Away & Return

We've been in Calgary for a week-ish attending an important and memorable wedding, connecting with family and friends, collecting things from storage and doing some shopping. This morning I woke up and actually missed waking up in our house in Saskatchewan.  This week I have felt like I have a foot in both places, somehow moving towards both places. We are in Calgary, but are headed back to Saskatchewan, but are also making plans to return here in September. Lots of mental jumping back and forth.





We are on our way! And I am looking forward to returning to that pretty green and yellow land. Time now feels a bit shorter and I am hoping to do some more art before its Calgary time again.  I did manage to squeeze in one bit of Plein Air painting before we left. My easel and I went exploring the country roads and in the heat of the day (an especially hot day - unwise, I know) and spent a couple hours tackling the canola fields in paint.  The rest of my panels are all prepped & ready and I am ready for  more painting. Plus every nice painting I do means a nice thing on our otherwise rather bare walls.



Somewhere in the rest between our guests leaving and our hurried prepping for Calgary, Jeff and I gave in to our curiosity about all the feathery creatures that frequent our trees and buildings and wires, picked up a book and some binoculars and have the beginnings of becoming birdwatchers.  It's a nice compliment to our anti-gopher and squirrel stance, and makes me at least, feel less like I am against every animal around. And there are so many birds! They probably even outnumber the squirrels and gophers (which, by the way, we return from Calgary eager and better equipped to counter). We had already recognized the few birds we were familiar with; robins, chickadees and woodpeckers, but we discovered that we probably have three kinds of woodpeckers (downy woodpecker, sapsucker, and a mystery one). We also spotted hummingbirds (the green ones), yellow shafted northern flickers, barn swallows and a couple mysterious fluffy brown birds. We may also have tree swallows.  Clearly more binocularing is required, and maybe I'll try to gather some photos for you instead of just feathers.



We did manage to pick up some much needed items in Calgary: gopher traps, more garden implements (to replace and supplement the borrowed), a trimmer, extra sweaters, more plants, more tea (okay - much wanted), some new housewares, and all the things we forgot the first go round (we hope).  We stumbled upon a yard sale in the wedding middle-time and even found a wheel barrow wheel at a price we were happy with, which we definitely needed.  We feel well equipped, strengthened by good company and generally eager to get back to the acreage work.

Friends!

All our missions and tasks have taken a pause this week as we host friends for a visit. It is baffling that we possess such good friends that they would choose to come visit us and spend their holidays in this (currently quite) rustic place. It is wonderful to see them, a taste of home, and wonderful that they have come and have come armed with a fresh view of this place and an enthusiasm for weeding and old things.

We spent a few days camping in Waskesiu, and it was lovely. The lake was refreshing and warm and the campground was spacious and quiet, with the sites being nestled happily in the trees.  It was good to camp, and it felt friendly and familiar. If it weren't so humid and generally wet it could have been Alberta. There were even some hikes to be had!  We explored a bog with some amazing (including carnivorous!) plants, and many plants that are unfamiliar to me, which is always a delight. Plants seem to be the theme this week and I'm going to have to replenish my library book supply on the subject to fill in some of the mystery.

Before we left for camping I mustered the courage to brave our forest of (potentially tick-bearing) unreasonably tall grass to go exploring towards our wetlands. It seems like Jeff goes exploring every other day and he always tempts me with tales of flowers that sound lovely and unfamiliar. Whether he knows it or not he's been baiting my curiosity.  So between the two: waskesiu and our marsh, my camera and I have now enthusiastically collected a small image bank of unfamiliar flora. A collection to puzzled over and slowly turned from mystery to knowledge. Just another thing for my spare time.

Now we are back home at the acreage. I have spent the day tackling things like laundry, groceries, dinner and weeding. Although my garden has been chugging along in terms of growth so have the weeds, and I am growing many more green things in my garden plot than I want to. My veggie garden had become pretty much overrun, and thus a very intimidating task.  Today I had help in the battle and two of us tackled it and made some seriously good progress.  It's not that many days until our midway through summer trip back to Calgary so it is good for the weeds to be stopped now, before we go.

