Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that my retirement years would include seasonal farm labour but it’s harvest time again and I’ve spent many hours on a combine this week! Though harvest is late this year, we’re enjoying an unusually warm and dry September allowing us put in long productive days. As I cross the golden wheat fields, I’m surrounded by the beauty of the season and can almost see the leaves turning brilliant shades of yellow and orange around me.

Fall holds another delight for us this year.  Our second grandchild is due just two weeks from today! Since he’ll be putting in his appearance in Vancouver, we’ll be on the road again when harvest is over.

Fall is also drama season. Five performances of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol are scheduled for the last two weekends of November. Auditions have taken place, the cast list has been posted and the first rehearsal took place this week. Since we can’t commit to a heavy rehearsal schedule this year, Richard and I have both taken very minor roles this time. Fortunately, our director understands the importance of both harvest and meeting new grandchildren!

I’ve played a lot of golf over the past week. It started last Sunday with the Club Championship, our annual members only tournament. Eighteen holes of competitive play determined the men’s, women’s, junior’s and senior’s champions for the year. I wasn’t particularly happy with my play during the competition but the day ended on a great note. After a delicious steak supper, those who chose to do so participated in a “horse race”. Based on the day’s performance, high scorers are partnered with low scorers and the game is played with partners hitting alternate balls. At the end of each hole, the teams with the highest scores are eliminated until only the top two or three teams remain by the ninth hole. In this case, we started with 14 teams all hitting off the first tee. Unlike a serious golf game where it’s very poor etiquette to make noise of any kind when another player is hitting, a horse race involves lots of heckling and good natured teasing. Because I hadn’t golfed particularly well during the day, I had the good fortune to be partnered with the men’s champion and we came in second, winning a percentage of the $5 per person entry fee. It wasn’t a large amount of money but it was the fun of participating and winning that counted.

On Wednesday mornings, we enjoy playing senior’s golf which is open to everyone aged 50 and over. This week was our annual wind-up. We played nine holes in the morning with cash prizes going to the top three male and female golfers in both gross score and net score categories. Net scores are calculated using handicaps which are based on scores from throughout the season. Richard played well and won third prize in the men’s net score category. Again, I didn’t play particularly well. During the afternoon, we played nine holes of fun golf that involved a number of silly games and lots of laughter.

Thursday evening is ladies night but, because I had a drama meeting that evening, I decided to go out for nine holes in the afternoon and ended up scoring a personal best of 42! What amazed me most was how easy it seemed. I really can’t figure out why I can’t golf that way all the time! It’s the good hits and the good games that keep us going back to this crazy sport so, of course, I had to go out again yesterday to see if I could do it again! I couldn’t but I did play pretty well so when some friends called to see if I wanted to go for another round in the evening, I did. I matched my afternoon score and was feeling pretty pleased with myself and fired up for today, the annual ladies tournament.

Maybe it’s competition that causes my game to go downhill. After playing so well the past couple of days, I couldn’t do it today! I had some good holes and some bad ones, some lucky breaks and some not so lucky. In the end, my score was a little higher than average. Like many tournaments, this one is flighted or grouped in such a way that golfers of all levels have a chance to win something. Though I wasn’t entirely happy with my score, it was good enough to win fourth place in the second flight and I came home with a lovely sweater. It isn’t the prize that made the day a great one, however. I golfed with two ladies from our club and a guest from another town who were all fun to be with. Our ladies tournament is also a fundraiser for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. As this dreadful disease claimed the life of a very dear friend three years ago, this makes it very meaningful to me. In addition, we had fantastic weather today which is almost unheard of for this particular tournament. I remember years when ladies rode their golf carts wrapped in quilts because it was so cold out and once, we played the entire day in our rain suits because it was so wet! What a delight it was to play in beautiful sunshine! As the day progressed, the wind got stronger and at times, it played havoc with our balls but it did keep away the mosquitoes which have been terrible lately.

The various competitions of the past week spell the beginning of the end. The golf year is winding down. The course will be open for another month until just after Thanksgiving but I don’t expect to play much more now that harvest has begun. Richard has been swathing grain almost every day this week and beginning Monday, I expect to be combining. As much as I enjoy golf, I also love my time on the combine so that’s just fine with me!

