Scenes from Round These Parts

Every Saturday morning, rain or shine, Jay and I do a boot camp class on a hill located beside the man made lack smack dab in the middle (ish) of our fair city.

When you arrive at the top of the hill via running, lunging, backpedalling or side stepping panting like a husky pulling a full sled at top speed, also known as coughing up a lung, you see our Alma matter to the far left across the water.

The next time up you might stare straight out as you attempt to put your lung back where it belongs and see this lovely view.

I never tire of the view. To the right is the Center of the Arts and to its right the Saskatchewan Legislative Buildings.

As an aside, why do all the venues have to have the sponsors name in them now? I revolt and refuse to learn the new names. I know it will work, they will stop the insanity.

The sky is purple in my world, why do you ask?

The hills is natural Prairie and is alive with pretty blooms this time of year. I think this year it is even more prolific due to the monsoon season that we had in early summer.

I think this next one might be alfalfa but either way it is a really pretty purple bloom

And the thistles have gone to seed.

And last but not least, my rant for today:

The world is not your ashtray, butt heads.

It's Summer!

We just got back from a spontaneous trip up to Jan Lake (my parents co-own a cabin in process up there). If you know us, you know we rarely do something so spontaneous.

We really should do it more often.

We went for ice cream. Triple Chocolate Brownie...mmmm. The few licks I had while "helping" the boys keep theirs from dripping too bad were delicious.

We saw big hair creatures. I think this is that Sasquatch they keep talking about. I am still having nightmares. Me and spiders do not get along.

We biked to the dock and willingly (and unwillingly) posed for Mommy.

We enjoyed the twilight hours. Summer here means daylight until well after 10pm.

We sat on the beach and waited for the Canada Day fireworks.

The boys passed the time by racing.

And teetering.

And skipping rocks.

And watching their very first sunset and fireworks. We have never let them stay up that late before due to the grumpies that set in when they are down on sleep. They were old enough, they both handled it well and aside from the swarms of mosquitoes attacking us from all angles, they enjoyed the experience.

That's what it is all about, making memories to last a lifetime.

Thanks Mom and Dad/Grams and Pop!

Another Pictorial

This was going to be a recap of our Easter weekend, spent with both Jay's and my families. It was just how it should be, good food, good company, cousins having fun, egg hunts and chocolate. I could post some pictures from that but they have my nieces and nephews in them. And they are not my best work.

What can I say, I like a stationary object. So instead, I am sharing a few of my favourites from the time I spent playing with my camera.

One of the multitudes of abandoned farm houses scattered along every stretch of Saskatchewan's highways. What stories these walls could tell, if only they could talk.

Who toiled in the soil here trying to make a go of it in a new land?

What joys, what sorrows were shared within these walls?

Each one is a testament to our forefathers and mothers. Their sweat, tears and triumphs built this province.

I spent part of Saturday afternoon walking around my parent's place shooting random sights. These rails are part of the riding ring my parents built for me a number of years back when I was all about horses.

A fuel tank that Dad has big plans for. Someday. (Can you hear my Mom snorting?)

The pasture fence. It is part of this place, a place that is home to me though I don't live there anymore. I love this fence and its weathered boards. There are so many memories of chasing horses to ride them, pail of oats in hand, halter poised and ready. I always outsmarted the little buggers. Imagine that.

Here's a real horse's ass.

Sorry. I couldn't help myself when he meandered away having realized I did not come bearing treats.

He's pretty handsome from the front too. Internet, meet Poco. Poco, meet...never mind. If it's not a carrot or a pail of oats you aren't interested.

And lastly, the weekend was full of blue skies with big white fluffy clouds. I love them. They are one of the big pluses to living here in this place that can be so inhospitable.

I hope your Easter weekend was filled with chocolate, family and much joy, not necessarily in that order. Okay, maybe exactly in that order.

Embracing (sort of) Winter

It is no secret that I get angry at Old Man winter. Really angry. I mean, look at winter, it's cold, it's stark, it's monochrome when the sun doesn't shine.

It's also really frosty a good portion of the time but I won't complain about that because that is actually really pretty when viewed from the warmth of the house anyway.

