Lambsquarters

by Barbara McLean

  CORN, THE NAME for all cereal grains elsewhere, is native in Ontario, distinctive. Here the maize gets tall enough for mazes to be cut through it. The academic agriculturalists once said it wouldn’t grow in our area because of the elevation, and the heat units it needs. But it just grew taller and closer to the sun in the township fields, defying the experts and delighting the raccoons who raid the fields for cobs. A late crop, corn takes longer to get past the green stage than wheat or mixed grains. We watch it grow in our neighbours’ acres after their other fields have been harvested, ploughed, put to bed for winter. And it has various uses in the vicinity—cob corn stored in cribs, or silage hunkering down in a bank bunker—but much of it is grown for its kernels, pure gold nuggets of cash crop.

  I had never been in a combine. I had driven the old Ford 8N, ridden the wooden seed drill, spent more time than I’d have liked on the hay wagon. I wanted to experience the harvest for myself, so I arranged to ride as a passenger in the Harrises’ huge John Deere, which was as green and gold as the crop itself and a couple of storeys high. Just around the corner from home I found the young farmer harvesting the perimeter of his great-grandad’s field, for the combine starts on the edge. He’s a tame titan of a man, who loves his work but is always ready to chat. A sixth-generation Harris, whose two baby sons make the seventh. His aunt, whose corn it was, climbed down from the rig, grinning. “I always like to ride that first round,” she said. “It’s the only one I get all day, what with bringing the wagons back and forth.” And the combine drove up to her tractor, poured out its first silken crop, ribbons of peach melba as the corn flew unfocused from the bin and out the chute of the monster machine into the grain wagon. She hauled the wagon away when it was full, to unload at her home place.

  I climbed up the combine’s ladder, into the cab and gazed around and down. So high up, the hills rising and falling in the distance, the autumn leaves brash in the woods, the crop crisp and dun ahead in the field. And inside? Shocking state of the art. A glass bubble, quiet but for the cell phone, the CB, the radio and the computer, the bells and whistles of measurements being taken, yields being assessed. The GPS gave our coordinates, the elevation, the size of the field, the amount of corn coming in, its density and dryness—it was all there on the tiny screen in the corner. Each field is named, its details held on disk, and the information is fed into the machine on top while the corn slakes the combine’s thirst below.

  For harvesting wheat, the header (the part of the combine that first connects with the crop) winds round like a Ferris wheel, rolling the grain and straw in together with each turn. But the corn header is conical, with seven huge pointed cylinders that look like barrels that have been turned into dunce caps; their green metal points aim between the rows, guiding the cornstalks into the machine like flies into the web.

  Unlike the plough, the combine starts with the perimeter and does rounds at first. But then it strikes out into a section of the field. How does the farmer know where to enter? Which row does he aim for to separate the stalks into the six spaces between the points of the mechanical header? After leading me to believe he had some extra sense, some innate knowledge of corn growth and field division, young Harris confided that it was there for the seeing. There is a slightly different width between the end of one edge made by the six-row corn planter and the beginning of the next. So the crop is hex-sectioned in the planting and subtly marked for harvesting.

  There were no horses needing solid ground and turn-around space, just this huge machine doing elephant ballet in the field, four wheels driving together up the hills and power-steering effortlessly through three-point turns. An edge of the field slinks into a gully, which might have trapped a horse, stuck a plough, but the combine drove its seven metal snouts downwards, sniffed up the corn and sneezed it out as chaff on the field, crop in the hopper. Backing up, we saw the area was clean and stovered, uniform with the rest. And if there were stalks missed? Well, we went back to them, for even flattening them out makes them look right from the road.

  My farmer can’t leave a field partly done, so he worked until it was finished. Took his breaks when the last wagon was filled. I climbed down, and off he went to another farm, another ten or twenty acres to clear, to open for the deer. They would enter his sights in the following week between harvest and plough, when the farmers, always rising early, would expose themselves to the elements all day long and call it a holiday.

