Thank you for voting for my eagle family in the Calendar Contest! Click on the link above, scroll down past all the contest rules etc to below my eagle picture; click on the heart at the centre of the blue bar, and you've done it! Repeat every day until September 2, 2024 ...
🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🏠
Leave the field that the eagles call home and turn left onto the 855. Go up to the tower and turn left. Drive 20 kms on dusty gravel and turn left onto the 36. Head north for a few kms, past the burnout; and on your right you will see, about a quarter mile off the highway, a little white house with a red roof.
Only about 12 miles from the Good Rancher's place, as the eagle flies.
As you turn off the 36 onto the gravel something wonderful happens. A rainbow appears. Wait, a DOUBLE RAINBOW, arching gracefully over the house.
This house, this nest, that launched eight fledglings in their time:
Gordon
Mary
Allan
Clark
Margaret
Bruce
Mabel
Marilyn
This particular evening, the symbol of promise hovers over this place as my sister brings her son to see it, to see the nest that nurtured his family four generations ago.
The place where Ruth and Tiff brought their premature, sickly baby son after he was released from the Hanna hospital. Where Ruth prayed, "God, if you save my baby, I will give him back to you to serve you."
The place where she wept, 26 years later, after she had waved goodbye to him from the steps of their home and watched the car all the way up the dusty quarter mile until it vanished from her sight. Not once did she ask him not to go.
Her son Allan served God in India for over 40 years. Each time he returned to Canada for a brief period of home assignment, the first place he would go would be home.
He returned one time unexpectedly, shortly before she died. He came to tell her he loved her, to tell her thank you, Mom.
He had made his life on the other side of the world.
This is what I posted on Facebook on Wednesday last week during the charmingly mandatory lunch hour at Balog Auction - notice the fantastic country-fried steak and mashed potatoes and corn, blanketed in velvety white gravy:
"The steers arrived in Lethbridge last night during less than optimal driving conditions (thank you Kody, Marvin, Cliff, and Kurt who helped with loading!).
I had it slightly better and had a wonderful sleep (thank you, Balog Auction!)
And now it's almost here. This is what the Good Rancher has poured his time, energy, thought and resources into for the entire year. This is the result of no holidays, late nights and early mornings, falling asleep on the couch after 9 pm suppers, missing church and family occasions due to bad weather.
The GR regards his cow-calf operation as God's outfit, and he is just a steward.
He pays attention to the verse in Corinthians that states what is required of a steward is that he is found faithful.
The GR has been faithful to his calling.
Dear Lord, let it be a good sale ..."
*************************************
On the front of the GR's cattle liner
Due to adverse weather conditions the GR's cattle arrived later than we had hoped last Tuesday evening. The snow storm that blew up from nowhere continued to plague our wonderful drivers going home - at least one arrived back at 1 am, to a wife who had been praying for his safety. Another one, I found out later, got home at 2:00.
The thing about auction houses is that the animals usually go up for auction in the order in which they arrive. So I was prepared for a long wait on Wednesday afternoon, and for getting to the bank after it had closed. Oh well, I thought to myself.
**********
Mr. Balog himself ("Mr. Balog was my dad; call me Bob") opens the afternoon auction with the words, "Where's Mark?" Mark is also an extraordinary auctioneer, so if we have both Bob and Mark in the house, it should be a good sale.
Then Bob lays out the the first five in the sale order: there are three ranches from Saskatchewan, one from fairly close by, and the fifth one is the GR!
Mark takes the microphone and it begins. The steers and heifers look big and healthy and the bidding is fast and fierce. Prices are good. As a side note, animals are grouped by weight and often by colour, and the price being bid on is the price per pound. So if you look at line three you see that 13 black steers were in the ring; the average weight of each was 678 lbs; and the per-pound price settled on through the bidding process was "three-ninety-one-and-a-quarTÈRE," as Bob might say.
