How Winter Tiptoed Up and Slammed Me On the Head

Image I was a victim of seasonal denial. Sometime before Halloween I was saying – “Wow, this is amazing.  It is actually seven o’clock at night and it is still sorta kinda warm out.”  Not only that, I was marvelling at the display of radiant red and orange leaves glorifying the trees.  And being a really slow learner, I left the rake out in a pile of garden debris and wandered away from the task at hand mid-job to enjoy some frivolous distraction.  Then I decided to wait for another equally sunny day to finish the job, refusing to go do it the following chilly afternoon with a forecast of snow.  I believed autumn would go on and on and on. 

So it did snow – a gentle flurry of fluffy flakes, and I watched my neighbours’ set their yards and decks and lawn furniture in order through my livingroom window.  “Silly them, don’t they know there is always snow on the Eve of Halloween and this will pass, the sun will shine and melt all this fluff that they’re making a fuss about.” Image  

Wrong-o Daddy-o.  Yesterday I bought bananas and then realized I now had to venture home instead of making a scheduled stop unless I carried my bananas with me, because otherwise I’d be poking them onto a stick and eating them as a frozen treat as it was seventeen below – the temperature at which bananas and milk and other squishy and liquid materials freeze.  I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot and passed by a mound of snow three times the height of my vehicle, plowed into a mini-mountain that cars could park in a hap hazard fashion all around.  The lost yellow parking lines  would be covered with hard packed snow until spring.     Image   

 

Image  It was time for boots and gloves and travelling with survival gear in the car – a tin can and matches and a fat candle. Yes, winter had crept up on me and was clearly knocking me on the head – my rake would be leaning against the fence until the next calendar year and the hose, frozen standing up in the shape it was in when I twisted it from the tap, would stand that way until March. Yep, this is winter.  And we’re deep in it.

Over Winter Toast and Summer-fruit Jam

The pages of the book of summer fly by – a few are intriguing and you study them, maybe you read them twice, but most zip along …

And when the proverbial teacher asks, “So tell me – how did you spend your summer holidays?” – it’s all a blurr of sun and warm nights and barefoot people. 

   We had a long one here this year – stretching its arms wide into September – lawn chairs are still out, grass is green (so moisture too), tomatoes still ripening on the branch, pops of red geraniums in our zone three world.

   Part of the summer was like a dream – the few weeks that we travelled in a giant arc across the world to Croatia –  to marvel at the Adriatic landscape, and where we were so kindly treated to the hospitality of another land.

croatian port

water polodubrovnik walls

laundry

And then there was the long bit we spend ‘back around the other side of the lake’ in B.C., celebrating my loving parent’s sixty years of marriage, or just celebrating sand and pebbles and tiny minnows with a three-year old and her baby sister.

water funbathing sweeties

Over winter toast and summer-fruit jam, we will remember the goodness of

all that.

  jelly

How To Be Married For Sixty Years

wedded bliss

wedded bliss

In just nine sleeps my family will all gather at our lakeside cottage to celebrate sixty years of my husband’s parent’s marriage – a remarkable anniversary to plan a three day party around. Only two years ago my side of the family joyously gathered to mark my mom and dad’s union of sixty years, as well. As we plan meals, count air mattresses, and life jackets, text directions and shopping lists for next weeks celebration – I wanted to re-post the blog entry from July 2013 – the year of the flood and the first big party…

My parents were married on June 22nd, 1953 in a small wooden church in central Alberta.  All that day the rain poured down filling the country community yard with mud, so much so that the bridesmaid and her mother photographed their own muddy dress shoes after they pushed their car out of the muck leaving the dance that evening. Sixty years later on June 22nd Calgary, Alberta was waking up from one of the worst floods in its history. A week after, my parent’s children and their spouses, the grandchildren and two great grandchildren, drove and flew from three provinces to laugh under the sun umbrella,

deck

skunk each other in cribbage,

girls in sheba

jack knife into the cold lake,

flip

and then they strung the cottage with streamers, set the fanciest table it had ever seen, bedecked the table with wild flower bouquets and finally broke bread together (along with roast beef and piles of local steamed vegetables).fam at table

