Note to self...

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday: be very, very careful when posting images "borrowed" off the internet onto your blog. I didn't realize that when you google images (e.g. "scary eyes") and use said photo that there may be copyright issues. Or at least a pissed off photographer who apparently feels possessive about his or her images and enjoys retaliating in passive aggressive ways.

I thought anything I found on google was free for the taking. Boy, was I wrong! Thankfully, my fellow blogger Jabbering Jaime alerted me to the fact that someone had removed the cute picture of animal eyes I'd added to my "Things that go rrrrr in the night" post and thoughtfully replaced it with a nice piece of gay porn. Which gave the title of my post a whole new meaning.

My apologies to anyone who might have been alarmed by the naughtiness! It wasn't intentional.

Things that go "Rrrrrr" in the night

Living in the city, one forgets how many creatures exist outside our patio doors. Oh sure, there are the squirrels, the raccoons, the occasional skunk. But none of these city critters stack up to the country monsters that go "Rrrrrr" at you in the night.

My dog wolfed down a rather sizable raw pork roast a few weeks ago. It was one of those nasty stuffed concoctions, filled with lard and seasonings galore, hand-picked by my father, who was visiting for the day. I'd set it in the sink to thaw while we frolicked at the beach, forgetting about Neko's ability to liberate food off counter tops. You can imagine my dismay at discovering a slimy trail of raw pork across the floor and no supper in the draining board. At least Neko had the class to drag the roast into the dining room to devour it.

I figured I'd be getting up with her at 3 a.m. when the raw pork began to take effect on her system and she didn't disappoint me. I heard the panicked scritch scritch of her claws on the screen door and, clumbsy with sleep, got myself out of bed, into a robe and down the stairs to let her out.

The stars twinkled at us as we walked down the path towards the garage - Neko yanking on the leash with a desperate look in her eye, me stumbling after her wishing I'd thought to put on my glasses. As my dog made her way to the hallowed pooping ground to do her dirty business, I stood and listened to the wind in the trees, the distant rush of waves, the crickets. It was kind of nice.

That is, it was nice until I heard SOMETHING say "rrrrrrrrr" from over by the chestnut tree. Neko froze in mid-poo. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, something I thought only happened in books. I squinted, trying to figure out what kind of creature the SOMETHING was. Maybe it was an angry squirrel. Or a baby raccoon. I took a step closer. The SOMETHING said "rrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!", the bushes rustled and I tore up the walkway, dragging poor Neko behind me. That was no freaking raccoon!

Now, I don't consider myself to be a fraidy cat. But when things make noises at me in the middle of the night from my very own yard, I have to draw the line somewhere. We've heard coyotes howl pretty darned close to the barns, and there was a recent bear sighting in Tiverton, so who knows what evil lurks in the fields of Someday Farm? I wasn't about to find out for myself. So I woke up my husband.

To his credit, he didn't make fun of me or moan about getting up at 3:15 a.m. He gamely stumbled down the stairs (looking very manly in his Big Bill work pants with crocs and no shirt), grabbed his trusty flashlight and went in the direction of my pointing. D made it about 3 steps onto the lawn when the SOMETHING said, "RRRRRRRRR? RRRRRRRR!! RRRRRRRRR!!!" That was enough to send my brave husband scuttling back to the safety of our porch to admit he didn't know what it was, and he wasn't about to find out.

We never did find out what the SOMETHING was. All I know is that it was mightily displeased at having its territory invaded, and it had a helluva set of lungs on it. Sharing our space with things that go bump in the night is going to take some getting used to. But I'll take noisy critters in the country to sirens and buses and drunken idiots on the road in the city any day.

Grey doldrums on a sunny day

It's sunny, mellow and beautiful outside. The shorn wheatfield to the north looks like burnished gold and the meadow out back is beckoning. The waves are curling on the beach and even the lawn chairs look friendly...but I'm all grey inside. Y'know, one of those days where you just can't seem to shake the winter out of your soul, no matter how hard summer tries to make you feel better.

I think part of it is the fact that my sister is leaving for a year's sojourn to teach in Russia on Tuesday. Tuesday!!! That's freaking 4 days away! Not that I begrudge her this marvellous adventure; on the contrary, I'm proud of and excited for her. But I'm sad for me. Even D has been moping.

