DOING BIRTHDAYS IN STYLE

Many years ago, my farmer husband explained to me in his typical stressed-out-about-harvest voice that if I had wanted parties to celebrate my birthday I should have known better than to be born in September.  I mean, this was a life-long handicap what with being both a farmer’s daughter and then choosing to be a farmer’s wife.  I really shouldn’t be surprised to have my birthday barely acknowledged between filling bins and fixing combines. 

I’m not, really.  This girl isn’t one of the high maintenance variety.  Besides, I have scored a few significant birthday memories over the years.  In 1982 he actually took a whole day off and we went to Brandon to pick out an engagement ring.  Looking back, having only known the man less than a year I can only say that this astonishingly atypical behavior was lost on me at the time.  The term ‘false advertising’ certainly applies.  

It’s too late to do anything about it now, though, I think the statute of limitations on that crime has run out.

I think it was the very next year, as a newly wed, that he gave me a blank I.O.U. to be redeemed after harvest.  He was probably thinking that meant taking me out for supper or some such easy thing.  Imagine his surprise when I called that debt in and insisted on a clothesline.  It was a whole day’s work and I never got another I.O.U. but it was so worth it.  I love my clothesline.

The years have rolled on by and luckily I have continued to have birthdays.  The kids got old enough to bake the cakes and make or buy the presents.  Like I said, I’m not high maintenance so it’s worked out okay.  He remembered to wish me a happy birthday without being prompted this year, so that’s something.  It’s a low bar but he aced it.  By that time he was on his 5^th or 6^th swather knife repair and more than a little on edge.  It’s all good.

This year other plans had been made.  2025 brings me to one of those significant ending-in-zero birthdays and the womenfolk of the family decided that this called for a spa weekend in Moose Jaw.  Who needs husband input when you can gather all the sisters and an assortment of nieces/daughters together for a two day spa visit?  As a bonus there was also one tiny grand daughter for us to all fuss over; she and her mom are kind of a package deal at the moment.  When the family is spread out from Calgary to Redvers there aren’t all that many opportunities to get together.  It was a great time.

We didn’t do anything fancy.  We talked about doing one of the Tunnels of Moose Jaw tours but never got around to it.  A few of us bought souvenirs as we wandered through the downtown shops, but nothing too much.  We treated ourselves to two lovely evening meals, enjoying the food and the atmosphere … and teased the sister who had “forgotten” her wallet mercilessly.  We spent time in the mineral waters pool – especially in the outdoor pool under the stars on a very warm prairie night, but no one took time for an actual spa treatment, we had too much visiting to do.

The best times by far, though, were sitting around our suite sharing a carafe of Tim Horton’s coffee with muffins and fruit and cheese, telling stories of our kids and grandkids, our gardens and animals, the holidays we had taken and the places we still dream of going. 

You know, the kind of things that womenfolk talk about.

We gifted stories from one generation to the next, honoring the mothers and sisters who are no longer with us. Hopefully the two month old baby was soaking it all in as she slept; there was a lot of familial ambience in that room.  She and her generation will be the ones who carry this magic forward.  

We told stories from long ago while making fresh memories for the next time we meet - which we should probably do sooner rather than later.  Those ending-in-zero birthdays get a little more serious as time goes by.  It’s not the zero that scares me anymore, it’s the number in front of the zero that is concerning.

 

 

TAPPING OUT

Here we are in the waning days of August.  The swathers and combines are chewing through the acres and municipal roads that don’t see traffic for months on end are major trucking routes.  My grass needs cut again but 30 degrees is just too brutal for this girl – it will have to wait.  Sometimes a person has to know when to tap out.

