covid – As Far As The Eye Can See

Come on over for a decaf….

Do you have time for an evening coffee? In my case it will have to be decaf.

The windows are open, the birds are chirping a bit, the air is still, it is a gorgeous evening. It is 9:28pm on the longest day of the year. I think I have about a half hour before my pillow and I need each other.

I am missing my blog. I just haven’t made it here too much lately and definitely not for a chatty blog. I like doing those. This is my chance.

We feel like these are good moments we are in. Maybe that’s crazy, considering the fuel bill for last month is a little more than $9,000. Life is kind’ve expensive these days. We carry on. We are counting ourselves blessed in this moment that our dugouts are full, the creek is full, the well is full and the grass is growing quickly. This was a scene we couldn’t imagine last year at this time. Our cow herd is doing really well, gaining some weight back after our tough winter and doing well with pushing out the calves. We are thankful. The last little bit has seen Ron and Russ working on fence repair and construction. Ron has also been attending to machinery upkeep. Russ has been getting cow/calf pairs trucked to their summer pastures. Morgan has been a jack of all trades and recently started doing some horse training. Jill and I are floating around the edges. Jill dives deep when needed. She has had the nerve wracking job of running the controls on the hydraulic chute and continues to be the head castrator on our crew, she is swift and kind. So………….all our skills are being expanded and deepened as we all continue to monitor the calving herd and respond to things.

When we checked cows after church on Sunday we found one abandoned by its Mom in 34 degree heat. It was dehydrated. We kidnapped it and through electrolytes and bottles have him almost thriving again. We have a calf to bottle feed for the foreseeable future, his Mom is AWOL.

Off the ranch Gina has had a great month so far and I am going to write about that a bit more in a few days when we celebrate her 20^th birthday. She arrives into the Regina airport tomorrow and we are sure looking forward to setting our eyes on her.

Jill graduates next week. We have so many different feelings. One of the big ones tonight is concern. Morgan tested positive for Covid this morning. Our hope is that he remains the only case in the house, he works through it and we are all good to attend next week. However, it may unfold in a multitude of ways that mean we will be flexing and bending. I picked up five more boxes of test kits, so we have about 30 tests on hand. That should allow us to test the heck out of ourselves. At this point Morgan is doing well, he has a sore throat and a bit lower energy but otherwise is feeling good.

I have a lot of baking to do in anticipation of next week and today dawned cool and cloudy so it was the day to get at it. I put a mask on and baked away.

Seems like overkill maybe, but peace of mind for me means this is how it looks. I made a puffed wheat cake using a new recipe and put it in a bundt pan. It turned out so well. That kind of stuff excites me. I also made a batch of buns and bowed to peer pressure, (just from Russell), I used a little mini branding iron and pushed our brand into the buns. It didn’t really turn out.

Once they rose the brand became almost invisible. It was worth a try.

When I was a kid our route to the cottage included driving past a pig farm near the Petrofka bridge. It was inconceivable to me that anyone could live with the smell that came from that place. I perhaps was acting like a bit of a snooty city girl. Anyways, its spring on our ranch and Ron started taking care of the manure in our corral today. Our whole yard smells just like that spot on the highway. I never thought I would be a girl with a not-snooty nose, but here I am killing it! The balance to this smell is the heavenly aroma on my kitchen counter from the bouquet of roses that Russ picked me in the pasture. He was thrilled to report the abundance of wild roses found there and took me for a tour later today. The smell is incredible.

We celebrated Father’s Day by attending church together, having lunch out and our good ol cinnamon bun and bacon celebratory meal for Supper. On the way to church everyone answered the question, “what is your favorite memory with Dad/Russ?” At lunch we talked over, “what is something Dad/Russ has set as a good example for me?”. At supper we worked with the question, “what is something you are looking forward to doing with Dad/Russ?” Later on Gina phoned Russ, I was there, Russ put the phone onto speaker phone and I asked her those questions. She indicated that she really liked answering them. Maybe sometimes words can be gifts. (I hope so at least, because Jill was the only one to buy Russell a gift.)

I spent half an hour on the phone yesterday reporting fraud on my credit card. Today I was telling Gina about it, she reminded me that I had given her permission to use my credit card to pay for parking fees at the course she was at. So………..I called the credit card company today and spent half an hour getting the fraud report reversed. Oops. In my defense, Gina was in Vancouver and the line came through on my credit card for “Honk Mobile Toronto” and I had just been in Toronto so it just seemed that these $20 dollar daily charges were a result of my number getting lifted. Nope. Russell did say, “weird that they would steal your card number and then only spend so little.” Yes. Weird. And………..my mistake….again.

Time is up.

I wish I could put into words all the funny stuff that happens.

There is hours I could spend writing about the Tenderlands. I have been struggling. Maybe a few minutes will present itself.

We have some deeply uncertain days ahead.