(That's three dollars and 91 1/4 cents per pound, to be clear. And that's a really good price! I just want you to know that it's not the producers who are bumping beef prices in the stores ...🤪)
I usually sit on the top row of the gallery; but today the heat is cranked so high in retaliation for the outside frigid temperatures that I know I won't be able to take it for long. I slip into a chair on the back row at the side of the ring, and meet the Thorstensons from Saskatchewan. They are second on the roster. Big, beautiful, strong steers and healthy heifers. Bob himself takes the auction chair for them. There is quite a lot of jollity about James, a new MLA in Saskatchewan and their son. ("I knew Bob would say something!" beams Mrs. T.) They've been coming to Balog's since 2007, she tells me. "Bob always gets it done for us."
Georgine Westgard is sitting with the Thorstensons and they are clearly old pals. Jim and Georgine retired from farming in the Oyen area in 2018. Bob, of course, did the herd dispersal and then the farm auction sale. She is here for a visit today, and she includes me in the conversation. She roots for the Thorstensons throughout their sale; and when it comes time for the GR's cattle to enter the ring, she roots for him just as hard. "You have nothing to worry about - they look GREAT! Such good shape! Don't worry about the buyers pulling out one or two! Sometimes it's legit but sometimes they just want to keep people on their toes."
Mark takes over when it comes time to auction off the GR's herd. He has a pitch and rhythm that lulls you unless you're a buyer; then you better be paying close attention! He fights for quarter of a cent per pound, as does Bob - who, even as Mark auctions, is adding the colour commentary: "One iron! No implants or steroids! Home raised!" And the price goes up a quarter of a cent. Every quarter penny counts!
I ask Georgine why she thought two steers are pulled out of a pack to be auctioned separately. "I'll go ask the buyer!" she declares. It seems they look "a little soggy." Sounds legit to me. Slightly lower price the second time around. I would choose crispy over soggy too; wouldn't you?
The GR's charolais-cross steers show up in the ring and they take my breath. A ring full of goldenness. I say to the two ladies, "When I see how gorgeous these steers are, I feel guilty for ever having evil thoughts about the GR not going on holiday or us not doing more as a couple ..."
They laugh knowingly. "We all feel that way. Don't feel bad. But it's a good day today, isn't it?!"
Suddenly, Georgine lets out a little yelp. A steer is down. The other steers run out of the ring through the exit door, and still he sits.
The room falls silent.
I can hardly breathe.
The ring men move in to try to get him up, but Mister Balog takes control. "WAIT. Everybody wait. Give him a minute. Give him another minute ..."
And wouldn't you know it, that little steer gets himself up and walks out of his own volition. No limping. No foaming at the mouth. No hesitation. Completely calm.
Bob was standing right beside me by this point. "Just winded," he reassures me. "He'll be okay. We'll claim him on insurance so you don't have to worry. He'll be fine."
Bob Balog cares, not only about the animals but also about their people.
A small group of mixed colours arrives in the ring. The GR calls them "funny colours." I call them "Joseph's coat." They are so beautiful to me.
They sell just as well as everyone else. Take THAT, GR! 💖
Across the ring from me are four people very dear to the GR's heart: Justin, Kryston, Clay, and Oaklee, with whom the GR is completely smitten and calls Annie Oakley. The next generation in the family teaching their next generation the ins and outs of ranching life while they figure it out for themselves.
Kryston gives me a recipe for homemade yoghurt - easy and saves money. I have rarely seen someone so industrious. Oaklee has her mama's dimple at the corner of her mouth. Clay wants to be a rancher just like his dad.
Justin bids for and buys some of the GR's steers. He has set up his own feedlot and is starting to build his herd.
When the GR's sale is over, I deke into the kitchen to retrieve the doughnuts I had picked up from the Prairie Cottage Bake Shop in Brooks, on my way to Lethbridge, just as they were closing on Tuesday. This bakery makes doughnuts the old-fashioned way, and they taste the way most donut people dream of doughnuts tasting nowadays. I had called the bakeshop as I was preparing to leave for Lethbridge to see if I could reserve five or six dozen.
The owner herself answered the phone. "I have a few left but nowhere near what you need ... Wait a minute - we're pretty caught up here. I could make up a small batch just for you!"
I arrived at 4:30. The doughnuts were done. "We just have to box them. You'll have to leave the boxes open so that they can cool!" I listened to the sweet sounds of a cappella hymns in the background as the two ladies finished up the order.