  WINTER PARADE

  ALDERNEY IS A VILLAGE lined in maples. In fall they burnish a brilliant red arcade over Main Street, contrasting the yellow brick of the buildings. A river runs through the village, is dammed upstream to form a small lake, bounded by a wooded and grassed park with a ball diamond and a pavilion. When we first arrived in the area Alderney had two gas stations with mechanics, which dwindled and were rekindled over the years with various managements and incarnations. A blacksmith, now gone. Two churches, which survive and thrive. The General Store. The Feed Mill. The new school. The old school.

  The General Store is facetiously called the Alderney mall. Farmers meet in the back there each morning over coffee, not that there is a back really, just an area between the aisles near the freezers. It serves as a kind of morning tavern. Ladies (with escorts or not) stay near the front of the store. Hellos can be volleyed, but I wouldn’t walk back there unless I needed something specific.

  Successive owners of the store have had their own characteristics. The first owner we encountered, John Feather, never took pennies in change, but rounded down to the nickel. “I thank you,” he always said, and from the first we felt welcomed. His leaving was a sad day as his successors were a grumpy couple from away. They didn’t last long. Then Ron and Fiona jumped in headfirst, took the place on and made it their own, revived the sense of spirit it had almost lost. But Ron died and Fiona couldn’t manage very long by herself. So now we have new owners and everyone is breathing a sigh of relief because they haven’t changed anything much. A few racks are on new angles, there are condoms near the cash, but the atmosphere is the same, the contents continue to amaze and the hours of business are constant.

  Weather is always the opening subject. Particularly in the winter when we rush in for supplies if a storm is threatened, or when we finally return after a storm-stayed week. Weather is central to farming, though, so it is crucial in all seasons.

  Late fall is stable. The harvest is complete. The local kids are well set in school. Hunters gather at the store for coffee and chocolate, cigarettes, extra gloves and maybe a lottery ticket, hoping to bag at least something on their quest.

  Once the hunt is over, preparations begin for the last hurrah on the calendar. Alderney’s parade is not your usual commercial Santa Claus parade, which starts earlier and earlier each year to persuade people to shop and spend; it’s a festivity harking back to times before the advent of tractor-trailers and multinationals. You can see the parade revving up by the number of horses out on the roads, drawing carts and wagons up and down the hills and through the village. Practising.

  The Alderney area has a Mennonite community, so horses are always evident. In Murphy’s Mill there are hitching posts at the grocery store, the medical centre, the bank. We see horse-drawn buggies every day, open and exposed to torturous winds, their occupants riding beneath sideways umbrellas, their faces red with weather. The children who cannot fit on their parents’ laps in the front, ride in the storage area behind the seat, facing out and wedged in tight. The girls’ blue bonnets frame their fair faces, their braids pulling taut. The boys are ruddy, capped and shy. Older members drive in the covered Dachwaggeli, a square one-seated box of a buggy, which gives them a little more protection.

  On Sundays they form black queues on the roads, dark horses pulling darker buggies filled with families in mournful clothing. They form a sedate procession and recession to and from their Old Order church. But later in the day, when visiting is the custom, you can see young men cantering their horses, flicking the reins in play, or c
atch a glimpse of adornment in the green pinstriping on certain polished carriages during courting. Risqué, this display is tolerated to keep the young men in the fold, to maintain the community for the future.

  Other horses roam the township roads in summer, their riders capped in English or western gear, or muster herds of cattle from their summer pastures down the Sixteenth Concession back to their home farm on the Second. Good-looking cowboys, their oiled coats splitting over their mares’ or geldings’ backs, hold loose reins over the pommels as they guide the edges or get in behind the beasts, looking down on the summer-fattened stock with pleasure. By winter their horses are back in their stalls or running in paddocks newly sprinkled with snow.

  But the heavy horses are what I suddenly notice as they memorize the road in early December, preparing for the parade. Percherons and Belgians, a Clydesdale or two. Massive rumps rippling as they pull bright red wagons through the village. Empty wagons going nowhere at all. Just back and forth, stopped by the Feed Mill or the General Store, turning at the school or the township shed. Clipping and clopping while the cars whiz by and the old guys gather near the bench or at the garage, remembering.

