hot compost…

It was a secret withheld for years of my life.
I’d read about it in gardening magazines, but I knew no one who had successfully heated anything up in their backyard. My dad dismantled the composter in his yard after the neighbours complained of the smell. I tried one out of chicken wire – the pile of leaves just dried up more and sat stubbornly in a pile… through the winter they waited and sat through another summer; unchanged and uncomposted. I tried one out of a green garbage can, with holes drilled into it. It sometimes worked, but was more muck and smell than anything the magazines described.
During our first fall in Saskatoon I watched with horror as the gigantic poplar tree in our backyard covered our lawn (and all of the neighbors’ yards) with millions of huge lily pad sized leaves. I bagged them. Those 9 bags of leaves sat under the poplar tree for the winter… in the spring they were still there. 9 bags of leaves unchanged and uncomposted.
The second fall I just took the lawn mower to the offerings from that huge poplar. Drove over and mowed all of the leaves, dumped them in a pile in the back corner together with whatever grass clippings decided to come along, and soaked the whole thing. (My boys couldn’t figure out why I was watering the pile of leaves and grass.)
A few days later the first Saskatchewan snow fell, and when I looked into the backyard everything was white except that crazy pile of leaves. I went out to look, put my hand out, and felt heat radiating from that thing.

Dandelion Dilemma

Written 12 years ago... 
this bearer of dandelions bouquets will be 17 this summer.

As your 5 year old comes and silently stands beside you,

       you vigorously dig your long "dandelion root destroyer"
       5 inches into the ground with one hand,
       and pull at the plant with the other hand
       till the whole thing comes out of the ground.
          Satisfied, you move to the next plant.

Quietly your 5 year old asks you what you are doing?
       And you (with no small amount of guilt)
       recall  the little hands gripping precious yellow flowers,
       bringing them into the kitchen with kisses
       and promises that he will always bring you flowers...
       every day when he is five, and then when he gets older
        and even when he is a Grandpa,
       he'll always bring you flowers.

              The promise is sealed with a kiss.   

Sitting on the grass

     with my 5 year old's arms around me,

     and a memory of a bright yellow bouquet

        on my kitchen table,

I wonder who thought to call them weeds.

prairie footprints

straight lines betray our presence

     rows of evergreens lining the farm yards

     fenceposts rising and falling over the hills

     telephone posts disappearing into the horizon

     parallel tracks of steel

     fading gold rows of last year's grain fields

 

but the river

meanders in and out of view

traveling through the valley it carved out for itself

in no hurry

to determine it's path

bushes and trees

tumble over the hills in dark veins

following the gathering rain as it tumbles out of the sky, 

the wind-tousled tangle of grasses

give way to a fox and his tail

the horizon... stretching from sunrise to sunset

     crooked line where land meets sky

          interupted by poplar stands and house tops

               blinking towers and river valleys

prodigal

you have no idea what I would give
if you asked

you ask for half my inheritance
so that you can run away

it runs through your fingers like sand
turns to corn husk and mire

I would give it all to you
if you stayed

like sand on the sea shore
stars in the sky

poplar pomp and circumstance

This creature overshadows the entire yard.
   Not just mine - it sits strategically at the junction in our back yard
   so that it can deposit spring stickies and yellow fall leaves
   onto four different properties.
   A good wind can give an even better distribution.

I love the fall yellow
   the climbing challenge for strong teenage boys
       who want to conquer the world
   the birds who hide in the top canopy
       and spy on the world

The roots keep surprising me. 
Sometimes they masquerade
   as underground sprinkler lines.
They meander into my garden,
   tangling up my fork as it digs for potatoes.
They slip under my orderly patio bricks, and create
   berms where they were not wanted.
They sneak across the lawn
   and into the sand box.

And it doesn't matter where they run;
they are constantly testing me.
"Annnnnd ...GO!"  A root sends up a shoot under the tree house.
If I don't pay attention, it calls its friends
   and three more shoot up right beside the successful attempt. 
If I find it and rip it off, it'll go into hibernation for a while.
But it'll come up somewhere else. 
   In the middle of the lawn.  That takes nerve!
Along the fence?  Sick.  Didn't notice that one.  Need a pruner for that small tree.

And slowly it begins to dawn on me...that I will never win this battle. 

