In Other Words

Reading Priya Parmar's novel, I often set the book down and pick up my notebook to copy one of her sentences. She writes beautifully (though the quotes below are not examples of it) and captures many subtle understandings that I recognize but have never put into words.

Writing as Vanessa, about Roger Fry: “I do not mind the stamp of ignorance, as I know he could never feel contempt. It is not within his spectrum of emotions.”

Plainly put, but it hits home. Contempt is a common attitude, and people who are not that way about others are the kind I prefer to be with.  It's no wonder Fry was so well loved by his friends.

Stopping to copy out excerpts slows down my reading, but with some books I am doing it every five minutes. About the writing of E.M.Forster:

“Morgan’s ideal is to bring the muddle into the open. He does not try to solve the muddle, he just hopes not to hide it. What a small, important thing he is doing.”

Yes. To face truths, but also accept rather than try to change or control.

“Virginia was trapped in a cyclone of anger and resentment by then and too far gone to hear.”

Again, so simply yet well put! I have never thought of it just that way, but of course that’s exactly how it is sometimes. People get trapped in intense, swirling emotion  and can’t or don’t know how to get out during those moments.

“Surprising that sincere affection can exist where there is no trust.” Again, simple yet true. We may be very disappointed in people but still care very much about them.

“The small day-to-day details of a family continue even when the heart of a marriage has been broken.” Vanessa’s new husband had a crush on her sister and had an affair with an old love, and so his intimacy with Vanessa was damaged. They carried on for some time with the everyday things, though, in spite of her broken heart.

“I do not owe the world a happy marriage, a perfect family. That is not my job.” Again, a truth so plainly put. How often do we women feel we are failures when our relationships and families don't fit the ideal!

Vanessa and Her Sister

I worked till 6:30 last night and got home shortly before 7. It was so gorgeous outside that I hauled in my packsack, my purse and a parcel  picked up earlier at the post office, and headed back out the door and down the road on foot. No jacket required! Just a little cotton blazer that I’d been wearing all day.

Scott was cultivating and as I walked back he stopped the tractor alongside the edge of the field and got off, so I went over to chat. He still wasn’t feeling too well so, though he had hoped to work a couple more hours and finish the field, he shut off the tractor and drove home on the quad. He was in the tub by the time I arrived with the dogs. When I went into the steamy room, I laughed: he was lying on his back and his face was black with dirt. I hadn’t noticed it when we stood talking outside. He wouldn’t let me take a picture, though I promised it would only be from the shoulders up.

A pair of blue-winged teal

I am reading a novel about Vanessa Bell and her sister Virginia Woolf. It is based on reality. Vanessa has discovered that her new husband is having an affair (perhaps only of the mind, but a love affair, nevertheless) with her younger sister, and she is struggling to keep her balance and reform her social convictions. How will she live with this knowledge? How will she not let it ruin the life she has created? How will she safeguard her relationships with those she loves?

It has got me thinking about betrayal. There are so many kinds of it. The obvious ones, like cheating on a spouse or sleeping with your best friend’s wife; these are the ones that society points at with disdain as beneath the decent person who is above reproach.

But what about all the other betrayals, not always recognized for what they are and the damage they do? The ones people so often don’t take responsibility for: betrayals of trust and kindness and respect and fairness, made out of foolishness, carelessness, weakness, cruelty, revenge, immaturity, anger, impatience, misplaced intention, disloyalty, lack of discernment. These betrayals are frequent, and while less obviously humiliating and hurtful, their impact is every bit as powerful.

Deconstruction

I never fail to be surprised by how long it takes to do things. There is so much more detail to deal with than I'm aware of! And it's not a matter of smashing things out quickly, but of taking them out carefully, step by step, and then doing repairs like plastering and waiting for plaster to dry and then painting and then waiting and then ... and so on.

Between all that, and the flu, and the fieldwork, we are living in an upside-down kitchen.

Scott removed the top shelves over the weekend; late yesterday afternoon I ran to town for a gallon of paint so he can do the touchups, and picked up a book to look at door and drawer handles.

Some of the old cupboards have gone into the basement for storage, and some have been carried out to the quonset, which Scott has full of tools and machinery and, of course, the biggest deep freeze I have ever seen, as there has to be a place for beef when the time comes.

Up and at 'er

We see moose so often, now, that last week I thought twice about digging out the camera to get a picture of these two as we drove back from Kelvington.

