It's the anniversary of the Montreal massacre today, when a man shot 14 women students, after declaring, "You're all just a bunch of feminists." Yesterday Mandela died. As I drive out of town, mostly what I see is bare soil and stubble. The only thing that lightens me is the birds' and squirrels' nests, revealed again. I even see what I think must be an osprey nest, on top of a telephone pole, right next to Gue1ph Lake.
When I arrive, she's in the kitchen, making lunch for the young men I'd seen in the barn. "It's just you, me and the guys," she says, a fact I remain faintly troubled by for the rest of the afternoon. What does it mean for my project about women farmers to have men helping?
She'd already brought my attention to the fact that she, the only woman on the farm, was making lunch for the men who were still out working. She wondered how much more she could take on, get done, if she could work outside all morning, knowing someone was making her a hot lunch, and then work outside for half a day more before someone else served dinner. All afternoon, I find myself trying to keep them out of the frame, especially when they were lifting the heavy things.
During lunch, talk turns to broth, and it's a treat for me to have more than one other person in the room who makes broth and we talk methodology for a bit. She tells us she only makes broth in the slow cooker now, ever since she literally filled the entire house (all three storeys!) with 'protein smoke.' They had to live in a hotel for three weeks while the whole house was cleaned, and even after they moved back in, they couldn't use the kitchen for another few months.
And she tells us about taking her last beloved goats to slaughter earlier this week. I've been wondering why had goats. I could see them as a dairy animal, but somehow they seem odd as a meat animal. Is there much of a market for ethically-raised goat meat? She says she was inspired by Marilyn Waring, who said that goat is the poor person's beef and that she raised goats in solidarity with poor women around the world. So long before my farmer even moved to the country, she decided she would have goats too. I'm a little familiar with Waring, but I think I need to learn more about her.
After lunch, the men go to split wood in the woods, while she harnesses the horses to haul it out. Once harnessed and outside the barn, they're a bit skittish, turning around to avoid being attached to the wagon. She says it's been too long since she last worked them. Eventually they are attached and they move off at some speed. She goes towards the pasture to turn them around and they really pick up speed as they come back down, past the barn and towards the woods. She offers me a ride and I hop on, without much thought. Then she tells me one of the horses has never been in the woods today, so I better be ready to bail. I am suddenly fearful for my gear but I don't want to lose face by getting off now.
They squeeze between one of the cars parked in her driveway and a tree, with only inches to spare. And the path in the woods is a bit narrower. The horses move fast and aren't always particularly attentive to her commands. Tree branches are flying by and the wagon is bumping and banging, its wood creaking like that old wooden roller coaster I once rode. At one point the wagon seemed dangerously tilted to my side, so I got down in the centre to avoid my weight flipping it. The thought flashed through my mind that my little urban life is looking awfully good right about now. All this danger just to bring in firewood for next winter, not even for this winter.
Turning the team and wagon in the woods seems more than a little hair-raising, but eventually she gets them where she wants them. She confesses this is also the first time she's had the wagon in the woods and it's a bit wide for the path. I get off with some relief. The fallen tree was very old and big, and the rounds that have been cut are ridiculously heavy. Once again, I feel awkward I'm not helping, but in this case, I really can't be of use. Some of the pieces need two men lifting them at once.
The darkness comes just as my camera battery dies. I leave quickly while she and the guys go back for another load of wood. I always leave her place with some kind of emotion. I'm not sure if it's longing for the fantasy that is so close to her life, or grief that the veil is lifting off my fantasy, and underneath it looks too damn hard for me.
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