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Of monsters and angels and things inbetween
Jager, our sixteen-month-old dog, has discovered that cookies taste good. So far we haven’t found any that he won’t eat. Put a hand in the cookie jar and he is there at your feet. Bring up frozen cookies from the basement freezer and he is waiting at the top of the stairs. If both my husband and I are…
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Baby dolls and maple leaves
My husband and I went to an auction sale last weekend. On display were tables of glassware and collectibles and rows of antique and vintage furniture. I could have bid on an icebox like the one in my grandmother’s porch when I was a child. Or a wall-mounted phone like the kind that was in…
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The number 30
Today is my daughter’s 30th birthday. As she reminded me lately, years are a man made construct. Their meaning is negligible, unless you make it so. But my daughter is still being asked for her ID in restaurants and bars. Your perspective changes when the question being asked by your waiter is whether you qualify…
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Small things
We moved the cattle today from one pasture to another. They’re not our cattle any more, although all but two of the cows originally belonged to us. We are renting our pasture land to the same rancher who bought our cattle last winter. The first load to arrive this spring included those animals: the cows…
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Still wanting
I decided to change the name of this blog. I’m not sure that a 60-year-old can legitimately call herself middle-aged. Wishfully, perhaps, but not legitimately. I turned 60 last week and still haven’t decided whether it’s a milestone or a millstone. My brother reminded me that 60 is just a number. It means nothing, he…
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Do I hear $5?
Earlier this summer, K and I attended a currency and collectibles auction sale for a business which had gone bankrupt. I could almost imagine myself stepping into a small cramped store, motes of dust floating in the light from the window. Glass cases full of silver coins and brass medallions, sliding drawers lined with money.…
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Furry rodents, striped mammals and things that go bang
REWIND (“Rural Routes”, 1983) Squirrels scrambled through the bushes north of our house, seemingly undaunted by the ice beneath their feet. There are lots of little red ones and a couple of the larger gray variety. Several years ago, in another house, the squirrels were a nuisance. They raced over the roof and we had…
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The taxman cometh
REWIND (January 1983) Preparing an income tax return can be as agonizing as going to the dentist. You know it is going to hurt. Making sense of all those scraps of paper tucked inside a Hush Puppies box is an ordeal. Then there are those bills and receipts that you know you received, but cannot …
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Cows won’t hurt you
REWIND (“Rural Routes”, October 1982) Bird hunting is big business these days and local eateries are kept busy feeding hungry hunters. Several days ago my husband and I were interrupted in our noonday meal by a hesitant knock at the kitchen door. We opened the door to a thoroughly wet and frightened young man who…
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Rural Routes
For 25 years, from 1982 to 2007, I wrote a weekly column that appeared in the Portage Daily Graphic and the Herald Leader Press, both published out of Portage la Prairie, MB. Entitled ‘Rural Routes’, the column was mostly about day-to-day life on the farm. In 2000, I self-published a compilation of excerpts from those…
Rural Routes, Blog Version
Looking at the world with country eyes
Rural Routes, Blog Version 