Answering the call

I often hear, “you’re all over the place!” Especially in the fall and winter, I seem to be busy volunteering as MC at local charity events (pre-Covid, anyway), working in the food bank and manning the kettle for the Salvation Army. I have always enjoyed volunteering in the community. It’s a very rewarding pastime. And I’m not affluent, so instead of writing a cheque, I donate my time and efforts. But to be honest, I volunteer to feel that I am doing something in a sometimes helpless situation.

 

Did you know that the demand on our local food bank has more than tripled since the beginning of the pandemic? There are a variety of reasons for this. Many people were laid off. Some had family members turn to them for help, and their household grew in size. Others are unable to work, due to health concerns and other factors. We have people accessing the food bank for the first time, fully dressed for work. They have jobs – but they can’t pay rising housing, fuel and utility costs while also putting healthy food on the table. It’s a very difficult situation to be in – and it’s happening in large part to frontline workers: those in long term care and customer service.

 

It's frustrating that our government doesn’t have a firm plan in place to stock food bank shelves in order to support the people who keep things operating safely in a pandemic - people who are forced to put their own health at risk so that our seniors will be well cared for and we can access the grocery store. Our local food bank did gratefully receive a hefty grant from the government as emergency funding. That money was to be used during the pandemic, and it helped to stock shelves for the past year. It is spent now, and there is no sign of a renewal of financial support in the near future.

 

While our funding disappears, our numbers remain steady. Many food bank clients are returning to work, but they still need help to feed their families. Costs have gone up. Shifts have been reduced. The world is not the same as it was – and it won’t be changing anytime soon. Our need continues while our support fades away. We are working on sustainable plans for community sponsorship and support, because we know we will have to raise much of the funds ourselves.

 

This is why I ring the bells at the Salvation Army kettle. We hope to raise enough money to stock our shelves for several months after this Christmas campaign. Thank you for your donations. Every dollar helps.

 

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The dining room table tells a story of memories

 

My prized possession is an old drop-side dining room table. It sits at the end of our 16-foot picnic table on the dining porch, ready to serve as backup should we get a sudden boost in numbers. Over the years it has acted as the dessert table at Thanksgiving dinner, a table for all my tropical plants in the sunroom, and it sat at the end of the hall and displayed family photos. I have often said, in case of fire, grab my photo albums and my drop-side table.

I remember my Dad bringing the little round table to me at my apartment on Prescott Street when I was a newly single mom of 3 back in 2000. I said, “That’s it??” In my recollection, that table was HUGE. But inanimate objects do tend to loom large in our childhood memories.

My first memory of the table was my view of it from my seat at a tiny pink child-sized Formica table. If I stood on my toes, I could just barely peer over the edge of it to see what the adults were eating. The table has a drawer at one end where I often hid toys and treats that would be rediscovered months later. Mom can’t remember where she got the table for their first apartment as a married couple, but she does remember painting it 1960s turquoise to match the flowered wallpaper in her new kitchen in their first house on George.

As my sister and I grew up we eventually took our seats at the round table, and then one day our family outgrew it. The table went into storage. Years later, Dad decided to present me with the table that he had recently refinished. The top of the table had been repaired over the years with plastic paint but when he stripped the turquoise off the legs he revealed the original tiger-striped wooden spindles. If you look closely, you can still see tiny flecks of turquoise paint in the curves. My childhood memories are stored there.

In my farmhouse kitchen stands a well-used oval dining table on 2 sturdy pedestal legs. It has suffered a few water stains that I have managed to remove but our Chinese students made a heat mark with their rice cooker one day and that left a permanent scar. Occasionally a cat will get up there to investigate in the night, leaving behind a claw scrape. Every week I polish these imperfections and wonder if my grandchildren are developing their own fond memories of a table that has gathered and fed us food, fellowship and love.

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The Farmer's favourite shoes are on their way out the door

 

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the state of their shoes. If the shoes are brand new and spotless, it could mean that the person is trying to make a good impression and they care about their appearance. Or, it could mean that they spend too much on material things.

Alternatively, if a man’s shoes are beat up and dirty, it might imply that he doesn’t care much about his appearance or the impression he is making, along with the dirt on your floor.

If a man’s shoes are worn but clean and well-cared for, that might mean he is hardworking and reluctant to waste money. I usually keep a pair of shoes for an average 3 to 5 years. As soon as they start to look worn out, however, I toss them. I tend to buy leather boots so that they last longer. I have a pair of hiking boots that are close to 20 years old. My pink rubber boots are 15.

