FOR THE DOG

I have no choice but to take up walking again.  I will commit to no less than two miles per day, and not at any old leisurely stroll either – it needs to be a fairly decent pace if it’s going to do any good.  You see, I’ve noticed that the dog is packing on weight.  I’d sure hate to see him get old and fat and lazy.  What I don’t do for that dog.

This weight problem of his has been coming on all year.  That’s how the weight sneaks up on a dog.  You start out all active and bouncy and lithe.  You’re confident in your looks.  You feel healthy and strong.  You may plan for a two milejaunt but somehow the day is so nice you end chasing a few rabbits, dig for a couple gophers, and take a run at a flock of ducks to see how far they will scatter.  Pretty soon you’ve done four miles.  When life is this good, keeping your figure is a piece of cake.  

But then, of course, along comes winter.  Even for a guy who is part husky, forty below is nasty.  Oh sure, he still has to go out every morning, check the boundaries, mark his territory, make sure the local coyotes don’t get to feeling too comfortable, but then it’s back inside, curl up on his matt and watch for anyone who might make a move toward the kitchen.  If there’s a human in the kitchen the chances of treats go up.  If it’s the male human the treats are exponentially better and more plentiful.  The male human seems oblivious of where calories go after they are consumed.  The dog doesn’t care.  I am well aware for all three of us.

Winter lasts a long time in these parts.  The walks become very few and far between.  The trend toward napping in the sunbeams becomes very entrenched.  It’s not that he wouldn’t welcome a walk (he and his arctic fur coat) but motivating me to join him gets harder every year.  I’ve explained to him countless times that he can go explore on his own but it’s like he feels obliged to make sure I get my exercise too.  He won’t leave the yard without me.

Spring – when it finally happens – is also not conducive to walking.  The roads are muddy.  Or icy.  Or both muddy and icy.  And Turbo refuses to wear boots.  Given a warm, melty afternoon outside in March that dog can soak up, conceal, and transport into the house his body weight in sand and silt.  All I have to do is sweep it up, add a little peat moss, and I have enough soil to fill my starter trays for my garden.  During the muddy month of March and all through April’s showers I would just as soon the dog stayed inside.

 One would think that the next half year is perfect walking weather.  It is, of course, but I have other stuff I have to do.  All my walking time and energy is spent out in the garden … weeding, planting, picking, watering, mowing, tilling.  I work in the sun, he lays in the shade.  I dig holes that he gets quite excited about; he digs holes and gets yelled at.  I tell him how good the strawberries taste; he sniffs them, gives me his famous groan of disgust, and looks at me like I’m crazy.  It’s sort of the same reaction I have to finding one of his rotting bones buried in my flower bed. 

Every once in a while I take the quad out for a spin to give him a quick run.  He used to revel in the challenge but lately he’s all about wanting to hop up on the back to ride home.  With a routine like that, it’s no wonder his clothes - ahem, his collar - is getting tight.

So, it’s time to hit the road again.  I am a responsible pet owner and am putting his need for physical activity first.

He just looked over at me and gave me his “You’re pretty hefty yourself these days, lady!” look. 

This just gives me something new to worry about.  He really is getting on in dog years … obviously his eyesight is going on him too!

WAITING FOR THE DRUGS TO KICK IN

Here I sit, facing my computer screen, waiting for the drugs to kick in.  My goal for today is to breathe through both nostrils.  At the same time, if I’m really lucky.

It was with great reluctance I got dressed this morning – pajamas are so comfy and cozy – but I told myself wearing daytime clothes would help me focus and move forward.  So far this has not been the case, and I have since regressed to the point where I put my housecoat back on over my clothes.  I am almost warmed back up.  I have one more trick up my sleeve – if you come by and find me sitting in my car don’t worry, it’s just me soaking up some butt warmer love.

I have my dear spouse to thank for this.  He has spent the past week complaining about hanging around with the wrong crowd.  By this he means short people … his grandchildren.  School is back on and the rounds of disease development and sharing is in full swing.  They are lucky they are so cute.

I managed to avoid the first wave of this head cold but obviously not putting grandpa in some kind of exile while he was contagious was a mistake.  I think my head might explode this morning.

