Horses and Pigs and Cows - oh boy!

1. Arrive at the Fair grounds at 7:00 a.m.
2. Begin set-up.
3. The storm has delayed things so I start to panic.
4. Take a natural source anti-anxiety pill and a fistful of Cold FX
5. Decide it’s okay to have a cinnamon bun as long as I share it with my sister - vow that I will not eat one every day like I did last year.

Day 1. Cold FX works. I know this because I got sick following the first four events that I coordinated. After seeing Don Cherry’s photo on a product for Cold FX I decided to investigate the product’s claims. I read somewhere that the reason why people get sick while traveling is that the air in hotel rooms and planes dries out a person’s mucous membranes making them more susceptible to germs. I believe Don wouldn’t endorse something that didn’t work and decided to give it a try. Voila! I haven’t been sick since.

I remember the first year I started doing this. Let me back up and start again. I first started doing a similar job to this when I worked for the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association back in 1998. It was my job to take our booth to the larger Fairs and Exhibitions in the province (mostly held in Brandon, Manitoba) and handout information about the MCPA. For some weird reason, I really enjoyed this part of the job. In the fall of 1995, I heard that the Association was short-staffed so I approached them with the idea that I would man their booths on a contract basis. I started with the “Touch the Farm” display at the Red River Exhibition in June of 2006. These events were developed to raise awareness about farming practices and give urbanites the chance to learn more about the farm. The best part is that each commodity brings in animals that people can look at. We’ve been told that “Thru the Farm Gate” is one of the most popular exhibits at the Brandon Fair.

Today my sister Nance is volunteering to help for the day. She isn’t really concentrating though because all she can think about is how she is going to smuggle one of the lambs home in her suitcase.



This is Sarah Lewis with one of her lambs. She coordinates and mans the booth for the Manitoba Sheep association.

For me, this week’s challenge isn’t going to be the long hours, stream of people or inhaling dusty air. It’s going to be resisting the temptation to buy and eat a homemade cinnamon bun every day. Prairie Seasons bakery and café in Neepawa, Manitoba set up a kitchen each year at the Fair. All of their products are natural and the cinnamon buns are made from stone ground wheat. What amazes me is how the best cinnamon buns on the planet can come from a small town like Neepawa. If they ever decide to go national, they’ll put Cinabons out of business.

Spring in Manitoba

1. Wake up to a deathly quiet house
2. Realize the power has gone out in the night
3. Get dressed
4. Hear someone’s footsteps creaking across the kitchen floor
5. Investigate to find no one there
6. Light candles

Never a dull moment. I remember when I first moved here, friends from the city thought I was crazy. The wondered outloud how I would be able to stand living way out in the middle of nowhere. They asked if I thought it would be boring. I can honestly say, 25 years later, that there hasn’t been one boring day.

My sister Nance and her husband John arrived on Friday along with their daughter Lace and her boyfriend Ryan. Their middle girl, Kassarah is staying with us for awhile so I have a full house. It was a fun weekend for everyone that included watching the calves being born, eating copious amounts of food and visiting. We told stories and last night the guys watched the Montreal Canadiens lose to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Fortunately there were both Leaf and Canadiens fans in the house which made the game even more interesting.
It started to storm about 5:00 p.m. Lots of wet snow fell so the barn is now full with newborn calves and Mark has just gone outside to feed the cows and spread straw so the older calves and cows have something dry to lay on.

We have no hydro, no phone and the roads are blocked with snow. The only thing in the house that works is my laptop because it has a fully charged battery. Today I’m supposed to leave for Brandon to set up the Cattle Producers booth at the Manitoba Royal Winter Fair.

I hear my company stirring downstairs . . . time to make a fire in the woodstove and cross my fingers the power will be on soon.



LATER: It took an hour and half to get the five miles from our farm to the main highway - the snow is that deep and heavy. Mark had to plough the road using the tractor to get my car out. I was relived that the highways were clear and I arrived in Brandon at 9:00 p.m.

Footsteps in the kitchen: Will elaborate in a future post

The Inner Critic

1. Check site meter. Finally! Visits to my blog!
2. Make coffee
3. Drink lots of it while I obsess over what I've written
4. Panic
5. Can't think of a thing to write

Amateur. Freak. Boring idiot.
Let's just say the "Silence the Inner Critic" CD that I bought isn't working. It is a 15 minute meditation exercise that I'm supposed to do each day. It is supposed to eliminate the negative voices in my head to help me write better. The jacket on the CD says it will help free up my creativity so that the nasty inner voice doesn't sabotage my writing efforts. So far, it isn't working. But then again, I haven't actually listened to it each day. I can't seem to get around the voice in my head that tells me it's a bloody waste of time.

