too many sunny days blues

Television and radio weather announcers are jerks.

I try to cut them some slack. I try to be reasonable. I try to see things from their point of view.

In the end I remain convinced they're all jack-asses.

By now, of course, I think most people in Alberta and Saskatchewan are aware that a huge swathe of the prairies is locked in terrible drought. You know the sort - howling winds, dust storms, dying crops.

Supposedly, those in the weather-biz would have gotten the memo by now.

It seems they ignored it.

Because for weeks now I've been listening to "it's another beautiful day out there," "no end in sight to the great weather," or (all time favourite) "don't worry, no rain in sight."

My twitching eyelid begs to differ.

Here on Alberta's brush plain the only word that can raise a smile is rain. The only morning that looks hopeful is a cloudy one. "Warm and sunny" sounds like a swear word to me.

But this week the tables have turned. Clouds fill the sky. Showers are doing their damnedest to fall. The weather-men are all crying.

And I feel glad.

Dear reader, if by chance you find yourself drenched by rain, take heart. Know that there are others who would gladly be in your place.

And if you come across a weather man talking about beautiful sunny weather, punch him once on the nose for me.

I'll be forever in your debt.

first post after a long pause

Dear reader, my apologies if I have left you sitting these past weeks wondering when, pray tell, you would get to read a new post from your favourite blogger.

Take heart, I have returned.

The fact of the matter is that now that my summer holiday has begun my free time has dwindled. Considerably dwindled. This is possibly the first moment I have spent not driving, driving tractor, bagpiping, fencing, moving cattle, branding, feeding cattle, etc. since school let out several weeks ago. Free time, for the time being, has exited my vocabulary.

Which isn't to say that I've not enjoyed myself. I'm finally getting back into shape; I've so far had a successful summer bagpiping; I've nearly perfected the rain dance (I think I'm close - clouds are building to the west and I at least know it wasn't a cataclysmic-fire-dance).

This is the pattern that has marked my summers since I was old enough to work on the farm – a pattern that has marked life for farmers over generations.

I'll admit, for a long time I hated it. In high school it was frustrating to be tied to a hay field while my non-farming friends spent much of their summer working mindless jobs with free evenings. In college it drove me batty, working myself to exhaustion while some of my friends spent their day lying on picnic tables, tanning, at what were amusingly called 'jobs'.

I think that I can say I'm a little older and wiser now. Hindsight shows I was pretty lucky to spend my days working a job with real responsibility attached. I was fortunate to be doing work that left me with a tangible outcome I could point to and feel pride in.

“Stu,” you say, “we get the whole 'lessons learned' thing, but would you please get to the point?”

Ah, dear reader, patience. I will come to the point presently.

I wax nostalgic about the farm work of years past because the normal pattern has been disrupted.

Whereas July and August normally mean, for me at least, making hay and eating cherries, continuing drought conditions mean hay-making has been canceled.

Eating cherries doesn't hold the same pleasure without the smell of hay.

I thus feel lost this summer. My purpose has been disrupted. I know not my place in the world.

So I keep myself busy by whatever means are available.

Today a dug a hole. Big hole, too. About eight by twenty feet. Ostensibly it will hold the foundation for my chicken house. I'll believe it when it happens.

Soon I'll go check the cattle.

Not that I think anything has gone wrong with them. Only that I need something to make me feel useful.

So, my friend, I take my leave. If you need me, I'll be out in the pasture.

And if you have hay to make, I'm your man.

i cannot be held accountable for the crazy ideas i come up with.

The time has come, at long last, to evict the eldest chickens from the barn.

Unfortunately, I have yet to secure living quarters that will allow said poultry the opportunity to cluck and scratch about in the great outdoors.

The temptation exists, of course, to simply turn them out in the barnyard. "How rustic!" people may think. "What lovely, free range birds you will have!"

Which is true - it would certainly be rustic, and I would love for them to have the chance to wander freely about the yard. But I want them to survive the night: were I to turn sixteen chickens out into the wild I expect that three or four would be left come morning.

The coyotes and owls, on the other hand, would be looking sleek, smug, and sated after their delightful chicken dinner.

