Sometimes it goes well

Today, as on many other days, George R.R. Martin made me sigh a little.

No, I wasn't re-reading the Red Wedding scene in A Storm of Swords for the fourteenth time. No, I wasn't watching good ol' Jon Snow get sliced and diced on TV. I was reading George's livejournal entry from January 1st, 2016, where he explains to legions of salivating fans why his long-awaited Winds of Winter won't be published anytime soon, despite repeated assurances that it would be.

"Unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked. You can blame my travels or my blog posts or the distractions of other projects and... whatever, but maybe all that had an impact... you can blame my age, and maybe that had an impact too...but if truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn't."

Word, George. I feel you, you big, bearded, suspender-wearing genius.

That's part of the reason I haven't written anything in this blog for years, why I haven't even put pen to paper to scribble any just-dropping-off-to-sleep-when-a-brilliant-idea-pops-into-my-brain stuff, or snippets of conversations I've pulled from shameless eavesdropping in restaurants and waiting rooms. Because sometimes the writing goes well, and sometimes it doesn't.

I can even pinpoint the exact moment my muse fled screaming: that day back in April 2015 when D and I learned our son Dylan is on the autism spectrum, which flipped typical parental expectations and hopes on their asses. The urge to write, to create, to dream on paper...well, all that energy drowned in a huge wave of grief and worry and WTF.

D and I have a strong foundation of love and respect in our home, and the unwavering support of our immediate family. We're damned lucky that way. Anytime a child in your life faces a health challenge, though, I think it irrevocably alters a family's dynamics. It alters your priorities, your marriage, your relationship with friends and extended family members who either don't get it, or don't know how to support you. Shit, I don't even know how to support me sometimes. You learn quickly who you can lean on, and who you want to punch in the throat.

Dylan is a beautiful boy. If anything, he's become even more precious to me simply because I treasure all that he is, now that I have learned to let go of my expectations of what he should be. Autism is not a disease that needs to be wrung out of someone. Autism isn't always fun, but it certainly isn't the end of the world. As I've tried to explain to our daughter Jade, who is a year older than Dyl, autism makes her brother's brain work differently than hers, and that's okay. We work with his strengths to overcome his weaknesses. We practice compassion and patience and humour. And isn't that how it should work with everyone, anyway?

So I'm back. My inner Mama Bear has become a little more badass, and I've come to a place of acceptance and determined optimism where my boy is concerned. Oh, there are still days where I cry in the bathroom because my little dude - in the most overused euphemism ever - is "being difficult." There are days when people, even those closest to me, just don't get it and I have to pace the cornfield for an hour and rant my frustrations to the crows and barn swallows. And there are days where Dylan's brilliance lights up my world and reminds me to open my heart to the times when it goes well so I can have the strength to power through the days when it doesn't.

Here's to more days where the writing goes well, for both me and Big George.

Adventures in Lawn Tractoring…again

Spring has sprung with a vengeance at Someday. The weather's been alternating between torrential rain and gorgeous sunshine, which means our lawn has gone from crappy to shaggy to tropical rainforest-y in a matter of days. And once again, I'm on deck to keep the grassy expanses looking civilized.

I tend to yell a lot while on the lawn tractor. I yell when I run over something that makes a horrible noise (tree stumps, branches, the kids' toys), I yell when I get a cobweb in the face. I yell when I'm on a steep hill and I yell when I get stuck. The zero turn and I don't get along at the best of times, and today it seemed like it was truly out to get me.

Mowing the lawn for the first time each year means I have to shake the dust out of my winter-addled brain and remember the intricacies of lawn tractor operation (pump up the crappy front tire, check the oil, growl at the empty gas tank, drive to my mother-in-law's to steal gas, etc.) Once all the prep work is complete, it's time for my annual exercise in humiliation: I can never turn the knob to lower the deck. Every spring I want to write a venomous letter to the creators of the JD Zero Turn, stating that I don't know how they do things in America, but in Bruce County, it's mostly women who drive the lawn tractors, so stop making the deck dial tighter than Sarah Palin's smile.

With a giant sigh of defeat, I called D. He actually answered.

"Yeah Kimmy?"

"I just want to make sure I'm lowering the deck right."

"Are you on the lawn tractor?"

"No, I'm on the couch eating bonbons. Of course I'm on the tractor! The stupid dial won't turn. Do I have to have the brake off or something?"

"It's just hard to turn. You might need some help." Here, my beloved husband paused, and I could practically feel his smirk radiating through the phone. "You might have to call my dad…"

"I AM NOT CALLING A MAN TO COME AND TURN A KNOB," I yelled into the phone. D made an inappropriate but not entirely unexpected joke about knob pulling and I hung up. I grabbed the knob with all my might, yelled "TURN YOU STUPID FREAKING THING!" and twisted. The deck lowered. I fist-pumped the air and yelled "TAKE THAT!" to no one in particular and every man in general.

