Kathy & Karen

Moi with little sister Karen

Storm comin in!

"It was windy, so that the leaves now and then brushed open a star."
 -VWoolf, To the Lighthouse

"She grew still like a tree which has been tossing and quivering and now, when the breeze falls, settles, leaf by leaf, into quiet."
-same as above

And red-hot pokers are mentioned more than once.
I must find out what those are.

Wow!
Look here:
CLICK

Men on Tractors

What is it with me — that I find the image of a man on a tractor so appealing — so worth snapping a photo of? Is it that I was raised in farm country and this is what "real" men look like, to me?

But wait. I've waxed rhapsodic about men in carpenters' toolbelts, too.

Maybe I just like looking at men, period.
Or maybe it's just this particular one. Who drives tractors and wears a toolbelt.

Who came home yesterday afternoon and spent an hour or two dragging dirt around behind the house, where my flowerbed used to be.

God knows I don't find Chippendale dancers appealing in the least.

Life Can Be Cruel

See him in the distance, the dark blob on the left? He is carrying a rifle and on the warpath.

Scott came into the office this morning while I sat working at the computer. He was feeling down; coyotes have killed a week-old calf in the pasture. Usually the mother hides her calf fairly close to where she is, but this particular cow tends to hide hers further away.

"They chewed off his nose and genitals," he told me, "the bastards. While the poor little thing was alive."

My stomach turns. I advise, not for the first time: Get a donkey! A donkey will protect the cattle.
"Or perhaps a llama," he says. His cousins have had one with their herd for the past year.
I remind him of the lady not far from here who was almost killed by a llama a few years ago, when she was tending the cattle for her husband, who was away, and the llama didn't recognize her when she stepped inside the fence. It sat on her until she nearly suffocated. If not for her dog, which barked wildly till help came ....

I keep thinking about the woman lying in a hospital in critical condition after a head-on collision near Rosetown over the weekend; her family was travelling from BC to attend a wedding in Saskatchewan. Her husband and two teenage daughters died at the scene; her 16-year-old son has been released from hospital. I am willing her to live, if not for her own sake then for her son's; if she doesn't make it, he will have lost his entire immediate family. But I feel for her and wonder if, in her position, I'd want to live; the horror of surviving such an accident and waking up to the unbearable news; the loss; the emotional pain. I don't know how parents who survive their children ever smile again, though they somehow do; she will still find moments of sweetness in life, much as you'd fear one wouldn't.

I wonder what I could possibly do for her, this stranger to me, and fall short of ideas. She and her son will surely have family that has flown in to be with them; they will have all kinds of support from their home community and the people who matter to them.  I send her virtual hugs and hopes for the best, and know that "There, but for the Grace of God ... go I."

A young man who was in the vehicle they hit when they pulled into oncoming traffic to pass a truck has also died, now.

My problems are simpler and so not problems, in the least, in comparison.
Our old dog Jenna likes to go to my inlaws' farmyard a mile from here and, though it wouldn't bother me otherwise (I rely on her to scare the deer out of my flowerbed, but when we had three of them outside our front window last week the dog was oblivious to their presence), she barks through the night and keeps Scott's mom awake. I brought Jenna home Sunday by making her walk alongside my van; last night she buggered off again and so I just went and got her. And darned if she gets a ride! I made her walk, attached via a cord to my vehicle. And now she's home and I've chained her to the doghouse. It seems wrong to tie up a farm dog, who should have all the freedom in the world. But how do we teach her to stay home? She's not listening to reason; she's not heeding polite requests or dictatorial demands (at her age she probably figures it's about time she does what she wants). Maybe I'll have to invest in one of those electronic boundaries I've heard about, where the dog gets a shock from its collar when it steps over the line.

Jenna catches her breath while I stop to get the photo at the top, of Scott hunting coyotes. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think she enjoys trotting beside the van!

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 ....