     After being presented with congratulatory letters from Stephen Harper and none other than her majesty, the Queen of England, the anniversary couple cut their cake, which was festooned with a miniature wedding couple that closely resembled the bride and groom during that year when ‘How Much is That Doggie in the Window’ was a hit song.  As my dad placed his hand over my mom’s along the edge of the knife handle and sliced into the butter cream and chocolate cake, we asked them to reveal the secret to being married for these six decades. My dear, sweet mommy replied, “Tolerance.”  And my funny dad said, “She kept the back door locked, so no escaping that way.”  But really it has been love and admirable devotion, and really and truly having each other’s backs.  I recently read a quote by the actor Jeff Bridges, who was also asked to explain the success of  his long marriage.  He replied that the secret to staying married – is staying married. And maybe you have to be into for a few decades to understand the meaning of that seemingly simple answer.

Rocking the Sixtieth Anniversary Countdown – continued from last post

Our whole lives my parents and I have been traveling by the little town of Field, B.C.on the side of the trans Canada highway as we have climbed or descended through the Rockies on various vacations. This morning, on the second day our travels to their Sixtieth Anniversary weekend destination, we all woke up in this, oh so picturesque, tiny town. I’d learned, googling on my iPad the night before that, “ Field was established during the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) as a locomotive depot for pusher engines required to help trains over the nearby Field Hill and Big Hill.”   train yard

While I waited for Mom and Dad to meet me for breakfast I strolled the mountain streets above the train yards, clicking away with my iphone camera, wondering if I had what it takes to start up a guest house- which appeared to be the main occupation in Field – could I bake a scone, turn down a bed, put up with guests ridiculous questions – like mine, “Hey, anyone know when the TransCanada will open?”

guest h

Finishing off the fat sausages and thick toast with our coffees, we could gaze from the restaurant out to the highway and see that it would be a different sort of drive to the cottage and anniversary weekend.  It would be a drive completely void of the hundreds of big transport trucks normally taking this route to the coast, with the highway still closed at that crucial point behind us.

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As we motored along, winding through the mountains at a relaxed pace, we were stocking up for the weekend, purchasing early B.C fruit at one stand (sweet little strawberries), discovering a new baker at a Salmon Arm coffee shop (whole wheat sourdough), and finally buying the very last of a crop of asparagus to add to our haul – as long as three asparagus a piece for twenty-seven people would work out.

revelstoke

We drove through Golden and Revelstoke, Sicamous, Salmon Arm and Sorento, traveling in and out of storms, through sunshine and under rainbows, before turning down our steep driveway to the cottage on the lake – where my dad took my mom’s hand, his lovely bride of sixty years, and helped her down the walkway to the party destination.

With my daughters and husband following behind us we’ll all have twenty-four hours  to prepare coleslaw and beet and rice salad, saute Alberta beef, bake nanaimo bars and ginger cookies, blow up air mattresses and freshen rooms, sweep the decks and buy the booze, twist the streamers and pick bouquets…stay tuned – will the ‘bridal couple reveal the secrets to seven hundred and twenty months of wedded bliss?

Sixty Years of Wedded Bliss and Alberta’s Flood Waters

More than ever I wanted my parents to have a special 60th anniversary.  Sixty! – for heaven’s sake – they have been married to each other, taken care of each other, put up with each other, for sixty years – 720 months, a zillion weeks – a long, long time.  June 1953 when they exchanged their wedding vows was a rainy wet month in southern Alberta – they sloshed through the muddy church yard hauling up the bride’s dress to keep it clean.  June 2013, the year of this diamond anniversary, has involved epics floods that have devastated their city of Calgary, Alberta.

