see a photo and hear the sound it makes. There are few things I like more than leaving the window open at night and listening to it, and the frogs. Have I mentioned that I often fall asleep with a smile on my face?

This is the life.

Violet, the previous owner, left these tulips under the oak trees

✿⊱╮I've been busy digging holes and digging up plants, moving them to new locations in order to reduce the area that needs weeding by hoe or hand. This morning I woke up stiff, but it can't all be blamed on the shovel. On the way into the hardware store the other day I saw a bike I wanted, and bought it. Scott picked it up yesterday and I took it for a short spin when he got it home. Stretched out some unused muscles, methinks. But it's dandy; the old-fashioned handlebars allow a restful ride rather than one that strains the neck and shoulders from leaning forward.

Violas are the first to pop up around the yard, everywhere, like weeds. Only better.