Meh! Who cares ... just more moose.

That was last Wednesday. The leaves have since come out a lot more, in spite of the cold over the weekend.

I've spent two days of my four off lying abed — much of Saturday with migraine, yesterday with a flu. I never get the flu! Guess it was my turn. Looks like Scott has it today.

I have to be out the door in 25 minutes to make an appointment at 10:15, so should get dressed. But I am not one to hurry in the mornings. It's fortunate that I'm not a half-hour makeup, half-hour hair kinda gal (anymore; been there, done that). Now it's splash some water on the face, soak down the bedhead (maybe), shovel down a piece of toast or bowl of granola, brush my teeth, and be gone.

After yesterday, I'm still not moving too fast, either. I can look forward to coming home and catching up on everything that didn't get done yesterday. Fingers crossed I'll have the energy and not end up back in bed.

Gardens to Come

Once the greenhouses are open, I can't stop myself.
Even though I know it's too soon.
Even though I've promised myself that I won't plant anything out before the second week of June, because of the way the weather's been in recent years. Even though I get sick and tired of moving the trays in and out of the porch at night, and trying to keep them out of the horrid wind, and of the soil in the small pots drying up so quickly.
I've already been to two different greenhouses and already spent $125 and here's what I have to show for it:

First tray gets its first direct sun out on the step.

Both trays come into the porch for the night. It still gets down to freezing out there.

These are not even all my favourites! They're just flowers that caught my eye.

And some green peppers and jalapenos and a few herbs. Someone has decided to prepare a proper garden space behind the house, and has been hauling soil from the field:

He is a fine vegetable gardener so I hope he goes for it. My first love is flowers and they will always be my priority (unless I'm starving), but I'll chop and freeze tomatoes and peppers and make all the salsa he can eat if he keeps a garden.

We did have a garden back there when we first moved. It was quite large and was all flowers, but the soil was shallow and there was a lot of clay. Eventually I moved everything to a new flower bed in the front yard, where I could admire it through the windows of the house.

In the back yard we had a new well dug, and a new septic tank installed. Last summer the ground was left to settle. This year it is being levelled for grass planting, and ... a new garden space with rich black soil.

She's Walkin'

I wonder what kind of duck this is. Is it in my book Saskatchewan Birds?
Yep. It's a male bufflehead.

I don't have duck feet, wasn't wearing my rubber boots, and was almost a mile from home, so didn't go down the ditch after this beer can thrown out a window by a waste of skin.



On my walks these days I think of the people who aren't going to drive by me anymore. There are three.

One was a neighbour lady who always gave me a wink and a wave while taking her husband to the field or perhaps delivering him a lunch; she passed away at home, suddenly, just a couple weeks ago.

Another was an area bachelor who drove over this way to check his crops or get into his machinery; he'd occasionally stop for a short exchange of niceties about the weather and joked the first time, by way of introducing himself, "I'd give you a ride home but you probably know better than to ride with a stranger." He died within the past year or so.

And then there was Monte, a friend since our teens and a close neighbour and friend Scott grew up with. He worked on a farm close by, and would quite often stop to jaw and offer me a beer, even though he was on his way from one task to another. He died on my birthday last year; just dropped to the floor one morning and was gone. I get a little verklempt when I remember that we won't have any more of those dusty gravel road conversations.

Wedding Gift

The other day I was washing dishes and setting them into scalding hot rinsewater in the second sink. I turned away to say something to Scott before he left the house, and heard a snap.

It was this heavy glass ashtray that Mom and Dad had been given as a wedding gift 57 years ago.

Oh no! What to do . . . should I try to repair it with Crazy Glue? Or should I set the two pieces out in the flowerbed as a shelter for a frog?

I think it's going out to the flowerbed. After all, as Mom told me once, "You can't keep everything forever."

And ain't that the truth. Not things, not relationships, not people, not places, not anything. We'll be forced to let go of them all eventually, so maybe a little advance practice in relatively painless ways isn't a bad thing.

Skies be Livin'

Saskatchewan licence plates do not lie.
In every direction for as far as the eye can see: snow geese, these days.
I keep my mouth closed while looking up. Taking no chances.

Rare Light

I don't muck about with the photographs I post here. No fancy stuff. No long exposures, no tripod, no adjustment of colour or hue, any of that. Hell, I'm lucky when I can hold the camera still enough that the picture isn't blurry; the most I ever do is crop them a little.