So I went through the drug options in our medicine cabinet.  We are not pill takers in this household so there’s not much to choose from, and what is there could be up to five years old.  I wanted a magic pill that would promise me air flow through my sinuses and also would loosen the belt that seems to be cinched up tight around my temples while easing the pressure against my top teeth.  My whole face hurts.  My options were plain head ache pills, nausea medication, antacids, children’s cough syrup (because, you know, grandkids) and one bottle with a couple night time cold remedy pills.  Although this is what I had been looking for it was the oldest bottle in the cupboard.  Through bleary eyes I think I made out a promise to help with sinus pain and congestion.  I wonder: does medication gain or lose strength over time?  Will the placebo effect help me at all?  Do I have the strength to drive to town?

Also, there was a jar of Vicks Vapor Rub.  I am not yet that sick.

Not having great confidence in the prescription I have provided myself, I took the pill but feel it is just as important to think about something else – you know; diversion, distraction, mind over matter.  I have the radio playing on my favorite channel, a warm mug of tea sits by my keyboard, the pockets of my housecoat are stuffed with tissues at the ready, and Microsoft Word tells me that I have managed to think of 475 words so far.  At some point before posting this I plan to read them and see if they make any sense.

I could really use some chicken soup although anything would probably do.  I just reheated what normally would be a tasty meal.  It was warm.  It looked yummy. The texture was right.  My stomach has quit growling for food, but I feel cheated.  My senses of taste and smell are AWOL.  I hate it when that happens.

It has now been 90 minutes since I took an obviously worthless pill.  My eyes are still bleary.  My head still hurts.  And neither nostril is functioning at full capacity.  Besides that, I feel the need for a second housecoat or a big fluffy blanket.  I guess I will try for a nap, and if that doesn’t make anything better I will turn my butt warmer up to high and go to town for fresh drugs.  If you see me coming, don’t breathe my air.

NOT A GOOD THING

The scene outside our windows is very fresh and white.  It’s October 5^th.  This is not a good thing.

There are thousands of acres of unharvested crops out there on the ground.  The wet wet ground.  Farmers are understandably worried about time ticking by and no progress being made.  A snow storm in early September is easier on the nerves; you know it’s going to go away for sure.  But early October is scarier.  When it happens at this time on the calendar it may or may not go away.  More than likely it will go away, but there’s an element of doubt a person just can’t shake off.  Especially when the weather forecast for the next week looks like there is plenty more coming.  Is the harvest of 2018 going to be one of those stand-out catastrophes they talk about for years?  Making it into the history books in a story like that is not a good thing, either.

On the one hand we are one step removed from the biggest of the worries.  It’s not our investment on the line.  There isn’t a day goes by that we aren’t relieved to be in this situation: we get to live in our rambling farm house, enjoy our wide open yard and gardens, and participate in the agricultural life around us by being employed in it for the growing season, but we are an arm’s length away from the debt and the worries. 

Once a farmer, always a farmer, though: it seems that it’s a pretty short arm these days.

And so the men try to keep busy.  The first day or so it was easy to find things that needed doing.  During the busy days of harvest there are small breakdowns that are by-passed or jury-rigged so they can keep going while the going is good.  When the weather makes them take a break these small jobs get fixed. 

As the weather refused to smarten up they turned their attention to making sure that the grain dryer would be ready for action.  Obviously they were going to need it this year.

Then they did some maintenance on the cattle waterer and tended to a few other cattle chores.  The fence lines were inspected for breaks or downed trees.  Cattails were cleared so the current wasn’t grounded out of the electric fence.  Still the skies were grey, the swaths too wet to go through the combine.  They switched it up to drinking coffee working out their formulas of cost versus loss.  Everyone comes to a different number but the bottom line is the same … every wet day is draining dollars from the operation.

This past week the make-work project has been to inspect an older combine that had a major breakdown last year.  It turned out that the quote to fix it from the dealership was crazy high and something they could do themselves.  This solved two problems – fixing it gave them something to do, and no doubt a third combine would definitely be beneficial in the race to finish should Mother Nature ever give them the chance.  Finally, this was a good thing. 

But, with that job behind them and even more snow coming down, things have gone a little off course this morning.  Grandpa has had too much time on his hands.  He’s tried to steer his energy toward good instead of evil – he even made a stab at cleaning up his shop … which led to finding a fun project he had started a while ago … which led to him deciding to finish it … which led to target practice … which led to me being conscripted to videoing it so he could show off the new toy to various people (mostly grandsons) who would be suitably impressed.  In my humble opinion a pellet gun uzi, in no way, can be considered a good thing.

But at least it has changed the mood.  Instead of wandering morosely around the house with nothing to do, he and the grandson happiest about this invention are spending time on Facetime plotting the gophers and pigeons who are about to die(of laughter) at a weapon that only shoots six feet with any impact and has to be attached to an air compressor for its energy source.

