Musing

Where My Walks Take Me

Musing / November 29, 2019 / By

There was a hefty dump of snow overnight and for some reason in my mind the snow automatically equated to deeper cold. And between rising from bed and slipping back and forth between the shop house and the real house, since we live in both places right now, I never took a moment to feel what the day really held.

When I dressed for exercising the Kelpies I dressed warm and tight. Hiking boots were replaced by tall boots better suited to keeping snow out. Layers of clothes, thick socks, tuque with hood of the bunny hug pulled over-top, insulted overalls, heavy overcoat, good gloves – that sort of dressed.

So attired the dogs and I headed out just before the first crack of light entered the day. We headed southward, cutting through the paddock where the cows and horses reside before entering the large hilly pasture space beyond. I love walking this prairie land. I often wonder how much of the collective agricultural perspective would shift if individual farmers and ranchers walked their land every day. Not for the purpose of testing it and recording its yield and production but for the sake of getting to know it. For the sake of asking the land questions.

There is enough fresh snow that the effort of walking in the powdered fluff is real. I expect the ewes would be late to rise today. The tall boots were needed but by quarter of a mile in I am sufficiently warm to chuckle at all the clothes. It is a gorgeous winter morning. The skies have been winter grey nearly all month long, and today’s skies were par for the course. The light is flat. The barest breath of wind and several inches of fresh, powdery, quiet snow made me feel enveloped by the open prairie space, which seems a bit contradictory.

The dogs and I do a second walk each evening, just as the last crack of light is fading from the day. But we go down the grid road since unlike the am walk where more light comes along as we go, on the evening walk more darkness will come along as we go, and I prefer to have an easy route to follow back home in the dark. On these dark walks the black coated Kelpies disappear into the darkness beyond the pale natural light there is to see by. The initial tension of trying to follow where they go fades as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Often I don’t see the Kelpies as they crisscross the road, or leave it and cross the fence line into the pasture, but I hear them. Wren, the guardian-dog-drop-out who now accompanies us is the easiest to spot given her all white coat.

A couple nights ago on our evening walk the temperature was beautiful like it was this morning. Sitting a couple degrees below zero with no wind. There was the same enveloping feeling experienced on this morning’s walk. There is such stillness and calm in the dark just as there can be in the daylight. Although there is less light to see by there is just as much to see.

When I walk my mind swings back and forth between thinking so hard I don’t notice where I am, to not thinking at all and just absorbing the immense splendor of the place. The last year has been wrought with change and change always brings a peculiar amount of unsettlement.

Change with things in our life, like building a home, but also greater changes that are altering the perspective of agriculture. I’m in a province where big agriculture is king and the regenerative, grass-based type agriculture is still the underground agriculture. But there is the beginning of a shift happening and this makes me feel hopeful.
On the other hand, the pendulum has started its swing and so there are also many misguided stories on agriculture being shared and touted as truth by folks who have never been on the land. And I don’t know what that means for those of us who are giving it a good go but getting lumped into the bad flow. I love this prairie land too much and I know I’ve shied away from taking a stand, and now it seems the time is short.

By The Call of The Cranes

Artwork, Musing / September 12, 2019 / By

I slip into my rain pants and reach for my hiking boots. The sleek and warm head of a Kelpie dog nudges me strongly. Gibson. Three other hopeful black and tan faces are right here, peering at me. Ears and eyebrows alert, eyes eager. I could just be stepping out but they know I’m heading out to the pasture instead. The anticipation speaks volumes about the uncanny intuitiveness of canines. How I long to tap into my own intuition with such depth and confidence. I’ll only be taking one dog with me. Gibson it is, just be way of making a fast choice. I open the drawer of dog collars and pull out a bright orange collar and fasten it on Gibson’s neck, aware of the disappointment in the others by way of making my choice.

It is cool and wet, the guardian dogs are anticipating a meal tonight. On warm days it’s hit or miss whether or not they eat but tonight five of the six guardians meet up with me near the edge of the flock.

