Blah blah blah

Just the other day, all of a sudden, Norah’s verbalizing became more sophisticated. Instead of simple constructions, like a single consanant with a single vowel (goo, eee, ooh, etc) she now rambles on and on. “Blah, blah, blah,” she’ll say, and pause, then continue on, “Blah blah dah dah blah blah.”

The other day we were at a neighbours and a friend was holding Norah, doing his best to make her laugh with silly faces. Norah was unimpressed, turned to face B, said “Blah blah blah blah blah blah” and turned back to look at the silly faces. She did this a few times, each time addressing Brenda, as if to say, “Get a load of this guy. Why are you letting him hold me? Seriously?”

While Norah babbled away nonsensically, I thought of what my Dad would have said if he were there with us: ”Gee, Chris, she sounds just like her Dad!”

A Reflection on Dad’s Teaching

This “Dad” story comes from my sister:

My son, Vincent, is learning to read. First, supporting Montessori’s theory that writing should/does come first, he learned to write some letters: V I N, L, T, E, U W, etc. Then he started figuring out the letter sounds that go with some words. “Grandpa. That ends with P. Puh.”

His grandpa, my Dad, taught me to read. He was so successful that I read The Lord of the Rings on the bus to school in grade one. I remember him going over flashcards of words with me, but I learned at so early an age that I don’t remember much else. I do have a vivid math memory, though, of being at the farm, and trying to convince Dad that I could take four away from three. He brought out three apples and asked me to take four away. I took three, and then mimed taking a fourth invisible one, feeling a bit upset that I had been proven wrong. That was my math genius, nipped in the bud.

Reading proved to be the solace and bane of my childhood. I understand now why my parents wanted me to get out of the house more, but I lived in books. Was it I who felt that remembered emotion, had that experience, or was it a character in a book I read? I can’t tell. I lived others’ lives, but maybe should have lived my own a bit more.

Dad taught me to read; he also taught me things in body-memory, that I am largely unconscious of when I perform them: how to cover and tamp down a row with a rake, after planting; how to pick vegetables without injuring the plant; the hissing snicker that my Grandpa also did, that makes a baby laugh.

I wanted to learn so much more from Dad. Why did I refuse to let him teach me to weld? Why didn’t I pay more attention when he showed me how to graft trees? (Well, probably because I was nine.) I wanted to learn alongside him, as I do my master’s in justice studies on agrifood issues. I wanted to learn more, from his example, and his oft-given advice, how to love, how to be a good person, and how to raise good children. Those are gifts he gave me, but I don’t think I am selfish in wishing I wish I had more.

Dad and the Truax Elevator

Simply put, my Dad believed that people could achieve a higher quality of life by working together as opposed to competitively. This belief was shown in his involvement in farm politics. In the 80s, CN Rail was closing the smaller branch rail lines that fed the main lines, and the track that ran through Truax was up for abandonment. Dad worked with the farmers in the area to buy the rail, and start up Southen Rails Cooperative, a farmer-owned railway that provided the service for farmers that CN refused.

Going hand in hand with CN and CP closing branch lines, were elevator companies closing their smaller elevators. Sometimes the elevators closed first, causing the grain shipped on the line to decrease, making the line no longer viable to run. Other times, the rail companies announced they were shutting down a line, and the grain companies shut down the elevators. And more often than not the two worked in tandem.  The railways and grain companies knew that farmers would still have to use their service regardless of how they chose to  provide it. And most farmers had no choice. Farmers went from trucking two miles to their hometown elevator to trucking, in many cases, upwards of 70 miles to an Inland Terminal. 

However, Southern Rails offered an alternative to huge trucking costs. At first, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool kept the elevator in Truax open. But, after a few years, they announced they were closing it. This would have effectively taken all of Southern Rails revenue, as farmers would be forced to haul their grain to elevators on a competing CN or CP run line. At this point, Dad became a proponent of loading producer cars. When a farmer loads their own 3300 bushel car, they bypass the grain companies and ship it straight to port. By bypassing the grain companies, farmers saved handling charges assessed by the grain companies.  Dockage  (the amount deducted from the total weight for weed seeds and the like in the grain) normally determined by the grain companies was instead determined by the Canadian Grain Commission (CGC) at port and was consisitently lower.  This too translated into more money in the hands of farmers. Farmers also found they were typically receiving  higher grades (a measure of quality)  from the CGC for the grain they shipped via producer cars versus the grades offered by grain companies for the same grain.  A simplified example: Grain companies make money by buying 1000 bushels of #2 grain from Farmer Joe, paying him for #2, and mixing it with 1000 bushels of  Farmer Tom’s #1 grain to create 1400 bushels of #1 and 600 bushels of #2.  By shipping a producer car, a farmer can save upwards of $1000 in fees and charges.

