The Chickens

What’s a farm without chickens?  We picked up some Arkansas chicks and they laid blue and green eggs.  We mixed them up with a brown rooster and the eggs were then all different colors, pink, brown even sometimes white.  The color of the hen determines the color of the eggs. 

We put the chickens in the solarium, which was at the end of the former chicken coup, where they could be warmed by the heat lamp and could cozy up in the empty flower bed crates.  I thought they’d be safer there than in the chicken coup which was a bit open onto the yard and some fox might get them.  In the remembering of it I realize how ludicrous my request was to my neighbor, Alison. I asked her how to clean the chicken coup floor, because there was linoleum in the solarium and it was getting rather dirty, even though I had covered it with sawdust.  Alison didn’t know what to say because chicken coups had dirt floors and she never cleaned hers.  That’s what you get for living in the country when you come from the city.  

One day Don came in with a dead frozen chicken.  He reminded me of Monty Python who was returning a dead parrot and flopped the stiff corpse on the counter.  He explained the chicken had fallen out of the solarium and had gotten stuck between the wall and some fencing and froze to death.  Poor chicken.

UFO's

UFO’s

When we moved to the farm, I had just read “ The Interrupted Journey”.  It was a story about how a couple had been abducted by a UFO and how they had to be hypnotized to recall what had happened to them. I was fascinated and convinced that they existed. Now it was my turn. We were in the country, isolated, just perfect environment for a connection with aliens.  I mentioned to Don that we could put a message for them to come to us in lights on the roof so they could find us. He said that’d be okay as long as we didn’t tell anybody.

I was intense.  I was receptive and I just had a feeling it would happen.  Well, one night I was driving our full sized van along a dark and secluded country road.  There was a brilliant light  that filled the van which disappeared just as quickly. It came again and again.  As I gripped the steering wheel, I thought victoriously to myself,  “This is it! They’re here!”  My breathing became shallow as I drove slowly along, in anticipation of what might happen next. 

When I got home, much to my disappointment, I realized the back door of the van wasn’t closed properly and it opened and closed on the bumpy road causing the interior lights to go on and off.  Waa!

Oh, but it happened again!  This was the real thing now.  Again I was driving the van on a back road in the country, and the light came back, in a similar way, brilliant light and then blackness.  I was full of expectation!  They found me!  I only hoped they’d be kind.  I drove along for several minutes waiting to see them.  I furtively looked left and right, checking for a space ship.  In my delusional state, it was difficult to see the obvious, that the full moon was low on the horizon and every time the trees dipped, the moon light shone through. The realization was crushing.  Rats.  There were no other episodes and the aliens never did find us.

The Camero

We went shopping for farm vehicles, cars that could get through the snow that we could rely on. The first two purchases were a full sized van and a Camaro. We went to the dealers with the best of intentions.  The van was questionable as a farm vehicle for the family.  It was light weight and fish-tailed on the snow covered roads. However, that was what Don thought we should buy that day at the dealers.  Then he laid eyes on that red Camaro and I knew he was a goner.  A Camaro?  For the farm? This was the beginning of a long series of cheap cars we bought over the years.  I think at one time we had five of them that cost us a fortune.  We’d have been much better off buying a nearly new SUV for all the money we spent.

Back to the Camaro…I could not master this vehicle. In the winter, I found myself spinning off the icy roads, much to my horror.  One time I ended up in the ditch and another, about a hair from some farmers fence. But it was the day I was travelling over the bridge to the States at Cornwall that really did it for me.  I ended up on the other side of the road and back again. I was so shook up, I felt I was on borrowed time that there wasn’t an oncoming truck.   I went into the customs office and asked for a coffee while I demanded an explanation as to why the roads weren’t sanded.  Well, they didn’t work on the weekend, they explained.  I told them flat out there’d be a serious accident this day because of that.  I got back in the car and did my shopping on the American side.  When I returned, there had been a terrible accident on the bridge which they were still cleaning up when I returned.

