back pasture

Last night I bolted awake from a dream that one of our horses in pasture was colicking and dying in front of me and I couldn't help him or get him to stand up. On top of that, he had a nasty gash on his hindquarter, one that would need stitches and was bleeding heavily. In my dream I was panicking, imagining the sound of the gunshot that would be sure to ring out in that back pasture if I didn't get the horse up and walking; if I couldn't bandage the wound and find someone to help me.

After I woke up, I sat in my bed in the dark and thought about the herd back there, hastily growing winter coats, eating what's left of the grass, huddling together at night while coyote cries sound all around them.

All night I lay awake, worrying that they might not have enough grass to last them, fearing one of them might have broken a leg, imagining the horse I'd dreamt about and trying to picture him just fine, sleeping peacefully with the rest of the herd there to protect him. My mind turned over this way until three o'clock in the morning.

Today, when I drove out to check on them, I saw that the horse was fine. He stood grazing, looking perfectly normal. I hugged him and stroked the side of his face. It was not a premonition or a vision -- it was just a dream. Two other horses were lying down, snoozing in the sun. I'm not new to horses; I know that they like to lie down sometimes on sunny days, but I still made them both get up, and I put my ear to their bellies to listen to their gut sounds, just so I could be sure they were fine. I made Eric help me bring extra hay out to them, just in case the October grass wasn't enough.

I am spooked. I have an anxious feeling inside of my chest when I picture the herd I'm supposed to be caring for, out there all alone. But it's not a new place for them -- they go out there at least a dozen times a year to run free and eat grass and be horses. 

I don't know what I'm so afraid of.

This is just one thing like everything else.

in the country

More than anything, it's pretty here. The leaves are all changing and when I walk up the winding road and crunch them under my feet, I feel a certain type of happiness that can't be replaced by the nearness of a shopping centre or the availability of a bus route.

On Sunday, the two of us rode horses together. Like every day this past week, it was a very sunny day. Our dog followed along behind us, diving into puddles in the low-lying areas of the neighbour's cow pasture and jumping high through the tall grasses down by the lake. As we crested the hill on the road out to the back pasture, we spotted a coyote standing in the middle of the meadow, staring at us, unmoving. If he were our dog, he would have looked at us for a moment and gotten distracted and continued on his way.

But we must never underestimate the patience of a wild animal. One who has learned to be careful, for his own survival. We turned around and went another way, leaving him to whatever he had planned to do in the middle of that sunny afternoon in the wild.

I am not doing much writing in my job, which disappoints me. I have not been working on communications materials or writing grants, because much of my time is eaten up tending to animals and taking groups out on trail rides (through coyote country). I find myself dealing with all manner of animal problems. A llama that doesn't eat enough, kittens who are inbred. A horse with a mysterious patch of hair missing.

Also: I have learned to drive the tractor. I feel too powerful behind that wheel. Like I could smash through anything, destroy everything. I don't, of course. I just use it to pick up bales of hay and drop them for horses to eat in their pens. They are grateful and constantly hungry, or else it seems they are.
Sometimes I wonder: is this my life?

The house is big. In our old house, we would have conversations between rooms, not raising our voices. Now I don't think he could hear me in the living room even if I yelled from the bedroom. And it takes a very long time to vacuum. And there are problems we've never had before. Things to do with well water and weird bugs and the ever-present possibility of mice.

I worried, before we moved, about whether we'd fill up all of the spaces. It seemed impossible, but we have. We've spread ourselves out into all of the corners of this place so easily. It feels cozy, now. Like home. I've agreed to host Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Winter will be something else.

a new adventure

We're moving in September. It feels too soon. We just settled into this little house, and already we're wrenching ourselves out of it.

The new house is too big. Why do we need so many bedrooms? How will we ever fill the enormous living room with our one couch and hand-me-down coffee table? It seems ridiculous.

But when I see the house sitting at the end of the field, I get flutters of excitement. I love the country. I can't wait to walk down to the barn to see Sebastian in the mornings. To retreat to the forest to dream up poems. To let my dog run wild.

I've never lived out of the city. Not really. I've lived seasonally at the ranch, but it was a temporary home. I never had to move my couch there before. Or my desk. Or my bed. These items are what really makes it a permanent home, I think.

