A Sunday's Plans Gone Awry

I intended to drive to town this morning to attend a service at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (UUC) with Tammy and Carlos. I got up at five in the darkness and assumed that the plan would go ahead. As soon as it was light I would clean off the car, exercise Kenya, have breakfast, shower and we would be off.

At 7 we were out the door, but it became immediately apparent that a great deal of snow had fallen last night. I trudged up the hill. Kenya bounded through the drifts like a boat encountering waves. The car was completely covered, and needed to be shoveled out. The hill down to Pike Lake Road was covered in soft snow again. I did the brushing, scraping and shoveling, and dragged the shovel back to the steps above the house.

By the time I had shoveled all 39 steps, wet strands of sweat soaked hair hung down in front of my face, I was tired, and it was twenty past eight. I had ten minutes to shower, have breakfast, dress and head up that hill again, and all I wanted to do was crash. I also questioned whether I would be able to get back up the hill before it was plowed or packed down by 4WD vehicles.

So much for good intentions.

Instead I fixed the little postman. He no longer has a head. I wrote. I vaccuumed the entire house. I discovered another leak in the roof that was destroying the wall board in the closet above the woodstove. I mopped and broke through paint in two places to let water out. I read the papers. I listened to CBC. I tidied a few cupboards.

And then I wrote my secret letter to Arrow.

I write these letters to Arrow because I love her, and I want her to WANT to read. She finds it hard to focus on school tasks in spite of being a very bright little girl. She can learn anything if it relates to nature and the outdoors, or if it involves actually DOING something physical.

I tucked the letter into a package containing a pair of binoculars for bird watching. The last letter was in a package held together with duct tape and so unwieldy that I wrote a note of apology to the postal workers who had to deal with it. I was afraid they might think it was something for the garbage. It contained two wasps' nests we had discovered between the walls when we were demolishing the old cottage.

I took this photo in the fall of 2006 when Arrow helped me look after the chickens, cats, dogs and horses at a hobby farm while the owners were away. She had no trouble learning how to do everything necessary to be a real helpmate.