I went straight to a car dealership in Cornwall. I’d had it. I told them I didn’t care what they had, just give me a car that could stay on the road and take the Camaro for whatever you can give me. They came up with a mid sized car. It was burgundy. I didn’t really care what it was as long as it could stay on the roads. I transferred all my groceries to my new reliable car, and headed back to the farm.  As anticipated, Don was not impressed.  He sent me off the next day to get the Camaro and return my new purchase. I can’t believe we let the boys drive that car in the winter.  Dealers told me subsequently that it was really a summer car in our climate.  Don insisted I didn’t know how to drive.  I was all bottled up; I didn’t know how to deal with him.  That Camaro stayed on the farm for way too long. Today, it sits in some field at a Rod’s farm.

The Beast in the Woods

We were from the city and a bit naive, one could say.  The night was black.  It seemed to start immediately after the definitive line of light created by the back yard lights. I had on my nighty, a long flowing white thing. Don and I were listening to some animal meeting his maker in our back yard, beyond the light, in the darkness.  Well, Joan of Arc here decided to save this poor animal.  It sounded like a baby and I know rabbits can sound like that when they cry. I walked out to that line of light and as soon as I stepped over it, I heard the worst sound I have ever heard. It was loud and guttural, threatening and deadly.  It was so close I must have been nose to nose with the beast, but I could see nothing. I immediately backed up over the line of darkness and bee-lined it to the house.  I made it.  But in retrospect, there were many reasons why I shouldn’t have.That was a really stupid thing to do. If Don were to tell the story, it’d be he that braved the night.  But it wasn’t. It was me.

The Chain Saw Massacre

We were hardly in the door when Don discovered the lawn tractor.  He’d beetle around on the three or so acres.  Some of the branches were a bit low when he was on the mower and we discussed cutting one or two.  I loved the trees in the  back yard so much.  I could see the trees and gardens from all the windows in the back of house, from the dining room, the kitchen, the living room.  The peacefulness of it fed my soul. So the day I came home and saw that Don had cut  all the lower branches off of all of the trees, I was devastated. Now my beautiful gardens looked more like a Bell Telephone pole park.  It seemed all the beauty that I had fallen in love with, was gone. I couldn’t speak.  I could see that a man and a chain saw are a dangerous combination, especially when it is a new experience with lots of temptation around… i.e… branches, trees, etc.

Don zoomed up on the four wheeler and casually asked if I wanted to go for a ride.  Go for a ride? You’re acting like nothing’s happened and you’ve just murdered my trees?? I was speechless.  I can remember some pick up truck driving into the drive way.  I asked the guy if he wanted a couple of chain saws.  I threw them in the back of his truck and he drove off.  When Don found out his chain saws were missing, he was not pleased and suggested I get them back. I made a deal with him that if he wouldn’t cut anything down that we didn’t mutually agree on,  I might consider getting the saws back. I did and he didn’t.

Finding the Farm, '87

Don drove his bike to Ottawa from Pointe Claire.  On his return trip, he took the back roads and ended up in Glengarry.  He fell in love with it. He was looking for a place to stay for the night, but everything was full.  Man, he thought, how can such a small town as Alexandria, be full? He learned it was the Highland Games weekend and there wasn’t a bed in town.  He went to the local hospital and asked if he could sleep in the waiting room. They said no, he couldn’t.  He said, Okay, I’ll sleep in the ditch and come back in the morning with pneumonia.  They conceded he could sleep on a couch provided he was out by 5 a.m.

Don had a pilot friend, Rod Poitras, who lived in Glengarry too. We went to see him and subsequently, we visited many country homes and farms, but none was to capture our hearts like ‘Mondesire’. Two hundred acres, farmland, forest, a river, a lake, a sugar bush and miles of trails.  The house was renovated by Mr. John Patton, an engineer, who was the director of Petro-Fina. We were confident that his work needn’t be questioned.