Some crazy lady (who looks a lot like me) planted her usual too-big-for-two-people garden in May and I have been dealing with the consequences of that rash act all summer.  Germination was pretty fair except the yellow beans which were a complete failure.  My cucumbers also struggled to give me a measly four plants.  It’s funny, in June this concerned me greatly because that didn’t seem to be enough.  Then one of them died and I was down to three.  We like our cucumbers so this was very concerning.  It is now the end of August and I have been giving them away by the bag full only to have another twenty ready to eat the next time I walk past the pickle patch.  Obviously poor germination has no bearing on productivity if the rain and heat come at the right time.  It’s getting to the point where they need to tap out.

The strawberries started out the year producing very well and have moved on to spectacular.  They seem to be taking the name ‘ever bearing’ very seriously.  I was still picking asparagus until the end of June, and the raspberry crop was phenomenal.  I had to discourage my peas from further productivity by yanking them out of the ground.  I’ve never had better success with corn, and I even got most of it into my freezer before a few very rude and greedy raccoons wreaked havoc one night.  Let’s just say they won’t be back next year.

Zucchini are playing their usual trick of being eight inches long at 10:00 in the morning and two feet long and weighing 20 pounds by suppertime.  Any beets I have left out there are the size of soccer balls.  The dill has all gone to seed.  Luckily the pigs love Swiss Chard … and any portulaca, redroot pigweed, and sow thistle that happens to be growing where it’s not supposed to be.

The onions don’t have root rot.  The potatoes are prolific and not rotting from the inside like on some years.  We have been eating, pickling, and giving away carrots for a month now and I still have two twelve-foot rows to harvest.  What was that lady who looks a lot like me thinking in May?  Oh yeah, I know what she was thinking … She was thinking “There’s only half a package of seed left, I’ll make another row.”  That’s what she was thinking.  Somebody needs to tap her out.

It's the pumpkins that are the winners this year though.  Remember that hail storm with the hardball -sized ice bombs from the sky on July 4?  Not sure that I’ll ever forget what that sounds like under meatal roofing or the way the yard looked like the inside of a popcorn machine or the ground being covered in deep pock marks for weeks afterward.  It was a doozy.  Luckily our yard was at the edge of the worst action; no windows were broken and most of the garden dodged the damage. 

The pumpkins took the brunt of it with their huge leaves out there like catcher’s mitts, and yet they came back swinging!  Those plants must cover one quarter of my garden space and are spreading another ten feet daily.  There is fruit of all sizes under those huge leaves and the canopy is so tall you could lose small children in there.  If we have a late frost there should be enough jack-o-lanterns to supply southeast Saskatchewan.  No need for them to tap out – I’m curious to see how big we can go!

And, the pinnacle of garden satisfaction?  What we’ve been waiting for since I picked those baby tomato plants up at the greenhouse?  The reason bacon exists?  Today, finally, there were tomatoes ripe enough for toasted bacon and tomato sandwiches for lunch. 

I wish I could say “My work here is now done” but of course we are only about to start the everything-to-do-with-tomatoes soup/salsa/sauce season.  They’ve been so slow to get going it will likely be mid October before I see the end of them.  Before I can really tap out for 2025.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have a very stern talk with that lady who looks a lot like me about next spring.

 

                                                         THE BEGINNING AND THE END

       Way back in the early days of my farm wife life I would be asked out on ‘dates’ to go crop checking.  Please note that the quotation marks are around the word ‘dates’ and not around the phrase ‘crop checking’.  We were farmers genuinely going out to check our crops and truly it was as close we ever got to a date.

       Depending on what we were checking for, these dates took place at different times of the day; Wheat Midge was an early evening thing, Bertha Army Worm have an all-day-long window, Canola’s readiness check for swathing could happen any time, but a hot dry afternoon was best to grind heads of wheat out in our hands to see how far off harvest would be.

       My favourite times, though, were the crop emergence checks.  These were always done at either sunrise or sunset – my farmer explaining to me that this was when the light was just right to see the bright new green shoots against the rich, dark earth.  He was so right.  What was crystal clear in that first hour after dawn was nearly invisible at high noon but would show right back up just before night fall.  A trick in the intensity of the light and the angle of the shadow made the colours stand out, the landscape unforgettable and quite beautiful.

