Is it the cow's in the meadow and the sheep's in the corn or the other way round? Anyway, life is never dull in the country. Once I had to chase escaped dairy cows out of the neighbour's corn field. They were feasting on the sumptuous young corn tips. My dog Buster and I ran to the middle of the field. Buster is not a herder but he thought it all great fun. Meanwhile I ran about with a bum leg and a stick and he just ran about barking and wagging his tail and occasionally looking at me for approval. The cows knew exactly how to run home. They weren't lost at all. They knew where to cop a good meal that's all! Eventually, having enough or our silliness, they hi-tailed it off through the field of young corn down the hill and to the barn where they were awaited for milking.
Another time a peacock appeared in all its glory on our lawn. Where it had come from and where it disappeared to I never learned. But last evening, as I reclined after a day's garden labour in the hot sun, with an ice pack at my back, I could have sworn I heard a lamb bleat. Then I convinced myself it had been some trick of mind. I drifted off and sure as I was breathing, I am sure I heard another bleat. I looked out, saw nothing, looked again and then went to sit down. Buster, lying at my feet looked at me in quiet expectation but eventually curled back down on the cool floor. Then more bleating. But I had seen a grackle fly by the window - Ah I thought, these troublesome birds may be like the raven who can sound like other creatures. That had to be it. Then louder bleating and Buster perked up and dashed out the screen door with his fur bristling. I walked out after him and walked about and looked over the hill. Nothing. Buster ran about sniffing in vain. I walked around the outside of the house and as I rounded the front porch two brown goats ran toward me! They were tame and friendly and very lovable although Buster got his testosterone in a knot (Do dogs have testosterone?). Eventually he calmed down and the beasts sniffed one another. They fortunately had green collars on and so I was able to lead them to the potting shed whilst I figured out what to do. I called our neighbour who had lived here all her life. She called about for me and in short order discovered these creatures had escaped from a farm further down in the valley and around the bend only 2 kilometres away. The owner arrived shortly and gratefully took the intruders home.
Life is never dull in the country.

A funeral of a young man who has taken his life
With no warning signs of unabated internal strife
Has brought out a town to sadly wonder why
A young person in full flight would want to rudely die.

And wonder confused is all that the people can do;
A hundred reasons to ponder or only a few.
What dread secrets were hidden so deeply within?
What lost cherished dreams or desires that were dim?

Was he too fragile to awaken his candid self ?
Had he been robbed of some deep inner wealth?
Was he denied the vital face of fulsome youth ?
Tragic the slaughter of prospect, the buried truth.

MacBeth thought trees were a threat, but apart from Shakespeare's evil character I would not have believed that trees were a menace outside the imaginings of a deranged would-be king. Alas, our mayor shares MacBeth's neurosis and is determined to chop trees down along our pristine rural roadsides.
The same man who would say "Guns don't kill people, people do", is speaking out of the other side of his mouth when he claims people don't kill people, trees do! It seems roadside trees are a liability this rural municipality cannot afford.
If public outrage does not muster, then our beautifully canopied backroads will soon be decimated. This in an era of environmental concern. What of the endangered wildlife and the precious fauna that nourish there? What of the roots that keep back erosion and the canopies that shelter the roads from the destruction of wind and rain and sun. What of the arborial borders that keep top spoil and snow from drifting? And what of the attempt to make this a tourist destination, a destination sought out because of its natural beauty and rural charm. Without any evidence to support his aim - at least evidence that has been disclosed to the public, the mayor plans to bulldoze on.
There is only one thing worse than arrogance in a petty politican, and that is arrogance combined with ignorance.
But now some farmers are saying the tree huggers don't know what we are talking about because we a city emigrees. Well there have been plenty of farmers in my ancestral lineage and are still today. And those who have been true caretakers of the land have known for centuries the benefit of vegetation along the edges of fields and roads.

The Slippery Slope of Country Living: Well some stories just have to be told, even if they aren't about big events in big people's lives. A recent February night was no exception.