The house was a rambling, 4500 sq. ft domain.  Five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a mud room as big as a large kitchen, a very big upstairs outdoor patio and two living rooms. The gardens surrounding the house were beautiful as were the magnificent mature trees.  There was a large old barn-board barn and a chicken coup with a solarium. Oh, it was gorgeous.  Don and I knew right away that this was it. So we bought it for the following year. 

Everything worked out perfectly.  We sold our home in Pointe Claire, Quebec, and moved to the country in Ontario in 1988.  This was home. It was another new start, another chance to make things work.  

Kids and Don's Shaninigans / Damon and the Baseball Mitt

Kids 

I recall one day when Brandon was about two and a half, I was in the middle of changing him and he got up and went downstairs. I was on his heels, but not fast enough.  He had disappeared out the front door with only a t-shirt on.  I ran around the corner and asked a passer by if she’d seen a toddler on the fly; she said he went that-a-way and pointed around the next corner. I caught him. He was fearless and never changed much as he grew older!

Tyson often visited an elderly gentleman down the street. One day he took his friend Carl with him and said to Carl, “I want you to meet my friend.”  When a really cute girl had moved in across the street, Tyson knocked on the door and said, ‘Give me a kiss.” He was about six.

Don’s Shenanigans

I thought Brandon had broken his back.  He was screaming blue murder after falling off the top of the van onto the bare pavement on his head. He was four years old. Don had put him up there to brush off the snow. Brandon was very cooperating as it must have been exciting for him to be so high up. The snow, unfortunately, hung over the side of the van and when Brandon pushed it, it gave no resistance and down he went. I was livid at Don, but he insisted that Brandon knew what he was doing and he knew the snow was overhanging the roof.  I was so upset. Brandon could have died. What do you say to someone like that?

I am not inclined to be hysterical, but I was on this day when all of us went on a bike ride. It was follow the leader. Don rode on, barely looking back.  We got to a fence that went along the rail way track.  The ice cream parlour was directly across and Don decided we would jump the fence and cross the tracks to get an ice cream cone. As he piled the kids over the fence with their bikes, I started yelling at them to come with me.  No one was listening.  I was terrified a train would come.  There was a large bend in the tracks with trees blocking our view.  I was distraught.  They tumbled over the fence and I had no choice but to go with them and try and protect them.  We made it across the tracks with a train zooming by as soon as we crossed.  I was incredulous.  Anything I said fell on deaf ears.  I stewed about it for a long time. 

It was a similar feeling I had when Don put the kids in the trunk of the car for a joy ride and drove around town.  I pointed out that there was carbon monoxide in the trunk, that if he had an accident, they would be hurt, that maybe it was illegal.  But Don did as Don wished and he did it anyway. They all survived, but I didn’t know that at the time and anguished over it terribly.

Damon and the Baseball Mitt

It was a sunny summer day in Pointe Claire and Damon and Tyson  were playing in the park.  Damon was about ten years old and Tyson, nine.  We lived in a big house that looked like a fort, until we painted it white, and then it looked like a princess must have lived in it.  It was located only a half a block from the neighborhood park, so it was easy for them to meander down the quiet street to go there and play. It had all those enticing things to delight a kid: slides, sandboxes, swings and a jungle gym. But on this day, the park held another treasure.

Damon came bounding home as if he were on a cushion of air, a foot off the ground, full of excitement and holding something in his arms as if it were something that would break into a million pieces if it were to fall.  He was cradling it with a sense of ownership that silently said, 'This is MINE". I think Tyson got the message that this was not an object that would be borrowed, but, sharing was allowed so they played with it in the back yard until it was time to come in and help get ready for supper.

Don and I were intrigued by this new find.  "Hey, Damon, what have you got there?"  "Its a baseball mitt, found it in the park."  "Oh really?  Let's have a look".  I took the large, well made, Rawlings baseball mitt into my hands and felt its smooth leather and imagined how estatic the child owner must have felt when he received this for his birthday or Christmas, or for some special occasion. How they must have longed for it and then how they must have felt to actually get it!  Did they go shopping for it especially?  or was it wrapped up with paper and bows and ribbons and was it a surprise?  One thing for sure, it was brand new and hadn't even been broken in  yet. I looked in all the nooks and crevices in between the stitches to see if I could find a name or a phone number or any information that would reveal the true ownership of this masterpiece. But there was nothing.