       It was this image of exquisite clarity that sprang to my mind while listening to the homily at a funeral I once attended.  The speaker compared a human life span to the duration of a day.  “Sunrise, sunset.” he offered, “Birth and death.”  His point wasn’t about the amount of time measured with clocks or calendars that either a single day or a lifetime took, but rather the intensity of focus we devote to the beginning and end of them.  How it was these singular moments at each end of a lifetime that humans seemed to devote the most attention to.

       “Just as when a baby is born, something comes to be that was never here before, and at death something is gone that will never be again” he pointed out, “just so no one dawn or dusk is exactly the same as another.”  He felt that it seemed irrelevant how long a person lived or what they accomplished in that life; it was at their birth we rejoiced most loudly and at their death that we mourned so deeply. 

       He went on speaking but by this time the memory of those early morning crop checks had filled my mind and I found myself wondering if this is why we examine life in much the same way.  At our dawn is the light just right to envision how much this tiny human might do in their lifetime?  And at our sunset do we not naturally take a look back along their row to see how well it grew?  I remembered how those brilliant green rows would fade with the high sun light and yet in the evening how they would be visible again.  Is that what happens to us in the middle of our lives?  Does what we do - how we live – disappear in our daily busy-ness?  A photographer once told me that there was no bad time to take a picture with our amazing prairie light, that the trick was just about taking the time to capture it properly.

       I love how serendipity works.  Within a day or two of this funeral I happened to read an essay written by a mother whose sons had grown and gone away.  She wrote her thoughts of their growing up years.  She had been diligent throughout their childhood building photo albums of all their milestones – birthday parties and sports events, Christmas mornings and Hallowe’en costumes – but now that they were gone she realized the things that she missed most, the memories that stood out, were the moments no one would ever think to take a camera out for.  Her list was very long and included things like lost teddy bear hunts, failed tooth fairy mornings, skinned knees and grass stains, having to share the last ice cream sandwich, homework woes, rained out holidays, a first brush with heartache, the didn’t-make-the-team milkshakes, the fine line of giving them space and still watching over them.  She now lived in a house where the fridge was full, the rooms were empty, and her photo albums didn’t begin to tell the story.

       My brain has sifted through this new perspective; I feel there’s a piece of wisdom in all of this to be learned and lived.  Maybe it’s this:  that no matter how beautiful or poignant the extreme ends of our days and lives are, the stretch in between – whether it be minutes, days, or years – needs to be captured and treasured in its own light.  Don’t think that each moment we have isn’t significant just because it’s hard to focus when the sun is high in the sky.

 

 

50 YEARS

50 years is way shorter than it used to be.

And, they are making old people way younger these days too.  It’s weird, I know.

Case in point:  this past weekend we were invited to a 50^th Wedding anniversary.  It was a lovely laid-back affair in a big back yard.  A tent-type gazebo for shade, ample lawn chairs to go around, little children playing games, snacks and beverages of all kinds – a summer lawn party for all ages.  Technically speaking a few of the people there had to be over 50 but in that kind of a setting, with all the conversation and reminiscing and laughter, the passage of time loses its grip.  We were just the same group of people who had been there to celebrate their wedding.  The fact that our grandchildren were also present just gave us more to talk about.

Compare that to how a 50^th wedding Anniversary went down in my grandparents’ day.  A church hall was rented and the womenfolk baked up dainties for several days in advance.  I recall all the cousins being in attendance and family pictures being taken.  We all had brand new dresses; everyone from Grandma, mom, me, and all my sisters.  Not store-bought dresses either!  Mom would have tailor made each and every one, probably between batches of daities, in the week leading up to the big day.  I can’t believe how I undervalued such luxury when I had it, and how I longed for store-bought clothing like my friends had – but that’s another story for another time.  A 12 year old’s sense of values is pretty tacky.

