A Blessing in Disguise

This year, for the first time ever, I planted a garden. To date, I’ve nursed a few houseplants, but never really considered myself much of a green thumb. Like cooking, gardening is not something my mom really taught me how to do (sorry Motorcycle Mama… but you’ve said so yourself). I was once charged with weeding her garden while she and my dad were on a bike trip, and I proceeded to “weed” her flowers and a few veggies too… I didn’t get that job the next year. That being said, I have turned into a capable cook, so I figured I should be able to become a competent gardener (with the occasional advice from my mother). That is, until I decided to plant my first ever garden, on a newly broken plot, during one of the coldest spring and early summer’s in living memory.

The location of my garden is where Errol’s grandma (who lived in a now demolished house near where our house, from the other grandma, stands). She favoured potatoes. Her garden, I’m told, was huge and produced enough potatoes to feed the WHOLE family through the winter, including lefse at Christmas time. My hope was to refresh the soil’s memory, and capture some of its past growing prowess. I opted to go small, since this is my first garden, and I am going to have a big belly to contend with come harvest time. I planted rows of corn, beets, radish, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots and peas and dreamed of eating fresh veggies well into the fall. I diligently weeded my garden, to help the new plants grow, and watered when I could. And then the weather turned and threatened to freeze my burgeoning garden. On June 6th, when the radio said it was going to be -3C overnight, Errol and I quickly covered the tiny seeds and plants with more dirt, and hoped for the best.

Short of 6 corn plants that poked through a week or so later, and nothing else grew. I felt like I had failed as a gardener, and cringed every time I saw someone else’s, far lusher garden. I even cried once for my garden (though I’m pretty sure that it was just the pregnancy hormones crying) and allowed myself to briefly think that if I couldn’t grow a garden, how will I ever raise a child?

I have since decided that I am not completely incompetent, and though there will be struggles, I will be a good mother. I have managed to coax 18 starter tomato plants and 3 starter cucumber plants into producing fruit. Of the 2 rows of carrots I planted, 6 plants FINALLY poked through. 1 cucumber seed eventually sprouted and is growing nicely, and I might have 1 beet plant growing. Those 6 corn plants survived the frost and a horse running through my garden, and I swear have doubled in size in the last 2 days. Hooray! I re-seeded my peas, and they are beginning to grow, but my re-seeded lettuce still hasn’t poked through. I might just give up on it…

I'm not as discouraged anymore, and am already looking forward doing better on my sophomore garden. Based on the size of my belly now, and what I can expect to be in September, it’s a good thing my garden didn’t turn out as I had originally expected. Now we’ll only have tomatoes, cukes and hopefully a few peppers to do eat and can.

While I continue to build up the courage to show bloggerland what my bare belly looks like right now, perhaps this will appease the masses for a short while.

And really, I find it much more interesting to look at than the basketball under my shirt. You can see Baby V's nose, lips, chin, an ear, hand and of course it's large head. The ultrasound picture is just about as interesting to stare at as my belly when Baby V starts ferociously kicking and punching me, making my belly pop, ripple and quiver.

Baby V is laying sideways. Head on my left, feet on my right, back or head resting on my pillow-like bladder. Not a fan of this staying still nonsense, so it's always moving, and distracting me from my work.

For a special lady

One thing I have really enjoyed about getting married is adopting a whole new family. I've been extraordinarily blessed with great in-laws (good thing we get along so well, seeing as we live in the same yard) and love to spend time with the brothers and sisters-in-law and nephews and nieces. Errol and I tease each other that the other's family likes them better.

