What a sap...

It began, as these things so often do, with a thought foolishly spoken aloud in the presence of Lowry men.

A few years ago, the boys and I were at my in-laws' kitchen table, inhaling breakfast after chores. As I poured some nasty Aunt Jemima goop on my pancakes, I said the words that would come to haunt me later: "How come you guys never make your own maple syrup?"

My husband and his brother Carman nearly choked on their eggs. My mother-in-law let out a soft chuckle. Plenty of eye-rolling and head shaking ensued. "What?" I said, miffed. "You make your own cider, why not syrup?"

"Oh Kimmy," said D, wearing his "aren't city girls cute" smirk. I wanted to throw a pancake at his head. "We used to make it with my Grandpa. You have no idea how much work it takes to make a little syrup."

"You know much sap you need to make one gallon of syrup, Kimmy?" Carm chimed in. "A helluva lot."

"Oh, come on. How hard can it be?" The minute the words were out of my mouth, images of corn smut and sunflower rashes flashed before my eyes and I decided to shut up. The boys, however, had been stoked into a rare fire of conversation. They went on and on about chopping wood and endless bonfires and lugging milk cans and where Grandpa's old sap pan had gotten to. My mother-in-law thought she might still have some syrup from their last harvest (circa 1985) in her freezer somewhere. I kept quiet and glared at Aunt Jemima. She seemed to be laughing at me.

Flash forward to March 2014, where I entered our garage to find twenty-five sap buckets the colour of a winter sky lined up like cheerful soldiers along the wall. D shook a cardboard box at me. I peeked in to see lids and spiles. "Holy crap," I said.

"Happy birthday," said D with a big smile, thrusting the box into my arms. "You're not working, right? Well, this'll keep you busy for a while."

"My birthday's not till April," I said, twirling a spile in my fingers. 25 buckets was a lot. I had been thinking more along the lines of 5. This meant finding a lot of trees. I suddenly had an urge to run in the house, find my copy of Little House in the Big Woods and re-read the syrup-making chapter. If Laura Ingalls, my childhood hero, could do it, why couldn't I? It might actually be fun. I loved maple syrup and I loved being outside.

What could possibly go wrong?

Hard Cider and Anne Murray do not a Christmas make

(An expanded and edited version of the original story, first published in 2009. In honour of D's birthday gift - see photo - I'm publishing it again.)

Our original two-month say in Blair’s Grove with Carman while Someday was being renovated turned into six months. Oops.

According to the renovation crew, once you start pulling down walls in an old place, there is always more work to be done than you’d originally thought, and they kept finding doozies in every room. Good old Doc Munn was probably having a hearty laugh at our expense. Still, we wanted to get all the renovations done at once, so it made sense to fix each problem as it came up rather than put it aside to be done “someday.”

To Carm’s credit, he never once complained or even showed any indication that he was sick of us, even when Neko slept on his carpet and scratched up the drywall. As for me, I found that living with the brothers Lowry was kind of fun. Boys don’t hold grudges or try to borrow your clothes. While they’re often messy creatures who suffer from an inability to watch one program at a time on TV, I enjoyed living with them. I learned all sorts of interesting new terms, like “chassis,” “Husquvarna” and “Gordie Howe hat trick.” Apart from raunchy hockey equipment and an eternally raised toilet seat, Carm and D were easy to live with. Until our first Christmas together rolled around.

Having grown up with a mother who celebrated every holiday by turning our house into something akin to a department store window display, I was interested to see how the boys would decorate for Christmas. They didn’t.

I’d done all the Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en decorating in Blair’s Grove that year by myself, which had been okay. But this was Christmas! Only Scrooges didn’t enjoy decorating at this time of year. They simply had to get into the spirit of things. So I accosted the boys during a break in Coach’s Corner and declared that Christmas decorating should be a shared responsibility by all occupants of Blair’s Grove. They looked at each other and shrugged, then asked me to move out of the way, which I took as assent.

The next night after chores, Carman begrudgingly dug out some candy cane lights from the basement and hooked them up in the front yard. They were hideous, but at least he was participating. The next night, he drove home with a nine foot Christmas tree strapped to the roof of his jeep. I was thrilled with the soft needles, the perfect height, the delicious smell. Then he informed me I’d be decorating it by myself, because that was “woman’s work.” Just like lawn-mowing.

D and Carman set up the tree in the tree holder while I pawed through three giant boxes of decorations Carm had hauled out from the depths of his closet. At first, I wondered why someone with such an aversion to decorating would have such a massive collection of ornaments. Then I remembered my mother-in-law, the unsung supplier of all necessities at Blair’s Grove. Shirley would have made sure Carman was well provided the first year he moved in, but the ornaments didn’t even look like they’d been used.

The decorations were mostly red and gold, and while I preferred a bit more variety, I wasn’t about to root around in our freezing cold garage at Someday to try to unearth my own supply. It was Carm’s house, after all. I’d make do with his stuff. At least it would make Shirley happy.

No sooner had I poured myself a glass of wine and hung the first ornament than the boys plunked themselves down on the couch, staring at my handiwork. Aw, they’ve come to help after all, I thought. The big softies.

My warm fuzzies disappeared the moment Carman declared, "Something's missing," went to his shelves and carefully selected a CD. A moment later, Anne Murray’s velvety voice blasted through the house at full power.

I hate Anne Murray.

I don't care if she's Canada's most beloved songstress. I don’t care that my aunt in Halifax has met her and says she’s nice or that my cousin taught her kids. I just cannot stand the sound of her voice; it makes my skin crawl. The brothers Lowry, however, love her. Like, really love her. They have a double CD of her Christmas music which they insisted on playing while I decorated. Twice.

Anne was belting out “Christmas in Killarney” when Carman decided to get up and evaluate my ornament hanging skills. D wisely remained on the couch and said nothing.

"That one should go a little further to the left, there, Kimmy."

I moved it to the left.

"I wouldn't just put that there red one so close to the other red one. You gotta mix 'em up a little."

I mixed them up a little.

"Well, how come you're not using these silvery ones? See, they go like this, against the light so it shines through."

That was when I turned my back on him and fantasized tossing my wine in his face, setting fire to the tree and frisbeeing the Anne Murray CD into the snow. I opened my mouth to say something that probably would have made Father Christmas blush when I was arrested by the sight of D. He’d disappeared to the basement during Carm’s critique of my decorating skills, and had now reappeared wearing his younger brother Paul’s childhood hockey helmet and clutching a bottle of homemade hard apple cider.

It’s hard to describe the taste of the boys’ cider; I’d peg it somewhere between rocket fuel and apple cider vinegar. One sip and your stomach feels like it’s on fire. Three sips and it starts to taste pretty good. A whole glass and suddenly you love everyone in the world and are wearing too many clothes. To a girl with plenty of first-hand cider experience under her belt, the helmet made sense.

“What the hell are you doing, buddy?” asked Carm.