The tables were set with actual tea cups and saucers, the family meal served after the ‘come and go’ part of the day was surely served on China, the head table graced with a table cloth and a centerpiece, fine China and napkins.  There would have been fancy cards and speeches.  The word ‘formal’ comes to mind.

The thing that really sets these two occasions apart, though, is how OLD my Grandmother and Grandfather were at the time.  Like, they were ancient!  Grandma’s hair was snow white, her dress old-fashioned.  Grandpa wore a suit, white shirt and tie.  They look like museum pieces in their photo.

Intrigued, I have done the math wondering how much older they were than us at the time.  Zero years.  Strangely, humans who get married in their 20s and manage to stay married for 50 years all end up in their 70s at that milestone. 

Saturday’s bride in her sundress and the groom in shorts and a casual summer shirt were basically the same age as grandma in her mid-calf length, high collared, long sleeved dress standing formally beside her man in his suit.  Both couples the same age but from different centuries.

Obviously the only thing that has changed is the perspective of the observer – me.

Really, what has changed in the half century between these two celebrations?  The venues were different but the activities were the same.  There was food and visiting, laughter and reminiscing, grandchildren and games at both affairs.  Pretty sure that the beverage choices were limited to coffee, tea, and kool-aid in 1967 and a buffet of pulled pork and baked beans set out in a garage would have been shocking to the ‘church ladies’, but the whole idea of hosting and serving a meal for a special occasion is identical.  Sharing food and gathering in celebration is part of the human experience, and will be until the end of time.

Just to add depth to our summer anniversary afternoon party my sister sent me a few photos of their grandson’s wedding happening in Regina the same day – two generations further into the future.  A newly minted couple who look like they shouldn’t even be old enough to graduate high school yet wearing fashions that their children will groan and roll their eyes at in 10 to 15 years (this is inevitable, every new wave of teenagers does it).  Young love and happy smiles … food, music, friends and family.

50 years down the road they too will celebrate as we did on Saturday, and grandma and grandpa did in 1967.  The dress code will have altered.  The menu will be something new and trendy for 2075.  Who knows where the party will be held?  And the guests (depending on which generation they are from) will either think the couple looks ancient or contemporary. 

Age is all in the eye of the beholder, I guess, and it helps if you colour your hair.

 

 

 

LIFE OR DEATH

“What should I make for supper tonight?”

It’s an age-old question, asked at least 18 billion times over the eons.  Whether the options were mammoth stew or fish soup over an open fire in front of a cave, or a sophisticated ratatouille or fancy chowder prepared on a state-of-the-art convection surface, the woman seeking menu inspiration will be left hanging.  Of the 18 billion enquiries there have only been 2,681 helpful answers (this is not verifiable given the time lapse, but highly likely given my personal experience.  The last woman in my family line to actually get a definitive answer was a gal in the Middle Ages who had to then go catch a rabbit to roast for him, but at least the decision part was over).

It’s 1:25 on a Saturday afternoon.  I own three deep freezes (Covid consequence) which hold countless meal options.  I own 53 recipe books, a small file box stuffed with my favorites, and I have been known to ask Google for help in a pinch, as well.  My kitchen is well stocked in cookware, utensils, and gadgets for use in my oven, microwave, stovetop, or air fryer as the mood strikes me.  I have a BBQ and a smoker at my disposal.  I am an incredibly lucky person to live in a first world country surrounded by such wealth and privilege … but would someone please tell me what to make for supper?  I’ll make extra if you want to stay for the meal.

I know part of the problem is that I’m not hungry right now.  I reheated a little KD and a leftover hotdog an hour ago and really couldn’t care less about eating at the moment.  Honestly, if there weren’t other people around here expecting an evening meal I would probably have toast and maybe an egg and call it good. 

And there are some radishes ready in the garden.  Are radishes considered a vegetable?

