Moving to the Farm

July 17th;

We moved from Speers to the farm outside of Mayfair. We wanted to spend some time with Victor and Jacquie. Since we were going to a neighbouring farm for a birthday and anniversary party tonight, it seemed like a good move to take our bed with us!

Sharon is celebrating her 60th birthday. Her husband Peter is turning 70 and they have been married 38 years. All good reasons to celebrate! Set up a couple of large tents. Bring on the food and beverages. There is lots of room for parking out here! Family, friends and neighbours are all welcome. It doesn't even seem crowded.

A smaller party the night before was rained out. Rivers flowed through the tent and the downpour blew through cracks in the walls. Today the weather was sunny but the wind was cold. People gathered in sheltered spots to visit, exchanging news with locals, renewing old acquaintances and meeting new. All ages were represented from babies to the elderly. The younger set ran and explored, climbing large round bales of hay, keeping warm with their exuberance. Adults circulated in the tents or around the fire to warm up.

The tables were laden with food - appetizers, main course and many desserts to choose from. The bar table was unlimited as well. Double the number of people and there still would have been plenty to carry home. We did our best to taste everything! The evening ended early. It was just too cold and windy to stay out any longer.

For the next week we parked in the home yard at Victor's farm and just relaxed. If there was something to do, we did it. If not, we visited, walked the dogs, napped or read. Such a hard life - no cell phone or internet. The world seemed far away!

Dan spent a lot of time riding the Kaboda lawn mower. There is a lot of grass to cut; all of the yard, 0.2 km driveway, then up and around the horse corral. He trimmed overhanging trees so they would not wipe him off the mower. I got to drive the farm truck while he loaded the resulting brush. An earlier model Ford F 150 XLT, it had seen better days. The seat did not move forward so I had to stretch my platform thongs to meet the pedals. The windscreen is cracked in many directions. The cab is full of useful bits of chain, cotter pins and tools. Most incongruous is a tiny, perfect, birdís nest in the middle of the dashboard.

Walking the small dogs was a pleasant job. Up the drive to the main road and then right past the fields of green peas covered in white blossom on one side and the fields of canola in bright yellow blossom on the other. Or turn left and walk up the hill past old granaries and used equipment to the horse corrals. The roadside is a colorful mix of wild flowers - purple, blue, yellow and pink. At first, the corral is empty. Somehow the horses know people are coming. It is a small herd but the ground thunders as they gather from distant corners of the pasture. What must have been like to hear the great herds of earlier times! Victor and Jacquie love the horses and their connection to the beginnings of farming in the area. These are the descendents of his father's stock.

Uncle tells us the days were easier then. Unlike tractors, horses had to rest so the farmer got to rest too. Days were shorter and Sunday was a day off for man and beast. Now the farms are enormous, the equipment to run them is huge and complex. The new sprayer seems like some huge transformer folding the spraying arms high against the sky. It is all computerized and controlled by GPS. So sensitive that it knows exactly what has been sprayed and will automatically turn off the nozzles that cover ground for a second time. The new tractor has wheels taller than I and I climbed a ladder into the cab. The red leather armchair is luxurious and well sprung so that the rough ground will not be so noticeable on a day's run. With so much to do, days can get really long when the season demands it.

Jacquie and I spent a day in Saskatoon. On the way we stopped to pick strawberries at a U-Pick. I do the same at home and have to remember the berries are ripe there in early June. I often missed them in Florida where the season is closer to Easter. That is a good indication of the differences south to north! That and the daylight. In Florida, it was getting dark between 8:00 and 9:00 PM. Here the sun is still setting at 10:00 PM and the sky is bright and the birds are singing at 4:00 AM.

The garden is beginning to produce. Jacquie has planted a mixed row of lettuce. What a good idea! If you pick a leaf from this plant and a leaf from that on down the row, you end up with a mixed green salad. Green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, spinach, romaine and curly types fresh as they can be! Add some green onions from another row. Dig some new potatoes. Thin the row of beets for baby beets and greens. What a wonderful treat!

The moon is full this week and the room is bright much of the night. A huge gust of wind buffeted the trailer and woke me. I could see the moon shining brightly to the south. To the north, a line of black clouds seemed to be headed our way. The wind howled. The cloud to cloud lightening put on a spectacular display. Very quickly the clouds covered the moon and I watched as the lightening outlined the darkness. Were we safe in the trailer? Dan had parked so we would be sheltered from the prevailing wind by a huge Quonset hut. The house sits in a clearing on the top of the hill. Perhaps we had the better location. Dan slept on so I decided to stay put and watch. What a show! It was over very quickly - the clouds moved on, the moon came out and all was quiet again.

All too soon it was time to move on again. Now we will be turning west and start heading home.

Settled in Speers

July 4th

We were glad to settle in Speers for a while. We parked on the street outside of Delbert and Sheila's home. In Speers, that is not an issue! It is a very small town, about three blocks square. Everyone knows everyone or soon will.

