Join me in exploring the life, animals and people found on a Canadian ranch.
Author Archives: kathyseeking
I grew up in the city, had some adventures and education and through some pretty cool turns of events ended up on a ranch near a small town with my husband, three children and many animals. I am a minister by training but currently my life revolves around our ranch and the people here. I feel comfortable talking about my inner world, my observations about the world, and what I find meaningful. I am not so comfortable revealing how the details of life get out of hand. For example, I ponder "How does my kitchen get this messy?" and "Can I post this picture where I look like this?" I have areas where I do image management but my goal with my blog is to be as real as possible, with the hope that it connects to others and maybe we can all feel less alone in our struggles and challenges and our everyday joys.
Happy Easter to you. It’s a different kind of Easter for us due to weather. Things are going well despite the 6″ of predicted snow we are currently receiving. These are unusual days that’s for sure.
In 2020 when Covid was a new reality and I was still actively ministering we hosted a sunrise service at the calving pasture and cowboy cottage. Using Facebook we shared that with the congregations and with our Facebook friends. This picture was taken at that time.
I am a bit sentimental about that day and that experience. It was really special. It was on my mind as this Easter has rolled around. So this morning I headed out to check the heifers with Russell and then went to the calving pasture with him for his first check of the day.
When we walked through the heifers we found that “Grill” had her baby overnight. I gave her some space and have a pretty fuzzy picture as a result.
In going for the check with Russ I think I just wanted to see what it was going to feel like out there. I decided to make a video of our tour through the cows. It is about 12 minutes, I divided it into 3 sections. It is not exciting but like yesterday’s video it is an experience of nature. If you like cows, or you like Russell, or you are a bit curious about ranch stuff we invite you to take an early morning Easter walk with us.
Video #1Video # 2Video #3
I think what I noticed at the calving yard was a feeling of joy busting through. Maybe because of Russell’s bond with the cows, my own sense of friendship with the cows and the names that mean alot to us, the people they remind us of. It was cold and snowy but friendship transformed the walk.
When we got back the snow started falling heavier. We had a cow calf mystery to deal with, involving “Maui”, and regular chores to do. It all conspired to make us decide we were not going to Church. Yet another aspect of a different kind of Easter.
Here are a bunch of silly photos that gave us joy today. Our animals are really there for us.
BusterCoffeeBingoJill and CoffeeWhen it’s phone time, Coffee dog has her distraction too.My workshop.Not sure what to say about those ears!Maddie Bingo….the master of side-eye.
We Saskatchewan folks and many everywhere are pretty weary, so many circumstances have been hard for almost everyone for a long time. We need the truth of Easter. The joy that busts through clouds. The life that defeats death and despair. The love that heals hatred and division. The power that banishes fear. I am so very thankful to God for the promise and the delivery of all that. May we all have a blessed Easter.🌤💒🌷🦋🕊
The morning sun on the cows in the calving yard when Russ did his first check of the day.
What a difference a few days can make. Today it was sunny, very unseasonably cold but quite still. Birds were singing. It felt good. Russ invited me out to the calving pasture to stand on the porch of the cowboy cottage and photograph the day end round up, when the cows that had been spread across a quarter section were moved into the calving yard for the night. I decided to video tape it and I decided to share it because if you like or are curious about cows, if you like nature sights and sounds, if you like the feeling of getting a job done, if you like cowboy action you might just enjoy this. It is an almost seven minute video, so be aware of that as you click on it. Its slow paced and peaceful with only one dog on duty for a reason, they were working to keep back the cow calf pairs from the last couple of days. Its best to keep the calves out of the more crowded calving yard. its best for everyone if the Mama cows don’t get stirred up by a high intensity chase.
We had a few births today and all went well. Stephanie, Fritter (a first calf heifer), Pray (a 2nd calf heifer who starred in a blog last year called “Praying Games”), Cuddle (a 2nd calf heifer), Osprey and Vietnam all calved today. Maui looked like she was going to calve soon when Morgan last saw her. So things are perking along.
