Spring Has Sprung

It was the longest winter I could recall. The first gigantic snow dump occurred on October 2, 2017, the week before Thanksgiving. 

And it stayed, and stayed. 

In May, baby calves were being born into snow drifts; straw for bedding cattle was running out; Dr. Jeff the vet was on speed dial.

The Good Rancher was working virtually around the clock.

"Give it time - spring will show up. It always does; you'll see!" my far more seasoned friends assured me.

The next thing I could remember, the sun was pounding down with record-setting temperatures. Calves were lethargic. Horses were irritable. Flies were everywhere.

And then, on about this last Tuesday, it was winter again.

Snow, stabbing winds, slick roads, temperatures below zero. 

My head, which is usually more angled to the ground than the skies anyway, was now wedged between my shoulder blades. I told myself late, late last night that I simply HAD to get to sleep, that I had to get to church early on the morrow.

This morning I dragged myself from bed, said good morning to the dogs, got myself into reasonable order and climbed into Henry, my first Ford.

As I drove down the squelchy driveway, it dawned on me: they were right! My friends were right! Spring had arrived!

Driving home that afternoon, the temperature was at 3 degrees C. Vivid green was determinedly pushing a carpet through the snow. There was no wind to speak of. The sun was shining!

A mum and her baby calf sat enjoying that sun.

It did strike me as a bit peculiar that there were fresh bales in the fields in spring, but then, this whole year has been a little odd.

When I got home I went outside to see what I could see, to breathe the air, to be.

This would be the first time in well over a year that I had been outside of my own volition, with no agenda: nothing to do, no errand to run, no rush.

It was so quiet. So calm.

Nothing to prove. Nothing to lose.

So right.

The dogs came with me, each with their own thoughts. Musket, the eldest, was just thankful that he could feel the fresh grass on his back, that he could revel in the sun.

Phoebe Snow remembered the joy of discovering buried treasure, and she showed her little sister, Carly Simon - whose first spring this is! - what it is like to dig in the soft, rich soil.

Gunpowder, the one who stays closest to home and who had been informed not too long ago in no uncertain terms that he would never, never be a father, surveyed the scene morosely. Why couldn't he go inside? Perhaps a crumpet or two, with a spot off Earl Grey, would serve to lighten his heirless burden ... 

Earl Grey, however, was having none of it. He was on his own vision quest, faithful sister Phoebe his spotter. Gophers were the prize!

If a gopher sees his shadow, does that mean there will be six more weeks of winter?

Neighbour Jim's plane cleaved the sky and I looked up. 

I looked up ...

If the gopher does not see his shadow and is emboldened to move away from his safety cell, does that mean we will get a much-needed Indigenous people summer? Farmers still have crops in the field, slowly but surely losing value the longer the weather remains uncooperative.

And yet, we need the moisture desperately to get a boost for the growing cycle of next year.

What if the gopher changes his mind? Can he go back into hibernation, snug, sleepy, never knowing that he would be missing this fluky, fabulous fall-into-spring spectacular? 

Having looked up, can I?

Little Fire On The Prairie

We were just pulling into Stettler when we got the call: an area of the field where they were swathing had caught on fire. Cattle were nearby.

The words caught in his throat: he was choking on smoke as he beat at flames.

We called 9-1-1 and turned the truck around.

The ride back was swift and pretty silent. Would the fire trucks get there in time? Would the cattle be safe?

Most importantly, would he and the man swathing be safe? The excruciating encounter of the morning - a dad and his son working through the start of a new normal - took on heightened poignancy.

We also called our Pastor Paul from Hanna Alliance Church. He put the news on our little church's "prayer chain" and in moments we got a text from Dianne: "Marv and Cody are on their way."

It seemed like in slow motion, but in reality it was in record time that we turned onto our little stretch of the 855. We passed our driveway and the road with the tower.

And that's when we started to see the smoke. "Please let the fire trucks be there," we prayed through gritted teeth and clenched jaw. We had no idea what we would see when we went over the last hill before the field.

We never expected this:

The choking flames were out, drowned by great gusts of water from the Jones Farm's mammoth water truck. We learned later - over a couple of pops, as the great Don Cherry would say - that Mark had seen smoke, all the way where they are, and immediately got on the radio. He hopped into the water truck. Adam, Warren and two hired men hightailed it over to where the smoke seemed to be at its worst.

They beat the fire trucks, all three of them ...

And the people working said that if it wasn't for the Joneses, the area would have been a conflagration in a matter of a few more minutes.

