Once Upon a Flowerbed

Once a vast and colourful flowerbed, now a pile of clay and black dirt

And I don't care!
Soon it will be grass — which I don't mow — and now my flowers are in front of the house, where I can see them while washing dishes or sipping on my coffee in the morning. And I can go through the flowerbeds, vanquishing weeds with my trusty horseshoe hoe, in about 30 minutes. Why, it's almost too easy. Whatever will I do with myself now, during my 10-minute breaks between hours of computer work? Heh. Just kidding. Always lots to do out there: digging up dandelions, watering, deadheading.

Scott is talking about making a place for a small vegetable garden behind the house, which is where it used to be before I staked my claim back there and left only room for a few tomatoes and green peppers. I hope he does; and also that he takes care of his tomatoes and potatoes and whatever else, because I'm not into it. He keeps on top of the weeding -- whereas I ... well, flowers come first in my heart, and vegetables I'd rather buy at the farmers' market than spend time looking after. However, if he grows them, I'll process them; make salsa, probably.

At 5:30 this morning I was up, standing in my housecoat on the step, waiting for Ducky Doodle to do his business. This is my idea of the best time to rise and shine; it's calm and beautiful outside, and you get a longer day out of it.

I went back to bed to read and have coffee, though. I'd really feel noble if I went for my walk right away, but I can't do it on an empty stomach and it takes me quite a while to feel like eating.

How lucky am I to have had for almost 10 years this luxury of mornings free to read and write and even go back to sleep if I choose? I am so very grateful for this freedom.

Here's what the flowerbed back there used to look like:

Yeah, I might've been crazy.

My Sister is a Clown

Scott finally bought a new barbecue

He put it together yesterday afternoon outside one of the sheds and was dragging it to the house when I went to take Emil back to town. I helped him haul it and, since it was so windy and we thought it might blow right over, suggested we tuck it in under the lilac trees where it's calm. But no, said Scott— it will get scratched up if the lower branches touch it.

And that's one difference between us. I couldn't care less if the barbecue is scratched up. I just don't want it to tip over.

He's as fussy with the appearance of his laptop, which sits on a table in the living room and looks, to me, like a handy spot for the television remotes when it's not in use. Hell no! they might scratch the lid of the laptop.

Who cares? I think. Well, he does.

***

It's cold and windy again today. I took the above photo while standing on the doorstep, glad I don't have to walk today. Fingers crossed tomorrow will be more pleasant.

***

Called Dad this morning. He was waiting to head onto the golf course. They've got so much flooding in Kelowna that at least one course is not usable at all, and others have only portions of their fairways available. So it takes longer to get onto the course as there are fewer of them, yet as many avid players.

According to Joan, if I just complain about the weather, it will change. Ha!
Go read her blog, and leave a comment. She has posted twice in a row in a short time; it's a miracle!
She thinks no one reads it, because I'm the only one who ever leaves a comment.
Comments are not the only indicator of readers, I keep telling her and anyone who will listen. Lots of people read regularly for years and never, ever leave a comment. They're like ghosts; even when they're there you don't see them.
Keep blogging, I tell her. Those of us who like you like IT, even if you don't think your life is exciting enough to blog about. I think she's a good writer, and her sense of humour and goofiness comes across. I remember once telling Mom how Joan had entertained us with her silliness, when us three daughters were living in Kelowna during Mom's last year, and Mom remarking, "So Joan is a clown, eh?"

Foot Draggin'

Just beyond my front window

Emil doesn't want to go back to the group home when it's time on Sunday evenings.

"Get ready," I say at 7 o'clock, and he replies "But I don't want to go till my watch says 8 o'clock."

So I say, "That means I'll be getting home later than I'd like, so go get ready now!"

He says okay, but then spends a half-hour in the bathroom. Don't ask me what he's doing in there that takes forever. He drags his feet at every opportunity; I want to kick his buttocks. Instead I remind myself that this is an opportunity to read for a few minutes while waiting, or in this case write.

Relax, Kathy.  Go with the flow. You cannot really hurry this boy, try as you might. All it does is make you cranky when you fail to get what you're after. You're better off to take a deep breath and let him be. And you'll get out to the vehicle, and you'll get him dropped off in town, and you'll get home ... eventually. And you'll live.

Thick-Skinned People Live Here

The bodies of the people who live here must require a scrub pad and a three-inch screw for cleanliness

Whenever I notice Scott's "bathtub-cleaning tools" next to my scented oils on the edge of the tub, that is my exact thought.