For months, myself and my four siblings have planned a family celebration of our parent’s wedded bliss involving their children and spouses, the grandchildren and spouses, and the two little great- granddaughters all meeting at our cottage on Shuswap Lake in B.C. – a seven hour drive from Calgary.  When I said, “hey, just pack a bag and we’ll make a little trip of it,”  I had never fathomed we’d be housing evacuation victims,  and glued to network forecasts on the country’s number one highway being washed right out with storming mad flood waters.

As distracted as we were with the hardships going on around us – property destroyed, power out, transportation a mess – it seemed my eighty-three and eighty-four- year- old mom and dad still deserved to have us rally to mark the occasion, but there was that matter of the main highway having vanished under muddy debris. Image

We waited it out a day and then I told the folks we would scout out an alternate route.  And there we were a few hours later jammed packed with a line of transport trucks all headed north when we all needed to go west.  We met up with fifty troops of army reserves returning from natural disaster duty – at the A and W in Red Deer, then struck off west finally over miles of land that couldn’t have been more lush as the rain came down again.  Reaching the Rocky Mountains we were forced to go south now and finally, after five hours of detour, were back to the number one.  Tell me about your honeymoon, I said to my mom, as the sun crested a peak and my dad slept in the back seat.

We pulled into the iconic Chateau Lake Louise for a late, late afternoon coffee. The waiter there, learning it was the 60th anniversary didn’t charge for the two desserts we shared, and bid them a respectful (awe struck) congratulations before we pushed on a mere half hour further to the Kicking Horse lodge in Field, British Columbia, for a evening meal in the railway town before bedding down for the night. Image

And I do feel guilty for high tailing it out of Calgary when I see on Facebook and in the news that the horrible messy clean-up is just beginning.   But the clan is gathering and this anniversary party must go on – stayed tuned for the low down – how much asparagus do twenty-seven people eat?  Should I keep introducing my folks as the ‘diamond anniversary couple’ – will the grocery store comp me my hamburger buns?  Are twenty-seven family members – twenty-six too many to spend three days with?  Will the folks share their six decade secrets of long matrimony?  These answers and more in the days to come…

Summer After Summer After Summer of Love

Hey – now this is exciting – I’m a guest blogger.  Calgary author, Leanne Shirtliffe, is launching her new book this week – ‘Don’t Lick The Mini Van – and Other Things I Never Thought I’d Say To My Kids’. She has asked me to do a guest spot on her blog about something I never thought I’d say to my own four darlings.  Now there were quite a few of those insane, spur of the stressed-out–moment gems, but read the one I  shared at  http://ironicmom.com/2013/05/23/summer-love/

Four Generation Photo Shoot Mother’s Day Madness

Mother’s Day 2013 and I realized I could repent for past sins – after a few years of living away from my almost three-year-old granddaughter our big family feels so, so fortunate to have her and her baby sister (and their mom and dad) move ‘home’.  And with one set of grandparents and one of great-grandparents back from winter escapes, suddenly we find ourselves all living in one city with three four-generation family groups. my fave four gen

Now that begs for four generation photos.  True we could have set up a few calm afternoons with the parties involved at separate locations according to which side of the family we were calling into dress-up (but not to up) and smile action.  But a windy warm Mother’s Day afternoon was picked for a massive ‘let’s get this done’ opportunity.  grandmasteeple

My youngest daughter stepped up to the plate as patient photographer extraordinaire, and I took up the job of production coordinator – a few days before the Mother’s Day event I realized I was so mentally excited that I’d only imagined my official invite to several key players.  lucy in yellowCould have been due to my distraction over shopping for teeny white shoes for new baby or finding the right shade of yellow hair bows to twist onto the three-year -olds pony tails, while directing the other guests to organize their groups into comfortable clothes that go together and trying to settle on a menu for a brunch that would go cold on the stove while we bossed people around.

