Planting a Tree

In an earlier post, I alluded to the metaphorical seeds that Dad planted in me throughout my youth. However, truth be told, Dad planted many literal seeds in his time as well. The farm has a substantial orchard with apples, plums, pears, cherry-plums, and pretty much any other plant that Dad thought might grow in our province. I remember being a child, and Dad proudly showing me where he had grafted a certain apple variety not known for its hardiness onto the trunk of a more hardy variety. And he didn’t just do this once. The orchard is covered with the fruits of his labours, pardon the pun.

Dad liked apples the most. My mom recalls how he would sit down with the paper and eat six or more Goodland apples. The orchard produced hundreds of pounds of apples, and in response Dad carefully crafted an apple press that we used to make our own apple juice. The first food I ever cooked with any proficiency (and B might argue the only food I ever cooked with any proficiency) was apple crisp, in response to the readily available stock of Goodlands or Norlands or Minnesotas or Carols.

So, today we planted an apple tree in Dad’s memory. A dwarf Goodland. Here is my Aunt Theresa (who works at a nursery and provided the tree) placing the pot.

Here is Norah watching the tree go in.

And here is Norah when we told her she was too small to use the shovel.

After placing and fertilizing the tree, we filled in the rest of the bed with dirt.

And here’s what it looks like now (after Aunt Theresa put in some annuals and perennials – she is so generous!)

A Rip-off…

I feel ripped off. Cheated. Like 25 years of time with Dad was stolen from me. 25 years of phone calls for advice. 25 years of weekend and summer visits to the farm, Dad teaching Norah all about sheep and apple trees and cat-tail fights. 25 years of thoughtful discussion about important issues – there was no trivial small talk. 25 years of learning from him. 25 years of hugs.

While the anger and sadness of losing Dad still envelops me, I’ve been doing some reflection on how lucky I really was to have Dad when I did and in the way that I did. The circumstances of my youth enabled me to spend time with both my dad and my grandpa. Of all the 14 grandkids my grandparents have, I got to spend the most time with Grandpa because he farmed with Dad up until he passed away in 1995. He was always there. And I was always trailing behind him while he worked. When Grandpa was in his final days the family was all gathered together, and  I recall my Uncle Ken telling me how lucky I was to get so much of Grandpa’s time and attention growing up. He was right. And by the same token I was lucky to get so much of my Dad’s time and attention as well.

When Grandpa passed away, I was sixteen and going to high school in the city, living with Mom. I was devastated – so many of the qualities I admired in my dad came from his dad. Dad was so distraught – and I am now beginning to really understand what he was going through. Dad asked me if I wanted to take over the 1/2 section Grandpa had been farming since 1946. Thus began 5 years of working weekends and summers on the farm with Dad. Now, true, for most of it Dad was working off the farm, in the city, for the government. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t there with me, helping me, teaching me, answering my numerous phone calls, running for parts, helping out every evening when I needed it. I was playing a lot of baseball at the time and would often have games in the city, stay overnight, then drive out in the morning. Our 7:30 am meetings on Highway 6 just south of the city became almost ritual for a few summers. It was so comforting to see his 1988 S-10 approach me, and slow, knowing that Dad would be late for work, and I’d be delayed getting to the field, because a good conversation was about to take place. One that always ended in a hug.

My childhood let me learn from Dad as a parent — I saw the way that the games he would play with us, the teasing and tickling showed how much he loved us. I got to see Dad’s warmness towards family and friends. His desire to make people feel comfortable, and loved. When I farmed with Dad, I got to experience his passion for farming, the outdoors, and the environment. He taught be about sustainability practices, and planted many seeds about conservation which have taken root and sprouted into guiding beliefs for how I choose to live my life. I know about the inner workings of farmer-owned cooperatives, government marketing boards, and farm politics because of this time spent with him. Farming also gave me insight into the inner workings of Dad’s mechanical mind. There wasn’t a mechanical problem he wouldn’t tackle – there was nothing he couldn’t fix and make like new again if he set his mind to it. Dad showed me that there is no problem that can’t be solved if you try hard enough. And he was always trying.