One special lady I adopted was Errol's Grandma T. I was taking a quick break from baking up a storm before I head out to mow the law and read May-B's post about her grandma, and thought, I should post about Grandma T! It's hard not to think about her often as we live in her old house and many of her belongings are in daily use (furniture, her specially-made countertops that fit me perfectly, etc.) She's the lady who painted the kitchen, dining room and master bedroom pepto pink. Tomorrow we will celebrate her 90th birthday (i.e. the reason why I'm baking in the summer...)She's lived a fascinating life. She spent a good part of her childhood in the Park Valley area, one daughter of Swedish immigrants. She married and she and her husband eventually settled in this area as well. My mother-in-law is their only daughter, but they took in scads of foster kids, several of whom still stay in touch. Eager to entertain with food, she worked as a cook for many years at the Big Dipper Dining Theatre at Christopher Lake, home of the Cottonpickers and eventually retired and moved to Canwood. Her memory is not great anymore, and she can no longer care for herself, so she lives in the home in Big River. But that hasn't slowed her down. She loves the parties and friends she's made there. She's quick to smile and laugh, and will tease you to make you feel at home.

Happy 90th Grandma T!

I thought you were as good as gone!

I've noticed my belly button has been shrinking the last few days. It was getting so small, that last night, I was certain it was going to soon disappear, or pop out, giving me an outtie.

Nope. This morning, it's as cavernous as ever. Showing no signs of ever disappearing. Truth be told, I'm kind of disappointed. I want to see what the end looks like! Early in my pregnancy, I tried to peer into my belly button, certain I would catch a glimpse of Baby V. (I promise, I'm an intelligent, educated person. Just given to the occasional juvenile fantasy, that's all). I think I may have to soon abandon all hope of ever seeing the end.

Surprise!

It’s interesting to sit and listen to farmers swap stories of the strange and unusual. A city slicker like me cannot imagine the crazy things that happen with livestock, but most farmers have seen it all. Except perhaps, immaculate conception.

Not long ago, I was looking out the window, and noticed a foal running around, where a foal had not been the day before. Most are very dependent and won’t stray far from their mothers, but from a distance, this one looked like one of the foals from a different pasture. Too large to be a newborn, it must have been one of the foals that was 2 weeks old, or so I thought. I told Errol later that evening, but it was dark when he got home, so he couldn’t see anything.

The next morning, I looked out, and spotted it again, and this time it was nursing on the mare from the big team. She shouldn’t have been pregnant! She never spent any time with any of the studs last spring, always separated at least by a fence. Her belly had been looking mysteriously big the last while, but it was decided that she found lots to eat this winter and was just fat. Errol went out, brought her and her baby to the yard for a little look see. Baby was as big as the foals already 2 weeks old, and solid. No mistake that she is that mare’s baby. As we pieced the mystery together, we decided that the stud that was gelded last spring must have made his last hurrah before being snipped and knocked up ol’ Bonnie through the fence. He’s not very big compared to Bonnie (I maybe come to the bottom of her shoulder if I stand really straight), so it would have been quite the feat. Still no immaculate conception, just incredible acrobatics.

Oysters and Desert Ranching

The rambling is back and gearing up for some summer travel… We had the opportunity to go to my uncle’s ranch in southwest SK this past weekend to participate in their annual branding. Errol has been excited about this trip since I first suggested it well over a year ago. We packed his saddle, loaded up the SUV, picked up my parents and headed to the far reaches of the province. If you stand on some of my uncle’s hilly pasture land, you can see Montana on a clear and sunny day. We’re used to trees, but I remember living in the SW, and remember how barren the place can look, if you don’t have an appreciation for its rustic beauty. Part of me misses it, and then the wind kicks up and blows dust in my eyes and makes massive knots in my hair, and I remember why I’m glad I don’t live there anymore.

We arrived late Friday afternoon at the ranch and spent the evening getting the food ready for the next day, warming up the horses, practicing (or in Errol’s case, learning) roping and visiting.
We were up and at the house for breakfast by 6 Saturday morning. The first of the crew were coming to round up and sort out the calves at 8, so we had to be ready for them. By 8:30 we were in the truck heading to the pasture lead the herd of 200 in with a hay bale, in a sort of pied piper fashion.