As I drive across the open prairies,
   I see the poplars - they grow as families. 
Rarely do you find a lone poplar. 
If one is established, it automatically sends out roots
   that are ready to go instantly from horizontal meandering to vertical scouts.

One storm blew through Delisle a few years ago,
breaking trees as old and established as my poplar
   as though they were match sticks. 
Those big old trunks couldn't hold their arms up through the storm. 
As amazed as I was, I didn't feel sorry for them at all. 
I knew them. 
That wind may have set them back momentarily,
   but the reserves were deep and ready. 
Went back home and looked at my poplar. 
My big old poplar whose leaves give us piles big enough to jump in,
   whose branches could take out a garage, a garden shed,
      several fences and a piece of our roof,
       ... it continues to preside over the junction.
It is positioned to take over the entire neighborhood. 
If that trunk came down, the roots are ready with an instant replacement forest. 
It wouldn't take long!

There is as much energy and potential underground as there is pomp and circumstance above the ground.

Well, you could hardly call the branches of a poplar "pomp and circumstance", could you?
Perhaps "sound and fury", or "flotsam and jetsam".

No, I'll go with pomp and circumstance.   
 

peripheral vision

Star gazing with Randy has taught me a few things over the years ... one of those things is that when you are looking for a distant and fuzzy galaxy in the night sky, it is best to use one's peripheral vision.  Things are a little clearer in the dark with the peripherals.

This morning I am thinking about the things I have seen in this neighborhood with my peripheral vision. 

Driving up the driveway on a summer day, my neighbor Keith is often tending his beloved but slowly deteriorating Mayday tree.  Its spring blossoms fill the neighborhood with a luscious fragrance, but one by one the branches are dying, and Keith would climb the ladder with his pruning shears and tend to the tree, to prolong it's life and cut out the dead wood. 

His green truck headed often for the Railway museum, where Keith restored an old train station, bringing to life the train cars and engines.  We have had many visits over the fence, or standing on the driveway about trains, and stations, and railways in Saskatchewan.  He knew every track that was laid, which ones were being torn up, the way the towns in Saskatchewan were named alphabetically along the tracks, the history of the railroad.  The year that I used trains as an analogy for speaking at Redberry, reading Pierre Burton's books on the Canadian railroad, Keith took me to the museum for a tour (just at the junction of the #7 and the Pike Lake Road).  It is a wonderful place. 

When we moved into the neighborhood, I was in a hurry to hang pictures on the walls.  Didn't want to wait till the boxes were completely unpacked, and besides, had no idea where the hammer might be. I went next door, and asked Keith if he would happen to have a hammer handy, that we could borrow for a moment.  He informed me that I had come to the right place - he had a hammer in every room.  Over the years we were to discover that he had the right tool for every job.  When ice accumulated on the driveway - he had a heavy de-icer.  When digging out my shrub in the front yard, Fran informed me that they had just the right spade for that job - hanging on the back of the garage.

He lent us his green truck when it was time to load up our flower baskets and climbing morning glory screens for Josie and Mitch's wedding.

Much of what Keith did was behind the scenes ... something that doesn't take place on centre stage.  But if you paid attention with your peripheral vision, you'd see Keith coming and going, or in the yard; slowly, and methodically doing the things that needed doing.

Last night  the comings and goings came to an end.

The neighborhood will miss you.  The Klassens will miss you.
Peace to the family as you grieve this wonderful, and kind man.

one

our grandson turns one this week

snow continues to accumulate

countries are in turmoil

but we mark the arrival of this precious one

the world becomes small when you enter the world of a little one

the layers are few

his needs, his wants, his joys, his sorrows

he is starting to become aware of comings and goings

people that he loves sometimes surprise him by showing up unexpectedly

or disappearing without his permission

he likes some things (soup)

more than others (avacado)

charges down hallways with one adult firmly in his grip

one finger and one heart at a time

chattering and growling and pulling and pushing and

turning and running and sitting and pointing

all intensity and all important and all consuming

then quietly considering his book

for a while

and then onward to discover new worlds

and touching noses and earrings

there are unexpected kisses, and then hugs

and then chattering and growling and pulling and charging down hallways

with this one adult firmly in his grip - by the finger and by the heart