"I gotta wear something for protection if I'm gonna help you two decorate this tree," D explained as he mounted a rickety kitchen chair and threw a wad of tinsel at a branch. He held the uncorked bottle of cider in one hand and grabbed another handful of tinsel with the other. “Oh, cooooome all ye faiiiiiiithful,” purred Anne in the background. As I sat on the couch and watched my helmeted husband and his brother decorate the tree, I decided to relish the touching holiday moment and not interfere.

Our tree wasn’t particularly stylish or symmetrical, but I thought it was beautiful in a manly sort of way, and we spent many evenings craning our necks around it to try to see the TV. Carm’s “finishing touch” - an electric train set ceremonially placed around the circumference of the trunk - gave the tree an extra touch of testosterone. The boys turned the train set on randomly throughout the Christmas season, usually when I was trying to read a book. I was not going to complain about anything that drowned out Anne Murray though.

On the night in early January when I dismantled the tree, it occurred to me that next Christmas D and I would be decorating our own tree at Someday while Carm was all alone at Blair’s Grove. The thought made me feel a bit wistful. I decided I’d try to coax my brother-in-law to come up and help us with our tree when the time came. I’d make sure there was a bottle of cider in the fridge and a few helmets for safety. And I’d carefully hide all the Anne Murray CDs.

Kimber of the Corn - Part I: The Pickin'

August can be such a hazy, lazy month. The last long days of summer should be spent shaking sand out of your bikini, blowing bubbles in the backyard and eating gallons of ice cream. I'd spent a good chunk of August harvesting sunflowers, but now that the pink umbrella had been packed away, I was ready to relax.

Which is precisely when D informed me it was high time we began selling our sweet corn. By which he meant that it was high time I began selling our sweet corn.

Back in July, we had agreed the corn harvest would become my job, since I no longer had an actual job. Now it was August. D was taking the kids to daycare, leaving me ample opportunity to get down and get funky with the corn. As I chased my children around the driveway, it occurred to me that there were a lot of corn picking details I probably should have worked out earlier.

"So what do I do?" I asked.

"Kimmy, it's simple," D said as he squished Dylan into his carseat. "You pick the corn. You put it in the back of the truck. You drive it out by the side of the road and wait for the Bruce Beachers to come and buy it."

I leaned in for one of Jade's enthusiastic goodbye kisses. "But how much should I pick?"

He shrugged and climbed into the car. "I don't know, probably about twenty dozen."

I did the mental math and threw my hands in the air. "Holy crap, you want me to pick two hundred and fifty four cobs of corn in one day?"

"No, Shakespeare," said D, "I want you to pick two hundred and forty." He grinned his creased, charming grin and started the engine. "Better get picking, Kimmy."

And with that helpful advice, my darling man left me alone with a thousand cornstalks and no real clue what to do with them. I figured it was another one of his country boy tests, the old, "Let's leave her alone and see how she does," routine. He'd done it before with both the zero-turn and the plumber, with mixed results. I suspected the lack of instruction was just a scheme to have a good a story to tell Carm during chores. I'd give those two a story, all right.

I decided that I was NOT going to Google "how to harvest sweet corn" or call my mother-in-law for advice. A country girl figured things out for herself. I would tackle this harvest on my own, just like I did with the sunflowers, and I would make this sweet corn operation a screaming success if it killed me. Although by now I knew better than to ask myself those five fatal words: "How hard could it be?" This little project would take some careful planning and a lot of coffee. And maybe some Bailey's.

First, I had to consider my wardrobe. I'd learned from my sunflower experiences that boots, pants and a long-sleeved shirt were a must. Even though the day was going to be hot, if seemingly benevolent sunflowers could give me a rash and subject me to bee attacks, I shuddered to think about what the corn had in store for me. Was there such a thing as corn bugs? I dug out one of D's old thermal shirts and my thickest garden pants.

Next, corn gathering equipment had to be collected. I rummaged through the hall closet for ideas. Grocery bags? Knapsack? Empty beer cases? Then I found it: a purple cloth sack, left behind on one of my sister's recent visits. She'd brought it stuffed full of laundry and hard cider, but it looked strong enough and big enough to hold a few dozen cobs of corn. Plus I could sling it over one shoulder, like a jaunty pioneer. And purple was my favourite colour.

Finally, I needed a hat. Something with a brim that wouldn't get blown off by the strong south breeze, or turn me into a literal redneck. I whittled it down to two choices: my tye-dyed floppy Y2K hat that someone had given me in an office Christmas exchange in 1999, or D's fancy new Tilley hat, still stiff with newness and tags attached. I took the Tilley. Someone was going to stain it with sweat and dirt at some point; might as well be the poor girl stuck picking corn.

I tied Tilly around my neck and clambered into the truck. I was getting used to trucking and little details like how to adjust the bench seat without crushing my ribs against the steering wheel and telling the difference between the gearshift and the windshield wipers no longer fazed me. In fact, I kind of liked the truck. The only part I didn't like was getting in or out of the truck bed. When we were kids, my sister and I took flying leaps from the back of my Dad's truck onto gravel roads and ditches. Now, I take on the pose of a constipated skier, bending over as low as I can go before I tiptoe off the edge into the softest grass available. I would have to arrange the corn in the back so no truck bed experiences would be necessary. With these details mentally arranged, I revved the engine and bumped off into the alfalfa field in search of corn.

A band of fir trees flanked the east end of the cornfield, so I parked there, thinking to leave the truck in a bit of shade. As I killed the engine, I noticed movement in the tall weeds beside the passenger door. I froze. Snake? I thought. The weeds rustled more vigorously. Big freaking snake? Family of big freaking snakes?

Before I could roll up the window, five chubby raccoons burst out of the weeds and tore up the side of a fir tree. I exhaled with relief. They watched me balefully as I cranked up the radio and got out of the truck. I stuck my tongue out at them.

I turned to survey the task at hand.

Somehow, the half acre of corn seemed a lot bigger than the half acre of sunflowers. Was it an optical illusion, or had those wretched boys planted more corn than they'd told me about? Panic attacked me like an angry raccoon. How in heaven's name was I going to pick all this corn? Where would I even start? And how would I know the difference between a good cob and a bad one? WHY HAD D LEFT ME ALL ALONE?!

Breathing giant yoga breaths through my nose, I tried to calm down. I would not give the boys any stories to tell in the barn. I would not resort to Google. I would do this job on my own and I would do it just fine. If I could handle 17 years of office politics, I could tackle a bunch of vegetables. The hardest journey started with a single cob, right?

I hung my purple corn sack off one shoulder, clamped Tilly on my head and into the whispering sea of stalks I went. I'd be Kimber of the corn with a vengeance.

The Sunflower Project: Part II - The Operation

In hindsight, expecting my husband to plant one measly row of sunflowers was like expecting me to eat one dill pickle chip. We just can't help ourselves.

D and Carm got their uncle's corn planter and rigged it up to put in half an acre of sunflower seeds - organic, no less - in my freshly ploughed former meadow. D scoffs at anything remotely organic, but he couldn't find regular sunflower seeds for sale at a price he liked. I suggested that he ask the farmer on the fourth concession, the one whose field I'd driven past. To my shock, D actually went to the guy and told him the story. How his wife wanted sunflowers. To look at. D said that the farmer looked perplexed, then gave D a pail of seed for free.