Our new passports arrived in the mail today; 24 pristine pages waiting to be stamped and stapled! I wonder how many interesting places they will take us?

Fortunately, we were allowed to keep the old passports as souvenirs, reminders of times spent in fascinating and exotic places. Over the past five years, they took us to Japan twice (the second time for a whole year), South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Macau and, of course, back and forth across the American border several times. Their pages contain some very interesting documents such as our visas from the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. Perhaps the most interesting and memorable, however, are our Japan work visas which list us as Specialists in Humanities / International Service, a very fancy way of saying English Teacher!

Where might the new passports take us? I’m already planning a trip across the United States and into Atlantic Canada either next summer or the summer after. A return trip to Japan is an absolute must as we now have so many friends to visit there. In fact, if money was no object, we’d visit Japan regularly. There’s a very big world out there waiting for us though and so many places we haven’t been yet.

While we enjoy being tourists, we much prefer the idea of immersing ourselves in a culture and getting to know its people the way we did during our year in Japan. We also enjoy being retired, however, and have a growing family of grandchildren here in Canada so we aren’t likely to spend a whole year abroad again. Instead, we’re looking for short term opportunities of two or three months. We’re willing to go almost anywhere and do anything we’re capable of so who knows where that might lead us? The world is full of possibilities and the passports are ready to go!

When we returned to Canada early this year, we decided that it would be a good idea to take advantage of the ecoENERGY Retrofit Homes grants that have been made available by the Canadian and Alberta governments in an attempt to encourage homeowners to reduce the amount of energy used in their houses and thus reduce the production of greenhouse gases.

In order to qualify for the rebates, the first step is to have an energy audit done by a certified energy advisor. When that was done, we were happy to learn that our house already exceeded the average energy efficiency rating for a house of its age in Alberta. In fact, the advisor told us that it was as airtight as a new construction. He did, however, make several recommendations to help improve its energy efficiency.

The biggest potential for energy savings and, therefore, the biggest rebate available, involves replacing an old gas furnace with a newer high efficiency one.  Our house is 29 years old and until a couple of weeks ago, it still had the original furnace. It was working fine but we knew that, at it’s age, something could go wrong at any time and it only made sense to replace it this year while the ecoENERGY program is in effect and the rebate available. We had a furnace with a 92% annual fuel utilization efficiency installed by a local heating and plumbing company.

Though we’ve had most of the windows on the main floor replaced in recent years, when the audit was done we discovered that a great deal of heat was being lost around the windows. Richard removed the trim from around all of them, insulated the cracks and sealed them with caulking. Though we expected the energy advisor to recommend that we replace the basement windows, he didn’t.  The rebates available for replacing windows are small and he didn’t feel that replacing the them would be wise financially. He did, however, suggest that we seal the two that are not needed for ventilation or as possible emergency exits closed. Richard has done that as well as replacing the weatherstripping around both outside doors and installing foam pads behind all the electrical outlets on the outer walls to reduce leakage there.

We completed our energy upgrades today by blowing an additional layer of cellulose insulation, made from 100% recycled paper, into the attic. Though Richard thought it might take all day, with the help of a friend, we finished the job in four hours including time for a coffee break! Once we figured out a routine that worked well, the job went very smoothly. The insulation comes in tightly compacted bales of approximately 25 pounds each. Louis & I worked out in the front yard tearing the bales apart and filling the machine which was on loan from the Home Hardware where we purchased the insulation. Up in the attic, Richard spread it around and ensured that an even depth was maintained.

The final step will be having a follow-up evaluation done. At that point, the energy management company that does the audits will file the necessary paperwork and eventually we’ll receive the rebates.  I say eventually because we understand that we might have to wait quite awhile. Apparently, the ecoENERGY program has been so popular that both the energy management companies and the governments have been having trouble keeping up with the demand.

I’m not at all fond of winter and I hope that it doesn’t arrive for quite some time but when it does, I’m happy to know that we’ll be snug and warm in our energy upgraded home. I’m also hopeful that the gas bills, which were already lower than many people pay, will be even lower.