 

Mother’s Day arrived – perfect overcast clouds for great photographic light –the lot of us looked exuberant – every generation, while we waited an hour for babies that needed to nurse and kids that needed to be polished up, and chairs to be transferred from suddenly too sunny spots and a very special 60th anniversary photo of my parents.  And then from the minute we shouted out the first, “Cheese” until two hours later we posed and jiggled a baby, blew bubbles at the too energetic toddler, sucked in and grinned while she zipped into the shot on a ride ’em caterpillar, called senior folks from this end of the yard to that, helped the six-year-old hold the baby who was losing it, smiled and smiled, and suddenly the window closed, the baby cried, the three-year-old collapsed and myself, the production coordinated – tried to push on, ever conscious of the photos we didn’t get at the wedding – the ones I was trying to make up for, until finally I called out, “Enough. Stop me.  I’ve gone insane.” And it was over.  I could collapse with the little ones – or maybe even relax and feed the guests, while waiting to view the wonderful joyful shots of what we’d just pulled off.   alice and adina tired

Dear Deer – You’ve Crossed The Line Now Bro

Okay, I’ve heard the folks that defend the wildlife that hangout on hiking trails built straight through the forest, or even those animals that roam the streets of towns plunked down in the National Parks. Sure, sure we humans have “encroached on their territory” mixing up the poor creatures about what really is their natural habitat (or maybe it’s the McDonald’s French Fries they’ve been hand fed that have caused their confusion). But it is not those particular hapless creatures that I have a beef with.
The ones that have me and my neighbors up in arms (just figuratively speaking – so far) are the gang of pushy deer that have encroached on us. I’m stymied as to how the hec it came about – it started with a couple of the agile ungulates making what we thought was a guest appearance on our city street.two deer
Now understand, we’re not on four acre lots easily mistaken for wild countryside. No, no, for years (and years and years) the city has moved south and our very residential neighborhood is almost inner city – as in metropolis. I think it went like this – Bambi and Flag in an amorous spring romp accidentally bounded into a neighborhood far from ours and went on a tear. Suddenly they came upon true civilization and a road with a zillion cars on it. They dared each other to shock the drivers and somehow sailed across it – making the pair feel rather brazen. “That was a heart stopping blast, Bambi,” shouted Flag over the din of traffic, “But where the hell are we?”traffic
“Who cares?” Bambi called out, high on adrenalin, “I want to do that again dude.” So on the two clomped – into our freaking territory. They would have trotted by elementary schools, and high schools, service stations and pizza parlors, hair dressers and tanning salons.shopping mall
“Yo, so this is where the people come from,” Flag, the smarter of the two might have figured out, as they stared down from the top of a pedestrian overpass, unless Bambi had his way and they skidded through the traffic again. Now, there are miles and miles of city streets before ours, with yummy spring tulips waving their colorful blossoms on all of them, but it was on our stretch of suburbia that they decided, holy cow, they’d hit the mother lode. As they made their way from yard to yard crunching flowers down to soggy nubs Flag paused long enough to lick his lips and say, “We have to get word back to the gang to head out here. Who needs to trip through the messy forest foraging for sustenance when this is here all laid out in even rows ripe for the picking.”chewed tulips
“Whoa Flag buddy, watch out. There’s a crazy woman at three o’clock that just chucked a shoe at me. Didn’t hurt, but now she’s waving a broom. Want to get the hec out of Dodge?”
“Shoe Shmoo. You’re kidding me about ever going back, right Bro? We’ve found the Promised Land. I say let’s call in the troops and lay down roots.  Baby, I feel like I’m home.”

The Homecoming Dance For Spring

Who knows where you will discover the tid-bits of information that ease you through life from season to season?  Long ago, a neighbor – a guy who studies entomology (bugs) and engages in long treks in foreign places – told me he never pulls up all his spent plants in the fall, leaving instead a ‘winter garden‘.  So I pass by flower beds where the owners have meticulously cleaned up every last bit of perennial foliage, undertaking a clean sweep of orderly beds, so only stubble remains in the black earth, readying them for the coming seasons – and I’m so tempted to follow their methodical inclinations.

