Category: Uncategorized
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Goodbye 2018
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” ― T.S. Eliot The last day of the year, a day traditionally given over to reflections about the past. For us, 2018 was all about reflections on the…
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Little Trees and Vinarterta
At the home I lived in for thirty-seven years, I had a seven foot Christmas tree. It took up a great deal of space in my living room and I had to stand on a chair to place the angel on top. The tree came in three parts and the lights had to be connected…
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Some things I am thankful for
SNOW – even if I don’t appreciate it falling in October. I am thankful that the part of the world I live in experiences the four seasons with such clarity of separation. I am grateful that snow plowing and removal will no longer be one of our winter chores. BARN CATS – even if ours…
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Autumn equinox – winter style
At an auction sale in Hamiota, MB, we looked out the windows to see fat snowflakes floating down. By the end of the sale, the ground was covered. The flowers in the hanging pots and planters around town were still blooming, but they were covered in snow. We drove out of it as we went…
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Summer’s end
It happens every year. You’d think I would learn. In August, when both young and mature hummingbirds are at the feeder, I cannot keep up with the demand. I am boiling sugar water at all hours of the day and night. We try to count the birds frenziedly fighting for space at the feeder.…
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Farewells
We said goodbye to our dog Zipper last week. She was over thirteen, more than ninety-one years old in dog years, and had lived a good life. But she was deaf now and had a cancerous growth in one eye. She could no longer get up the stairs to our front door or the deck and she…
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Crime Stopper edition
While digging through tubs of old papers, I found a letter handwritten on bright yellow paper with the Manitoba Crime Stoppers logo. “It was with pleasure and surprise that we read your story about The Little Boy answering the phone by asking if the person calling was reporting crime to the “Crime Stoppers”. We were…
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FOURTEEN DEER
I can count fourteen deer in the field across the road. With the aid of binoculars, I can see them more clearly. But without a zoom lens on my camera, I cannot capture their shapes as anything more than dots on the landscape. They have been here for three days now, dining on the leftovers…
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Past the Ides of March and on towards Spring
Many years ago, in the days when I was writing a weekly column for a local newspaper, I devoted several paragraphs to the arduous task of reading the hydro meter in winter. Depending on the winter snowfall, it really could feel like a climb up Mount Everest. I remember climbing the pile of snow, which…
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Dreaming of a February thaw
My Christmas cactus is ahead of its time. It bloomed six weeks before Christmas and now it is blooming again six weeks before Easter. It does this quite consistently from year to year. I know that I might be able to change the timing by changes to watering, location and temperature, but I am content…
Rural Routes, Blog Version 