The problem with a wet spring is that squishy lawns and zero turns do not mix. It didn't occur to me to check the gully before driving the lumbering beast onto it. I screamed as the zero turn slid slowly and inexorably down the gully towards the wheat field and promptly got stuck in two feet of mud. After my heart stopped racing, I managed to get the tractor unstuck, and also managed to turn a large chunk of our lawn into a motocross track. This: plus this: = This: Oh yeah. I rock.

The afternoon continued to be full of small disasters. Not only was I mowing down precious bees by the dozen, I ran over two frogs. I screamed various things like MOVE! LOOK OUT! INCOMING! but they were either deafened by the mower or resigned to their fate and I assume they all became lawn mowing casualties. (I couldn't tell you for sure because I had my eyes closed.) After that, I stopped the mower every five minutes to hop out and peer into the grass to see if a tiny movement indicated a living creature, which resulted in the rescue of two toads and a frog from my giant John Deere cuisinart. Hopefully mother nature will hold off on smiting me for a while yet.

After nearly strangling myself in the kids' swing set, I decided I'd had enough of lawn mowing for one day. As I sat on the back steps, picking grass out of my hair and bra, I said a silent prayer for rain and wondered which of D's cousins I could blame for driving their ATVs so recklessly through our wet gully.

Sappy

Collecting sap every day for two weeks from sixty-plus maple trees is an exercise in humility. Sure, there's the nature-loving, granola girl aspect that I so enjoy, what with the fresh air and hearty exercise and accidental tree hugging (the woods are damn slippery in the spring). But mostly I was just humbled by our feeble attempts to harness nature's sappy goodness. Oh, and did I mention the sap collection business is FREAKING EXHAUSTING?

At least I didn't have to do all the work myself. After the trees were tapped, it was up to me and trusty brother-in-law Carman to trudge out to each tree, collect the sap, pour it in buckets, haul it back to the main tank and figure out how much we'd collected.

The thing about Carman is that he never treats me differently than he'd treat his brothers, which means he lets me shoulder my share of the work. While he may raise an eyebrow if I appear to be taking on more than my tiny muscles can possibly bear, he doesn't try to rescue me unless I squeal for help. Usually, I like and respect being treated as an equal, but after lugging endless 5 gallon buckets of sap over slippery trails day after day, I started to wonder whether acting like a damsel in distress would be all that bad. My pride prevented me from trying to find out.

Have you ever collected sap before? I hadn't. First, you have to load the aforementioned empty 5 gallon buckets onto a sled. Then you pull the a sled through various muddy snowbanks, chuck it and the buckets over fences and petrified cow pats until you get to the tree line. The kids were not amused when I made off with their favourite sled.

Then comes the collecting. It's fraught with various hazards, such as treacherous snowbanks that gave way without warning, branches that claw at your eyes like angry dryads, steep hills and big holes.. And don't get me started on deer and bunny shit. Those critters are poo machines and they seem to enjoy making their deposits right underneath the sap pails.

Most of the days were mild and clear. All the trudging and lifting and pouring and pulling would make Carman and I sweat like we were running a marathon. "At least we're getting our exercise," I'd pant. "Outta shape, Kimmy?" Carm would respond. Overcome with thirst one day, I hid behind a tree and swigged ice cold sap right out of the pail. It was like drinking some magic potion. As the cool liquid spilled down my throat, I felt instantly refreshed. Later I caught Carman had been doing the same thing.

Our usual habit was to park the sleds on one side of the barbed wire fence in the pasture and empty each small pail of sap into the bigger buckets. Then we'd haul the buckets, sloshing and ungainly, back to the fence, mash them through and load them back onto the sled. Although as a kid I'd been no stranger to hopping various fences - electric and barbed included - the forty-something me was sadly out of practice. I always made sure Carm's back was turned before I attempted to squeeze through to avoid any extra humiliation. If I'd been getting any money for my labour, I would have asked for hazard pay.

As winter reluctantly loosened its grasp and allowed spring to finally unfurl herself, the snow gave way to mountains of mud and the crisp, fresh air turned damp and pungent. We abandoned our sled in favour of the kids' little red wagon. Carman and I made trip after trip across the fields, hauling gallons of sap in the wagon. "There HAS GOT to be a better way," I would gasp every time, feeling like an abused mule. The boys forbid me to drive a tractor on the tender fields for fear of wrecking the soil, but I was sure that even Pa Ingalls wouldn't have worked THIS hard. Finally Carman took pity on me and hooked the wagon up to...the lawn tractor. Embarrassing yes, but not nearly as exhausting. And I did not allow photos.