I had left my car at the Oshawa dealership near the GO station for routine maintenance and taken the train into the City for work. It was mild. Upon returning to Oshawa at 7:00 p.m. in a heavy downpour, I walked under a too small faded red umbrella to pick up my vehicle, which, it turned out, was not ready and which, it also turned out, would not be ready until the next day. They were happy to provide me with a small courtesy car for the long trek home on wet and slippery roads in the sheer dark... but only after I had signed a contract with a $1000 deductible insurance coverage. What is a wet, tired lawyer to do in such circumstances when there is no one to feed his beasts, my beloved partner being on a beach in Cuba? So I signed the form, but, being a then grumpy lawyer, clandestinely snuck in the precursor to my signature that said "under duress". This went unnoticed.

The 100 km drive home took me off the main highway much earlier because it was far too risky a course. As I progressed north and east, the roads became more and more slushy, although the rain did not appear to be icy. Proudly, after a painstaking journey at a mere 60 km per hour, I saw the cemetery that marked the intersection with our welcoming concession road. I signalled, stopped, and cautiously turned the corner beginning to climb the gradual incline that is our gravel road, often more pothole and mud than gravel. I was greeted with a headlight glistening skating rink of sheer ice. The car's meagre tires began to spin, coaxing the tiny vehicle to a halt, but not a true halt because, by Newton's law, it began to slide backwards. This was not enough. It then, because of the contours of the road, slipped sideways into not so much a ditch as a soft, muddy, slushy shoulder. There it was, embedded as the rain, relentless, pelted down. Reluctantly, I gave up trying to cajole an unwilling and incapable mechanism onward. I saw the welcoming light of the neighbour’s farm ahead ... but this was not a night to bring anyone out from the comforts of home – and to what end? Home was only a short walk away.

I opened the car door and warily put my feet down. Then, on standing, I found myself in full human splendour, sailing quickly down the road before scrambling cartoon-like and falling soaked to the icy surface. In the kafuffle, my ancient umbrella blew away. What to do? Only one thing: Walk the insulting one kilometre distance to our hilltop house. But how? Not on the road which forbade balance. Yes, only in the muddy, mushy ditch edge could I get any traction.

Wetter and wetter, I decided to cross a neighbour's hay field to our house. But then, in the sheer dark, with the howling wind and the pelting rain, I recalled the fine, noble, hungry and too bold wolf that had walked past our kitchen window the weekend before, and I heard in my memory the yapping of the coyotes that had wakened me but three nights previously. This wasn't helped by a recent conversation with a friend about the discovery of a deer carcass, eaten clean, or the fact that my dog had proudly found antlers buried in the remaining snow on our last walk. Now every crunch of the snow became the trail of the hunters, and I was the hunted. I started to run and, in what seemed endless plodding, came to the edge of the field on the other side of the road from the house. I gingerly tested the road and quickly repeated my previous downward descent. Crash. Knapsack flying. Despite the humiliating prospect, only on all fours did I make it to our side of the road and after a number of graceless slips, I managed the final ascent to our door. Having barely escaped the clutches of some chop licking, eye glinting carnivore (or so my rocking chair story shall go), I was greeted by a face licking, body wiggling, tail wagging and very hungry dog. The sanders came in the night. The early morning road was less ice than slush. At 6:30 a.m. I hauled the heavy ash can with its ashen content the one kilometre down the road, and with almost too great and too insulting an ease, drove the tiny car home.

A new business has meant I did not get to take a southern vacation this year. Alas, my beloved partner has eagerly kept me apprised of the warm sunny days on a Cuban beach and the jaunts in and out of that jewel of a city, Havana.

But winter in the Ontario countryside has not been at all unpleasant, although we have had the long and bitterly cold days. But these have brought the crystal blue skies and resilient freshness of a clean and invigorating air. And we have had little snow, but just enough make the hills and fields dance and to remind us that it really is winter. Not a bad thing in itself.

However, managing a household of demanding pets, coping with a herniated disk, dealing with hungry wood stoves, balancing two careers and rehearsals for 2 one act plays, the performance of which is too quickly approaching, has perhaps meant trying to juggle a little more quickly than my dissipating co-ordination would handle . This is why I am typing with a finger bound and pricked with 8 stitches. All for a vegetable stew that I would not eat. A kitchen can be a dangerous place when one is too distracted. And had it been the chain saw then I might not have been here at all.