After the GR's cattle are sold, doughnuts are passed around to everyone in the house who wants one, and every morsel is appreciated. "What's the occasion?" I am asked several times.
"The GR and I just made it to our tenth anniversary. Many people were pretty sure we wouldn't make it to five! So we wanted to celebrate with the folks who understand this way of life. Our people."
"Happy anniversary. Good sale."
(Prairie Cottage Bake Shop Brooks, Alberta 403-501-0111
Just saying, in case you find yourself in Brooks!)
I go to the office to get the cheque and paperwork. As always, here is Maureen, Bob's sister and the person who runs the administration of this place. How she keeps everything straight, especially on sale day, I do not know.
How she keeps the song in her heart, I do know. There next to her is her daughter Shandi, back from maternity leave. "She's all I have," Maureen had told me quietly, numbly, when Shandi encountered difficulties in labour and delivery last year.
Now Shandi's beautiful boy is being cared for by his other grandma for the two days a week that Shandi works next to her mom like she always has. And Maureen's heart circle has expanded.
I write my thankyou cards to the buyers who have purchased the GR's cattle. We are so grateful to them all and pray that the steers will thrive under them and that many people will be nourished through their efforts.
Goodbyes said, I make my way to the truck, start the engine to warm things up, and punch up the number on my phone.
He answers immediately.
"It's done.
How much were you hoping to get from this sale?"
I say the exact same thing every time I go to a sale. I fear that he might think I'm crazy for asking, because what's done is done. But I fear even more that he might be disappointed, that despite all his hard work we have come up short.
He gives me his number. "Are we even close?"
I flash back to all the times we have gone through this, the times we have not met his number. How he immediately reassures me, despite his own disappointment, that all will be well. That God will take care of us.
I look down at the breakdown of the sale given to me from the auction house. I take a deep breath.
"Honey, we are not close.
Honey, you remember the verse in Ephesians about '... Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think'?
Honey. That's where we are ..."
Silence.
Even from four hours away I can feel the weight of the past two years start to roll off his shoulders. I hear him draw in a deep breath and slowly exhale.
"Thank You, dear God," he whispers into the phone.
"AND I can get to the bank in time before it closes! I had better leave now, though ..." I blink my way down town and pull myself together as I enter the bank's parking lot on my second attempt.
I go into the bank and - happy day! - there is not a line up, AND they are debuting a new BMO commercial. There is something about this guy that I just love. I think it's his inherent tongue-in-cheek joyfulness. I am so fortunate to get called to the teller's station where you sit down to do your banking, so I get to watch it a couple of times.
The bank teller thinks this is hilarious. She's laughing harder than I am. Only, she's not laughing at the commercial ...
I drive home. As I go through Taber I stop at Taco Time and get two taco salads and a burrito, to go. Beef, of course. And the large Mexifries, please. After all, it's a very special occasion!
I battle through some fog and blowing snow, but nothing like the day before. As I pull into the driveway I see a text from the GR that he had sent at 5:30.
I just have to park on the driveway for a moment to gather my thoughts. Our calving season is supposed to start the last half of April! This calf is not premature. The mother is a cow, not a first calver. Seriously? The whole cycle has started again IMMEDIATELY without even a day's reprieve?!
"Did you know," he said in a conversational tone, a few days ago, "that Debbie died on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour?"
The room seemed very still in that moment.
The Good Rancher is also a Good Dancer, light on his feet. I saw him as he led his and Debbie's son's brand new mother-in-law onto the dance floor at the wedding reception.
He can dance out of the way of bulls charging directly at him.
And from childhood he has mastered the art of dancing deftly around anything that could cause him pain.
From the outset of our acquaintance the GR has said that the past is the past; there is nothing a person can do to change it and so we need to appreciate the moment and look to the future. This year he has reminded himself more often than most.
So in our household his simple comment that evening was something out of the ordinary, something that gave me pause.
I am the product of the union of a Baptist and a Brethren; I certainly did not learn the quick-step or the two-step, but I am very practiced at the side-step in an attempt to avert any misstep. I will go out of my way to avoid pushing people's buttons or causing them pain.
