WHAT DAY IS IT?

Every day is the same.

Being the one who wakes up first, I usually roll out of bed, kick the coffee pot into gear, let the cat and dog out, and then throw a coat and boots on over my pyjamas and head over to the shop to stoke the wood burning stove.  We have our vegetables over there in an insulated room and it’s vitally important that the temperature never goes below freezing.

It doesn’t take long, and soon I’m back in the kitchen, sipping my first cup of java, and scrolling through my memories of this date on Facebook.  I’m not a fan of everything Facebook does, but I do love this feature.  It’s like having a glimpse of how the grandchildren are growing as most of my memories involve pictures of them, each photo labeled as to how many years ago it was shared.

This year though, this daily wander down memory lane has been even more important.  Each day there are new memories and comments to differentiate that day from the one before or after it. 

Here in 2020 another side effect of Covid-19 lockdown is this feeling of limbo.  Every day is the same.

Although I’ve never realized it before, I must usually gauge the Christmas season on a scale of ‘getting ready for company’ or ‘getting over company’.  Without these markers I am adrift in a series of days that just mirror each other.  And I’m not the only one who feels like this ... the other day (maybe even yesterday) my spouse asked me what day of the week it was.  My answer was “Be darned if I know!”  We had to consult our phones and a calendar so reset our place in the space/time continuum.  This is important – there are only a few days left in this disagreeable year.  I want to know when we can call out “Home Free!”

I suspect that I’m not the only one who feels this limbo-like trance.  My long winter evenings are spent watching movies, thankfully there a lot to choose from.  I’ve noticed that the conglomerates that do TV programming sort what they offer us by season, hence the war movies close to Remembrance Day and the Christmas movies throughout December. 

Their research must go a little deeper than that though, because as I scrolled through the possibilities last night Groundhog Day came up.  My first thought was not that they were getting ahead of themselves.  What I instantly thought was “You got that one right!”  I’ve been repeating the same day for ages, and I’m not even sure which day that is.

So I cling to my Facebook memories:  Six years ago this house was what in 2020 we would call a super spreader event with the entire family home for the holidays – all clustered inside the same house, even the international travellers from Australia, and contributing to the most profitable year the Redvers Coop Grocery Store ever had. 

Four years ago we had a Christmas Day blizzard and one set of grandkids got three extra days of Grandma and Grandpa before the RM graders came along and freed them.

And, dream of dreams, three years ago today we were sitting in Vancouver Airport awaiting our next flight to Sydney to spend our hottest ever Christmas in the land downunder.  Just imagine: travel, visiting, warm weather holiday in the dead of winter.  Ah!  Those were the days!

As much as I am relying on these memories to keep me grounded though, I do realize the only way to get out of this mess is to move forward.  With all the days being identical this is a tricky thing to measure – kind of like watching paint drying or grass growing – but I have come up with a plan.

The one change I have detected going on around here is that all the baking and goodies are disappearing.  I think we are down to a few mince tarts, a dozen gingersnaps, and a box of turtles chocolates (mainly because I hid them).  The butter tarts are gone, and so is the fruit cake and also the lemon cheese puff pastry.  I am sure that if I had kept strict inventory over time a person could work out a scientific formula to describe the passage of time by means of the depletion of baking.  Conversely, another formula could be developed to describe the reappearance of those calories on a person’s hips – but who really wants to get that technical?

And, if we really wanted to go long term, we could work out how long it takes for those hip and tummy calories to dissipate.  My guess might take about the same time as we will wait to get our vaccination ... June-ish.  Hopefully we are all reset back into our proper place in the space/time continuum by then.

 

COVID CHRISTMAS

And so, this is Christmas ...

Here we are in mid December in the unsettling year of 2020, coming to acceptance that just like everything else this year, Christmas will be different as well.  This may sound weird, but I can’t help but feeling that a regular Christmas – even if we could manage it – would not give what we’ve been through a fitting ending.  Maybe I’m just looking at it from the perspective of a writer, but stories need balance.  After what the world has been through in the past twelve months a ‘normal’ Christmas just doesn’t fit.

In a way it seems much longer than a year since we first began hearing about a virus problem in Wuhan, China.  In truth, we were much more focused on the fires in Australia – remember those?  That was only a year ago.

The story grew, expanding to a problem on cruise ships.  Scientists were sounding alarms but the rest of us were still thinking about taking our usual winter holiday.  That was back when being in our own ‘happy little bubble’ meant we were oblivious to what awaited us.  The word ‘bubble’ has a whole new meaning now.

2020 has enriched our everyday language with many other words seldom used previously.  Words like ‘cohort’ and ‘pandemic’ and ‘nova coronal virus’ are all words we’ve heard thousands of times since February.  We’ve also learned about PPE and respirators and essential workers.  And, lockdowns don’t always apply to a prison’s response to rioting.   And there’s a difference between ‘self isolation’ and ‘quarantine’.

The big one, though, was the implementation of the term ‘social distancing’, quickly revised to ‘physical distancing’ to try to soften the emotional isolation humanity began to feel.  In such a time of fear and sickness and so many deaths, not being able to meet, to be together to mourn, to celebrate times – both happy and sad – to share meals, to enjoy sports or movies or concerts all began to take its own toll. 

By March our world was turned upside down.  Schools – on the whole planet – were closed.  People worked from home ... if they could work at all.  Some had no jobs to go to.  Some had to quit jobs to stay home and home school their kids.  Some tried to do both.  For months we banged pots and pans to thank health care workers for their work and sacrifice.

Travellers were trapped in foreign lands with no flights to get them home.  Some were trapped on luxurious cruise ships, Covid stalking them from cabin to cabin with no port of call willing to let their ship dock.  Hospitals over flowed.  Field hospitals sprang up.  Morgue trucks lined up to store the daily tragedies.  Weirdly we all became avid fans of government announcements – who saw that coming?

Our shopping habits have changed.  Our holiday plans are different.  Visiting family and friends – especially out of province – is totally modified.  The ‘old fashioned’ pastimes of baking and gardening have gone through a huge revival.  Golfing and fishing are in and baseball and hockey are out.  2020 has tipped us out of our comfortable boat and made us learn to swim in these uncertain waters.

And so, this is Christmas 2020.  Our bubbles are smaller than ever.  There will be no big turkey dinners or family get togethers.  Our Christmas Eve church services will have to be online, and carolling only outside and far apart.  Zoom will go from work to play as we ‘meet’ over the holidays to share our stories and offer virtual hugs to our loved ones.  A ‘normal’ Christmas it will not be.

But whatever we do with this season will fit our story.  Personally, I have just finished decorating my house – it doesn’t look like any other year.  My tree is smaller and the decorations I used are much less than usual, partly because we will be the only ones to see them, but also because why not try something new?  Our menu will be different too – who has ever heard of a turkey for two?  The important thing is that we will stay safe until our turn at vaccination and the return to a time when Christmas can indeed be ‘normal’.

 

REASON FOR THE SEASON

The whole world seems a little bit wonky at the moment.  We head toward the holiday season unsure of how that will look by December 25^th.  Will we be able to celebrate with our families?  Or will 2020 be a quiet affair, each of us celebrating in our own homes and hoping that the Internet can handle all the Zoom calls?  The happy, sweet innocence of Christmas 2019 seems so much longer ago than a mere twelve months, and the tantalising promise of a safe, vaccinated celebration in 2021 seems too tenuous to trust at the moment.  Here we are – stuck in the middle.