We've got a humid, mild day here, quite damp, with an east wind and a forecast for an inch of rain. We don't need it. But around the yard there is serious action because Scott decided to start removing the layer of topsoil from my old flowerbed behind the house, and it now looks like a moonscape back there. The ladies who wanted some of my perennials have not come to get them, so the boys dug them up and dumped them under some shade trees for now. My new flowerbeds have no space for these rather large plants, but I did dig and transplant several smaller herbs just moments before the giant blade scraped over the ground.

We were up early for a Saturday morning because my great-aunt Marj was bringing 10 frozen apple pies to the farmers' market for me. We had to be there when the doors opened and couldn't stay long before getting those pies home and into the deep freeze. But we were there long enough to buy two more of Aunt Marj's pies — Emil wanted a cherry pie and a rhubarb pie — and I had laid claim to two bags of her homemade lefse. And bought a couple loaves of bread from another table while making my tour of the hall.

So now I've made a pot of fresh coffee and am waiting for Scott and his brother to come in and have some with lefse and pie. I plan to work a couple hours today and tomorrow since yesterday was a write-off; it started with "the neck thing" at 7 a.m., medicinal treatment, and sleep till 10 a.m., and then I had to be in town by one o'clock to take Emil to his massage appointment so there was barely time to eat, clean the kitchen, have a bath and dress before it was time to go.

We arrived home around 4:30 after all the errands were run, and there was time to haul in groceries and put them away, and make a quick supper, and then work? No. I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to sit up straight for several hours at the computer in the evening. I guess my body is tired by then. So instead I washed and dried dishes, put them away, climbed into pyjamas and then into bed to read. It was a beautiful night -- when I went out on the step to feed the old dog, the evening-scented stock was blooming! It took me by surprise. Glorious scent. I could have stood out there all night, but the mosquitoes were too quick to find me. Oh for a screened-in veranda...

Duck Dog

Burning old bales

It wasn't the first day I'd've picked for lighting a fire, but it's been so powerfully windy for so many days that I guess the boys figured they'd better go ahead and get one more job out of the way.

Today I think they're seeding; at any rate, they're coming in here expecting lunch at 12:30 so I'd better mosey on to the kitchen. I've got to put my small but powerful brain to work and come up with an accompaniment to the sausages Scott laid on the countertop when he tendered his hurried request.

Meanwhile, it's a dog's life:

Sara swims after some ducks

She has actually caught them sometimes; it takes them a while to get enough lift, and Sara jumps when she gets close, and ... I have made her let a duck go, and watched it slink away over the water.

Those Were the Days

Out of Order

"You just want to be outside all day!" my sister Joan said to me one time she was here. It was spring and the ubiquitous woodticks had her freaked out, and I had flower fever and was impatient to get the bedding plants into the ground.

Outdoors these days I've been reminded of my earliest memories of contentment. As small children my sister Karen and I spent time at Grandma & Grandpa Bensons' farm, where water for drinking, cooking, laundry and dishes was pumped by hand into a sink in the house, and the outhouse was just beyond the clothesline, from whose posts hung a rope-and-board swing at both ends. We'd lie cosy under warm blankets while Grandpa got a fire going in the cookstove for breakfast. Kitchen cupboards weren't built in like they are today, but were tall cabinets that stood on the floor.

 The screen door would click shut many times throughout the day and on the step, in the sun, the flies buzzed lazily. A bare mattress hung on heavy chains between two tall spruce trees and we lounged on that makeshift hammock for many hours. Karen carried a hen around. There was a toy cupboard in the living room; there was a painted clown with a round bottom, so that it wouldn't tip. We ate Hostess potato chips and were excited about the plastic disks with stickers on them (images of cars?) that we found in the bottom of the bag.

Those were the days. Or as my friend Maggie calls 'em, the "goodle" days.

Bull Pen

"You lookin' at me?"

"What do you think of this earring?"

The bulls were moved over here to our pasture recently and happily so, as there's 30 acres of fresh, untouched green grass for them to pig out on. If you don't count the water, and we've got lots of it in every direction this year; but they like to wade into that to find new shoots, too.

And the two of them get along like the best of buddies:

Days Off

"runnin' like a white-assed deer" (lyric from a Joni M tune)

Emil wants to go a-gallavanting today. I seem to need more flowers. He wants to go visiting at Margo. I want to go to the greenhouse at Kelvington, where I haven't been yet this year.

But first, my walk.

Where'd the Day Go

Nearly Full Moon

In the Beginning:

• walk around yard in housecoat, with coffee mug in hand, admiring plants
• work in the a.m.
• men for lunch; throw leftovers together for supper casserole
• Emil to massage therapist; no other help for plugged-feeling ears, maybe this can make something move
• credit union (cash), hardware store (seed for red poppies and bachelor buttons; birdseed), post office
• BC fruit truck for nectarines and oranges
• groceries with Emil; he doesn't shop, but stalks the aisles for people he knows
• haul groceries into house (about 10 trips; the part I dislike)
• put groceries away (the part I like)
• heat casserole, eat w/Emil, run some out to Scott at 8pm

A late supper brought to the field

In the End:

• And now to bed, with Virginia Woolf! And an open window to listen to the birds and frogs on this mild evening.