Our dishwasher broke the day before the blizzard, its almost 8 years old so I don’t think I am going to try and get it repaired. I spent a good chunk of time today researching dishwashers, I was like a dog with a bone. I felt driven by this notion that the perfect combination of price point, features and availability was going to be discovered. Alas, I get the feeling that when it comes to appliances there are no sure things What I am learning is that we were fortunate to get 7.5 trouble free years out of this one.
As we head to bed tonight we are expecting a visit from the Easter Bunny and will rise to the Easter morning victory of life over death. That translates for me into the challenge to be a follower of Jesus and join him in living the truth that love has the power to conquer fear and hate. I find its a great way to live. Our ability to get to church to celebrate all of this will be determined by just how much snow falls overnight. We are predicted to get another 6″ by lunch time tomorrow. It could make travel and working with calves tricky. We will see what tomorrow holds.
Things have settled down with the end of the blizzard. However as cold temperatures linger and we work with the snow that fell we are mighty grateful that calving has not kicked into high gear. One day last year we had 25 calves in one day. Those stats during a week like this one would just about kill us perhaps.
Russ made it one of his first jobs of today to get my vehicle dug out so I could make it to the Good Friday service in Oxbow where I helped with the music.
We have had a story develop with an unusual twist. Yesterday Russell and Morgan were working at the calving pasture when they thought they heard a calf bawling. Did they? They became as still as they could and listened hard….yes, they did hear that and it was near enough to be one of ours. The hunt began. The calf was located in the trees, by itself, hungry, cold, licked off. It had been abandoned it seemed. Russ phoned me to tell me the news and ask me to prepare the dog room for the arrival of a cold calf. Further phone calls had the two of us going back and forth on the best plan….. the bottom line, this calf was big, too big for Russ to want to carry it up the stairs and into the house, after riding around in the back of the truck it was warming up well, it maybe didn’t need the house. In the end I made a bottle for it and Jill went out and fed it in the truck. Russ took a video. If you ever wondered how a lively calf handles the back seat of a truck here is a glimpse.
After the calf mostly guzzled this dose of colostrum Russ then took it to the pen where he had a cow he thought was calving. He had brought her home to shelter given this strong suspicion he had. Was this in fact the calf’s Mom? Had he missed some key moments and read the signs wrong? I wondered if she maybe was in the midst of having twins. There was much confusion. Once the calf was placed in with the cow named “Hungary” a good connection was made, Hungary was not thrilled with feeding this calf but the calf sought her out and Hungary let that calf suck. Russ was stumped about what the whole story was.
This morning Russ came in to bring me a cup of tea and said I have good news and bad news. As I tried to open my eyes I was thinking, “oh no….bad news…..oh jeez….what?” The bad news was that Knightwing our guard dog had come in the house and threw up on the kitchen floor. Russ assured me it was just disgusting and he could not deal with it and he was so sorry. It turned out to be no big deal of a clean up for me, which meant the bad news was nothing to ruffle a feather over. Hallelujah. That is a word I should not be thinking on Good Friday, but I have heard way too much bad news in recent years and I am always ever so grateful when it is not a big deal. The good news was that Hungary had birthed herself a calf overnight. She was continuing to care for the abandoned calf and take care of her own. What a trooper. But heres the thing, Hungary has quite a back story with our ranch. Russ wondered if I could search his Facebook profile for stories of Hungary, I knew how to do that. In a few seconds I had the stories he was thinking of in front of me. Here are the screen shots of what we looked at.
This is so ridiculous and not admirable but Russell remembers feeling so frustrated by how things were going at the chute this particular day. It was at a time when he had seen these pet shaming posts on Facebook which were very ridiculous in his mind, admittedly it is a mind that can stir up a lot of goofy stuff, so for him to be pushed to the point where he thinks silly is stupid but then he actually imitates it tells you how frustrated he was, he was desperate to create some fun in a hard work day.
The story became a good news one the following year and Russ and Jill followed up on Facebook……
The thumbnail pictures seen here are below.We still had the same box in the shed so Jill posed with the old sign and then……The good news on the reverse side of the same box.Hungary’s baby in the foreground.
