I love Christmas. I have always loved Christmas. When I was a kid growing up in the North West Territories we had only our immediate family and we became very close. We treasured our traditions. Christmas Eve always started with a bath, followed by new pjs. Then came an extra special family evening with a program, singing from our homemade song books, and fancy snacks. And of course the hanging of the stockings before bed. For us, Christmas Eve was every bit as anticipated as Christmas morning when gifts were opened, one by one, but only after our beds were made, our rooms cleaned, and breakfast was eaten together. We didn’t get many presents, but with five kids, there was always the ‘wow’ factor under the tree. I carried on those traditions with my kids and they added a few of their own. They made a pact that the first one up Christmas morning woke the other two kids, and then the three of them would scamper downstairs together. I was always awake in my bed and listened with pleasure for their excited squeals of delight and their ooohs and ahhhhs when they saw the gifts under the tree. They opened their stockings together before ‘waking’ the parental’s.

For me, Christmas represents heartwarming and cozy family time and I steadfastly refused to believe it would ever change. But my kids have grown up on me and are now living their own lives. Alberta first nabbed Sabrina and Ben, and recently she has also snatched away Colin (damn Alberta with her high wages and great job opportunities).

In truth, our traditions have been slowly evolving over the past couple of years, but I have not allowed them to transition gently. I have railed against the mutiny and clung to our rituals with the same childish ferocity with which a toddler clings to her favourite blankie. But this isn’t Neverland and even Peter Pan couldn’t fight the tides of change forever.

My family are all well this holiday season. Colin is working hard in Peace River, Alberta where, in October, he was hired as a truck and coach diesel mechanic. I recently had a wonderful visit from Sabrina and Ben. They are happy and loving the mountain life in Hinton and Jasper. Max, is in his fourth year at Bishops University, and is the only one with me this Christmas eve/day. It’s just the two of us. It seems I must finally allow our traditions to sail into the realm of cherished memories.

In a preemptive strike against sliding into melancholy this Christmas, I booked a last minute trip for Max and me to Cuba. So here we are. I am writing this post as I stare out on a turquoise sea. Sink or swim right! So we swim! We rest, we eat, we read, we eat some more. And think about how incredibly fortunate we are for wonderful memories, loving family and dear friends.

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Five times! Five times it rained over my house this season. On a few occasions I literally watched it rain all around me like I was trapped in some bizarre weather vortex, the glorious liquid sunshine just beyond the reach of my thirsty plants. My trusty well held steady (sometimes at the expense of personal hygiene) and my drip irrigation system earned its stripes. But given the Sahara-like conditions this past summer, at my place, if you were not a blueberry plant, you had no water allotment. My grass was brown, my flowers died and my garden was pathetic – but my blueberry plants grew back. There was even a smattering of blue goodness sprinkled throughout my field. But it was a hard race against the birds to harvest the precious berries. I didn’t get the netting infrastructure built. By the time I finished cutting back all the winter kill, my clay fire-baked ground was virtually impenetrable. Next spring I guess.

I just finished planting an additional 300 plants of two new varieties. After a few particularly laborious days I moaned to my son Colin that I was getting too old for this. “You were too old for it two years before you started”, he quipped back to me. Without any further ado I posted an add on kigigi.

“Need strong, physically fit individual to help plant blueberries on a blueberry farm. Hard work! $15.00 an hour cash. Room provided if needed“.

Travis responded back that afternoon. He was a strong, physically fit 35 year old electrician who was travelling across the country. I hired him on the phone and he drove to my place from Sudbury that night, pitched a tent and started work the next morning. I plied him with an abundance of food and we worked well together. However, after the first few days his work became slow and sporadic until he presented me with his wrists, vein side facing up. I stared at them in confusion. They are sore and swollen, he stated. That afternoon Travis moved on and I was back in the trenches planting solo again.

I am moving forward with plans for a soft opening next summer. By then I will have been at this crazy venture for six years and it will be time to earn my first dollar. I’m not sure if I will keep the name, “The Merry Blueberry” (which I adore) or go with “Balderson Blueberries” (which makes more sense in that it also says where I am). Feel free to weigh in with what you think. But one way or another, with a palpitating heart full of promise and the fervent hope that I will actually have some blueberries for sale, I will be open for business next season come rain, drought, hail or snow. Well, maybe not snow. Please, not snow.

