Mid August at the farm

The Canadian summer is so short! Last night I left the cafe at 7:45 while our last three tables were still eating. Josee and Tom will finish up so I could get back to the farm before dark to make sure my sheep are all still alive!

I did my usual speedy back roads trip home...down the highway, shortcut through the Stone Church road, up 512 for a couple of miles, turn left at Alexa's house and down the long straight hilly stretch, then turn right, make sure none of Paul Hartwig's livestock is on the road, turn left, wind along for awhile till you come into the hamlet of Cormac. Make the sign of the cross at the shrine of St.Ann...see if AnneMary's lights are on at Kitt's General Store, glance right up the highway to see where old Patsy Dunnigan used to live and look left to where he's now buried in the Cormac graveyard.

Head for Eganville on 512. New gardens growing daily at Seeds of Creation...it looks like an ambitious project with a farmstand and a new house and row upon neat row of gorgeous vegetables. Drive, drive, drive past Heideman's Mill and past Donnie Howard's hayfields and past Mike Petrini's lovely new home and turn right onto the Donegal Road.

Now I can take off my seat belt and if this was the olden days,back in the eighties, one could safely crack open a beer at this point in the journey. But it is not the olden days so will wait to get home for a glass of low alcohol "girlie wine" mixed with club soda and ice.

A deer and fawn have been leaping across the road here almost every evening. They graze in our long lower hayfield and come down here for water. Past our neighbours laneways... Alvin's farm...the log house I still think of as Rick and Joan's home...the Wingle driveway...our little corner of the Ottawa Valley has seen its share of sadness and tragedy in the past twenty-five years and not one of these neighbours has been spared.

And then the sharp turn and the cattle gate and the long straight driveway up to the house and barns on the crest of the hill. On a warm humid evening such as this, the smell of cattle is the first thing that greets one's nose. A scattering of cowshit on the driveway and long ribbons of mist in the two long fields on either side of the driveway.

Up to the second gate and greeted by the lights on in the barns, the sound of pigs squealing for their supper, geese honking, chickens cackling, cats racing for the house, sheep bleating, cattle bawling. 8:45 pm. Home at last.