So we'll live in the country and I will learn to drive a tractor and a horse trailer. I will drive to get the mail (a foreign concept to me). I will try not to get my car stuck in the driveway and try to keep the dog from running away. I could plant a huge garden or ride my horse right up to my kitchen window, if I wanted to.

This will be an interesting adventure.

a little bit country.

Well, I'm awfully close to being a professional cowgirl, at this point.

The other day, as I galloped a horse across an open field plumb in the middle of the workday, I thought to myself: "my life is weird."

I took a trip three weeks ago with my sister to the west coast. We bobbed around in zodiaks looking for whales and sea lions, drank beers around beach bonfires and hiked through old growth forests. On the way back to Alberta, just as the last time I spent any time away, I felt my heart opening across those prairies. Have you ever felt free and grounded at the same time? It's how I feel about the land sometimes.

Tonight I took my dad to a movie for his Father's Day gift, and as I drove home through Garneau, the usual wave of nostalgia washed over me. I will be leaving this city to live in the country in September. I feel like I miss it already. I don't know how to deal with the constant nostalgia -- I feel wistful for just about everything. Even the bad things.

On the trip, I stopped taking my medication. I haven't taken it since, but the lethargy, the lack of productivity, the clenched feeling in my chest -- they creep back in. I thought for a few days that maybe they wouldn't.

Tomorrow, I have three horses to ride. I think I'll wear my cowboy hat. I am the real deal, here in Alberta, it seems.

what you may find on an Albertan lakeshore

I spent this weekend picking my way along an uninhabited lakeshore with my dog trotting along ahead of me. She was chasing birds and gleefully bounding in and out of the waves while I contemplated what this lake might have been like a hundred years ago.

I've been reading a book of some of Grant MacEwan's writings. He is the namesake of my alma mater, but he was also a gifted writer and important conservationist, among many other things. His work has been satisfying my craving for stories of Western Canada as it was before the land was ripped up in search of oil, before cities sprawled on out of sight. 

On one of our walks down the shoreline, we met a beaver near his lodge. He swam away from us most urgently, while we admired the craftsmanship of his home. In the time MacEwan writes about, this beaver's pelt was highly prized, so much so that our country's animal emblem was nearly totally extirpated. But these clever creatures would not be wiped from existence. To his credit, the beaver is resilient and resourceful. A tireless worker and a keystone contributor to his ecosystem -- his community.

I will try to be more like him in the future.

pioneering

So often, I wish I were carving out life in the wildest west. That it could be a hundred-and-ten years ago, and I would rely on the strength and speed of horses to take me where I need to go. I think I could be pulling rocks out of a field in the unexplored Alberta prairie.

I wish I didn't know what it was like to have excess. Imagine not knowing what it's like to sit comatose in front of some electronic device or another. If lying around were not an option.

But it's too late for me; I already know what it's like to have this home and its refrigerator and a television and a computer and a cell phone. I doubt anyone can really leave these items and live pretending they don't exist, once they've lived with them and loved them for their usefulness.

I could have been a pioneer, if only I'd been born in a different time. I'm frustrated that my current self is not strong enough or determined enough for that life. Not at all, now that I'm already a quarter of a century into a certain way of life.

The task at hand is to find somewhere those two kinds of lives can meet.

twenty-five

Green grass and buds on my apple tree at last. I thought they'd never come. I've been plotting my escape to somewhere with real trees for weeks.

It's been a busy week. I turned another year older, and had more celebrations than I'd planned. I feel like I've done a million things this weekend. I bought an asparagus plant for my sister, searched three greenhouses until I found Autumn Gold pumpkin seeds (as I hate to deviate from whatever Lois suggests -- she knows best, doesn't she?), I cleaned the house, went to the farmers' market and bought a ham and some bread, had tea, wandered around the city with my sister, came back to a surprise party in my back yard, ate veggie burgers and drank beer and sat around a campfire with family and friends. And that was just on Saturday.

Just now I've filed an article I've been putting off (its deadline is today and I only just finished it). I'm sitting in a cafe downtown drinking chai while my husband is just a block away, digging up the road and wrecking havoc on traffic.

I am finally, finally going out to the lake this weekend and I can hardly wait. It has been too many months since I've stood on the beach by myself, staring out at the lake and willing that fluttery, anxious feeling in my chest to go away.

I've got five or more articles due this week before my dog and I can get away to the relative wilderness of the cabin lot. They might as well put me on payroll. All in all, it's not a bad gig.