Two years later its another happy chapter in Hungary’s story with us……
And here she is mothering two, one her own and one a mystery baby. What a comeback story! I can only imagine the sign that Jill and Russ will come up with for this year when she comes through the chute for her vitamins and vaccines.
So that is the developing good news story about Hungary!
In other news………last night Morgan and Russ stripped down to their base layer at supper time, getting rid of the outer layers helps the heat get to them more quickly. It was with a good deal of enjoyment they discovered they were “twinning” and this photo was taken.
We are all exhausted. Wednesday was a big deal in so many ways and we have these colds that seem to get better and then get worse when we are stressed, its like they are playing a game with us. Yesterday was the worst of the storm I have cause to believe and we made it through without losing a cow or a calf or power. That is a statement that comes with much gratitude. You wonder how the cows can stand having their bodies caked with snow like that, but they do. We had six calves born yesterday and they all survived. That was helped in large part by the persistence of our hired man Ron who rose to the challenge of scouring the calving yard when Russ was busy with other calves. The snow had accumulated to the point where a poor fence and the snow together meant cows went where they were not meant to, two of them snuck in and calved in a treed area which was tough for Russell to safely navigate should the Mama’s get mad. In the end, calves were retrieved and brought back to the barn with their Mamas and no one got hurt.
Other news flowing from yesterday was that Russell especially felt super supported by our broader circle. There were many ways this happened, funny memes sent to him, earnest texts of concern and phone calls to check in and offer help. Humor when mistakes were made, like Russell clicking on the wrong pictures when he was sending a message and sending pictures of ear lobes in my family to friends who earnestly tried to figure out what ear lobes had to do with ranching in a blizzard, (it was my Mom’s heavenly 85th birthday and various family members wore her jewellery and submitted pictures to the family chat in her honor.) That heart level support means so much to Russ.
The other big deal is that my cousin’s media connections meant that I was called by CBC radio and asked if I would speak on their lunch hour call in show. I said sure. One thing led to another. They asked for videos and by the end of the day besides being on the noon show Morgan was featured on the CBC Saskatchewan web page, I was on the national radio news and the national TV news by night time. This was distracting, fun, flattering and startling. As Russ and I were snuggled in last night I was decompressing, asking, “how many thousands of people saw my face today? Weird, on a day when you are expecting total isolation!”
I have many captioned pictures and some video to share. Its maybe going to feel like a lot. Sorry. I just couldn’t leave things out, because of course to me, they are my people and the animals I respect so much for so many reasons. (To see the videos click on the arrow in the centre of the preview picture.)
Russ called me to come help get him backed up to the corral and into position to safely unload cows and calves he was bringing home from the pasture. These calves were mostly a few days old but their Moms were not using shelter like they could and the calves were suffering. In this moment my job was to make sure the cows didn’t turn back on Russ and get aggressive for messing with their babies. They didn’t.Russ and Ron got the cows and calves moved through the first pen while I closed the gate. Morg had been taking one of the calves to the house for me to work on. He caught up here.They were getting the group moved up and into this shelter, the calves took some urging.Safely inside.10:34am – these guys are a great crew.I am taller than Russ but here was standing on snow that elevated the difference. On my way back to the house from the corral job my phone rang. It was a Regina number. I answered. It was CBC radio, wondering if they could talk with me during their noon call in show. I agreed, and as we chatted and more background info was being shared I was on speakerphone taking off my layers and dealing with what was going on in the house which was Coffee dog thinking she should lick off the calf Morgan had just deposited for me to deal with. So I’m talking to this important CBC person and saying “excuse me I just need to deal with something, “Coffee stop licking, heel Coffee!” Russ and I had already decided that we didn’t want dog scent on the calves for fear that the Moms would reject them. Unfortunately that made it into the news broadcast nationally, but in the wrong context, we are not generally worried about Mom’s rejecting after a brief period of separation.This girl was wet and dirty and needed a good dose of TLC.
CBC asked me to send in video coverage of what we were seeing. This is one video I sent them, it has been seen by thousands on the CBC page and I feel a bit bad that it is misleading. It was not that white out. Somehow the camera, on normal setting, really amplified the effect of the white of the snow. It was bad visibility no doubt, but not this bad.The scene at lunch. Men dealing with various issues of recharge.