When the Wheat Pool shut down all of their wooden elevators in favour of mammoth inland terminals, they offered the derelict elevators up for sale. The pricing was based on how the purchaser intended to use the elevator. In the case of Truax, if the buyer wanted to tear it down and salvage the lumber, the cost was $1.00. If the buyer wanted to leave it standing and use it to load cars, the cost was $80,000. Eventually, a group of farmers bought the elevator for around $17,000, after Dad haggled with the Wheat Pool. One of the stipulations of purchasing the elevator was that the Wheat Pool name must be painted over before the sale could be finalized. This bugged Dad because the cost of doing so was prohibitive — the name was painted up on the top of the elevator, and there was no easy way to cover it. Not wanting to spend more money, Dad sought out another route. He had the elevator declared a heritage site by the local Rural Municipality. Sure, it wasn’t exactly old — it was erected in the 1960s when its predecessor burned down. Sure, it wasn’t exactly picturesque. Sure, it wasn’t exactly a heritage building any more then a rusted out four-door 1969 Chevrolet Nova is a vintage car. However, with the declaration, the owners wouldn’t be allowed to change the exterior of the building. The owners wouldn’t be allowed to paint over the Wheat Pool name. And if you drive by Truax today, standing there is the Truax elevator, pictured below, with its Wheat Pool name shining in the sun, a small tribute to the tenacity and ingenuity of my Dad. While Dad’s work with farmers to take on the grain and rail companies came to an abrupt end at the end of June, his legacy will live on and there are good people continuing to fight the fights he dedicated so much of his time and energy to – the fight for equity for farmers, large and small alike.

Thanks to Rob, a good friend of Dad’s, for help remembering some of the details included in this post.

Introducing…the Baby-Bidet!

While responding to a friend’s request for new-baby stories, I remembered a story I thought I might as well share here, too. (To be perfectly honest, after writing it up for her blog, I though, geeze, that took a while. I should put it on my own blog, too, and get some mileage from it there, as well.)

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When N was around a month old, she stopped pooping regularly. She would eat, and eat and eat and eat and not poop. By the third day of not pooping, she would start to get fussy. By the fourth day, she was inconsolable. Mercifully, by the fifth or sixth day she would squirm and scream and unleash a quantity of poop that would sufficiently fertilize a moderately sized garden. It would easily escape the confines of the feeble diaper, and spread itself over every surface within the vicinity. The good news is that after swabbing the decks, we would have a happy baby again, until about day five as the process repeated.

One of N’s poop vacations ended while Brenda was out at her yoga class. I was left to tackle the mountain of watery dung alone, and was caught off guard. You see, I usually fulfilled the role of first mate, providing wipes, paper towels, gas-masks, and a fresh diaper to the captain. These were uncharted waters for me.

I peeled back the poop-soaked diaper, and immediately jammed it back on her bum, reeling from the shock of the smell. I reluctantly pulled back the diaper again, and stared at the thick layer of mustard-like paste that coated her poop deck.

I removed the diaper and held up N’s legs, suspending her above the poop. I stared at the wipes, sitting just to the left of N’s change table, firmly enclosed in the plastic case that keeps them from drying out. The plastic case just within reach. The plastic case that takes two hands to open.

N was now flailing a bit in response to the bum-freedom she was experiencing, and in danger of squirming back into the poopy mess. Ignoring the wipes, with my free hand I cradled the back of her neck, and carried her poop soaked body to the sink. I used my elbow to turn on the tap, and let the water pressure do the cleaning that I couldn’t. The poop washed down the drain, and she was clean again.

We used the baby-bidet a few times after that, when N’s poop was especially explosive. While I haven’t started marketing the baby-bidet for mass consumption, I do recommend it as a quick cleanup method for especially nasty, sticky poops!