Fifteen minutes isn't very long. Nobody is that busy that they can't take 15 minutes out of their day to meditate and change their lives for the better. That's what the CD jacket says and I believe it. I know meditation works. The problem is that when I try to meditate, I fall asleep. And if the nap lasts more than 30 minutes, I get stuck in a dream world and cannot wake up. Seriously, last week while listening to my new CD, I fell asleep and an innocent little nap turned into a freakin' nightmare. It's not the first time that it has happened. In fact, it happens every time I take an afternoon nap.

My naps are best described as a really bad drug trip. Now of course at this point I can't pretend that I'm Not Boring and that I have actually Taken Drugs, but I DID grow up in the 1970s. I would like to go on record as saying that the made-for-television movies back then were pretty bad. Rainy Saturday afternoons were spent watching confusing psychedelic movies in which dancing women waved their arms as if doing the back stroke to funky music. The predominant colours were pink and orange and they swirled on the walls like the giant lollipops you find in a specialty candy store. Well, that's what my meditation naps are like. Only they are scary. Really, nightmare, bad trip, scary.

During my last Silence the Inner Critic Meditation attempt, I fell asleep right near the end and got trapped in a sleeping hell. Now I know that describing one's dreams is classified as the Nobel Prize of Boring, so I will keep it brief. Suffice it to say that there were a lot of colours, everything was super huge and my body was being dragged across the floor toward a mob of evildoers.
Think Apocalypse Now.
Soilent Green.
Slaughterhouse Five.
To make matters worse, I actually know I am napping. Last time, I could hear Mark in the kitchen making coffee and in my head I was screaming for him to wake me up.

That's why I can't meditate. Or nap.
If someone out there knows of a way to Silence the Inner Critic that doesn't involve closing my eyes, please let me know. If it can be done without the Critic knowing, even better.

A Little Sister

1. Check the temperature to find it's another cold morning here in Manitoba.
2. Check the cows
3. Check to see that the kids got home safe last night
4. Check my site meter
5. Check the calendar

I remember the day my pesky little sister was born. Easter Sunday, 1967. I was 4 years-old, my brother had just turned three. We lived in a little house on Trinity Church Road at the edge of Hamilton, Ontario. We had a black lab named Queenie, a big front yard with a line of trees that separated us from the neighbours. How my parents grew anything in that clay soil I'll never understand, but there were always potatoes, beans and tomatoes in the summertime.

Spring arrives much earlier around the Great Lakes than it does here. I remember our dad putting our coats but we barely needed them, and carrying our Easter candy, my brother and I followed him out to the car. Most of the snow was gone except where it had drifted along the treeline. The sun was shining and while the grass was still brown, we probably could have laid down on it without getting wet.

Dad drove a taupe coloured Ford. We climbed in and stood on the front seat as Dad drove us through the city to the hospital. I don't remember anything about the visit, or my new baby sister for that matter, but I do remember how hot the car was when we came back outside and that my chocolate easter bunny had melted into the dashboard. I think Dad said something along the lines of, "Jesus Christ," but it had nothing to do with Easter.

They named her Nancy. She and I were spaced about the right distance in age that growing up, we argued a lot. She was the little sister who scratched my records, wore my clothes, scribbled on the front of my notebook, peeked in my journal, tattled, and tried to follow me around. In our house the older kids had to share their Halloween candy evenly with the younger ones and when one of us got into trouble, we all got punished to some degree. I tried running a line of tape along the floor to separate the bedroom after seeing it cleverly done on a television show, but it didn't work very well since Nancy had the door on her side. I remember being mad at her most of the time, but I never remember her being mad at me.

When she was a teenager, Nancy changed the spelling of her name to Nance. Why she did it, I still don't know. I was married with a young son and living here on the farm when she got engaged and asked me to be her maid of honour. After that, like my mom, she had her girls one after the other. And the same as the day she was born, I remember clearly the phone call that came a few years back, when her girls were still just little. She was doing up her will. She asked if anything ever happened to her, if Mark and I would take the girls. "Nobody loves them more than you," she said.

I've been lucky enough to have the best of both worlds.

Nance's girls started visiting the farm when they were just little. As they got older, the stays extended from a weekend to a week - then when they were old enough - the entire summer. They have always considered this their second home. Nance's firstborn, Lace, is almost 20 and now lives in Winnipeg. The middle girl, Kassarah, 18, is asleep in our spare room downstairs. Hopefully I'll see Emma again this summer.

Happy Birthday Nance. You are a gift. You are always in my heart and only a two hour flight away.

See you on Friday.

A mother's sleep: As interrupted when they are teenagers as when they were babies.

Guilt on Easter Sunday

1. Slept in this morning til 6:00 a.m.
2. Didn't have to check the cows because Mark was out most of the night.
3. Turned on the dishwasher.
4. Set out Easter candy for the kids.
5. Turned on my computer to discover that my MSN homepage has disappeared.

It figures. The first thing that comes to mind is that I'm being punished for spending two fun mornings working on my blog. So now, with real work bearing down on me, I have to make a choice - I can either keep working on the blog or create a new home page. Time restraints are such that I can only work on one until life pulls me away. And of course, while I am working on this, my novel sits waiting.