We arrived on a very pleasant afternoon just as they were trying to construct a new plastic swimming pool for themselves, their children and the grandchildren. The previous pool had collapsed and flooded the back yard. Frequent thunder storms had not helped. It was quite muddy. We joined in and the pool was in place by the end of the day. Unfortunately a connector was cracked right out of the package and would have to be replaced before the pool could be filled. Cool weather continued for the next while so it was not urgent to get it up and running. It was going to need the pool heater before anyone would venture in!

Family members came and went over the next few days and we did a lot of visiting. In this area, most are related on Dan's mother's side. One cousin runs the Post Office in Speers and has a home a few blocks away. We did get to have a short visit while she worked and promised we would stop by the house one evening. We went several times but we think they were peaking through the blinds and would not come to the door as we never actually found them at home! Leroy and Reza crossed our path from time to time. They were staying in nearby Alticane with Aunt and Uncle for the remainder of their time in the area.

Sheila is Dan's cousin. She owns the Oasis Personal Care Home in town and we had the perfect view from the trailer - three blocks straight down the street. It made a very convenient WiFi connection! It soon became apparent it was a convenient hotspot for many people. Cars often came and parked across the railway tracks in front of the care home. It often made Sheila nervous when they stayed late into the evening. Once we explained what all these cars were doing, Delbert decided to add security to the server. The downside was community policing dropped immediately. It appears, the RCMP was also using the hot spot for their laptops and not really patrolling the village as frequently as we thought. Delbert is considering giving them the password, having the RCMP drive through regularly is a good thing!

The Care Home itself is very unusual. It is like an extended family home. We often joined in for meals at the family table, movie or games night in the main dining room, campfire night outdoors in a sheltered treed area or just sat by a guest and had a good visit. There are lots of places to sit indoors or out, in sun or shade. There is a huge vegetable garden, different lawn and flower areas. There is an animal run currently home to donkeys and goats. I was thrilled to see a newborn kid take its first steps while we were there. The varieties of chickens and peacocks fell prey to local red foxes and are no more. One of the guests is a relative from the Dove side. I had more time to get to know Mamie this trip. She was stationed in Ottawa at the end of the war and had some good stories to tell. That is what Sheila enjoys most about her work, the time to listen to her people and hear their stories. Though I have rarely seen her still long enough to get the chance!

I kept Sheila company on trips to the hospital in Hafford and in North Battleford to take care of residents medical issues. Dan and I ran errands to be helpful and got involved in projects where we could. The big one was the children's playground. We managed to turn boxes of wood, plastic, screws and bolts into a really nice "fort" with a climbing wall, slide, swings and a glider! The many children that either belong to employees or visit guests will make good use of it. Sheila's three year old grandson thanked Dan for it on more than one occasion.

Once the playground was complete, Dan and Delbert started to work on an equipment shed. It was about 40 by 60 and 18 feet tall. They were preparing the wall beams to take the rafters. Delbert rode up and down in a "cherry picker" but Dan climbed up and down the framed walls. Good exercise! One day Delbert took Sheila and I up in the basket way above the building and let us take pictures of the home and surrounding area. That was an adventure for two people who are not really fond of heights!

We did some touring as well. One day we found the old New Ottawa town site. Only the old post office building remains - a weathered, wooden ruin in the middle of a Canola field. In contrast, the New Ottawa Cemetery is still beautifully kept and the gates are still in place. It is the cemetery for the Dove side of the family. Grandma and Grandpa Dove are there along with Grandmaís side, the Cox family. Many of the names bring people to my mind and of course many more are real to Dan. Mamie Dove has her place reserved beside her husband who rests there already. It is a small, peaceful place. If the mosquitoes were not so ravenous we would have spent longer tracing the stones back through the years to the beginning of the town. The railway made the big change. The townsite was moved to Speers, buildings and all, when the tracks were laid and Speers was chosen for the station rather than New Ottawa.

Another day we joined Delbert and his granddaughters on a fishing trip to Sandy Lake. They have a trailer and pontoon boat at the lake for the family to use during the summer. Once you leave the Yellowhead highway, most of the roads here are gravel. As we drove north we saw a car sitting in a field and a clear path sideways through the ditch from the road. That must have been a story! We arrived safely at the lake and loaded the day's supplies into the boat. We pulled out of the channel into a surprisingly large lake.

We spent the morning trolling up and down. Dan was the lucky one and pulled in four Northern Pike. Delbert came prepared with a small stove, a frying pan and the appropriate seasonings. He filleted one of the fish and cooked it up right there for our lunch. Now that is fresh!

We picked up Sheila, their daughter and grandson for the afternoon. They drove up to the lake with all the fixings for supper at the campsite. Emily caught a fish too with Grandpa's help. We ended the day with five pike and one pickerel. We were able to add a fish fry to the evening meal! A lovely summer day on the water!