Tromping around in the woods gives you the chance to experience moments of exquisite beauty: a pure blue sky with a slice of moon floating in it; velvet mosses clinging to tree trunks; the creak and song of tree limbs moving in the wind. There's also the unique sensation of being slapped in the face repeatedly by branches, falling knee-down in cold mud and putting your hand into a pile of raccoon poop. That's what I love about nature; it's a study in contrasts. Sometimes you just have to take a moment and savour the experience, even when it's smelly.

This is me, up in a tree, savouring the moment.

Next up: how to make syrup and burn your eyebrows off.

Pressing Issues

In honour of all the Christmas cookie photos being flaunted on Facebook these days, and because I'm making Smartie Cookies, which were my childhood favourite (except now I add rum), I thought I'd repost this one for you. Best read while you down copious amounts of coffee with Baileys while contemplating a ruined batch of cookies. (Originally published in 2009)

When I moved to the country, I left behind a couple of girlfriends with whom I’ve been pals for many years. We meet up every so often to drink, laugh, commiserate and rant together. We do not, however, bake together, and that's likely what has kept our friendship so stable.
You hear about women who congregate annually and form baking coalitions in someone's kitchen. Dough and hilarity ensue. Dozens of exotic cookies are baked and shared amongst the group, then everyone goes home to smugly fill their freezers to the brim with holiday baking.
In theory, this all sounds very Martha Stewart. It sounds like something a country woman, or at least a woman who recently moved to the country, should do, and our kitchen at Someday just begs to be socialized in. Bright and spacious, with lots of counter space, it’s the perfect place for a baking party. I can practically hear it whispering, "If you bake it, they will come.”

Sometimes I sigh and wish my sisters and city friends lived closer so we could have our own bake-bonding sessions. Then I attempt to make cookies or cupcakes and the burning smell snaps me back to reality: I would probably kill anyone who tried to share my kitchen. Although I come from a long line of amazing cooks, baking isn't my forte. I never learned the fine art of making pie crust from scratch or how to produce the giant pans of squares that are a staple here in Bruce County. And as my younger sister or D could tell you, I don’t play well with others in the kitchen. I’m bossy and not very forgiving when things go wrong.

My city girlfriends are not without a sense of humour. A few years ago, they gave me a cookie press for Christmas. They know about my baking dysfunction, but they also know I am addicted to sweets and still occasionally try to make stuff from scratch. This past December, the weather outside being frightful, I decided to give in, assume my position as a country woman and bake some Christmas cookies. Shortbread - that old Yuletide classic - seemed a logical choice, and I asked my mother-in-law to help. Shirley, quite simply, is a kitchen goddess. She stews, cans, preserves, roasts - she does it all. She is especially adept in the baking department, so I figured that with her help, I couldn't possibly screw up.

We sat down at her kitchen table to read and re-read the hallowed shortbread recipe that I’d weaseled out of a colleague. Every year, my colleague made dozens of delicate cookies and brought them into the office. Her cookies were incredible, the type of shortbread that melts in your mouth, pressed in beautiful designs and decorated with tiny candies. I loved them so much that she used to bring me a separate tin for my own personal consumption. When my friends gave me the cookie press, I begged my colleague for her recipe, which she relinquished after much coaxing. I had the press, I had the recipe, and I had Shirley. There would be no burning smell today.

Shirley and I unpacked the cookie press, took it apart, admired the different patterns. We measured the ingredients for the dough and mashed everything together with our hands. Things were going swimmingly until we jammed the dough into the press and attempted to mould our first cookie in the shape of a wreath. I clicked the trigger of the press and looked down at the cookie sheet. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. I let Shirley try. No cookie. I shook the press like it was a martini mixer, smacked it vigorously and tried again. Nada.
I could feel the curse words I’d promised myself I would not say bubbling to the surface, and forced them down. I was in my mother-in-law’s kitchen, and needed to remain calm. There couldn’t be any fits of cookie rage today. Shirley must have sensed I was about to pitch the stupid press through her screen door. She gently extricated it from my clenched fists and set it on the table. “Let’s read the instructions again,” she suggested.

Upon further examination, the instructions on the cookie-press box warned us not to use a cold cookie sheet (not a problem, as Shirley’s house is always a toasty 75 degrees), and not to use a non-stick surface. Well, who owns a cookie sheet these days that isn't non-stick? We looked at each other in disgust.

“What if we added a little water to the dough?” said Shirley after a few moments of silence in which I imagined running over the cookie press with Carman’s jeep. We added a little water, smushed the dough back into the press and voila! out came our first cookie. It looked like my fantasy about Carm’s jeep had come true. We changed the pattern to the tree and tried a few more. They looked like deflated, Charlie Brown Christmas trees. And so it went.