  The horses practise their strutting, anticipating the crowds of Christmas. Everyone comes to the village parade. There are no trucks or tractors, no motors at all in the parade, just mares and shanks’ mares, mules and miniatures, donkeys and dogs, Arabians and camels clomping their shod hoofs or cloven hoofs or paws on the road, huffing steam in the air, ringing sleigh bells on their traces, clanging brass on their harnesses, sporting antlers on their canine ears, pulling carts of children and carollers, trees and presents, queens of the fair and men of the year. Outriders trot, elves give out candy and mounted police place holly in their harnesses. The churches sell baking, soup and cider, and friends will feed us cake when the procession is over, their house nestled over the ravine downstream from the dam, but just feet from the road. We’ll be freezing by then with the waiting, the watching, the search for our neighbours’ Percherons Bud and Duke and the glorious matched mules who come from afar. We strain to hear the pipes as they play by the store, fearing they’ll march silent as they pass by our spot. And every year Thomas feels guilty when he sees how few pipers are in the band, their knees red and cheeks puffing, their fingers blue on the chanter blowing “Bonnie Dundee” or “Aiken Drum.”

  For there was a time when he piped with them, wearing the tartan of my paternal great-grandmother. Played her name, “Maggie Cameron.” Played “Dornoch Links” and marched to “Speed the Plough,” “The Road to the Isles,” “The Skye Boat Song” and “Flowers of the Forest,” a lament. He was the solo piper at the wake for our late friend, the painter. He played “Amazing Grace” again and again into the night. When the children were small and he had more time, he would practise in the field, the pipes much too loud for the house. Then we would attend weekend parades both here and away and our blood stirred with the tunes, which were some innate call to the heather, the heath, the sheepfolds of generations before us, some link to our pasts blurred by highland clearances and lowland war brides, sad farewells and fraught crossings. We’re caught still by the music, haunted and stirred by those nine notes, those drones, those slurs and doubrings: the Leumluath, the Taorluath, the Birl.

  Now Thomas stands in the crowd with us, fingering an invisible chanter, breathing rhythmically, but the pipes lie at home in their box, the one he built, lined with tweed from the isles. The drones are braided together with homespun dyed in the reds, greens and yellows of the plaid. Every year the kids pester him to promise to take up the pipes again and every year he does promise. Perhaps next year he’ll play.

  The band marches by our family, the floats clip along, the animals bask in the opportunity to work, to display, to carry their keepers, pull their loads. Huge shaggy hoofs with massive steel shoes, steaming horse buns making small children giggle, against the backdrop of snow and frost and toe-numbing temperatures. Everyone is shivering, laughing and stamping. The sense of community is as sharp as tears stinging watery eyes, raw as noses red from exposure, warm as hearts reaching out with the sense of giving, of caring, of taking in the scent of the season right here. Close to the ground, close to home.

  STAYING

  THERE WAS NO QUESTION of not staying here, right from the start. We’d tried the city. We’d tried the country. We liked the country better. I guess I’m prepared to spend time with myself, though I do crave the community of friends. And I never quite fit the mould but am always outside. On the margins. The edges and sedges of life.

  When we travelled across Canada we learned about the country’s disdain for Ontario. Prairie dogs resented our privilege, West Coasters chided our weather, Maritimers couldn’t help but be kind, but they branded us still. Ontario seemed the place to stay, as here we have no apologies to make. Home. Where our ancestors—from the eighteenth-century Scots surgeon to the United Empire Loyalists, the nineteenth-century English gentleman to the post-war orphaned babies, the rugged Highlanders cleared from their land to the powerful Chippewa matron at Michilimackinac—all chose to stay.