"See?" I told him. "Sometimes it pays to have a crazy wife."

I visited the field every other day, dragging the kids out to check for progress. I told them how beautiful it was going to be, and how Daddy and Uncle Carm had done it all for me. The half acre of corn, I pointedly ignored.

The kids didn't share my enthusiasm until the first plump sunflower sprouts popped out of the ground in July. Jade and I shouted with triumph; Dylan trampled as many as he could in a gleefully destructive frenzy. The sprouts had come up in uneven clumps, with big bare patches that drove D crazy and made Carm shake his head, but I didn't care. I had my field of dreams.

As I monitored the progress of our sunflower operation - which I began to refer to as "my" sunflower operation - it occurred to me that I'd need to paint a sign or two to attract customers. No one thought I would actually sell many; Carm, D, even my own father expressed their skepticism openly. But I just knew people would buy them. Who doesn't love sunflowers? Who doesn't enjoy slowing down for a roadside stand on a lazy summer day? Well, apart from my in-laws, that is. I kept my chin tilted at a proud angle and let the disbelievers scoff. They'd see soon enough that I was right.

Anyway, I figured the sign had to be special. I'd often rolled my eyes at other roadside vendors whose signs were sloppy or boring. My sign would be beautiful, artistic. No slapdash paint on a strip of plywood for MY sunflower operation.

A lazy drive along our road on the August long weekend produced a windfall. Up here, everyone leaves garage sale leftovers by the side of the road for easy pickings, and long weekends are garage salers' dreams. I found a huge wooden easel and a smaller styrofoam sign with a blank back, just begging to be decorated. The gods that smile on enterprising small-business owners were smiling down on me for sure, although Jade was concerned that I was stealing other people's stuff. "Shhh, honey," I told her. "This is called recycling."

I spent the good part of that evening trem-cladding everything bumblebee yellow before I realized that I didn't have any other paint for the lettering. A quick rummage through Jade's craft box produced a bottle of purple paint and some ratty brushes. I proceeded to write the word "SUNFLOWERS" in swirly, curlicue letters, creating a giant sunflower in the middle using the "L" as the stem. It looked a bit like a purple hedgehog on a stick, but hey, it was "arty." Carm dropped in that night and I found him standing in the vestibule, surveying my handiwork. His silence spoke volumes. I ignored his lack of artistic judgement and took the signs out to set against the garage to finish drying.

Putting up with yellow tremclad under my fingernails and my brother-in-law's scorn would have been easier had the purple paint I'd used for the hedgehog lettering not melted off during that night's rainstorm. Apparently children's paint is not waterproof. I said many bad words, and hid the signs before D could see them. If I drove to Canadian Tire, he'd know for sure about my screw up, and then he'd tell Carm, and then I'd never hear the end of it. I snuck out to the shop and rooted through D's bench of stuff for something, ANYTHING I could use to re-do the lettering before anyone saw the purple sludge. I found a can of black tremclad and got to work. Black and yellow were sunflower colours anyway.

Finally, the signs were ready to go. Now I needed to fix up a display. I found my old pink beach umbrella and shoved it in a pail of water softener salt. I rescued two small tables from the dusty obscurity of the shop, and slapped a waterproof tablecloth that had been my mother's on top. Two big buckets stood ready and waiting to be filled with flowers. I found my peanut butter money jar, and my old bull-terrier plastic piggy bank. I tied a purple bow around his neck and wrote "SUNFLOWERS" on his side with a Sharpie. Everything went into the bed of our newly acquired truck; I was nearly ready. All I had to do was harvest.

But that would be the easy part, right?

The sum of all fears: Me vs. the Zero Turn

If you're self-employed, unemployed or on sabbatical, the last thing you want to hear is, "So, what did you do all day?"

It's one of those questions that can be asked with the sweetest of innocence; other times it's as pointed as a knife. Regardless of the intent, those words make me want to bare my teeth and leap on the person who has said it like a feral dog. GRRRR! You still wanna know what I did all day? Well, do ya, punk??

Defensive-slash-overreactive much? Just a bit.

The thing is, I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing all day. Change diapers, play with the kids, do the dishes, check Facecrack, wipe up pee, make supper, fingerpaint, run a load of laundry, yeah yeah yeah. But is that all? I feel like I should be renovating the house, or sewing curtains or teaching my kids French. That's the hard part of losing your job: suddenly, there's too much freedom. So when D asks me that question, sometimes with true interest, sometimes with a glint of evil in his eye, my inner Hound strains for release.

Anyway, one thing I CAN do when the kids aren't around is mow the lawn. My beloved Jean Green underwent extensive, expensive repairs last month, somehow rendering her even more unreliable than usual. Which leaves me the garden shears or D's giant, roaring zero-turn tractor, of which I am terrified.

D has been trying to convince me to use the zero-turn for three years. His father bought it, but gave it to us after he discovered that running it hurt his back, and D's mom, who can drive every piece of equipment on the farm, refuses to get on it. Yet somehow, my darling man thinks his precious wife should be fully capable of operating this nasty behemoth of a machine.

The first day he borrowed it from his Dad, just to, you know, "see what she runs like," he grinned so hard his face nearly split. As he spun around the yard in figure-eights, spewing fountains of grass all over my flowers, his tongue protruded from his mouth in what I could only guess was a childlike tractor noise. I knew right then that Jean Green and I were doomed. It was just a matter of time.

The zero-turn has a roll bar and a seatbelt. It also has scary graphics depicting stick figures in various stages of decapitation and mutilation. That alone has been enough to convince me that me and Jean Green are just fine, thanks, so don't bug us with your "fancy" mowers. Jean may plod along at the speed of a dying caterpillar, but she isn't going to chop my head off. And Jean's only graphics are of a rabbit to indicate her highest speed (aforementioned dying caterpillar) and a turtle for her slowest speed (dead caterpillar).

So until today, I've always managed to avoid zero-turn duty ("Jean will be jealous;" "I'm too tired;" "I don't wanna!"). But now that Jean needs a battery boost every time I need to start her, and my husband keeps asking me that wretched question, I decided to suck it up and risk my stupid life mowing the stupid lawn with the stupid zero turn.

I managed to get it started and back out of the barn without smashing into anything, and I even figured out how to turn on the blades. But I had to call my brother-in-law to figure out how to lower the deck. Which sucked, because I would have preferred my stupidity to have gone undiscussed between the brothers Lowry. I wanted D to come home to a splendid looking lawn and a nonchalant wife; instead, he'll ignore anything I tell him and ask Carm how it went instead.

Carm arrived with the same look on his face he has every time he has to help me with something, probably similar to the look I have when wiping my kids' butts.

When I moaned about Jean Green being out of commission, he shrugged and gestured to the beast in my driveway. "What's wrong with this one?"

"I hate it," I said. "The controls are too sensitive."

"Then it should be pefect. I thought you women were supposed to be all sensitive and stuff."

