gravel, gravel everywhere....

spring is coming.

how can i tell?

other than obvious signs like "first day of spring" printed on the calendar there is the fact that the road to my house has turned to soup.

a couple of summers ago the municipality where i live decided to consult residents about how to improve the county, improve sustainability in the region, and improve the general quality of life in this part of the province.

as a result of that process i had the chance to be part of a panel to come up with a plan of attack. we were to discuss our ideas, prepare a plan, and present it to the province.

i arrived with a head full of ideas for community based projects and green developments.

everyone else wanted to talk about roads.

they talked about the number of paved miles in the county. they talked about the quality of the gravel on the country roads. they talked about the intelligence and education of the grader operators.

i arrived at that meeting thinking that here was a chance to make a difference. i left the meeting feeling frustrated and tired. the whole meeting was spent discussing how to improve roads.

which is why i was surprised last spring when the county came and dumped six inches of dirt on the road, dirt they amusingly called gravel. just a couple of weeks ago they did the same - now that the dirt has met the spring melt it has developed a consistency like watery stew.

roads are the bane of my existence.

it's not actually the poor roads that make me complain - it's the nicely paved highways. shortly after our local highways were paved in the late eighties/early nineties our towns started to die - stores shut down, gas stations went under, schools closed - because the world became a little smaller and cities like red deer, with their greater selection of goods and services, seemed that much closer.

i don't claim to be innocent - i willingly went to high school in stettler, an hour's drive away. i still drive to red deer once a week. i drive forty minutes to work monday to friday.

it's hard to stop, but that doesn't mean that changes shouldn't be made.

i'm going to go home tonight and when i get there i'm going to watch my chickens and play fetch with the dog and check on the cattle.

and this time, when the car careens towards the ditch, i'm going to thank my lucky stars for ineffective county councillors and the crappy roads they provide.