Boneyard

A pictorial history of our farming past.

seeder, swather

horse drawn manure spreader, cultivator

small round (cord wood) baler, disk

Animal Control

  
     It's 3:00 a.m. There's a nose nudging my arm from the bedside, an insistent push, then another. It's our 14 year old Border Collie, Baby - looking for love, reassurance? Did I remember to let her out last night before bed? I drop my arm over the bedside, rub her chest, scratch her ears, wind up with a 4 tap bounce on the top of her head, our established signal that her massage session is over, and curl my arm back under the covers.

     5:45 a.m. Chip, our 8 year old Border Collie, begins his morning "Come on you guys, are you ever gonna get up?" vocalizations. I limp out of bed, flashlight in hand, and head for the front door. Chip flies through the living room at breakneck speed, nearly knocking over the coffee table, spinning his wheels so he can be first out the door. Baby drops off the lazy boy, her back legs giving out on landing but making a quick recovery. My little pet dog, Teddy, jumps off our bed and not so patiently waits his turn. I open the door and they scramble outside. I crawl back into bed.

     6:00 a.m. Ted scratches at the front door. I let him in, go to the kitchen door, ask Doc (he's an 11 year old retired guardian dog who has wormed his way into the house due to a series of events that nearly killed him) to move aside, let Baby in, ask Chip if he wants in. "No thanks," he says with his eyes. "I'll wait for the boss to get up and out." Again I go back to bed.

     7:00-7:30 a.m. The real boss, me, gets up, I grind the coffee, put on the kettle, start the fire, and settle down with my iPad. Chip's boss gets up, lets Ted out again and encourages Baby out the door with hand signals (she's quite deaf), lets Doc out, then head's out with dog cookies in hand for the 2 guardian dogs waiting for him outside. At this time of year he feeds a grain supplement to the sheep, then he heads down the driveway or across the field for a morning walk with our household dog family. The 2 active guardians, Josie and Thor, stay with the sheep. They like people, but the sheep are their family.

Josie and Thor

     The day moves on, the dogs go in and out, go crazy if left in while the "boss" is outside doing something no doubt interesting. I am tasked with making sure Ted doesn't go out when Chip is working. (Sometimes I think we keep the sheep in our "retirement years" just so Chip has something to play with. If you've ever owned a Border Collie you know, he must have a job to keep him busy!) Ted tries to help but often interferes. He's tough though  and can run amazingly fast for a tiny dog, is willing to stand nose to nose with an obstinate ewe. But he tends to counteract Chip's good work with the sheep.

     I start the should-be-daily task of preparing one room or another for Roomba to vacuum, sweep the dried sand from the breakfast nook, shake the mats and rugs, and brush the dog hair from the entry mat. Every few days, when meat is available (right now deer scraps from a friend), I set a big pot on the stove to make dog food (meat, carrots, potatoes, zucchini or squash, dried beans, rice) to supplement the store bought stuff which keeps climbing in price.

     It may be obvious, we love our dogs! Chip, Ted and Baby go with us on many excursions, always when we go south to visit our southern family. They do cause a lot of work and a certain amount of expense but... question is, who is in control? The workers do their job, the retirees do what retirees do, the pet does the pet thing, and we are the willing staff! We have accepted the fact that there's places we cannot go because the dogs can't come with us (music festivals, travel), and lament this a bit, but... they are family!  I'm sure we are not alone in this, many people are controlled by love for their pets, not really a bad thing, not everyone's thing, but it is our thing.

Transformation

 

Teddy

   My dog, Teddy, is 11 years old, son of my son's Jack Russell Terrier and his mom-in-law's Lhasa Apso. Fortunately he inherited a coat that grew fairly long but stopped at one point, getting no longer. He does sorta resemble a mop, he picks up every seed and rose briar the bush has to offer, snow builds up on his undercarriage and accumulates in balls on his feet (mud too), his bum needs a wash now and then, and his eyes sorta disappear - but all of this contributes to his essential character and most (many?) think he's sorta cute - especially me. Every now and then I give him a bath, trim bits of hair that appear to be causing problems. Mostly, though, I think about doing these things and don't get around to it. But he's a happy, stocky, farm dog and, though I occasionally considered getting him a haircut, cost and my resistance to sissy foo foo salon make-overs have kept him natural his entire life.

     But my son and daughter-in-law, who were the one's responsible for me getting Teddy in the first place, have hinted broadly over the years that I should consider getting Teddy "groomed". I resisted, and resisted and resisted some more. He's fine just the way he is I would say. No need for grooming.

