A Little Less Should, a Little More Rum

It's Wednesday. No rain, just chills and wind and curdled clouds. I should be mowing the lawn. Or something.

I should do the kids' laundry so Jade won't have to crouch naked at the top of the stairs again screaming,

"MUMMA WHERE'S MY CHEETAH OUTFIT!? YOU SAID YOU WOULD WASH MY CHEETAH OUTFIT!!"
and Dylan won't have to wear his undies inside out tomorrow.

I should round up and capture all the dust elephants under my bed so I don't have another asthma attack tonight.

I should mix the dough for Hallowe'en cookies because it has to sit in the fridge for four hours before I can let the kids attack it with rolling pins and cookie cutters.

I should clean out the drawer from hell that caused D to curse and violently slam it shut when he was trying to find one elastic band.

I should write a blog article.

Oh wait, I AM writing a blog article. That makes one "should" out of five, which isn't bad considering I've spent most of the morning slumped on the couch playing online Scrabble and sipping a hot rum toddy. Mumma feels like she's getting a chest cold, and that does not make Mumma happy, or motivated, or overly concerned with her ever-present to-do list. Ever have one of those days when the "shoulds" creep up and try to strangle you? Screw the shoulds. Today I love the couch.

Anyone who spends most of their time looking after an active family knows the danger of forgetting to look after themselves. A couple of weeks of that stupidity and you simply collapse. After surviving several unsavoury health issues, I've come to recognize and listen to the messages my body sends me. Today, it was the sensation of having an invisible thirty pound cat sitting on my chest that made me stop doing the dishes and retreat to the sanctuary of my couch. I've essential oiled myself, turned the fireplace on, and concocted my tried and true "I feel like crap" remedy: hot water, lemon juice, raw honey, sliced ginger, a splash of rum and a cinnamon stick. Damn, is it good. It makes the invisible cat feel lighter with each swallow, and sends my should list back to where it belongs: in the drawer from hell.

UPDATE: 2 p.m.
I just watched the Walking Dead episode where a character gets a little tickle in her throat, which becomes a nagging cough, which then makes her cough up blood and die and become a zombie. If I start bleeding out my eyes, I know the rum just isn't cutting it.

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.

Potbelly Blues

"Oooh, are you in a family way?" asked the petite Filipino clerk at Bulk Barn as she scooped my giant sack of almonds into a bag. She was looking not at my almonds, but at my pot belly, which was resting up against the counter.

"Um, no," I said, "This is just...fat."

Awkward.

The clerk flushed and stammered an apology. I told her it was okay. But really, it wasn't. I could tell she wanted to disappear into the depths of whatever dimension should swallow people whose feet are firmly lodged in their mouths, so I manufactured a smile and told her I had two small children close together and I just couldn't seem to get rid of my belly and geez, I guess I was going to have to stop eating so many almonds. Then I left the store and went to my car and cried.

If this makes me sound like a vain, phoney person, well, whatever. Social convention and years of being told to "be nice" governed my actions in the above situation. Plus I'm not the type to make a scene in public, and really, it was just a thoughtless comment. The clerk is usually kind to me and my kids when we come in. She didn't say what she said to be hurtful. And my pot-belly apparently sticks out enough to be mistaken for my being in "a family way." Although I'm guessing that she won't be asking any other female customers that same question anytime soon. So at least my potbelly has served a useful purpose. (You're welcome, other pot-bellied female patrons of Bulk Barn.)

Usually, I'm not overly concerned with my physical appearance. I think that's because a) I've been blessed with great genes that have allowed me to be thin for most of my life, and b) I don't often give a crap what other people think of my clothes, my hair or my body. Then again, strangers don't usually make comments about my appearance, so not giving a crap hasn't been all that challenging. Until lately.

I really don't know where the damned thing came from. I spent most of last year looking gaunt and skeletal with a concave stomach thanks to the c-difficile, so this whole jiggly gut syndrome has thrown me for a loop. I swear, I woke up one morning and my pants didn't fit anymore. I could feel my belly wiggle when I went over bumps in the car. Dylan could suddenly poke his entire index finger into my belly-button. Even D squinted at my stomach suspiciously last month and asked me if I had eaten a big lunch that day. What the what?