Some things never change though.   This past week or so I’ve started seeing Facebook memes asserting that everyone must say “Merry Christmas” because any other greeting this time of year are fighting words.  This implies that Christians somehow own December, and I think to myself that this whole our-way-or-the-highway attitude is a most un-Christ-like way to treat our fellow men and women.

Did you know that December 25^th is a made up birthdate for the baby Jesus?  People in the Roman Empire picked that day to celebrate the Christ child’s birth almost 400 years after the fact, and not because they were making an educated guess about when it actually happened, but because all the pagan peoples they were trying to convert to their Christian beliefs already had a huge feast and festival at that time of year.  It was proving to be much easier to insert themselves into the pagan celebration than it was to try to banish it.  True story.

Bringing a tree into the house?  Decorating?  Feasting and gift giving?  Lighting candles?  Burning a Yule log?  All of these things were ways humans celebrated long before Christianity came along.  And what they were celebrating, you ask?  Why are there so many ‘competing’ holidays at this time of the year? 

The answer is something every civilization in the Northern Hemisphere has had in common since the dawn of time: the winter solstice.  Imagine living at a time when the daily loss of daylight was unexplained, when you had no supply of artificial light like we do today, when your very food sources – life itself - were directly tied to the sun and the seasons – would you not celebrate when the days began lengthening out again? 

The whole point of celebrating is to be joyous together about something special we believe in, even if our beliefs aren’t exactly the same.  And yet, here we are in the 21^st Century exerting exclusive privilege on a date and a season we borrowed from others.  It seems like a most un-Christ like thing to do.

It’s not the baby Jesus himself that is the ‘reason for the season’ but what his birth symbolized – the beginning of the New Testament ... forgiveness ... love of our fellow man.  Arguing over the proper response to seasonal greetings cheapens what should be Christianity’s most sacred duty – to love our neighbours as ourselves.

If we need something to say that conveys the real meaning of Christmas, let’s follow the angels’ lead and simply greet people with a smile and say “peace on earth!”

It works for everybody.

TOO MUCH COVID TIME ON MY HANDS

 It is said that there are two universal languages in this world: music and mathematics. I can do neither. I can’t read a note of music – all those lines and dots and artistic symbols. I know they tell a story but I can’t read it. I am confined to just listen; that’s why I play the radio, not the piano or guitar.

 It’s even worse with math. There was no one slower at speed math quizzes in Grade one. There was no one more devastated in Grade three when we were told we were about to up our game and meet multiplication and division. And I can scarcely find words to describe my dismay the first day of Mr. Johnson’s algebra class – as if working with numbers wasn’t bad enough! Now they wanted to throw random letters into the mix. 

 The moment I heard tell of a thing called calculus where what I had learned in Grade one – that 2 plus 2 equals 4 – wasn’t necessarily true, I quit school, got married and raised children. You know; took the easy way out.

 It’s strange how things come back at you though. All this Covid alone time has got me contemplating things like the meaning of life, the insanity of U.S. politics, and the space/time continuum, to name a few unknowables. This mind journey seems to have jostled some long unused brain cells into activity.

 

It was probably 1970 when Mr. Johnson began his quest to teach me algebra, something I was certain I would never use again in my life. Karma, of course, has a very long memory and these past few days I’ve been trying to come up with the terms he tried to plant in my memory banks. According to him the language of algebra provided a way to express mathematical ideas in the same way we used English to tell stories. Obviously I prefer writing stories to anything to do with numbers so I ask you, why am I trying to recall algebra terms in 2020? And what on earth am I going to do with them if they do come back to me? 

 I think it started one day when I was trying to describe how this prolonged Covid tourniquet on our lives felt. Something like: “It’s just one long constant. What we need is more variables.” (Well, actually, I would have used the word ‘variety’, but it means the same thing). No doubt it was the use of the words ‘constant’ and ‘variable’ in such close proximity that stirred the algebra class memories. From that point on it became a challenge to see what else I could unearth from those dusty memory files. What else had Mr. Johnson managed to get through my math fog? Turns out not much: I had to ask Google to shine some light on the rest.

 Apparently ‘variable’ is an algebraic term but it doesn’t mean variety, it means an unknown – those nasty little ‘x’s and ‘y’s that really represent a question mark. A ‘constant’ on the other hand, are numbers that we do know, unless of course they are right beside a variable in which case they become known as ‘coefficients’. My former distrust of algebra instantly re-gelled.

 There were other terms too: monomial, binominal, trinomial, and polynomial – all sounding like some kind of sketchy living arrangements if you ask me.

 The one word that felt like I had hit pay dirt with though, was ‘exponent’. Now here was a term that did indeed seem useful in expressing life with Covid. An exponent is when they put that tiny little number at the top right hand of either a constant or a variable. It expresses how many times you have to multiply the number or letter by itself to get the value it represents. And although I do grasp this concept and could even articulate it on paper, don’t go getting the crazy idea I will ever use this knowledge in my daily life. I do concede that rocket scientists may feel differently. 

 On the other hand, the language of algebra has given me a way of expressing the Covid Effect – a term I have just coined. It is a way of describing how our world has been altered since Covid came along. Remember the regular level of frustration back in the old days at not having anywhere to go? That was just plain old-fashioned frustration. In 2020 we are faced with this same frustration, but now we can’t go anywhere. No shopping, no leisurely, luxurious restaurant dinners, no tropical holidays or even weekend getaways – this is frustration to the power of, oh I don’t know, maybe 10? 

 Likewise, it can describe stupidity ... you know, toilet paper panic with the exponent of at least 7. 

 Or planting your first, or the biggest, garden you’ve ever planted because of food insecurity – something you’ve never experienced before but reached an exponent of 5 by May.

 I sure hope Mr. Johnson is proud of me, unearthing all these terms after so many years; and I was so sure I’d never have a use for it! I wonder if I can come up with a few chemistry or physics principles too? You know: and put Mrs Mitten in shock.