I went up to Edmonton for an appointment the next day and came home late on the 6th night. Just before I joined the checkout queue at Costco - a must-stop for people who dwell far away from the purchase of even a jug of milk - I impulsively swung by the florist corner. Every instinct inside me screamed, "Leave it alone. Don't intrude. Respect privacy. Don't be pushy."
I selected a bouquet of two dozen ivory roses and added it to my cart.
I handed them to him when I got home. "These are for you. in honour of. Pearl Harbour. and Debbie."
We put them in water and took them down to the basement, the only place safe from cats.
December 7th was a busy day, but not in the way we anticipated. We couldn't process calves because of the snow that hit us sideways, driven by the wind that shaped those flakes into arrows of ice; so the men did some catch-up work and some planning in the shop. That evening the GR and I headed into Hanna to see a couple of people. On our way home he said, "I have to take milk out to the barn cats and then I think I'll run into Endiang."
I heard him going downstairs.
Some time later he came home and enveloped me in a hug. "You are the person I love most in this world," he murmured. He had reconciled us both in his head and his heart. He seemed truly at peace for the first time in a year and a half.
The next day I took coffee and doughnuts over to our gathering place behind the bale stacks. I saw them almost immediately. Twelve ivory roses.
Twelve for her, left tenderly on her final earthly resting place, one for each year she has been gone.
And twelve for him here, one for each year of missing her.
There is no statute of limitation on how much grief a heart can hold, of how much loss a person can bear. Everyone sorrows in their own way and in their own time. When you're bereaved of the one you love at age 48, the rhythm of your world changes.
And yet you can't stop, even for a day, to process this unspeakable reality. After all, the cows don't know your heart's broken. You barely know it yourself. So you have to keep going: one step after another to take, one orphan calf after another to feed, one water hole after another to chop, one load of hay after another to fork, one bill after another to pay. Repeat until the numbness wears off, until it feels like the new normal is almost normal.
But, as with grief, there is also no limitation on how much love a heart can hold. When the gift of a new love is proffered, it does not cancel out or supersede the old love. Each in its own mysterious way makes the other more precious.
Sometimes it just takes time to figure it out, how to weave the strands of the new with the old and make the fabric of a heart even stronger.
Sometimes it takes twelve years and twenty-four roses divided by two.
But it's worth it. It's worth it to be able to admit finally that "love is stronger than death."
And that "two are better than one, because ... if either of them falls down, one can help the other up."
Unto us a child is born heralds the Christmas season.
But that much-lauded child had no material possessions to launch his life. His mother birthed him with the help of her husband under the desultory gaze of the animals who were sharing their shelter with these intruders. His first resting place was a manger, borrowed from the descendants of the animals he had called into being. He was wrapped in strips of cloth. Shortly after his birth his parents would become refugees, fleeing the murderous tyranny of the political leader at the time.
Who knows what could have happened to them in that foreign country had it not been for the strangers who brought gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh for this unknown little child, items that could be traded for food and shelter and tools to try to cobble their lives together again?
Those Wise Men blessing a little child in a country far away from where they lived were - at least, to my way of thinking - the founders of Operation Christmas Child!
Saturday was the day of the fourth Operation Christmas Child party the Church at Endiang has hosted for our community.
People gather things throughout the year and then start dropping their haul off a day or so before. Or if they can't bring their items in early, they might make up a box or two at home and then come to the community party to pack a few more and visit with their neighbours over pizza from the Byemoor Hotel.
Pictures are worth a thousand words, so I will let them speak for themselves, with a comment or two:
To get the piles of stuff sorted properly, you need a good organiser. Check.
To get the fiddly details set up so that people can grab the essentials they need to place in each shoebox, you have to have someone very practical and able to discern what is universally important for each box to contain. For example, do we have labels and elastic bands? Check.
To get the items inside the boxes we need two people who actually think OUTSIDE the box and can pass their vision and their guidance to kids and first-time packers. Oh, and they need to be willing actually to put together 100 cardboard shoeboxes. Oh, AND be the Welcome Committee. Check.
But to get it all done, we needed YOU! And you came out in spades.
The first shoebox each year is always a Big Deal. Here is this year's, along with our first donation of the day. It showed up at about 9:30 - we didn't open for business till 2:00! Mr July himself and his biggest fan dropped it off and stayed for a short visit.