I find it rather ironic that I am discussing this on Easter Sunday morning. Like I am being punished for the sin of relaxation. When did it become mandatory that every moment of our day be productive or considered a waste?

Thinking back, I have always been like this. Writing has always been my passion but also the source of guilt. I can remember during class at school, pulling out my scribbler filled with writing and sneaking in a few paragraphs between Math and Science. I even remember writing through the classes I found easy, my stories coming through the pen onto the page while one ear was listening to the teacher going on about geography, health or what should be done with a verb. The teachers finally gave up trying to catch me not paying attention. I remember answering their impromptu questions without even looking up from my page.

After school and on weekends there were chores to do. All I wanted to do was write (and read), but tidying my room, delivering newspapers and helping around the house were tasks my mother nagged me into doing instead. Growing up in a home where a strong work ethic was the most important quality a person could have, I always felt lazy. I remember feeling this way from Grade 4 straight through High School. I stopped writing when I became distracted by boys, began socializing and got a part-time job.

Writing has always been the generator of guilt in my life and it is something that I've never outgrown. I imagine a lot of writers must feel the same way.

Excuse me now while I try to squeeze in an hour of work on my novel. The kids are still asleep and Mark has gone out to do the chores. The desktop publishing job that should have been finished on Friday will have to wait until this afternoon. Yes, of course I feel guilty that the bed is not yet made, the floors need vacuuming, the little dog would love to go for a walk and I have not exercised in over two weeks. Yesterday's laundry still waits unfolded. The light is perfect outside right now and I really should go out and take a few pictures . . .

The Dishwasher: Spent the first 24 years of my marriage without one. Next to my computer, it is now my most valuable writing tool.

A calf being born

1. Woke up at 4:00 a.m. thinking about my blog.
2. Showered.
3. Dug through the laundry pile to find a pair of matching socks.
4. Made a pot of coffee.
5. Went out to check the cows.
   
6. Clicked on my site meter and was relieved to see nobody has visited my blog yet.

Calving season begins in early-March and lasts for about six weeks. I do the morning checks. I don't mind this, actually I quite enjoy going out first thing while it is still dark to see if there is anything happening in the calving pens. It also gives me a sense of what went on during the night. When the weather is especially cold, my husband Mark checks every two hours to see if a calf has been born. Minus 17 degrees C is the tipping point. Any colder than that, especially if there is a wind, then we bring the newborns into the barn to ensure that they don't freeze. Once the calves are dry, their blood is circulating, and they've sucked from the cow, they are surprisingly hearty.

6:30 a.m. - A quick check through the pens and I can see a few new calves were born in the night. A cow is starting to calve now. I can see something protruding from her back end, but can't tell if it's the two hooves coming first or not. I decide to wait a bit and come back when it is light out.

7:05 a.m. - The cow has made little progress. Now I can see the calf's nose, but no feet. I hurry back into the house to get Mark.

7:10 a.m. - The pen is just across the road so I can see it from the livingroom window. Mark signals me to wake up our son Laurie. Sometimes a cow will need help giving birth, especially if it is her first calf or the presentation is not natural - breech, a leg back, or upside down. It takes years of experience to know what to do and often times when you take a cow into the barn, you have no idea what the outcome will be.

7:20 a.m. - I arrive just in time to see the calf pulled by hand. The birth was taking too long because the calf is big and the shoulders were jammed in the birth canal. By reaching in and pulling the front legs, it loosened the shoulders and the calf came out easily. Mark was able to do it alone and while he rubs the calf to stimulate it to breathe, Laurie coaxes the cow up. The calf is put in the next pen and the cow follows. Mark comments what a nice cow she is - a good mother and she has a nice disposition. He pours a little grain on the calf to encourage the cow to lick it thoroughly. Sometimes when there is intervention during the birthing process, the cow is slow to mother, and since this is a big calf and the birth was long, he just wants to be sure the cow bonds well.



112 on the ground, 188 left to be born.


The laundry pile: We all have them.

My first entry

1. Woke up this morning at 4:00 a.m.
2. Started working on my novel.
3. Got stuck.
4. Hit by the painful realization that I'm not very much fun.
5. Decided to start a blog.

Does this suddenly make me funner?

Yes, I know that funner is not a real word. But it is a lively word, one that makes me think of childhood, a time when you could jump up and down and holler out pretty much whatever you wanted and people thought it was cute. Life was more funner then, before we knew about the word responsibility.

The above paragraph is the perfect example of "telling not showing" a writerly no-no, especially when writing fiction. Writing non-fiction is much easier because you can just tell, tell, tell. I'm trying to teach myself how to "show" but since my day job is all about telling, the brain switch each morning is a challenge.

No, I'm not a school teacher. I would never be able to stand all that noise. I prefer the quieter pursuit of non-fiction writing to earn a living. Just me and my computer.

Like I said - boring.

Dictionaries: How do you look up a word if you don't know how to spell it?