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Cross Canada tractor trek

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photo credit

The source of information for western Canadian farmers for the past 89 years has been the weekly farm paper, The Western Producer. Every now and then, our farmer friend, Louis, passes his copy of the paper on to us when he finishes with it. Often there’s a specific article that he wants us to read, usually related to some topic that has come up when we’ve been working for him. Occasionally, however, he simply tells me “I think there’s something in this one that you’ll enjoy.” He knows me well and he’s usually right. Most of the time, I can figure out which article he’s referring to but this time I’m not quite sure. The latest issue has several possibilities but if he thought that the one entitled Immigrant farmer takes long way to farm would catch my fancy, he was absolutely right! It might be the gypsy in me but the story of Eduard Bomers has definitely captivated me.

Several years ago, Bomers, a Dutch dairy farmer, decided that he wanted to leave that profession and try his hand at grain farming. Dairy farming is a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year commitment. He wanted more out of life than that and so began the transition. He put his dairy farm in the Netherlands up for sale and set his sights on buying land on the Canadian prairie. He visited Alberta in 2008 then spent last year working on a Saskatchewan grain farm to gain experience. Last month, he took possession of his new farm near Sheho in southeastern Saskatchewan.

A century ago, western Canada was populated by European farmers looking for new beginnings. What makes this one any different? The adventure of a lifetime, that’s what!

Last month Bomers returned to his home at Eesveen in the Netherlands, packed his household belongings into a trailer, hitched it to his Fendt 936 tractor and set off for the port city of Antwerp, Belgium a long day’s journey away. There the tractor and trailer were loaded onto a ship destined for Halifax, Nova Scotia. After some delay, the ship docked in Halifax the day before yesterday. In the meantime, Eduard had flown back to Saskatchewan and driven his pick-up truck over 4000 km to Halifax picking up his friend, Jakob, on the way.

Early yesterday afternoon, the tractor and trailer were released from customs and an amazing cross Canada trek began! Yes, while Jakob drives the pick-up back to Saskatchewan, Eduard will make the trip behind the wheel of his Fendt tractor! What an audacious undertaking! Some might think he’s crazy but I think the world needs a few more people like Eduard Bomers! Why not join me as I follow the Boer on Toer here!

Women are persons too!

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Today is International Women’s Day, a day to reflect on the plight of women worldwide. Women’s rights have come a long way since the first International Women’s Day in 1911 but we still have a very long way to go. Here are just a few random statistics:

  • one in ten women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been the victim of rape, many of them more than once
  • women in Saudi Arabia are not permitted to drive
  • in Afghanistan a woman is 200 times more likely to die during childbirth than from warfare
  • women perform 66% of the world’s work but only receive 11% of its income
  • 66% of the world’s illiterate adults are women
  • women own only 1% of the world’s land
  • 20 to 50% of married women worldwide experience some degree of domestic violence
  • every year an estimated 2 million girls are subjected to genital mutilation

In spite of the fact that Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, stated publicly yesterday that “Men are fundamental and women are secondary” that country is not considered the worst place in the world to be a woman. Apparently that honour goes to Yemen where women are not only the property of men, unable to leave the house without the permission of a male relative and vulnerable to arbitrary arrest on the street even once they have that permission, but are also likely to be illiterate, to be married before they reach puberty, and to die in childbirth.

In comparison, we have it easy here in Canada. So easy, in fact, that we have a hard time imagining what life is like for our sisters in other parts of the world. On the other hand, when my grandmother was a young woman, married and raising two children, she was not, according to Canadian law, a person! It wasn’t until October 18, 1929 due to the persistence of five Alberta women — Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards — that women were legally declared persons in this country and given the right to vote.

How have we done since that time? Not as well as we might like to think. Canada ranks 40th in the world for female political representatives, better than both the US and the UK but tied with Iraq and far below many other nations including both Cuba and Afghanistan!

Recognizing that rural women play a key role in both developed and developing countries, the United Nations chose Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty as the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day. Women make up 43% of the agricultural workforce worldwide. Estimates reveal that if they had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20 to 30%, lifting 100 to 150 million people out of hunger. Lack of adequate education and health care, gender inequality and limited access to credit are some of the challenges that face rural women in many parts of the world today. What can we do to change that?