FANCY SCHMANCY If you could see me now! I sit in a pretty, tidy, organized office the likes of which this place has never known before. What started out with the solitary job of changing the flooring in this room but ramped up to it-could-use-a-coat-of-paint-too-while-we’re-at-it kind of adventure, finally morphing into an all out makeover with beautiful new office furniture and organizers, compliments of my two daughters who did their Christmas giving early this year. I surmise that the cramped space and towering clutter that I normally work in got to them, and my desire to get rid of filthy carpeting was their chance to redo the whole room. I appreciate the gesture, truly I do, but I have serious trepidation that my personal Muse might actually be powered by clutter. What then girls? What if I can’t write with a clear desk? What then? I enjoy sitting here, though. The walls are a muted yellow that amplifies the light from the north-facing window and sets off the dark wood of the furniture. The floor looks and feels clean – I’m sure it’s been a decade since that could be said. The few papers that are out at the moment have a place to go back to, the pens are in a pen holder, the scissors and stapler in another, note pads in a third. The most valuable book on the farm, the one I call my ‘Sh*t I’ll Never Remember Book’ stands at the ready to tell me what my Wayfair password is. It used to take me a five minute search to locate that sucker. Mind you, it is so scribbled up that it still takes me so long to find the right page that the webpage shuts itself down before I get back to the buying business. Sometimes I think I should copy all that info out nice and clear, and then I think that would be too easy for anyone who wanted my secret information. The way it is now, it’s pretty much written in code. Better to leave it that way. In a way this is an example of clutter working for me, not against me. It remains to be seen if this clutterless environment will inspire me to get more done. So far I have managed a couple emails – but they had a deadline. I usually do okay if I have a deadline. And while I’m waiting for replies to those communications I’ve spent a few minutes scrolling through Facebook and played a game or two of Mah-jong ... that’s totally standard office activity for me, too. That’s a good sign. And, I am catching up this poor neglected blog. I tell you, this past month with my computer in another room and unconnected to the Mother Interweb, life has been very detached. Typing on an iPad screen is not optimum, I’m so glad to be back. I guess that’s a good sign, as well. I have my Christmas letter nearly written – that’s on course with other years. I’m working on the local Tourism update for the Provincial Tourism guide for 2021; another annual project on track. Although there was near record turnout for the RM election for Reeve last week I was not the winner. Part of me is still dealing with disappointment, but another part has already moved on. I have this book I’m going to write. This will be the real test. I seem to be able to manage short term tasks in a non-clutter environment, but what about a whole book? Maybe I need scraps of paper scribbled with ideas for plot lines or character flaws? I defiantly require my name and age index to keep my minor characters straight. And how many times have I worked out the timeline to make people fit their history? You have no idea how tricky fiction is until you start writing it! Thus are my worries. My hope is that my Muse and I can cope in this pretty, tidy office until either we get used to it, or just like the Charlie Brown character Pigpen, the clutter follows me around and settles where ever I am. Give me a month and we’ll see if I just end up in a classier case of clutter.

 PROGRESS ... I THINK

It’s exactly one month since I explained how good I am at procrastination.  I’m here to tell you that I may take it to an art form.  Such is my talent.

As of yesterday I finally finished painting my office.  Except for the very heavy desk and two cabinets full of stuff which I cannot move on my own, the room is now ready for its new flooring.  Technically speaking this is only two coats of paint further along than a month ago, so nothing to brag about.  On the other hand I do have other irons in the fire at the moment.

I spent a few days cleaning up the yard and putting away all my planters once Jack Frost finished off the summer’s glory.  This year I decided to bring in a few of the prettiest plants in so I could start my own planter fillers in the spring.  All that green in my living room window is a real picker-upper on these dark, cold and snowy days.  The cat considers them his personal forest.

Another renovation project has come to fruition as well.  We are not sure if light fixtures are just designed to give off less light these days, or the older we get the more our personal dimmer switches take over, but it had got to the point where the lighting in our kitchen/dining room couldn’t be considered ‘romantic’ any longer.  Thanks to my brother-in-law’s ingenuity the glow from our kitchen window can now be detected from the Space Station.  I love it.  It’s so much easier to hunt down the gross and zombie-like flies that insist on moving in for the winter.  I get the ones above the two foot mark and the cat is on a ‘catch and kill’ mission for the rest.

I also tackled the IT job of moving the computer and desk out of the office.  There was a time when would have had to call in a kid to do this job ... all those wires and plugs and ports used to intimidate the heck out of me.  This time (because all my kids have grown up and moved away) I armed myself with an extra mug of brain stimulator juice, a roll of painter’s tape and a marker and spent the morning methodically untangling and labeling EVERYTHING.  Piece by piece all the components made the trip to another room where I reassembled them.  Correctly.  The first time.  I was feeling extremely accomplished until the very end when I realized I could move the machine but not the modem.  It’s attached to an actual cable in the office.  We have WiFi throughout the house but I sure will be glad to get hooked back up!

The other thing I’m working on these days is running for Reeve in our municipality ... think ‘mayor’ of the rural side of our community.  The election is on November 9, we shall see how this turns out.  My motivation is to give back to my community and I think I have lots to offer in that regard but it’s all up to the voters.  Like I said ... we shall see.

 

THE ART OF PROCRASTINATION

This is what procrastination looks like.

If you could see me now – sitting at my computer desk, typing merrily away – you would probably think I was ‘getting stuff done’.  This is not exactly wrong.  I am writing this blog, and that is legally ‘stuff’, but it’s not on my Things To Do list.  ‘Purge the office’ is on my Things To Do list, but that’s not what I’m doing, is it?  I am procrastinating.

I am not an aggressive hoarder.  I don’t go and purposely buy or collect objects that will need storage or dusting.  Actually, I am loath to buy anything because I will then be responsible for its storage and cleaning.  Stuff seems to follow me home anyway.  

My problem is that no matter how things come into my possession I am unable to discard them.  The reasons for this are many: I don’t want to be responsible for overflowing landfills, I don’t like to waste anything, and if I throw it away I will almost for sure need it within the next two week period.  I blame my parents really. This “waste not, want not” dilemma is a product of being raised by people who lived through the great depression and who never threw anything out.  I stand by this theory even though my own children don’t seem to have picked up the tendency from me.  Maybe it’s one of those things that skips a generation every once in a while.

At any rate ... the thing that is on my Things To Do list is to clear out this office and wash and paint the walls before the new flooring goes down.  There is a deadline.  I have a little over a month, and it’s going to take all of that because I keep finding more pleasant things to do.  When it comes to the tedious work of going through shelves of stuff I can’t even remember seeing before almost anything is more pleasant.  Oh yeah, that reminds me – I need to make a dentist appointment.

I have made some headway.  The filing cabinets now only hold stuff that pertain to our lives in the 21^st Century.  That required more than two days of my life and to celebrate that milestone I immediately took up garden cleanup because it was outside and the decisions of keep or discard are so much easier when the options are ‘weeds’ or ‘vegetables’.

Then, with the flimsy excuse of not having a ladder so obviously I couldn’t wash the walls, I ignored the office for another two weeks.  Two days ago the ladder came back; so much for that dodge.  I’ve spent this morning sorting through more papers, filling a box of ancient (at least 3 years old) electronics to be recycled, and pondering what to do with a whole stash of hockey/curling/karate/chess trophies.  I know their owners will tell me to throw them out, which lands me back in the landfill/waste guilt quandary.  Even I know that no one will ever actually need them.

I need a furniture trolley.  I need a drill to take down some shelving.  I need drywall tape and tools to fix cracks and nail holes.  These ‘needs’ are another clever device of the master procrastinator, meant to give the false impression that no work can progress without these items.  It’s pretty temping to let this job run on for even longer, but do I really want to be painting when I can’t open the windows?  And there is that deadline of early November ...

So, I will finish up this blog.  Then go make supper.  Then tidy up the rest of the house.  Then call it a day. 

But, I swear, on a stack of bibles, that I will be back in this hoarding center tomorrow morning to tackle the shelves in another cabinet.  If I do a couple hours per day for the next week I will eventually get to the painting part.  

If all goes according to plan you won’t be hearing from me in a while.  The computer will have to be unplugged and moved out of the way, thus removing the temptation to use it as a ‘reason’ to not complete the purge. 

In my next life I’m coming back as a millionaire so I can hire this done.

 

AND THE BEAT GOES ON

“Look at mommy’s sad, sad flowers.”