All the creatures

I can't decide if it feels like we've been here a short time or a long time.  It's still so new, but there are  evidences of things we've accomplished, so we must have been here for a while.  The beans are poking through the soil, the trees are tidy, the kitchen cupboards are full (and the boxes mostly empty), and there are construction noises (and country music) coming from the basement.

I've not before ever really been forced to think of things from the ground up, from the beginning.  We're only skipping a few steps from the pioneers!  We have to sort out where and how we get water, power is not not to be taken for granted, and nature often seems less like an enjoyable companion and more like a constant foe, a sentiment I've read about but never previously understood.  Our power went out three times last week, every time it rained - inconveniently the time we want heat, and cups of tea and to spend cozy time indoors. Rain here is not like Calgary and I am constantly being disappointing that it doesn't just pass in 20 minutes.  How strange. On the bright side though, I've had less garden watering to do.

We've also been fighting the creatures that have an unwarranted sense of entitlement to our house here; the squirrel and mice, as well as those that are proving to be pests outdoors: gophers and woodpeckers.  Gophers are a threat to the garden, woodpeckers are mercilessly destroying some of our trees.  The mice are an ongoing battle and we have recently had a few conversations with the squirrel that so far have been fairly polite. This may have to change soon.  Our ears are very keen now to household noises, and squirrel noises have us up running around the outside of the house checking for access holes or a glimpse of the creature and stomping on floors or playing predator noises off our phones. It's our new morning and sometimes evening routine; squirrel listening, chasing, and hole plugging.

I shouldn't make it sound like it's all bad, animal-wise. We have a pleasant proliferation of frogs (but they are just similar enough in size to mice to seriously spook me after dark) and today for the first time we saw some hummingbirds at the feeder we put up! Hummingbirds are wonderful! We also have many birds (although I have no idea what they all are) and in the morning they are gloriously jubilant in their song.

In terms of action on the house, our casual pace has been hastened by the anticipation of the arrival of friends in a week. Something I am greatly looking forward to! So there is a push towards a deadline for getting the water all hooked up. It's what Jeff's been focusing on his week and what he's working on with fervour today in the basement.  The pieces just need compiling, but it's more than an ikea project. It will take a couple days and would be made easier by a plumber.

I have been working on some smaller cleaning and organizing tasks and looking longingly at the old pallets in the yard, thinking of shelving for our clothes. That's my new push, and once I'm done with the other things I may just try and tackle building something myself.

The other night we had a particularly calm evening and Jeff and I were out after dark enjoying  the summer stars - peeking from behind the trees, tucked around the house and stretched into the expanse past the road. It was lovely.

By a small town where we found a good deal on a mattress

We also had an enjoyable time at the fair (Jeff's niece and nephew are in the photo on the green blur)

Details and errands

We've been slowly getting acquainted with and settled in to the acreage house.  You may think that we would be completely set with the vanful of stuff that we brought with us, but we came to an almost completely empty house and we are finding that we really are lacking some things. Like blinds or curtains, somewhere to put our clothes, a flyswatter, a good whippersnipper and wheelbarrow. There is no Ikea here, no Home Outfitters, no Walmart. There is barely kijiji. So there's no quick or easy (or cheap) answer for these things (except the flyswatter).

So this week the list of things we are after has sent us to bigger places and different stores. Sometimes the timing is tricky to track down kijiji things or garage sale items.  We've mostly been successful with small items and new items. We went to Costco in Saskatoon, bought plants at a sizeable greenhouse nearby, discovered a bigger Canadian Tire in PA (Prince Albert - don't let the abbreviation confuse you for months) and even tracked down a Starbucks there. Yesterday we were in Nipiwin for a church garage sale and picked up a light fixture for the kitchen. The experience of scavenger hunt shopping takes getting used to, and planning, grouping items by city they're available in.  The planning requirement is probably good for us. We have started making many lists. Lists of things to buy, lists of yard work, lists of research that's needed, lists of things to do in a wifi zone.... We are going to be so organized!