Dad’s had compassion for every living thing. (Even a member of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers – the poor misguided soul. If only they could see the light.) This compassion permeated all facets of his life. On the farm, it manifested itself in the way he took care of the animals – doctoring sick sheep, calves, cats, and any other wildlife that made its way towards the farm. When I was young, Dad came across an owl with a broken wing that we took to a nearbly animal park to save it from being an easy prey for the coyotes. In his political work, Dad’s compassion wasn’t limited to the plight of the prairie farmer, so often subject to the whims of big business. When visiting us in Cambodia, he avoided the resorts as much as he could, and spent the better part of a day visiting a small village and trying to understand (and solve) the countries systemic problems relating to agriculture. In the end, he wrote a column, chastising the monoculture that agri-business has forced onto developing countries, creating an economy that relies entirely on exports and imports – an economy that can’t self-sustain. Dad viewed the world through a compassionate lens.

Because I was lucky enough to be a part of many different aspects of Dad’s life, I took so much from him. I learned so much. I got so much. And I should be so thankful – and I am working on it. But I can’t help but feel like I’ve been robbed…

Dad the storyteller…

This story comes courtesy of my sister, with some editing from me.  Thanks, N.

Our Dad couldn’t be boring if he tried.  He was an animated, energetic story-teller. Admittedly, as an adult, sometimes I didn’t listen with all my attention when he talked about soil salinity or electrical wiring or freight rates.  But when he tried to bore us when we were growing up, he failed. 
 
Chris and I slept in bunkbeds for a good part of our childhood, and always clamoured for bedtime stories from Dad.  Our appetite was inexhaustible, so Dad decided to tell the most boring stories ever to put us to sleep, and, ideally, curb our enthusiasm for narratives.  He invented two dull sibling protagonists, Harold and Shirley, and told us uneventful tales of their colourless lives.  Unfortunately for him, he got bored of telling them to us before we tired of hearing them. Unable to continue the mundane storylines, he invented an obnoxious little brother with a squeaky voice, Bill, and a snooty British cousin who had a suit for every occasion named Alfred.  We protested when Bill’s pranks went undetected or were blamed on Harold or Shirley, and we laughed when Alfred ended up soaking wet in the dugout or fell off a cow.  I don’t remember the details of the stories, but I remember how much we enjoyed them.  I remember lying in bed feeling secure and loved as I listened. Harold, Shirley, Bill and Alfred were staples of our childhood.

Dad

My dad could fix anything. When my step-brother’s timing belt in his Nissan 200SX broke, Dad removed and rebuilt the entire engine. I remember him showing me the ice cream pail of leftover parts as the car sat idling. “Guess I should have bought the book,” he quipped with a smile. He pulled apart and rebuilt parts of the engine on our Allis-Chalmers 7000 a total of 3 times in the 28 years we owned it. I figured this out by going through the meticulous documentation he kept on each piece of farm equipment. The documentation wasn’t just a list of what was done to each implement and when — no, it was a narrative that described the throught process Dad went through while troubleshooting the problem, a reflective piece on the repair with notes such as “Next time check the pressure out of the sending unit FIRST!” He referred to these notes regularly — his head was full of so much other information it couldn’t possibly store this as well.

I think that the Nissan rebuild was atypical of my Dad — he usually used the repair manual. And often corrected the manual. Very rarely did he resort to taking something in to a shop to be repaired. The last time he rebuilt the Allis engine his notes include a slightly annoyed reminder that the cost of sending the head in to a shop in Regina — an unavoidable expense — was over 1/2 the cost of the entire rebuild. If particularly stumped, he would call and sweet-talk the service manager the old Plains Equipment, and more recently at Markusson New Holland or Nick’s Service. But he would always figure out what the problem was. And fix it. As an English teacher, I marvel at his literacy skills. I marvel at his problem solving skills. I marvel at his critical thinking skills.

May of 1999 was a wet one. It rained every day. After sneaking the crop into suspectly wet soil, I sat back and watched it rain, hoping it wouldn’t rain so much that the crop washed away. Dad was working in the city for the Department of Highways, and was around back on the farm only in the evenings. The 1977 Chev Half-ton I had bought the year before at an auction was leaking oil heavily out of the front engine seal, and burning oil as well, so we decided to rebuild it. Or more to the point, Dad gave me the Haynes manual, a word of encouragement, and off I went. When Dad would come home at night he would see where I was, and offer some advice, or help me with part of the job that needed two men. He calmed me down when I was frustrated, and reassured me when I was uncertain, always able to relate a story from his youth, when he encountered a similar mechanical problem. When in the city he’d spend his lunch hour running for o-rings or gasket kits or water pumps or timing chains. By the end of the rainy month we were easing the newly rebuilt 350 back under the hood, and Dad was taking off on a camping trip in the truck. The rain subsided, but the lesson about hard work, independence, and determination did not. It has served me well through to today.