Mostly, we are well.

Our deepest truth is that we are thankful.

I promise if you were here in person I would not do all the talking like this. I would enjoy hearing about what you are being tested by, what you have been smelling lately and any mistakes you are reckoning with, along with the funniness, gratitude and worry that might be shaping your days.

Our Neck of the Woods

It has been a couple of weeks since a blog post happened. Those kinds of gaps happen for a few reasons, one is being busy, another is a lack of much of interest happening to write about, and sometimes it is that life is complex and the question exists, how do I even start? Alongside that I am new to blogging still and I wonder, what do people want to hear about? So I decided that I would write this for a particular friend, when she sent me a Christmas card this year she told me how much she loves my blog, that it makes her feel closer to me. So, I am picturing having coffee with her as a way to get a little focus to my writing.

The year started very harshly in terms of weather. The main implications of this for us were travel and cows. The kids and I were in Saskatoon for the last days of December, celebrating with my family, it was too cold for Russell to leave the ranch for the couple days he had hoped for. The horrible cold conditions made me anxious about being on the highway but I had the car checked out before we left and then we just did our best and we were fine. This prompted some deep gratitude. It was very important for us to be with the Kyles for a few days of whirlwind visiting, we made some memories. One of the memories of that time that speaks deeply to me happened on the way home. We drove from Saskatoon to Regina with Gina, but in Regina we arrived at the airport just in time to meet Grandma Shirley coming home from her daughters. We lingered in the airport so that Gina and Shirley could visit and then left Gina there to catch her flight home to Victoria. We left Regina about 7pm knowing Gina had a wait. It turned out her plane was very late departing and she celebrated New Years in the Regina airport, doing a countdown among strangers. We drove home in -35 temps with the wind at our back. The windows in the car were not able to stay clear with all the breathing going on and that extreme air on the outside. I was a bit whooped and pretty quiet but as we headed through Bienfait I asked Grandma Shirley a question, “whatcha thinking about Shirley?” She replied, “well I don’t really know, well I guess I’m thinking about just how good you are doing!” She melted my heart. I am 53 years old and I am very well supported in this life, but there perhaps will always be a little girl in me that needs her elder to see her managing something hard and say, “I see that this isn’t easy and I see you and I see that you are doing good.” The comment had more impact than it might have usually because we were surrounded by darkness, Shirley was in the back seat in a cave created by icy windows and out of that darkness her sweet tone of voice carried that message that touched my heart.

At this moment in the arrivals area at the Regina airport I was overcome with pride in Shirley. She has a spirit of adventure and it took her to Red Deer and home again. She did it!

It is so wonderful for my kids to have a Grandma figure in their lives having lost their Nana and Grandma. They are blessed with a few adopted ones.

Coming home we settled in to a news year party that Russell created for us. We got home with less than an hour to go before the new year.

Jill talked Russ through the process of making a cheeseball and he created a cozy celebration for us all to arrive home to.

Then it was back to ranching. The weather was so cold and harsh and our cows struggled. We try to provide shelter for them but there is only so much you can do. They lost weight despite being fed good feed and it was disheartening to say the least. The cold lasted for about 10 more days, just breaking this week. I intend to do a more detailed blog post about being a rancher in these conditions.

In the midst of that need met need. My oldest friend in the world works in leadership in long term care in Saskatoon, her time off is hard to keep as time off. So she jumped in her car and came to see me for a few days. She was away and I had someone who could just roll with whatever the day held. Our time together held some memorable moments, like in the first hour when she presented me with a t shirt to match hers, honoring our favorite singer from our teen years, Whitney Houston.

After a day of coffee, visiting and I will admit some vodka, and visiting, and cooking and kibbutzing with the family who all love her, well we decided to get down to business. Deb has laundry secret skills that gave her the confidence to tackle my laundry room with me. I made her pose with this piece of decor which I purchased long ago when I was optimistic about how effective I could be in there. Deb is in fact the queen of the laundry, so this shot is very apropos.

Deb does alot of Covid testing in her role at Sherbrooke so I was happy for her to give Morgan a test. He was heading to a friends place to sleep over and it seemed wise given everything. Just for the record, the cluttery mess behind has been dealt with.

How lucky to have a friendship that spans almost everything we have been through as women.

Despite Deb’s good listening ear and her gracious heart towards me I am not all good. Despite living with a very accepting and loving husband, I am not all good. I have made a couple of mistakes in the last month that have me reckoning with my feckin humanity. And……….I feel sooooo weird, like the whole world is turned upside down. And……. I think I am coming to terms with a piece of my grief after losing my Mom, that is, that its not like any grief that I have ever experienced before. It sits real deep inside me and from that point shapes my experiences and it is weird. And I am slightly frustrated that it seems to take a long time for me to understand anything about it.