This video comes with a language warning. Russ and I both swear. It features our cow Mo and her baby. If you don’t see the arrow to click just double click anywhere on the picture.Morgan asked if we could call this calf “Scott” in honor of our premier who is Scott Moe, Morgan is a Scott Moe fan and Scott is now the official name of this calf. The cow is named Mo after a friend of mine from Up With People. We worked closely together in my year on the road. Mo went on to become a Jewish Rabbi in New York City and I am a United Church minister. Having the cows named like this helps our sense of connection to the world near and far from us.This is Frankie and her calf. Frankie calved in the blizzard while wee were having our lunch. She got her calf licked off and up and sucking on her own and needed no further help except this shelter in our barn. We are super impressed with Frankie.Loyal dogs.Russ brought the horses home from the pasture for a rest and a better place to get warm then the back of the trailer.Much respect for these veterans of blizzard life.
My niece asked me to video a little bit about Jill checking the heifers. I am glad to share a little bit about heifer life and Jill on the job with them.They broke out and into the storage part of the shed. How weird to see our summer stuff as their hang out zone in a blizzard. They are longing for summer too!Jill with the heifers at their feed. Earlier in the afternoon she had done alot of baking for us. With fear of a power outage we were glad to have muffins, squares and ginger cookies tucked away. Ron loves ginger cookies, I asked Jill to make them for him, he is going above and beyond.This is our heifer named “Flour”. All of this years bred heifers’ are named after kitchen words. This heifer looks caked in flour. This picture highlights what is the worst part of this storm and that is suffering. I don’t think she is suffering too hard, she chose to be out there for a while, but all the animals, people and especially the newborn calves that simply have to persist amid what is harsh and at times life threateningly dangerous is just hard to think about or experience alongside. When we can pull our heads away from our own worries we sure find ourselves talking about our friends and neighbors in the same boat we are in. Suffering happens in many ways.This is the back part of our working area in the pole shed. That must have been some mighty odd wind to sweep snow this far into the building. It instantly made me think of Narnia.
A little comedy at the end of the day.
This is the address for the news clip I was featured on last night. I don’t know how to make it into a link. However if you want to view it paste and copy it into a browser and you will see it…..I think.
Its Wednesday morning, we are about sixteen hours into the active weather that we are reckoning with and we got through our first night. Yesterday was a good day, very unusual and heartwarming. The pictures I have here are meant to tell the tale of life to this point.
Just a goofy one to start off. I guess Russ is saving his warm boots for when things get really bad, but he pulled up to me on his horse when I saw him late in the afternoon yesterday and said, “do you think we should start a ‘go fund me’ so I can get new boots? I thought “maybe no!” to that question.Our day started off very normally in some ways, getting to the chores of the day, Russ suggested we eat brunch in town while there to get vet supplies for the days ahead. We lingered long at the restaurant when friends came in for their lunch and joined us. It was nice to live some very normal moments. A box waiting for me at the post office included the children’s book Russ is holding. I had just read it to him while we drove home, we both loved it, it was funny and creative. Plan to hear it read to you at a fall cow chase supper if you are part of the crew.While at the restaurant we sat with a notebook and brainstormed every item we could need at the cottage. When our friends joined us they added a couple items to the list. It was pretty comprehensive. My main worry was water, because I needed containers for the house and cottage. Once home I stumbled on this container that I have never used on the trail and was tempted to give away. I forgot I had it. I was so proud of myself for the wash station I could create. This is wash water on tap, with face cloths and hand towels on the rungs and wash pails under neath the stool. The stool came from my home in Saskatoon, I think of it as my Dad’s stool, he spent much time perched on it chatting with Mom in the kitchen in later years. I use it for music gigs. It comforts me to have this used for another great purpose.Firewood in place in the cowboy cottage.The cottage as I left it, prepped for use. What would they call this on MASH? This was taken at 5:30 yesterday. As I came out of the cottage Russ and Morgan were arriving to round up the herd and tuck them into the calving yard, a corner of the calving pasture that has shelter on three sides and is right beside the cowboy cottage.Morgan getting his tack in place and while the horse was antsy, Morgan was calm as a cucumber. He is not upset about his days in grade 9 being cut short by the school closure announced earlier this day.After supper Morgan and I whipped back to the cottage because I had forgotten to take Russell’s changes of clothes with me earlier. The snow had started two hours earlier but had not yet accumulated to much at this point.I awoke at 7:05 today when Russ phoned. He had checked the heifers in the shed here and no calves had been born overnight. He told me he had a chat with them, they are to hold on til next Wednesday when it is finally seasonally warm. Lets see if they listen. Heifers are new Mom’s, they can have trouble with birthing as its their first time. We have 57, three have calved, we have many to go. Russ was with the rest of the herd and found this calf, it had been licked off, maybe by its Mom but then abandoned and it was cold and wet. So as I sit here and write, I have done a few minutes sitting with my hands over its tail and ears hoping to Morg came in this morning to get his chaps.The view here an hour and a half ago. The drifts in front of the cars have accumulated quite a bit since then. The wind is clearing the roads so far so we have been able to travel back and forth to the pasture so far today.