And so dear reader, the time has come for me to build a chicken coop.

Which is a thought that makes those who know me shudder in fear.

There are, sadly, many who can tell you tales of my ineptitude in the building arts. I can measure a board five times and still cut it too short. I have yet to hang a picture or a shelf level. Square corners have so far eluded me, and I expect that they will continue to do so for some time.

It's as though, whenever I try to build something, I become constructionally disabled. (Is that a word? I don't think it so. But I digress)

For this project, though, I'm taking a different tack.

You see, I'm not going to use wood.

In fact, I'm not going to use anything that requires great precision and/or skill at all.

And no, I'm not going to step out and buy a shed.

Instead, my friends, I intend to build a chicken house out of cob.

"Um... Stu," you say, "you really don't need to go making up stories to hide your pathetic carpentry skills."

Dear reader, that hurts. To think you believe I would go to such great lengths to hide my shame.

Cob - that old timey clay-sand-and-straw mix that so many of the world's buildings are built of - is the perfect medium for someone like myself to work with.

Why, you ask.

I will tell you: A) It's incredibly cheap. Dirt cheap one might say. Possibly because it's made of dirt; B) There are no boards involved, therefore nothing to cut too short; C) I don't know anybody who has used the stuff before. As a result, no one will be able to point out my mistakes.

And so, dear reader, I must take my leave. I've a lot of planning to do if I'm going to build this earthen masterpiece soon.

I need to dig the foundation.

I need to accumulate supplies.

I need to convince the chickens to stop giving me that exasperated look.

Regards, and enjoy the last Thursday in June.

curse you, mechanical tormentors

I tried. And I failed.

I find it very difficult to like machines. Loud, noisy things that, we are assured, serve only to make the job easier.

Of course, any time you save doing the job itself is quickly eaten up by the time you spend fixing the blasted things.

As I said before, Thoreau had it right with the whole "Men have become the tools of their tools" thing.

But I tried. I spent the days prying on wrenches, loosening nuts, replacing bearings. I greased and oiled, I adjusted and tweaked, I hammered and swore. It left me feeling tired, sore, and beaten.

In general I am not opposed to feeling tired a sore. I like the ache in my shoulders after a day stretching wire and building fence. I like how quickly sleep comes after a day chasing cattle or branding calves.

But I don't like feeling beaten. I don't like repairing something only to know that I'll be repairing it again in a day's time. I don't like the feeling of being subservient to a machine.

I don't mean to speak ill of the things. I recognise how much harder life would be without machines. I understand that, in many ways, machines have had a tremendously positive impact on my life.

But that doesn't stop me from loathing the things.

"Okay Stu," you say, "you dislike machines. So what are you going to do about it?"

Ah, dear reader, listen and I will tell you.

I don't intend to do a bloody thing about it. At least, not for the moment.

Because I don't see a way out of it quite yet.

Sometimes part of me thinks it would be pleasant to return to a horse and plow, but I do have enough sense to know that walking behind a Clydesdale would eventually grow tiresome and with time I would probably wish the machines back.

I would love to turn back the clock, even a little, to a time when things were a bit simpler. The problem is, I'm not so sure if things were simpler back-in-the-day at all.

So for now I'll bite my tongue and stick it out; mutter a few swear words and swing a sledge-hammer or two.

In the meantime I take comfort in the fact that someday, somehow, I'll have my revenge.

And that, my friends, will be a glorious day indeed.

irritation, thy name be report card

There's a week left in this school year.

I need it to be done now.

It isn't just me feeling selfish or lazy - as soon as summer begins I know that I'll be farming full tilt and will look forward to the relative relaxation of the next school year.

No, the reason I need school to be done is because the students need school to be done.

Having neared the end of ten months of being disciplined, lectured, taught, and assessed the kids have officially had enough.

And who can blame them: once June hits they all know that there's really very little left for us to teach them. The curriculum has, in large part, been covered. All that June really holds for students is the chance to relive the previous nine months all over again.

As a teacher, of course, June couldn't be long enough - between marking, creating exams, guiding review, giving extra help, inventory, completing report cards, and all the bureaucratic crap that gets foisted on us there is very little time to sit back and breathe.