And at the same time babies…………human babies……..a baby born in our family this week. News from school today about teachers that are expecting. And I find myself thrilled that the world is carrying on and people are betting on better days ahead. And best of all, a baby to visit us. Our friends came over this week and during lunch I caught this picture. But later I got to hold that baby, and read to that baby and play a game with that baby. It was so good for my heart. I have never met a baby with such a sense of humor. She laughed so much, it was incredible. We were blessed by her.

A hard thing about this week is that we were to have gone to Victoria today to see Gina in her 2nd year play. We have cancelled our trip. I want to be big and brave and not live in fear but the bottom line is the world is complicated right now and if we are going to spend vacation time and money we want to feel relaxed while doing it. I could say more about Covid, cows, weather, stress, Westjet flight delays and baggage losses we have known, but I’ll just say, we could cancel so we did. We will be watching online tomorrow night. Here is a link if you might like to see what our girl is up to.

Love & Information – Canadian College of Performing Arts (ccpacanada.com)

Back at home…………Jill, Morgan, the dogs and Russ are keeping life very interesting. And its snowing again. Its a pain in the rear but boy oh boy it puts hope in the heart about spring and dugouts and pastures and hayfields.

I make a fairly deadly chicken divine casserole, this night everyone was hoping for the chance to lick out the casserole dish.

Since we are not going to Victoria we are trying to grab some extra ease at home. We lay down this afternoon to listen to an audiobook together, the plan was 30 minutes, I fell asleep. Russ tucked me in with the stuffies we keep in our room. I enjoyed seeing this picture later.

The fact is that we are behind on alot of work because when it was so cold we did the bare minimum outside, so today Russ took advantage of balmy temperatures to bring home the cows who birthed late last year and still have their calves. Morgan, Dawson and Laurie were able to help late in the afternoon. They weaned the calves off of them and we will preg check them soon.

Thanks for following along through the first couple of weeks of 2022. I think we all know that these are very odd days and it is hard to navigate. I have been writing a blog post in my head about hope, that will come soon, I hope. I need to write that for myself. In the meantime I am holding onto every shred of wisdom that I have and that I come upon. A big one is from Father Gregory Boyle who I listen to on Youtube. He is certain that our purpose, our healing and our wholeness all relate to building connection with each other. He calls it kinship. That is part of the reason I write to my friend tonight, to say thank you for the Christmas card, and here is what its like to be human in my neck of the woods. How is it to be human where you live?

Come for Coffee

Yesterday contained no big story to ponder, just a bunch of little things, like a lot of days are. I have found myself thinking, if you, the reader, were to come to our house for coffee (the time will come again I am sure!), what might I tell you about the day here at the ranch?

First I would offer you a drink, which would mean consulting what you want and then standing at my cupboard and carefully picking a mug for you that I think you would like.

My friend Suelynn asked for an update on Pray and Little Prayer, the bovine subjects of yesterday morning’s post. Before I offer that, Suelynn here is the cup I would select for you. Its “Chip” from Beauty and the Beast, I picked it because I thought you would appreciate how fun it is and it reminds me of your support of the kids when they acted in “Beauty and the Beast.”

Things are very well for Pray and her calf “Little Prayer”, it seems that they just needed a little settling down time to get their thoughts and emotions straight. When Russ checked the pasture early yesterday they were together and “Little Prayer” looked well, like she had been getting the milk she needed. By mid morning Russ was bringing several pairs up out of the heifer pasture into the corral so that he could truck them a little further away to our heifer pair pasture. From the kitchen I happened to see this process start and I was able to go out on the deck and get this picture.

I caught sight of Pray as she went by but didn’t get her in this picture, it was quite the transformation from the last time I had seen her.

If Lindsay were to come for coffee we might talk about this blog. She has been super supportive of it. Here is the mug for you Lindsay, with your sense of humor I think you would enjoy this! It was a gift from Jill to Russell.

Its been exciting to be a blogger, the stats page tells me that people are reading it and in the last few days even someone from Ecuador has been checking it out. Lindsay told me in a message that I could describe paint drying and make it captivating. I wonder if she was here with a mug in her hand whether I would tell her about my Sudoku habit and the fact that I finished a super difficult puzzle yesterday. Sudoku is not fun to talk about really, it’s a solitary game with lots of work to it but it is a regular part of my life, and if you drink 8 cups of water in 8 hours you get to visit your book pretty often if you know what I mean! How might I make Sudoku interesting? Maybe by talking about what makes it meaningful to me. Surely that is a big part of making any boring reality less boring. Find the meaning and find the humor. The thing about Sudoku is that there are rules that are always in place, numbers 1-9 in a 9 block square, and in a 9 block row both vertically and horizontally. Always. Nothing will change that. I grew up kind’ve like that, with always kind of rules. Always tell the truth. Never call people names. Be caring. When the world got kinda crazy, when these rules didn’t seem to matter anymore, I needed Sudoku, the rules always are in play and when you follow them everything falls into place eventually. And that ladies and gentlemen is what Sudoku means to me, very tangible order in a disorderly world and therefore stress relief.