My three year old granddaughter and I were on a tour around their yard yesterday and she was pointing out items of note. 

She and her brothers had already taken me to see the chickens and we had watched as the birds revelled in the fresh green grass we had thrown over the fence for them.

From there we had wandered over to where their mom had plunked her newest planter – an ancient truck (well, it’s older than me).  To date, all she has planted there is a small maple tree but next year there will be all kinds of flowers spilling out of its box.  It’s the kind of thing you can do when you have a huge rural yard and an imagination.

Onward we had explored, through some trees to the edge of a pond where everyone had a turn at throwing rocks in to the slimy green water. The nine year old was the only one getting his rocks in far enough away not to get any stinky backsplash.  The six year old kept wondering why his rocks weren’t going as far and why he kept getting wet.  It generally took the three year old three throws per rock to even get it wet.  Grandma decided it was time to move on again before we all got too messy.

The next stop was down by their signpost and garden.  The little ones rearranged some of the rocks as the eldest and I reminisced about the day we all erected the sign and which pieces of machinery were needed for the job.  I trusted him on his list; he is definitely the expert in that field.

Then it was back to their dad’s shop to show all the improvements that have been made to it and how neat all the tools were arranged in the tool boxes.  I was also given an in depth report on what they were fixing on his dad’s quad.  It was way over my head but I have no doubt he knew what he was talking about.

That took us back to the house and as we walked by what had been a pretty garden full of flowers until Jack Frost had shown up, the little girl pointed out the sadness of what he had left in his wake.  I agreed with her.  I too have gardens full of this particular sadness.

Although there are some species that can handle a few degrees of frost, most of the beauties are done for the year.  The dantura leaves and flowers droop to the ground displaying the spikey seed pods they’ve been hiding all summer.  Marigold flowers retain their brilliant yellows and oranges but the leaves and stems go black.  Cosmos go from ferny and fresh to ugly skeletons, and dahlias transition from lush, blossom covered shrubs to ruined, blackish, rotting messes overnight.  On the other hand, petunias and asters would seem to have antifreeze in the veins – they are doing just fine.

 But, as my very wise granddaughter observed, summer is over.

All is not lost though, the beauty and fun of autumn has just begun!

We spent the rest of the afternoon raking up poplar leaves so that they could run and jump and slide through them with me videoing every single award-winning athletic feat.  The sun was warm on our shoulders, the leaves crunchy beneath our feet.  There was tree climbing and posed pictures amongst the bright red crab apples and a grand finale of the tree of them sitting in the pile of leaves and tossing them into the air, again to satisfy Grandma’s wish for photographs.  They turned out perfect – each of their faces showing the fun they were having – even once or twice in the same picture!

We transitioned back to summer once more to end off the afternoon and laid a picnic blanket out on the lawn to enjoy freezie pops and fruit before the evening chill moved in on us, something that September can do in the blink of an eye, and began the conversation on whose pumpkin was the biggest to carve for Halloween.

And the year moves on ...

 

 

UP TO MY OLD TRICKS

I’m up to my old tricks again. 

Normally I live a lackadaisical kind of existence.  There’s always work to do ... and I get around to most of it in due time.  I admire people who take on spring cleaning and don’t stop till the whole house is clean, top to bottom.  The walls, the ceilings, the closets, the floors and windows, the curtains and all the bedding – I am in awe of such perseverance.  Not only do they get it done in the spring, but in the same spring that they started it in.  Totally out of my league.

I have a sister who does this, proving beyond a doubt that this tendency is not genetic.

Me?  I do get around to cleaning, but it’s only on a piecemeal basis.  It doesn’t happen because it’s spring or has any other arbitrary date or set launch criteria.  My modus operandi is to take a scrub cloth to a dirty light switch plate, realize that makes the wall look dirty so I wash that too, which shows how dirty the ceiling is.  Before you know it I’ve painted the main part of the house and ordered new curtains for the living room. 

Well, that’s an exaggeration.  That all takes a week or two but you get the picture – random start point, hap hazard method, at least three days of “What was I thinking?” and then the finished product ... not to be touched again for another five years.  If that.

Otherwise, my only other house cleaning motivation is being given a deadline.  I perform well under pressure.  I can get stuff done when I know there is an end date to aim for.  Like company.  I have company coming.

This means there is a lot to do in a short time.  It calls for my secret weapon: THE TO DO LIST.

This is where the tricky part comes in.  Out comes the pen and paper and I catalogue all the things that need to be done before I let guests into my version of domestic bliss.  There are all the regulars: wash the floors, make the beds up fresh, dust the furniture, do a little baking.  These are the things that have to be done.

But, because I have a deadline and I know that pressure helps me get things done I also add things like ‘wash the windows’ and ‘sweep the cobwebs off the deck’.  You know, things that need to be done anyway so let’s squeeze them in.

By this time I’m feeling very accomplished and add a flourish of pie-in-the-sky items ... ‘weed the vegetable garden’ and ‘clean the garage’.  I mean, get serious!  That ain’t never going to happen in the next month, let alone ten days.

So I talk myself down and write down more reasonable and useful demands on my time ... ‘clean out the fridge’ and ‘de-lime the shower’.  And start in on the work at hand.

The trouble is that these jobs are slow going, and my sense of integrity won’t allow me to cross them off the list until they are COMPLETELY done.  Meanwhile there are other things that are getting done all along, but they’re not on the list.  By mid day, needing a sense of accomplishment, I add things like ‘hang clothes on the line’ and ‘dig potatoes for supper’ to my list just so I can stroke them off as done.  It’s a form of legitimate cheating, and as old as the hills.  A loophole, if you will.

So far today I have been able to cross off three jobs – two actual worthwhile tasks and one tacky add-on ‘go for groceries and water’ that doesn’t count for anything because I would have to do it anyway.  The bonus is that I’m not done yet.  Writing this blog is a genuine, bona fide item on my list and I am now finished it.  *stroke*

Better yet, when I’m done obliterating that one off my list it will be cool enough to go out and tackle the spider’s webs on the deck. 

Baby, I’m on a role!

 

                                                SEASON OF COMPLETION

                                                      

       Take a deep breath, and hold it.  Push yourself a little.  This isn’t a contest or a test but when your chest starts to feel tight and uncomfortable make yourself go another five seconds, then let it all go in a big easy sigh.  Breathe out, and relax. 

       Maybe you feel a little dizzy but the physiological effect this has on your body is pleasant, you will likely feel a slightly heightened sense of awareness.  Sounds are crisper, colours are brighter, the air in your next breath is more refreshing.  On some obscure scale of measurement your life is somehow richer.

       This is the effect that autumn has on me. 

       Spring gets a lot of attention.  We can’t wait to see the winter gone.  The snow that looked so white and pure when it first fell is dirty and unwelcome by the time of spring equinox.  We want it gone, and replaced with colour.  We want green grass and green trees.  And when that isn’t enough we want flowers of every hue.  We want to see life and growth.  We find ourselves standing at the edge of our gardens waiting for the first radishes and lettuce.  As pleasant as spring is though, it doesn’t last long; summer comes along and pushes us forward.