Anyway, on my way back from town on Sunday after taking Emil back to the group home, the evening light was literally an orangey pink. I snapped this when I got out of the car.

How do I pack thee?

A week ago, the lumber yard boys delivered our new kitchen cabinets. That's my son Everett on the ground.

I've been tasked with emptying the top shelves in the existing cabinets, as they will be replaced first. The arborite for the countertop hasn't arrived yet, so the bottom cabinets will wait anyway.

This is the side I haven't emptied yet. It takes more than five minutes! I think I've only got two cardboard boxes left to pack into, too, so that may delay me till I get some more empties.

Oh well. Scott's been in the field doing whatever it is he does out there on the tractor at this time of year (that and bottle-feeding a calf and milking its mother, as she's having udder troubles); he's also been in town working on someone else's house; our cupboards must wait for a rainy day, I'm told. So all in good time.

Assholes, We've Got 'Em Here Too

It's cold — seriously cold, snow-wouldn't-surprise-me cold — but the leaves are coming out anyway.
The frogs are singing again.
And the birdage!

On my walks, I notice the beer cans that drinking and driving assholes have tossed out their windows, and tell myself I must remember to carry a shopping bag next time, and gloves, to pick them up. Last weekend I filled a bag so full of cans and bottles that I had to drop it off at home halfway through my walk, because it was so heavy. I got them all. But this weekend there are a few more in the ditch; also some dork threw out a foot-long metal pipe, and a grocery bag of actual garbage. Today someone threw a litre pop bottle on the road. People are disgusting, particularly when they know better than to be pigs. Or no ... obviously they don't. Swine.

Grrrr.
Better to dwell on the beauty:

Click to enlarge

Survival Tips

That title is a bit extreme for what I'm about to tell you.
However.
Just these two things that Bev passed along.

The first came from her former spousal equivalent, who worked for SaskPower.
When your electricity has flickered off and on three times, don't wait for it to flicker off and stay off. It's going to.
Prepare for a lengthy outage.

And two — this one came from her friend who is a florist —
Never mind those little powdery packs of plant food that come with your bouquet of cut flowers. They are good for nothing, Bev was told.
Instead, put the stems of your flowers into a vase of HOT water.

Against my better judgment, but since I am not a florist so why would I know better? I did that with this bouquet purchased last weekend. (I imagined the flowers screaming in agony.)
Are they lasting longer? It's hard to say, isn't it, because there's no way of knowing how long they'd've lasted if I'd done it the other way.

When flowers come without the powder packs or if I've picked them from my own flowerbeds, I usually add a bit of honey or maple syrup or even molasses — whatever's on hand — to the lukewarm water.
Does it make any difference? You tell me.

I had a chuckle Friday morning when the provincial CBC radio morning show aired a piece about a claim made by a connect-with-an-extramarital-lover website. Apparently the site gets its highest number of new signups the day after Mother's Day. The spike in numbers is attributed to disgruntled women who haven't felt their maternal contributions to family life have been adequately appreciated by their husbands the day before and it has prompted them to start looking around for other relationship options.

Of course, as a guest on the show pointed out, it's unlikely that there was a perfectly happy marriage before Hubby forgot to bring home flowers on Mother's Day or take his wife out for supper or express his gratitude for her often thankless part in bearing and raising their children.

Still, smart husbands might take note that a little acknowledgment goes a long way with wives.

A Tinge of Green

"It looks like a concretion." - Jim Merriman, University of Saskatchewan

That is what I learned about the round rock I found a few weeks ago: SEE IT HERE.

Mr Merriman advises looking it up on the internet, so that's what I did, and rather than reposting that info here, I'll leave you to research it yourself if you're interested enough.

Now I need your advice. Sometimes I want to listen to CBC radio programs while I walk. Mp3 player? iPod? What device is best? Scott's been trying to down/up (?) load music onto my iPhone, but gotten nowhere as far as I can tell, and I can't say as I care. I appreciate his efforts, but if I want music while I walk, I'd prefer the birds. Although I would like something in the kitchen to listen to while I go about my business there, as it makes a difference to whether it seems like drudgery or a pleasant pastime.

I'm more interested in loading podcasts onto the phone (or something) so I can hear programs I've missed but really enjoy, like The Age of Persuasion, for instance, or Writers and Company, or The Next Chapter, or Tapestry, or Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap, or C'est la Vie, or Apropos, or As It Happens, or The Story from Here. That's quite a few programs I don't have time to listen to every week!