My husband has a problem with hanging on to shoes long after their expiration date. And I don’t mean running shoes – he doesn’t even own a pair of those. He has golf shoes that look like they belonged to Jack Nicklaus circa 1985. He has a pair of construction boots (likely with sentimental value) that are so stiff you could use them as flower planters (in fact I think I will). I caught him fishing his favourite loafers out of the garbage after I threw them out - And his favourite ‘dress shoes’ embarrassed me recently at a family wedding because I looked down at his feet to see why he had stumbled during the photo session and realized that his shoes had suddenly grown a mouth.

“You put on a nice suit, a beautiful shirt and matching tie, and then you choose these shoes??” I asked, incredulous. The black shoes had broken spines and frayed laces along with the flapping sole.

“I wanted to be comfy,” he explained, smiling sheepishly. “They feel like slippers.”

Then I looked a little closer and realized that he had also swapped out the dress shirt that I had chosen for him, at the last minute. The one he wore to the wedding had a fraying collar and cuffs.

“You look like a hobo,” I muttered. But he was still handsome and the shoe didn’t show in the pictures. The next day he showed me proudly how he had fixed his broken shoe, with bright yellow shoe glue oozing out from under the toe.

“Well that’s just perfect,” I laughed.

I might have to throw them in a bin far from home so he can’t retrieve them.

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Giving a pandemic of thanks

 

The first thing I’m grateful for this year is the ability to gather. Last year we were all set up to host Thanksgiving dinner at the cottage – for 25 extended family members – but then Doug Ford came on the radio and told us not to host anyone outside our household. Thanksgiving was cancelled.

This year we can actually go back to our tradition of inviting about 40 people to the farm for turkey, ham, and all the usual suspects. We will set up tables end to end on the yard and pray for good weather. Our guests will come from all over Ontario and they will each bring a dish to share. We haven’t seen some of these people in two years.

This pandemic has gone on a bit longer than most of us expected, and some say we will never really be free of it. The virus will mutate again and again and we will have to get another booster every season, like the flu shot. That may be true. We may be forever on edge when we hear a cough or a sniff. That’s ok. Hopefully we will also learn to don a mask at the first sign or symptom of something contagious, and to bow out of gatherings when we are feeling unwell. That should also be part of our ‘new normal’.

Every Thanksgiving we look over the past year and think of a few things to give thanks for. This year, I am thankful that I can work from home. I don’t have to commute, pay for parking or be in an office, killing time when I’m not actively working on something.

I am grateful that I can be available for my children and grandchildren when they need me. I can drop in on my Mom and sister. I can take the dog for a walk anytime I like. I can volunteer at the food bank. What a blessing.

I am grateful that no one I know has become seriously ill with Covid. I still have one daughter who can’t smell – but she isn’t complaining. I’m grateful that I can enjoy a good meal in a restaurant with friends. I’m really looking forward to enjoying live music again soon. I’m so thankful that I was able to attend 3 weddings and dance the night away in celebration of life and love.

As we sit down to enjoy our meal together this Thanksgiving, we will each write down one thing on the whiteboard that we are thankful for. Then we will take a picture of the board, as a reminder of this moment in time. We are thankful, in the middle of a pandemic.

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Dusting off my donkey whispering skills

 

Donkeys can open almost any gate that is enclosing them. They have all day to consider the challenge. They use their dexterous lips like fingers, sliding open bar locks and lifting hinges. They heave their solid bodies against fences and doors, busting loose.

More than once I found my donkey on the wrong side of the fence. To be fair, sometimes he was outside my kitchen window trying to tell me that something was wrong with the sheep. A coyote had been spotted or the flock was lost in the field after dark. But most times he was leading the massive Belgian horse out on an adventure. He was visiting the neighbours’ horses and cows and checking what was growing in vegetable gardens. He prided himself on not getting caught until he had surprised at least one neighbour having their morning coffee and pooped on at least one lawn.

I discovered an almost foolproof way to get my donkey back into the barnyard within minutes. I just took a handful of apples with me. He couldn’t resist the sweet scent – in fact that is often what lured him out of bounds in the first place. The Belgian would follow him willingly – more comfortable inside the barnyard than out.

So when I encountered a pair of naughty donkeys trotting up Patterson Corner’s Road one recent morning, I thought I knew what to do. I pulled over, put my 4-ways on flash, and calmly stepped over to the nearest apple tree. The donkeys, a small grey and a larger black (the ringleader) walked curiously toward me, then suddenly turned tail, kicked up his heels and bolted into the nearest soybean field.