A little bewilderd!

Looking pretty good!

The Canadian Election:

The Decided, the Undecided, the Traditionalist, the Apathetic

The Decided:

     You've been following along throughout the campaign; you know the important issues, non-issues, divisive issues. You're ready. The 19th of October will arrive before you know it. You could take advantage of Advance Voting; might be a shorter waiting line than on the 19th. You'll find the dates and place on your Elections Canada Voter Information Card. If you haven't received a Voter Information Card in the mail by now you'd best check to see if you are registered. You can do that at:

Online Voter Registration Service - Elections Canada E-Registration, 
www.elections.ca/register
Online Voter Registration Service. Use this service to: check if you're registered to vote; update the address on your voter registration, or; register to vote. Keep in ...

The Undecided:

     You're back and forth, think you're decided and then one candidate or another says something to make you question your decision. This has been the most divisive election campaign I've experienced in the 41 years I have been a Canadian citizen, mainly, I think, because the CPC has hired a consultant who has purposely buried the real issues under BS issues like the dress habits of a very small minority of women. This non-issue brought out a xenophobic, racist side of Canadians many were unaware of, even in themselves.
     Those of us who are looking for a change feel that the Conservative government has been using their parliamentary majority to significantly change the essential character of Canada. We are no longer a neutral, peace-loving nation. Our international reputation has taken a serious hit; our armed forces are no longer peacekeepers; libraries are being closed without funding to enable computer back-up of their contents; veterans' offices have been closed; the serious plight of missing and murdered aboriginal women is being ignored; a Barbaric Cultural Practices tip line (smacks of the McCarthy era in the US) is being established so we can start reporting the strange behaviours of our neighbors; area after area has been removed from environmental protection; the pursuit of scientific knowledge is being squashed by dropping funding; we are pretending climate change is a hoax; a huge trade deal is being negotiated in secret; there's corruption in the Senate; and so on and on and on.
     Maybe you're not looking for change, maybe the status quo is a safer bet. Are the Conservatives whistling your tune? Or is something off key? You are undecided! Try taking this on-line quiz - it may help. At least it gets beyond the divisive rhetoric we're being bombarded with every day.

Canada Election Quiz, https://canada.isidewith.com/political-quiz
See which political parties match your beliefs on the most important political issues in Canada's 2015 General Election. ... In 2015, Canadian pension funds stood at 89% of estimated liability for .... Yes, aboriginals should be further compensated for their hardships and use of resources ... Let the citizens of Quebec vote on it. ‎Electoral Reform... - ‎Commercial Drones Poll - ‎Pension Premiums - ‎Pension Tax...

     Are you looking for change but figure a vote for change where you live won't make any difference?
     I live in an area where the CPC is very likely to win - rural Alberta. And, to top that off, we in the west often feel the election is already over before our polling stations even close. So my protest vote may not count for anything. But I'm still going to vote. If you live in a riding where the vote for change may be split, allowing the Conservatives a win, you might consider strategic voting. Check this site out.

Vote Together, https://www.votetogether.ca/
No matter where you live, our new election website will give you all the tools and ... This time, if we vote together, we can stop the riding-by-riding vote splitting that ... candidates to defeat the Harper Conservatives and move Canada forward.

The Traditionalist:

     Some people vote the way they always have, the way their father and his father before him did. They say, "Our family has always voted this way and I see no reason to change." Or they might say, "I'm voting the way my husband votes, I don't know the issues and he does. Besides, if I vote differently I'll just cancel out his vote."
     Times have changed a lot since great-grandpa's day. This is a lazy way to vote and you might be shooting yourself in the foot without even realizing it. Check out the above two websites. You may discover the party you've been voting for is no longer in tune with the way you think.

The Apathetic:

     Maybe you're just too buried in your family and work life to take the time to follow the issues. Maybe you think it's a waste of time to stand in a voting line. For what, you say - one party's as bad as the other; they're all liars and crooks! Hmmm, maybe they are. But leaving the same government in power time after time makes it worse. They get cocky and begin to run rough-shod over the public, no consulting, no caring, just furthering their agenda while an apathetic electorate fails to pay attention.
     Democracies don't work if the people don't vote. It's your only chance, outside of kitchen table conversations and social media, to have your say.

Please VOTE! And better yet vote for change.