       The sun worshipers appear in July.  No temperature is too high for them, no day too hot, no sky too dazzling.  It is a season of extremes; Mother Nature has her biggest and best hissy fits now, stirring heat and humidity into ferocious storms and spilling these tantrums of hers across the prairies, leaving us to scramble for shelter and pick up the pieces when she’s done.  She is a talented artist and our summer sky is her palette; night or day she shows us what she is made of, and I admit I am impressed with the work she does during her “summer period”, but it’s not her best work.

       The sheer force of July leaves me worn out.  I find myself hiding out in my house, not wanting to feel the bite of that glaring sun on my skin.  The days roll on, the wild flowers transition from pretty pink roses at the edge of the road to the thistles and goldenrod of late summer, waving from the ditches.  Heat shimmers up in waves from the earth’s surface and dust devils do their dizzy dance during late August afternoons. 

       Then one morning the world feels different and you realize that Mother Nature has slipped into something more comfortable.  The countryside gives a great sigh of relief: and somehow the sounds are a little crisper, the colours more vibrant, the air you breathe, perfumed with the scent of ripe apples, is exquisite.  Welcome to the season of completion. 

       The year is wrapping up its production: fields of grain ripen before our eyes, gardeners are doing their best to stay ahead of ripening tomatoes and cucumbers, and this spring’s baby calves are almost as big as their mothers.  Juvenile hummingbirds have joined rival gangs and are waging noisy battles over ownership of the feeders.  At the moment sugar water is disappearing at an alarming rate but it won’t be long and they will be gone.  The geese will wait a few more weeks and then follow the tiny warriors south.

      School buses will come out of hiding, adding their bright orange to the festive fall display.  Harvest machinery is already venturing out, searching for fields that are ready to go. It won’t be long before harvest fills the air with dust; grain dust from the combines and road dust from the trucks hauling grain.  Sometimes the dust just hangs in mid air creating the magical illusion of monster-sized machinery hovering weightlessly over unseen ground.  Crickets add their background music.

       Brilliantly coloured leaves will scatter across green lawns like so many pieces of gold, and the very air is saturated with ripeness.  The sharp scent of frost-nipped plant life will fill our senses and hold promise of nutrients for next year’s flowers.  The sun goes down earlier every night.

       One by one lids will slam down over grain bins full of the year’s bounty.  Pickles made now will be ready to serve for Thanksgiving dinner.  We will wonder again how so much time could have slipped past on us, another autumn has come and gone. 

       It’s time for a few more sighs:  one of relief because all the hard work of the growing season is done, and another one of regret because it will be three quarters of a year before autumn comes to us once more.  And, although there is no way to prove it, having experienced autumn one more time, our lives are somehow richer than they were before.

FROM THE KETTLE TO THE FIRE

 

Being as I am married to a farmer the concept of holiday long weekends is meaningless to me.  On the May long weekend ‘we’ are seeding.  On the July long weekend ‘we’ are spraying or haying.  On the August long weekend ‘we’ are baling or preparing for harvest – which is something that can wipe out both Labour Day and Thanksgiving depending on the weather Mother Nature hands out.

 

In my next life I hope to find a husband who understands the concept of “holidays”.  Wish me luck.

 

Meanwhile though, in my present life, I am with a farmer.   And we have a large garden.  I planted it on the May long weekend and have been weeding it ever since.  For the past three weeks I have also been picking berries and either freezing them or making jam.  Now I have peas and beans to deal with I have made the executive decision to gift the rest of the berries to the birds.  The corn, zucchini and spaghetti squash are looming on the horizon, thank goodness the carrots, beets, and potatoes are root vegetables and can wait.  Ain’t nobody got time for them this time of the year.

 

As my brain roused itself out of sleep this morning I began the usual circuit of pending jobs on my ‘to do’ list.  I was on my own for the day because the farmer had one more field to swath ... what should I do with it?  It was about this time that it occurred to me that this was one of those holiday Mondays and maybe I should go a little crazy and do something new and exciting.

 

Something outside the box, at least.

 

Speaking of boxes ... there was that one job.  I suppressed a shudder.  Apparently I am capable of spoiling a holiday all on my own. 

 

There’s this one room in my house – the one I’m sitting in right now, as a matter of fact – that needs serious intervention.  The most obvious problem is the filthy, rundown carpet.  It has to go.  It was the wrong thing to put in an office anyway.  What it needs is laminate flooring.  I even have a son-in-law who is just itching to do the job, but as much as I would love new flooring I dread what that means.  This room is also home to filing cabinets and desks and cupboards, all near to exploding with papers that need to be sorted, then saved or destroyed; a painfully slow process that I have been putting off for years.  It seems that I excel at storing things in a filing cabinet (Not well, or organized in any recognizable fashion, you understand ... just in a file, in a drawer, in the cabinet), but I really suck at weeding anything back out of it. 

 

My dream of new flooring hinged on being able to move the furniture, though.  I heaved a huge sigh of resignation and flipped back the blankets.  I sure do know how to par-tay!

 

I have to say that once I got going on my project it became more fun.  At the bottom of one drawer I found our very first passports – printed so that we could take a cruise for our honeymoon.  We look like such kids!  I also have a file in each of the kids’ names – some legal papers, some tax returns, and in the #1 son’s file is the full and complete correspondence I received from him while he was out of the country for 13 months when he was 19: five letters, less than a page long.  They should really be in a safe deposit box; they are that rare and precious.

 

I came across our marriage certificate ... that would have been handy a couple months ago when I was applying for my pension ... and other artifacts from the past:  bills of sale for various machinery we have owned, registration papers for bulls long dead, mineral rights lease agreements from companies that don’t exist anymore.  But the bulk of my mission was to fill a cardboard box with ancient NISA papers, folders of expired legal correspondence, and owner’s manuals for household appliances long relegated to a dump somewhere – like, back when dumps were still a thing.

 

Eight hours later there was a new, small patch of my grungy carpet showing.  I had made some headway on this fun holiday I had been on.  Also, I had a huge box of the kind of papers that can’t be thrown in the garbage; they have too much personal information on them to go anywhere but a burning barrel.

 

So that will be my next job.  I’ve gone from boiling water to blanche vegetables yesterday to feeding a paper fire tomorrow.  And then right back into the next round of pea picking.  I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think this is how holiday Mondays are supposed to go.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I spend a lot of my time these days out in my garden cheering on my flowers and vegetables.  It seems to be working better than usual this summer but I better not take all the credit – I’m thinking Mother Nature considers her rain and heat units have more of an effect than my positive thoughts.  I say let her take the credit – no one wants her in a bad mood.

Mind you, I do spend some significant time muttering bad things about her under my breath while I’m out there.  It’s not all happy thoughts and pixie dust while I wander up and down the rows of beans.  A good portion of my garden time is spent in hand-to-hand combat with portulaca, redroot pigweed, and lamb’s quarter, to name a few.  (There are many others that I don’t know the name of, but dislike every bit as much.)  While I understand Mother Nature loves all of her plants equally, I wish she would grow her riff-raff somewhere far away from my peas and carrots.

You see, I have this misbegotten and unrealistic vision of a magazine worthy garden.  In my head I picture perfect rows of perfect germination in perfect plant density.  Also, the rows are perfectly straight, but that’s more my husband’s dream than my own.  My seeding equipment doesn’t have GPS like his does.