Russ called a few minutes ago. He has two more calves to bring me so I am signing off. However, the heartwarming part of yesterday was all the messages of concern, promises of prayer and offers of help we received. It helped us feel so much less isolated. From Victoria to Halifax and Saskatoon to Florida, we have faces and loving hearts to consider as we take each step through these days. God bless us all.
As I sit to write tonight it is with a bit of disappointment that six days have passed since I last was here. I wanted to be more regular. It has been a full week and a good week. We have had a really slow start to our calving season, and right now that is maybe okay. We have eleven calves so far. Our first one to need the in house obstretics unit happened today.
The big story tonight is that we are gearing up for a blizzard that is possibly going to be quite epic. We are told to expect extended power outages, a massive accumulation of snow, horrible winds, school and road closures and no sunshine for four full days. We are likely to have as many as 30 calves born in this time, I am guessing.
It is hard to get my head around this. It was a beautiful night tonight, a bit cool but rather still and peaceful. Its hard to believe that such conditions, which are sure to be among the most trying we have seen, are just around the corner.
We are trying to prepare. Things are to begin after lunch tomorrow (Tuesday). This is the kind of event that our cowboy cottage was created for. It is in place in the calving pasture. I am not sure how it will end up being needed but it can house humans overnight, provide them a place to change clothes and get fed. It can be a place to warm up calves and hopefully save several. In my mind I see Russ and Morgan staying there for a couple days and Jill, Ron and I keeping things steady on the homefront and calving out the heifers that will be here in the poleshed. I have no idea if that is how it will go or not. I sound braver than I am. I am not equipped to calve out cows, but necessity is the mother of invention, and with Ron’s experience perhaps we can teamwork our way through all of this.
Here are a few pictures from today.
Morgan carrying in today’s calf in need of help. This is the daughter of our heifer cow named “Raisin”. She was a very little peanut, not much bigger than our dogs. Her Mama’s instincts didn’t kick in right away.Jill hanging out with our wee girl.Her back legs were not working great, they had not been licked off properly so the stimulation of that had not happened. Jill and I rubbed them down alot to get her to this point and still she could not coordinate those legs.She is looking better and Jill carried her back to the shed and to her Mama. Raisin was not interested in her at all, I was disheartened. I called Russ for advice. He told me, “set her in the centre of the pen and leave, let her circle her and decide for herself that is hers.” I was thoroughly unconvinced that was a good idea. It seemed negligent. However…….An hour after Jill and I delivered her to the shed I got this text from Russ as I was helping to M.C. the music festival event in town. In the attached picture Raisin and her calf appear to be tight. I appreciated the update alot, but mostly I was glad to get that encouragement and affirmation.Russ and Morgan went over to the cottage and checked out its readiness. This is the wood stove that is going to be a saving grace.They got the calving herd locked up in a sheltered area which allows close monitoring and some protection. They can be seen through the north window in the cowboy cottage.Morgan chopped extra wood in readiness.
