Journey of the Juniper

Today I put my work pants on and felt a little prick. "Perhaps I have a little piece of juniper in my pants", I thought, so I turned them inside out to see and instead of a little piece of juniper the size of my pinkie nail, I found a whole branch as long as my hand. How did that ever get in there...?

I like working with cuttings because instead of coming home smelling of sweat or soil, I come home smelling like a Christmas tree. I feel like I can go much longer without doing laundry... but I'll stay on the safe side. Or safer side anyhow.

I never really get homesick, but this year Christmas seems to be highlighting the fact that my family is so dispersed. I have been away for a few Christmases so far, but usually I had a big distraction so I didn't notice so much. But this year I just miss my family and having a Christmas tree with wooden ornaments from the fair and our stockings Mom stitched and hot coco and Dad reading the Christmas story from Luke and having a big yummy meal and a party at church and being in Mexico... I miss the crazy lights hung up all over downtown and the big Christmas tree on Paseo Montejo, or someplace, and the kids coming by to sing a song with a manger scene in a box. I miss it all. And I miss them.

Maybe I should get a wreath. Or twinkle lights to put on the fake fern...

What a wonderful life.

The last couple weeks at Bakkers have consisted of an assortment of different jobs, some of which were the most strenuous I've done there yet. Walking through soft dirt while hopping over freshly dug trees, then bending at each clump of trees to put a label on it, all the while trying to stay ahead of the tiers so they don't move the tree on me and cause me to lose my hold on the label... And so we don't all get in each others way, bumping into each other as we try to keep a fast pace. Then there was the couple half days of putting poly plastic on the poly-houses. My job? Stand around watching the men tug and pull and fight the plastic to get it where they want and then a couple more men throw shovels full of dirt on the loose poly all along the side of the house, and THEN came the weakling women and old men's job - walking up or down each side of the long house, stabbing that extra poly with a long poking stick. Raise, STAB! Raise, STAB! Raise, STAB! Good workout. I liked it at first because it kept me warm, then got really tired and was thankful Dee finally told me I only had to poke after every two steps instead of after each one! (Gee thanks, Foo. Every step... bah!)
These weeks have been hard, but fun. The fast pace made the days go faster. The hard work made me feel good physically and sleep good too. Working with huge crews gave me a chance to get to know other workers I've seen around all summer but never talked to. And best of all, the standing around between the hard work gave me a chance to enjoy the sunrise and the sunset and all the stuff in the middle every day! Like a big oreo.

Got an hour? Listen to this...

Fall was almost my favorite season in Sioux Center. The temperature is nearly perfect and all around the earth and the air are an explosion of color while the leaves change into yellows, oranges, and reds, first on their branches and then swirling through the air and then forming a blanket over the streets, sidewalks and lawns. Some jobs on the nursery allow me to enjoy this process, such as grading locusts or birch. However, overall I have not felt the fall here to be as enjoyable. It is wetter, more grey, and colder. Perhaps this is just a bad year. In any case, I am glad I was able to visit Sioux Center and catch a glimpse of this season there.

But mostly I am glad I was able to spend even a little time with a few of those who have remained there. I have missed you all greatly, actually, and wish I could have seen more of you yet!

Dee and I were fortunate enough to see Sufjan Stevens on this new tour of his. I very much like his new album, or at least what I've heard of it so far. The concert consisted almost entirely of new material, all of which (perhaps due in part to the experience of hearing it live) I found to be spectacular.

Yesterday I was fooling around on some crutches. While my hands were thus occupied, a friend decided to hurl a frisbee at me and afterwards draw my attention to it just in time for me to watch the frisbeen meet the bridge of my nose... Today I had a headache. I would have been okay with that, had I been also rewarded with a black eye. I feel like everyone should have at least one black eye in their lifetime, or at least I should... And this should have been my chance, or so I thought. But no. Not even a bruise on my nose. Just a red spot and a bump and a headache. Ah well. Nothing ibuprofen could not fix. :)

I've been in Canada four months now. Summer is mostly over and now the ladies crew consists of only four people, including myself and Dee. It is a lot quieter, a lot slower, and much more boring than I expected.