Given the right resources, women are powerful agents for change. Research shows that when a woman is able to contribute to her family’s income, she uses the majority of her earnings to build a better future for herself and her children. I choose to make a difference though contributing to Kiva loans. I loan specifically to women, many of them rural women. For example, my most recent loan was made to Lucia, a cattle breeder in Nicaragua, who borrowed money to purchase two oxen which she will use to till the soil and plant grain.

What will you do?

Nellie Mcclung, Irene Parlby and I - Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada

Emily Murphy and I

Henrietta Muir Edwards and Louise McKinney

The worst and the best

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I’ve experienced the worst and the best of Alberta winter in less than 24 hours!

😦  The Worst

Winter travel in this part of the world is always unpredictable and yes, whether we like it or not, March is still winter here in Alberta! This year we’ve had so little snow that we haven’t had to worry about the roads the way we usually do but last night made up for that.

Richard had a medical appointment in Edmonton yesterday. The drive up to the city in the morning was uneventful and after his appointment, we spent the afternoon shopping at West Edmonton Mall. We were totally oblivious to what was happening outside. It wasn’t until we left the mall to meet Nathan for supper that we realized that the weather had become, to use Nathan’s word, stinky!

The trip home, which would normally take two hours, took over three and it was white knuckles all the way! I’m so glad that Richard was driving, not me. I don’t think he ever went more than 70 km/hour (for my American friend’s, that’s about 44 miles/hour) and much of the time we were going slower than that. The highway was a sheet of ice and for the last 50 km we were also driving through blowing snow. I’m amazed that we didn’t see any vehicles in the ditch along the way. I guess everyone else was being just as careful as we were. When we finally made it home, the driveway was full of drifts but we were never happier to be here!

🙂  The Best

Back in November when I blogged about the things I like best about winter, one of the things I mentioned was cross country skiing. This year, because of the lack of snow, my skis hadn’t been out of the shed all season. It was beginning to look like it they weren’t going to make it out at all but the snow kept falling after we went to bed last night and when I woke up this morning I knew that this was the day! I wasn’t sure how my still recovering toe would feel about being stuffed into a ski boot and put to work but it didn’t complain at all! That bodes well for hiking when spring finally comes.

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved being the first one to leave my footprints on fresh fallen snow. Imagine my delight at having an entire golf course of new snow laid out before me this afternoon! With the bright sun shining overhead as I set out to break a trail, the snow sparkled before me like a million diamonds. The temperature was just a few degrees below zero (celsius); cold enough to keep the snow crisp and dry but very comfortable for skiing. I’d love to get out on my skis a few more times before the snow melts away but if I don’t, at least I’ve had this one perfect afternoon!

Before

and after!

Nate’s date

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Tonight will be our final performance of The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon but unless something very unusual happens, last night’s will be the most memorable one for me. That’s because of who was in the audience.

Because this is small town theatre, we always know many of the people who come to watch but for Richard and I, rarely are they family. Last night was different. Our youngest son drove home from the city, two hours each way, to see us onstage. That would be memorable in itself but it was who he chose to take as his date that made the evening special.

For several summers back when he was still in school, Nate did mowing and other yard work for one of our local seniors. Mary would always have a cold can of pop waiting for him when he finished working and they would sit and chat. Out of that grew an unusual friendship that has stood the test of time. Now well into her nineties and still living alone in her own home, Mary always asks about “her boy” when she sees me. Though Nathan doesn’t get home very often any more, when he does he usually stops by to see her and once in awhile he phones her just to chat. Imagine her delight when he got in touch to see if she’d be his date for last night’s dinner theatre! Like any good date would, he took flowers when he went to pick her up and when I stopped by their table after the performance, she was glowing!

Can you blame me for being a proud mom?

We did it!

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It may not be Awesomeday, but what an awesome weekend it’s been! Our first three performances of The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon went pretty much without a hitch and the audiences loved it.

It’s always a privilege to work with such a creative, talented and fun group of people! Flagstaff Players is a diverse group made up of school teachers, students, tradespeople, young moms, and even old retired folks like us! We also have two men of the cloth and you’d never guess what roles they’re playing. The local United Church minister, a long time member of the club, was cast as Old Cloutie, better known as the devil himself, while the new associate pastor over at the Nazarene Church plays the role of Judas Iscariot!

