Time flies, leaving me doubting the fact that spring is getting closer only one day at a time.
In an earlier year, when my bones were younger, I used to enjoy outdoor skating on the homemade farm pond rink. I enjoyed cross-country skiing on an eight-foot pair of hand-hewn homemade skis. I enjoyed snowshoeing on, usually taken without permission, my two older brothers’, given for Christmas, one to each, shared second-hand snowshoes. And I enjoyed just walking for miles on the crispy, crunchy, crusted snow when the snowshoes weren’t available.
Being lightweight, lanky-legged and keenly alert as to what was going on, back then, was a real asset – especially when I wanted to go somewhere, as few cars were available and quite often there were snow-blocked roads. It was also a great advantage when I was going to be punished for something I did or, on occasion, didn’t do. I seldom came in second on the cross-country races held by the school.
Having been birthed during the clutches of the Great Depression was a privilege that has done me no wrong. It causes little concern to me when hard times are once again recycled. We have simply demanded too much in this country, with a throwaway society living high on the hog, thriving on the inflationary factor, which is nothing more than passing a huge burden of debt onto the shoulders of upcoming generations. Certainly not something we can be proud of. What this country needs is a maverick political pioneer to introduce a safe culture of resistance to the growing real-life political repression that has quietly crept into existence.
Rapid inflation lives on because of money hungry bankers, coupled with the failure of elected government – “powers that be” – to control non-transparent backdoor profit-gouging practices.
Yet both lack hesitation in beating their chest, crowing accomplishments, in a feeble attempt to justify their painfully extracted sky-high salaries and eagerly awaited pensions, from the far too deepened depths of the ordinary level taxpayer’s pocket. I have a before-dawn-rising golden sebrite bantam rooster, strutting in like fashion, out in the hen pen, and his long hour rewards are little more than a handful of chicken feed.
Meanwhile, back on the farm front, things have settled into a general routine. I enjoy feeding animals, especially our acquired young lambs, as they jump and play, showing their appreciation for having a full tummy. While Candy, our little, fast-growing premature calf, I now have to bottle-feed from outside the enclosure that retains her.
The fact is, we are weaning Candy off of her milk replacement diet, and she strongly complains by bunting my butt. But there is a degree of risk being bunted, intentionally or not, in such place or manner as to jump my voice a crescendo of octaves while lifting my feet clear off of the floor. Not deserved punishment for a man of age who, on occasion, staggers when he walks or wavers a little when he gets up too fast in the morning.
My cluck-clucks, one short of a baker’s dozen, individually housed in conjunction with what I have dubbed my “canary castle,” are laying more eggs than our family can eat, but with neighbours’ needs close at hand, this certainly won’t be a problem.
With the lengthening light period, my canaries are showing signs of wanting to nest, so I know I am going to be busier than busy ‘cause they get tended, during the stresses of rearing their young, three times on a daily basis.
But it is, as my father explained, “a damn poor hobby that doesn’t pay for itself,” and this one does.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105