HERDING CATS


Getting ready for winter has been accelerated by a departure for London this coming Saturday.
Lloyd picked up the remaining Frankensteer from a neighbour's corral and the fields are empty (except for turds that Emma chews on) More difficult was our round of cat depopulation. We have been catching screaming, scratching kittens that the grandkids played with this summer. We sent 2 home with a mother and little girl, 2 to Lloyd's barn, 2 under Colin's trailer, 2 to Heaven Can Wait (plus a $200 donation for spaying) and 2 to the Parkers in Bragg Creek who supply us with spruce trees from their lovely property. They wanted ONE kitten for their dog to play with and luckily Emma has been carrying kittens in her mouth. After a great lunch we left Parkers with 2 bags of manure, a half lamb and 2 kittens and 10 spruce trees in our car. One kitten was already playing with the dog and one still lodged under their bed. (Has since come out for food.) As I had been bitten through my glove by it that morning I stayed away from it. And finally we took one of 2 mother cats to be spayed. Hopefully she is not killed by coyotes as was Goldie 3 weeks after being spayed). I blame my expenses on cat loving Rod in Darfur as he made a fuss when I used to drown kittens. Yesterday we planted the new trees in our wind brake as light rain fell. We worked like crazy (chest pains!) and later took one last drive into the empty fields. As Linda picked some blue flowers that always persist this late, Emma checked out gopher holes and coyote scat. We noted shrubs and trees along the coulee turning yellow/orange and concurred with our Dr, Adam, we do live in Nirvana. Last night Linda brought in 12 more ears of corn for a feast, along with goulash made from one of Lloyd's normal steers.
Now to pack our 2 carry on bags and get to the airport by Sat 6 PM for a flight my kids often take to direct to London . Sunday we arrive by coach at the home of Uganda friends the Thomases in Plymouth to plan a week long trip with them through their native Wales to England's Lakes country. Then we go on our own into Scotland, our destination the Isle of Harris from whence sailed the MacKillops of Cape Breton.
Wish I knew more Gaelic.
On a sad note, our friend Linda's son was killed in Afghanistan this week. When I saw her last week she was dropping branches at recycling before going to a non violence communication course. We dedicated a spruce tree facing SW towards the coulee as Nathan's tree.

GATHERING UP

Today the Frankensteers left on 2 cattleliners. Has been tense the past few weeks as we searched the coulee for the 2 missing. Turns out they had been put back in our field by neighbour, Mr. Hawk. It is always a big event when the cattle are gathered up and loaded onto trucks for the journey back to High River. In this case the steers go to the feedlot to be weighed and Lloyd will be paid by the pounds they gained while here. I put my remaining 8 lambs into Lloyd's stock trailer to be dropped at the High River Auction Mart for a sale tomorrow. Apparently lamb prices are quite high now so I'm on the lamb!
Now Linda and I can get back to the garden harvest. Most of our potatoes are down the well pit and we have been brining in beans, zucchini and beets to make spaghetti sauce and borscht which we eat and put into the freezer.
Many jobs to do, water trees again before freeze up, wash windows, fence deer out of trees, cut wood for the stove, etc. Hard life. I hate it!

BRINGING IN THE SHEEP (SIC)

Labour Day 07. Lambs have been growing since they arrived last spring. Two died of cold weather and 2 were snatched by cougars. I drove to High River to get Lloyd's truck and trailer. He had gone combining peas but left the unit set to go. When I got back home Linda had all the lambs (she thought) in the barnyard but a quick count revealed 5 missing. Nice try guys, I said as I chased them out of the old pig barn. We got the 8 biggest lambs loaded and ear tagged them. The Cdn government, in its wisdom (sic), insists any sheep shipped have a pink tag. I don't mind paying the $1.30 each, it's the pointless cruelty of stabbing them when no record is taken of this process. One could pull tags out of a dead animals and reuse them. This money grab on pretext of making us safe (sic) from mad cow disease (sick) is similar to planting a tree to off set carbon cost of an air flight. Leaving the barnyard, I noted all mothers grazing except for one ewe answering her son's bleating from the trailer. I have ewes grieve after the loss of a lamb at birth but seldom at this point. Linda and I drove to High River and with her directions (bad), I back into the unloading chute at the meat processing plant in the middle of High River. I shoved the terrified lambs into a pig smelling pen next to 4 horned steers (that's 4 steers with horns). I recalled meeting a sheep farmer named Stump here and hearing him assure his lambs they were going to a better place. (He should've been a minister.) We drove to Lloyd's, arriving as he came from the field in a big grain truck. Being Labour Day, the farmer was on his own while his son and nephew were off partying elsewhere. He had to combine peas, fill his truck and then unload it. (Must've been the same for Dad when I was home to help him). Lloyd made us tea and told us of his recent fishing trip to BC with son and nephew. He promised the Frankensteers would leave this week. We arrived home to find the ewes and steers still grazing in the last light of the day.
Today I smelled crab apples on the wood stove as I came into the kitchen . I took Linda a coffee in bed and anticipated the beginning of her jelly making. I will add sheep manure and rototill the garden since spuds have been dug and stored down the well pit. Once again I note our green ash trees yellowing and hear myself mutter, "Give me another summer, please!"

