Emerging Kristin

I’m sure when you read the title for this post you were thinking … “That Kristin! I know she’s older than 32! What a cougar! Married to a 32 year old!” … Yes … well …

It is actually a “Happy 32nd Wedding Anniversary” for Doug and I!

Now John & Liz celebrated the big 5-0 just a month or so ago. We have lots of wonderful role models for committed marriage.

Click on this link to see some photos. Two years ago I posted some old wedding photos.

Love yah, honey-bunny!

I have a “thing” for heavy horses. I quite like to ride light horses … but my dream … if I ever won a million dollars (or likely it would need to be multi-million – and I’d have to start buying lottery tickets) … I would own a working farm operated with heavy horses. (Of course being the princess that I am I would need hired hands to actually do all the work.)

All that said – the highlight of the Swift Current “Frontier Days” for me was the heavy horse show. I talked my co-workers into going in the morning & we watched the halter classes. We did talk business on the five minutes drive to the fair grounds, so we called it a staff meeting. Click here to see more photos of the heavy horses.

It was quite exciting to see the hitches enter the ring. However, it was nothing compared to the Paisley Fair (Paisley, ON) – click here to see photos – where I got to see eight teams of six horse hitches … and I was able to stand at ring side … feeling the earth being pounded as they went by … smelling the horse sweat (no better smell!)

But I was so glad to go back for the evening show at the Swift Current fair … and dream.

Previously I didn’t have time to upload my photos of the Heritage Park. Click here if you’d like to see a few photos of the buildings to tour through (but I didn’t have the chance to do that this time.)

Joyce Rupp is a Catholic nun and spiritual writer and retreat leader. I have at least four of her books. I knew of her before, but my spiritual director recommended using her books as part of my devotional practise. I found her “The Cup of Blessing” book to be challenging and thought provoking. I’m currently just starting her book “Open the Door.” It is a discussion of the doors of our interior and exterior life – spiritual, emotional and our lived life. What does the door to my heart look like? What doors of my life are locked? Open? What doors am I afraid to open?

This past week, in one of her stories, Rupp shared the poem given to her by the mother of a twelve year old girl. This girl – Mary Katherine – was struck by a car the night after writing this poem and she died two weeks latter (in 1982.) I found this poem to be deeply compelling. I included it in my sermon this past week in which I talked about the doors that keep us from sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and Luke’s passage of the Sending of the Seventy.

I believe Jesus was speaking through this young girl and I am grateful to a family – who still mourns – for sharing this legacy of hope and encouragement.

Look at me –
I’m walking through a door.
My life is changing and it’s just perfect now
No more doors for me
They’re too hard to get through
I’m staying here where it’s safe –
No, child.
Those doors are a part of you
You can’t ignore them
‘Cause they’re there
You’ve got to go through them
Who knows what you’ll find.
You’ve got to go through them
Who knows what you’ll find
You’ve got to meet their trial
If you don’t, you won’t be what you should become
There are always gonna be doors and you
Can’t stop ‘em from comin’
You’ve got to go through them to grow
It’s called change
Look at the wildflower; it changes all the time
Always blossoming or closing up, sprouting or withering,
You are scared to go through those doors
Into the unknowing, “into change”
You don’t know what’s going to happen
You don’t know what change is going to bring
Listen to me
Go through those doors with hope
Go through those doors knowing change is the future
and you’re part of it
You don’t know what change is, that’s why
You’re scared
Change is the sun booming over the horizon
Scattering rays of hope to a new day
Change is a baby lamb meeting the world for its first time
Change is growing from a young child to a young woman
Change is beautiful; you will learn to love it.
- Mary Katherine Lidle

The Swift Current “Frontier Days” exhibition started yesterday. This photo is the entry gate. It is a fine piece of welding art. I had at first thought ‘kinetic’ was some type of short form for the Kinsmen Club, but that isn’t the case. A couple of decades ago they came up with that word in its proper sense – this is a community in action – in motion.

A heritage park is part of the fair grounds. I didn’t have a chance to tour through the buildings, but it will be a must see. It is call “Doc Town” after the man who was the instrumental in bringing the buildings and artifacts together.

god_n_dog Click on ‘god_n_dog’ to open the window to play this video.

A friend shared this video with me and I think it is delightful. If you are a dog lover then the animation is sweet, but I find the simplicity of the words and the tune/singing a delight. What do you think?

Andy and Sheilah arrived safely yesterday afternoon after making appropriate highway choices to avoid roads closed due to flooding in SK. We were under a severe thunderstorm watch but they got here just before the sky fell. … And did it fall – rolling thunder and bright lighting and downpour after downpour.

Doug was able to stay for a few extra days and he made us a wonderful supper – as always – and we talked and talked and talked. They have had a few months with their daughter in BC and now are in the process of heading home to ON.

It is rather wonderful how two years can fall away and it seems like it was just last week when we saw them last.

We had another good visit around the breakfast table and then they were off for points east. They plan to make it to Brandon today but might even go farther east if the travelling is pleasant.

Doug also left a few minutes latter and so now I’m back to a quiet house – just the cat and me. But Doug and the dogs will be back on Friday night.