Three dozen pressed cookies and as many suppressed swear words later, I discovered that the oven wouldn't heat up. “That’s strange,” said my mother-in-law. “It worked today when I made the roast beef.” I was starting to think the cookie press was cursed.

When we finally did get the oven going and the cookies were baked, we sat down at the table with mugs of tea and sampled our handiwork. We made the appropriate "My, aren't these yummy!" noises, but the cookies tasted like warm butter mixed with sawdust.

Refusing to admit they were that bad, I pounced on D when he walked in the door. “Here, try this,” I said and forcibly shoved a cookie in his mouth. He chewed...and chewed...and chewed, then fled to the fridge for some milk. "Gahhh," he said after a mighty swallow, "not my favourite."

My mother-in-law politely declined my offer to share the cookies with me (“Oh no, you keep them, you’ll need them for your guests”), so I ended up with three dozen nasty shortbread cookies in my freezer that I indeed served to guests throughout the holiday season, accompanied by big cups of eggnog. The cookie press went back where it belonged, in the darkest corner of my least-used cupboard.

I was tempted to send tins to my girlfriends in the city, but wanting to preserve our friendship, I just told them all about my adventures in country woman baking and we had a good laugh. I think they’ll just give me a bottle of wine next Christmas, and maybe a box of store bought biscuits to go with it. My saint of a mother-in-law has promised to give me some recipes for squares, because they're supposed to be "foolproof." It's touching that she still has that much faith in me.

Sleepless at Someday: Baba Pickles edition

I've written about being sleepless at Someday before, but last night was an epic no-sleeper. And I can't blame the stuff that used to keep me awake, like bad dreams or anxiety or heartburn or false labour. Nope, last night was my own damned fault: I allowed myself to fall asleep in Dylan's bed and though D (allegedly) tried to rouse me a couple of times, I didn't stumble out of the kids' room until 11:30 p.m. And then I was wide. Frigging. Awake. Argh.

D tried to coax me to come to bed, but I knew it would be hopeless. I pointedly took a bottle of wine and a pint of blueberries out of the fridge, which is when he gave up and went to bed and fell asleep in thirty seconds flat, like he always does.

I drank a small glass of wine and ate the wine-soaked blueberries at the bottom of the glass. Then I played online scrabble for a while. Then I did what any country woman would do when faced with a long night of wakeful alone-ness: I made pickles.

These pickles are just like the ones my Russian grandma, my Baba, used to make, with cold water and cold vinegar and kosher salt and about a dump truck full of garlic. Instead of boiling them, you just tighten the lids, give them a shake and leave them alone for four or five days to ferment themselves into fizzy, crispy goodness. The cucumbers and garlic and dill are from local Mennonite farmers, which Baba would approve of. She always admired the "Mennoniteskies," as she called them. She probably wouldn't have been horrified to learn that I made them at 1 in the morning either, as we sometimes caught her outside raking her lawn in the middle of the night when she was having one of those sleepless spells that afflicted her occasionally.

I'm so tired today that all I can offer you is a photo essay of my Baba pickles. I hope you like them. I think they're rather beautiful. But maybe that's just the sleep deprivation talking.

Don't Mess with the Dress

I went for a flying visit to the city yesterday to have dinner with some old, dear friends and to get my glasses fixed. I also had another, less pleasurable item on my agenda: I needed new clothes.

Many of my friends up here complain that there’s nowhere to shop in Kincardine, especially for clothes. I’ve found that between Southampton and Goderich there are plenty of boutiques, some lovely consignment shops and even a few mainstream stores. “But there aren’t any malls,” my friends moan. To which I quietly respond, “Thank the Lord.” Because I really, really hate malls.

I’ve never been much for owning the latest fashion trend, although I often notice and admire folks who wear their clothes with flair. I think clothes should be functional and fun, and serve as an expression of your personality. The problem is that my fashion personality of late could best be described as indifferent. Or, as my sister so eloquently puts it: “Meh.”

I like to wear clothes that make me happy, like a colourful dress that hugs my body and makes D’s eyebrows go up like Groucho Marx’s, or jeans that are so comfortable I forget I’m wearing them. This summer, most of my clothes just make me shrug. My jeans are torn and frayed, or else they sag and make me look like I’m wearing a full diaper. My tee shirts are stained, stretched, moth-eaten or all three and my favourite skirts are older than my marriage certificate. I have beautiful closets, and nasty clothes.

Since I’m done being pregnant, over my career crises, and my other health issues are fairly under control, I’m hoping my wildly fluctuating body shape will settle down where it’s currently at, give or take a few pounds. Last year’s happy Buddha pot-belly is gone, D keeps asking me whether I have any pants that don’t have torn cuffs, and I’m getting a bit tired of searching for shirts that haven’t been used as a moth picnic. But what really made me realize a shopping trip was in order was a conversation I had with Jade before I left for the city.