I also envision that the only plants growing out there should be the ones I planted.  I require that my vegetables enjoy sovereignty over the domain I have given them.  It is only their green growth that I want to see; that, and clean, weed-free black dirt between the rows.  There should not be any thistles or dandelions.  Wayward canola and flax spill-over from the grain bins is not allowed.  Quack grass and foxtail are banned as well. 

I am not winning.

But I do try.  I dedicate a few hours each day to eliminating the enemy.  I start when it’s still coolish, when the horse and deer flies show up I know it’s time to quit.  This morning the flies were running a little late; I make have baked a few brain cells. 

Maybe that’s what gave birth to this episode of self examination I’ve been wrestling with for the rest of the day.  It has occurred to me that I am prejudiced.  I try to segregate the plants that I want from the plants that I don’t want.  I banish (or try to) the unwanted, going to the extreme of maiming or killing them every chance I get.  Not because they are not strong and healthy.  Not because they are not edible or nutritious (they say portulaca and lamb’s quarter are both).  Not because they can’t be pretty in their own way.  No, the only reason they have been placed on a hit list is because I have appointed myself judge and jury over them.  In this time of social equality and awareness this feels a little awkward, I can tell you.

It’s mostly about my pride.  I love the way the rows look when the weeds are all gone.  It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to claim this implausible and unbalanced microworld I have created at the cost of so many undesirables.

It’s a fleeting thing though.  Gardening season is about to move on to the next stage – harvesting.  There are only so many hours to the day and picking a preserving will now take over.  Any weeds that have dodged death so far will now shift into high seed-forming gear and I will be right back where I started from next spring.  Mother Nature wins again.

A POUND OF GROUND

I’m facing one of my standard dilemmas at the moment; the old ‘what to make for supper’ quandary.  And, as I stare at it thawing in the sink, I find myself brain dead.

Now, now!  Be kind!  I’m not always brain dead.  I do have moments of startling clarity – like two hours after a lovely/ awkward conversation with a person whose name I have just finally remembered – but after more than a half century of continually needing to come up with supper menus, well that part of my brain is wearing a little thin.

It’s not always like this.  Approximately two years ago when my deep freeze had run dry of all packages labeled ‘ground beef’ I could think of 1001 recipes I wanted to make with hamburger.  The possibilities were endless ... and useless, because all I had to work with was pork roasts and moose sausage.  I wish I had written some of those fantastic ideas down at the time.  Sure could use them this afternoon.

I suppose I could barbeque patties ... again ... but I don’t think I have any buns.

There are other choices downstairs in the deepfreeze.  It’s just that if I don’t keep the different cuts of meat going down at the same rate I pay the price with nothing but short ribs and chuck roasts for the last two months before we can order another half beef.  Better to stick to some kind of rotation.  Besides, on these really stinking hot days, one of the nicest places to hang out is in the dark, cool basement staring into the depths of the freezer.  Even when I know I’m going to end up with my pound of ground, it can take me a good five minutes to retrieve the package.

What about a pot of chili?  Nah, that’s a meal for a cold winter’s night.

I would ask Google for help but I’m pretty sure one of these times the response is going to be “Not you again!”  I’ve scrolled through pages of their ideas and it’s never any help.  The choices are either the same as what I already know or they list ingredients not found in the western world, let alone my spice cupboard.

Meat loaf?  Lasagna?  Spaghetti sauce?

Time is running out here.  The deciding time period must soon come to an end to accommodate the actual cooking time.

I guess while I’m burning through the last minutes of pre-prep time I could check out the garden for veggie choices.  Oh hey!  In my vexation over the meat part of the meal I forgot that this is gardening season.  There is Swiss chard out there, and fresh lettuce, radishes, and strawberries for dessert.  This changes everything!  When the veggies start rolling in the protein dish takes a back seat around here.  I can’t skip it out completely but if I do nothing more that brown it up with some salt and pepper it still passes muster.

The pressure is totally off now.  I think it will be hamburgers in mushroom gravy ... maybe there’s new baby potatoes out there too ...

RESTARTING THE ECONOMY

We did our part to try to restart the economy yesterday.  We rebooked optometrist appointments that had evaporated in mid March along with everything else, and headed off to the city for the day.

And by that I mean the whole day.  Our appointments were scheduled for 8:50 Manitoba time.  That’s right.  You do the math.  But, if your eyes are giving you trouble and you need to see what’s up the choice between 7:50 am next Thursday or a more reasonable hour sometime late in July is obvious.  The alarm clock went off at 5:00, we pulled out of the yard at 6:00, and were right on time to don our masks and be properly socially distanced for the next two hours.  Even with losing an hour to Daylight Savings Time, we still had a whole day ahead of us to revive the Canadian economy. 

And believe me, we did our part.

The first order of business was something to eat.  Our first restaurant meal since ... Valentine’s Day.  While we were there for the food it was unmistakable that the atmosphere had shifted since the last time we had been out: staff in masks, every second table unused and the customer traffic sparse.  Thank goodness the scent of food cooking managed to cover the smell of ever-present hand sanitizer and disinfectant.  I sure hope that the people in charge of my investment portfolio thought to diversify into Lysol and Clorox wipes.

Next on the agenda was shopping – everything from building supplies to underwear.  It had been a long long long time since we had set foot in these stores.  And it’s now way harder to do that than it used to be.  They say that they’re ‘open for business’ but the trick is to find which door they have actually opened.  For some you can just walk right in like in the olden days, but most reserve the right to count heads.  In order to regulate their customers they are enforcing an ‘in’ door and an ‘out’ door.  Unknowingly I managed to park as far away from the ‘in’ door as possible at least 89% of the time.  It’s my newest superpower.

Once we made it inside these hallowed doors we were presented with the dreaded bottle of hand sanitizer.  The English language does not have adequate words to express how much I hate this stuff and being told that “This kind is great!  It smells just like watermelon!” does not enhance my experience.  In a way though, it does have a positive effect on my hand hygiene; when forced to apply it I go directly to a washroom and use soap and water to get rid of it. 

Once past the sanitizer barrior it was off to the races.  Well, actually, it’s more like a labyrinth.  Arrows on the floor to show shoppers which way they should be travelling ... signs reminding folks to move single file ... ‘X’s six feet apart to keep us away from each other.  It was as if we all had to relearn how to drive our shopping carts – you know like what it’s like after the first snowfall in the fall?  There were fender-benders and rear-enders going on all over the place.  I’m more of a meandering type shopper.  When I go to Canadian Tire I don’t need to travel the auto parts aisle so I skip whole sections which always seemed to have me going the wrong way on a one way street.  It was more relaxing out in the real traffic as we made our way to the city limits.

Glad to report the day was a success, though.  We both have new glasses on order, I have refreshed my summer clothing choices, we will be able to keep the thieving birds out of our strawberries, and there are a couple of man projects that can be finished off now.  Plus, I have three more plants because the garden centers are closing down for the year.  I’m sure the Canadian economy enjoyed a slight up-tick because of our efforts. 

You’re welcome.

MOTHER NATURE NEEDS A REPAIRMAN

The day started out nice enough.  It was warmer than I expected when the dog and I stepped out onto the deck to survey our kingdom – that’s what we do while I drink my second cup of coffee.  I soak in the sun’s warmth, check to see if my planters need a drink, and maybe deadhead a few of my petunias.  Turbo, on the other hand, checks the horizon for uppity coyotes.  It’s his job and he takes it very seriously.

