Ridin', Reinin' and Writin'

Sometimes it's impossible to know what will evoke emotion, especially in yourself. It all started with a phone call from my son.

Shayne called from Tisdale, Saskatchewan, where he was on a work assignment. Only a few kilometers from where he grew up and went to school over 30 years ago, he had embarked on a nostalgic journey of Bjorkdale School and the two properties where he had resided with the family. One of those was an acreage we had owned and lived on for 10 years.  

 "Did you take photos?" I asked. He told me did and would send them to me.

 I had not been back to the Crooked River property since 1988. I knew no one was living there and the mobile home was gone. I assumed the yard, barn and fences were in disrepair. I was not sure I wanted to see the old place rundown and empty, but Shayne told me it was "pretty cool" to go back and memories he had long forgotten had surfaced. I waited for the photos, interested and curious but in no way prepared for the jolt they would give me.

 My husband and I bought the Crooked River acreage – bare land – in 1977. We moved there in July with our three children, a few cattle, a bunch of horses and six Samoyed dogs. We had pastures for the stock but quickly built a dog pen and a hip-roofed, two sided shelter for the two stallions. If I remember correctly, one had to stay tied to the trailer for a few nights. Since hydro and water were not yet to the property, we hauled water and cooked on a Coleman stove. Arrangements were made to put in a well, get the hydro in and build a barn. We didn't think there would be any problem getting everything up and running before fall until... an accident in the "rescue race" at Nipawin Fair sidelined my husband with broken ribs and internal surgery. He was on crutches and useless. I said later that we probably got things done faster with him laid up because friends and neighbours pitched in, putting up fences, roofing the barn and helping us in any way they could.

 This was home, mortgage and all, and it was ours.  I did not foresee any changes in the near future. One year later, my husband and I separated.

 

The separation rocked my world, but, by mutual agreement, I stayed on the property with the children, assumed the mortgage and began life as a single mother. Of course I needed income and so I opened my doors for business – horse training! I took any horse I was asked to and I rode. At least spring to fall I rode; in the winter I raised Samoyed puppies. As well, I stood a stallion and raised some foals. In between the horse work, I got my kids off to school and ran them to various activities, planted, tended, and harvested a large garden and landscaped the yard – with the help of my children. We planted rows of trees and kept them hoed, seeded a big lawn, fenced the lawn with a wagon wheel fence that was my pride and joy, planted shrubs, fruit trees, perennials and lots of annuals. Even now, so many years and several homes later, I believe my Crooked River yard was the nicest of them all.



 Shayne's photos were on my email the next morning. As I looked through them, nostalgia changed to something else. After years of never looking back, I found myself lost in the past. I did love that property and was proud of what I had done with it. Unbidded, the memories flooded back – parties, barbecues, hours riding in the arena, picking bushel baskets of peas, a bouquet of cut flowers… At that moment I wished I had not left, had chosen the other path. Yes, it is run down but good vibes are still there. The mobile home is gone but the porch still stands housing the water tank in the basement beneath it and the sump pump I had to keep running because the water level was so high. So is the tree that shaded the deck (can't remember what kind it was) and the beautiful weeping birch that stood at the corner of the home.