Driving toward Winter

Packing up one home and moving every 6 months is not an easy chore but something we do every year. That is how we manage to miss out on the Cold Canadian Winters. Or so I thought. We left Texas and drove through land covered with blooming cactus. Very pretty, dry and hot. Well into the 30's Celsius or for those that don't speak Canadian weather, about 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

As we got farther north it seems like we were going backward in seasons. We went from hot summer to spring then finally to late winter as we drove through Colorado, Wyoming and then finally Montana and back to Saskatchewan. The leaves were well out on the trees when we left Texas then as we got farther north the leaves got thinner and thinner until there was just a faint green glow at the ends of the branches. Lots of blooms on the fruit trees in Denver and then as we got to Wyoming the the flowers and the leaves were gone and the grass was brown. We watched water pouring through culverts and saw creeks that were now rivers and ponds that had turned into lakes but I was not prepared for the sight I saw as we pulled into our yard. We had over 4 feet of snow on the driveway and covering most of my yard, heavy, wet and not going anywhere very soon. Bernie, luckily, has a monster front end loader so he started that up and started moving his way up the driveway. After an hour I was able to get the truck into the yard and started unpacking but it took him a couple more hours to make enough room so we could get to the barn and the garage.

When we built our little Saskatchewan Prairie home we knew that we would not be there all winter so never made our water supply " winter proof". As a result, no running water until the ground thaws, or at least no running water inside the house. We can fill pails at the well and carry them in and then warm the water on the stove or in the kettle when we need it hot. I'm sure that there are people that could never manage that, but it really doesn't bother either of us. 6 pails warmed up with 3 pails of cold is enough to have a bath.

By our second day at home we could notice that the snow was melting really fast and I don't think it will last too long into May. The robins are back in the maple trees and I could hear frogs down by the dugout so I'm almost positive that spring will actually find it's way to me here at my Northern home.