"Ha ha," I said. "Just help me figure it out."

We got the zero-turn going and I listened impatiently to Carm's instructions. I waved him off, and jerked down the lane to practise on the back lawn, which was crispy and didn't have any hills. I nearly scraped my leg off on the barn and yelped in terror at the sudden appearance of a fence post before I realized that to go right, I had to pull left, and vice versa. Who the hell designed this stupid thing? Probably some divorced guy. A grasshopper sprang down my shirt and I decided the roll-bar and seat-belt weren't such bad ideas after all. Then I realized Carm had follwed me in his truck and was observing my progress.

"GO AWAY!" I screamed, but he got out of the truck, walked over and turned up the throttle.

"Makes 'er go better!" he shouted.

"I DON'T WANT TO GO BETTER!" I screeched, careening away from him. "MOVE THE DAMN TRUCK!" I pictured myself bashing my father-in-law's beautiful new vehicle and going down in the Lowry annals as the daughter-in-law too stupid to drive a zero-turn. Carm just smiled.

I lurched off in the opposite direction in a gasoline-powered huff, praying I would get around the corner of the barn and out of sight so I could die in privacy. Carm rolled slowly down the lane in the truck to check me out. I ignored him so hard I nearly drove into the alfalfa field.

26 close-calls, two massacred solar lamps and a deep desire for a sports bra later, I've got all the flat, non-foliaged parts of the lawn cut. It hurts to turn my head to the right and my throat is raw from screams of terror. I am also covered in a fine coat of grass clippings and I think I sunburned a nipple (Note to self: never wear a tube-top on a zero-turn). But now I've got a good frigging answer when D asks me what I've done all day. And I can even make the tractor noise to prove it.

The stinky things in life

One of the things I love - and sometimes loathe - about my lovin' hubby is how opposite we are in many ways. A relationship of opposites can be disastrous, but ours works. When it comes to politics, money, childcare and the merits of Prince's music, we don't always agree. We do, however, share the same taste in jokes; otherwise I never would have married him. Sharing a sense of humour is deadly serious in my book.

The fact that D and I are ofen on the polar opposite sides of an issue is never more apparent than when I cook certain foods. For example, I can predict with some measure of accuracy what he will say when he walks in the door tonight: "Geez Kim, it smells strong in here. (sniffs the air suspiciously) It smells like....(wrinkles nose)...geez, it smells like onion. (a dramatic pause) I hate onion."

My response has already been rehearsed: "Yes, darling. I know. I've cut up ONE onion and ONE (a slight lie) clove of garlic to make the stew you will later rave about. Trust me."

I come from a Russian heritage where onion and garlic figure predominantly in every meal except for breakfast. My Babushka ate garlic every day of her life and she lived to be 96. Even my Dad, a non-russkie, eats raw garlic almost every day. But D hates onion. And garlic. And cilantro. And goat cheese. All those delicious, smelly things that make my culinary life complete.

So to perserve marital harmony, I don't make him eat raw onion very often, or raw garlic ever. I keep the cilantro separate when I make fajitas, and sprinkle heaps of goat cheese on my salad, but never on his. I do continue to cook with the other unmentionables, because it would be sacrilige to make a beef stew without onion or borscht without garlic. And there are very few meals he's ever made a negative comment about; I've lucked out in that department - the man eats everything I ever put in front of him!

So anyway, tonight is Easy Beefy Stewy night. It's redolent with aromas and your kitchen will stink to high heaven after you're done chopping up the smellier ingredients. But your tummy will thank you. Just like my husband will thank me after he's eaten his 3rd bowlful.

Easy Beefy Stewy
Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb stewing beef, cut into bite sized chunks
1/4 cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper and paprika
1 medium onion, chopped
2 rib celery, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups broth
1 cup red wine
1 bay leaf

1. Toss beef with seasoned flour to coat.
2. Heat oil in a heavy pot and brown beef lightly.
3. Add onion and celery; cook 3 minutes.
4. Add sliced carrots, garlic, broth, wine and bay leaf.
5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 hour, or until beef is tender. Serve over orzo.

A rite of spring...that doesn't involve manure!

Okay. 'nuff said about all the nastiness of a country spring. Wanna know the truest sign of my favourite season? When the rhubarb patch is finally high enough to yank out enough stalks to make the first rhubarb cake of the year.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a baker. But rhubarb cake is the one thing that I can make and it never goes wrong. EVER. And the bonus is that both D and his brother are mad for it! Whoo hoo!

I can't remember where I got my tiny printed recipe from, but Mom used to make a rhubarb cake that was very similar, only she called hers "lava cake" because when it was done, the top looked like crusted over lava, and the inside was always moist and hot. I bless the person who printed that recipe for me though - it's my no-fail dessert, and I make about two a month until the rhubarb goes to seed.

The trick is to have nice crisp rhubarb that's not woody or too old. The stalks have to be juicy too; none of that hollow grocery store crap! Find a neighbour with an overgrown patch or a Mennonite roadside stand and you'll have exactly what you need. All it takes is about 6 good stalks to make one cake. Even if you don't really care for rhubarb, this baby strikes the perfect balance of sweet and tart. And - oh bliss - eat it warm with some vanilla ice cream on the side, and you'll never go back to plain old coffe cake again.

D is sick with a cold, but he stoically mounted the lawn tractor tonight to finish off the lawn before the next deluge, so I thought the poor man deserved to come in to the rich, brown-sugary smell of his favourite cake. Not to mention the lovin' arms of his favourite wife.

Kimber's Rhubarb Cake
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 1/2 cups sliced rhubarb (I sometimes use 3 cups)
1 tsp vanilla
sugar and cinnamon for sprinklin'

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x13 pan.
2. Mix flour, soda and salt together in a small bowl & set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add egg and milk and mix well.
4. Add flour mix gradually to butter mixture until blended.
5. Stir in vanilla and rhubarb.
6. Pour into pan. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon if desired.
7. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Cool in pan on rack (but make sure you try some when it's still a bit warm!)

For puck's sake...

"Oh hey there, Mrs. Lowry. Can your husband play old-timers' this Friday night?"

I knew I was destined to become a hockey widow once we moved to Kincardine and I began getting frequent phone calls like that one. But why did the guys who called feel they hadeto ask me for permission? Had I somehow gained a reputation for being an anti-hockey shrew? Or were they worried that a former city girl wouldn’t understand the crucial importance of hockey in a country boy's life?

A few years ago, they might have been right. Oh, I'd spent my fair share of Saturday nights glazed over on the couch at my dad's while Hockey Night in Canada blared in the background, but somehow I'd never soaked up much awareness of the sport. Now that I'd moved to the Bruce, though, it was high time I learned.

The first hockey game I watched my husband play, I wore a stylish short jacket and high-heeled boots.

"You're gonna want to wear something warmer than that," he warned me. “Put your winter boots on.”

"This is warm enough," I said. "You're in an arena, right? Not outside?"

D shrugged and said, "At least wear a jacket that covers your butt." I dismissed his concern. How cold could an arena be? I put the novel I was reading in my purse along with some change for hot chocolate and gave him a winning smile. His biggest fan was ready.