I’m left wondering how I can get some of my ‘honey do’ things on his list, or if I should re-double my prayers for better weather.

GARDEN GUILT

I’m having a hard time with my conscience these days.

It’s not that I’ve robbed a bank, or murdered anyone, or even so much as shop-lifted a package of gum.  No, it’s much more pervasive than that; I have garden guilt.  I get it every year.

I don’t know why I put myself through this; I do recognize that I am responsible for my own suffering.  If I didn’t plant a garden I wouldn’t have to deal with its over production.  It wouldn’t be my problem to deal with beets the size of footballs, or 2396 carrots, or cucumbers that have a harvest window of three days between too-small-to-see and ginormous-overripe-seed-pods.  I wait all summer for my first cucumber and then four days into their ‘season’ I find myself asking why I thought I needed more than one plant.  Every.  Single.  Year.

It all seems so innocent and Mother Earth-ish in May when I plant my garden.  The sun is shining.  The grass is green.  The freshly tilled earth is warm and welcoming.  I envision garden lettuce salads and crisp, crunchy radishes, and snitching fresh peas and carrots with the grandchildren.  In my mind there is never too much of anything.  It’s always just the right amount.  They say that ‘experience is the best teacher’; obviously this is only true when you pay attention in her class.

We have gone from a family of six down to just the two of us.  Correspondingly I have made an honest effort to shrink the garden area, with only limited success.  Yes, my veggie garden is much smaller, but now we have a huge space that we call our orchard which has morphed into extra space to put the bigger things … like corn and potatoes and pumpkins and cucumbers and onions and watermelon.  This year it even got an extra row of peas because I had extra seed.  The pretense of downsizing my actual garden space has been completely canceled out by having orchard overflow.  I am my own worst enemy.

Maybe it would help if I sat down and documented my struggle.  Would I actually pay attention to warnings like “Yes, Jocelyn, one row of carrots will be plenty!”  or “No, Jocelyn, throw that two year old package of string beans away!  Do NOT put them in the ground just to ‘see what happens’!”?  I’ve learned my lesson on zucchini, but I keep repeating the carrot and beet mistakes.   Don’t even get me started on the countless bean fiascos I have faced.

This summer, due to dry conditions, a less than perfect germination and a hungry family of gophers, the over production problem hasn’t been as bad as normal years.  I managed to use almost all of my beets before they got tough and stringy, I ended up only having to wash and store one bag of carrots and they fit nicely into my fridge.  There were only enough peas to eat fresh.  This year my guilt was all about beans (I pulled them up and hauled them away – also known as hiding the evidence), and cucumbers (I continually chucked the oversized, overripe ones into the trees.  The dog eventually tired of bringing them back). 

My third antagonist is an epic tomato harvest.  It’s going to be the undoing of me.

I know tomatoes are a versatile fruit and can be used in many ways but there is still only so much pasta sauce and salsa a two person household can use.  The next batch will be stewed tomatoes but there’s a limit to how much of that we can use too.  Right now the boxes of ‘pending’ are out in the unheated garage so they ripen more slowly, which only means that I am prolonging my agony.  Every time I go out there the guilt about doing something useful with them hits me: they shame me with their pungent scent.

We have been known to go to exceptional lengths to use up unneeded garden produce (a crazy excess of pumpkins for target practice one sunny Thanksgiving afternoon comes to mind), but the smart thing to do, as I am reminded of often, would be to have a pig or two to feed the extra too.  I have many problems with this … building a pen that will hold pigs in, having to deal with the fly problem they create, being tied down to having animals to care for when we want to go away, and (and this is a big ‘and’) my guilt burden over under-utilized garden vegetables is already too high … do you know what eventually happens to big, healthy pigs?

I prefer my protein to be anonymous, thank you very much.  The last thing my conscience needs is pork chop guilt.

                                         A PEACEFUL, EASY FEELING

Harvest is stalled out at the moment.  The rain that we so needed six weeks ago has settled in for an extended stay now that the crops have ripened and can no longer use it.  There are a few farmers done harvest but most have a good portion still out in the field; every rainy, wet, or foggy morning is met with a groan of impatience.  They just want t 2018’s crop in the bin.

I understand their frustration, this is a whole year’s livelihood we’re talking about, and so I keep my thoughts to myself.  Things like “This will do my perennials the world of good for next year” and “I love the scent of damp leaves composting – it’s such a rich, tangy aroma.  I think of it as Mother Nature’s autumn perfume.” are best left unsaid around people who have huge money on the line and nothing to keep themselves busy while they wait for the weather to clear up.