If Keith came for coffee I for sure would have to tell him about an episode with Coffee that happened yesterday. I only know this should be visited about because he made an observant comment about that dog of ours sometime in the last week and it stuck in my head. I’m gonna assume he is interested. These moments with Coffee are what got this whole particular post rolling. I had the words “come for coffee” roll through my brain while in a state of amused disgust at what I had just dealt with. What I meant was, someone come and get this dog…….anyone…..anyone?!?!? Its not that bad really…..I made buns yesterday, I had 40 of them cooling on the counter after lunch. I was resting in our room when I heard a funny clatter. It was kindv’e an isolated noise, I thought something must have fallen off a shelf or something. Nope. I rounded the corner and found a cooling rack and 20 buns upside down on the floor. Coffee was backing into the living room and looking truly alarmed. I removed her to the dog room (I was brusk and I had a few words for her) and then assessed the situation. She had eaten a pretty good amount out of two buns. I think she must have hopped on a stool and started while they were still on the counter then accidentally pulled them onto the floor. You probably don’t want to know what I did with the rest of the buns. I can tell you I learned a lesson. Part of that lesson…..its not only humans that like my buns. (Insert sheepish grin at using the corniest and oldest dumb joke that exists in our family.)

Here is the cup I would choose for Keith.

Russ would like to point out Keith that the cow we have named after you is looking ready to calve but has a lingering aura of anger about her after the fight she had with Russ last calving season. He is staying on his toes! Stay tuned.

I need my friend Deb to come for coffee. The friend who has known me since I was 9 has walked with me through everything life has thrown at me. Last night, while just about to get supper on the table, a call from the school informed me that Jillian has been in close contact with a confirmed case of Covid 19. She is now self isolating in her room in the basement. My thoughts are all over the place. It sure makes me appreciate better what people much closer to the action for the whole course of this have been reckoning with. I am second guessing myself and my practices and doing lots of mental gymnastics …. why might she have it, why might she be okay? Based on what she knows she is concerned about where she was sitting in class on Wednesday. I am thankful she is good about wearing her mask. She is such a beauty of a girl, so wise. We found the news hard, it turns your life upside down. We finished supper late, had beer and chips for dessert and went straight to bed.

Liz Griffin took this picture on Oct 31. We had returned from Saskatoon the evening before after my Mom’s funeral on the 29th. We had planned our biggest cow chase of the year for this day. We carried on and with help and strategy we got our crew fed. Having been in many different city locales in the days prior Jill felt certain a mask during food prep was wise.

Out in the fierce wind I took my mask off but Jill was insistent she use hers. This committment of hers is helping me now, giving hope that she will be fine.

My friend Deb has been part of a leadership team guiding a long term care home in Saskatoon through this pandemic. She has maintained a calm and reasonable presence through all that has happened. Deb and I used to drink wickedly strong coffee together but I think herbal tea seems to be more our beverage of choice as we do middle age. Here is a mug for Deb. She loves animals.

I am not sure who wants to hear about the cows. As I write this last bit it’s now May 1st, yesterday we had a humdinger of a day, 25 cows calved. Only two had really special names, Bea and Linda. Bea after my supervisor when I was a student minister and Linda after my sister and 3 other friends. With summer like weather it’s a good time for record setting calving days. We have a big 4 day stretch ahead of us. We are working with our yearlings today, giving them Vit A&D. Tomorrow we start putting cows and calves through to install tags, give vitamin and vaccine needles, castrate bull calves, and brand the calves. This is hard and time consuming work and we will be sorely missing Gina and Jill. Monday we will continue. Tuesday we are starting to truck pairs to their permanent summer pastures. Russ is using his incredible skills with strategy to manage alot of variables. Its dry, it’s been cold, grass is not growing yet, hay supply is getting low, dugouts are extremely low and new cow calf pairs are coming quickly and need a place to go when done in the calving pasture (like a maternity unit). We are hoping to have 120 pairs moved by bedtime Tuesday. I am not sure what will happen with the blog over these days.

Now regarding coming for coffee at our house. Russell would like you to know that if he is in charge in the kitchen when you come you can expect to be served instant coffee. That is his hot beverage passion. I serve pressed coffee from ground beans. We have at least 12 kinds of tea and hot chocolate. We do aim to please so don’t be scared to come if you hate instant coffee.

You have stories too. What are you seeing? How are you feeling? What are you grateful for? What is hard? What made you laugh lately? The best coffee dates go back and forth, I see you, you see me. Blogging means you basically hear my stories. Your stories matter alot and I promise that on that great day when we easily travel and gather again I will listen (once our mugs are full and in our hands).