Country living

Winter at its best

/ edebock / 4 Comments

Winter is not my favourite season, but sometimes it’s spectacularly beautiful here on the Canadian prairie.

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With a houseful of grandchildren for the past week, we were very thankful for sunshine, mild daytime temperatures, and fresh powdery snow that made outdoor activities not only possible, but a great deal of fun.

With shovels and brooms, a skating rink was cleared on a pond just outside town.

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Even the littlest one helped out.

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Many hours were spent tobogganing on a hill just three blocks from the house.

By late this morning, most of the family had packed up and left for home. Only our two Vancouver grandsons and their parents remained. If you’ve been following my blog for very long, you may remember how much I enjoy exploring the old abandoned buildings that are scattered across the prairie. Until today, that was a summertime activity, but when I discovered that 8-year-old Nate shares my passion for old abandoned houses, a plan was hatched and off we went to find a few.

Our first stop was an old farmstead a few kilometres from town.

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The last time we were there, the old shed was still standing, but not anymore.

When the sun is shining, there’s beauty even in decay.

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Next, we walked down the field to check out the old threshing machine in the edge of the trees.

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Sharp-eyed Nate spotted this tiny one room house beside the road not far from the old farmstead. I’m sure we’ve driven by it many times without ever noticing it. In the summer it would be completely hidden by leaves on the trees.

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A little further down the road we spotted another old house that we’d never noticed before. We had to walk across a snowy field of canola stubble to check it out.

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Two stories tall with a cellar below, it would have been quite a place in its day. It’s a very solid structure built of logs overlaid with wooden slats. With doors and windows still intact and shredded curtains hanging in some of the windows, it’s in better shape than many of the old buildings we’ve found. Peeking through the kitchen window we spotted a calendar on the wall dated September 1963. Presumably that’s when it’s last residents moved out. I couldn’t help wondering why they left a sink full of dishes behind! If only these old walls could talk. What stories they would tell!

If winter was always this beautiful and this much fun, I might not mind it so much! The last of the family leaves tomorrow morning though and the forecast is calling for much colder temperatures a week or so from now. We haven’t made any plans for a winter getaway to warmer climes, but it might soon be time to look for a last minute deal!

The old farmstead

/ edebock / 9 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for very long, you may remember how much I enjoy exploring the old farmsteads scattered across the prairie. If only walls could talk, what stories they would tell!

Today, we made the one hour drive to Wainwright to pick up a piece that Richard had ordered for the golf cart. On the way, we passed an old abandoned house hiding behind an abundance of beautiful lilacs. As always, I was intrigued.

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When we arrived in Wainwright, we discovered that the wrong part had been ordered! Fortunately, the trip was not for naught. We went out for lunch, did a bit of much needed shopping and found eight geocaches before heading for home. On the way back, Richard slowed the vehicle as we once again approached the old house hiding behind the lilac bushes.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked, already knowing what the answer would be. Of course, I did!

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Can you imagine sitting in the shade on the front porch gazing across the open prairie or watching the stars come out at night?

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The floor is rotted out in places, exposing the root cellar under the kitchen, so we didn’t walk around inside but it was easy to take photos through the open windows and doors. Who slept in the two small bedrooms, I wondered, and what did they dream about? I’m sure that many good times were had as well as challenges met under that roof.

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Before we left, Richard took out his trusty pocket knife and snipped off a few sprigs of lilac. I have no idea who planted those bushes, now so overgrown, but their heavenly scent now fills my kitchen!

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Getting back on the horse

/ edebock / 6 Comments

I suspect that the person who coined the saying “When you fall off the horse, you have to get back on” meant right away, not 35 years later!