On June 9th and 10th I was one of 4,500 riders who participated in the ride to conquer cancer. The 225 km bicycle ride from downtown Toronto to Hamilton to Niagara Falls was a challenge but it was great to be a part of something so worthwhile. I rode with the Wilmot Orchards team with Charles, Robbie, and Joseph, three fine men who have done it for the past 10 years. Over $18 million was raised for the Saint Margaret’s Cancer Research Centre, one of the top five cancer research centres in the world. Deep heartfelt thanks for all of your support and sponsorship. It meant a lot to me.

My daughter, Sabrina, sent me a text the morning we left. It read “good luck, stay calm, ride steady and don’t fill your pockets with cookies”. Later that day I responded back, “pockets full, can’t help it, it’s a sickness”. I was probably the only person there who came home heavier than when I left.

Whether you are waging war with cancer, a sugar addiction, or whatever challenge life is currently throwing at you, the only thing to do is…just keep peddling. Preferabley forward.

Agriculture is a fierce master. Whether you are rich or poor, meek or strong, an experienced farmer or a novice, the weather rules with impartial disregard. I would dance naked in the field under a full moon if I thought it would help. Hell, I’d dance naked in downtown Perth at midday on a holiday weekend if it would make a difference.

I was out west visiting family when my babies broke dormancy (and when I wrote my last blog). When I returned home and raced out to the field, anticipating to see multitudes of blooms destined to become my first salable blueberries, realization dawned with gut wrenching despair. I saw, instead, row after row of brown, dead branches.

Normally in the fall, blueberry plants turn a gorgeous red as they ‘harden’ for winter. But last year our record breaking heat wave was immediately followed by a killing frost and green leaves gasped their last breath and fluttered to the ground, without the benefit of turning red. Being the novice that I am, I wondered at the time if that would have an impact, but it’s impossible to predict what damage will be done until the plants break dormancy in the spring. That they didn’t get a chance to harden properly, combined with the fact that some stuff didn’t get done last year on account of my broken ankles, the result this spring was disheartening, to say the least.

My friend and mentor Charles (who owns Wilmot Orchards in Newcastle) says that the roots are not dead – that the bushes will grow back, it will just take a couple of years. Two years feels like a long time to me. I know that everyone whose lives are intimately invested in agriculture goes through things like this in one form or another. I have a coaster that reads – we can’t direct the wind, we can only adjust our sails. Well the wind had died and my sails were flapping loose.

After mourning came acceptance. The heavy weight of despair was slowly lifted by a gentle breeze allowing me to adjust my sails, as well as my mindset. The only thing to do is put it behind me and move on. But I’m moving on more slowly. That’s ok – it’s probably better for this aging novice than riding the waves at 50 knots pushed by a gale force wind. I will get as much of the netting done as I can but with so much crop devastation, it’s less urgent. I also have more planting to work on. It will all get done, as my friend Nancy says, in the fullness of time. I’m practicing staying in the present and taking it day by day. The bittersweet moral of this story is – you know what’s coming – don’t count your blueberries before they bloom.

I built it and they came – the birds I mean. For the past two years I have been wrestling with what to do about avian protection in my blueberry field. Last year, after one beautiful weekend of picking, the little airborne buggers decimated every berry left on the bushes. My original plan was to overhead net the entire field but the mere thought of the work to build the  infrastructure (not to mention the additional cost) felt darn near soul shattering. I have to dig nearly 150 holes three feet deep, cut trees from the back of the property, transport them to the field and put them into the holes, level them all at nine feet high, build a wire support system on top and then anchor the whole lot into the ground with scary three foot long metal anchors. The netting itself is installed each year before the berries ripen and taken down after harvest.  After resolutely researching  easier options like predator bird scares,  individual row netting, fake snakes and owls, shiny pinwheels, scarecrows, drones and sprays,  I came to the conclusion that  the only surefire and practical protection  from the dreaded starlings, robins and blackbirds is overhead netting (getting the farm to this point over the past four years has been a physical and financial bloodbath – now is not the time to be hesitant). And while this venture will hopefully provide a profitable and agreeable retirement for myself, it is also the realization of a long held dream, a dream that was crystallized in the summer of 2014 during a fateful trip to Philadelphia.