But Dad didn’t just repair equipment. He built it. In the mid 1980s, there was a grasshopper epidemic on the prairies. Dad wasn’t one to use much chemical, but he couldn’t stand to see his crops being eaten. Dad’s solution – design and build a chemical-free grasshopper catcher. The picture below is the only one of the machine. It could be driven over top of an existing crop inflicting minimal damage to the wheat. The power-take-off turned two fans that sucked the grasshoppers up into a mesh screen. The forward movement of the machine caused them to slide down the screen and into a waiting trough. Did it work? Well, it couldn’t have worked that well, because its derelict body spent many years just outside our chicken house. That or it did work, but the grasshoppers subsided. I really don’t remember, but that is immaterial to the story. Slowly Dad removed the useful parts from the catcher and used them in other projects. All that remains is the picture. The grasshopper catches is an example of the innovative thinking that served Dad throughout his life – the thinking that lead him to help farmers start their own railway when CN tried to pull up the tracks, the thinking that, when the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool closed all small elevators on branch lines, advocated for farmers to load their own railcars, bypassing the grain companies, getting better grades and being charged lower dockage, and saving farmers thousands of dollars a year along the way.

Dad's grasshopper catcher in action in the mid-80s.

Dad never bought new equipment. He was always finding a good deal at an auction that needed a bit of repair. A few years ago, when he came home with a 16 foot John Deere rotary mower, he knew he would have to rebuild all of the gear boxes and the decks on both wings. He basically threw away what was there, and replaced it with a heavier gauge steel. Bigger channel iron. A stronger hydraulic cylinder.

When Dad rebuilt an implement he looked for design and production flaws – steel the was too light, a gear box that was too small, poor welding – and fixed them. When embarking on fencing 6 quarters of pasture land, Dad looked around for a good post-pounder. After looking at the top-of-the line pounders, Dad was unimpressed. “$9000, and they aren’t very solidly built,” he bemoaned to me one day. “I could do a better job myself.”

And he did. He studied these pounders intently. He looked at older ones, noting spots where welds failed or metal bent. He looked at newer ones, noting improvements the manufacturers made. He made some sketches. And he built his own. I remember how proud he was of the pounder (Dad was never openly proud of an accomplishment – that wasn’t his style – but the way he explained that he’d spent $4000 on materials and built a pounder that was of better quality then the best one available told me he knew he had done good work and was proud of it.) In actuality, the materials for the post-pounder only cost him $2000, because in true Dad-fashion, he shared ownership of it with a neighbour.

What was especially remarkable about Dad’s mechanical prowess was that he was never trained in anything remotely related. He had a BA (Hons) in Psychology. He was a self-taught welder. A self-taught draftsman. A self-taught heavy equipment mechanic. A self-taught everything, really. And I was lucky enough to be taught many of those things by him. And while it is a tragedy he wasn’t around longer to teach me more things, he taught me the skills to learn. To inquire. To problem solve. To be innovative. And that’s a gift that will live forever in me, and in Norah, and in any more children we end up having, and hopefully in their children, too. They were robbed of the gift of his laughter and love, but I can make sure they aren’t robbed of his other gifts as well.

Last night I was changing the oil in our Vibe – one of the farm tasks that I learned at an early age. After draining the oil, I went to take the filter off and found that whoever changed the oil right before we bought the car posessed Herculean filter tightening strength. Seriously, there was nothing I could do to budge the filter. Not wanting to change the oil and leave the old filter (why bother changing the oil at all if you leave the dirty, clogged filter, Dad would have said) I pulled out one of the many tricks Dad taught me. Using all my force, I jabbed a scratch awl (think a screwdriver with a pointy end) through one side of the filter and into the other. The oil poured through the new holes into the waiting drain-pan. Once it subsided, I pushed on the head of the scratch awl with all my might. The filter budged. Slightly. I pushed again, careful not to damage the air-conditioning lines that ran precariously close. After ten minutes of pushing and twisting and turning the filter was off. I had a bit of an oil mess to clean up, but I was able to put a new filter on. Dad would have smiled as I told him the story, happy to know that even though I’m not on the farm any more, I’m still using the skills that he taught me while I was there.

