Livin' in the Sticks!

The sun shines bright and hot each and every morning…the heat punches you (softly) in the face when you walk out the front door. Some mornings the herd of cows are across the street in the pasture…mooing and grazing and hiding in the patch of trees searching for shade, reprieve from the sun. Their tails constantly swishing the flies away. They are pretty darn cute I must say. There are about 60 of them…including about 20 little calves. I cross the empty gravel road in hopes that perhaps this morning they will come to the fence and greet me…my voice must be starting to sound familiar. As I approach the gate they walk away…sometimes the little ones will run. Like what do they think I am going to do to them? I speak in a soft, calming and loving tone…don't they see me holding delicious greens in my hand? Some of them are dark brown, some light brown and there are a few that are tan coloured…they are my favourite! (never seen cows that colouring before…unique and beautiful)

Today is a breezy morning. I have not heard the cows across the road…they must be up pasture, near the creek. The line of poplars surrounding the 3 acres that our home is on are swaying with the cool breeze that last nights storm brought in. I hear their leaves rustling in the wind and I watch the sun dance on the beautiful lime green "feathers" on each branch. The sky is a soft blue and the big fluffy puffy white clouds are just streaming by. Is that a big fat duck in the sky? Maybe a mushroom? The cloud in the prairies are the mountains here…but they are ever changing their shapes and colour. Pure white, grey, dark grey and looming…sometimes they look like sand ripples in the sky. And they just go on and on and on. You can see them forever. I love that. It is so beautiful to me. Reminds me of childhood…lying in the freshly mowed soft green grass in my backyard…staring up into the wild blue yonder watching all the animals and ships and strange shapes float on by. Happiness.

The skunk and the fox that live in the area are pretty cute too. Foxes are such lonely sad creatures…I never knew this. He…or she is always crying and just roaming between our property and our neighbours (the real farmer). The first morning that I heard him I was worried that one of the farmers cats had been attacked by the pack of coyotes that I hear some nights out in the fields. I heard this strange wailing sound…it was 6 am. I got out of bed and stood on the back deck scanning the area for where the sound was coming from. That's when I saw the cartoon like red tail with white tip running around that flower bed…a fox! So cute! He must be also wanting to get a taste for one of the farmers feral cats.  I know Larry loves to chase the cats from next door. They are far too quick for him though…thankfully. I do not know what Larry would even do if he did catch them. I feel like he is just chasing them out of HIS yard. He is protective of his property. He just loves it here. I can't stop him when he chases the cats…he ignores my calls. But when he starts after the fox or the skunk…he seems to get why my voice is a bit more shrill in my call. One…I do not want to deal with the hurt a fox could put on him, plus the vet bill! ;op Secondly…I am not into bathing dogs in tomato juice to rid of the obnoxious "perfume" the skunk will spray out on his cute face. Skunks are funny creatures too. She is young, quite small still. Walks into the yard only following the perimeter of the house then runs across the yard to the garage where she then again follows the perimeter of that building to the fence then all along the fence. She was within 6 feet of Larry and I and never once looked up to pay notice to either of us. I was calmly telling Larry to keep back while she just sniffed her way to where she was heading. She too is VERY cute! Larry seems to understand that her and the little fox are different animals…he must smell their "wild". That is definitely a VERY good thing!

Living out in the sticks is quiet, peaceful, exciting at times, lovely and just plain perfect in so many ways…but it's also isolating and lonely too. I felt that Gabriola was a rural place to live. Compared to here it is an island metropolis…events and functions, a bustling downtown and people everywhere that know my name and I know theirs. And if I didn't want to be around people or events…I could easily hide too…the hermit Pami inside of me does like solitude also. Here…well, we are 7 kms down a dusty gravel road (that I suspect is killing the integrity of our van) from the town of Fraserwood. A rural Manitoba town. The one store is the "General Store"…selling food staples, wine, liquor, meat, the post office is in there, they have a gas pump too. Across the street from there is the "Tourist Hotel" ($25 a night for a room!!) which has a nice little cafe and a pub on the ground level. The first Friday of each month is Karaoke…so you know where to find me those nights!! lol We went July 5th…what a hoot! It happened to be the one night of the year that the Cadet camp kids come to the bar…so they packed the joint. (I swear some of them must've been about 16…they looked like babies! hee hee) The locals came out too which was fun…a woman who sang just like Patsy Cline, real cowboys wearing their hats and one dude even had his spurs on. It was VERY interesting to say the least. I rocked the house of course…and I am sure I shocked the heck out of them as the "singing one armed woman!" It does seem like a nice community…but I never see any of them living way out here in the sticks. I may not be the "rural" woman that I thought I could be. I think I am more of just a small community woman…I don't want the city, but I do need people. So…a move will happen sooner than later I am sure! Ugh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa!!

Oh wait…I didn't mention the Buffalo that live up the road from us. I like them too! Although…the one day that we passed them and they were hanging out near the fence, I made Clint pull over so I could get a good photo. As I approached them they all moved away about 30 feet and all started to defecate. Yup…I made them all poo and pee their pants!! ha ha! I am clearly not the Buffalo Whisperer! ;o)

But, for now I am Farmer Pam. Just Living in the Sticks!