I have a feeling that indulging in a month of beer and dill-pickle chip therapy after I resigned from my job didn't help. I know that once you hit forty, your body shape changes in ways you never expected, and that after being preggo for four years in a row, with two c-sections, my tummy will never be the smooth, taut little trampoline it once was. I get that. And I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is having small children poke my squishy bits and ask if there's a baby in there, or when wine store clerks raise their eyebrows at me and look pointedly at the "Alcohol consumption is dangerous to unborn babies" sign on the wall. Yes, both of those things have happened.

My doctor weighed me when I went to see her about my pot-belly, but made no comment about my weight. And she would not tell me where I was on the BMI index.

"I don't believe in those numbers," she said. "I believe in exercise and eating right and feeling good."

"Oh," I said.

"So," she continued, "how DO you feel?"

"Fat," I said. "My stupid clothes don't fit. People think I look pregnant. It sucks."

My doctor made a "humph" noise, and asked me to get up on the table. She prodded my pot-belly for a few minutes, then told me I could get up.

"So?" I asked.

"Well, Kim, you're at an age where your metabolism is starting to slow down. You had babies late in life, and you had a survived a dangerous infection last year. It's not the number on the scale that concerns me, it's how you're feeling about yourself."

"Oh," I said.

"Start doing things that make you sweat, 30 minutes a day, as many days a week as you can. When you start feeling better about yourself, that's when you know you're on the right track." She paused and looked at my eyes, not my belly. "Think you can you do that?"

I nodded. She was right, and of course I could. I just didn't WANT to. But I had to admit it - I wasn't getting enough exercise. Despite feeling like I'd run a marathon every other day, chasing unruly toddlers didn't count as cardio. And at least my pot-belly wasn't some alien tumour or giant fibroid. It wasn't how much I weighed, it was the message my pot-belly was trying to tell me: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, GIRL!

D hauled his mother's ancient stationary bike out of her basement and dragged it home for me. My friend's husband lent me some pirated copies of Homeland and Californication, which I now watch as I sweat and curse in the basement, 30 minutes two nights a week. I've snipped several frightening workouts out of fitness magazines and attempt to do them another two nights a week without dropping dead on the living room floor. It's all very amusing in an S&M kind of way. But I think it's working. I can now suck in my pot belly a little bit, which means I'm growing some stomach muscles. And I can stand up straighter and hold my yoga poses on Thursday nights without farting or wanting to murder somebody. Progress!

Still, I hate working out. I hate sweating. And I used to love it so much! I used to go to the gym with darling Ruthie three nights a week after work back when I lived in the city. But that was seven years ago, and a lot has changed since then.

So I'm avoiding sugary stuff, saying nyet to chips and beer during the week, and trying to incorporate more protein and fibre into my diet. Which, since I've never been on a diet before in my life, feels very weird to me. I'm not trying to sound obnoxious, honest. I'm just saying. But pot-belly has spoken, and pot-belly must be banished.

Wish me luck.

The Sunflower Project - Part IV: The End

I must have dozed off in Nana's chair, because it was after 10 a.m. when I heard the sound of the phone ringing. I dashed to answer it. Maybe it was someone calling to pre-order sunflowers.

It was Carm.

"So how are sales going?" he asked.
"Fine," I said.
"How many have you sold?"
"Um, I don't know. Probably lots," I said.
"How many's lots?"
"Geez Carm, I just got them out there at 8 o'clock. Give people a chance!"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. I could hear my brother-in-law's morning scruff scraping the receiver. He was probably making a "told-you-so-Kimmy" face.

"They are going to sell, Carman," I told him. "People want sunflowers. Trust me."
"Okay Kimmy," he said, not bothering to sound convinced. "Whatever you say. Bye."

I hung up, and went back to the front porch. I couldn't see the buckets from the window. Maybe fifty cents a sunflower was too much. I'd bunched smaller ones together, 5 for $2, which seemed like a deal compared to the starchy, margarine coloured $8 bouquets at Sobey's, but maybe I'd overcharged. I chewed my lip. Maybe I'd just go out and check.

Before I could throw open the patio door, a gold SUV slowed, then pulled into our lane. I froze. Did the mail man get a new car? Was this just another person using our lane to turn around in? Or was it...a customer?

A woman got out of the SUV and walked purposely toward the sunflower buckets. The rest of the action was hidden from my view by our blue spruce trees and I wished I'd installed a video surveillance camera inside the pink umbrella. I pressed myself up against the glass, trying to see what the woman was doing, how many she might be buying. When she walked back to her SUV, her arms full of sunflowers, I let out a little whoop. Yes! I was right! They were selling! Stupid Carman.