I hope that I can keep checking in each day as this unfolds.
Please pray for us. We will need strength and courage and wits. We will need to keep ourselves safe and of course as many of our bovine friends as we possibly can.
Two days ago I reported on the blog that we had our first calf of the season. That wee one is still our only calf. Russ went all day without seeing it yesterday but came home in the evening feeling easy. He said the Mama, our cow named “Even” (the Norwegian form of Evan, named after a friend of mine in my Up With People cast) had her calf stashed somewhere. “How do you know its not dead?” I asked. “I can tell by how she is acting, everything is fine.” This morning he came in while the kids were having breakfast and reported that he had seen Even’s calf and it was doing very well and is oh so cute, so small it can practically walk under its Mom’s stomach. I felt impressed with Russ’s accurate read of the situation yesterday.
This morning when Russ went to put the dogs out he found it had rained. A sound of jubilation came from the porch. In fact, it has turned into a rainy, at times snowy kind of day. I had hoped to sit at my desk this morning but when Russ cited the weather as a good reason to go to town for breakfast, I agreed. We got a couple of crucial errands done and had some very good visiting with a friend we ran into at the restaurant. We have travelled wide in the last month and never have found a breakfast better than the one we enjoy at the Flying M Diner. We checked the cows on the way home and found no new calves, though some pretty full looking girls were grazing. We sure love seeing our cows looking content, they have put in such a winter, I made sure to tell then how impressed I was with them when I saw them today.
Here are a few pictures of how things look on Day 3.
Muddy….it’s a sight for sore eyes.Coffee dog takes cows checking seriously.Our cow Jodi is looking well.Here is our cow named “Cowabunga” at a spot in the pasture that collects water at times. Russell calls it Lake Katherine. Today Russell told me this cow loves it when people shout her name out loud.🤣The cows are just hanging out today. That’s Kathy with bedding in her mouth. The Cowboy cottage in its official spot for calving season.Yesterday it was moved from the yard to the pasture.
When we got back from town we got down to doing some inventory and getting a list ready for our order from the vet clinic. We were assessing what we need for tags, vaccines, vitamins, rings, and ralgro. Russ is struggling with his glasses prescription at this point so asked me to read the expiry date on a bottle of vaccine. It was June 2022. “That is this year right?” was Russell’s response when I informed him of the date. I looked at him funny. Trying to normalize his fuzziness about this a bit I said, “Covid makes time all wonky doesn’t it?” He said, “nah, I have never been good with dates. I still write 1988 on cheques sometimes!” Oh Russell……you keep us giggling. Russell would like to report in that on day 3 of calving he has just had a haircut, he is clean shaven and as rested as he will be for a while. There is sure to be some changes to this status as the season unfolds, but for now he headed out the door for afternoon work feeling pretty fine in clean laundry.
Today we are thankful for every drop of moisture we have received, for good coffee and for friendship.
The men of this ranch are watching “City Slickers”. It’s a fun movie. I am hunkered down beside them, fighting a cold, not in the mood for a movie, so maybe a quick blog is in order. Things are a little lighter around here lately. We have been looking up literally and in our spirits. Some pictures tell the story.
Russ, Morgan, and Ron were the main crew who got a new sign installed this weekend.The old signs were more weather damaged than we realized and much of the info on them is different now. After much figuring out work it was Morgan and Russ who went high to get the sign placed while Ron ran the skidsteer.In the end they needed extra help to hoist the sign up and get it wedged in. Rev. Kyle was summoned up. Russ met the man who did our sign at Agribition. Rick from High Plains signs and I consulted to get this design figured out. We really like it.Russ replaced our Canadian flag. The old one was in terrible frayed condition. It told a tale of the horrible winter it witnessed. This fresh flag and the full pond behind it have us looking up with more hope within than we have known for a while.And last but not least…..we had our first calf today. This is Even the cow and a small but feisty calf. A new season has begun!