Then came a fairly steady stream of people who wanted to drop off items or donations toward the processing and shipping of the boxes. Each box takes $10 - this covers the basic boxes and the cartons that all the boxes are transported in; and for each box to go through various checks at the collection centre in Calgary to make sure there is nothing that is on the DO NOT PACK list, and to make sure that each box has enough in it to delight a child's heart. Of course, there's the substantial overseas transport cost itself.
Last year we decided also to make up care bags for needy kids in Stettler. The Stettler Family and Community Support Services distributed them for us. This year we collected lots of things, as well as a small quantity of food items for kids who might need a boost for school lunches or even some cereal in the morning before going to school.
The first kid arrived and we put her to work. The next thing you know, the animals who had tickets to Stettler were having a party ...
Soon the doors opened and the party officially started!
ko
It's always good to see the men do what they do best 🤣🤗 ... There's no denying they missed their friend Lyn this year.
I didn't get pictures of everyone, and for that I'm so sorry. It was a joy to see our big-hearted kids trying to picture the kid who would receive the box, and to fill it accordingly.
The Stettler Tables - thick socks, hoodies, mitts and toques are warmly received:
The completed shoebox pile grew rapidly.
Just after 4 o'clock, pizza delivery!
But first the kids took all the boxes upstairs so that at Sunday night's service we could have a special prayer for them and the children who would receive them.
A quick calculation told us that we had used one full carton of the red and green cardboard boxes (100 boxes per carton), plus 42 plastic boxes.
142 boxes!! ❤️💚❤️💚❤️💚❤️
That night I counted the donations that had poured in. Thanks to your generosity, we had received $1,390 - only three shoeboxes short!
Shortly after midnight my phone lit up. A message came in from Vancouver, e-transfering $120 to help with postage.
$1,510! Wow!!
The next night at church Kurt led us in a prayer of blessing for the shoeboxes. Kurt himself has been overseas to deliver shoeboxes and has seen firsthand the joy on kids' faces when they receive their own box.
After the service we put the shoeboxes into larger cartons ready for shipping. This year the boxes from Canada are going to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Senegal, Gambia, Sierra-Leone, Guinea-Bissau, the Philippines; and certain areas were asked to do boxes for the Ukraine. Last year more than 415,000 shoeboxes were sent from Canada; 10.5 MILLION were sent out globally.
Pastor Allan had brought five boxes that had missed the cut in Big Valley. The money for these shoeboxes had gotten left behind. "No worries," I said. "We have some extra money!"
Our total was now 147!
As we loaded we counted. And recounted. And then counted again, just to make sure.
151. 151. 151.
Then we remembered the four completed boxes that had been brought to the Hall. We hadn't thought of them when we did the quick 100-box count!
We did a quick calculation. 151 boxes at $10 a box = $1,510.
$1,510.
$1,510?!
Is it just me, or did anyone else get goosebumps?! I think Jesus, who loves kids, has got His eye on the shoeboxes from Endmoor, and He will see to it that His little children who receive them will know that someone in Canada loves them; even more importantly, that HE loves them.
Monday afternoon I shot into Stettler with the items for FCSS. Once again, Deanna beat me to it and had brought up all but the two heaviest boxes. The enormous truck cab was full to bursting, and one box had to ride in the back.
Les Stulberg, our Stettler County No. 6 Councilor, met me at the offices at 4 pm. He's on the FCSS Board, and they were going to have a meeting at 4:30, so the timing couldn't be better that both of us could be in Stettler then.
While Executive Director Shelly held the door, Les and the staff carried everything in.
It was wonderful to talk with Shelly and Les and see their passion for people right here at home. Les introduced me to his fellow board members; and just before I left he said, "Here's a calendar for you. It's pictures of the people involved with the Stettler Society of Prevention of Family Violence. I'm Mr July."
Oh my! How many districts can say they have a calendar boy as their Councilor??!!
As I drove back to Endiang, I couldn't help think of the words of Jesus: "Truly I say to you, in as much as you [showed kindness] to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me."
And I wondered if, while He was saying those words, He was thinking of those wise men from so far away who showed such great kindness to an infant on that extraordinary day.