I have not done all of the activities I had hoped to have done by now, such as visit the safari, or go white water rafting, or even go biking on the bike path in Niagara. But I have found ways of staying busy such as attempting to buy 33 different beers at Bugsys so I can get a beer mug with my name on it, watching movies at home or the cinema or the drive-in, walking forbidden paths, going behind waterfalls, camping, swimming at the Bakker beach, walking down the pier at Port Delhousie, participating in a play by Beth and Paul T. and Justine M., and tomorrow Dee and I plan to go to the butterfly conservatory.

I have not read as much as I hoped, but lately at work I have been listening to books on audio. I know tis not the same thing at all as reading, but it helps pass the time at work and prevents my getting so bored with the music I currently have. I am intrigued by the ability of some people to read books in such a captivating manner and to create slightly different voices and manners of speech for all the different characters in one novel. I think reading for a recording would be a rather fun job. Perhaps I have found a new calling...

I have traveled a little from here since coming. I went to Alberta for a happy family reunion and shortly after to Grand Rapids for a very unhappy family reunion of sorts. I still plan to go to Montreal sometime to visit my cousin and to Toronto to visit a friend and to Newmarket again to visit my aunt and uncle. In October I will be returning to Iowa for a long weekend. Heads up!

I think that is about it for now.

happenings

I went fishing on Saturday with Dee's dad and youngest sister. I learned to bait my own hook with minnows and cast my own line. I caught a pickerel and two bass, of which we threw one back for being too small.

This week has been a bit long, having to work full days again after not working a single full day last week because of the heat and then rain. I had a nice welcome back yesterday though. I got locked in the porta john for the entirety of our first break. It was like a bad movie or nightmare or prank... I laughed for the first 15 minutes thinking how I could just sit there and not work the rest of the morning. Then I got hot and realized how much it would suck to get left in there any longer with no reading material, phone, or anything. Finally I saw (through the air vents I was peeking out of) the van doors close and the vehicle begin to move in my direction. It wasn't until I heard the girls' voices that I realized just how relieved I was to be rescued and I began to cry.

WORLD CUP FINAL: NETHERLANDS vs SPAIN.

Mexico is out of the World Cup, so my second choice team is the Netherlands, of course. :) Because of Canada Day I got Friday off so I was finally able to watch a World Cup game. And not just any game, but the Brazil vs. Netherlands game! It was one of the most exciting games I have ever seen and a good exciting one because all the suspense and mounting tension exploded into pure elation when the Netherlands beat the best ranked team of this cup!!! I watched it in Boston Pizza with a bunch of friends. Game on at 10am, along with the first beers of the day. When the game was over we all got in our vehicles and drove in a convey through several little towns waving Dutch flags and honking at every Dutch flag and every orange jersey we saw. It was great to see complete strangers unite to share a moment of celebration.

The next game is on Tuesday at 2.30pm. I thought about taking the afternoon off of work to catch it, though deep down I knew I would not do it. But to my utter joy and happiness we have a hotter than hot week here, which not only got us sent home early today, but also caused our bosses to declare the next two days six to noon workdays. WOOOT WOOOT!! KNOCK EM DEAD, NETHERLANDS!

I went camping last weekend at someone's lake side cottage. It was a rockin good time. Next weekend I'll be going to the Bakker cottage. They are already there, which leaves me the house AND loft to myself. Yikes. I have to remember to set the alarm every night and lock doors and shut off lights and care for Lima. So much responsibility. :D So first, to the grocery store. Second, to the liquor store... (kidding)

PS. I miss everyone. EVERYONE!

I've been doing a little church shopping in these parts and last Sunday I liked the church I went to so I decided to go there again today. What an adventure...

As per usual, I was running a little late. So I sped a little. On the highway there are usually three lanes, but sometimes it cuts down to two. But rather than telling one to merge, they just use the 3rd lane as an exit. I didn't remember that from last time and missed any signs indicating that would be the case, so I was in that third lane and suddenly I was about to head down an exit thinking "Oh shit!" I tried to quick move a lane over to stay on the highway, but couldn't because there were two cars who wouldn't let me on, so I figured I'd just take the exit, turn left at the street to go back to the highway and get back on, no biggie. But THEN it turns out the exit was not for a street but for another highway. "Oh shit" again. It seemed a good 5 km before the next exit on THAT highway where I finally got off, turned around and got back on the 2nd highway towards the 1st highway that I needed. THEN! when I got back to the 1st highway (the one I needed), the ramp for Niagara (which I needed) was closed! So I had to go the opposite direction and get off at the next exit to reenter the highway in the right direction. Well, the next exit was 7th street and that was where I got on that highway in the very beginning anyhow and by this time it was ten after ten and by the time I'd even make it to church I would have been about 20 minutes late... So I just went home.