I didn’t actually fall off the last time I was on a horse but it was quite a ride. Early in the spring of 1977, less than a year after we were married, Richard and I were visiting his parents’ farm when we decided to take the horses, Moose and Ginger, out for a ride. They hadn’t been ridden all winter. We rode up into the hills behind the house and all went well until we turned the horses toward home. That’s when Moose, with Richard aboard, decided to pull out all the stops and head back down the muddy trail at a full gallop! Moose came by his name honestly. He was a giant of a horse and stubborn as well. There was nothing Richard could do to slow him down. When Ginger, usually a calm and gentle mare, saw Moose take off, she decided to follow suit. I was an inexperienced rider; a city girl who’d married into a farming family. I clung to the saddle horn, determined that I was not going to fall off that horse and make a complete fool of myself. Down the trail we flew with mud flying everywhere. To this day I remember the thoughts running through my mind. I couldn’t remember whether or not we’d closed the gate at the bottom of the hill. If we had, what would the horses do when they got there? I was certain that if Ginger came to a sudden stop, I’d be launched into the air and would land as a broken heap somewhere on the other side of the fence! Fortunately, the gate was open and the horses slowed to a stop as they entered the yard. I slid off and walked gingerly back to the house covered in mud but with my pride intact. I had not fallen off the horse!

It wasn’t the wild ride that kept me from ever mounting a horse again. Over the next few years, pregnancies and babies kept my feet on solid ground when I was visiting my inlaws. Time slipped by and eventually there weren’t horses at the farm anymore. The opportunity to ride just didn’t present itself again.

This summer, as we travelled into BC’s Chilcotin ranching country, I decided that the time had come to get back on a horse. I wanted to go for a trail ride and though Richard was less than enthusiastic about the idea, he agreed to go with me and to fork over the high price that they charge tourists for such activities. Unfortunately, however, the day we’d chosen was a dismal rainy one. That’s when my wise husband came up with a much better suggestion. “If you really want to get back on a horse,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Sheryl to take you riding?”

Sheryl is a long-time friend who loves riding and has her own horses. Knowing that I might not actually ask her, Richard did it for me and Sheryl readily agreed. She and I are co-leading of a group of children at Vacation Bible School this week and when this morning’s activities were over she suggested that we go riding this evening.  She and her husband, Trevor, own a hobby farm not far from town. They have quite a bit of bush and pasture land that is crisscrossed with riding trails. As the sun dropped below the horizon and cooler air replaced the heat of the day, we enjoyed a peaceful ride and a great visit. It was like going for a hike without any of the effort! As the evening came to an end, I told Sheryl that I’d love to do it again sometime. I’d just better not wait 35 years this time!

  

Riding Willow, a gentle horse of mostly Arabian descent.


Thank you, Sheryl!

Wild roses and wetlands

/ edebock / 4 Comments

My man had to drive to Wainwright this morning (about an hour northeast of here) to pick up some new tires that he’d ordered for the golf cart. “Why don’t you come with me,” he asked. “We can look for a few geocaches along the way and then have lunch in Wainwright.”

Does that sound like a date to you? It did to me. It also sounded a lot more appealing than weeding the flower beds which was what I probably should have been doing. We’re only home for a few days between trips so there are lots of things that need to be done around here but since retirement means doing what you want to do when you want to do it, I went to Wainwright.

We never did find the cache that was supposed to be hidden in the lilac bushes alongside a rural cemetery but the next one, in a quiet spot overlooking the Battle River, made up for any disappointment we might have felt. The wild rose, Alberta’s provincial flower, is in full bloom at this time of year and as we made the short hike down to the river we were surrounded by them. 

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I wish I could share their beautiful aroma with you but I don’t have the words to do it justice.

   

I waded into the bushes and risked being stung to get the next picture and others like it but the ‘sting bugs’, as our grandchildren call them, were much more interested in the flowers than they were in me and I came away unscathed.

The next cache had us treading carefully to keep from getting our feet wet! It was hidden beneath one of the bushes out on the point beyond this lookout tower.


We really should have had our rubber boots on but they’re in the trailer which is in Camrose for a minor repair to a leaky valve on the hot water tank. When it’s ready, Richard will be making another one hour drive in the opposite direction to go get it. Perhaps this time I’ll stay home and get something done around here… or maybe not!

More pieces of the past

/ edebock / 7 Comments

The Alberta prairie is crisscrossed with roads, many of them only a couple of miles apart. After living here for almost 36 years, there are many of them that we’ve never traversed but over the past few days searching for geocaches has taken us down several new ones. We found three more caches yesterday but it’s the pieces of the past that we keep finding that intrigue me even more.

