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Mr. Moon comes rolling in.

9/17/2016

Comments

 
When we lived on Gabriola Island, I went wandering down the road one fine Harvest-Moon night, enjoying the moonlit landscape under that deep purple sky, the banks of trees and a farmer's field that was not too far from our half acre.

At some point, a pretty girl who was also out wandering by herself saw the light glancing off my eyes as I looked up at the huge moon and said, "Nice, isn't it?" Girls on Gabriola, especially the hippy girls, of which Gabriola has a large population, tend not to be too afraid of old guys they bump into out on a dark country road at night.

​
I said, "Yeah, it's a harvest moon tonight."

She looked at me quizzically, like we had known each other for years, and said, "What exactly is a harvest moon?"

"Well," I said, as if I were an older relative of hers, "it's nothing special really, just the full moon that happens to be the closest to the autumn equinox, which is September 22nd, I think."

"Oh!" She looked up at it again. Then she cocked her head with that same quizzical look and said, "Why do you know all this about it?"

We were both warming to our little conversation out there in that eerily-bright light and cool evening scent of fall. So I told her the whole story. "My father grew up on a homestead out on the prairie in Alberta. All they had was grain crops and a little hay. At harvest time, somebody who owned a big threshing machine would move it onto each farm, one after the other, as soon as the grain was ready to harvest. All the guys from all the farms would come in with their wagons and teams of horses and work as late into the night as they possibly could, throwing all the sheaves of grain onto their wagons and then line them up at the threshing machine and toss them in, to separate the seeds from the straw, and then they would head back out to bring more in, and keep at it into the night until they either fell asleep standing up or that farm was all done. Then they would move the threshing machine to the next farm, and so on, and try to get all the farms done before it rained. They would do it all day and then into the night during the harvest moon and during as many nights as they could see well enough on each side of the harvest moon to get it all done as quickly as possible."

She listened intently, then said, "Wow. So now I know." And she gave me a big smile and walked off down the road into the night.
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My father, going out

9/16/2015

Comments

 
I wish I had a photo of it but I don't. I can see it clearly though.

My father very seldom went out except to do chores. Otherwise, it was only for funerals, maybe weddings, but I don't remember any, or things like going to the bank to sign something, and later, to very occasional CNIB events for the blind.

Dad was the ultimate in practical people. He lived in the real physical world around him. For instance, not being able to see the kitchen floor, he would wash it every time he finished doing the dishes. And he would wash the dishes immediately after supper, no matter how interesting the dinner table conversation.

And if he had to go out for some evening function, he would prepare for it the whole day, shaving and taking his shower early after lunch, feeling through his seldom-used good clothes hours before leaving, and starting to dress at least a couple hours early.

Then, if it was cold out, Dad, who was skinny and never produced enough body heat in the winter, would stand fully clothed in front of the door, blind, facing sideways, waiting, listening silently, without expression, to the usual commotion of us kids who always threw our clothes on at the very last minute in a panic. He would wait there seemingly at peace for more than half an hour, dressed in everything: his long-johns, shirt, tie, sweater, at least two pieces of a three-piece suit (which he was never ever seen in otherwise), a heavy overcoat, pull-over rubbers, gloves, and his 1928 tweed wool cap with earflaps which cost him, new, $1.39, and which I, now older than he was standing there at the door, still am proud to keep in my own cap drawer, and which I occasionally try to pull down over my larger head, or just hold up to my nose; the powerful smell of crankshaft oil and engine grease is still there, life-size.

It's finally time for me to learn from Dad. I still put off to the last minute getting ready to go out, and always put myself into a panic. I wait because I'm already anxious. I always am. Just about always have been. But I don't remember ever seeing that fear in Dad out on the farm. Maybe his practical existence in the world around him kept his fears at bay. While mine were so strong I was driven into my mind. Not a good place to be to confront reality. It will always have the upper hand. Lately I find myself close to panic over otherwise trivial situations.

So I've come up with something that might help. Just as Dad began getting ready early in the day, I am going to ask myself in advance of doing anything (if I can remember to) how to do it without increasing my anxiety. That way, I'll apply my mind to the practical problems of the day, in proper sequence, the one world helping me through the other, instead of acting as a refuge from it.

If I had not been so busy thinking when I was young, I would have already learned this from my father. The way nature expected me to. But it's never too late. Today is still the present.



7 Likes1 Comment

Robert Gregory Seaton, Larry Burfield, Yvonne Maggs and 4 others like this.
    Comments

Martin Hayter Great story. I always get there for work a half or an hour early. No stress that way.
Like · Reply · 7 hrs

    Stan Burfield Right. I'm finally getting the idea.

    Comments

    Dad milking cows, 1966

    8/25/2015

    Comments

     
    Picture
    I took this photo of my blind father milking cows when I was 16. My job was to go out in the bush or pasture and bring them in. I could locate them in the bush by the bell one wore. We had all of three milk cows at the time. The chickens would sit up on the stanchions, and sleep there at night. In the photo, Dad is milking the little Jersey, whose milk was about half cream. The Holstein behind it produced a lot more milk, but less cream, and the Hereford less of each, but more meat to eat. The pail hanging from the hook has a lot of dents in it. Those were from the cow kicking forward when Dad was milking and happened to hurt the teat a bit. The rope tied to the leg in the bottom of the photo prevents that. The bucket is probably full of milk and it is hanging because Dad was blind and if he were to just set it on the ground he would kick it himself.

    After the milking, I would separate the cream from the milk in a centrifugal separator in the basement. I always enjoyed that heavy whirl of it. It was an amazing piece of technology that demonstrated to me, a simple farm kid, the power of reason to solve problems, and so planted the seed in my mind of a future totally changed by science and technology. Soon science fiction supplanted the separator, and then science supplanted science fiction.

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