We’re experiencing that same melt that’s been happening all over the province. A welcome change from the searing cold that carries little beings off in the night, but messy. A thaw is not when the countryside is at its prettiest. The sudden drop in temperature and the fluctuations just above and below freezing are doing crazy things to the roads. Slippery things.
Out here on the farm we’re almost too snug. I forget to light the fire for hours at a time. I’ve grown accustomed to my close-knit sweaters and they’re more than adequate in these temperatures. Life is astoundingly simple. Oh hell, but I need to say it – there are moments when I love it all, the snow turned to a plastic consistency impossible to navigate without holding on to a goat or a dog, the return of the goats, soggy and bored until they found the little hayshed just now, the return of Jimmy the Dog for another extended visit, his last one marred just at the end by an uninvited and painful coupling with Bea, barely six months old, the stoicism and playfulness of the horses no matter what the weather, my own delight as I watch them –so close, every day- from the porch or out the window, getting to know them.
It’s a time of anticipation, though I expected to be in the deep dark freeze for weeks yet. I thought it would be a time of contemplation and facing of lack and sorrows, a time to let go of what no longer serves me. And it was, for a couple of weeks, when I was the only human on the place. Just me and Bea the pup, four horses and a dozen hens. Barely past the Solstice. Big black skies full of stars and the bulging Wolf moon prying out my dream secrets. Cold in my bed til the wee hours, even with three fat cats. Just me to care for, to feed and keep the house warm for. Just me to call in the New Year. A visitor now and then, “how you making out up here?” Block heater in the car, trips out for supplies, to check on a sick neighbour, surprising myself by dressing up and squeaking my tires over the ice and snow to the Masquerade Dance at the rodeo grounds. And then, a dead battery. Silence and quiet. No obligations. Bonding with Bea, teaching her to enjoy the morning cuddle on the couch, teasing out the knots in the fine soft hair behind her ears. Days of contemplation and cryptic notes and muffled dreams and finally, pen to paper. The relief!
My novel, on hiatus for months while Standing Rock stood and the Americans split down the middle (again), and a much too ordinary human being rejoiced at her power to okay a series of doomed projects in my home province, costing us all billions long into the future. My first novel, an exercise in discipline and faith and thinking through fictional logic, set in the far more innocent and ignorant 50’s, nearly through the first draft and stalled as the world out there becomes steadily more hard-edged.
And then, the other day, making headway and a good thing too or my editor might just quit, and Sunday night saw me, excruciating hours beyond my bedtime, awaiting the return of the young people, and Jimmy with them, and the 4×4. Two days driving from the City. Slow texting, delays on the road, sludge on the headlights, a nap by the side of the highway. Then bam! They’re here, and there are two dogs and three humans and bustle and smiles and presents. Chocolate, coffee, a beautiful shawl. The next day, home come the sister goats. In the middle there, fresh eyes on Bea and we realize she’s pregnant. I’m as embarrassed as a 50’s mom with a swelling teenager, not quite for the same reasons, or maybe. Guilt at not seeing how quickly she’s matured, feeling foolish for missing her first heat. Angry at the father, Mr. darling Jim, his neutering too late if we’d only known. He’s spread his seed, this pirate, this wanderer: he was a teenage dad, fathering daughters on an aging Spaniel, thought barren, and one of those is Abby, beloved and made famous by her good friend Angus.
So, a time of anticipation. Unless it’s that phantom – false pregnancy, or residual hormones from being in heat, Bea will whelp in the next week. This little cabin in a few short days will have morphed from hermit’s secluded shelter to bustling fecund community. The cats and Jimmy, equally baffled by mewling crawling creatures, will take their demotions hard. Bea will be or will not be a good mother and we will step up accordingly.
The point of our long separation from Flora and Birdy was to render them also impregnated. That’s how you turn pet goats into milk goats. You add productivity to cuteness and protein to your diet and skills to your cupboard of abilities. There are a few other steps along the way. We have books, and neighbours and the Occasional Internet, more on than off and a fertile source of midwifery guides for horses dogs and chickens. Pigs.
Anticipation. A hundred baby chicks have been requested from a hatchery in Armstrong. The breed resurrected by Emily Robertson, and selected for its gentle, courting roosters, its broody mothers, its genetic depth and winter hardiness. Chosen for its willingness to lay through the cold months, for the uniformity of its offspring and, yes, its succulence on the barbecue. And two dozen chicks from a neighbour, chosen for their Canadian heritage and their beauty, expected in March.
Twenty-two days to make a chick. Sixty-three days to make a batch of puppies. Five months for baby goats. Three months, three weeks and three days for piglets. We’re anticipating the arrival, yes, in March, of a pregnant gilt, her breed also chosen for winter hardiness, land clearing talents and sense of humour. And lean, delicious meat.
This winter has not been typical of anything, not anywhere in BC, and not here. A neighbour told me we’d arrived in the coldest winter they’ve seen in many years. Vancouver, home of the champions of complaining about the weather, has been hit so hard with winter that there will be tales to tell for years to come. The weather has been the weather, predictable for only a few days at a time. The chores are regulated by the thermometer, or rather by the temperature, that is registered and conveyed to me by the thermometer. I can tell if it’s trending warmer or colder, and that helps me prioritize my tasks. The sky tells me more, the wind, whether or not I can smell anything. When it’s really cold there are no smells outside except wood smoke. There’s not much movement, very little sound. The only birds I saw for long weeks were ravens and even those tough customers were raspy with cold.
I anticipate sitting down soon with seed catalogues, and messaging my nieces and my sister and plotting with my daughter, what to plant this year. What worked in our short short season last year, when we arrived on Canada Day and the first frost came September 26th, but then we had weeks of green but the goats got in and ate everything that might have made seeds for this year? What didn’t grow, and will any amount of compost make a difference? When will we start to dig, shall we scrape out the barnyard and steal its richness, then gravel the area to keep the horses dry?
I anticipate being here through as many cycles of the seasons as I am allowed. I anticipate being changed by this place. By agreeing to be in this place. It’s hard to contemplate, like the fish famously describing water, but how could one not be changed, and changing? What will I notice and when, and will it be an absence or a presence, or both? Will I lose the tendency toward melancholy? Will the wonder of life and death and the endless surprise of renewal make a difference, now that there’s only the cabin wall, or the windshield of the truck, between me and All of That?
Keep me posted. You might notice before I do.