"Why would anyone wanna move so far away from home?" he grouses from time to time about my other sister, who lives in Australia with my only nephew. "She should be living HERE." But my older sis is very happy there, and I think it's great she's found an adopted country to call her own - especially since it doesn't pester her with the nasty snow she found so trying in Ontario. Now my younger sister is leaving, albeit not permanently, and this has thrown D into the depths of familial despair. He thinks all families should remain in close proximity until death. I'm of the mind that a little distance can be healthy, which D thinks is pure craziness. Plus, he's been to Russia twice and can't for the life of him understand why anyone would want to go there on purpose.

Another contribution to my shades of grey is that Rose's due date just passed, and the universe apparently thought it would be amusing to commemorate the day with a chance visit from my sister in law and Dwain's 3 month old neice. Our neice is a sweet little ladybug, and I love her dearly. But it hurts to look into her wide eyes and hear her gurgle and smell her delicious baby smell and think about Rose. If Rose had lived when she was born in April, she would be four months old the day after tomorrow.

Anyway, I started mowing the lawn in my bikini to try and cheer myself up (I get occasional beeps from passing cars and that's good for the ego), but my heart just wasn't in it. I have a dish full of ruby red currants - freshly plucked from our very own bush - just begging to be transformed into jelly. I don't dare touch them in this mood though; I have a superstition that one should never try to cook anything when in a bad mood - I'm convinced that the jelly won't set when the cook is depressed.

Thankfully I made a batch of chocolate chip rum walnut cookies yesterday; they are helping to assuage my greys ever so slightly. And I think I will drag myself off this chair and go for a tramp in the meadow. Neko could use a bath in the river and I could use a breath or two of alfalfa to clear my head. Perhaps the purple and gold and green outside will chase away these internal shades of grey.

A visit to Someday Farm

Check out Jabbering Jaime's cool blog for pics of Someday Farm. This sweet little miss accompanied my sister for a visit here last week. We beached, we drank, we visited, we roamed. It was fun. Until Neko ate the $40 pork roast my father brought for supper. Oopsie.

Anyway, not only is Ms. J a master sewer (check out her Gingham Skies site), she is a budding photographer and has made Someday Farms look like something out of a magazine. Thanks Jaime!

Goodbye city mouse, hello country mouse

My aunt, who spends her summers at a cottage on Bruce Beach, asked me last year how I thought I'd like living up here once we had moved. I responded enthusiastically, extolling the virtues of small-town living and the slower pace of life up here. She smiled wisely and mentioned a letter to the editor she'd just read in the local paper. It was a sort of "in defence of small town living" letter, aimed at big city types who showed up each summer expecting things to be exactly the way they were in the city. The writer expressed keen annoyance with city folk who complained about the lack of certain amenities, or the fact that things took longer to get done in the country. "We take things easy up here," scolded the writer, "and if you don't like it, you should just go back to the city."

I chuckled and said I wasn’t about to bring my urban expectations with me when we moved. My aunt raised an eyebrow at me. "It's true, you know. They do things a bit differently up here. As long as you know that before you move here."

My car is a battered and fairly unreliable thing. My mechanic in Waterloo always shook his head when he saw me coming, but we developed a friendly rapport over the years. When a brake pad committed suicide in the driveway a month after moving up, I realized I had to find a new mechanic. I took my car to a nearby garage, fully expecting to hear from the mechanic at the end of the day like I did with mine in Waterloo. After three days passed with no word, I called. "Oh, we haven't even started working on it yet. But we'll probably get to it tomorrow."

I complained bitterly to my in-laws that night over supper about the situation. I couldn’t believe the garage hadn’t even called me to tell me about the delay. My in-laws listened patiently as I ranted, then told me that the garage had always been like that, but that the mechanics were excellent. I groused about it for a few more days before it finally dawned on me that I had never actually told the garage when I needed my car or when I wanted to hear from them. I was setting expectations based on my experiences with the garage I dealt with in the city, who had known me as a customer for several years. These guys had only met me for 3 minutes. How were they supposed know what I needed unless I told them?

When we experienced a slight issue with a piece of our inherited kitchen furniture (it fell out of the back of our truck en route from Waterloo and bounced across highway 86), I drove to see a local craftsman who had been recommended by my mother-in-law. His workshop was full of treasures - antique cash registers, mis-matched chairs, battered bureaus comfortably waiting their turn beside worn out pianos and leopard-skin covered fainting couches. I found my way into his back room and introduced myself.