“Hmmm, which top should I wear with this skirt?” I mused aloud as I surveyed the tumbled mess of half-folded shirts in my closet. I’d chosen a longish cotton pencil skirt emblazoned with a dragon-phoenix-y thing; it was a hand-me-down from my more fashionable sister. D hates that skirt because it hides my legs. I love it because it's comfortable and good for days when I didn’t feel like shaving my legs.

I reached into the closet and selected a garnet-coloured tee shirt that sort of matched the feathers in the phoenix-dragon’s wings. The v-neck was stretched and the colour was faded, but it was the best I could do. “There, this will look nice.”

Jade, who was standing beside me, crossed her arms. “No, it won’t.”

“But...it matches my skirt?” I said, taken aback that my four-year-old daughter had an opinion about what I wore.

“No, Mumma,” said Jade. “I will choose you something else. That one is yuckky.”

As I watched my child rummage through my motley collection of shirts, it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be taking advice from someone who thought wearing pink pyjamas every day for a week was the height of fashion sense. Then it hit me; my daughter noticed what I wore, knew I wasn’t all that happy wearing it, and that made some kind of difference to her. Which got me thinking about how I’d been dressing lately: sloppily, without much thought to whether my clothes were neat or clean (the one clothing rule I enforce with both my kids), or whether I felt good in them. I’d forgotten an important fact: little kids notice everything. As a parent, I was a living, breathing model of adulthood, from the way I brushed my teeth to the way I handled a phone call from the “this will just take a moment of your time” telemarketing company. As trivial as it seemed, the clothes I wore and the way I felt when I wore them was all part of the model.

As Jade handed me a sheer orange top with an image of Ganesh surrounded by twinkly rhinestones in the middle, I thought about my own mother and her flair for fashion, as comfortable in silk dresses and high heels as she was in the terrycloth tank tops she wore in the garden. I didn’t need to prance around in yellow silk, but maybe I needed clothes that made me feel good about myself to keep my “roughing it” outfits in balance.

Lots of people I know adore shopping. My mother was the master of it, and my sister Tanzi and friend Ruth are the same. They have an incredible instinct for finding outfits that are the right size, colour and style, usually on sale. Even D, on his rare annual shopping expeditions, can pick out half a dozen shirts and pants that look great on him in less than an hour. Me? Not so much. I don’t mind window shopping, but honestly, I’d rather clean eaves troughs in the rain than try on clothes. The trip to the city was a golden opportunity to right my fashion wrongs, though, and I figured the mall, as much as I loathed it, would be the quickest and most painless way to get myself a few summer outfits to help look more like a confident, funky mama than a bag-lady.

Right.

There are days when I really feel my age. Like when Dylan runs away from me and I nearly have a coronary trying to catch him. Or when I walk into a store at the mall filled equally with thud-thud electronic music and pretty teenagers clad in white shorty-shorts. Then I feel every millisecond of my forty-three years.

As I took my fourth step into the store, I had three immediate thoughts:
1) Why is everything so short?
2) Why is everything so cheap?
3) What the hell am I doing here?

I should have turned around and found a different store, one with fewer teens and more down-tempo music. Instead, I ground my teeth together, grabbed a random sampling of synthetic stuff off the “Now 3$!” and “2 for 10!” racks and corralled a bored-looking clerk. I told her I wasn’t sure what size I was so I’d taken two of everything to try. She chewed her gum, flicked her eyes over my body and shrugged.

“Prob’ly a medium,” she said with another shrug and nodded at me to follow her as she scuffed her bejewelled ballet flats across the store to the change rooms.

After trying on my third absurdly short sundress, having had to squeeze my way out of my tiny change room to the communal mirror each time, I gave up. The clothes just weren’t me. In fact, the whole store just wasn’t me. I felt, more than ever, like a sloppy, un-funky, old-bag-lady mom and fled the store.

In vain I searched the mall for stores with styles that might speak to me, that girl who used wear fun dresses to work, the woman who used to get tarted up to go out dancing, this country mama who wanted something pretty but functional, casual but flattering, feminine but tough enough to withstand sticky embraces and blueberry pancake missiles. It didn’t take long to figure out that whatever I needed, I was definitely not going to find at the freaking mall.

Hot, flustered, angry at the stores, the clothes and myself, I got into my car and started driving. I went past the beautiful wooded trails where I used to walk on my lunch hours, past the old building where I’d spent seventeen years of my working life, past my favourite sushi restaurant. Suddenly I was downtown Waterloo, near Young Street. And that girl who used to know how to dress whispered “Turn left, TURN LEFT!” so I did, and found myself in front of Unique Boutique, a clothing store my sister and I had discovered a decade ago when we’d both lived in the city.