Isn’t it funny how time slips away?  We are now mid afternoon and inspiration has yet to strike. Weirdly this shortening of the timeline is playing in my favour. 

A couple hours ago I had so many more choices, but not so anymore.  By sheer procrastination I have ruled out long term projects like roasts and stews.  Wasn’t that clever of me?  Fewer options can be a good thing!

Excuse me while I go get some hamburger out and stick it in the microwave on defrost.

Just the other day a bunch of us girls were sitting around discussing this very I’m-so-tired-of-cooking dilemma and the alternative of Hamburger Helper came up.  I don’t know who invented this last-minute-dinner-in-a-box but I gotta say, you’re my hero.  It’s not fine cuisine.  It’s probably not all that nutritious unless you serve it with a salad or a couple sides of veggies, but, will the whole family consent to eat it? Yes!  It’s protein and pasta in a sauce and will keep people alive until you come up with another meal tomorrow.  Some days that’s all you need for a win.

I’ve pondered this for a while: where in the marriage vows does it say “you’ll be responsible for meal plan/prep/serving/clean-up, forever and ever, amen”? 

Is this a Life sentence?  Or a death sentence? 

Is there tiny print at the very bottom of the marriage certificate that you can’t see while wearing the rose-coloured glasses of love?  Should all future brides be warned?  And, if they were warned and took heed, would society as we know it collapse?

Okay, now I’m delving into philosophy … this is pure procrastination, Jocelyn style.

It’s time to go hit Google up for some ideas on what to do with a couple pounds of ground beef.  Better not do Hamburger Helper twice in the same week.

 

 

WHEN IT’S SPRINGTIME IN Saskatchewan

Here we are at the first of June, still technically spring but feeling a whole lot more like summer. 

My ancestors came from the misty cool highlands of Scotland, I am genetically unequipped to deal with summer on the Canadian Prairies but here I am anyway – already sporting sunburned arms and a peeling nose.  I have two natural colorings in the summer – either the pasty white of mushroom soup, or the vibrant red of Campbell’s tomato.  I do manage to develop something that looks like ‘tan’ but only when compared to other of my body parts that never see the sun at all.  There was a time in history that women were supposed to have milky white skin.  I hope my forebears made the most of it.

My reluctance to participate in the heat and glaring sun of summer is overridden by my desire to have a garden and enjoy my yard, though.  After spending winter longing for green and warmth I’m as anxious as any farmer to get outside and start things growing.  I don’t even wait in fact, I plant seeds in the house about mid March so I can see them either grow spindly and weak or just keel over and die depending on their individual descretion.  Some actually make it to the garden, usually just in time for the last frost, but the effort keeps me busy and my livingroom looking like a mini greenhouse for a couple months while we wait for the snow to go away.

Time seems to pick up speed around the middle of April.  Farmers get antsy to get out on the land.  Their wives get antsy to get the men out of the house.  I take up a daily walk around the yard looking for signs of life … a first green blade of grass, the first buds on the trees, even a fist dandelion makes me happy in April; anything that shows proof of life.  Last fall I went crazy with over 100 tulips bulbs so spring was very colorful and rewarding this year.

Our front yard is a natural basin so there is always a period of flood with the snowmelt in the spring.  ‘Lake Hainsworth’ had been and gone enough for me to mow 80% of the yard before Mother Nature decided everyone needed to take a break from seeding and gave us three inches of rain in May.  Seeding was stopped for two weeks and I am now back to mowing around smelly swamp.  The moisture was welcome (especially for those of us who got their gardens in before it came) but it could have been better timed.  I say that like Mother Nature cares what I think; she does not.

Another sure sign of spring is our rise-and-shine time.  In the dark of winter I can manage to ‘sleep in’ until 6:00 or 6:30 somedays.  I know.  I know.  This is a dismal fail for a retired person but I literally can’t help it.  And, as if that’s not bad enough, when the sun starts getting up earlier, so do I.  This past month it’s been more like 5:00.  My mom always said it was the most peaceful time of the day and it turns out she was right … about just this one thing, of course.  I love my solitary coffee and game of Wordle.