We have a couple of big missions on our list - figuring out getting  water running in the house, and getting Internet.  The system that was in place for water is out of commission and so everywhere we go includes stopping and asking questions about parts and pumps and water systems.  Internet seems like it just may be out of the question for us due to cost. The setup fee is just not worth it to have it for a couple months. So I think we've almost given up on that one. But we have tracked down a coffee shop with free wifi (again, not as common here), and we're taking advantage of the local library for movies to watch. (They have an excellent library system!)

The garden is doing well. It's nice to have the time to do some reading on it and try to learn how to do it properly (instead of haphazardly). I decided on a spot for the hostas and created a bed close to the house for them, a lupine and an anemone. The veggie garden now has: arugula, spinach, kale, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber and yellow beans, and some of the first ones I've planted are coming up! It's nice to have the routine of watering it everyday (although sometimes I dislike the work it is to haul the water). We've also added a wee herb garden (to become a herb pot) containing rosemary, chives, oregano and parsley. There's a much less obstructed path to the veggie garden now - Jeff's been tackling the outdoor respectability of the place; getting the grass & trees trim (a big job).   It's looking better all the time!  And I've been slowly tackling the caraganas we want gone.

All the unnecessary gardening

We've been here almost a week now, and although we haven't made as much progress as we had hoped, we have managed to make the acreage a more comfortable place to be.

Work on the acreage has consisted mostly of getting the grass cut, prepping and planting a vegetable garden and little flower bed, rummaging through outbuildings for useful things, making the deck and yard a nice place to be and thinking about cleaning.  Country dwelling means we have mouse related disinfecting and problem solving to do to make the place livable.  I definitely hate mice and would love it if every trace of a mouse would be gone before I even thought about living in a place.  Alas, this is a diy.

In the face of this somewhat overwhelming project, we may have unreasonably tackled a good deal of unnecessary and yet enjoyable gardening projects.  We hadn't really planned on planting anything other than a small veggie garden, but it's been a more palatable task than the alternatives and has given us a bit of an opportunity to process it all.  So here's the garden report: There's a great grassy space to the south that gets a lot of sun. We borrowed a rototiller and some garden implements and Jeff turned a small strip of it into workable dirt. I planted (less than half) of it with greens and carrots.  Mission: find more veggies to plant that will grow quickly.  Also, next to the deck stairs there's those great ferns you saw in the last post, but nothing on the other side.  So now it's a modest garden bed, cobbled from the pansies I brought, a plant I found in the grass that's a mystery and some pretty blue things we found at a store.  We found a great deal on hostas as well and rummaged up some old canning pots (ie planters) from one of the outbuildings, and I'm trying to decide where they should sit. The growing zone out here is reportedly a two, but it's wetter.  It's a bit of a puzzle trying to figure out shady and sunny areas and apply my mostly untried Calgary garden plant knowledge to this place.

Speaking of this place, I am discovering what people mean when they say big skies. It's very cool to see the sunset last for hours or to see the full movement of clouds across the sky, or lightening as just the small part of the storm.  There's more water than I'm used to here. It seems everywhere there is a roadside marsh or stretch of informal pond. The birdsong on the acreage is amazing and it's very humid - sometime mist stretches across the fields.

We did, in the end, get a start on the cleaning and are sort of half moved in. Today we expect to finish it and sleep there, at our acreage.