The shop is owned by a warm, lovely woman named Gosia. She’s the type of person who wears her clothes so effortlessly that you feel as though they’re simply part of her. Her store is full of outfits and shoes and jewelry that are one-of-a-kind, colourful and, well, unique. I hadn't been there in years, but Gosia remembered me and asked about my sister, too. She listened carefully as I stammered through my sad mall story, the fact that I had two kids and was a completely different size than I'd been last year. She nodded, thought for a minute, and then began to fly around her store, gathering dresses and blouses she thought would suit me and my lifestyle. I’ve never had such fun trying on clothes; I’ve never felt so well attended in a store before. It was the best hour of shopping I’ve ever had in my life. I even stuffed the garnet shirt and phoenix skirt into my purse and wore a new black dress and long beaded necklace right out of the store.

And that, my friends, is how I finally ended up with the delightful sundress I’m floating around in today, a wild concoction of peacock green with red and purple paisley spots with spaghetti straps and a deep V-neck that flatters my boyish chest. It’s just short enough to make D smile, and it’s cool and stretchy enough for me wear while I dive after the kids. Like the other stuff I bought, it wasn’t on sale, but I can tell it will last me more than a few summers.

Jade took one look at me after I’d put the dress on this morning, fingered the soft material and said, “Ooooh, Mumma, this feels so beautiful and cosy.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Stones and Grumpy Love

Sunday, my friends, was a glorious day. Blue skies, sunshine, no humidity and a brisk north breeze to keep things lively. And best of all, I was able to soak it in for four hours straight.

D and I occasionally team up to do what I like to call "property management" and what he likes to call "a lot of damn stuff around this place." With our adorably feral children biting our ankles most weekends, it's rare that we get to engage in outdoor chores together (with the exception of the ever-popular dump date). When we do get an opportunity to hang out and do some sweaty, grumbly, my-back-is-gonna-kill-me-tomorrow type of stuff, I like to make the most of it. I'm not normally a gung-ho "Hey, let's dig a trench!" kind of girl, so when these occasions do occur, I really give 'er. Then even D grimly admits that I'm actually DOING SOMETHING on the weekend. (He does not consider parenting or sleeping in or drinking coffee and playing online scrabble to be DOING SOMETHING, which is one of his few tragic flaws.)

Anyway, Sunday's SOMETHINGS consisted of:
- distributing the four foot pile of wood chips that's been sitting in the driveway since April into the gardens
- starting my hay bale garden (more on that in another post, cause it's freaking crazy and deserves its own blog, let alone entry)
- scouring the side road for really big rocks to line the bottom of my new office garden
- attacking the scary grass around my arbour that comes up to my knees every single spring, no matter how many times I attempt to kill it
- raking our lawn, which resembles a freshly cut hayfield and elicited less-than-polite comments from an older neighbour

The tricky part was that we only had a few hours in which to do all this stuff, since Grandma, who was looking after the kids, had to be somewhere else in the afternoon. We dropped them off around 11 a.m. and I visited with my mother-in-law for a few minutes while the kids gleefully chased the cats around the swing set.

"Let's get doing this if we're doing it," commanded D, striding purposefully toward his parents' shop.

"Guess that's my cue," I muttered to Shirley and headed for the car. "Where are you going?" I yelled at D.

"I'm taking another ride home," he hollered over his shoulder. "Get going!"

I got going. At home, I poured myself a cup of coffee, took it outside and began to pitchfork wood chips into the rusty old wheelbarrow we'd recovered from one of the barns after our gorgeous new wheelbarrow got stolen (Note to any nouveau-country folks: don't leave anything near the side of the road unless you want a stranger to come and take it. Yes, that includes wheelbarrows full of recycling). My plan was to create a garden behind my office, which is on a steep slope of unmowable grass. I figured lots of wood chips, some ground cover plants and rocks would make it look like an actual garden instead of an errant weedy mess. D was not convinced. He hates anything to do with gardens, but he hated the pile of wood chips on the driveway even more. Sure enough, I heard a heavy rumbling as I dumped my second load of chips onto the slope. There was my man, chugging up the driveway in his dad's skid-steer. He started loading up chips into the bucket at a rate of five wheelbarrows. I cheered.

He went back and forth a few times and I raked the chips as he dumped them, all the while thinking that there was something kind of hot about a man driving heavy machinery in order to fulfill one's whims. I got as close to the skid-steer as I dared.

"Can I have a ride?" I yelled.

D shrugged, which I took for assent.

I surveyed the giant bucket and the ridiculously tiny cab that my six foot husband was crammed into. "How do I get in?"

D rolled his eyes. "Climb the bucket, woman. And hurry up."

