Grandpa F's old red barn; a Lisa Birch photo
I love the wind. It reminds me of my childhood home, our family farm on the Saskatchewan prairie.
I could never, ever live in the woods; I get claustrophobic when I can’t see the horizon.
I delight in a summer breeze drifting lazily across my skin and embrace it when it fiercely pushes my hair straight back from my face.
Even on wintry days when the wind is more a foe than a friend, I respect it. I step back as it blasts snow back at us, whips leaves through the yard, and howls above me in the cold, starless sky.
There’s a book I adore and I’m sharing here: “If you’re not from the prairie ….” by David Bouchard
“…My hair’s mostly wind,
My eyes filled with grit
My skin’s white then brown
My lips chapped and split
I’ve lain on the prairie and heard grasses sigh
I’ve stared at the vast open bowl of the sky
I’ve seen all the castles and faces in clouds
My home is the prairie and for that I am proud…
If You’re not from the Prairie, you can’t know my soul
You don’t know our blizzards; you’ve not fought our cold
You can’t know my mind, nor ever my heart
Unless deep within you there’s somehow a part…
A part of these things that I’ve said that I know,
The wind, sky and earth, the storms and the snow.
Best say that you have – and then we’ll be one,
For we will have shared that same blazing sun.
for more please visit: http://www.davidbouchard.com/titles/prairie.htm
OK, this pix totally made my heart smile. Even when Grandpa wasn’t using that barn he kept oats in the chopper and the first stall to the right always had fresh straw for J Jay. I was never told that I couldn’t ride in his coulees, in fact he quietly put “easy bars” on the gates so I could close them behind me, and so I used to play on the hills down there in what I thought was a sacred tee pee site/burial ground. I found out as an adult that your Dad and mine built that very same “sacred” site while playing the same games with their ponies as I did with mine. Then off to Grandma’s kitchen for whatever just came out of that magical oven. I can still see her in her apron and warm to the smell of her kitchen.
Thanks for the trip home – that is one handsome barn.
I knew you’d love it! Our cousin, Lisa, took that photo last summer. If you look closely, I do believe that just in front of it is an old sleigh or buggy; I can see two seats. I remember your putting JJ in that stall; I’d put Riley across from her and we’d both tumble into Grandma’s kitchen, smelling of fresh air and horses and as hungry as a pack of wolverines. We loved them and they loved us and that’s what this picture brings back to me; that .. and the wind. P.S. I didn’t know about the play site – neat! 🙂 Love you, MJ.
Absolutely beautiful. I love this so much. The words, the images. Might be my new favorite poem. Thank you for sharing
Thank you. The book is even better; it’s illustrated with classic prairie scenes and takes me back home every time I look through it. Thanks for stopping in! 🙂 MJ
My in-laws who live in Pennsylvania wonder why I love living on the prairie with wind and the threat of tornados. I wonder how they can live in the valley and not be able to see storms coming from a hundred miles away.
That’s it exactly! Is there any conversation starter better than the weather or the wind? “Gee, sure is cold out there, did you feel that wind?” “Have you seen the horizon; something’s brewing up, we need to get the clothes in off the line!” I love to be out in the woods but there comes a point when discomfort kicks in and I breath a little less deeply; I realized that the horizon is my compass. When I don’t have it I just feel lost. Thank you for stopping in.. MJ.
When I was a child, I used to go hunting for the wind with my friends. At two, my grandfather had convinced me that it was invisible and pushed things around but could be caught if you were fast and smart.
I wasted a lot of afternoons that summer.
I like your Grandfather; what a great imagination :). Cheers! MJ