These past few weeks I’ve been awakened even earlier – like 4:30ish - by my phone buzzing that there is a text.  It kind of spooked me the first time it happened because there is an unwritten rule in this house that you don’t call after 9:00 or before 8:00 “unless someone has died, someone has been born, or a house is on fire”.  Apparently, there is another allowable circumstance – If you’ve just spent the morning touring Italian towns and are sitting at a quaint little streetside café having lunch, this is a perfectly acceptable time to send pictures to your sisters in Canada.  The first morning it kind of freaked me out but after that it just gave me something more to do after I poured my coffee.

Sadly, the surest sign of summer has arrived.  Forest fire smoke stains our skies, makes us cough, and hurts our eyes … and we are hundreds of miles away from the real damage and destruction.  I sure wish Mother Nature would brew up another three inches and send it north.

 

THE SOUND OF RAIN

There is nothing quite as peaceful and soothing as the sound of rain falling outside your window.  Unless, of course, it is the heavenly scent of rain - petrichor.  They announce to your soul that all is well with the world.  That plants will grow, that we will have shelter from the trees and food from the fields and gardens, that animals will be fed and watered.  That our lives will be filled with abundance simply because water falls from the sky.

We woke to that sound and smell this morning.  It wasn’t a surprise, the weather people had been telling us it was on the way for several days, but it wasn’t quite as much of a blessing as we would have liked.  If the predictions are true this rain is too early and way too much.

At first they were talking about only a half inch for today.  That would have been perfect for the middle of May.  Seeding has been going great guns for two weeks – some farmers are almost done, some are halfway, and some just nicely started.  A half inch would give them a day of maintenance time for both human bodies and farm machinery, but the downtime would be short-lived.  They would be rolling again in no time. 

This newer forecast of 4 inches over 5 or 6 days is a whole other matter.  That much moisture will stop fieldwork for two weeks; you can’t plant in the rain or in the mud, and if we get 4 inches there is going to be a lot of mud.  Everyone in our neighbourhood worked late last night trying to get as much planted as possible.  If this plays out as predicted there will be two distinct harvests in the fall of 2025 – the crops that were planted pre rain, and what went into the ground after it was dry enough to go again.

Farmers weren’t the only ones pushing to get done though – gardeners play by the same rules for the same reasons.  Knowing that the rain was coming I put in some long, physical hours to get my garden tilled and planted.  Except for tomatoes I can call that job done, and I have the sun/wind burn and sore muscles to show for my work.  It’s not perfect and I got a little devil-may-care rebellious with my farmer’s expectations of straight rows toward the end.  Heat and wind and mosquitoes (who knew that all three could exist at the same time?) weakened my give-a-damn on all rows after the onions.  He can worry about perfection on his own rows.  It’s hardly a level playing field though - he has GPS on his tractor and my method and tools pretty primitive in nature; two stakes and a length of bale twine.

It's not raining at this moment and the little voice in my head keeps telling me that I should be out getting some bedding plants and dahlias planted.  A slightly louder voice insists that if it rains 4 inches that flower bed will be under water for a week and everything will be drowned out so my work and the plants will all be wasted.  I’m listening to the loud mouth because I just want to be lazy today.  I anticipate regretting this decision at some time in the not-too-distant future.

Instead I will spend my afternoon happily tapping away at my keyboard and then make an actual sit down meal for supper where we eat together at an hour typically associated with the evening meal, and then have the dishes done before bedtime. 

It’s funny how it’s the little things that make a person happy.

Like waking up to the sound of rain gently falling on the roof and the scent of petrichor on the wind.

It’s not the desired amount for this moment in time, but the sound is still soul-cleansing and the smell is divine.