An hour later, I sat alone and shivering in the stands, trying to turn the pages of my book with numb fingers. There was no hot chocolate machine. My butt was uncomfortably numb. Humph, I thought. So my husband was right. I would have been having a lot more fun with a parka and a thermos of hot toddies. Maybe even a sleeping bag. And where were all the other hockey wives? I made mental notes for next time.

Although I really had no idea what the rules were apart from the whole get-the-puck-in-the-net thing, I thought I was following the play fairly well in between chapters of my book. At one point when I looked up, my husband collided with a player from the other team, who skated off the ice holding his head. A bunch of players skated around the rink slowly, peering down at the ice. Huh, I thought. Poor guy must have lost a contact lens. The play resumed; I went back to my book.

When the resurfacer whirred out onto the ice, I clued in that the game was over. I charged into the warmth of the hallway outside the change rooms and pounced on my husband when he appeared. He was walking oddly, half dragging his hockey bag.

"That was fun! Phew, it smells in there. How come your face is all red? Did that guy ever find his contact lens?"

My husband narrowed his eyes at me. "You mean did he find his TOOTH? The tooth that got knocked out when the puck came off my stick and hit him in the face?" He paused. I was horrified. "Oh right," my husband continued, "you were probably reading Shakespeare when that happened. I guess you missed the goal I scored and the hit from behind I received from Bobby Clarke’s buddy because he thought my stick knocked his tooth out." The car ride home was pretty quiet.

Things have changed since then. I don't bring books to hockey games anymore. In fact, I now know that wives and girlfriends only come to tournaments, not weekly games. And, good country girl that I am, I come wearing a layer of long-johns, a coat that has both a hood and enough material to cover my bottom, and a blanket to sit on. Like the dutiful puck bunny I’ve become, I’ve learned to spot my husband's orange-and-blue hockey socks the minute he’s on the ice and I yell like a crazy woman whenever he gets within 10 feet of the puck. I can even tell – most of the time – if he scores a goal.

Merry merry!

One sister arrived from Australia last week, and the other arrived from the 'Cow a few days ago...so I've been a happy, busy little camper and blogville hasn't been on the tour as of late. Don't worry though - I'll be back moaning to you in bloggy form come January when they've both abandoned me again. (sigh)

Sissy and I decorated our tree on Sunday. We are woefully behind in all things Christmas-decorating related and D only cut down our tree on Saturday afternoon. It's amazing how different Christmas preparations become when you have a Jady Lady in your life! Last year, I had the decorations up, cookies baked, jam made, presents purchased and wrapped all well before the 25th. This year...well, I'm just thankful we have a tree at all!

This year, I used violet and green bulbs (yes, it's a not very subtle homage to Jade Violet), along with the antique Russian glass ornaments my sister in law got me last year. I thought it looked pretty. Kind of minimalist. Then I proceeded to wreck the entire effect by tinselating the darn thing. Sissy said the tree looked "naked" without tinsel. I never use the stuff, but found a mound of it in a bin and did what I thought was a bang-up tinselly job. D came in, took one look and informed me it looked as though a boy in a hurry had done the tinsel job. He kindly removed the offending gobs of shiny stuff and patiently showed me the proper way to hang it - one bloody strand at a time!? No wonder I never use the stuff.

So, here it is, the eve before Christmas eve. I've finished my wrapping, written my "to do" list for tomorrow, the fire is pleasantly warm and I'm dog-tired. Jady is going to waken up any second now for a feed, so I think I'll eat a few chocolate Turtles and head to bed. With any luck, D will join me and we'll have a good night's sleep before the festivities begin. Merry Christmas to all my friends in Bloggerland - have a wonderful holiday and try to be nicer than naughty.

Get Yer Motor Runnin'...

My brothers-in-law both have shiny, growly Harley Davidsons - Sportsters? Roadsters? Something with a "ster" in it - that they are very proud of. They deck themselves out in Harley helmets, jackets, chaps and belts and go thundering down the road looking quite cool. D has a 20 year old Honda 350. It's covered in dust, has two broken tail lights and was recently diagnosed with a bad case of mouse nest in its innards. When we ride it, we usually wear lumber jackets and work boots.

I think I detect more than a hint of wistfulness in D's eyes when C comes rumbling out of the shop on his way for a tour. D doesn't surf the 'net much, but when he does, it's to scroll through pages of used motorbikes every blessed time. I keep coaxing him to buy a new one, but he won't. I'm not really sure why, but I think it's because he never wants to spend money on himself. Surprise me with a ruby and diamond necklace for Christmas? No problem. Purchase a new grain mixer for his Dad's farm? No biggie. Buy himself a used motorbike to replace the one he's had since forever? Not gonna happen.

While it's tempting to want to buy one for him, I wouldn't know where to begin. My motorbike expertise begins with tooting around on the teeny tiny old '70 at his parents' farm, and ends with me balancing on the back of D's bike until my butt hurts. And C has vowed never to help me, for fear of incurring D's wrath. So what to do?

I've been for a ride on both my brothers' Harleys, and while they're a lot of fun, I still prefer D's beat up old bike. The Harleys are incredibly loud; your head aches after a half hour on the back of one. I don't like the way everyone stares at you when you roar through town either. The passenger seats aren't as comfy as the old squishy one on D's bike. Plus the brothers would never allow their bikes to go for a joyride down the dirty 6th concession, let alone a heart-pounding buzz through a freshly shorn field.

I have so many good memories associated with the Honda: the first time D took me for a spin, through fragrant meadows and down bumpy dirt roads, around his Grandpa's old farm and the Lowry Grain elevators; the time we dumped 'er executing a tight turn and smashed the only remaining tail light; the night he proposed at the Point Clark lighthouse with the ring hidden in the bike's secret compartment. Yeah, I love that old bike! Even if by some miracle I can convince him to get a new one some day, the dusty red Honda will always be my favourite.

In praise of...sisters

I just realized I'd better get my August entry in for my "things I love" blog. No sense starting a new series if I don't keep 'er up! So here are things I love about...sisters.

I am the filling in a three sister sandwich. Tanzi is two years my junior and Sissy nine my senior. Tanzi is teaching English Lit in Moscow until next June and Sissy has been enjoying life down under in Australia for almost twenty years now. Despite gaps in age and distance, we're close and fondly refer to ourselves as "crazy sisters three." We even have our own theme song set to the tune of Dolly Parton's 'Islands in the Stream,' but it only exists in a rarely heard live version, usually fuelled by a lot of champagne.

On the rare occasions that all three of us are together, we talk and talk and talk. And drink. And then talk some more. And I'm not even gonna touch on the giggling fits that drinking and talking induce. The exciting part? There's a slight chance that we may get the opportunity to do just that this Christmas, and it will be the first time since D and I got married that we'll all be in the same country together.

Since meeting D, I've been exposed to the brother dynamic (he has two), but I have to say, it pales in comparison to the sister connection. For one thing, the brothers Lowry don't hug, or talk about stuff unless it's mechanical or cider-related. So I thought I'd jot down a few of the things I love about sisters, just for the record.

