Weekend Wisdom

 My neighbour was sitting on his back porch the other day when I visited. I sat down with him and he and I enjoyed the view over his beautiful flower gardens and old pasture fields beyond. I mentioned that I had started a bon-fire in my driveway - between the barn and the metal shelter. He leaned forward in his chair, looked at me and said that was just the greatest place to relax and have a fire at our farm. The fire pit was perfectly in the middle of our family of animal pens and homestead. I thought about that for only a few seconds and realized how accurate he was - give or take. 

 When sitting around the fire, the Barn is due south housing goats and sheep, east of that are the bucklings, ram lambs and ewe lambs that we have kept to date. The quonset is due north with stored bales of hay and our second and third year does. North-east is our house and to the north of that is the pen of our newest doelings. South-east are more doelings that we are weaning. Straight east you'll find the Irish Dexter cattle roaming our fields. So virtually centered in our group of animals is the little space we use to wind down and have some quiet time on weekends. Whenever we have a fire it seems there is always a stunning sunset with either the neighbours log house or the other neighbours barn (the party barn) in view. It's a settling feeling to know we are surrounded by family and friends. 

 Earlier that same day I had a similar enlightenment. I was finally together for lunch with my father. We are both plenty busy and have missed lunch dates for my birthday and Father's day. We had a good chat as we both had many stories to catch up on. I had sent a link to this blog the day before so we spent a few minutes discussing it which led to his latest venture (one that has been on the back burner for forty years). He is going through all of Stephen Leacock's work and making plays out of several of his favourites. As we bantered about the merits of each of our extra-curricular activities, my father ended that topic with a few words I took home: 'It's not what you say, it's how you say it'.

The Road Runners

Another slice of wisdom that surfaced last weekend was this: Don't forget your snare drum stand when you are playing a gig 100 miles away! My old friend Jeff (see Livin' and Giggin') was playing a show near me for the first time in a LONG time. Many of his friends and family are in my area and were very excited to find out we would have a chance to see him and his band play. On the day of the show, in the mid-afternoon I got a call from Jeff. He was in a bit of a panic because he forgot to pack his snare stand. Almost any other piece of hardware would not have been as critical to forget, but as luck would have it - THE SNARE STAND! 

 I am glad he called and was happy to help him out. My stand was handy and it only took 30 minutes or so to get it to him. I am sure he would do the same for me. Jeff and I found it amusing that he had written that blog just a couple of months ago. Maybe he should have read it before leaving the house.