HAPPY/SAD

It’s that time of year again.

The evenings are getting chilly, the combines are out foraging for food, trees are the dark green of late summer except where they have begun to slip into their autumn wardrobe, and kitchens smell like pickles.  The ditches have moved on from pastel pink Prairie Roses to the bold yellow of Goldenrod.  Out here in the country coyotes patrol yards with apple trees to cash in on the fruit that falls to the ground, and the hummingbirds are going crazy at the feeders on the deck to fuel up for their trip south.  I doubt that there will be any left by the end of next week.

Summer is a time of outside projects and I made the best of my time completing a garden improvement.  I now have two gardens with a rock walkway/edging in my front yard.  They look lovely but I’m pretty sure I don’t need to do that again.  Surely I can stay fit doing something a little less labour intensive.  I now have the extreme pleasure of having all that new garden space to fill with whatever plants that strike my fancy next spring.  Yes, I do realize this is an addiction, but it only hurts the bank account.

Two weeks ago I traded my rock mover hat for that of a navigator/entertainer/tactical advisor/resident conflict resolution expert.  That is to say Grandma was invited along on an adventure to see the dinosaurs at Drumheller: a day long drive with three children ages 8, 5 and 2, museums, hikes in the badlands, climbing hoodoos, cooling off in a splash park, looking for fossils, watching out for rattle snakes, and taking a coal train ride, all the while existing on fast food and snacks and sharing a hotel room. 

It was every bit as exhausting as it sounds, and yet it was great fun too.  The only thing I would do differently is go back without the kids and get the full adult experience of the museum.  Kids tend to ping pong themselves around the exhibits never giving enough time for an adult who actually wants to read the information that goes with them.  I’ve never been good at speed reading and having someone calling “Grandma!  Come and see this!” every two minutes does not help.

‘Road music’ usually refers to an upbeat play list from your phone but our trip home will always be etched into my memory  to the tune of ‘Found A Peanut’.

There was almost 24 hours to switch gears to a house full of company – all five Canadian grandchildren and a couple extras for a bit, a family supper (because why not?), four large dogs, and 57% of the fly population of Canada waiting on the deck to be let in by the afore mentioned kids and dogs.  It was five more days of fun.  The last of them left an hour ago; I’ve turned on the radio for some ambient noise and our dog is laid out on the trampoline.  He may not move again until next Tuesday.

But, even as we readjust back to the slower pace we usually keep around here it is a happy/sad time.  Yes, there is no way we could keep that up permanently, and the quiet is pleasant, it’s still a little sad when they go home.  I’m never in a big hurry to wipe the fingerprints off the windows and mirrors or return the Lego masterpieces to the toy closet.  Surprise balloons behind doors and random Hot Wheels cars under chairs are the leftovers of happy times.

With the dust of the last vehicle leaving the yard I turned to tidy up the house, shrink the table back to normal size, roll up the cord to the camper, and make a judgement call on what needed doing first – the lawn or the laundry I knew that the summer of 2019 was a thing of the past.  In only a few short days it will be the school bus heading down the road.