As I said, the temperature was quite pleasant and there was a nice little breeze which I was glad to note.  I’ve been trying to weed garden and the flies and mosquitoes have been a real nuisance.  I only had a few hours left at that job so I should get out there while the getting was good.

I did not consult the weather app on my phone for what the future might hold.

Time means nothing when I’m weeding.  I went out after my coffee was done and worked until my stomach told me it was time for lunch.  As usual it was on Manitoba time but I decided to eat early and get back out there.  The pleasant breeze had picked up a bit but nothing crazy.

 

The crazy part happened while I was enjoying my taco salad.

Subconsciously it must have registered that a hurricane had blown in.  I don’t remember actually making a decision to not go right back outside, but I kept finding trivial, puttering jobs to do in the house; fold laundry, tidy the kitchen, text the carpenter who installed my new kitchen drawers that they needed some sort of adjustment.  When I got down to emptying the dehumidifier in the basement I knew – the chances of me working outside again today were somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘none’.

Is it just me, or does it seem that Mother Nature’s prairie fan seems to be on the fritz?  There isn’t a single setting that seems to be working correctly.  The on/off switch is broken – the wind never seems to stop.  The oscillating option swings around wildly, one day from the east and then a day from the west and then the south.  The days that it blows from the north I can at least work outside because our windbreak lives up to its name.  Her wind machine also appears to be stuck on the ‘high’ setting.  If it wasn’t for the fact that we all hope it will blow in some rain I would love to find the power cord and yank the plug out of the wall.

An hour or so ago I mustered the resolve to go out and see if I couldn’t just finish weeding that one last row.

 

I couldn’t.

 

But I did take a walk around the yard to apologise to all of my poor plants tipped sideways in the wind, holding on for dear life.  I promised them a drink if the wind’s velocity ever went down far enough to allow water to fall to the ground from a sprinkler.  Some of my freshly transplanted ferns are actually broken.  The deck is covered in sticky hummingbird juice because the feeder spun its contents out all over the furniture out there.  The birds were looking for something to drink so I gave them some more but tethered the feeder to a deck post to prevent the sugar shower from happening again.

 

The trampoline has come very close to liftoff a couple times.  I told the dog he should go lay on it to hold it down.  His face can be so expressive at times.  Loosely translated his answer was ‘no’.

Not one mosquito was encountered on my walk although, come to think of it, there were a couple of blurs whizzing past my face.  At 60 kpm that might be what a mosquito looks like.

The weather app on my phone just gave me a heads up that there would be rain in the next 24 hours.  That sure would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.  Mother Nature’s watering system doesn’t seem to be working well either this spring.

WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND

There’s a character in W.O.Mitchell’s book Who Has Seen the Wind who lives out on the prairie outside of town in a piano box.  I can’t recall anything else about him except that he has been driven mad by the wind.  On days like today I think of him and feel a sense of connection.

I had plans.  This is a busy time of the year for a gardener.  There are trees to trim, weeds to discourage, and as always, there are dandelions to decapitate.  But, here I am, hiding out in the house because a few hours of working out there in yet another day of quasi hurricane winds and I’ll be looking for my own piano box.

I tried.  This morning, after more than an hour long pep talk, I wrote down an itemized list of what I wanted to get done, pulled up my big girl britches, and forced open my south-facing door so I could leave the house.  It took all my physical strength to get the door open and all my emotional fortitude  not to go right back in.

When the wind blows from the south in this yard the only ‘safe’ place is behind the house, so after one lingering glance over to the garden that needs weeding Plan B was invented and I made for the backyard.  I give myself extra credit that I didn’t go back inside to add this new job direction to my list just to give it more legitimacy.

 

I really didn’t have any particular job in mind until I got there.  I just wanted out of the wind, but lo and behold, there was a garden hose to roll up and put away.  People who know me are now laughing out loud.  As a general rule, being neat and tidy with garden hose is not my forte.

 

Also, tucked in behind the house is my small greenhouse, recently emptied of all its greenery.  That’s right: I’ve spent the past week carefully tucking hundreds of bedding plants into their forever homes just to have them threatened with frost for two nights in a row and now this crazy wind.  If I listen carefully I can probably hear their tiny cries for mercy.  The job at the very top of my To Do list was to do a walk around and see how all these babies were doing.  I can’t bring myself to do it.  I put them in the ground and tucked their roots in tight.  I just have to have faith they can hold on to the earth on their own.

But, at least there is a greenhouse to tidy up!  Trays to stack, unused pots to store away, shelves to clear off, floor to sweep; it took me all of 22 minutes.  It would have been less but I was texting with a friend at the same time and had to keep stopping to text her back – thank goodness for small blessings.

 But the work was done so I went back to the house to record these two jobs and then officially stroke them off my list.

It’s not even 11:00 yet, the wind is steady at 36 and gusting to 53; there’s got to be something I could do inside!

Well, besides housework that is.  I’m sick of that.

So, here I sit at my computer, telling you stories.

The dog is following me around looking pathetic because he wants to go out in that wind for a walk.  I’ve explained to him about the piano box thing but he seems unperturbed. 

MY COVID CLUSTER

It’s been months now, apparently.  Isn’t it funny how time slips away?

The year started out pretty much the same as always. But then there were some news stories about a place in China we had never heard of before having a problem with a new disease. ‘No biggie’ we said, ‘that’s far away’, and life went on.  I ordered my garden seeds, researched where we might go for a winter get-a-way, and booked the carpenters and painter to come re-do my kitchen.

Maybe that’s why this COVID thing managed to sneak up on me; I was busy with my kitchen.  We weren’t totally unaware, one of the carpenters was about to go on a cruise and we wondered if that was a good idea, but since we had decided to stay at home this winter travelling seemed like it was someone else’s problem.

Then came the day that I got a phone call from a very agitated daughter ... Did I know they were closing the schools?  Indefinitely?  Like, OMG, what am I going to do!

No.  I did not know that.  What else had been going on while I was ‘hiding’ my husband’s tea in a new cupboard space, and other such nefarious schemes to liven up our marriage? 

It’s all been downhill since then.  We had Optometrist appointments set for two days after the shut down, but of course they were cancelled.  The longer I sit and play on my iPad during this shutdown the more I realize my glasses aren’t up to snuff anymore. 

Also, that same day my husband had finally agreed to an appointment to see about hearing aids (“YOUR TEA IS IN THE NEXT CUPBOARD TO THE RIGHT, DEAR!”)  I’m left worrying that his acceptance that he might need hearing aids was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence and the opportunity has been snatched away by ‘The Covid’.

But, what it might have confiscated in vision and hearing it has been generous in replacing with other things.  Now that the spring weather is here I find myself needing to shimmy and shake my extra COVID-19 pounds into last summer’s shorts.  It can still be done but it’s not comfortable, and I assume it’s not pretty either.  I was blissfully unaware of the extra roll at my waist - I can’t see it because of the COVID-19 hair in my eyes.  A person should just grin and bear it but my teeth are feeling a bit skuzzy too.  There was supposed to be dental hygienist appointment in there somewhere, as well.

