for fall, too, must come

Fall is coming.

You wouldn't really know it, though, to look around.

It's as hot now as it was for most of July and August; the mosquitoes are only just beginning to hit full stride; the air is humid and heavy and wind pretty rare.

But there are signs. The crows have left and ravens replaced them. In places the leaves have turned golden, the grasses red. Thunderheads in the afternoon have been replaced by sheets of gray.

In short, fall is doing its damnedest to get here. It's just being a bit slow about it.

From my viewpoint it can't get here fast enough. I need the fall to come. I need the year to end. This year has been long, hard, and exhausting. I need the cold days of fall to refresh me.

If you're like me and long for the cold days and short nights of fall, rejoice. It will be here 'ere long.

In the meantime, though, feel free to mutter at the sun worshipping masses with me.

Happy Wednesday from the brush plain.

a little september angst

Why should a person prefer one place over another?

It's a question I ask myself a lot. It's a question you have to ask yourself when you chose to live on the farm.

I like living on the prairies. I like seeing the sunsets and the stars; the chinook arches in winter; the flocks of geese in spring and fall. I like the fields of wheat and barley; the smell of hay in summer and the sound of frogs in the slough.

But whenever time I visit the mountains it takes every ounce of willpower to stop myself packing up and moving there.

A weekend visit to Banff and Canmore reminded me of how much I love the mountain air, the mountain weather and mountain views. Maybe it's the novelty of it: Endiang, Alberta isn't exactly noted for its vertical height or majestic beauty. Perhaps if I lived there it would quickly grow old.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

At the same time I feel an overwhelming sense of loyalty to the old farmstead. A glance at the family tree shows that my family has stayed far longer on that patch of ground than they ever had anywhere else: prior to my grandfather's generation my forebears spent their time wandering around Europe and North America: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Holland, Germany, New York, Northern Ontario, Kentucky, Illinois, Saskatchewan, Idaho being just a few of the birthplaces that show up on the old pedigree.

The wandering stops when you get to the farm. It seems that prairie dust and slough water get into the veins after all.

Sometimes I feel like it's a cop-out to stay here on the farm, that teaching is just a way to postpone the inevitable.

I feel like I need to do this, though. I cannot just give up on a farm my father, grand-father, and great grand-father worked.

It would be easy, but I'd consider myself a failure if I did.

So, I'll give it a try. If, in ten, fifteen, twenty years time it looks like farming's a bust I'll admit defeat. Pack up my bags and find a nice, quiet mountain to hang around on.

But something in my bones tells me that whether on a prairie or a peak I'm going to end up on a farm.

newfangled gadgets

I'm just old enough that I remember the world pre-internet.

It's fair to say I'm from the last generation that can claim that.

It's funny - we don't often talk of the world pre-internet anymore. History before the internet is like history before Christ: so far in the past that we speak of it as a vaguely interesting, but ultimately dead period.

Although I proudly claim the title of Luddite, I am not a part of the ugly mob that decries the internet as evil. I will not condemn cell phones, Blackberries, iPods, laptops, et cetera. I have no intention of going back to a world without them.

Because I like the world they create. I like that I can chat with someone in Brazil, New Zealand, or India at little cost from my home. I like that I can maintain daily contact with friends I otherwise would have forgotten.

But has the world really has gotten smaller?

Or did Cap'n Jack Sparrow have it right when he suggested the modern world just has less in it?

Because no one can deny that each technological advance prods an advance in globalization. Or that each advance in globalization sounds a death knell for another aspect of local culture.

I can't help but think, though, that we're wasting the great potential available to us.

A synthesis, I think is called for. A fusion of old and new for the future.

It's something to be wished for, certainly.

"Whoa, Stu," you say, "Isn't that a bit, you know, much for the first post of the fall? And maybe a bit cliche?"

Dear reader, my apologies if I come off sounding like some UN lackey - it was a long summer and the mosquitoes have drawn too much blood off my brain.

I will speak of it no more..today... but think about it. Maybe the Amish girl on the cell phone has it right after all.

musings on a goat

It looks like out little collection of farm animals is going to get a little bigger.

That isn't to say that we haven't all that many animals running around as it is. Although Kayla and I keep our little flock of chickens as 'our' livestock, the farm as a whole is home to about 200 head of cattle.

Sometimes it's fun to branch out a bit - sometimes branching out is just a good idea. Every opportunity to learn about a new animal is an opportunity to rediscover part of a knowledge base that's getting narrower and more specialized over time.

Because it seems to me that the old time farmers knew everything - how to keep cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, horses, you name it; how to fix anything from a combine to a screwdriver; how to grow any plant and where to grow it.

That's not to say that farmers are less knowledgeable - I wish I knew a quarter of the things my father knows - it just seems that so much of that knowledge is now technology based. The Luddite in me shudders at the thought.

And so we're getting a goat. I know next to nothing about goats. I know they have hooves and look a bit like miniature ugly cattle. Beyond that I am largely ignorant.

But the opportunity to learn about goats excites me. I look forward to finding out about goat personalities and traits, what they like to eat and how they like to live.

It's exciting to gain a bit of knowledge out of the ordinary. It makes the world seem a little bigger again.

The goat will arrive soon. I suspect it will be a steep learning curve, but sometimes the bigger challenges are more worth it.

Happy monday from the brush prairie.

the summer, too, shall pass

And so it starts.

Summer this year was busy. Terribly busy. The promise of free time on the drought stricken prairie was short lived: summer is out and school is about to go back in.

I am, however, feeling somewhat hopeful about this year.

You see, this year I'm the English teacher.

Perhaps that doesn't mean a lot to some of you. One teacher is much like another and is probably not worth mention.

For me, however, being the English teacher means something altogether different.

You see, this is why I went into education.

I didn't become a teacher because of the pay, hours, or kids. I became a teacher because I wanted to teach high school English.

And here I am. English teacher in a prairie high school.

Which makes it better, you know, because the prairie high school teacher is something of an archetype. I'm not sure I've been anything archetypal before. This is sort of exciting.

And so I'm going to sit now. Look out my classroom window at the dusty little town. Look at the shelves of books around my wall and think about the fall.

Regards from Alberta's brush plain.

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.