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.
