oh how I long for the coming months when the snow SHOULD! BE! LEAVING!

and now some pictures taken yesterday … yes really.

ask me how impressed I am …

 

don’t you think?

 

More snow …

 

We went here a while back.  The history of the area goes like this ….

For several hundred years the Native Peoples (First Nations) would watch the buffalo herds and when the time was just right at different buffalo jumps, they would force the buffalo to stampede off the cliffs and those that were not killed by the fall would be killed by the tribes men.  The buffalo was then used for meat, clothing, housing, weapons, tools, bedding, well you get the picture.  (we all could take a page from the old native ways when it comes to animals…)

This particular buffalo jump is located south of Calgary, just north of Fort McLeod.  The area is vast and beautiful in an oddly lonely sort of way.  It is something that calls to your heart almost as if the land it self was speaking directly to your soul.

There is a legend behind the name of this particular buffalo jump that goes as follows ….

There was once a young brave who wanted to watch the buffalo jumping off the cliff as if to look like a waterfall.  So at the start of the running of the buffalo he climbed in to a crevasse on the cliff wall and waited for the buffalo to start falling.  Once the run started and the buffalo started falling, the young brave was caught behind the wall of falling buffalo.  The kill was plentiful that year and as the bodies piled up they trapped the young brave and he was crushed from the weight of the animals.  As the animals were taken out from the cliff to be cleaned and skinned, the other tribe members found the young brave crushed among the bodies of the buffalo.  From that day forward they called that buffalo jump “head-smashed-in” to honour the life of the young brave.

 

 

After a glorious week of great weather, longer days and children outside from lunch time until bedtime, we had a severe winter storm leaving us with 30 cm (12 inches) of snow.  Come on it is almost April, can’t the rain start a little bit sooner?  I am looking forward to flowers and birds and plotting to murder the squirrel that digs in my flower beds … and warmth.  I really hate being cold and the damp cold that we have been having lately is the worst.  No. REALLY. 

While The Husband and I are looking forward to the coming seasons for different reasons, (he wants to start fishing with my Hairdressing Cousin’s husband, The Fishing Man, and I just want to bask in warmth and hang with HC) both of us are getting truely weary of the snow.  Yes you can do more in the winter months in Canada than you can in Ireland, but it is this between time that is the most difficult.

 

For a country so small, Ireland has a massive population!  And most of it has moved out of the country ~ ourselves included.  Lately we have been running in to all sorts of people that claim to be Irish or an Irish heritage.  I’m not saying this is bad, it just seems that in a six degrees of separation game you would only get to maybe level three before you hit Ireland lately.

Just last night I was standing in a check out getting bits for the house and the gentleman behind me asked, “Are you Irish?”  Totally shocked about the whole question and this must have been obvious from the look on my face, Yer Man points at my jumper on which is the shamrock.  We stumbled through a conversation in which I explain I lived there for four years as my husband is Irish. … he never did say where he was from once I said where I lived …. hmmmm.

Earlier yesterday I was hoop jumping for a Gov’t agency and when it came out that I have only been living back in Canada for the past several months, and the agent I was dealing with commented that the person in the next cubicle was leaving for Ireland the next day to visit her parents, who live just outside Dublin.

But I find it very …. ironic that such a small country that is almost bursting at the seams and losing agricultural land for the growing population, has such a large ex-patriate community.  Really it is amazing!

 

Everyday I do a dance.

The prelude begins with turning a key,

Shift in to gear and then movement.

Slowly move along a corridor to the main hall,

Increase tempo and watch for spectators.

 

The big turn, ensure proper placement!

Increasing company members now fill the stage,

Everyone must be in their proper placements.

Not to close, not too far.

Check over the shoulder, look back to where you need to go,

Slide over.

 

You can feel the thrum of the company,

Almost to your heart.

Moving along the main stage,

You ebb and flow to the silent music known to all.

 

You look, you move.

Your partner for a moment, moves along side.

You slide to the side occupying the space of the other company member.

Moving forward all the time.

 

Your final big turn, the music is slowing.

A couple more twists,

The company is leaving the stage.

Slowly, you navigate to your final position,

You have arrived at your destination and finished the commute.

 

 

the delicacies of commuting