The Garden

June 13, 2026June 11, 2026Lynn Scott Leave a comment

My lifestyle is no longer a common one. Years ago when we drove to town I would admire all the gardens along the way. The garden was a part of almost every ranch and farm. They are becoming few and far between.

Gardens were often considered “women’s work”. The husband would head off with the tractor to the field (sometimes after working the garden in the spring) and the wife would “plant the garden”. There is something about planting a garden and watching how a little seed can turn into a delicious, nutritious source of food that is good for the soul. Or a beautiful flower with intricate petals and a color that delights your eyes. A dove cooed on the power line above the garden while I planted the peas this spring. Nature doesn’t hesitate to entertain if you watch and listen.

The tulips are pretty much done but the lady slippers are starting to bloom as are the Japanese peonies and some iris and shooting stars and snow drops and various other beauties.

We have 2 sets of crows. One likes to run his shadow over you when you are working in the garden or riding in the ring. Previously we had a couple of really quite tame crows. The neighbour shot one and the other has disappeared now too. He would sit in the tree above my lawn chair and caw. If I cawed 3 times, he would caw 3 times. 2 times got 2 caws. The limit seemed to be 5 or 6.

We are pretty much into live and let live around here. Over the years we have had to eliminate a couple of coyotes – one wouldn’t leave the caving cows alone and the other was super mangy and it was 40 below so it was a mercy killing. There are a lot of critters who call this ranch home at least part of the time. Much of our land is in a conservation program. It makes for really nice places to go for a ride.

It is with a great deal of gratitude that I have lived my life here on a ranch and had the opportunity to have gardens. You will feel much better after an hour in the garden than an hour watching the news.

Or maybe some of us just like to bury our heads in the sand. (or garden).

Almost Christmas

December 9, 2025December 12, 2025Lynn Scott Leave a comment

Ours is a big family. I believe all are coming to Christmas Dinner and that means 30+ people. That is unless a cousin or two, or some neighbour that we find out doesn’t have anyone to have dinner with, wants to join.

I’m done shopping. Well, at least for the grandchildren and great grandchildren. Our own kids have been a bit difficult to give the “family treasures” and “things I don’t want to throw out” to. The only way I have found to get these things out of my care is to give them to them as “Christmas Presents”.

It is fun hearing the “Oh Mom” reaction when I hand them out but… I know them fairly well and in the end the “junk” I give them is at very least somewhat interesting or useful or worth a laugh.

Our Christmas Party is always full of laughter and I am so very grateful that all of my family treat each other with love and respect. Doubly important to me as I didn’t see that as a child.

The horses are out on winter pasture. The pasture is very good and some are becoming obese. In a couple of days the weather is going to be in the -20s in the daytime. They need to be fat and furry and have good shelter and feed when the Alberta weather is in an Arctic blast. Having watched horses in the natural winter pastures for many years, it never ceases to amaze me how well they can handle cold if given the right environment.

I still need to paint some Christmas cards. I’ll don’t even aspire to be a great painter, LOL, I just like doing it. In fact, lately I think I may be getting worse at it. LOL

Busy time. That is good and I am just grateful to still be able to be busy.

Lynn
“Though he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly”

Camera Lenses

November 15, 2025November 15, 2025Lynn Scott Leave a comment

One day this week I took my new telephoto lens for my walk down the pasture. Sure enough the skies were flamboyant. Need more wide angle. So… next day took the wider angle lens. Yup. Beautiful flock of geese flew directly over the beautiful row of fall colored trees. A deer stood and looked at me for ages instead of instantly bounding into the trees but just a little too far away to be a good photo of a deer with that lens.

Unless I develop the ability to foresee the future or want to carry a heavy bag full of lenses, I guess I will just have to accept that some things are just for my eyes to enjoy. I’m resisting carrying more stuff.

Kind of like travelling. I like to bring all my toys. In the old days you could check 2 suitcases so full you could barely drag them along and take another smaller case and your big purse on the plane with you. Not that way now.

I’m kind of good with this. On a fully booked flight to Easter Island at Christmas time a few years back every seat had a person (for some reason there were a lot of large people on the flight) and there were bags and piles of gifts to the ceiling of the plane in the middle section. Lots of people ended up sitting on the floor or walking around during the flight. You could just feel that it all was too heavy. There was a lot of ocean between takeoff and landing to ponder on.

It took me a long time but I am finally starting to see the freedom that comes from not carrying a lot of baggage. LOL In more ways than one.

Dabbler

October 13, 2025Lynn Scott Leave a comment

Dabbler according to Google AI:

A “dabbler” is a person who takes a casual, non-serious interest in a subject or activity, or a person who tries something for a short time without serious commitment. The term can sometimes have negative connotations, implying a lack of persistence or depth, but it can also describe someone who simply enjoys learning for the sake of enjoyment and doesn’t feel the need to become an expert.

I may be a dabbler. I need to try a lot of things, enjoy them for awhile and then something else catches my eye and mind.

Well, except for a few things like family, work and horses.

Horses because that has been so since I can remember. I was born loving them. Work because I come from a time when it was a source of pride and accomplishment. And family because I may have the best darned family in the world!

Dabbler – my new label for myself. LOL

The Beaver Pond

October 31, 2021November 14, 2025Lynn Scott Leave a comment

I missed spending time at the Beaver Pond this year. I love to ride my horses down there and see what those busy little beavers have been up to. I’ve been watching them for 40 years now and they have made some big changes in that time.

This year there was a canola crop between home and the beaver pond. Between the near impossibility of riding through canola crops and the extreme heat, I made very few trips down to the pond.

So my walk down to the pond today, Halloween, was very interesting. Much has happened over the summer. The beaver are basically moving the whole pond over to where a grove of trees that are of interest to them are standing. They made a lot of progress in one summer. Almost all my trails, mostly game trails, along this side of the pond are blocked with fallen trees and brand new trails have been developed. Some of my old trails will likely be under water next year.

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Porcupine Quills and Family

August 17, 2021August 17, 2021Lynn Scott Leave a comment

Once more our day didn’t even start out as planned. You get really used to that when you are farming and/or have a number of animals under your care. Today Cruiser got to take a trip in the trailer to the vet clinic. His curious nature got him a nose full of porcupine quills. If there were just a couple, we would just pull them out ourselves but with this many he needs a little anesthetic. So we called the vet, loaded him up and headed to town.

The quills got pulled out and we were back in the trailer and heading home in no time. I forgot to take a picture of his new nose ornaments but had a couple of pictures of Ed when he learned that the cute little tinkling thing running across the pasture should be avoided.