From the road south of Golden Grain Farm

Emil is with me this weekend. It's noonish and he'd probably like to drive over to Margo to visit Uncle Neil. I'm feeling neck/headachey, it's ugly cold out (or was when I stepped outside to test the air a couple hours ago), and I just feel like going back to bed. I won't though; if I want the discomfort to go away without the use of prescription drugs, the worst thing to do is what I feel most like doing (lying down). The best thing to do is get moving. There are dishes to do, and cupboard shelves to pack up in preparation for new ones to be installed. Maybe I'll get busy at those things and make some granola so we have something to eat when there is no usable space for cooking, one of these days.

From the road north of Golden Grain Farm

A newsy letter/ chitchat/ nothing more

There were a few days in the past week when it wasn't too cold to be outside.
I think it was Sunday that Scott got busy pruning the caragana bushes and I finally got the main flower bed cleared of last year's dead stalks.

But now it's frigidly cold again. Friggin' freezing. Today when I left the office to get a cloth bag from the car to walk to the store for something to eat, by the time I crossed the street to get to the car I had decided to hell with this shit, I'm driving. Even if the store is only two blocks away.

This, from a person who tsk-tsks at the lazy fools who drive from one place to another in town when they don't have 20 bags of groceries to carry. Goes to show: being holier-than-thou, ever, is plain stupid. People have their reasons. I'll try to remember.

If it doesn't snow, I'll be surprised. Even the frogs are quiet. I bet they've dug themselves deep into the mud again.

After work I went to Everett's, as usual on Thursday nights in not-summer. He wasn't feeling well and, though he felt like sleeping, thought he'd best try eating something. It didn't help, so he went to bed and I came home. No Torchwood for us tonight. No Captain Jack! No Gwen with the lovely lilt! (And yes, Captain Jack is handsome enough, okay. But Paul Gross is still the best-looking man I have ever seen. Next to Scott, of course.)(And I say this -- not always aloud -- every time I see Paul Gross in Slings and Arrows on TV. I always think it.)(Last night I couldn't help myself and out it came, so I asked Scott, "Is there one woman you see in film or TV who stands head and shoulders above the rest, for you, beautywise?" and he said "Not just one." Maybe if I spent any time actually thinking about this, some other names would come up. But I don't. Just ... whenever I see Paul Gross, I'm gobsmacked by his good looks.)

Anyway, instead of watching Torchwood or Sherlock with my boy, I'm drinking red wine, eating toast with peanut butter, and listening to Beck (thanks to a link on the blog "Laundry Hurts My Feelings," a title that cracks me right up; best title ever). It is past 10 and I should go to bed, but I won't fall asleep before midnight anyway so what's the point.

Although I could continue reading Eugene Stickland's first novel, The Piano Teacher, which I'm keeping on my night table. What an excellent idea. À la prochain, mes amies!

As for the title I've given this entry, it's like I told Eugene once when he was asking for intellectual responses to books, "Don't look at me! No intellectual here ... I'm reading Wind in the Willows right now!"

He thought I was kidding. I wasn't.
What I am is smart enough to know I'm not as smart as I think I am.

P.S.
No sooner did I mention the sora (writing yesterday's post, not this one, which I wrote last night), than I heard it this morning. Woo hoo!

Burning Stubble

It's a smell that I love: smoke.

Maybe from my months (years, altogether) of living with only wood for heat.

Here, some farmers burn stubble and the smoke carries long distances.

This burn was just a mile from our place and we took a drive to have a look. Sometimes these fires, even when watched closely, do get away on a person because of the ever-present wind.

Bits of black papery char were floating down into our yard from somewhere, possibly from this fire or even a burn further away.

We have yet to consider having a small bonfire in the front yard, what with the surface of the ground so dry and quick to kindle, and the wind being what it is. It's been too cold anyway; Bev and I sat in the sun the other afternoon but had to put jackets on.

I stand on the step after dark and listen to the birds and frogs and look at the stars, but not for long. Instead I open the bedroom window a crack while reading in the evening. The sora has not yet returned, and I'm waiting with some anxiety. What if it doesn't return? I'd miss it terribly.

It's rare to catch a glimpse of the sora, but I get to LISTEN TO IT before falling asleep each summer night.