We are moving on to the next stage of pandemic living now.  Saskatchewan was the first province to crack open the door and sniff the wind, so to speak.  We are a changed people though:  back in 2019 a Premiere’s political address wouldn’t have had us all glued to our TV screens, but by the end of April we were dying for what he would say.  He milked it for everything it was worth, too.  First he announced he would be making an announcement, and then made us all ‘tune back in tomorrow’.  He knew he had us hanging on his every word.

We are only taking baby steps, and even that didn’t start right away but it has begun.  Golfers can golf.  Fishermen can go fishing.  We don’t have to do our drug deals on the front steps of the pharmacy anymore.

And, if you want a happy, animated conversation with someone, just ask a woman when she managed to book her hair appointment for.  She will be able to tell you the day, date, and time without looking it up.  For instance, mine is June 4^th at 3:00. 

I can’t wait. 

THE PAIN AND THE GAIN

I’m not sure in these days of COVID-19, when there are millions of people stuck inside their city homes trying to keep busy and sane, whether I should even talk about what I’m doing these days.

I am the first to admit that living where I live is a privilege; I’ve always felt that way.  The green space, the privacy, the solitude of rural living is unequalled unless, possibly, you own your own private tropical island.  Truthfully though in all but temperature, it is the same thing.  The COVID social distancing restrictions are pretty easy to satisfy when you live a mile from your closest neighbour.  I have had to modify how many times I run into town, trying to keep it to once a week, and the curbside pick up type shopping is less than satisfying but these things are the only way I am impacted at all.  I don’t have a job I am required to go to, and neither am I out of a paycheck because my business is closed.  I am blessed and I know it.

Even better, now that spring has come, I am busy.

I was always destined to garden; it’s in my very DNA.  There have always been flowers to beautify the yard and vegetables to feed the family.  Once the ground warms up my ‘to do’ list is never done.  It makes for satisfying work, fresh air and exercise, and peaceful sleep – another luxury in these uncertain times.  The sore muscles are collateral damage.

Many news stories lately have been about governments coming up with plans to safely ‘open up’ their economies without re-igniting the virus’ spread.  There are so many things to consider: people need their jobs to pay their bills and feed their families but if this virus hasn’t been sufficiently suppressed we will all end up back in quarantine and have to start over again.  Not only does no one want a second round of this fight, but the experts predict that it will be much harder the second time around.  Having experienced what ‘staying at home’ means people will not be so compliant for a second go – it’s not all about the paycheck, it’s about the sanity.

I have tried to imagine what life would be like in the city with only a small yard to contain the energy of kids who are denied friends to play with and have established that home schooling is not a fun experience – a fact that their parents absolutely agree with.  Of course there is an even worse scenario – apartment living, trying to survive without even the relief valve of a few square feet of grass.

They say that domestic violence rates are going up – one more very distressing implication of life with COVID.

 

In my protected, privileged cocoon of space and financial security I cannot imagine the emotional stress or financial anxiety so many people are going through.

Meanwhile I work in my garden.  For years I’ve been downsizing what I plant but this year the size of my garden will grow.  In the pre-COVID world there never were any worries about sourcing our food but we have all learned that the systems we thought were infallible have shown serious weaknesses.  It’s time to put to use all the information handed down to me from older and wiser gardeners.  Maybe this will mean that I do extra work for nothing and we will have excess to give away, or maybe we will need it all, who knows?  The thing about gardening is that the seeds have to go into the ground now if they are going to do any good.  The pain of the growing season will give us the gain of the harvest.  We have to enter this with faith that the seeds will grow and we will have a plentiful harvest at summer’s end.

It strikes me that this same faith and perseverance is what we need to triumph over COVID-19.  If we don’t stick with the restrictions of social distancing, wearing masks and gloves where necessary, and not gathering in large groups this spring, we can expect a very nasty harvest of more sickness and death and a second round of isolation come fall.

 

For everyone’s sake, let’s do this right the first time.

PLAYING CHICKEN

A while back in our COVID Compliant self-incarceration period – and I’m not sure how long ago because all the days are the same – there was a video circulating on Facebook .  It showed at least a hundred chickens all running for their lives and in every direction.  The caption read “This is us when they finally let us back out”.

At the time the idea of stampeding through the door and going all the places we hadn’t been able to go for ages seemed like a reasonable reaction to freedom.  Of course we’d all dive for that door.

Although I can’t put a date on it I do know that it is far enough back that yes, we were in lockdown, but it was early days.  We were just getting our heads around the word pandemic.  Terms like ‘sheltering in place’ and ‘stay at home orders’ surfaced in news stories from all over the world.  Anyone on holiday out of the country was advised to head for home and then self quarantine for two weeks when they got there.  In the beginning these orders and restrictions – although we complied – seemed more like we were humoring the authorities.  In theory we understood what an epidemic was, but in practice because it had never happened to us before, it didn’t feel 100% real.

But the news stories grew.  They grew bigger.  They grew scarier.  They changed from ‘far away’ to ‘in our own back yard’.

All of a sudden, with every country on the planet in the same jeopardy at the same time there weren’t enough resources to fight this thing.  We learned what having COVID-19 does to a human body.  We learned that patients needed something called ventilators and there weren’t enough of them anywhere to meet the demand.  We learned the acronym PPE, and learned that this, as well, was going to be needed in the millions to keep our healthcare workers from contracting and dying from this disease they were fighting.  We learned that our government was so serious about us staying home that they were dishing out money to keep us there.  We learned death counts in Italy were staggering.  We were told that this maelstrom was on its way to us.  It was just a matter of time; a little bit of time.

There has been a reset in our understanding of how our world works.  Obviously doctors and nurses are important at a time such as this, but by themselves they would have been powerless.  It turns out that ‘frontline workers’ and ‘essential workers’ carry the whole country on their shoulders with their cleaning, sanitizing, growing and delivering food, processing meat, running transit, and working in grocery stores, quite often do this vital work for as close to minimum wage as we can keep them.  That is something that needs to be fixed.

But over this time of confinement and contemplation we have had a bit of a personal reset, as well.

I have another chicken story to tell you. 

Our daughter and her family make their home on an acreage.  There are plans someday to have larger animals but at the moment she just keeps chickens for their farm fresh eggs.  This spring her egg laying hens were showing their age so she decided to increase her flock by buying a bunch of year old layers from a large egg farm that was rotating to younger, more productive birds themselves.

Now, one would think that these new birds of hers – recently sprung from their production quota, sterile environment, factory farm existence - would be like the chickens in the video I mentioned earlier, but that is not what is happening.

They are wary of everything.  They are not sure about the soft straw to walk or sleep on.  They are suspicious of all this room to walk around in.  And that little door that leads to the bright light and moving air - well, that can’t be trusted at all!  Gathering eggs is an exercise in not tripping over the birds that flock around her feet.

Who would have thought back when we began this isolation thing that we wouldn’t go roaring back outside at the first chance?  But as of this week the door has been cracked open a bit and no one is rushing for the exit.  Yes, we all need haircuts and long to visit our friends in person, but we are not so sure that it’s safe yet.  We’ve watched the interviews with survivors, we’ve been shocked by the numbers of dead, we’ve seen the refrigerator trucks parked outside hospitals.  We want no part of that.

This pun is so bad and so good at the same time ... but I think we are just a bunch of chickens.  Smart chickens.

Jesse says that a few of them are starting to poke their heads out and take a look around.  That sounds about right.