I was recovering from 2 broken ribs and my youngest son Max, who seldom ever asked for anything, asked me to take him to Philadelphia to visit a girl with whom he’d met during a wrestling competition. And so, with the assurance that a three day visit from him was ok with her mother, we set out. I was planning on camping close by while working on my Merry Blueberry business plan. (Unbeknownst to me, Max and Laura’s ‘in real life’ relationship consisted of a 3-minute conversation at a tournament the month before, and unbeknownst to both Max and me, Laura’s family were mega multimillionaires). We pulled into their mansion with eyes wide.  After a short, surreal visit, I was talked into  staying in one of their ‘guest wings’. It all turned out well – Max and Laura were deliriously happy to spend time together, I got a lot of research done, but my biggest excitement was when they found out I was starting a blueberry farm and took us to a local u-pick.  Standing under the gauzy canopy of aqua overhead netting, I fantasized that the leafy domain of berry laden bushes was my own field. With imagined proprietorship, head dizzy with excitement, I watched happy people picking.  My field will be just like this, I whispered breathlessly to myself (still so blissfully innocent and naïve as to what was actually involved in starting a blueberry operation). In that moment, my embryonic dream was activated into a fierce nugget of determination.  Max just smiled and shook his head with resignation. He knows me well.

That suspended spiderweb of aqua netting may not seem like much to the casual observer but it was the cloud into which I poured my vision of the future. So when I found out much later that that particular netting, which so perfectly evoked sky and joy and promise to me, was the most flippin expensive brand of bird netting on the market, I was crushed. Alas, pride and dreams don’t thicken wallets and I was forced to ditch the idealistic picture in my minds eye of a transcendent lacework sheltering my precious crop. But the blueberry gods took pity on me (may I offer you another broken ankle, oh fruity overlords?). After many laborious rounds of international phone tag and wagering, I found a vendor in Windsor, Ont. willing to sell me what I needed at a good discount. Guys. I got my aqua cloud. Now I just have to figure out how to put it in the sky.

So far on this multi-year journey I have been fairly steadfast, but I admit I’m weary. I need to stay the course…walk the line …and all the other euphemisms to coax my battle worn body back into the trenches this summer. I remind myself that my field of dreams is almost, nearly, seemingly on the brink of becoming a reality. And it’s not for the birds.

After two months away I am back home in Balderson and recovering in more ways than one. With not a hint of stomach trouble in India, I was hit on the way home with what felt like the biggest, baddest bug ever created. It started during the layover in London with a headache,  stomach pain and nausea. But shortly after we’d lifted off from London in an airplane full of noses pointed eagerly towards Ottawa, my own schnoz was buried deep in a barf bag – a refuge it would not leave, as it turned out, for the next five hours. As my body was relieved of what felt like half its weight, I couldn’t help but think (through a headache so fierce my eyes watered) about all the spicy food I’d so recently enjoyed welcoming into my body. Their exodus was less pleasant.

The upside, I suppose, if I were coherent enough to appreciate it, was that Huggie and I were the  first ones off the plane as the flight crew insisted on having paramedics meet me on the ground. But I just couldn’t face going to the hospital at that point. I had nothing left. My vitals were fine and after making sure I wasn’t being irresponsible, Huggie wheeled me out to my brother who was there to pick us up. I made it as far as his place before collapsing into the quiet stillness of their spare bedroom. Over the next couple of days I slowly recuperated in the protective bubble of Rob and Leah’s country home.  When I left, care package in hand, the feat of driving from Carp to Balderson had the feel of setting out on a major expedition. I come from a long line of hardy stock but that damn bug took me down in one round. It was a humble homecoming that marked the latest in a string of ill-fated returns from trips (see past posts on sand fleas, face tattoos).

There are a lot of things that I will miss about India but it has also taken its toll.  It’s a challenging place to travel on your own, especially for women alone. (Once I was waiting for a midnight train in a small nowhere station, along with a bunch of men, and one lone, young, wisp of a Russian girl with her eight month old baby strapped to her front. They announced that the train was coming and suddenly, with the train in sight,  the men all jumped down onto the dark tracks and ran across to the other side. Apparently, the arrival platform was changed and the only way to catch the train was to cross over. I hurriedly helped the Russian girl down onto the tracks and we ran across. The train arrived momentarily and continued to very slowly glide past us as we frantically searched for our assigned car. A man shouted that we needed to jump on; that the train didn’t always completely stop. We were running along side it and the girl, with her limited English and strong Russian accent, was saying “please, please”. I grabbed onto the trains door rails with one hand, reached for her with my other hand, pulled her towards me and then used my foot to shove her and her baby up onto the still moving train and then swung myself into the carriage).  I won’t miss the attitude of many of the men, I won’t miss their guttural horking and spitting. I won’t miss the continual need to brace myself for the hard sell. And I won’t miss the celebrity status bestowed on us just by virtue of being white. It will be nice to not create a stir everywhere I go. But I will miss the colour and the incredibly beautiful saris. I will miss the food, I will miss the history, the energy, and the joy of the many kind and gentle people. And I will miss the exoticism of it all.