By 10:30 everything had been sorted, the cows vaccinated and turned out to bawl and wait for their calves. Since the rest of the neighbours weren’t showing up until 2:30 to start branding, we chilled, visited and put the finishing touches on the big supper.

Over 50 people came to take in the first branding of the season. Since our branding and vaccinating is much less formal and takes only a couple of hours, this was an event that was totally unique and fun to watch for us. My uncle had jobs for my parents and Errol, but wouldn’t let me wrastle, vaccinate or handle the branding iron, so I was the official videographer.

The branding starts off with the first group of calves being let into the branding pen. A few riders (ropers) ride around the pen looking for a calf to snag with the rope. Once caught, they pull them to the wrastling area, where 2 people (most often guys, but a few girls were in there too getting dirty), flip the calf on its right side and release the rope, sending the rider for another calf. Then a flurry of activity begins with a vaccinator, castrator (if needed), brander and marker coming in at once to do their job. Once the calf is worked over, they are let up, run away and wait in the pen until the entire batch is completed and they are let out to reunite with their mothers, and head off into the hazy distance.

Each job is necessary. The riders can more easily spot and catch the calves that need to be tended to. The wrastlers immobilize the calves so that the rest of the crew isn’t being kicked by the 200lb feisty 4-legged creature. The branding so that when the cows and calves are let out into the community pastures, the pasture manager can quickly tell which cows and calves belong to which rancher. Most important for when they are sorted and returned to the ranch in the fall. Vaccinating is necessary to keep the herd healthy through the summer and immune to things like the common cold and insects, which can do serious harm. Since only a few bulls are needed to keep the herd going, castrating garners a higher price in the fall. And the marking, well… the big yellow strip means you only pick on a calf once, reducing the amount of stress it goes through during the day.
My dad did the branding (and singed all sorts of hair on his neck, beard and around his ears), my mom vaccinated (and even managed to stick herself with the end of the needle during the last few calves) and Errol wrastled and then roped. He heeled (caught by the back legs) 3 calves. Pretty good for a rookie, having only had a short practice session the night before, and never on a horse! With all the neighbours helping, everything was done by 5 and through supper by 7. Many neighbours stayed for the first “nut feast” of the season. A tradition long held in the south… they batter the bull calf testies and fry ‘em up. Some circles even consider them a delicacy. Everyone gathered in a giant semi-circle around my uncle and the BBQ like a bunch of hungry coyotes, waiting with their toothpicks to snag as many as possible as the bowl went by. Given I’ve tried all sorts of crazy foods, I would have tried on in a heart beat IF I wasn’t pregnant. But I figured it wasn’t a good idea to introduce possibly hormone rich foods into my diet, so I avoided them. Errol tried one, even chewed it a little, before swallowing and chasing it with a coke.

If you want to play cowboy or cowgirl, I recommend checking one out. They are worth the drive, and definitely an exciting experience! Make sure to have an oyster for me.

Babies, Babies and More Babies (part 2)

I have a confession. I wasn't 100% truthful (ok... I lied) in Babies, Babies and More Babies (part 1) back in March. We really are expecting our very own baby! A 2-legged, human kind. Now that all the friends, far and wide, have been told, I can post about it. Aside from being extrodinarily excited, we are also very thankful for how the pregancy has gone so far. 13 weeks and counting, due around Oct. 28.

I'm sure the summer will be filled a bunch of firsts. First attempt at growing flowers, growing a garden, growing our house (i.e. adding a garage), and a growing waist line. I haven't been able to fit in any of my pre-maternity pants and most of my shirts for well of a month. They are all carefully packed away, while I rotate between 2 pairs of pants, 1 skirt and 5 shirts.

So... please accept these adorable mama and baby pictures as an apology for lying. Really - who can be upset after such cuteness?

This is the first colt of the year. Born 2 days ago. I took the picture the afternoon he was born. Isn't he spindly legged and precious?