I clambered up the bucket and plopped myself onto his lap. Kind of cosy. Could sexy-time in a skid-steer become a thing? That's when the first waft of stink hit me.

"Ugh...it smells like POOP! Why does it smell like poop in here?" I wriggled, trying to come to terms with the smell.

"Because Carm uses the loader tractor to clean pens. Geez, you've got a bony butt, woman. Now sit still and hang on."

Riding double in a skid-steer is an unsafe but awesomely fun thing to do. We finished the garden and I directed him to the arbour where I wanted to kill the evil grass growing around it once and for all by smothering it with wood chips. I hopped out and did my thing while D brought load after load of chips.

When I heard the motor cut, I wiped the sweat off my face and leaned in to the cab of the skid steer, waggling my eyebrows. "Wanna go inside and have some lunch?"

D stared at me. "No Kimmy, I do not want to have lunch. I want to get this done. Let's go get you some stones." I cheered again and we abandoned the skid-steer for the truck.

Once we were on the road, my husband leaned across the bench seat and touched my hand. I gazed at him. He was so handsome in his lumber jacket and brown hoodie, a tuft of curly hair peeking out over his forehead. He was getting me rocks and helping build my garden. He really loved me.

"I just want you to know," he began, and I squeezed his fingers affectionately, thinking back to the days when we used to sneak down side roads for different reasons than rock picking.

"I just want you to know that I have NEVER gone back down a side road to pick up stones that someone has taken out of a field so I could dump them on my lawn. Never. Ever. In a million years."

There was a silence as we turned left off the concession road and onto the bumpy gravel.

"Well," I said, "isn't it great how I open lots of new horizons for you?"

"Not in this regard, no," he answered, removing his hand from mine and staring straight ahead. A sudden vision of his brother and father's reactions to the situation flashed across my brain and I realized that D was risking deep ridicule to get me my stones. I sensed I was going to have to reward him richly to make up for this farming sacrilege. This became even more apparent after D smushed his finger between two of the rocks I'd chosen while unloading them. He jumped up and down wordlessly while I wrung my hands and made sympathetic noises. Then he jumped in the truck.

"Where are you going?" I said. "Are you okay?"

"I am NOT okay," he said through clenched teeth. "I am going somewhere where I can swear really loudly." And he drove off, with the windows rolled up. I didn't see him again until he came to bed after doing chores and helping his uncle plant an acre of our sweet corn.

I patted him timidly on the shoulder as he rolled into bed. "Um...thanks for all your help today," I whispered.

"You are a pain in the neck," was my darling spouse's response as he took me in his arms and kissed my neck. Ah, true love.

I have a feeling a giant rhubarb cake and a lot of shoulder rubbing is in his future tonight when my crusty but loving man gets home from work. And I think I'll keep quiet about the idea I have for building a new rustic fence in the corner of the back yard. At least until next spring.

Stupid, sandwich-stealing wind...

I've told you before how freaking windy it is up here at Someday farm. And damn, I hate the wind.

You'd think the winds would come howling over the lake, but no: the winds come mostly from the south. They scream across the south field and whirl right through the hole in our tree line (thanks, faulty septic system) to pummel us as we attempt to get anywhere from our back door.

Today, we're having gusts up to 54km/h, but it feels more like 100km/h, the way my hair was nearly torn off my head once I managed to wrench open the screen door. Giving me the mother of all bad hair days wasn't enough though: that pesky wind proceeded to blow the top layer of granola right off my bowl of yogurt!

To add insult to injury, the wind decided to steal my lunch this afternoon. I thought I'd gotten smart: I scurried from the house to the office with my sandwich and salad sheltered under my coat. Apparently I am not smarter than nature. The wind flipped open my coat, and made off like a bandit with the top slice of bread and the last two delicious pieces of summer sausage I'd managed to find in the fridge. My half-sandwich is now decorating my muddy lawn, and will no doubt become a prize worth fighting over for our nightly parade of critters.

Damn you wind! If I didn't know better, I'd think you were in league with the raccoons.

Excercise - good for you, bad for your marriage

I don't believe in making New Year's resolutions. I like the New Year as it is: fresh and clean, with no mistakes in it. Why stain the shine of 2012 with forced incentives and promises I know I'll never keep? That's right, people: I am a New Year's scrooge. Give me the champers and the parties; keep your lousy resolutions to yourself.

Exercise, writing, not screaming at the kids, being outdoors more - these are things I strive to do no matter if it's January 1st or November 2nd. I have learned, however, that one's goals, no matter how inviting to others, are best attempted oneself.

Take exercising. D and I decided to attempt a twice-weekly, 30 minute workout that I ripped out of a magazine. I thought it would be fun if we did it together afer the kids went to bed. You know, turn on the hockey game, take off a few layers, get sweaty. As a couple. Kind of a workout-slash-foreplay sort of evening.