But the sun does shine here and when it does, the sky is the bluest of blues. This year we have had much less of that ridiculous kind of cold and more of the foggy, grey sky kind of weather. I won't complain because when it isn't -853 with the windchill you have to just shut it.

We have been doing a lot of skating lately. The boys really love it. I brought my camera along and took advantage of the sun.

We also played tag. Newsflash: it's really hard to play tag in boots when the other three members are on skates. I am smart like that.

I love ice tracings. I love the ramdomness that somehow creates a beautiful pattern in the snow. It also makes me think back to my figure skating days when we still did figures (figure 8's - set circular patterns traced on the ice free hand or foot as the case may be). I loved the precision with with you could do three sets of the same pattern and lay down the 3 tracings within centimeters of each other. It's a lost art and it makes me sad. I spend many an hour practicing in my teen years.

I also love how picking up my camera somehow makes me see things that I wouldn't normally pay attention to.

I won't toast winter (I haven't lost my mind...yet) but I do concede that it has its own special beauty. Mostly when it's over.

Good Old Winter

It's the dead of winter up here in Saskatch-E-WONe (typically how non-Saskatchewanians pronouce it, the proper pronounciation is Sask-ACH-e-wan), which is no surprise to any of you. And the fact that we got dumped on with a good old blizzard this past weekend should also not surprise anyone ('cept those of you from the Southern U.S., y'all ain't never seen the likes of this).

What is surprising is that the school buses have not run for the last two days and apparently won't be running tomorrow again. You see, us Prairie folk are hardy. A little snow never stopped us. Frankly, if life stopped everytime it snowed, we would be house bound for half the year. We actually mock other cities to the west and east of us when they get what we consider a normal amount of snow because they practically declare a state of emergency. For us, that's just another winter day. But to be fair, given that we experience such levels of snowfall so often, we have the resources to clear the streets much more so than these cities which we will not name.

Here is our front yard (notice how high the bank is - a good 4 feet) after Jay shovelled, and shovelled and shovelled the driveway, sidewalk and street in front of our house (the snow that you shovel has to go somewhere so it is normally piled up on the lawns).

Yes, I said the street. There was so much snow that it was causing cars to get stuck and given that we live on a quiet (relatively) residential street, we knew the plow would not be by for several days. Turns out the plow came by on Monday. I was praising the snow removal of our fair city until Jack and I went out later that night only to discover some main roads had yet to be plowed. Huh? Our quiet street has but not main road?

They must have seen poor Jay out there shovelling the street and took pity on him.

Monday morning dawned bright and clear. I walked with Jack and Kamden to school on account of the risk that there were hip deep drifts to plow through. They were not hip deep but definitely knee deep. Poor Kamden kept falling over. That's why I went along, getting up in knee deep powder is quite a challenge. I was just happy I never bit it. Now there would have been a sight to behold: 35 year old woman breaks hip while trying to dig herself out of snowbank. On second thought, let's not wish that on our worst enemies.

We actually had quite a good time plowing through the drifts. It is really kind of fun to thrash about in it and marvel at the power of Mother Nature.

By today, the plows had cleared the streets and everyone and his dog had dusted off their snow blowers. The dudes had this path to walk through today.

Easy peasy. However Old Man Winter is now back to his old tricks with cheek biting windchills which are all the more fun when he throws some snow into the gale. There is nothing quite like the sting of blowing snow on cold cheeks. Remind me again, why do I live here?

Just to give you an idea of how much snow there actually is, I took a picture of these benches. The snow is the same level as the bench.

And this is not piled up by the plow, this is what fell and/or was blown in by crotchety Old Man Winter. He was in hibernation there for a bit and he's awoken much like a Grizzly bear does in the spring: hungry, grouchy and ready to spread the misery.

But what else is new? Just another Saskatchewan winter day.

Harvest on the Prairies

Today, I am on Canada Moms Blog remembering my time as a child during harvest on the farm.
Somehow I think it was a simplier time, a simplier life, or maybe it was the fact that I was a kid.

Or the rose coloured glasses I like to wear.