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 ...
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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.
On this fourth week, the writing prompt that hit me between the eyes was this:
"I stand on all fours, my fur ..."
I couldn't actually read this piece - or any piece, for that matter - aloud this week. But here's what I wrote:
I stand on all fours, my fur rising ever so slightly from my suddenly unfamiliar body. (Is it my body that is unfamiliar, or is it everything else?)
Last Tuesday night I went to bed, stretched out as usual on the blanket on the floor behind my Friend's bed. She turned out the light, then she said, like she says every night, "Sleep time, SLEEP time, my little Earl Grey. Sleep time, my Faithful Friend. See you in the MORning!"
But the morning never came. The dark night got blacker and blacker. The Good Rancher got up and made his breakfast and left. My Friend got up and called to me.
I didn't know where she was.
I didn't know where I was.
I bumped into a hard edge and did not know how to get around it so I stopped. I needed water, I needed to go outside, I needed to have my Friend say, "Good MORning, my little Earl Grey!"
She came back to find me. I almost didn't hear her footsteps. I was so scared that my entire body was shaking. I could hardly breathe.
"Come on, my dog! What's going on?" I looked at where I thought her voice was coming from. She cried my name like she never had before - "GRAAAAAAYYY!"
She pushed me with her legs and put her hand on my head. She got me to where I could feel cool air on my face. So many smells. Birds chirping. Cats meowing. Musket yapping from the porch. I was so confused that I just froze.
I put out my foot, but there was nothing there. Suddenly I felt her next to me. Her hands on my shoulders. "Step!" she screamed, "Step! Step! Step! Step!"
I didn't know what to do. She had never raised her voice at me before. Except that time when she saw me with a baby barn kitten in my mouth. Was she angry with me, like then?
I heard tapping right below me. "Step," she whispered. I could feel her breath on my face. Salt water dripping onto my nose. I leaned toward her and my foot dropped down to reach a spot just below me. "Step," she said again and that same tapping below me. I followed her breath.
And then I felt the cold bristles of grass beneath me. "Go, on, Earl Grey," she said. I inhaled the scent of previous outside visits, both mine and the other dogs'. Some stronger than others. I took a few steps into this blackness. I had to pee, but I was too scared to lift my leg.
She called to me and I heard her truck running. Maybe we were going for a ride? But I could not find her or the truck. Suddenly she was in front of meIbumpedintoherlegs. The Good Rancher was there and he picked me up and put me in the truck. She was already sitting right next to me.
The movement, the noise, the smells. I could hear big trucks coming toward me and I pressed myself low on the seat because I couldn't see them and I was scared they were going to run over me.
We stopped at the place where the people give me treats, and the girl came out to help my Friend get me out of the truck. They put a noose around my neck and started to pull me, but I did not know where I was going so I sat down.
And I heard my Friend's voice. "My Faithful Friend," she said. "Come with me, Earl Grey."
They got me into a small room. I tried to walk around but I kept bumpingbumping into a huge box in the middle of the room. I put my head on my Friend's lap and everything was quiet.
But not for long. Two other people came into the room and they made my Friend put a muzzle on me. Then they poked me in my foot, and they put something cold near my heart, and I felt whooshing air near my eyes. I started to pant.
My Friend and that girl got me back into the truck. The truck started and then there was a howling sound, like the coyotes on the hills at home every night. I tried to reach for her hand, which was always there when I put my head on the console, but I fell off the seat.
The howling stopped. So did the truck. The door next to me opened. She helped me get back up onto the seat.
We got home. I got onto the floor of the truck but when she tried to get me down I couldn't move. I could only shake and pant.
She went away and came back and there was somewhere hard to put my foot. It was covered with something soft that smelled like her jacket. "Step," she said quietly. "Step."
And I was on the blessed ground again.
This last week has been long. Cold weather. Accidents in the living room. I can't find my food until I am standing in the bowl. I spill the water. My head hurts all the time. I sleep a lot. The dogs avoid me, but those kittens stay close to me now.
Nothing is the same.
Except for one thing.
A long time ago she went away for a night, and when she came back the next afternoon, she smelled of blood and bandages and medicine and sadness. We could not jump up on her, and she did not bend down to give us our milk time, milk time. Something was wrong.
She lay on the couch and I lay on the floor next to her. When she got up she went to the small room with the loud rushing of water. I felt I needed to go look after her. So I waited for her outside the door.
And from that day on, whenever she goes to the small room with the loud rushing of water I always lie down, blocking the door, waiting for her, protecting her from the unseen enemy. Now everything is unseen, everything is the enemy.