This, dear reader, is the result:

8:30pm:
Me: Okay, are you ready to do this?
D: I'm too full from dinner.
Me: DWAIN! Get your arse in here and let's do this!
D: Okay. (Looks around) I think this is going to wreck the living room floor.
Me: We are not THAT fat. (surveys her husband's orange crocs) I think you should put on some running shoes. You're gonna hurt your knees.
D: I don't know where they are.
Me: Dude, seriously???
D: Okay, I'll go look. (Leaves for 10 minutes. Returns with an old pair from 1997 with no laces) I couldn't find my good ones.
Me: For *&%$#@ sake. Let's go let's GO LET'S GO! Do you want to do this or what?
D: I'm too fat. I don't wanna. (starts flopping around like a preschooler) Don't make me!
(I leap on him in a fit of rage. A wrestling match ensues. He squeals like a girl)
Me: Okay, just forget it. I'm doing this with or without you. (Commences workout squats) 1 - 2 - 3 -4
D: (starts doing jumping squats) 25, 26, 39, 100. Done!

I wanted to kill him. And today I want to kill myself, I'm so sore. And I've learned an important lesson: couples that lounge together, stay together!

Do I curse thee?

***WARNING...this blog contains language unsuitable for people who don't like to read naughty words. Although there are only 7 of them.***

I really have never been much of a curse-word person. But I'm telling you, living with farm boys is changing all of that.

My parents rarely said anything worse than "hell" or "dammit," although they did favour taking the Lord's name in vain fairly frequently. I remember being throroughly shocked the one and only time I ever heard my mother drop the F-bomb: she was tipsy, it was New Year's eve, I had about a dozen friends over and we had just run into the house after being screamed at by our neighbour for almost setting his roof on fire with misdirected firecrackers.

My mother appeared on the landing, asking if we were having fun. I screwed up my courage and told her what had happened, knowing if she heard it from someone else that my punishment would be even more dire.

Mother surveyed me and my panting gang of friends with her chin uptilted. She shrugged and swayed slightly on the staircase.

"Tell Jim," my mother said, "to f*ck off." An awed hush fell over us. Mrs. F had just said...F*CK! It was too much to believe.

My friends were usually in awe of my sophisticated, imposing mother. That particular night she was wearing two different earrings, stiletto heels and a fancy silk dress and was on her way to my Aunt Grace's for a new year's eve nightcap. Her hair was teased up into her usual blonde puff and she was wearing bright lipstick. She'd already been to one party and had just stopped in for a moment before going on to the next. But alcohol consumption didn't usually soften her attitude towards wrongdoing or misbehaviour of any kind. Yet tonight, she had not only defended our reprehensible actions with a naughty word but seemed genuinely amused by our attempt at vandalism/pyrotechnics. It was a New Year's Eve miracle.

Anyway, I didn't grow up around much cursing. As an adult, I still didn't hear too much of it, having spent most of my formative adult years with good Christian folk. Even a 6 year stint working for Bell Canada with a variety of guys who installed cable didn't give me a taste for naughty language. But after living with C and D for 6 months, my vocabulary has taken a decided turn onto Profanity Avenue.

At first, it was sub-conscious. An occasional "shitball" (thanks to D) or "piss bucket," muttered under my breath when the dog ran onto the road or I got dripped on by the leaky eavestrough over the front door. Not pretty talk, but nothing too foul either. Lately, however, the fouler stuff has been edging its way into my conscious mind, popping out on all sorts of occasions. I didn't really recognize it until I caught C laughing at me one day. He had popped by to use my computer since the one at the farm was down. I had to finish up one piece of work before I could let him have the controls; I had just about to publish the document when I got the red screen of death and Lotus Note crashed. Which caused me to unleash the floodgates on a string of profanity so gnarly it surprised even me.

This evoked muffled laughter from C, waiting patiently for his turn while lying facedown on the bed (my lavender office is also the spare-room).

"What?" I demanded, a little embarrassed but not willing to admit it.

He raised himself up on one elbow and shook his head at me. "Ohhh, Kimmy. You've been livin' here with us too long. You'd better move out before you really start losin' it."

I have to admit, this is becoming a problem. The last time I was in the city office, I read an incredibly convoluted email from someone on our project team and said "Oh, f*ck me!" - out loud. Seriously - I channelled C, as "f*ck me" is his cuss of choice. Just like I would have if I was at home with only the dog to hear me. Oopsie.

I'm not sure if my newfound love of swearing is due to the fact that I've been watching more Trailer park boys, or that C and D let fly with the nasty words fairly frequently. Or maybe it's the wretched hormones raging through my pregnant body. Maybe it's just that my own inner bad girl has finally awoken. F*ckin' A!