There were Buchwitzes and Vistys and Munnses (Bud ripped up to their house, laying on the horn. Rhonda grabbed her boots and jumped in, no questions asked); Johnsons; Craig Nill; Don Hall; Somervilles and Quaschnicks; Clayton Anderson; a number of others who, when the worst of the crisis had past, quietly went back to their trucks and their busy schedules.

The thing is - this is haying season. Everyone is running full tilt. No one has time to drop everything for a neighbour in distress.

And yet that is exactly what happens out here.

Going to the dugout to refill

The Good Rancher and the Sidekick showed up shortly after the flames had ceased and desisted. He immediately went into action. I, with my metallic blue chappals (flip flops!) merely stepped on the edge of the charred ground and felt them start to melt. Rhonda's beautiful face appeared before me.

"Is this your first fire?" she said, looking keenly into my eyes. I nodded dumbly. "Go get a jug of water and some glasses. Everyone is parched. They need water."

This woman has rescued me from myself more times than I care to remember. I slid home, pulled on boots and a cap, grabbed water, trail mix and chocolate bars, and headed back.

When I arrived with the water a man was standing near where I pulled up. I couldn't lift the orange water cooler and so started filling glasses from where it sat on the back seat.

"Why don't you drive up the hill and take the whole cooler up there? It'll be a lot faster than walking glasses around to everyone," he said after he chugged the glass I handed him.

"I'm too scared to drive up that hill - it's so steep!" I wailed. "He should have married someone else; I am just useless in every situation that has come up since we've been married!" I started to hyperventilate, on the brink of a full-fledged panic attack. I walked in a circle with three filled glasses in hand, unable to think of what to do next.

What a perfect shirt to wear for a day like this!

The exhausted stranger blinked a couple of times, then quietly said, "You can do it. We'll just move this shovel out of the way ..."

I had missed running over a shovel by millimetres.

The other weapons in this war

He took the glasses from me, promising to deliver them to three men in the opposite direction. I climbed back into the Yukon and painfully inched my way up the hill to the fence. A couple of parched, weary people seized the cooler and took it to the back of the big truck for a much needed break.

(No wonder the man - a recent hire at the Joneses, it turns out - said to Mark, "I'm getting too old for this!")

After what seemed like minutes but was in fact a few hours, everything but a very few smouldering cow patties were doused or tamped down.

The fire trucks had left.

The new fence that Jesse Hebert had put up only days before stood the tests both of fire and of people climbing up and over it like a ladder ...

Mark's thumbs-up, all-is-well salute!

Blisters on my friend's hands

It was time and more for each person still there to get back to their previously scheduled commitments.

We tried to thank them as best we could for their help; Adam responded succinctly. "You would do the same for us. Thank you."

I moved in slow motion from one smoking cow patty to another, grinding my heel into each to kill the spark and ensure it didn't reach the nearby grass.

I felt hopeless and exhausted. This day had been terrible. Like two years ago, it seemed almost impossible to lift my head.

And, also like two years ago, God met me where I was. It was just like He said, "Here's a sign of hope even in the charred bleakness of this place. I will place it low enough for you to see with your head hanging down, and straight enough for you to know that there is beauty in ashes. I am with you even in the losses of this day."

How did a fragile, ephemeral little flower elude the flames?

I was reminded of a plaque I had acquired from Rhonda's quaint Gift Shop some time ago:

"Some see weeds ... Others see wishes ..."

I closed my eyes and made a wish. It turned out to be more of a prayer. "Dear God, please send rain ..."

Two nights later I got a panicked call from Rhonda: There was a fire in the corral behind Cattlemunns Ranching Gift Shop.

I hopped in the Good Rancher's truck containing a tank with 500 gallons of water, and took off. By the time I found them, Bud had ploughed over the flames - caused by a lightning strike - and a few fat rain drops sizzled as they hit the overheated earth. Alas, they dried up as we stood there.

The sky was bleeding red this night. Birds were agitated and Bud's fence where he had to charge through with his tractor was now in need of repair.

 



As I slowly climbed back into the farm truck, thankful that the damage this night was so minimal, grateful for the neighbour who looked out of the window at just the right time and saw the lightning and picked up the phone, amazed at the practicality and sense of humour R and B can maintain in times of stress and danger.

And I thought of my plaque with even more urgency.

"God, please bless all those who were so kind to us just about 48 hours ago. And dear God, please send rain. We are getting pretty desperate. Thank You."