This time, I was prepared. I carefully explained what had to be fixed, what I hoped it would look like once finished and that we were moving into our new place in three weeks. Could we have it by then? He thought so.

I coaxed my brother-in-law to help me deliver the furniture the next day. We lugged it into the front of the workshop.

“Let's set ‘er right here,” said my bro-in-law and lowered his end to the floor.

“Shouldn't we take it right into his workshop?” I wondered.

“Nope,” said bro. “We leave her right here, where he has to step around her every time he comes through.”

“But won't it be in the way?”

My bro flashed me a roguish grin and pointed at me. “Exactly.”

When the gentleman called to say our piece was ready a week before the end of the month, I was duly impressed, albeit mostly with myself: I had set clear expectations without being demanding, and now here was my table, ready a week early! I was really getting the hang of things.

“I really appreciate you putting us to the front of the line,” I said, barely hiding my self-congratulatory tone.

“Well,” he said, “it was kind of in the way. I kept tripping over the thing every time I went out of the shop, so I figured I'd just get it done.”

I suffered through several See-Kimmy-I-told-you-so lectures from my bro-in-law and husband, and a mildly uncomfortable discussion with their cousin from the city who threw up her hands when she heard the story. She’s had a piece of furniture there for two years. It’s still not finished.

So I learned a fundamental thing about country living from these experiences: listen to advice when it's given to you, no matter how well you think you can handle something on your own. After all, the folks around you have likely been here far longer than you have and they know how to “get ‘er done.” More importantly, I’ve been reminded that city expectations don’t always fly in the country, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all. So things take a little longer sometimes – so what? It won’t kill me to learn to be a bit more patient. And the walk to the beach will probably do me good.

The summer of eating dangerously

As sad as I still am over losing Rose, I find myself reluctantly enjoying some of the small blessings that come with not being pregnant. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just talking myself out of trying again. You know, a kind of "See how nice it is not being fat and sick all the time?" mantra. But perhaps I'm doing the mature thing and learning, as my counsellor suggests, to take pleasure in the "now."

It's not that I hated being pregnant. Despite the barfing, having the appetite of a ravenous dog and the urge to pee every 30 seconds, I found pregnancy to be an extremely interesting and satisfying state of being. I relished my belly and my nice big breasts. I adored my jiggly bum. Feeling Rose squiggle around filled me with wonderment. Being un-pregnant, however, has its positive aspects too.

On the side of pure greed, I can gorge on spicy tuna maki, drown myself in caffeinated lattes and eat brie and smoked turkey sandwiches again. I can play a rousing game of tennis with D. I can drive from the Kink to Waterloo without having to screech to a stop at Pizza Pizza in Listowel to dart into their grimy washroom. My breathing doesn't mimic Darth Vader's when I walk up a flight of stairs and I can bend under smelly cows and lift milking machines over my head without a care. I'd forgotten about these happy things in my months of grief. It's nice to discover them again in the warmth and breezes of summer.

We haven't completely decided whether we will roll the baby dice one more time, or pursue other avenues. And so this will be a summer of small pleasures, of getting reacquainted with my body and soul. And of riding on the back of D's motorbike as much as possible.

Romance, triple 16 style

Sometimes I bemoan the fact that I've married a very practical man. He grew up on a farm, so practicality runs through his veins like blood. D is logical and likes to see the world for what it is, while I prefer looking on the bright side as much as possible without becoming too annoying. He likes to tease me about my daydreaming habits and calls me his little idealist. Well, yesterday I discovered that my stalwart farmer boy has a romantic side.

I was upstairs in the bedroom trying to sweep dirt and fluff out of some stubborn floorboard cracks. I thought I'd better clean off the broom, which was starting to resemble Santa's beard, so I went out on the balcony to give it a shake. In my glazed-over housecleaning state of mind, my eyes wandered over the front lawn, along the rail fence, past the blue spruces, and back up the line of red maples. It was then that I noticed a particularly healthy patch of lawn sticking up greenly just below the balcony. Once my eyes began to focus, I realized that the green patches actually spelled "K-I-M." Yep, my clever husband had spelled my name...in fertlizer.

Who says farmers can't be romantic?