1) Sisters get you.
Whether it's your weird fear of feet, the way you blink really fast when you're lying, your penchant for toilet reading or your addiction to Asian knick-knacks, sisters get you. They get your jokes, your quirks, your habits in a way even a parent or a spouse can't quite appreciate. I've seen D and my Dad look bewildered over many of the things I do or say, whereas my sisters simply shrug. "Hey, that's just Kim," their expressions seem to say. "Accept that she's weird. Move on."

2) Sisters are your biggest fans.
Sisters have a knack for making you feel good about even the smallest of your accomplishments. My sisters cheer me on constantly, about things as innocuous as creating a new jam flavour to getting one of my articles published. We encourage each other, no matter how crazy the scheme or plan or idea may sound, and we are there to hurrah or comfort as the situation requires. When I publish my book, you can bet my sisters' names will be first on the dedication page.


3) Sisters are kinda like you, but not really.
Even though you share may similarities and certain traits that cement your status as sisters (in our case, a seal-bark of a laugh that has been compared to our Nana's, a bad habit of making funny faces in photos, and a love of lychee to name just a few), you're very different in other respects. And that's a good thing. It's like you're just similar enough to feel connected, but different enough to earn each other's respect.

4) Sisters let you borrow clothes.
'Nuff said. From what I can tell, the brothers Lowry only borrow tools.

So what else can I say? Amen to sisters, my friends. There's nothing quite like 'em.

Enter Sandman

I swore to myself that this blog would not become a repository of baby-related rhapsodies once I gave birth. And I am going to stick to that promise. Right after I tell you that Jade has the biggest belly I've ever seen this morning. Geesh. That kid can eat. Apparently I AM a "high producer," as D says.

Anyhoo, in the interest of promoting reduced baby content on this blog, did I ever tell you about the time I attended a Metallica concert?

I was dating a guy who liked metal a lot at the time. He coaxed me into coming to the concert with a few of his friends, and a mutual friend of ours who was a rare breed: a female metalhead. I liked Metallica well enough, but I wouldn't say I was a huge fan. Sure, in the 80's, I had veered dangerously into metalhead territory with my growing penchant for bands like Motley Crue and Ratt, but I was saved by the punk and new wave music some friends introduced me to. It was like an intervention.

I thought Metallica did have considerable talent despite the screaming vocals and grinding guitars, so I bought a ticket and off we went to Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. When we got there, I realized I was dressed completely inappropriately: everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - was wearing black. Black shirts, black jackets, black jeans, black boots. I wore my favourite red shirt, embroidered jeans and running shoes. Oops.

The thing I remember most about that concert was the song "Enter Sandman." I'm still partial to the song because of the creepy lyrics and trance-inducing rhythm, but that night I was particularly excited about it as it was one of the few songs they played that I knew the words to. As I belted out the lyrics along with a coliseum full of other people, I decided it was time to try thrashing. My friends had been doing it to every song, and practically everyone else was doing it too, including the band.

Thrashing, for those of you who have never tried it, is the act of flinging your head (and preferably your long, dyed black hair) back and forth in time to heavy metal music. If you're good, you can lean to one side and get your whole torso going. If you're REALLY good, you can do this all while playing air guitar.

What I failed to realize was just how much neck muscle is actually required in order to thrash to more than one song. Encouraged by the thumbs up I received from my female metalhead friend, I thrashed enthusiastically for the rest of the concert. The next morning, I couldn't lift my head off my pillow. It felt like I had a pumpkin attached to my neck by a thread.

Why am I telling you all this, dear reader? Well, this was just one of the many random memories that's drifted across my mind during a 4am feeding. It seems particularly significant because Jade's head bobs around like a drunken thrasher if not supported, and because the Sandman is someone I have come to appreciate during these first four weeks of mummyhood.

I can't say I've ever appreciated the wonder of sleep the way I have lately. I can actually pinpoint the moment before I fall asleep, something I've never noticed before in my life. It's like I'm tiptoeing up to the edge of a very deep chasm - think Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam or Niagara Falls - looking down for a moment, then blissfully plunging over the edge. No screaming, no splat; just a delightful floaty feeling and poof! I'm asleep. It's glorious.

At first I was afraid I'd be irritable and resentful at having my sleep interrupted by baby. As lovely and wanted as she is, I am a pretty big fan of my zzz's. Thankfully I have come to view the 2, 3, or 4 hour stretches I get to sleep as exciting opportunities to nap, rather than whinging about the fact that I can't get a good night's sleep anymore. Napping is always a good thing, right? Thankfully Jade shares my enthusiasm for naps too. Enter Sandman indeed.

Guess I did end up talking a bit about baby, didn't I?

5 things I learned the hard way

1) When buying certain edibles, don't skimp. Don't be tempted by generic brands that look the same or by no-name prices. Your taste buds and stomach will thank you. My list includes pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup, ice cream, maple syrup, Coke and champagne. It's better to spend a little bit extra and actually see the bottom of the mayonnaise bottle after a few months instead of throwing out an almost-full jar. It also prevents long lectures from disgruntled husbands ("You didn't buy HEINZ ketchup? Kimmy, there ain't no other kindz!"). Plus, life is too short to drink crappy champagne or fake Coke.

2) Buy good sheets, no lower than 300 threadcount, preferably Egyptian or organic cotton. Trust me on this one: once you have experienced the soft, gentle embrace of good sheets, you will never again suffer your body to sleep on scratchy polyester disasters from Zellers. Even D, who was a die-hard flannel sheet aficionado, has become a convert to my silk/cotton blends.

3) Some dogs just want to chase cats. No matter how much time you spend trying to teach them that cats are not their personal wind-up toys, or encourage a feline/canine dialogue, certain dogs are hard-wired to chase small furry things. No amount of patient instruction or angry yelling will help. It's easier to accept this phenomenon and strategically prevent said dogs from having kitty contact.

4) Men think farting is funny. This does not change with age, maturity or marital status. No amount of dirty looks or talks about respect or how when you were dating they never passed gas in front of you will ever change this. *sigh*

5) Some people are just better than you are at doing stuff. Writing, baking, scrabble, witticisms, decorating - there's always someone who can do it better than you can. And that's okay. Cause it probably means you can do something better than someone else out there too!

I'd like to thank my bull mastiff, my husband, and...

Oh, wasn't Sunday night glorious? Why, you ask? Because it was OSCAR night, of course.

All you Oscar haters should just stop reading right here. 'Cause I love those darned Academy Awards, and I don't care if that makes me a geeky stargazer, a bourgeois snob, or just plain weird. I watch 'em every year, right to the bitter end. Why? I'm not exactly sure; I think it has something to do with a childhood dream of walking down the red carpet and accepting an award with teary eyes. I kind of came close the year I won the Stars of Excellence thingy at work. I got to buy a gown and go to a fancy dinner on the arm of semi-important men, but it just wasn't quite the same.