Perhaps it’s the teacher in me but one of the things that I enjoy most about being involved in the whole process of putting together a play is watching someone who’s never done this before blossom. We have one such gentleman in this year’s cast. He was hesitant at first, willing to give this acting thing a try but not at all sure that he could do it well. He learned his lines, listened carefully to the director’s advice and as time went by his character began to come to life. As our first audience filled the hall on Friday evening, I know that he was very nervous but when he felt the rush that an actor gets when an audience responds, he was hooked! Watching him come off-stage with newfound confidence in his step and a smile plastered across his face has been such a joy!

One of the things I enjoyed about teaching school in a small community was watching my students grow up and become involved in the life of the community. This weekend I had the privilege of sharing the stage with several of them. In fact, at one point this afternoon, Richard and I looked around the make up room and realized that between us, we’d taught everyone in the room at that moment! Sometimes the hardest part is convincing them that Mrs. DeBock was my teacher name and that they no longer have to call me that!

There's those rubber chickens again!

Some of our productions involve young children. Here’s the littlest member of this year’s cast. She only makes a brief appearance onstage but this is just the beginning. Who knows what roles she might play in the future? Apparently one of our child actors, an adorable six-year-old, was heard to say “I love being in a play” as he drifted off to sleep after opening night!

It takes many people working behind the scenes to put something like this together and in a small town amateur group like ours, people often fill many different roles. Actors can often be found working on set construction, sewing costumes or setting up tables and chairs for the dinner theatre performances. One of our cast members is a talented photographer who took head shots of all of us for the playbill. Here are the photos she took of Richard and I.

   Photography by Natalee

 

After the adrenalin rushes of a very successful weekend, we all need a good night’s sleep and a couple of days off. We’ll gather again on Wednesday evening for one more rehearsal to keep things fresh in our minds and then finish up with two more performances next weekend.

Backstage glimpses

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There hasn’t been much time for blogging this week. An hour and a half of physiotherapy every day has resulted in a knee that doesn’t crack or pop anymore which is wonderful but it’s community theatre that has really cut into my time. We’ve rehearsed every night this week and tonight is the first time we’ve been home before 10:00. Why so busy? Because tomorrow night is opening night!

The play is W.O. Mitchell’s The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon and Richard plays Wullie himself, a role that has him onstage almost the entire time. I, on the other hand, have a very small role so I spend a lot of time backstage.

Theatre looks very different from the back side so I thought I’d share a few glimpses of my backstage world with you tonight.

   


The story takes place in the 1930s. Look at some of the things we found in local barns and workshops!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t touch anything on the prop table unless it’s yours and make sure everything is back in place after each performance!

Rubber chickens and microphones! What next?

With five performances over the next two weekends, life isn’t going to settle down for awhile yet!

Sometimes I need an ocean

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When life gets stressful, as it sometimes does, what I really want to do is walk by the ocean and be soothed by the sound of the surf. That’s probably because, as a child, I could hear the rhythm of the waves from my bed as I drifted off to sleep.

The past week has been a stressful one; a week of worrying about my parents. Dad hasn’t been well. That resulted in both parents literally sleeping through one entire day… no food, no water, no medication! If my sister hadn’t phoned that evening, who knows what might have happened?

Recognizing the need for a better emergency plan, my sis and I have spent the week making phone calls, gathering information, asking questions we’d rather not have to ask. Dad is Mom‘s primary caregiver and we’re a province away. What do we do if something happens to him? Is it any wonder that I feel like I need an ocean to walk by?

Alas, there are no oceans here on the Alberta prairie but as I mentioned in my last post, whenever I have the opportunity to walk by the sea I bring home all sorts of bits and pieces… shells, driftwood, sea glass. Many favourite pieces have found their way into our main bathroom. There’s a giant pink conch shell bought for $1 on a beach road in the Bahamas in 1977. We had just found out that I was pregnant with our first child. There’s a beautiful abalone shell, given to my husband by a ranger at a campground on the California coast in 1993. Then there are all the pieces that I’ve picked up over the years. Some are quite ordinary… oyster, clam and mussel shells. Others are special… moon snails treasured since childhood, a razor clam from the PEI beach where my grandfather probably played as a child, a tiny shell from our first visit to Japan, beautiful pieces of sea glass from Saipan and most recently, a shell from Costa Rica.