  When we first came to live on the farm we maintained our city contacts. Symphony tickets and theatre, regular visits from friends from afar, and trips away to see them too. But the work got under our skin. It burrowed in and left its mark, deep lines and brown spots from too much sun. Biceps and bulged veins from too much hefting. Broken nails and dirt stains from arms in the soil, digging and planting and making things grow. Tomato plants staining hands green and walnuts making them brown. Callouses on palms and heels from the fork and the spade. Machinery branding a crescent moon on one arm, breaking bones in the other, raising constant bruises on my body. Wind blowing my hair into tangles and straightening it out, or rain curling it. Sun bleaching and drying and splitting and carving deep lines into my face. And anxiety doing that too, and illness and loss of sleep. For there is much to care for with beasts in the barn, bairns in the house, the worry of wood and of well. The crops from the garden, the hay for the flock, the manure to spread on the land. The manure smells. Reeks. Permeates the house and gets right into my hair. Even the butter picks up its taste.

  The power goes out. Or it surges and breaks our equipment, our light bulbs. Lightning hits with regularity. And we wait for repairs in the dark. It’s cold in the storms, when the wind heaves power lines. Woodstoves are fickle for heat. The logs must be cut, year after year and split and moved and stacked and dried. Then moved once again to the woodshed, restacked inside. Then brought in the house, a few sticks at a time, sloughing bark and chips in a trail. The wood feeds the fire, which is hungry for more, and more and more. And I get tired hauling wood and stoking coals and taking out ashes and tripping over the scuttle in the garage where the cinders cool until we can spread them somewhere safe, where their heavy metals won’t harm.

  But it is a real fire heating our home. The sweet smell of apple or lilac follows the cedar kindling that Thomas splits into thin faggots that crackle at the first touch of flame. Then solid maple or elm or the weed smell of ash filters out our chimneys, drifting smoke across the field and into the bush, back where it all began.

  The mornings are chill until the fire is lit. My loft is like ice while the embers brew and make up their mind to heat the chimney bricks, which gradually take on the warmth and then release it to radiate and caress. This heat makes me stay.

  ISOLATION IS palpable. I feel it in the great handfuls of nothing sifting through fingers trying desperately to grip. I feel it in the disjunctions between my past and my present. My silver pepper mill at odds with my shitty boots. I never quite fit in here with the families who have been in the township for centuries.

  I GO TO funerals and weddings. To showers in the village. Every young woman is feted in turn and everyone comes with gifts. Wonderful gifts, sincerely given, and we sit in chairs in rows in one of the two church basements and watch the bride and her bridesmaids. Her mother and her grandmother. Each gift is pass
ed around, row to row, and we read the card and ooh and aah at what others have brought. Afterwards there is a game to be played: we use the bride’s or groom’s name to give bits of advice.

  K - kiss every day

  A - always make up before bed

  R - reach out for each other in times of stress

  E - each child is a blessing

  N - never give up on each other

  And I find myself unable to play, wanting instead to change these ways, give a reality check.

  K - keep your birth name

  A - always have your own bank account

  R - read about marriage contracts

  E - enter with caution

  N - never give up your rights

  But I delete before I write. Except about the bank account. Just as a hint.

  The funerals are usually in Murphy’s Mill, because the Alderney churches aren’t big enough. But we go back to the village for a lunch, which is served by the ladies. Sandwiches and squares, tea, coffee. There is no chance to mingle as we sit at tables. In rows. We talk, or not, to whoever is beside or across. About the weather. About whatever. And I see, as if through a window, the sense of community here. The layers of family—babies on the floor, toddlers at the table, parents and grandparents—all here to bury the great-grandmother who has lived here all her life, as her mother did before her. And I feel like a stranger. An outsider. And I realize I can never fit. Not really. And still I stay.

  I try to understand. To learn about the needs of farming and to accept the progressions and changes. But I abhor it when the farmers bulldoze the rail fences and mow the trees down in a trice so a bigger machine can get into a roadside field just a few times a year. And I walk through the snow to the man across the road with the saw, the fellow on the bulldozer, and I cross my arms as he says good morning. “Just how many of these trees do you need to take down?” I ask. And we compromise on a few and I apologize, not wanting to be one of those city people who replace the For Sale sign with No Trespassing or No Hunting, or both. But I see it differently. Those hand-hewn rail fences are spilt like toothpicks with one swipe of the dozer; the borrowed landscape is ripped open and scarred for years. And still I stay.