But when you sit back and take a good hard look at it all it's difficult to tell why it all really matters.

I'm a teacher. As such I tend to feel that education is important. I am of the opinion that learning for learning's sake is an admirable goal.

But it's that very idea makes me question the validity of forcing students from the age of twelve upwards to sit in rows and complete a two-hour exam. Is it actually important for a boy in grade seven to recall the correct conjugation pattern for the French verb ETRE? Does it serve any great purpose if a fifteen year old girl can select, on a multiple choice test, the most common STDs in Alberta? Will calamity befall our society if a child in grade eight forgets the proper usage of a semi-colon?

My suspicion is that it will not. But what does that matter? - the powers that be aren't exactly phoning me up to ask my opinion on the subject.

And so I do my job. I do my job well. I dutifully draw up exams. I faithfully record the marks. I contemplatively calculate the grades.

Truth to be told I have no idea what the grades mean. You got a 75 percent in English, eh? Well, that's nice. 75 percent of what?

I seriously doubt you can find anyone who knows the answer. I certainly don't.

Because a lot of education is smoke and mirrors. A lot of the learning that happens in a school happens despite the teachers, the curriculums, the tests.

That isn't to say that we teachers don't do a good job or that schools are ineffective. It's just that maybe we haven't got it right yet.

But then again, nobody asked me.

And so, dear reader, I bid you adieu.

If you need me I'll be around back grading assignments and looking confused.

the too many roosters blues

The roosters are beginning to crow.

It's not really a surprise. When one acquires chickens one tends to acquire a rooster or two as well. Roosters, for their part, are noted for a number of activities, crowing being chief among them.

The real problem is our rooster to hen ratio - while most people would consider one or two roosters sufficient for a little flock of sixteen, our flock contains seven. Seven roosters to nine hens is not what you might call a good ratio.

Good sense and practicality state that the best course of action would be to send the poorest roosters to the pot. Strengthen the herd and whatnot.

I'm a practical person: I have a lot of good sense and I tend not to be overly sentimental. But the thought of condemning my extra roosters makes me shudder.

Which is an unusual problem for me. Having spent my whole life around farm animals I'm quite used to the fact that, sometimes, they get eaten. I treat them well.; I feed them well; I give them the best life I can. There's no reason to be sentimental and weepy about it.

But the problem remains: I simply can't have so many roosters around the place.

I know in the end a decision will have to be made. I know in the end whatever I decide will work out just fine.

In the meantime, however, I'm going to give in to my natural inclinations and resort to fretting.

If you need me, you can find me in the barn conversing with the roosters. And you can bet we'll be trying to find enough hot chicks for them all.

scots abroad

As the summer approaches my thoughts turn to matters Scottish.

Because for most of my lifetime my summers have been regularly punctuated by highland games.

Other than the short time I spent in Scotland a few years ago, I have very little first-hand knowledge of the country. Popular wisdom states the country is generally wet and cool. Experience teaches that isn't too far off the mark.

Which makes one wonder why, when they first arrived on the prairies, a group of Scottish settlers (pining for the old country, one assumes) decided it would be grand to wrap themselves in wool and play bagpipes all day during the hottest part of the year.

Common sense would seem to dictate a more Scottish-esque time of year would be appropriate. Common sense was apparently uncommon among early Scottish settlers.

Had they been able to see what would happen to their hallowed highland games, these prairie Scots may have thought twice about their decision: at today's highland games it is only too easy to find people sporting cowboy hats, sunglasses, tank tops, and - a personal favourite - flip flop sandals with the kilt.

As I look out the window today at the thirty degree heat the sweat begins to run down my spine. To think that in two weeks time I will wrap the old kilt around my middle and blast the pipes away under the prairie sun - I grow faint at the prospect.

Dear reader, you may ask yourself why we Scots choose to do this to ourselves.

The answer, my friends, at the end of the day when we peel of our kilts and socks and return to our native dress of shorts and sandals we get to remind ourselves of one comforting fact - at least we're not English.

Which in my case isn't strictly true. But you can't blame a guy for trying.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.