Wedding Pics

Scott brought digital photographs home from Calgary and had a picture show when Faye and Rick came over last night.

Gunnar and Melissa's neighbour owns a fleet of vintage cars and lent a few for the entourage:

Waiting for the wedding party

It was cold and rainy and some of these cars had neither windows nor wipers, if I heard correctly.

After the ceremony and reception, a crew piled into a limo to go have pictures taken:

The groom is older than he looks.

Oh all right — the real groom.

One of Those Nights

Everyone has them once in a while: a night when you go to bed tired, yawning, ready to snuggle in and fall asleep, and then you lie there awake until well into the wee hours. 

I had left the office at 5:30 to come home and bake a chocolate cake for Scott. I'd cleaned the kitchen and waited for him to arrive, because we'd talked about it in the morning and decided we'd either go out for supper or he'd bring a pizza from Kelvington, where he was shingling his 106-year-old grandmother's garage roof. 

But by the time he drove into the yard around 7:30, pizzaless, it was too late to run to town for supper. He'd need to bath first, and the restaurants close at 8 o'clock. So much for birthday plans! We sat chatting on the couch for a long while as he drank a cold beer (which I fetched; it was his birthday, after all), and then he went and lay in the tub for an hour with his iPhone. We ended up eating pork chops and fried cabbage sometime after 9 o'clock. 

And then he tucked into that cake, two or three helpings of it, and turned on the TV. That's when I got my pyjamas on and got into bed with The Orchardist.  I'd enjoyed the first half of it but now, by the second half, I'm skimming through. Around 11 o'clock I put it down and turned on the radio to listen to The Vinyl Café and then As It Happens. Usually I fall asleep somewhere in there, but not last night. I was too warm, I was too cold, I was too crowded, I was — who knows. 

It was just one of those nights. 

The Good Fortune of Some

Listening to the news is too often like listening to an audio book of short horror stories. 

A young father in Alberta has been murdered and his two-year-old daughter kidnapped and killed.

People by the hundreds of thousands or is it millions are on the road because they're not safe in their homes and cannot build a life there, and one country has actually built a fence to keep them out. If they starve and freeze, so what! Not our problem, even when they're on our doorstep, apparently.

Oil companies and manufacturers — and the people who operate them — are polluting our air, water, and land as if the planet is an endless supply dump for them to take what they want from and leave their mess behind, making people and animals sick.

The wealthy, to whom, for many, money and abundance came easy, due to luck and not to personal merit, cannot understand that the poor can work very, very hard and can make the best of the choices they have (if any), and still not escape poverty. The rich will vote in the government that protects their own money and screws over the people who don't have big bucks to donate to the election campaign.

Then there's me, with my cosy little house and the peaceful, lovely landscape around my quiet road. A dull story in comparison, but it's the one I prefer. I think I'll leave the radio off for a few days.

Geese are Here

With the rain, harvest has come to a halt. Quite a few farmers seem to have their crops off, though. The rest will just have to wait for dry weather.

The first large flocks of Canada geese have begun to pass overhead. You hear them gabbling before they hove into sight. It's a great time of year to be here.

Fall has its own unique scents as well as its sights and sounds. It's one of my favourite seasons, and every bit as welcome as springtime.

Scott turns 56 tomorrow. Wish him a happy birthday if you see him! Looks like this year he won't be in the field; maybe I'll take him out for supper. At the very least, I'll make the cake he has requested: chocolate, no icing, so he can pour milk on it. (Yuk! but whatever the birthday boy wants ... .)

On the Nightstand

Next! Step right up!

The Weekend

Yesterday Mallard Industries held a 40th anniversary barbecue at the sheltered workshop where Emil is employed; Mallard also runs one of the group homes where he lives. He didn't come out to the farm this weekend because of the event, but Scott and I went in at 11:30 for the barbecue and to take a tour of the facility.

Farmboy was naturally anxious to get back home — it was a beautiful windy, warm day and he hoped to get out to the field — so we didn't stay long. We had a visit with Emil, all dressed up in black pants and a purple shirt, and listened to some of the old-time music that volunteers were playing up on a little platform. We took a tour of the building, which is a going concern; they have various profitable businesses operating from it, from food catering to building wooden pallets and mechanized chicken-pluckers and heaven-knows-what-else.

Scott had a bite to eat and I had a couple cups of coffee, and we chatted with a few people before sitting down outside with Emil for a little while again and then driving home. The official "opening" of the renovated building was to start at 3 o'clock and Alison planned to attend that for the newspaper, but I took a few pictures anyway. Most aren't newspaper-worthy, alas, as I don't seem to have the knack, but if we're lucky maybe one or two will be.