It’s getting close to twenty years since we downsized our farm and planted hay and pasture, but that harvest feeling never leaves you.  The days shorten.  The bright greens of summer fade to yellows and golds.  I don’t know if a stranger to this land would detect it, but by mid August there is a sense of ripeness - maybe better described as completeness - in the air.  The anticipation builds.  Swathers begin to appear, pulling into vast stands of canola and leaving miles of windrows to finish ripening when they leave.  Each crop has its own color of perfection – wheat is a reddish gold, barley is more a dusty yellow, oats a creamy yellow, and flax is a dark reddish brown.  Fields of corn look all dried up and scraggly – kind of Hallowe’en-ish.  The field peas are the first to come off, the corn and faba beans, the last.

As is often the case with semi retired farmers, we lease our land to a neighbor who then hires Glen to help during the growing season.  It’s best all worlds – Glen’s years of experience are put to use, and it keeps him active letting him do what he has always loved, working the land.  Even better than that, he gets to do all of this while simply collecting a pay check.  Gone are the days of gambling with huge sums of money – the machinery costs, fertilizer, chemical weed killers – now it is simply doing the work he loves on the land he loves.  Probably only the people who walk in the same shoes would appreciate how putting in 12 hour, dusty, itchy, back-aching days could feel like a blessing, but this is a true thing; it does.

My role these days is only a peripheral one.  I pack his lunch in the morning and then carry on with my own day.  Once in a while I get a call to drive him back to his truck or pick up a part in town while I’m there, but mostly I don’t see him again until well after dark. 

The other day, though, something special happened.  The canola they were combining needed aeration so he was hauling it back to the bins in our yard.  Late in the afternoon, just as the autumn chill was claiming the day, Glen called me over to help him top up the bin.  It’s kind of a team job with him at the top of the bin watching that we didn’t overflow it and me standing ready to shut off the grain flow when he called it was full.  It went without a hitch and we moved on to the next step – moving the auger over to the next bin.  He went about his tasks and I did what I could to streamline the process.

 Again, everything went smooth.  All the good parts of our farming history, even though it was at least 20 years ago, wrapped around us.  The whole scene had the feeling of enchantment.

The real life, day-to-day farming memories of that long ago time are not all so sweet.  They were times of high stress and exhaustion and short tempers.  The financial burden of farming is huge and making enough money to support your farm, let alone your family, takes its toll during harvest when every day, good or bad, counts.  We haven’t had a lot of monumental fights in our marriage, but the ones we did have all took place during harvest. 

And yet, there we were, the clattering noise of the auger, the rumble of the tractor’s engine, the rich, earthy aroma of the canola pouring from the grain tank, the last of the day’s sunshine on our shoulders,  all seemed to cast a spell around us.

With all of the negative stresses of farming wiped from our slate the blessings shone through … satisfaction … accomplishment … completion.  A peaceful, easy feeling: we both felt it as we went about our work, acting as a team.

As he got ready to pull out of the yard he grinned at me and said out loud what I had been thinking to myself.

 “Isn’t this nice?”

I wish there was a better word than magical.

                         THE BUTTER MOON

Life is full of struggles – the big ones like the one between good and evil, and the smaller, day-to-day things like avoiding laundry or what to do with the yoghurt that’s past its best before date – but the one that reared its ugly head on me this morning was zipping up my favorite blue jeans.  It’s not that I couldn’t get them done up - we’re not that far gone yet – but sitting in them is getting to be uncomfortable.  Obviously Karma is trying to tell me that the opposite of sitting is what I should be doing.

But I wasn’t thinking about Karma at the time; she always wants me to take responsibility for my own actions.  The thought that went through my head this morning was “Darned Butter Moon!”

Let me explain.

Back in the days of pre history when humans were all hunter-gatherers their way of keeping the passage of time was different than what we do today.  Increments as small as minutes and hours were of no importance, but in order to feed themselves throughout a whole year they had to know the seasons.  It was of utmost importance to know when the hunting was best, when certain plants would be ready to harvest, when the migrations would take place.  They watched the moon and named each full moon as it pertained to their livelihood.

For instance March was the Sap Moon because that’s when the sap would begin to rise.  April the Egg Moon, May the Milk Moon and June was the Strawberry Moon.  The moons of the waning year claimed the names of Harvest Moon, Hunter’s Moon, and Frost Moon.  Maybe it’s the farmer in me but I’ve always liked the idea of observing the season’s passage in this natural way.  Since I ‘live out on the land’ this natural calendar makes so much more sense than using the names of the Roman Emperors or Greek goddesses.