The Tablet (iPad) Generation

     On the September long weekend this Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed a wonderful day with our two grandgirls (ages 12 & 7) and their two girlfriends (age 10 & 6) while their parents, my son and his wife and their friends, took a canoe trip down the Athabasca River. Wow, were those little gals busy!

    The main focus of all four girls was our tire swing, seemed like it was occupied a good portion of the time, but many other activities filled the day. First the older girls and Grandma made a movie. My granddaughter has a good camera, a tripod, and a vivid imagination. We were all told our lines, ran through them once, the camera was set up and we'd do a scene. Then on to the next and the next until she felt she had enough footage to edit and format on her iPad. This work she does at home, adding credits, music, and editing. I've seen previous movies (app is called iMovie) she's made and they are very professional looking.  Other activities were Yatzee, bingo, rock painting, cleaning and rearranging the yurt so it looked pretty (all 8 slept in the yurt), choreographing and performing a dance to a favourite iTune, archery, and yes, before bed they watched a movie.

     These little gals are what us country folk call townies. They think a few things are scary or creepy or yucky (hornets, grasshoppers, sheep poop on the lawn), they love dogs, were a bit afraid at night when their parents were in the house visiting and they were in the yurt listening to the coyotes howl, but on the whole laughed and played like the free spirits that they are. They are children growing up in the Tablet (iPad) generation. They have had electronic gizmos in their hands pretty much their whole lives. If I need help with my computer or TV system I ask them, even the 7 year old! So I would like to debunk the idea or attempt to allay the fears of the older folks that have come to think that today's children are inactive and don't use or are not developing their imaginations, that they aren't learning much of anything in school because their computers do it all for them, that their noses are stuck in a phone so much that they have no clue as to what's going on around them and they are becoming anti-social.

     Whoa! Let's start with imaginations. I already mentioned the movies. Then there's the games like Minecraft and Farmville, Paradise Bay. These are little worlds that you build from the ground up, and, unlike a doll house, you have to build the scene, you have to chop the trees, build the homes brick by brick, grow your food, sell your wares, feed yourself, take time to sleep... Is this not using imagination? And these games can be played with others, they need not be a solitary endeavor. You can (at least on Minecraft) actually see your playing partner on the screen!

     I asked my granddaughter what games were fun. She said 2028, Dubsmash, 1010, Barbie Makeover, Fashion Story to name a few.  I tried Dubsmash, you need to know songs etc. and you lip-sync to them, creating short often quite funny sound bites. You can do this with a friend. Barbie make-over uses the internal camera so that you are applying different colours of lipstick, hair, hats etc. right onto your own face.  When you have an old grandma face like mine this can turn out quite hilarious. Fashion apps, I assume, are a lot like the paper cut-out dolls we used to play with, the clothing had little tabs you bent back to hang the outfits on the models. Today's kids can do it using computer technology. Really, no less active or less imaginative than what we did, just a different way of doing it (less messy too).

     So kids do use their phones a lot, texting each other in a language nearly impossible for me to read but I'm learning.  And maybe they do use them a bit too much. But that isn't to say that they are not active or that they are anti-social.  My grandgirls have school dances, plays, dance recitals, piano recitals, birthday parties, swimming lessons. They both have bows and are pretty good archers, they go sailing with their dad, have ridden on a dog sled, go skateboarding, biking, and of course, shopping.

     Well, you may say, they're 7 and 12, wait till they're teenagers! If I'm still blogging when they are I may visit this subject again.

     I asked (messaged her on her iPad) my 12 year old granddaughter about computer use in the school, also about smart boards. Here's the answer she messaged to me. "We are not aloud (allowed) to use phones/technology unless the teacher asks you. we use iPads like computers, there are school iPads we use. No we can not use a calculator in class! A smart board is a screen that connects to your computer and is like a giant tablet on a wall you can click with your finger and draw on it with digital markers. Yes I have them in my school and we use them a lot so the teacher can show us things like documents from her computer."

     Computers are a tooI for learning, not a detriment to learning. iPhones are mini-computers. Maybe texting is taking over some social interactions, maybe they're just another kind of social interaction.  I think parenting plays a huge role in establishing a balance between real life and life on the net.  Some controls need to be applied; family discussions are needed to help young minds understand possible outcomes of social media. It's a new world with new parenting challenges, ones we never had to contend with. I believe computers provide many positive aspects in today's world, and I have high hopes that technology, in the hands of the current computer savvy generation,