For the last two years, I've been dragging D and C down the Oscar path with me (especially since we don't have cable and have to use C's tv). They put up with it, mainly because they think it's hilarious when I dress up, make hors d'ouvres and pour champagne for the big night. Yeah, I know. I'm a bit lame. But trust me, I look dandy in a gown, I don't buy cheap champagne and my appetizers are delicious. (Ask C - I caught him scarfing down a whole platter of my Mexican Fiesta dip last year.)

This year, I couldn't squeeze into any of my Oscar-worthy gowns, so I had to make do with a sort-of-sexy-in-a-mack-truck-kinda-way maternity dress. (At least now I have cleavage to rival Angelina's.) Plus the usual bottle of champers is a no-no, but thanks to President's Choice pink sparkling stuff, which comes with a cork that pops, we enjoyed a reasonable facsimile.

I do think it's fun to sit back and observe the fashions, the pomp and circumstance, the whole crazy spectacle that is the Oscars. I enjoy those funny or heartfelt moments that occur throughout the night. Tina Fey and Steve Martin were a match made in heaven; Sean Penn's "you commie, homo-loving sons-a-guns" comment almost made me shoot fake wine out my nose; the sincere tones and steady eye contact maintained by the women presenting the best actress award were unusual for a Hollywood event. And Hugh Jackman did a bang-up job as host. Now there's a fellow who looks good in a tux.

So, now that the Oscars have come and gone for another year, and the champagne flutes are stored back on the shelf, I just have to catch up on my movie watching; Slumdog and The Wrestler are next on my list.

Sleepless but glad

I'm functioning on approximately three hours' sleep but am fighting the grogginess long enough to report that Comfort is simply suffering the effects of venerability and not some raging kitty disease. While this is not wonderful news, at least she isn't suffering. And no, I wasn't up all night worrying. (Brother-in-law just needs to get a softer guest bed!)

The kind vet and his lovely, rosy-cheeked assistant braved chilly winds and an overly excited Neko love attack to pay me a visit yesterday. Comfort was examined and pronounced "long in the tooth with failing kidneys," which made me sad. But the vet assured me she wasn't in any pain and was simply living out the last few days/weeks/months of her life with a slight case of distemper. She got a few cuddles and shot of penicillin in the butt, and waddled off, seemingly no worse for wear.

So, I guess a few extra moments in my lap and some warm milk are all I can do for her now. Sad, really, because she is such a lovely kitty. I'm sorry she won't see one more summer and have the change to lounge in the sun with baby & me. However, she seems to have had a relatively carefree, overfed life - and what more can a kitty ask for, really?

The vet was a real sweetheart and wouldn't charge me for the visit, so I paid him with two bottles of the boys' hard cider. He seemed quite tickled with it and I proudly relayed the story to D on our way to Waterloo last night. He looked horrified - turns out I'd given the vet the old, stinky, dran-o flavoured cider from two years ago by mistake! A quick phone call with instructions to pour it down the drain (or at least clean his toilet with it) remedied the situation; I'll be sheepishly delivering the "good stuff" tomorrow. Kind of embarrassing, especially after I'd extolled the virtues of "Someday Cider" for about 10 minutes to the vet before he left...

The Kittification of Someday

We have four cats at Someday Farm. They are inherited barn beasties, left for us by the previous owner's daughter, who cared for them diligently after her father died. I tried to tell her she was welcome to take the cats before we moved in; she looked at me as though I'd suggested she barbeque them and retorted, "It's the only home they've ever known." This sentiment was forcefully repeated inside a card she left us after we took possession of Someday, along with photos of "the girls."

My mother always had a cat in the house when I was growing up, with a succession of different personalities and a variety of names: Vodka, Snowball, Velvet, Champagne, Selina, Chaucer. But four cats is more than I've ever had to deal with at one time, and I'm now faced with the dilemma of a very sick kitty. Comfort, the friendliest, purriest and most congenial of the barn kitty coalition, has not been well of late. She's gotten skinny, even though she still rams her way into the food bowl. I suspected an ear infection, as she was shaking her head a lot, and made a mental note to go and buy ear drops from the vet. But this week she has deteriorated at an alarming pace, walking with a lean and sometimes falling over when one of her companions brushes by her too enthusiastically. Yesterday I found her looking practically post-nuclear, with a trail of crusty blood coming out of her eyes.

So, much to the amusement of D and C, I'm waiting for the vet to arrive. Most country people don't spend money on barn cats; they are an expendable commodity, and believe me, when one goes to "the bush" or "the happy hunting ground," there are a dozen more willing to pounce into the empty place at the food bowl. But I feel bad about leaving Comfort to suffer. She is the only barn kitty who'll stand up to Neko, and the only one I can pick up and hold in my lap. She's a friend to all children and amuses visitors with her paunch of belly fat that swings when she walks.

We've spent hours together sitting in the sunshine. She truly was a comfort to me while I was on my leave of absence, her purrs a tonic to my grieving soul. So although I am usually a bit more of a hardass when it comes to animals, it doesn't feel right to follow "the country way" in the case of Comfort. I called the vet over on the 4th Concession and he promised to drop by today. I'm going to shell out a fistful of dough, probably only to have the vet tell me she's a goner, but at least then I can put her out of her misery knowing I tried to do something for her.

I wonder how the other kitties will react if Comfort, whom I've always thought of as the feline ringleader, disappears from their kitty coalition? I think Comfort and Betty are sisters; I have no idea if cats care about that kind of thing or not. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

More random musings on boys

One gets a yet another peek into that weird and wonderful thing called the male psyche around Christmas, especially when there are only two shopping days left. Quickly - while I wait for D to return from picking up his brother C so we can all head to Goderich for a last-ditch attempt to buy some gifts - I thought I'd share a few observations I've made over the past two December weeks.

1) Guys do not shop ahead. D and C are panicky and irritable because they haven't finished (started?) their Christmas shopping yet. Neither of them made time to go to "the city" to do a big spree, which means they are left with the less-than-thrilling shopping destinations of Goderich or Hanover (heaven forbid they actually shop in KINCARDINE!). While I am sorely tempted to lecture/mock/flaunt all my purchased gifts in their faces, I stay quiet and just shake my head a lot.

2) Guys like to eat. A LOT. Especially at Christmas. Witness the three batches of Christmas cookies I made. No sooner were they on the cooling racks than a good quarter of them had disappeared into the boys' eager gullets. If I hadn't stopped C from snorking down my peanut butter balls straight out of the fridge while the chocolate was still setting, I'd have none left! While I'm flattered they like my cooking, it gets tiring trying to keep up with their appetites. I have no idea how my mother-in-law kept her sanity raising and feeding 3 boys.

3) Guys like to get the Christmas tree, and put up the Christmas tree, but they don't like to decorate it. (Although they seem to have lots of opinions when it comes to how other people do the decorating).