I have mentioned that it has been raining a lot here … I think it must be at least six weeks. I was in shorts before Easter, but since that time we have had snow and rain. On the May long weekend one church service was cancelled because the pastor was camping at Cypress Hills and there was two feet of snow and he couldn’t get his truck out. One the same weekend another service was cancelled because the gravel road was impassable due to rain.

Fortunately in this area it is quite sandy and so farmers got onto the fields whenever the sun came out for a few hours. However the cumulative damage in other parts of the province has been devastating for farmers who have a clay base.

I took this photo last night at a little bridge on the Swift Current creek which meanders back and forth throughout the city. No sand bagging has taken place here but the water is very high. Click here to see a few more photos that I took.

This is a CBC file photo. Click here to read more on the CBC-SK flooding stories.

If you can believe it the Trans-Canada highway has been closed for several days because six kilometers of highway is under water.
Andy and Sheilah are supposed to be driving here from Olds tomorrow. I’ve tried to get in contact with them by email and voice mail. All highway traffic is being rerouted by an extra two hour trip via Kindersley.

Today is a lovely day but we’ve been under severe thunderstorm watches all day & still now. Of course the problem is that there is so much moisture and hot temperatures and it will be a revolving problem of showers. The weeds in the garden might be there for a long time!

I was in Regina for the first five days of my holidays and I was able to spend three days in the backyard before the rain fell. Doug had already done lots of weeding on the slope to pull out the grass and weeds from, what will be, the tall tiger lilies.

There has been so much rain in SK, but I was able to roto-til on the third day. The biggest change that I made in the yard was to dig out the small tiger lilies from around the silver willows that you see in this photo. On the May long weekend (or May 2-4 as you folks in Ontario would say) I dug out six bags of lilies. Three I gave to my neighbour and I took three to Swift. Our plan is to lay landscape fabric down in this area and put in wood chips to control weeds. It was never our intention to have annuals in this area.

Last July, when Mary and Gerald were out for my ordination, we dug up a few tiger lilies for Mary to take back to Ontario for Jennifer. The plants survived the mid-season transplant (and Jen openly admits that plants come to her house to die) and the winter. She sent me a photo to show they are in bloom! It has been too cool in SK so far this spring and they haven’t bloomed here yet. Doug told me that the peonies and poppies are just about ready to burst. Our bleeding hearts are already outstandingly in bloom. Click here to see a couple of photos of the backyard. Doug has big plans for changing the filtering system for the pond which includes a major change for the waterfall and stream set-up. Watch for photos as that transformation takes place.

I am nearing my nine month mark of living in Swift Current. This means it is my first spring in the house. I’ve been busy planting flowers. Last month I brought some small tiger lilies out from Regina.

You’ll notice I have a large garden area. My brother, Leslie, has planted a garden. His potatoes and gladiolas are outstanding already. With all the rain, my roto-tiller guy hasn’t been able to come over. Leslie picks the weeds faithfully out of his garden, but as you can see the rest of the space is quickly becoming over-run.

On Monday, Doug and I went out shopping for annuals and we had a successful shopping trip. I’m mainly planting in containers. Click on this link to see a number of photos of the early stages of flowers.

Today, I purchased four of these plastic pedestal urns. I quite like them and I hope they are large enough to hold enough soil so they won’t dry out every day. My main focus has been geraniums, violas, bocopa, trailing lobellia, trailing petunias and something I haven’t seen before – trailing snap dragons.

We purchased a folding lounger. I’m hoping it will finally stop raining in SK and I might actually be able to lie down for a while outside.

I like putting these three pots on my front step. I have purchased begonias and I believe that with the two trees in the front yard there should be enough shade.

I have also put three rows of marigolds in my front flower bed – tall cream coloured ones, then solid orange, some red petunias mixed in and then a front row of shorter multi-coloured orange/red marigolds. I’m not sure about the quality of the dirt or how much light this spot gets. If figured that marigolds are likely the hardiest of all flowers. I was quite surprised to see so many tulips come up. They bloomed quite nicely even though there was no evidence of them when we moved in – they die back quite completely. I’m anticipating this die-back and expect the marigolds to thrive over top the dying tulips.

When I moved to Swift Current at the end of August, I took most all of the furniture. Then on the September long weekend Doug and I selected some furniture. The problem was that it needed to be ordered. Then there was a delay because they had run out of the fabric and had to wait for the fabric to be delivered. A six week wait turned into a 14 week wait.

The furniture arrived at our home in mid-December. Then I had to wait until I came back to Regina after Christmas to see how it looked in our house! Patience is not my strong suit.

As you can see we have a matching sofa and side chair. We also got this lovely accent chair and it is so comfortable! It feels like your sitting in a little bucket as it wraps around you. It has a variety of colours but it is very muted.

You can also see that we have a new TV stand. Doug has moved his computer into a spare bedroom and him plan it to move the TV in there as well. This would make the living room his “music and reading room.” The quotes are intentional, and slightly mocking … but he is the one who lives there and he can set the house up in the manner that works best for him.

The walls are still quite bare and we will also need to select some end tables and lamps … but we are trying to settle into this new look first.

Our dogs are strickly forbidden from jumping up on the furniture.

But Phoenix especially loves being up in the chair and looking out the window. And Doug comes home to Flame lounging on the sofa! We taken to cover our new furniture with old sheets and giving up on any further obedience training.

I also have to admit that I “staged” these photos … I dusted, vacumed and washed the floors before I took the shots!