We explored two more old abandoned houses yesterday, neither as majestic as the house on the hill but interesting nonetheless. The first was a very simple structure. Little more than a two storey wooden box with a very steep roof, its main floor was made up of just two rooms. We could see where a very steep staircase once led to the upper floor but it was no longer there; possibly removed to keep intruders like ourselves from falling through the decaying floorboards. Once again, there was nothing left in or around the house to tell the story of the people who once called it home.

The second house finally yielded what I was looking for; signs of human habitation. It was the windmill that first captured our attention. Connected to a pump behind the house, it would have provided water for the family as well as any animals they might have had.

The sign on the fence might have read “No Trespassing” but since we didn’t tear it off (I promise!) and it could just as easily have said “No Hunting”, we climbed the fence and went exploring!

The open door was so inviting. I just had to go inside! Treading carefully to avoid falling into the root cellar below, I made my way from room to room.

Who sat in the old armchair I wondered. It might have been quite comfortable before the mice did away with all the upholstery and stuffing!

Another skeleton sat in the centre of a different room. Clearly a baby once lived here!

I was surprised to see the old wood stove still there. I would think that an antique collector would like to get their hands on this beauty.

There was also an oil heater to keep the cold Alberta winters at bay.

Where there are children, schools are also needed and before the day of school buses the Canadian prairie was dotted with one room schoolhouses. Though many of them are gone, in our area historical markers show where they once stood. We passed a couple of them yesterday and as retired teachers, it was easy to imagine the voices of children from the past playing where farmers now cultivate the land.

The house on the hill

/ edebock / 10 Comments

With the exception of the natives, we don’t have a long history here in western Canada. The first settlers arrived in our part of Alberta little more than a century ago. Nevertheless, the prairie is dotted with abandoned buildings. I love all the old weather beaten structures but it’s the houses that intrigue me most; the places where babies were born, people laughed and cried, and memories were made.

The second cache that we found yesterday overlooked the highway but rather than returning home that way, we decided to explore a few back roads. I’m so glad we did! As we rounded a curve not far from the cache site, we saw what we initially thought was an old barn standing like a sentinal against the skyline. We have to get closer, I told Richard. As we did, we realized that it wasn’t a barn at all. It was a big old house, one that would have been quite a mansion in its day.

With not a tree or a bush around, it stands like a lonely beacon on the hilltop commanding a view in every direction. I was delighted that we were able to walk right up and explore all around it.

The floor had caved in in several places so I didn’t venture far inside but its many windows offered me views of the interior. There was nothing left that would tell the story of the people who once called it home. Who were they, I wondered.

If only those walls could talk!

Who slept in those upstairs bedrooms?

Though it’s partially boarded up now, I loved the view from the bay window.

I wonder what other treasures we will find as we head out geocaching again. I can hardly wait!

Found it!

/ edebock / 16 Comments

We have a new toy and a new hobby! The toy is a Garmin Etrex Legend HCx handheld GPS receiver which we are still learning how to use and the hobby is geocaching.

Geocaching is basically a grown up, high-tech game of hide and seek. Participants use GPS units to hide and find containers called geocaches or simply caches and then log their activity online. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the finder records the date they found it as well as their geocaching username. It may also contain small items for trading or a trackable item such as a travel bug or a geocoin that is moved from cache to cache. Each trackable has its own unique tracking number stamped on it and its own online diary that follows its movements. To watch a 2 minute video that explains geocaching in a nutshell, click here.

There are currently more than 1.6 million geocaches hidden in over 100 countries around the world. They can be found on every continent including Antarctica and there are over 5 million registered geocachers out there looking for them! Today we joined their ranks.

Though we look forward to finding caches in many interesting and faraway places, there are lots to be found close to home. This afternoon, we set off in the sunshine in search of two of them. We had a little trouble finding the first one, not because it was so difficult but because we were still trying to figure out how to use the GPS! We’re not the most technologically savvy pair on the planet! Once we figured out how to enter the coordinates and follow the directions, the GPS led us right to what we were looking for. Our first find was an ammo box hidden within sight of the school I used to teach at.