Moose-er-os-cer-ous

Down the road I walked, oblivious to the moose's back end stuck out of the willows across the ditch on the righthand side ahead. When I finally noticed the dark rectangle on four poles, I grabbed at my camera (hanging off a belt loop) and wondered whether I might be wiser to turn around and retreat to safety.

However, I've never been chased by a moose. They always run from me. And it's not fall, not rutting season, so it's unlikely to be aggressive.

A photo of its back end wouldn't do, though, so I called it, wanting it to turn and look.
"Oh, Moose! Moose. Moose!"
It didn't seem to hear. So I whistled. Then it turned and looked for the longest time before abandoning its meal and stepping onto the road, where it looked at me some more.

And then little Ducky Doodle noticed the moose and gave chase, against my express command not to. Little bugger.

Rachel and Mike Make Another Video

I see from my blogroll that the Grid Pickers have a new video.

These two live less than an hour from here and perform in their area regularly, I think, but that doesn't mean I get to listen to them onstage too often. Fortunately they're doing a house concert closer to me sometime this summer. They're entertainers with a laidback presence, a sense of humour, impressive talent and, underneath it all, some serious observations of the state we're in.



Go to their webpage to hear more of their music: GRID PICKERS. Your toes will tap and you will sing along.

The Neighbours' Driveways

There are two driveways I pass on my walks, and they tempt me.

The neighbours probably wouldn't mind if I strolled down them, long as they are; one leading to an uninhabited yard, the other to a yard where the owners aren't often home.

Still, I don't go. I'd ask permission first, and the owners would be put on the spot (what could they say but Yes, sure! Why not! even if they'd rather I didn't). So I walk on by.

You need to ask for what you want. Ask and ye shall receive; it's usually true. But people will often say yes or give you what you want when it's not really what they want, and, contrary to popular opinion, that's not their problem. It's mine, too; discomfort and/or resentment affect future relations, and I don't want to get my way at the expense of someone else.

The difficult part is being sensitive enough to be aware that asking for something, and the way we ask for it, and when, and where, may be putting someone on the spot, and figuring out how to ask (if at all)  in such a way that the person can say no without losing face/ appearing unkind/ungenerous, etc.

It is difficult to say no.

"Will you look after my child?"
No.
"Can I bring my dog to your house?"
No.
"Will you speak at my wedding? Parent's funeral?"
No.
"Would you help me with ... ?"
No.

I'd like to think it gets easier, the more often you say it. But it doesn't, really. And we, the askers, would do well to consider that before we make our requests, and come up with ways of asking that leave the person with a respectable and even comfortable out.

Penergetics Presentation

It isn't often that I make a Spanish omelette for breakfast anymore, but since Bev is here ... special guests call for special treatment! I should be careful there, because all my guests (though few) are special, but I don't always rouse myself to make a big breakfast. It's more likely that Starving Scott is at the stove before I've finished my first coffee, so it gets left up to him.

This morning, however, we've just finished a heavy-duty breakfast. I've cleared the table so Bev can set up to give a presentation to the two farmer boys, Scott and his brother Bruce there on the left.

She's a rep for a company (Penergetics) that sells an additive for soil, among other things. These two are organic farmers and fussy about anything that goes onto their fields and into their animals. They also don't make any quick decisions, so chances are this presentation will mostly be an opportunity to practise her presentation, as she is new with the company. She is a stellar salesperson, however, so it will be interesting to see whether they agree to try any of the products. They won't be an easy sell.

Mary K: these are the chairs I'd like to re-cover. The material is still really good but it's dark and I'd like something that comes off to be washed. You know those chair covers you see in the Sears catalogue, that have a kind of "tab" that goes over the arms? I'm wondering if something like that could be sewn with snaps to hold the arm covering and the body in place.

Saturday in May

A good night's sleep after a 12-hour day in the office.
A relaxed morning.
Sheets are in the dryer.
Roomba has run around the floor.
Dishes are done.
I've been for my walk.

Pleasantly surprised to reach the road and see that some leaves have popped out overnight. 

It's not that warm out, as a matter of fact the wind is still cool, but Jenna goes wading anyway.

More delights as snow geese pass overhead. 

See the baby brontosaurus across the pasture? I often wonder, seeing it, what it would be like to go for a walk in dinosaur days. You'd stick to the trees, wouldn't you!

Next! Off to town to pick up a bundle of fresh flowers and something to make for supper. Bev is coming over so I want to make something special. Heaven knows what; I'm hoping for inspiration from the store shelves.