Agriculture vrs "Development"

Dear Editor
The Twin Valley Resort project proposed for the Little bow Reservoir has drawn a line drawn between farming and development. Seems everytime the government tells us that a new dam will benefit agriculture, we end up with another subdivision around a "lake." This "lake" came with the added cost of $80 million to relocate a Hutterite colony. Twin Valley Resort now wants to put 360 condos around this "lake. Their huge Calgary lawyer reminded me of Goliath as he roared for and hour and a half against the idea of council interfering with their public access to this area. A dozen farmers sat quietly in the back rows listening to how unfit their land was for agriculture. I wondered where Goliath thought his dinner came from. He stressed the added tax revenue that would come into the area with this development and suggested the fire risk would be held in check by high insurance rates. As for increased road traffic, the condos owners would take the longer highway route in from highway 2 rather than short cut by the old road. When Goliath finished it was time for lunch, perhaps his strategy since only 5 of us returned in the afternoon. Many, like Nanton's Mayor Blake, had other meetings and harvesting demands. Blake left written questions about the increased demands on volunteer fire department, ambulance and police services from this development larger than the town of Stavely. Before any protestors could speak, Goliath demanded 30 letters in support of the project be read into record. I recognized some names from the Silver Willow Lodge but others were from as far away as Sherwood Park. (shareholders?) Finally at 1:30 PM, neighbours to this project, Gerald Lyon, Diana Andrews and her daughter, spoke on behalf of themselves and Parkland Agriculture Society. The daughter, a 5th generation member of a farming family, wondered how she and her husband could continue farming amidst this new settlement. These "David's" plead not only to protect agriculture but also the environment they cared passionately about. I left wondering if this time Goliath would prevail or would he be smitten by a council that stuck to a long held tradition of protecting agriculture in Willow Creek Municipality.
Sincerely
Larry MacKillop

waiting for the revolution

Aug 19. 2007
Concerned about a trilateral meeting in Quebec that might see our Cdn water sold, Linda and I attended a rally in Calgary. I took the opportunity to grab some falafel from a Lebanese shop playing Arabic music next to the Hudson Bay building. How Cdn! Enroute to the rally we passed side signs advertising fringe theatre productions. Took me back to my 3 fringe efforts including Tender Meat News, my play about North Americans obtaining heart replacements from Guatemalan street kids in exchange for our artificial ones. The media in Saskatoon and Edmonton were incensed at mackillops conceit in blaming them slammed me into closing both places early. My inadequate talent and funds led to a technically bad show. I had more success plays about a Marxist children's writer stuck with a tone of moldy Nicaraguan coffee he had bought on speculation as well as a play about a Canadian nationalist who goes to Florida to bury his Aunti America only to find his nationalism is rooted in that rather than love of his own country. That was then while today I was a senior joining a protest about world fascism.