Hayes Comes to the Farm

Hayes, my great-nephew.

My niece was taking her daughter Trea to a gym class and needed a minder for her little fella. I live "on the way" so it worked out perfectly. Me and my buddy took the stroller down the road, then sat on the step and rested before coming in for a bite to eat.

Saskatchewan Flag

Saskatchewan flag at grocery store

Deer on the Run

Deer in cattle pasture

"It froze again hard last night," I heard him say to someone on the phone early this morning.

But the sky is blue today.

Perhaps it's like this day in Virginia Woolf's life:
"A bitter wind blew splinters of sunshine."

She Returns

A pretty front yard in the city. I coveted the flowerbed, to which this photo does no justice whatsoever
.

While out here, the only thing blooming in our yard are the tulips and one small bleeding heart. And some lovely dark fuschia lobelia in a pot in the porch.

There have been a couple heavy frosts, I'm told, explaining the black withered death of my portulaca. But they are the only plants that couldn't weather the weather. I expected the carnage to be far worse, and stopped at a greenhouse while leaving Saskatoon in order to fortify myself to face the damage. $75 later ...  but now I have a couple more items that no respectable flower-lovin' gal should do without: elegant red nicotiana, white ones with their evening fragrance, orange and yellow calendula to bloom through the fall ... and so on. They are tucked safely onto the floor behind the driver's seat of my old-lady van for now, out of the elements.

I've only poked my nose out on the step and it smells GLORIOUS out there! It's the poplar trees, right? Gotta be.

Yesterday  marked seven  years since Mom's passing. When she was dying I couldn't imagine living beyond her for years. And— of course this makes no sense at all — I still can't.

Jumped the Gun

Dammit; it's been snowing since 5 a.m. The flakes are mixed with raindrops, and the snow mostly melts when it hits the ground, but I'm leaving this afternoon for several days and the forecast is for frost tonight. So, though at first I said I wouldn't, I bundled up and hauled in all the pots I could carry. They will be safe in the porch till I get back. Those annuals in the ground already will have to take their chances, as sheets used to cover them end up soaked and crushing the plants beneath. Can't win fer losin'!

Every spring in recent years it's been the same ... in Saskatchewan we think the May long weekend it's safe to put our bedding plants into the ground. Well, maybe once upon a time it was; but not anymore. In future I am going to have to find a way to restrain myself from planting on beautiful warm days like this past weekend, and wait till June instead. It won't be easy. I've tried before, and failed; warm weather compels me to cooperate with the nurslings, which silently beg to be freed from their restrictive trays. But after lugging all these heavy pots in, saturated with rain, maybe I've learned my lesson. Patience.

The Slough is Coming Closer

Still rainy; the new flowerbeds love it (see my little camper back in the trees?)

Another wet dark day; puddles in the grass.

Scott leaves to work at the old school in Kuroki, which is now a private home where he has done repairs and renovations. I sent four pots of lambs' ears for the lady's yard. Still need homes for daylilies, shasta daisies, peonies. Two gardeners want some but haven't come for them yet. There is probably no rush when it comes to Scott going through the back yard with a cultivator; a more pressing anxiety, if there is one, is that they are getting weedy.

I make myself a couple large mugs of coffee and come back to bed to read Virginia Woolf's diary.

I think about Grandma Benson, shut my eyes, which water, and imagine her here with me, patting my shoulder and saying in her stoic, slightly clucky and unsympathetic way, "Don't be silly."

Talked to old beau Jeff yesterday; he is enthusiastic about his experiences after smoking salvia and going to send me some, which I may not have the courage to try.

I'm reading Jacob's Room as I go along in Virginia's diary at the same time she was writing the novel, but am more interested in Virginia's own life.

J's Room: "As for the beauty of women, it is like the light on the sea, never constant to a single wave. They all have it; they all lose it."

Among women there is so much discussion about inner beauty being what's important and how we're all "beautiful," and I think fine, but why do we have to be beautiful?

J's Room, re beauty: "No one can count on it or seize it or have it wrapped in paper."

...

"Thus if you talk of a beautiful woman you mean only something flying fast which for a second uses the eyes, lips or cheeks of Fanny Elmer, for example, to glow through."

Diary: "so many smashes and tergiversations."
Gotta look up that one.
Tergiversate: 1) equivocate; make conflicting or evasive statements. 2) be apostate; change one's party or principles.