4) Guys are more sentimental around this time of year than any other. My normally crusty bro-in-law showed up earlier in the week with his 4 wheel drive to take me to town (my Kia won't go in the deep snow) to run errands, and brought over his "101 Strings Christmas" CD compilation - which he proceeded to make me listen to for 20 minutes before we could set foot outside. He looked blissfully happy, sitting in D's leather chair, listening to the orchestra play all sorts of traditional tunes at very high decibels. And my husband hasn't wanted to do much more than cuddle on the couch under the glow of our Christmas lights - which, to me, is all I really need to make my holiday complete.

Merry Merry everyone!

Melon-collie at Someday Farm

Upon returning from our sojurn in California, I wandered down to see how my garden had fared in my absence. The racoons had decimated the corn, but I'd expected that. What I didn't expect was the plump, beautiful watermelon that was waiting patiently for me. I could just hear it saying, "Hey! You're back! Finally. Now, are you just gonna stare at me or are you gonna pick me?"

I'd planted the melons from seed, like most of the things I grew this year. My beans and peas were a great success, but D was skeptical about the melons.

"They'll never mature," he said, condescendingly, I thought, for someone who's never tried to grow much of anything besides corn. "You planted 'em too late."

Secretly, I agreed with him, but didn't want to admit it. So when I saw this big green baby waiting for me amidst all its fuzzy leaves, I did a little victory dance. D's favourite food is watermelon, and I couldn't wait to see his face when I served him a juicy pink slice for dessert that night.

When I proudly carried my green melon into the kitchen, where both C and D were waiting, they started to laugh. "Are you sure that thing's ripe, Kimmy?" said C.

"Of course it's ripe!" I knocked it with my knuckles. "Hear that nice hollow sound?"

"I don't think she's ripe," said D.

"Just you wait," I said, and got out the giant knife reserved soely for watermelons and pumpkin carving. I handed it to D, who always does the honours. "It's gonna be delicious."

D obediently dug the knife in to the hilt and thumped the handle a few times. We all watched breathlessly as the melon separated and fell in two pieces onto the cutting board.

Not only was my plump green treasure totally unripe, it had a big rotten spot in it too! The horror! The shame!! The teasing that ensued!!!

My only consolation is that Neko enjoyed every bite. AND I have three more green treasures ripening in the garden, waiting for their turn. Maybe I should find some MiracleGro...

Ode to a Lawn Tractor: Part I

One surprising thing I learned this past spring is that up here, cutting the lawn is almost always considered 'woman's work' - unless you have a kid of your own whose legs are long enough to reach the lawn tractor gas pedals. Because it is always called a "lawn tractor," never a "lawn mower" or even a "riding mower." I'm not sure why.

When I was growing up, lawns and their related upkeep were part of an exclusively masculine domain, unless you had the aforementioned kid. If the man of the house was otherwise occupied, or you didn't have a kid of your own to punish, you hired some other guy (or kid) to cut it for you. Having grown up with this mowing strategy firmly entrenched, it was a bit of a shock to be told that cutting the 2 acres of lawn at Someday Farm would be MY job. Now that I was a country girl, I had to learn to do things the country way.

When we first moved here, I was so excited at the thought of owning all this lovely acreage. My eyes greedily took in the gently sloping hills, the apple orchards, the rustic fences. I silently thanked the person who thought to plant the multitude of pine and maple trees that dot the property. Now when I survey our domain, I see it with the keen eyes of the practised lawn slave: steep ditches waiting to tip your tractor, apple trees who stab you in the eye and ear with their brances, fences whose navigation require military precision and unending maple and pine obstacles that laugh at my attempts to cut around them cleanly.

My virgin ride on our ramshackle lawn tractor occurred last week. It was 9 o'clock at night, windy and miserable. Both C and D were on hand to observe my first attempt and give "pointers." May I state here and now that the last thing a girl needs to have is two guys shouting and waving their arms frantically at her the first time she mounts a large piece of heavy machinery?

Having had little experience driving much of anything motorized apart from my Kia and the '70, I got along fairly well, if I do say so myself. I figured out how to start the thing, where the brakes were (even though they don't work), what a choke was (up until then I thought it was just something I wanted to do to the dog when she misbehaved), how to go really fast and how to reverse. It was actually kind of fun once I got over my annoyance at the boys and their skeptical expressions. As I rode up and down the patch of lawn between the stable and the barn, I thought, Hey! I can do this! Look at me!

The true test came the next day when I had to go it alone. D was at work, and C was busy in the fields. There would be no one to hear me scream. I dutifully put on my grubbies and marched out to the stable to unleash the beast.

Part II coming soon to a blog near you...

In praise of husbands

I beg your indulgence, gentle reader, while I take a few moments to immortalize my husband yet again in this blog.

On Wednesday we had a difficult visit with a new doctor in Waterloo. Our situation isn't exactly hopeless, but it won't be easy. It's never nice for a woman to hear that she probably has "a few bad eggs," especially when the doctor is not referring to her diet.

After the appointment, D took me in hand and proceeded to spoil me for the rest of the day. First, we went for lunch at Sakura Island, my favourite sushi spot. D abhors raw fish and generally feels that eating out is a waste of time; he prefers home cooked meals and a nice "visit" at the kichen table. But he set aside his sushi prejudices and we had a companionable lunch together in the secluded comfort of one the restaurant's little dining compartments. I wasn't able to eat sushi while pregnant, so the spicy tuna rolls and tempura tasted even better than I remember they did 7 months ago. D even liked his teriyaki salmon, although he felt the sauce would work equally well over ice cream. The shy waitress brought us juicy slices of fresh orange to finish our meal.

After I was suitably stuffed, D proposed we stroll down King street and revisit our old dog-walking trails. The sunshine was glorious and we drank it in as we passed by our old haunts: people watching at the bus stops, giggling at the stag shop display, pausing outside Delirum to consider the clothes, checking the listings outside Starlight, sniffing hops as we passed the Gold Crown brewery, dodging drive-thru traffic at Tim's before crossing the street and touching the post outside of Ethel's bar.

Then we made our way down the other side of King street, ostensibly to look at the dresses in Loop, Kindred Spirit and Andie's. I've never met a man who enjoys looking at dresses as much as D does. He likes to judge them and decide which colour or shape would look best on me, which I find amusing since I'm not really a dressy kind of girl. But he insisted on buying me a pretty summer dress of "Caribbean blue" at Loop, along with a pink top I was hankering after. I am not used to having men shop for me; it's a lovely sensation.

As we approached William street, to my utter shock, D propelled me into the gelato place. My sister and I used to love to stop for gelato or DQ on our Waterloo walks but D would only acquiesce after much groaning, never indulging in the delicious stuff himself. I walked with him slowly back to the car, slurping up my melting cup of chocolate gelato and even coaxing him to try a few spoonfuls.

We ended our Waterloo day with a few hours deliberating over light fixtures at Home Depot, D's favourite spot in the world after the barn and TSC. We do manage to have fun together, no matter what mundane task we're doing. And the Harvey's hamburger with extra pickle on our way out was the crowning touch to what turned out to be a very good day indeed.

I'm sure D would die a thousand deaths if he knew I was writing about him. So I won't tell him about this blog post, but I will tell him again what a marvellous day I had with him and what a marvellous husband he is.