Day 1 profits were excellent. I only had ten wilted sunflowers left by 4 p.m. and my money jar jangled with toonies and loonies. The operation would have been more efficient had I actually kept track of how many sunflowers were in the $2 bucket vs. the 50 cent bucket, but that was a minor detail. Cash was cash. When I fanned out the dough on the kitchen counter that night for D's approval, he looked shocked. His expression alone made the bee attacks worthwhile. Now I just needed to see the same look on Carm's face and I could die happy.

On Day 2, I was up early again, and chopped down another forty sunflowers. This time I kept careful track. I had the kids at home with me, so there was no time to supervise the stand. It was well after 5 p.m. before I remembered to check the jar. I took Jade and Dylan down the lane with me, telling them all about Mummy's new business. They liked the pink umbrella. I smiled and did a little dance of entrepreneurial glee when I saw that only four sunflowers were left. But - horrors! - after counting the money and checking my totals, I discovered that I'd been ripped off $4.00! What the what?

I dialled Carm immediately.

"I got ripped off!" I yelled into the phone. "I'm four dollars short! What the hell is up with that?"

"Well, Kimmy," he said, "sometimes that happens. Did you sell a few?"

"I sold more than a few, but that is not the point," I said. "The point is that some people didn't pay! That is so rude!"

"Maybe you're charging too much," said Carm.

I should have known better than to look for sympathy from Mr. Pessimist Farmer. I growled a goodbye and hung up. I decided to empty the money jar twice a day.

Day 3 sales were a bit slower. I found several extra nickels where there should have been quarters, and hoped this phenomenon was a result of customers with poor eyesight or tourists who couldn't tell a beaver from a caribou, rather than people being cheap. When I went to get the mail, I found a loonie under my stack of letters. I didn't know if it was a peace-offering from Carm, or whether a guilt-ridden soul had driven back to pay what they owed. Either way, it made me feel a little less misanthropic.

On Day 5, I chopped down seven giant sunflower heads that had begun to dry. D had informed me that the seeds were of "confectionary" quality, so I thought perhaps people might enjoy eating them. I plopped the heads into Jade's kiddie pool and dragged the whole thing out to the end of the driveway. "Dry your own sunflowers! Fun for the kids! $5 each" I wrote in orange marker. At the end of the day, none had sold. When I mentioned it to D, he looked at me like I'd told him I was selling used underwear.

"Are you nuts?" he said. "Five dollars? Who's gonna pay five dollars for a dried-up sunflower head? Kimmy, you're crazy."

I stroked out "$5" and wrote "My husband says that's crazy. Now $2 each." I sold three more.

I was getting used to the early mornings, and began to enjoy that first moment out of the truck: just me, Pinky, the sunflowers and a few startled deer or a shower of goldfinches for company. I learned to shake the bees off the flowers first, then snick after. I discovered other cool insects to show to the kids: triangle bugs, yellow ladybugs, iridescent blue-green beetles. My pink umbrella made several bids for freedom; once I found it in the cornfield, once across the road in the ditch. Once, I came out to find all the sunflowers had been sold but there was no money jar in sight. I panicked until I saw that someone had kindly hidden it behind the table. I was getting used to people beeping at me in a friendly way if I was out setting up. A few times I even met customers, all of whom were gracious and yes, smiling at the sunflowers.

The list on the fridge with the tally of sunflowers picked vs. sunflowers sold and the money I'd earned grew longer and longer, until a few weeks had passed and I realized that there weren't any more big sunflowers left to pick. The field of friendly yellow faces had become a field of praying grey nuns, with dark heads bowed towards the sunrise. Sunflower season was over.

I felt sad; I'd just gotten used to having my little business, and apart from being shortchanged a few bucks here and there, I thought I'd worked out the kinks admirably. And most importantly, I'd proved the Lowry boys wrong by making an impressive little chunk of change. For a former city-dweller, nothing tastes sweeter than hearing a country guy tell you they were wrong about something agricultural.

"Well," I told Carm that night as I plopped my earnings back into the sunflower jar, "I guess that's it for this year. Whatever will I do with all my free time?"

"Don't worry, Kimmy," replied my grinning brother-in-law. "Pretty soon you'll have sweetcorn to pick."

You can't get the best of a country boy for long.

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?