Can you see it?

The second one, which we found much more easily, was a little further from home. It was a camouflaged peanut butter jar hidden in the edge of a farmer’s field.

After just two finds, we’re definitely hooked! Geocaching is a perfect activity for retired folk like us with plenty of time on our hands and a love of the great outdoors.

One aspect of geocaching that we are very pleased to participate in is known as Cache In Trash Out. Geocachers around the world are dedicated to preserving the natural beauty of parks and other cache-friendly locations by picking up trash as we go. It’s easy and it enhances the beauty of our surroundings.

On the way home after finding our second cache this afternoon, we wandered some back roads and found something else that we weren’t looking for but it will be the topic of my next post!

Turn left at the three legged dog

/ edebock / 5 Comments

I know I have a street address, I just don’t know for sure what it is! I always thought I lived on Meadowlark Crescent and according to the sign at the end of the street, I do but Google calls it Meadowlark Drive. It really doesn’t matter though. There’s only one Meadowlark in town and no one here uses street addresses anyway.

For three years, early in our marriage, we owned the old Hooper house. We’d never met the Hoopers. They were long before our time but the name remained and that’s all the address we needed. After that, we lived next door to the solar house. There was only one of those in town so that was easy and now, we live across the street from the haunted house; the monstrosity that’s been sitting untouched and unfinished for almost three years. Everyone knows where that is.

While we were in Japan for a year, new people moved into the house next door. They were new to town and when they explained where they lived, people would often say “Oh, you live next to DeBock’s house.” When we came home and introduced ourselves, Dave began to laugh. For months he’d been trying to figure out why everyone called it “the box house”!

The box house?

We depend on landmarks to find our way around the countryside too. A couple of years ago, road signs sprung up at every single corner in the county; hundreds of signs that most of us don’t pay any attention to! This year the county added numbered address signs at the end of every driveway. I have a hard time remembering that Range Roads go north south and Township Roads go east west let alone knowing what any of the numbers mean. The signs are really only there to improve emergency services. Directions are still given in terms like “go 3 miles north, then half a mile west” or “it’s the third house on the right, just past the row of big trees”. The directions in my head to the fields that I’ve been combining this week include “turn right at the old abandoned house in the trees, turn left at the three legged dog”! I haven’t actually seen the dog for a couple of years but I still remember the corner where it used to run out and bark at the vehicle!

A quieter way of living

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Friends from the city came out to spend the long weekend with us. Every once in awhile, they like to leave the noise and pressures of their busy city lives behind and relax in the quiet solitude that rural living offers. Late Saturday afternoon after sitting around and visiting for several hours, we decided to go for a walk. Supper was delayed as we ended up walking out to the lake north of town and exploring the newly upgraded nature trail that runs along it’s edge. That evening, our next door neighbours joined us as we relaxed by our backyard firepit and the city dwellers exclaimed over the myriad of stars stretched across the night sky above us.

Yesterday took us out into the wide open spaces again as we fulfilled one of my long time desires. Two of the fields that Richard and I farm sit at the top of a bluff with an amazing view. Every spring and fall as I’ve come to the edge of those fields and enjoyed the vista spread out below, I’ve dreamed of hiking up from the bottom. After spending the morning in church and returning home for lunch, we set off to do just that. It turned out to be a much easier hike than we anticipated.

As we walked across the bottom pastureland and made our way up the hillside, what looked like nothing more than grass from the distance became a wide variety of plants including low lying junipers, colourful wildflowers and even tiny cactus. A deer bounded away as we came close and we saw the remains of a couple of others who didn’t make it through the harsh winter, their bones picked clean by hungry predators.

I love cities. I spent my teenage years in Vancouver and went to university in Calgary. I’ve walked the streets of Toronto, Montreal, Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong but I also love coming home to the wide open spaces and a quieter way of living. As our friends go home today, I hope they’ve been refreshed.