Somehow I resist, instead I carve out a place for small heaps of snow to pile around a stand of stiff delphinium stocks. I leave a nest of black eyed susans stems to sparkle with crystal hoarfrost .  In the back garden the morning sun reaches a small bed of gangly flocks and shines through the tired golden leafs.  This year I even left the most stately eight foot hollyhocks, rising out of a bed of  snow.Image

I’m grateful to my neighbor who led me to the winter garden inspiration, but now it is late February.  The snow is crusty and hard, the dry crisp leaves rattle in the breeze, clinging to the stems like winter clings to the landscape.  On the February long weekend we made the drive through the mountains to our cottage seven hours west.  Home in Calgary, Alberta is a gardening zone three. A hardiness zone  is a geographically defined area in which a specific category of plant life is capable of growing, as defined by climatic conditions, including its ability to withstand the minimum temperatures of the zone. [1]The cottage, in the interior of B.C., is in a place called the Shuswaps and is a more encouraging zone 6.

ImageDuring a short break from the wet weather we were having that weekend, the sun slanted through the slate blue clouds and searching hard, I found the smallest promises of spring’s revival. These weren’t tulips or even wee purple and yellow crocuses.  There wasn’t even a brave pale snowdrop blossom in sight.  But on the far side of the cottage, against the warmest wall I found teeny weeny hollyhock seedlings, dotting the damp earth.  I had shaken the small flat seeds from spent buds and stamped them into the ground on a fall day months previous, and now here were the beginnings of hollyhocks that would grow to reach the kitchen window high above them, and by August the long stems with a multitude of  ruffled pink and white blooms, encouraged by the sun and warm nights, will stretch even higher.  Image

In that zone six it is exhilarating to reap the abundant beauty of nature’s kindness, but my heart swells with admiration for the determined and faithful green thumbs working the soil in Calgary’s much cooler zone three designation.  Gardening in our foothill’s city is an exercise in patience, optimism and hope.  It might be long weeks before I find the hollyhock seedlings here where crusty snow is still the tired background for my now unappreciated winter garden. But alas, when I do see the itty bitty pale green seedlings peeping through the earth, displaying their own determination, they will beckon my faith in the homecoming of our sweet, though perhaps, too short, summer.Image

[1] wikipedia.org

Oh Baby – Let’s Swing

“How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside–

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown–
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down! ”

The Swing –   Robert Louis Stevenson

Up at our cottage there is a small clearing in the trees, with a view toward the lake.  It is a place some of us (probably the girls) always looked at as if it was where you would slip off to with a new boyfriend when it seemed you had been inundated with aunts and uncles, and cousins or other lakeside visitors –  to get away and whisper, or steal a kiss without being observed by dad.

It is a place to go when you are feeling like a moment, or being contemplative, or are in love, or out of love – a place away from the other places, a place to steal a kiss, or tell a secret. IMG_4581

 

 

 

And then our eldest had a baby who has a love of swinging, and we’d drive for twenty minutes to the park beside the local baseball diamond.  At last I knew what the spot in the trees needed – a swing – a swing for a toddler, but a swing for a long-legged kid or a grown up, too.

Lucky for all of us my son-in-law, the toddler’s daddy, is a recently graduated architect with a passion for building – no pre-packaged swing set kit for us.  On three of the hottest days of last summer he happily constructed the perfect, simple baby swing and a ‘big’ swing, and a place to climb and slide – with awe struck assistants from those of us eager for the finished product.

It was a hot summer with the lake temperature invitingly warm, so swimming and boating and floating we’re so much of what we did – not much swinging at all.IMG_4641

But it’s British Columbia, Canada and there are long crisp seasons where the lake is the backdrop for more quiet pursuits, times when there will be a fussy baby that needs to be soothed or too many folks will be crowded inside, and two others will have to slip out to that spot in the trees and take turns simply swinging.nest painting-2

It’s January now, the ground is icy white, the still air promises more snow and cold.  But hey, it’s time to dream of  spring and going “up into the air and down”….