Posts Tagged ‘Birch Lake Saskatchewan’
A Magical Summer
Personal Photos: We always knew it would be A Magical Summer since the moment our granddaughter Audrey first planted those Scarlet Runners early this spring. It became real one morning when I captured this photo of a fairy standing in the corner of the garden beside an old wicker chair.
Link to Photos for this Post
Part 2: Link to Crackling Fire on Cold Winters Day
Part 3: The Magical Gardens of Adam Szczawinski
Fences and Gardens, Family and Friends
So much was happening this spring and summer it was hard to keep up, but suffice it to say there was a lot of magic. Woven between various trips to destinations inside and outside Canada, as well as visits by family and friends, there was a determination to redo the garden and fences as they were in tough shape after several years of neglect.
Last year Lynn and I worked at cleaning up the decks and redoing the garden furniture, but that only made the crumbling fences and 
overgrown gardens look even more sad and forlorn. Growing up in a family where my mother had the greenest thumb I know, we could no longer avoid thinking how she would feel if she happened by and saw all those steely, prickly weeds making such fun of the few domestic plants that survived the long summers of neglect.
Back in the late 1990’s mom and I had spent two magical summers planting everything we could get our hands on and it was now time to renew the gardening vows that were etched in my genes. In our family one daughter, Kari, and one son, Sean, have been gifted with that particular gene, so the linage will not be lost any time soon. The jobs, however, were not a one week fix.
Photo (Personal Files, c1990s). When mom was here for those two long visits, we spent day son end planting everything we could get our hands on. As neither of us had ever made moss hanging baskets we must have put together fifteen of various shapes and sizes. Many of the McNeill Life Stories, 1941-1965, a historical stories on the blog, came out of our daily conversations.
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Birch Lake – A Place in the Sun: Chapter 3 of 4
Photo (Harold, 2010) Dad worked this field every year trying to make ends meet. He picked those rocks that came back every year as the frost heaved them out of the ground.
As the horses dragged the stone boat around the field, Dave trudged alongside picking rocks and tossing them on the platform. The fence lines and small islands in the field were piled high with rocks of every shape, size and colour, discarded there over three decades by Dave, his brothers and their dad. Each spring a new crop would appear so the men laughingly called themselves “prairie rock farmers” 1.
As searing heat rose in waves from the summer fallow, Dave looked out at another ten thousand rocks strewn across the seemingly endless field. God only knows, it all seemed to so bloody hopeless.
As he trudged silently along he mulled over a life that seemed defined by these rocks:
“What in hell am I doing here? I have been picking these same god forsaken rocks since I was ten and next year, will be picking them again, then again and again. Will it ever end? There must be more to life!
He shuddered, “I need a change or I will go crazy!” As he said this he grabbed a rock and flung it hard against the pile forming in the centre of the field. The horses jumped as it ricocheted loudly, rejoining the myriad still waiting on the field.
Mother Nature – there was no way she was going to be thwarted! Dave continued to think long and hard about why he continued to stay in Birch Lake. The thought of ‘chucking it all’ and moving on excited him.
End of Introduction
The full story, including this Chapter, is now in book form;
This Book is available from
Kindle Direct Publishing
Book 2 -Trails North an and West: The Pioneer Way 1824-2024 is now available from Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) You can search by book title or author name. A preview of the first seventeen pages is provided (link on bottom left on the KDP order page). The preview also includes the Table of Contents.
Note: When ordering four or fewer books, they will be printed and shipped within Canada. An order of 5 or more books may be printed and shipped from the United States. Postage is included in the purchase price when ordering from either country.
If you are thinking of sending books as gifts to others, you may consider having those books mailed directly to the recipient(s), by Amazon, at time of ordering. In this way, you would avoid Canada Post fees which currently run about $20.00 (plus tax) for one or two books, if enclosed in a single mailer.
For more background information on the story, go to the lead story on this blog.
Cheers,
Harold
Link to Next Post: Fire Tower
Link to Last Post: A New Beginning
Link to Family Stories Index
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