Spring and summer can be so busy on the farm that it’s difficult to take time to stop and smell the roses. That was the case for Jeannette Richter as she worked on the family farm near Beiseker, Alta., last spring.
She and her husband, John, farm with their son Mike and daughter-in-law Pam. They farm more than three sections of land and also run an egg and poultry operation.
There isn’t a lot of leisure built into their days, but an incident involving Dawson, one of the Richter’s six grandchildren, prompted Jeannette to rethink her priorities. She sent us the following story.
Read Also
Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
“Our grandson, Dawson, is six. This spring, he and I enjoyed ourselves, Ziploc bags in hand, wandering around our farmyard finding rocks for his collection.
A few weeks later, as I slaved in my flowerbed preparing my yard for the coming summer, he drove up in his battery-operated play quad. A small red trailer banged behind.
“Can you pick rocks with me, Grandma?” he asked. I was busy, didn’t want to be interrupted. But parts of a poem repeated in my head: “Children grow up, I’ve learned to my sorrow…”
I put down my hoe and threw my gloves onto the hedge.
“OK, I’ll go get some Ziplocs.”
“Oh no, Grandma. I’ll drive and you throw the rocks into the trailer.”
So we set off. Dawson would see a pretty rock, screech to a halt and yell, “That one, Grandma,” and point it out to me. We progressed around the yard, stopping here and there for me to pick up a special rock.
Dawson’s daddy, Mike, drove up, arm draped on the rolled-down window of the pickup, other hand loose on the steering wheel.
“Having fun?” He grinned as he rolled to a stop.
“Things never change around here,” I said, bending to flip a rose-quartz stone into my grandson’s trailer. “The men drive the equipment and the women pick the rocks.”