Sitting among the spectators in the Carnduff school gym on Tuesday night it was incredibly obvious that something very special was happening. Three strands of story were coming together to create a sturdy net, catching our community in its fold. It was the “Feel the Heat” challenge, the Carnduff Fire Department playing against the CEC Sr. Boys basketball team, as the evening unfolded it became clear that we all won just by having the chance to be there.
A post game picture of the teams.
The home team has a short history. For the first time in 20 years the Carnduff school has put together a seniors boys basketball team. With little experience, aside from a few members who have played with other teams, they came in as the underdogs in every league game. With unswerving enthusiasm, growing skill and good sportsmanship they tackled each game, however there was not a game victory to be had. This was the backstory for the home team part of the net being woven this night.
The guests on the court were men aged 19 to fifty something and one female firefighter. They are the men and woman we call in some of our most vulnerable moments, and they rise to the task with resolve and skill every time. They are a group who bring out deep feelings of gratitude and admiration from the community. On this night they rose to the challenge put before them and showed up to the game with smiles, easy going spirits, hard running efforts and a few unforgettable fashion statements.
The third strand of the story was this moment in time we are living. A community that has not had many opportunities to gather for fun in a long time was more than ready for what this night held. A hearty mix of things that are good for the soul was being caught up in that net. There was much laughter, delight, awe, and cheering that crossed team lines, all through the game. It felt good……very good, with the only obvious downside being the possibility of some sore muscles come morning. The audience that filled nearly every spare and safe spot in the gym had a great time.
So what happened? The boys basketball team ended their season with the taste of victory. They beat the firefighters, in a match that was never considered close in terms of score, but in terms of effort, the firemen really outdid themselves.
What victory looks like.
There were so many things that people might be talking about or posting to social media as they do the replay of what we saw and heard at this inaugural “feel the heat” challenge.
There will be much amusement in recollecting the uniform of fire chief Clint Paton. Decked out in a neon orange headband, black tights of some kind with knee length shorts overtop, neon orange socks and last but not least croc sandals, (in sports mode), he made a statement as soon as he entered the gym. We all cheered when Clint sunk a basket.
Those who love to see good basketball form will be delighting over the magic as Raf dribbled the ball, as if he was an elusive fly, always close but not stoppable, encountering every member of the firemans team within seconds it seemed, and moving right past them to get that ball one way or another into the key for CEC or the hands of a teammate .
There is so much action and some definite smiles going on here as Raf deals with this ball.
In the crowd it was a remarkable night for a few reasons. Its not very often that spectators in the stands at CEC are heard yelling out, “you got this Dad!” That was the nature of much of the cheering and the signs seen. Before the game one of the CEC basketball team was told by his father “pay attention, cause when the ol’ guys get tired they are going to start playing dirty and rough.” It wasn’t far from the truth. It was a more aggressive game than usual and rules became quite flexible as time went on. In the last minute of the game the firemen had eight players on the court to CEC’s traditional 5. No one was offended. It was funny and seemed symbolic of their all in spirit for this game. The crowd was privy to a very relaxed approach to the art of basketball.
Seven firefighters are seen playing in this shot!
Here a few other great moments caught on film…..
Jenn Meredith jumps high and gives the firefighters an awesome chance to get the play here.There are alot of feet off the ground in this moment.I think Barrett Paton should get an award for this moment.
Thinking back over what we experienced in the CEC gym on Tuesday night, it just doesn’t seem possible to say that anyone walked away having lost anything, we were all winners.
Something I think about often enough is how powerful it is, how good it is, when you experience people being themselves, even when and maybe especially when they are quite unique. Being at the Elton John concert brought that to my mind again for a couple reasons. One of the obvious reasons would be Elton John’s flamboyant ways. I don’t need to spend words evoking what I mean, the glasses, the feathers, the shoes, the sparkles, the crazy antics at the piano…………greatly subdued as they were in this concert, it was still a force somehow. Anyhow, what a gift to the world that he did not tie himself in knots trying to fit into the box that society would have deemed appopriate for him. Our lives are better because he had the courage to be himself.