A room that was added is one I believe they call the Quiet Room, where clients/workers can have a lie-down or a time-out if they're upset or not feeling well.

Quiet Room

I could've crawled onto that mat for a snooze, myself! Have been without vigour since arriving home Tuesday night after the festivities in Calgary. So lazy have I been that, aside from the hours at the office Wednesday to Friday, I've done as little as possible: several stops at the grocery store to pick up necessities; a few loads of laundry, a few dishes, a couple simple suppers; and not a lot else. I didn't even drop in on my boy after work, as I usually try to do at least once a week. I just wanted to get home and relax. Yesterday, it being too hot to use the oven or go for a walk, I even let myself sit down with a book for an hour or two in the afternoon.

Today it's cooled off and a good brisk walk is in order. Maybe that will bring me around to feeling normal again.

The Secret Life of Violet Grant

Life is best when I've come across a book I don't like to put down.
Such is the case with The Secret Life of Violet Grant, written with such wit and humour that a couple love stories are far more entertaining than they might otherwise be.
I've been reading it before bed, and in the morning before getting out of bed, and will no doubt polish it off tonight.
And really should get a move on. Mallard Industries, where Emil works, is having a 40th anniversary barbecue starting in less than an hour. Emil would like us to go, and I'm still in my pyjamas. I knew I'd be this way, as I usually am on Saturday mornings, which is why I committed to nothing and made no offers to be anywhere or do anything. I've been on the run for a week, I need to be free of "things to do" and "places to be" for a couple days. Scott woke up tired, and I myself haven't yet plugged into whatever socket might give me some energy.
Guess I'd best go splash some water on my face and throw some clothes on and brush the fur off my teeth.

While I Eat

There is only one way I have time to make a blog entry in the morning before work, and this is it. I know I must eat breakfast, so I make toast. (It's either that, or make toast at work, which I quite often do.) And I upload a photo and write a few words while chewing it. Brilliant, eh? Oh the timesaving multi-tasker that I am!

All these leaves will soon be on the ground.

I saw this on FB and saved it because it's so darn interesting. The musculature of the human face:

When I was in Calgary, a gentleman came across my page about Aunt Alma (see above, Aunt Alma's Yukon) and left a comment. With his permission I will, when I get time as I hope to this weekend, post what he sent along with a photo and two excerpts from a book that was written by a doctor in Mayo who knew Aunt Alma. This is one of those times when I have great appreciation for computers and the internet, if I didn't already, for the connections they make possible.

And now to brush my crumbed teeth and get out the door. It's production day!

Done and Dusted

Scott, who was in Calgary two days before I got there, was put to work helping with preparations. From the farm he'd hauled old doors to build a backdrop for the ceremony and "photo booth." When his brother and I arrived in the city about 10:30 Friday night and finally found his nephew's, Scott was already sound asleep. He was gone in the morning before I got out of bed.

The day of the wedding was cold and rainy. A fleet of vintage cars was to take the bride, groom, and their respective entourages to the hall where the event took place.

Gunnar

The ceremony was short and sweet — no preaching, sermonizing, etc. — which is a part I particularly abhor during a wedding or any other function. It's why I don't go to church if it can be avoided.

Mr and Ms after their wedding vows

I got a daughter out of this deal! That's the best part.

We spent the next afternoon cleaning the hall, and then went to spend a couple nights at their place before they leave on their honeymoon. We were all pretty bedraggled (actually we weren't pretty; just bedraggled).

Tuesday morning dawned cool and sunny, and after a good breakfast we hit the road for home.

Back from Calgary

We arrived home around eight last night and I didn't even turn this computer on to check my email; just put away the clean dishes Everett had left on the kitchen counter, then pulled pyjamas over my head and crawled into bed to read for a while before switching off the lamp. 

How can a person be so exhausted after an entire day on one's ass, riding in a vehicle? I will never know; mind you, last night was the first really good sleep I've had since Wednesday, so maybe that was part of it. I was tired ... and I knew it every time I looked in a mirror over the past few days. 

Anyway, the wedding went off well and we left the son and daughter-in-law with one more day of running around tying up loose ends before they leave on their month-long honeymoon in Europe. If I think I'm beat, they are ten times more so.

Go See Alisa

"Oh, I'll just redecorate my office and create a cosy little guestroom for my sister-in-law's visit!" says Alisa Burke, and goes on to do it in about four hours.

 Her artistic ideas are consistently simple but smart, cheerful, colourful, and appealing:

If you don't follow Alisa's blog already, get over there and be amazed by what she does at her house:

http://alisaburke.blogspot.ca/2015/08/guest-room-makeover.html

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.