rain, rain, go away. come again another day

i've been out here in the wild west since saturday, august 13th and i have yet to wear any of my capri pants or t-shirts. i have been wearing and re-wearing and wearing yet again the one pair of blue jeans that i brought along. who knew that august in alberta would be quite this cold and miserable. there is even fear of frost tonight - and that would be a very bad thing.

my father is a farmer and since july they have had less sunshine and less warm days than normal. the weather has been so cold and rotten that the crops are way behind where they should be and this spectre of an ungodly early frost would be close to disastrous. farming is a brutal occupation. in most businesses you can somewhat control the major factors of your day-to-day affairs... no one controls the weather. (and apparently no one can predict it either!)

but back to saturday - at my cousin's wedding in the rockin' town of saskatoon - which seemed to most closely resemble a more 'countrified' peterborough. do you know who parties hard? chiropracters party hard. my cousin is a chiropractor and at the reception the table seated behind mine (table #14) was full of chiropractors. (they stole the bottle of red wine off of my table when we were all away. i was the only one drinking it - but it was MINE to consume at will and with glee). and apparently as part of the whole wedding deal, during dinner there are usually speeches and an open mike for guests to come up and contribute stories (i don't know, i so rarely go to these things). anyway - this wedding did NOT have an open mike - largely for fear of what stories table #14 might unearth to embarrass the groom into the middle of the next decade.

after the dinner/dance was closed (1:30) the party continued in one of the guests rooms in the hotel. and no less than 3 times was hotel security sent up to tell people to quiet down. the last time the threat was that people would start to be evicted if they didn't wrap it up. and apparently at 4:30 in the morning the bride and groom were running through the stairwells of the saskatoon hilton in order to evade security.... i was not there for that, but heard the story from about 6 others - one of which was the groom's mother (who was with them).

the drive back to edmonton was fun. we left at 11:30 in the morning and got to edmonton at about 5:30 - and we stopped about 1 and a half hours for lunch. apparently my brother and law sped quite a bit of the way... the ride was supposed to be me, my parents, my sister, her husband and their 8 month old little girl. however, the baby came down with 'early-pneumonia' while in saskatoon and as a result my parent's caught a ride with someone else and my sister and brother-in-law and i had a great time riding back together. it was a lot of fun. but i don't need to hear the new nickelback song EVER again. *shudder*

and since it's been so rainy and cold - i haven't yet had a chance to go wandering in the fields and pastures. i love to hang with my dad's cows. he has close to 400 of them at the moment - and the spring calves are still pretty damn cute. maybe tomorrow. i have forgotten just how big the sky can look here - and how absolutely HUGE the moon is as it hangs in the sky in the late summer/early autumn. we've been having clouded nights and last night as i was falling asleep i hoped for clear skies so i could see the stars and the beautiful moon - and tonight i was rewarded with a very very clear sky, many stars and a gorgeous golden moon.

top 5 great things about my parent's farm

• fresh veggies from the garden (as organic as it gets!)
• saskatoon pie
• cows
• trees, trees and more trees
• the haunting sound of coyotes at night

[music tori amos, "cornflake girl"]