Advice from my Dad…

I remember driving south down Albert Street with Dad. It would have been some time in late 2001 or early 2002. We were in his forever-dirty black Mazda pickup. I don’t recall where we were going or why – but, as with any trip I took with Dad in my post-teenage years, the destination was immaterial. The conversation was the most important part.

He caught me off guard asking when I was going to “stop playing house” and marry my now-wife B. I told him that we had talked about it and decided that we would wait until she convocated from university– putting the wedding date some time in 2005. He casually asked why I would wait so long, and I had no answer for him. He didn’t belabour the point, letting my lack of an answer speak for itself. He didn’t ever bring it up again – he just left it at that. And that summer we were engaged and then married 6 years ago today, on July 12, 2003.

And as I dwell in the place of sadness and anger and general malaise that has accompanied his passing, I see every day what my dad saw in B. What made him comment on my relationship – something he rarely did except to offer a sympathetic shoulder through my teen years. What made him check to be sure I saw what he did. And I did. And do.

While our most recent tragedy has brought to the forefront all of the characteristics that I love and admire in B, they have been there all along. Her compassion, intellect, and wit combine to make a rare breed of super-human super-wife. She has offered me all of the support she can – put her needs to the bottom of the list – taken Norah for countless hours when I wasn’t able to focus or when I was tied up with matters on the farm – been welcoming and accommodating to my family and forsaken her own, briefly, to be able to – and been there to help me remember Dad, laugh, and cry.

Over the years we have often laughed together. We have traveled together. We have worked together.  We have become parents together. Most of all, we have grown together. And now we grieve together. And B is helping me to deal. Read the letter she wrote to Norah about Grandpa Paul. Now you get a small sense of what a wonderful partner I have.

“Tricks”

My dad loved little kids. He was a relentless tickler. He would have any child under the age of five squealing in delight and any child over the age of five involved in some imaginary adventure within minutes of their meeting. While he didn’t discriminate and treated every child as if they were his pride and joy, his children, and more recently his grandchildren, were showered with his attention most regularly.

One of the most exciting things that Dad would do with us was affectionately and simply referred to as “Tricks.” After supper, we would all head to Grandpa’s bedroom on the main floor. Tricks involved Dad lying on his back on the bed, and launching us up into the air, holding us in place with his feet and hands. Going through some old pictures, we came across this one of the three of us “doing tricks.”

The trick pictured above is called Rectangle. The goal was to keep your body as straight as possible and form a shape like a rectangle as Dad lifted you up into the air. Dad would challenge us as we were suspended in the air – Hold your legs straighter! Five more seconds! A celebratory hug would follow the trick, after we plummeted down on top of Dad (sometimes mangling his glasses, which would result in a serious tickle assault.)

Rectangle could be modified into triangle if you raised your bum into the air to form a peak. Kind of a prairie-farm-kid version of downward facing dog. These two were the most geometric of the tricks – the others were named so as to be self-explanatory. There were the beginner tricks – Lay on Feet. Sit on Knees. Pretty easy stuff. From there, it got a bit more dicey. Stand on Knees. Sit on Feet. Stand on hands. Then there’s the trick reserved for the experts. The four-year-olds at least. Stand on feet. With this one, I could reach up and touch the ceiling. What a rush!

Dad had a way of making tricks the most exciting, dangerous thing a child could do—like no one else would dare try this at home. Like if people found out how risky tricks were, the SWAT team would descend on the house and put an end to them immediately. Whenever we were up in the air, he would shake slightly, or fein a slip, to add to the excitement. He would announce that a trick was far too dangerous to even think about attempting, far too risky for a mere child to be involved in, only to try it minutes later. It made me feel brave. Like a renegade seven year old. And it taught me that I could do things that were not expected of a person my age.

Yesterday my sister and her two children were over for supper and her three-year-old Vinnie and I did some tricks. Here is lay on feet:

And sit on feet:

Vinnie may have missed out on many, many years with my Dad, but that doesn’t mean he has to miss out on tricks.