The beasts had come up from Lindsay Road, so that is where I started knocking on doors. I would need help and a halter to bring the animals home if they weren’t going to come for my apples – and they weren’t. I decided to stand in the road to slow traffic while I thought of what to do. The donkeys watched me from the neighbours’ front lawn and snickered to themselves.

Luckily, a 4-wheeler drove up just then. Help had arrived. After a few more forays into neighbouring fields we were able to usher the animals back into the yard of the elderly woman who was boarding them. We found the fence that they had lifted clear off its hinges. I excused myself, seeing that the donkeys were back where they belonged and in good hands. I imagine they were fitted for halters later that same day, while the fence was being repaired.

Sometimes I miss having a donkey. They are a whole lot of trouble sometimes but they sure have character.

 

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Fourteen years and counting!

In the late summer of 2007, I became an accidental farmwife. And by that I mean I was so busy trying to keep track of three daughters that I barely had time to imagine what life was going to be like with my new husband. Yes, I knew he was a farmer. But he was also a university professor. He was pretty much always washed up and free of any residual farm detritus when he came a courtin’. He didn’t smell like sheep poop when we dated. All of that changed when we married. Soon I too had a strange funk about me.

Approximately twenty-four hours after we put the wedding décor away, I was properly introduced to my new charges: two hundred sheep and a loud, ornery and mischievous attention freak of a donkey. I was alarmed to hear that he didn’t have a name, so of course I gave him one. Donkey. You had to say it in a Scottish accent though, like in Shrek.

I very quickly fell into step in the farming life. I took care of the animals and assisted my husband the Farmer when he would allow me. Mostly he prefers to do things himself – but he let me take care of the babies. I got to know the different characters on the farm: the ewe who would head-butt me if I came too close, the ewe who might squash her own babies if you didn’t separate them; the sheepdog who was a bit crazy, and the Gordon Setter who would take off if left off leash for more than about thirty seconds.

The Farmer taught me how to rub a newborn lamb to life, to assist a ewe in childbirth, and to feed the young a bottle. There was no guidebook – we were both learning by doing. Before long I was writing stories about the animals. Those stories became a weekly column in the local paper.

I am always thrilled to hear that a story touched someone in some way. Many times I have received letters from readers, saying that they cut out a particular column and stuck it on their fridge or tucked it away in a scrapbook, because it meant something to them. Maybe they were farmers themselves – or married to one.

Some of my most loyal readers are in seniors homes. The stories bring them back to when they were learning how to mend pants and the fence that ripped them. When they were crying over a tiny lamb or calf that didn’t make it. When they were struck dumb by the beauty of a newborn foal.

If you are a farmwife, I would love to hear your stories. Here’s to the farming life. Live it well.

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I'm not a doctor; I just write like one

 

I have kept a diary since I was a little girl. I filled one little hard-covered journal (the kind with the lock and key) every year. Mostly they were notes about what we ate, where we went, and then which boys I thought were cute, and plans for my clothes and hair and other such banalities. When I got married, I brought them with me in a suitcase of their own. As an adult, I continued to journal. I planned my perennial garden. I recorded my favourite bible verses (don’t laugh; I did. This one was particularly helpful to a 25-year-old mother of 3: Philippians 4:13). I developed a habit of burning those journals at the end of every year, as a therapeutic sort of exercise.

I started a new journal the day I married the Farmer, on August 25, 2007. Basically, I record the BIG events in the lives of our family members: births, deaths, engagements, marriages, new jobs, health concerns, etc.

I picked up my pen to record our youngest daughter’s engagement the other day and realized I have lost the physical ability to write. As a writer my typing skills are pretty strong, but I guess I haven’t been writing longhand for a while because my penmanship is absolute crap. I used to write all the time – in school, in long letters to pen pals – but when do I write these days? Grocery lists are about it.

Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me? I try to write, and my fingers fail me. I can’t seem to keep the cursive flowing. Good luck to anyone who finds this particular journal after I am gone. It appears to be filled with the style of hieroglyphic shorthand my mother used in the ‘70s.

I’m working on a novel – my first – and thought it might be nice to do the first draft in longhand, in a notebook. A favourite writer, Elizabeth Hay, told me that is the way she always begins a new book. The idea appealed to me because it meant I would be leaving something behind for my descendants, in my own hand. Now I see that hand is illegible.

I will go back to typing out my story on my laptop, disconnected from the Internet and its distractions (which was the secondary appeal of the notebook). I will continue to record family events in my journal, but I might switch to printing instead of cursive. I guess if you don’t use it, you lose it. If I feel the need to record something scandalous or salacious, I will do it in my busted-up handwriting, like a code that must be broken, to protect the innocent.

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