I arrived at the city hall plaza to find 4 friends sitting at a table. Byron Price works for a society helping the poor. We donate a lamb each year to his fund raiser. Jim Beck is a retired med professor who I met 37 yrs ago when I hosted a meeting of people wanting to start a left wing newspaper in Calgary. We support a consortium for blind people he helps in El Salvador. Jack Century, whom I met through The Council of Canadians and NDP, has orchestrated a possible production of my play, Dr Dave Lander, at the Jewish Centre. Then came Ed Wolfe, an 84 year old geologist who supported my formation of an institute to get sex education into Calgary schools despite strong opposed from the John Birch Society. The rally was small with passionate young people speaking about the shame of leaders and corporations meeting in secret to give way our water and heritage. I had a chance to connect my old friends with each other. Jim and Jack are both descendents of Polish Jewish immigrants to USA.. Jim and Ed both renounced their US citizenship over their country's actions. It was Byron who connected me with Tom Jeyachandran, who took Linda and I to see his native India. When the rally ended I got the email address of a fiery young speaker, who told me she was a student in Social Welfare (another chapter of my life, I taught there). She said she had been wanting to join the NDP and God knows we could use some fire there! Linda and I took Byron and Jim for a bowl of Po at a Viet Namese restaurant. I asked the manager, a woman I recognized, how long she had been here and she replied 21 years. We gave Byron and Jim a ride back to the NW where Byron gave me a large piece of Spring salmon sent for us from Tom. As I drove Byron back to the C Train stn where he'd left his car, we stopped to greet one of his condo neighbors, Helen, a survivor of Auswitch. Then Linda and I left Calgary, a place with so many connections and a revolution not yet begun.

water, saskatoons and Dad

Water for my trees brings me such a good feeling. Each day after I check Lloyd's Frankensteers, I stop at the water trough and fill my 90 gallon tank via the solar pump.. I always pour a libation of water over the solar panels and watch the watt metre climb as high as 300 when sunlight is directly on the panels.. I haul the water back to my little trees and give each an ice-cream bucket measure of water. I note the aphids gone, partly due to the watering and also the Tanglefoot I put on each trunk to deter ants from climbing to attend the aphids (their cows). As the tank empties I open the top and smell the water as I tip back to get the last 5 gallons on one last tree. I try to be egalitarian but, like the swallows feeding babies in nests on our house, the open mouth gets more than its share. A few trees are recovering from having their bark scraped by buck deer last winter. (I stop hunters from shooting deer and they do this to my trees!)
A nice diversion yesterday was to pick some saskatoons. (All Westerners know this is like a blueberry but better in flavour) I found some hanging like grapes along the fence at the bottom of a small coulee with a stream of water flowing by. The steers could not trample and rub the bushes due to the fence. I filled my bucket quickly ( I like to strip berries rather than pick them carefully and sort them later) As I returned to my truck I noted the water source was a spring my Dad used to love digging out. Seems it went dry when he died but is now back again. I felt close to him as I saw the water seep out of the sandstone rock and begin its journey. It was obvious the steers had been drinking this water as well as the medicated water at the trough. Back at the house I sat watching the BBC world news and sorted my berries. For supper that night Linda rewarded me with a saskatoon pie.

Frankensteer

My brother sold his cows this spring meaning I would have nothing to check on during my summer walks (sans Rex. As the grass grew lush, Lloyd contracted Western Feedlots to pasture 140 steers here. (he gets 50 cents a pound gained and he insists I get rent for my pasture) Three cattle liners arrived and empted the terrified animals into our coral. These animals had been given every shot and hormone and were branded and ear tagged before leaving the feedlot. Prodded by electric shocks from yelling drivers, they burst out and broke fences in an effort to escape . The raced around our fields for a half day, some breaking out and going into the coulee. And one group becoming mad that they began throwing themselves at the barnyard fence to get back inside. We settled them for the night in a pen by the water hole. Seems they were more secure in a confined area. Over the summer we have seen them grown and cam down but with the behavior of bulls. They bellow night and day like a chorus of frogs and tear up the ground while making bull holes. I have learned that these animals are full of steroids. (140 Barry Bonds) They are harmless to me but very rough on each other. Today Lloyd came and took home one of the steers that was being ridden day and night by a group of would be bulls. Seems this smaller steer had become a sex object to them. By the time Lloyd arrived, it was lying down surrounded by a pack of rapists. I guess that is what happens to humans in the pen.
I watched a CBC documentary called Frankensteer, that was shot here in S Alberta's feedlot alley. No wonder mad cow and other diseases occur, and e coli (hamburger disease) killing kids. I know I would not eat any meat raised this way, no matter how high the pasture fee paid. .
Chow larry