You could see an expression of doubt creep across Damon's face like a mask or a veil. Whatever was going on, he didn't like it much.  Just to be clear, he said, "I found it.  So I can keep it, can't I?"  I tried to make him understand, "Damon, someone has lost this and it must mean a great deal to them". "But", he protested, "there is no name or number so I don't know who it belongs to."  "Well", I said, "after dinner you're going to have to go door to door and ask if  anyone has lost it. Remember, Honey,  whatever you do in life, the same comes back to you.  If you find the rightful owner and return the glove, one day, when you lose something precious to you, you may get it back, but if you keep it and don't even try to find the owner, then that day may have a different outcome."

So after supper, Damon reluctantly, but dutifully, made the rounds in the neighborhood, knocking on each door as he had been instructed.  Each time he knocked, he felt apprehension and a sense he was going to be disappointed and each time he felt a sigh of relief when they would shake their heads and say "No, that doesn't belong here".

Then, unlucky for Damon, but lucky for little Richard, the inevitable happened.  The door opened and Damon saw a woman and a young boy standing there.  Even before he spoke, he knew he had found the home of the glove because of the look of amazement and surprise on their faces.  "Oh you found Richard's glove!! This is so wonderful!  He just got it for his birthday and has been crying for hours since he lost it.  He thought his father would kill him when he found out he'd lost it.  We just can't thank you enough!!" Damon handed over the glove.  The door closed. Damon felt downhearted. He thought to himself that he should feel the same as he did before he found the glove, but he didn't. His experience as the owner of the glove, however pleasurable, was brief.  His short-lived joy was gone. But it was starting to be replaced by something much more meaningful.

He  started to walk slowly back home along the sidewalk, kicking any little stone in his path. A smile came to his lips.  Yes, the joy of owning the baseball mitt was momentary, but the pride he felt in himself for pleasing that young Richard and returning the glove to its proper owner was a feeling that would stay with him forever. His pace quickened and his smile broadened.  It just felt like he'd done the right thing.

But that's not the end of the story. This all happened in 1985.  In 1991, Damon found himself with his Dad, in a far off  island where Napoleon Bonaparte had lived, in a place called Corsica. Damon had just made $400 laboring on the house we had bought in France. That was a lot of money in 1991.  With this hard earned money, he decided he would spend it all on a fancy camera, a Cannon 'Rebel'  and which he had brought with him to Corsica. He was so proud of this camera.  It had all the up to date features and he was so excited about it.   Damon and his Dad had gone  to a small bar-restaurant to grab a bite to eat and when they left, Damon froze when he noticed he did not have his camera with him and realized he  must have left it hanging on the chair he was sitting in.  His Dad went back immediately to fetch it for him while he waited in the street. When his Dad came back empty-handed, Damon's heart sank.  He felt sick.  His father felt sick.   It was gone and there was nothing they could do about it.  Damon's Dad suggested Damon go and ask the staff again.  He thought they might have some compassion for him.  Damon was pretty shy then and this was a very difficult thing to ask.  Well, he went in and with teary eyes, explained where he had left the camera and how he had spent all his money to buy it.  But, no, no one had seen it.  Then one kind- hearted waitress took pity on him and said she would check in the back.  Damon was so sad, it was like he forgot to breath.  You can only imagine his relief when the waitress appeared with his camera cupped in her hands. "Is this it?" Damon's smile must have almost touched his ears.

With a great amount of gratitude, Damon sincerely thanked her.  He put the strap over his shoulder and cradled it, much like he had cradled that mitt he found in the park years ago. He couldn't help remembering that baseball glove and thought to himself, I'm really glad I returned that glove to little Richard. Life, after all, does reward us for the good we do to others. Damon never lost his camera again and as far as I know, he continued to do good to people and life gave it back to him in spades.