Hunting with Dad

Dad loved being outside, and was interested in all kinds of wildlife. He loved spotting game in binoculors. He loved checking out birds in his bird book. He also loved killing and eating wildlife. While, killing and eating deer anyway. Though liking wildlife, and killing it sounds like a bit of a contradiction, it isn’t — not with Dad. He was compassionate in his treatment of all animals. The thought of shooting a deer and not making use of it was preposterous to him. The deer sausage making parties at the farm were legendary. If the hunting was particularly successful and we had more deer meat than we could use, Dad would cart in whole deer to the Food Bank. He would never chase deer with the truck, preferring to walk the tops of coulees, enjoying quiet stealth over fast-paced success.

I loved going hunting with Dad — not that I was a good shot, or not that I filled all my tags each year, or not that I really cared all that much about the hunting. What I did care about was visiting with Dad. We would drive for hours, and then walk for hours, and talk. And talk. And talk.

I started hunting when I was 13, and had completed my hunter safety course. Every hunting trip was memorable for one reason or another — whether it was staying in a $10 a night hotel-room in some small souteastern Saskatchewan town that was located directly above a bar that had a popular karaoke session that ran til 4am, or sitting in a different bar I wasn’t old enough to be in and watching the results of the 1995 Quebec referrendum, or enjoying a huge supper alongside a bunch of riggers at the Cafe in Val Marie after a long day of sneaking up on antelope.

However, two years in a row our hunting trips were memorable because of the weather. This must have been at a time when Dad was particularly cash-strapped, because he decided to pull along the tent-trailer that my Grandpa bought in the late 1960s and camp within its canvas confines instead of staying at a hotel. While packing, I recall Dad bringing a bunch of blankets out, and telling my step-brother James and I to pack them. Dad recalls bringing a bunch of blankets out, and telling James and I to pack them, and more. Whomever’s recollection is correct, I am not sure. I guess since Dad is now gone, I can say that my recollection is correct. However, laying blame at this point is fruitless. The fact remains that when evening came, the temperature dropped below -20 Celsuis. We were inadequately blanketed, and froze. Solid. When morning mercifully came, Dad announced he would start the truck to warm it up, and gingerly peeled himself from his thin sleeping bag, braving the frigid temperature. We listened as the truck struggled to start. After some turning over, it finally roared to life, and James and I made our way to the truck to join Dad, still adorned in our threadbare blankets and shivering. After the truck warmed up a bit, Dad announced that he would go out and start the propane stove so as to set us all up with some coffee to warm up. He ran out of the truck, and returned five minutes later with a grim look on his face. “It’s too cold for the propane to light,” he announced.

After a night of freezing, we had a day of hunting amidst fog. We didn’t shoot anything, though it was not an entirely wasted trip. We learned to pack more blankets next time we went hunting. And what more can you ask for than to learn something?

The following year we packed enough blankets to withstand an Arctic three-month long night. We loaded up the same tent trailer. We drove to the same location, arriving just after dark. The plywood top of the tent trailer folded out to form two beds under the canvas top. There was room for two more to sleep in the bottom of the trailer. We erected the canvas cover and piled our coolers of food up on one of the raised beds. James hunkered down on the other one, and Dad and I fortified ourselves with blankets in the middle. Before bed we noted that the wind was coming up a bit, but didn’t think much of it, as visions of the next day’s hunt filled our heads. The howling of the wind made sleep difficult.

The wind increased to hurricane-speed around 3am, and we hunkered down, pulling the blankets up over our heads. We weren’t afraid of any wind — after all, we had plenty of blankets for warmth. It was around 4:30am when the wind caught the side of the tent trailer, lifting it up and dumping the coolers filled with food and ice directly on top of Dad and me. Our copious quantity of blankets were now floating in icy water. As were we. As we sat in our slushy bed, unsure what to do, Dad started to get concerned. The wind was getting even stronger, and he feared that it would overturn the entire trailer if we didn’t take down the canvas top. Braving the wind, we worked tobgether to detach the canvas top, keep it from becoming a large canvas sail, and slam shut the plywood top of the trailer, enclosing our blankets and the food in a watery grave. Again we found ourselves shivering in the cab of the truck. And again we found ourselves without any coffee for warmth.

That day, however, the hunting was magnificient. So amazing, in fact, that by 11:00 am the half-ton was loaded down with all the deer we could tag, and we were checking into a nearby motel for some real sleep before embarking on the journey back home. The next year we did go hunting, but we didn’t camp. After all, we had learned something about camping and hunting. And what more can you ask for, but to learn something, right?