How embarrassing.

Last week Dee and I went to a Caribou concert in Hamilton, which was pretty good. We saw lots of familiar faces. Joel Vander Leek, Adam D., Olive, Neal, Jason K., Paul's Christina, possibly Alan, and to top it all off, Josh Sandbulte was the lead singer! It was pretty fantastic. Great to see you again, friends. I wish you all could have been there.

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.

My first two weeks here have involved heat rash, sun burn, blisters on all four fingers of my right hand and my left thumb, various scratches, cuts and bruises, and bending over so much my ass falls asleep and it hurts to stand up straight. However, with every passing week the bending becomes easier and also the plants get taller and hopefully eventually the bending will be less frequent as well... With every sun exposure, my skin becomes tid bits darker and my fear of burning up is slightly diminished. With every blister comes the making of a callous. And I have absolutely nothing positive to say about the heat rash, except that it is finally gone. :)

In one of the fields there is a mama killdeer bird who laid her eggs on the ground between two plants. Whenever we get close for a job, mama bird goes a couple rows down and starts making a shit load of noise while fanning out her feathers crookedly to appear injured. A fancy trick to appear an easy prey and thus distract the "hunter" from the nest. Dee and I saw about these birds on one of her Animal Planet movies. Then we witnessed the trick work for real when some of the girls were convinced this bird was hurt and should be helped. Smart bird.

Something new.

Last Monday I drove to Grand Rapids and spent some time with my grandparents, sisters, and mother. Twas a good time. We watched Anne of Green Gables, which I hadn't seen in far too long. Next Anne of Avonlea?

Wednesday I made it safely to Ontario after the easiest border crossing of my life. I spent a day and half unpacking and such and began work on Friday. I even got my first paycheck already. They spelled my name "Carmilla". I still had to fill out an application yesterday... It's hard to take the application seriously when you not only got the job already, but have worked 3 days too.

We have a long weekend this weekend so I'm going to take a trip to Newmarket to see some relatives.

So far Dee and I have gone out with some of her friends, seen Robin Hood on the big screen, seen Where the Wild Things Are on a smaller big screen, ridden a lawn mower, and gone to church twice. I feel so accomplished. :)

Next on my list is laundry, shopping, and finishing that blanket...

Joanna Newsom here I come!

That was a close one, Nena!

Saturday the wind blew ferociously, knocking tree branches together and causing them to drop large pieces of icy branches on people and cars below. Coming down fourth ave in my car, I was hit by a spurt of ice droppings, sounding like hail. When I emerged on the other side of the tree, I looked it my rear-view mirror just in time to see a large branch fall right where I had just been moments ago. Yikes!

What do you get when you cross a blanket of snow on the fields and a thick fog in the air? No horizon. This was my experience on the way to and from Granville last Friday. When there were no cars in front of me and none behind and all I could see anywhere around me was a small stretch of road that disappeared into a white haze, it felt like I was the only being on the planet. But even the planet did not feel like a planet at all. Rather than being a speck on the surface of a giant sphere, it felt more like I was a speck in the very center of a vast expanse of pure whiteness that could have gone on forever and ever.

Ever have that?

and maybe more

A few days ago Lisa was telling me a story about a guy who knew he was close to dying, so he wrote down his top ten memories ever. We decided limiting our favorite memories of a lifetime to just ten would be a trying task, but perhaps we could handle choosing our top five (or maybe 10) memories of the last year. So here's my best 2009 memories, in chronological order.

Nearly driving to Santa Fe after missing the Sandia Mountain exit with Morgan - January
The 75th birthday bash - February
Making construction paper masks on the way to the Kroeze wedding - March
Road trip to the west coast with Lisa and Ross - March
Campfire'n, beer sackin, pencil boxin, star gazin atop the garage, and snuffin - April?
Final Cotton Bonnets concert - May
Bike/camping trip to Oak Grove with Lisa, which included a hammock, soggy sandwiches, and two distinct, but equally important, swimming excursions - July
Yo La Tengo and the diner - October
The failed attempt to fly homemade kites with Dee - November

Salsa dancing at a club in GR with Yolanda - November

I forgot one - pushing Evan's face into the snow after building a snow fort in the backyard - December