Sask-bound

New adventures are good for the soul.  I have the joy of embarking on two new adventures in these recent days. One, the adventure of marriage, which for me at this moment is less than a month old and already full of both joys and challenges.  Secondly I have the adventure of leaving my home province to create a temporary home in one I am much less familiar with; moving to Saskatchewan for the summer to work on what is now our acreage.  This second adventure might be a bit of a stretch for a travel blog, but expand it to adventure and it's a perfect fit.  So off we go!
Many people we have told our plan to sigh a bit and express how wonderful they think it all sounds. There is a certain romanticism to the idea, but so far let me tell you that it has been a lot of packing and loading and unloading and shuffling both things and boxes between houses and vans and garages. Dirt and sweat. And we certainly have not seen the end of those. So now we have  driven a van full of tools, furniture, clothes and other possessions the distance to Melfort.  We got a late start, and so arrived late, after midnight.

The drive was flat, an ocean of green and yellow on either side of the highway.  It always takes longer than I think it will to actually cross into Saskatchewan.  And we pass a lot of towns that I always expect will be bigger than they are.  The sunset was lovely and took a long fade from oranges to those deep blues of night. 

Today our mission is to start to figure out a plan of attack. It's a warm breezy day here and so the mosquitos aren't bad, but I have already discovered a tick, and I am trying not to be intimidated by the mouse droppings and the mess at the house. We'll need to make the place livable unless we want the increasingly less desirable option of tenting among the ticks. This means a lot of cleaning and disinfecting, sorting out water and brushing out the cobwebs. 

And then we need to figure out what needs to be done to the house reno-wise. I am tempted to jump in and do some of the apparent tasks (like paint the siding), but it's not helpful to do that because there are bigger changes we're considering and if we decide to do those, there's a proper order to attack things in and it won't start with the siding. There are also some things to be tested and calculated and mulled over, and unknowns to figure out.  Especially for me, knowing so little about all this stuff.

The place is beautiful though, and if it can be made more hospitable, that would be golden.  

The last bits

Well, I am on the flight home, soaring through the sky, swimming upstream against the clouds.  The lakes and rivers in the distance out my window are all silver and blue, while those winding beneath and all dark chasms, each a bottomless pit of shadow, mysteries of the land.  There is not much for cloud, but it comes and goes, and the sky is it's natural brilliant blue.

Yesterday was another full day.  It being Sunday, we decided to go to church in the morning at a beautiful Anglican church not too far away.  We'd visited it previously and it had struck us as beautiful and peaceful.  It can be a really lovely thing to connect with Christians in other places, like stumbling upon family members.  There's an openness and understanding of each other, an acceptance and connection.  It was this that I was looking forward to.  The service was lovely up to the point where the main sermon was given.  It wasn't so much a biblical, Christ-centred message as it was a cultural one - a promotion of the idea that all religions are merely different paths to the same god.  Quite honestly, I have no idea how anyone can hold that idea to be true and hold Christianity to be true.  The bible is explicit about the way to God, and it leaves no rooms for other paths.  It would seem that the beliefs are in conflict.  I suspect that a person holding a kind of all-inclusive belief like that is looking less for truth (which can sometimes be difficult), but rather a culturally acceptable set of inoffensive guiding beliefs.  However, this isn't a can of worms I usually delve into, and I've probably already offended someone, so I'll stop there.  The short of it is, Michelle and I had a very long conversation about it afterwards, and we were both disappointed by our experience there. 

However, we were not disappointed by our bike ride!  It is easy to rent bikes in Montreal and they are all over downtown and by the metro stations -so convenient!  So we took a whirl round the canal and port area.  It was lovely, and perfect weather for it - not too hot.  I'd been waiting all week to get a closer look at Habitat 67, one of the few bits of Canadian art/architecture that was touched upon by in art history classes, so that was our destination.  It was as good as anticipated, all boxy and nice with spaces in between that you could see through to the other side.  Just plain fun!

The we rushed off for a dinner with my uncle and family to celebrate his birthday and to visit.  That was also a delight!  We got the tour of the house, met the kiddos, enjoyed casual appetizers on their deck and went off to a restaurant for dinner.  A really lovely way to cap off our visit to Montreal!