The thing that dawned on me through the concert was the delight created by the antics of one of the drummers. He was seated at the highest point of the stage, wearing a bright white shirt. He often played a tambourine and it was really awesome to see how he let the music flow through him, he moved his arms in big and rhythmic ways creating a side show to Elton’s main act. It could be seen from a distance but with the benefit of the camerawork we had closeups of this action and the joy that sourced it. It was great. We all went home talking about that guy. I believe he is one of the band members that has been with Elton since the 70s. I wonder if he let himself be so expressive in the early years. I am not sure what the journey has been for this guy but at this stage he served as another example to me of “be yourself Kathy.”
The drummer at a moment he was featured on the large screen.
There is a bit of a tension within me, you cannot even imagine how much I long to be seen as an appropriate member of society. I am a people pleaser and I want to be seen as normal. There are decisions I have made and actions I have taken that are a little bit on the edge, those were very hard for me. The most obvious one was the decision to not be a career girl based on the education I had acquired and instead to live the rural life. Smaller decisions about being “out there” or sheltering myself happen regularly.
A recent example of this is something I was holding onto as a fun and important conversation with Russell but I wasn’t sure where to put it. Elton and the drummer set the stage for real.
A few months ago I started using Facebook differently. Following more groups and doing less with my newsfeed. One odd thing led to another. Liking a post about pyrex bowls somehow led me, click by click, to be a part of a group that likes mid century modern architecture. I can waste alot of time looking at shared real estate listings for these homes built in the 1950s and 60s, with lots of windows, stone, woodwork and built-in cabinetry. I am very very drawn to the varied ways this style works itself out. I am also drawn to the comments section where people ooh and aahh over the decor of that time, especially pink tiled bathrooms. I don’t share that particular excitement but its fun to read about.
One day I was pondering why I like these posts so much, why I am drawn to this style. It clicked. Growing up we visited my Aunt and Uncle in their home which is mid century modern architecture. I enjoyed these visits. As a young adult I was welcomed by them and later when I brought kids along we were kindly entertained amid the generous amount of light and warm wood accents that were a part of their home. The magic quality of the space of my childhood was still present decades later.
I thought this connection I had made in my brain was kindv’e important. I wondered, “should I put this into a note and send it to my uncle and aunt?” Why shouldn’t I? Well, my aunt and uncle are very classy people, they have spent their lives committed to matters of substance, committed to understanding depths of politics and history, appreciating classical music, art and literature, appreciating beauty. How would some silly anecdote from their niece land in the midst of all that fills their world? I decided to do it. Perhaps because I have lost both my parents I need my aunt and uncle more than I used to. I still need elders. It wasn’t a risk to send the note, not really, but it wasn’t exactly normal either, some note out of the blue saying, “I just realized I have always loved your house.” I sent it. A month later Russ and I were in the city for appointments and we stopped in for coffee. Due to Covid it had been a long time since we had been there. It was wonderful to be in their midst again. As we settled in my uncle pulled out his ipad, he had something to show me. It was an advertisement for the floor plan they had selected for the construction of their home, all those years ago. That in itself was interesting and led to more conversation about their home and homes like it. I received the message, unspoken, “I am glad you sent that note.”
After we left I said to Russ, “That was great! My favorite part was that picture, it was cued up, ready to show me, that note I sent meant something, I’m glad I sent it, as weird as I thought it was.” Russell’s response was immediate, it struck me so much I tapped it into my phone and texted it back to him, he said, “do you wanna be a stranger or do you want to let people know how kooky you are about certain things.” I don’t want to be a stranger, especially to my people, my aunt and uncle are my people and I am thankful for that. I took Russell’s shared wisdom as another anecdote to strengthen the message, “be yourself Kathy, don’t worry about seeming different, let what is within you flow.” I need to make this decision almost every day, to just be myself, even if I appear different.
A long time ago I was going through some tough times, I went to see a priest. His job was to listen to me. He heard what I had to say and delivered this nugget of wisdom that I think about so often, he said, “our hope lies in being who we are.” As every year passes I get what he was saying more and more. The world is especially beautiful, interesting and whole when people are free to be themselves, their quirky selves. I am thankful to Elton, that man on drums and to Russ for giving me more vivid ways to image and embrace this fact.
As Far As The Eye Can See 