   


I may not be able to walk by the ocean and let the sound of the surf wash away my troubles but at least I can retreat to the bathroom and relax in a warm tub surrounded by my seaside treasures. Occasionally, a glass of wine even goes with me!

I’m honoured!

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I’m not the winner of many awards; just a few golf prizes and one teeny, tiny trophy. Perhaps that’s why I was so thrilled when Geetanjali, who writes The Open Book blog, nominated me for The Versatile Blogger award! Thank you, Geetanjali!  Geetanjali hails from India and writes about one of my favourite things, books. When I read her post about the Sunday Book Bazaar in Delhi, I was completely hooked!

Try as I might, I haven’t been able to find out anything about the origin of The Versatile Blogger award. I do know that it’s a bit like a chain letter, passed from one blogger to another but unlike the chain letters of old, it doesn’t promise fame or fortune to those who pass it on or threaten doom to those who don’t. It is, in fact, a way to share favourite bits of the blogosphere with our readers and to show appreciation to those whose writing we appreciate.

There are four rules for those who choose to accept The Versatile Blogger award:

  1. Thank the person who nominated you for the award and include a link to their blog.
  2. Select and nominate 15 blogs that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
  3. Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know that you are nominating them for the award.
  4. Share 7 things about yourself.
Sounds easy, right? I thought so too until I started thinking about who to nominate. There are a lot of blogs out there! I spent a considerable amount of time over the weekend revisiting blogs I’d stumbled upon in the past and searching out some new ones. I could nominate my daughter’s blog but she’s a very busy mother of preschoolers who simply doesn’t have time to search out 15 blogs to nominate. I doubt she’d appreciate me putting her in that spot. I eventually narrowed it down to the following 15, quite a diverse group. I could simply list the blogs that I’ve chosen but instead, I’d like to tell you a little bit about each of them.
  1. Those of you who’ve been following my blog for very long will have heard of Donloree at Bikini or Bust. I’ve been following her journey to health and fitness for over a year and look forward to every update. She is such an inspiration and I absolutely love her zany sense of humour!
  2. One blog tends to lead to another. I found Faith at The Serious Road to Fitness through Bikini or Bust and adopted her goals as my own.
  3. Nini at A Fine Balance writes about fashion, fitness and food. She calls herself a fashionista on a frugal budget and I like her style!
  4. Maggie at Living Life in Glorious Colour and I have been following one another’s blogs for almost a year and have discovered that we have a lot in common. Her photos are stunning.
  5. Grams is my high school friend, Janis, the only one of these bloggers that I’ve met in person and one of the most creative people I know. She hasn’t updated her blog in quite some time but I’m hoping that this will inspire her to start posting again. A look back at Janis’ earlier posts is well worth it, especially if you’re interested in crafting or home decor.
  6. If you like Grams, you’ll also enjoy Mimi Sue’s Cottage. I love her Sunday Sayings.
  7. I left a piece of my heart in Japan when we returned to Canada after teaching there for a year. Tokyoholic is a graphic designer living in Tokyo. I especially love her photos. She does a wonderful job of capturing the many faces of Japan.
  8. The Simple Life of a Country Man’s Wife lives in South Dakota “intentionally living life each day as it comes.” She understands life in the country and I notice that we often comment on the same blogs.
  9. The Big Sheep Blog “where imagination and business life collide” addresses a wide variety of topics with genuine wit.
  10. ihavetriedit offers lots of great money saving and do-it-yourself tips.
  11. I’ve recently started following Jen at The Scrumptious Pumpkin. Her Winter Vegetable Pasta with White Wine and Parmesan recipe is to die for and I’m looking forward to trying some of her others.
  12. Malou is a Filipina married to a Dutchman and living in the Netherlands. Her blog, Going Dutch, shares many aspects of life in the Netherlands and makes me want to visit.
  13. From a Tuscan Villa is another blog that inspires me to visit Europe soon.
  14. Elizabeth has been writing I Face the Sun for just over a year and I like her outlook on life.
  15. French Twisted Woman is a brand new blogger. She’s off to a great start and I hope this award inspires her to keep it up. Don’t miss her post about her car wash adventure!

And now for the fun part, 7 random things about me. I’ve tried to choose things that I haven’t included on my blog before.