My year goes more like this: January is the Dark Moon because even though daylight hours are beginning to stretch out, it’s really hard to tell yet.  February is the Mexico Moon – or anywhere south and warm.  If we get away to find sunshine it will be then.  March is my Mud Moon.  I don’t dislike it as much as I did when the house was full of kids, but it’s still pretty muddy.  April is the Impatient Moon – the snow doesn’t go fast enough, the grass isn’t green yet, and I just want to plant things!  May is the Planting Moon, June is the Dandelion Moon, and my name for July is one borrowed from my hunter-gatherer ancestors - the Thunder Moon.  They were also right about September being the Harvest Moon, and October being the Hunter’s Moon, as well as November being the Snow Moon and December the Cold Moon.

But August?  My August?  This is the one I call the Butter moon.  Not because of the moon’s pale yellow appearance, nor is it because cows produce more cream at this time of year.  No, it’s completely, entirely, and inarguably because with all the fresh vegetables coming in from the garden the butter consumption doubles in this house in August.  Butter on new potatoes.  Butter on corn on the cob.  Butter on peas and carrots and beets, on beans and steamed Swiss Chard.  Not to mention all the extra butter that goes into cucumber sandwiches.  All of these things would taste good on their own, but it’s like they say … everything’s better with butter!

I’ve been sitting for the better part of a morning as I wrote this.  Karma wasn’t kidding about the “this is going to be uncomfortable” warning she gave me this morning.  It’s a darned good thing that the Butter Moon is almost over, and maybe I should spend the up-coming Harvest Moon commemorating my hunter-gatherer ancestors by walking everywhere I go and consuming only what I harvest on my own.

                                                (SLOW) DOWN TIME

It’s been a summer of nonstop activity.  I know it wasn’t last week that I was still waiting for the snow to melt but the time has gone by in such a blur that it seems like it. 

Summer is always busy but in the five years since I retired I have managed to get myself on the local tourism board: this kind of multiplies the busy factor of the season.  I really don’t mind.  I enjoy being part of a positive influence in my community, and the people I share board duties with are all great to work with.  It’s just that from the long weekend in May until Labour Day there is a lot to do.

This year was extra crazy.  Our group always plans and hosts the Canada Day celebrations but we really upped the ante this summer striving to draw a bigger crowd with live music and a steak supper.  Mother Nature treated us to a rain/hail storm to make things even more challenging but the day was a success in spite of her efforts.

Our other big event was our first ever garden tour in mid July.  In order to get something new like this up and running we needed an assortment of local gardens to show off.  It was much more challenging to get people to commit than I had anticipated so I ended up including mine as one of the rural yards.  My selling point when asking others to show their gardens was “You keep your yard and garden anyway.  It will be no extra work.”  While I believed this to be true when I said it, turns out only the first part is.  When you know you have people coming expressly to see your yard and garden, you are much more critical of grass height and visible weeds.  I can’t thank the folks enough who did offer their gardens for the 2018 tour, and I hope we can find some more for next year.  It really was a lovely day.

Besides those two events – and all the work that went into keeping ahead of grass and weeds – I also spent a few weeks in the spring clearing out deadfall in the shelterbelt which we later wood chipped piles of mulch for our fruit trees.  As well, we hosted several different visitors, entertained grandchildren a couple times, and as the days got hotter and hotter, took up hauling water to keep everything alive. 

In July the garden kept me busy with peas and beans to pick and process, now it’s cucumbers I can’t keep up with and soon it will be corn.  Then there will be potatoes to dig and I literally have a forest of tomatoes I will have to deal with.  But right now, strangely, I have nothing to do.

I have wandered around the yard.  The grass crunches to powder under my shoes; it is so dry.  I took a pail of water to a few new trees, but watering on a larger scale is out of the question.  We just can’t take our well for granted.  We haven’t had measurable rain in ages and there is no guarantee there will be lots of snow for runoff to replenish our water supply in the spring.  As depressing as the scorched earth is out there, I really like to take showers and wash dishes on a regular basis.

So with the one thing that needs done out there off limits I found myself wandering aimlessly this morning; all my accumulated work ethic spinning its wheels in the sand.  Time to turn my mind to other things … I will be ending August off with a short camping trip with a smattering of family and grandchildren … I should pack.  And later on, as I wait for my farmer to come home for supper, I will pour myself a glass of wine, sit on the deck, and watch the hummingbirds do battle over sugar water.  We can celebrate the end of summer together in the twilight.