Huggie and I are each decompressing, feeling somewhat culture shocked and resting a lot. We laugh that watching good drinking water drain away is disturbing. I almost had a panic attack one time when I realized that I was brushing my teeth without my water bottle. And it’s hard to stop squirrelling away toilet paper into our pockets every time we see it. We agree that a hot bath and using cream rinse feels like the height of decadence. And it really is! We have all seen the images of the poverty in India, but being in the midst of the squalor, literally face to face, creates an appreciation for what we have that I hope to never take for granted.

India was quite an experience for both of us. We are happy to be home safe, and in my case, almost sound. At the end of the day, adventure is what we wanted and adventure is what we got. Once again, thank you so much taking the time to read my ramblings and letting me share ‘Incredible India’ with you. Take good care and see you again on the flip side.

I sit in the railway station waiting for my overnight train to Delhi and try to write about my three days in Varanasi. I try to describe the River Ganges, the city, the onslaught of experience, the garbage, the smell, the noise, the tight mesh of narrow interconnecting alleyways, the continual sensory overload, but my brain short circuits. I am at a loss when I hear a soft voice beside me with an Indian accent, “you are writing a blog about Varanasi?” I turn around, stunned. It has been hard to find a soul who speaks English let alone one who recognizes that I am writing a blog. “Yes, I am trying, but I can’t do it. I don’t know where to start,” I reply. He is young but his eyes look gentle and wise. “What are the five things you like best about the city,” he responds. I don’t hesitate. “The history, the spirituality, the food, the energy, the people.” “Start there”, he says.

“What does the river mean to you?”, I ask him. “It is my native place,” he responds. “I was born and brought up here so it has much meaning to me. It is not just the river, it is the mother. She gave us birth and she takes us to the heaven when we leave this world.” He pauses for a moment and thinks. “All the cremations and ceremonies and our dipping, and washing in the Ganges as per our spirituality are because we believe that the Ganges takes us with her to the heaven. All the cultures that live here, we live in harmony and we all believe in the mother.” I want to talk to him more but the train arrives. He offers to help me find my seat but I thank him and tell him I’m ok. We each touch our heart with our right hand and say goodbye and he disappears into the crowd.

Varanasi is the holiest City in India and the oldest continually habited city in the world and the River Ganges is its life blood. Multitudes of people perform ritual ablutions in the sacred water from hundreds of Ghats (stone steps that lead down to the river). Hindus believe that if you are cremated at the burning Ghat after being immersed in the Ganges, you stop your incarnations and attain instant enlightenment.

Huggie and I meet up to share our experience of Varanasi together. We sit on the stone steps of the burning Ghat respectfully witnessing the process. A white-clad man has laid out his twelve year old child on a wood pyre (women grieve at home; tradition dictates that only men attend. Emotion is believed to interfere with the spirit ascending). He walks around the body five times carrying some burning brush that was lit from the temple flame which has been burning continuously for 2000 years. Once he lights the dry wood of the pyre, he is led quickly away as emotion threatens to overcome him. We are profoundly aware of the intimate grazing glimpse we are getting into an age old belief system that permeates to their core. I see a few Indians taking pictures so I discreetly snap a few shots.

We open our minds to connect ourselves to the spiritual energy of the holy city. Huggie is especially connected and I wonder if she has lived on the embankment of the Ganges at some point in the distant past. We hire a boat and float down the river breathing in the sandalwood incense and the chanting of the evening ceremonies, we visit the holiest of the holy ‘Golden Temple’ , which is bursting at the seams with pilgrims, we spit in the face of death as we careen down terrifyingly busy streets on bike rickshaws, we follow a man down the twistiest, turniest, dirtiest, alleyways we’ve ever been in to see a famed gurugu, we eat delicious food (of course) and, oh yes, I get hit by a scooter. That part is a blur for me but Huggie says she will never forget the image. She says it’s a good thing that the driver was young with fast reflexes and good brakes. I’m a little banged up with a sore left side but I’m ok. We have joked that the safest way to cross the road in India is to shield yourself behind a holy cow. And, holy cow, we are not kidding.