  1. I haven’t actually written a bucket list but if I did, it would include riding in a helicopter and a hot air balloon.
  2. I don’t fit the normal oldest, middle or youngest child profile. Chronologically, I’m a second child but my older brother suffered a brain injury in infancy, before I was born, so in many ways I’m the oldest. Or am I just the most confused…?
  3. I love beachcombing; hauling home seashells, bits of driftwood and sea glass from beaches around the world. Many of them decorate our main bathroom.
  4. I love to dance, especially in my husband’s arms.
  5. I am an arctophile, a person who collects teddy bears.
  6. I am missions president at my church which includes preparing and presenting a five minute Moment for Missions each Sunday morning.
  7. I believe: God is who He says He is, God can do what he says He can do, I am who God says I am, I can do all things through Christ, and God’s word is alive and active in me. If you’ve done Beth Moore’s Bible study, Believing God, you’ll know that this didn’t originate with me but it is my “shield of faith”. Ephesians 6:16

 Happy Valentine’s Day! 

No more CRACK please!

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I clearly remember the first time my knee popped. I was visiting a museum in Sakura, Japan. The gallery was silent. I crouched down to look at something close to the floor and when I straightened up… CRACK! There was no pain but what a shock! What was going on? The year in Japan was a bit hard on our knees… lots of walking, millions of stairs to climb and then, of course, there was climbing Mt. Fuji but this was something new. That was over three years ago. Since then, the knee has popped and cracked with increasing frequency. Now it happens many times a day.

Breaking my toe on the beach in Costa Rica a couple of weeks ago threw a curve into my normal fitness regime but the timing could have been worse. I won’t be doing much walking for awhile and the treadmill is gathering dust but just before we left on our most recent trip, my doctor decided that it was time to try physiotherapy to see if that would help my knee. I saw the therapist a few days after we got back. It’s too soon to know if it’s helping my knee or not but half an hour of physio three times a day is definitely giving my legs a good workout especially since I decided to do all the exercises and stretches with both legs instead of just the affected one. After just a week, I graduated from beginner to intermediate exercises and I also continue to work my legs at the weight bench three times a week. By the time the toe is ready for hiking and treading, the legs should be in prime condition too! I just hope there’s no more loud pops from that left knee!

What a difference a year can make!

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In January of last year, our two-year-old grandson, Drew, was diagnosed with a severe phonological disorder. His speech was virtually unintelligible. Over the past year, Drew and his Mommy, our daughter Melaina, have worked very hard and Drew has had some speech therapy. The results have been astounding! By summertime, he had been upgraded from “severe” to “moderate” and at his latest speech assessment in late January, he was deemed to be within the normal range of speech development for a child of his age! Wow! What a difference a year can make!

Melaina delights in sharing some of Drew’s cutest conversations. Here’s a recent one she overheard between him and his 21-month-old sister as they headed downstairs to their bedroom:

Best Friends

Drew: Come on, Jami. We play soccer ours room.
Jami: Ok!
Drew: We best friends! Right, Jami?
Jami: Uh huh!

Doesn’t that just bless your heart? Here’s another one that tickled my funny bone:

Mommy: Drew, did you colour on your sister?
Drew: Yes.
Mommy: Why?!
Drew: Because! Her get in way of paper I colouring!

And here’s one more from yesterday:

Drew: Mommy, we go buy some new toys?
Mommy: No, we’re not going to buy new toys today.
Drew: Yes! Mine’s are old and strange!

While it warms our heart to be able to carry on a conversation with Drew and life is so much easier for him now that he can make his thoughts and feelings known, his challenges are not over yet. He still struggles with the sounds that are typically difficult for three-year-olds but, unlike his peers, these mispronunciations won’t simply correct themselves over time. Melaina and Aaron will have to continue working with him, carefully teaching him how to make each sound correctly.

They’ve also been warned that children with speech delays like Drew’s typically have difficulty learning to read. That was difficult news to digest for parents who are avid readers but Melaina isn’t one to take something like that lying down. In fact, she was already doing things that would give him a head start toward learning to read before she was even given this news; taking the children to an early literacy program at their local library and reading to them daily. She’d also started teaching Drew to recognize and print the capital letters. Now, three months short of his fourth birthday, he knows all the upper and lower case letters and is beginning to learn the sounds that each one makes. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s reading before he goes to school!

Ta da!

Photos by Melaina Graham