Still. I still know when she is in that place, and I have still been able to find the door. And I would still protect her with my whole pitiful being.
She opens the door. I stand on all fours, my fur turning into shield and breastplate and helmet, and my useless eyes glowing jade green. I stand on guard for her.
And I hear her say the words she always says as she bends to stroke my back and head:
"Grey? Are you waiting for me, Grey? Oh Grey, you ALWAYS wait for me. THANK you for waiting for me, Earl Grey. Thank you for being my Faithful Friend. Do you love me, Grey? I think you LOVE me!! From the FIRST time you saw me, you loved me, and you wanted to BE my friend. And now, you are my FAITHful Friend, Earl Grey, and now, you are MY dog."
Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. I would give my life for her.
Week 2 of Writing in the Dark of the Year. For the first exercise we read Sylvia Plath's Rhyme and then we were asked to think of a story and give it a twist.
When we were in Coonoor, India, and going for walks with Mum on the Lamb's Rock road we would have "Snake Drills." Mum would call out, "Snake!" and we would have to freeze in whatever position we were in at that moment.
I saw my first snake at the ranch in the garden in 2023, a beautiful garter snake. I didn't know whether to freeze so I took a picture and shot it to Ivy and the Good Rancher. They both assured me that this snake wouldn't hurt me!
All this to say that the writing course I'm taking took a decidedly reptilian turn.
This is what I wrote:
Once upon a time in a land far away there was a garden, a garden full of the scent of eucalyptus, the sparkle of cinnamon, the punch of Tellicherry pepper.
Through the garden ran a river where fish would sparkle silvery in the cool, clear water.
And the birds would flit and preen and coo.
It was very good.
But there was a serpent in that garden, of course there was, hiding in the eucalyptus leaves, lying in wait for the innocent maiden who he knew would pass by him in the heat of the day. Surely she would notice him today. He would wait for her.
The maiden did come to the eucalyptus grove. She gathered her basket of leaves, piling them high as she breathed in their heady aroma. She paused for a word with her companion; and as she did, the serpent slithered surreptitiously into the basket of leaves, slid to the bottom with the faintest rustle, so soft the maiden never heard him.
She lifted the basket onto her head. It seemed heavier than usual, somehow. Maybe she was just tired, she thought to herself, as she trudged down the path to the factory.
She took her place in line, setting her basket down with a sigh.
From the depths of the basket appeared a sleek head with two obsidian eyes and a forked ruby tongue.
The maiden, lost in her thoughts, did not notice.
"Look at me now," the serpent hissed as his tongue flicked against her left heel and he made a loop around her ankle.
Almost faster than thought he wrapped himself around her, his head curling around about her neck, squeezing her in his vicious embrace.
The courtyard froze in horrified, helpless silence.
The girl, choking, petrified, fainted and fell to the ground as one dead. The snake exhaled, a victory hiss. She had noticed him. They all had noticed him. He had triumphed!
Slowly, slowly he unfurled himself from the maiden's supine body. He began to crawl away on his belly, back to the camouflage of the eucalyptus trees, back to wait for his next victim.
BOOM! The foreman's gun blew his head to smithereens.
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For the second exercise we look at a picture the facilitator has selected for that night's work. This is what she had selected for week 2:
(Untitled by Katerina Plotnikova)
She showed it to us after I had read my piece ... Because of this weird coincidence, I thought I would include the second piece I read to the group that evening. After looking at the picture and gazing at the fresh face of the young woman with the world-weary eyes, my mind was transported to that first garden in the Book of Genesis.
The first part of the next piece is clearly not my writing, as you can see. My comments start immediately following the old, familiar story:
Genesis 3:1-7 (The Message)
"The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the woman: 'Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?'
"The woman said to the serpent, 'Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'
"The serpent told the woman, 'You won't die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.'
"When the woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it - she'd know everything! - she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
"Then they understood what they had done. And they realized that they were not wearing any clothes. So they took some leaves from fig trees and sewed them together to cover their nakedness."
The man went to work, tilling the soil, setting up empires, toiling until he dropped with exhaustion.
But the woman, with the weight of the serpent's words wrapped around her head, looked down through the generations with knowing, tired eyes.
And the guns roared and the bombs hissed and the buildings dropped and the mothers wailed, Rachel weeping for her children, unable to be comforted.
And so it continued for 100 days and counting.
And the fig trees - unwitting props in the drama between good and evil that began to rage that day in the garden - bowed their heads and withered in Gaza.
"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!
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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.