Tomorrow I take the day off and, in the afternoon, head to the city for a weekend of gospel-singing at a One Human Family choir workshop. I'm all about the singing; love the music; put up with the morning prayer in order to do it.

Halt

Before we moved here, this was someone's idea of a fence-repair job: lean stuff up against it! 

It's been drizzling or downright raining since early morning, so there was no gardening to be done (no sweat; the last of my bedding plants were relocated yesterday) or walking, though I did pull on my ski pants and winter jacket to take chicken fat (or whatever the liquid is that comes out when you roast one) out to the cats in the tractor shed, and strolled to the end of the driveway before coming in to dry off.

There will be many depressed farmers around here for the next while, as their field work has come to a halt.

On the Move

Men on the move

Scott and his brother have checked their fences today and brought the bulls over to our pasture.
I have transplanted flowers and strawberries. Five of my purple coneflowers, moved in the fall, haven't come up yet. Could mean another visit to the greenhouse.
Doesn't seem like I've done a lot today, but I'm beat. Maybe one more leisurely stroll around the yard before it gets dark and cooler ....

♫ Hey Big Spender ♫

Scott bought a new toy: a bigger mower, with a grass-catcher. 

Yesterday I went to my first garage sale this season. I don't need a thing! But am looking for child's wagons to use to move my heavy, full flowerpots around the yard, and wooden photo frames for my wall collection of family pictures. I brought home one 5" x 7" frame, and:

to help keep mosquitoes at bay out on the deck: can't have too many

the cutest little flowerpot, right

A chocolate-melting cup and a noodle bowl w/chopsticks

All for a grand total of $2.
♫ Hey Big Spender ♫ 

A Time for Sowing

Seeding has begun, in our corner of the cosmos.

That's what's going on outdoors.
It looks like we may get rain today, too.

Indoors, I am trying to get the laptop to do what I want so I can use it for certain aspects of my job, and it's being unreasonable and uncooperative and speaking a language I don't understand.

The binoculars are for birdwatching through the window.

After spending several hours yesterday afternoon without getting the required results, I was washing dishes when Scott came home, said hello, and asked me immediately, "What's wrong?"

"It's that obvious?" said I. "I'm frustrated as hell."

It was so exhausting that after eating a light supper I laid down for a half-hour in hopes of getting a second wind. And then went out, dug up a couple dozen perennials, and transplanted them into the new front flowerbed. This I know how to do! And it is satisfying to see the greenery out there where I want it.

Now if only things will start going my way at the kitchen table.

The Daily Palaver

Male American goldfinches, seen above, arrived at the feeders first. The paler females appeared yesterday.

You try to come up with something to post every day!

The webpages I'm most loyal to are those that have new content every time I manage to get over to them; if I'm disappointed too many times, I tend to stop going back.

Here, it's my habit to post some sort of photo at least, and even if there's nothing much going on, just saying hello gets me started and then I can be surprised by what comes up, sometimes, if I just sit down here and give it a minute or two and post something — anything. It's really all about my own entertainment, to be honest, and my own love of letterwriting and journalling. My entries won't contain the solution to world peace or a learned treatise on philosophy or a witty satire on lifestyle or insider stock tips; I'm not even sharing all my bitchy life dramas (and I do have a few!) with you people. If a friendly how-dy-doo isn't good enough for you, dear reader ... you will be disappointed here.

Today I've got someone coming over in an hour or two and I'm still in my housecoat and pyjamas and haven't eaten breakfast. The house was cold so I didn't feel like making my habitual fruit smoothie; I cranked the furnace on instead and will wait till things toast up. The wind's being a bit mean and the sky's grey so there's no incentive to go outside yet, even though transplanting a dozen speedwells into the new flowerbed out front is next on my gardening agenda.

[Anyone local want well-established shasta daisies or daylilies? They are here for the diggin; I've no place to put them and they could end up ploughed under if no one takes them. Also there are three peonies that I've no new home for; all yours, just come over and get them. They aren't quick to recover from transplanting but they will eventually.]

And I want to put in five hours at work on the computer before doing something with ground beef for supper; something like meatloaf, which is one of my favourites. Can you go wrong with ground beef? Not usually. But blechh. I'm bored with cooking. And dishes. Would rather live on fruit smoothies.

Had a little mostly one-sided conversation with Emil, who apparently believes clowns should be nice people:

Emil
"I like The Simpsons.
There's a guy named Crusty the Clown. He's not very nice. He shouldn't even be a clown. He's mean.
Crusty the Clown always sounds like he has a sore throat when he talks. I don't like the way he talks. Maybe he does have a sore throat."

Me
"So, what do you like about The Simpsons?"

Emil
"I like everybody except Crusty the Clown. He's mean.
Poppa likes The Simpsons too."