I lean against the ranger while they eat. Gibson sits on the seat looking out at the sheep. Movement in the far distance, just above the marshy flats of this pasture space, catches my eye. Not sheep but low flying Sandhill Cranes. Birds are gathering now. Along the route out to pasture we stirred up Killdeer birds, 10-15 of them at once. Swarms of smaller black birds have been sweeping in aerobatic flights for a couple weeks. More recently, the cranes have been gathering.

I watch without much thought or concern. I can barely make them out in the dimming light of the evening but their calling is clear. Something falls into place.

The moment before I was thinking about social media – of all thoughts to bring to this sacred prairie place I am embarrassed to admit I brought concerns of social media along. Not very conscious or intentional of me at all. None of these animals, none of this land, this place, this nature, this way of being, exists on social media. I can look around as far as my eye can see and no other Being here is concerning itself with social media or who likes what. When did I get caught up in focusing so much on the rat race? I miss this blog. I miss the more frequent stints of writing for it and for my long-silent, Crooked Fences Newsletter which I used to send out monthly.

The guardian dogs are finished eating. Gibson and I head off in search of the sixth dog. The sheep have all gathered at one end of the pasture, there really isn’t much purpose to letting Gibson gather them up tonight, they have done so themselves. As we exit the pasture I let Gibson off the Ranger to run home. This boy lives to run and without missing a beat he stretches his long body out in full, effortless, ground eating stride.

When we return to the yard I collect the remaining Kelpies at the house and head out for a late evening walk. The light is fading fast and we are accompanied by the call of the cranes, the sound clear in the calm evening air. Their half birdsong, half purring trill is a soothing balm of sorts. The call of the cranes is a reminder to come back to nature’s pace and that all my answers are here, as they always have been. I know that I have to make a shift toward writing again. And to make a shift back into Nature’s psyche, both in the offline world and the online world. It’s no matter if the online world may not always support such tendencies, because those tendencies are what support me.

Friends Beyond Facebook. Series of five, each about 11 x 14 inches in size. Felted, made with wool. Awaiting framing.

A Little Big Month

Artwork, Musing / July 25, 2019 / 2 Comments / By

It has been a big month; I have missed being here, writing. It doesn’t help that we’ve had all sorts of internet service trouble while our service provider claims to be improving our internet service.

We received rain through late June and July and I am writing to the sound of raindrops on our tin roof. With the arrival of rain came an unfolding of sorts. An unfolding of tightly held concern, an unfolding of hope, an unfolding of the grass as the earth opened up and took a drink. On a morning walk with the Kelpies the place was utterly still and while I sat in the grass trying to match the stillness I thought for sure I could hear the land sipping water. The grazing land bounced back beautifully (forgiveness received, bless you Mother N) and having grass available for grazing means there is less urgency about selling animals and a little more wiggle room about where and when they go. For the hay land, the rain is too late. We might get a small crop of late hay although not nearly enough to feed our flock for the winter.

Another reason for the big month is that my dive into doing artwork and sharing it has become another type of unfolding. In July I attended a studio trail event and right after that a national sheep show hosted in our province. I’m just coming off of the buzz from the latter event. I was hopeful this show would be a good crowd and it was.

Setting up one’s artwork in a public display space and then standing there, cleanly dressed, answering the questions of a very curious public feels a world apart from day-to-day, solitary life on the ranch, fiddling with floats on water troughs, mending gates, and wearing guardian dog drool on your jeans. I feel foreign and out of sorts at every public trade show. But then the questions and comments begin and perhaps because my art is so closely tied to my daily scene, and to what I know, I become settled enough to get through the day. Never comfortable, but settled enough to let it unfold as it will. The reception and feedback to the artwork was very strong and once again I am amazed at the folks who popped by to say they love the photos and the art and are following it online.

Back at home I settle into the peace and quiet of sheep, dogs and prairie land, and merge into the familiarity of ordinary work for my hands once again. The buzz subsides but the creative juices are turning. The more I dive into artwork and into writing the more tightly interwoven the facets of me and this land and livestock life become. There is no piece separate from the other now. Land, animal, nature, artist, human, humanity – every piece within the self and the self within every piece.