One Turkey, Two Women

... the trickle of the Little Canadian Stream ...

Ria brought out a turkey when she came for her Writer’s Retreat at the Shuswap.


I am having a Weeding Retreat at the same time.


We meet together for meals which is a bonus for me, for I rarely sit down to eat.


I just take a mouthful of food, run and do a job, come back and take another mouthful of food, so it really seems decadent to sit at a table with a large napkin and actually get a chance to use it.

The turkey Ria bought was originally for Christmas.

... walking from Shady Beach to Sandy Beach ...

“I don’t know what got into me, buying it. The price was just so good.”

A utility turkey – just one wing.


 That didn’t matter to me as I enjoyed a feast with it tonight – Christmas dinner at the end of May – a perfect moment to reflect on how fast the months are going.


It seems as though Christmas was just a few weeks ago.


We simmered the bones and added some vegetables and pepper corns.


We stripped the meat from the carcass before the evening was through.

Ria with wild roses at the Annis Bay Siding

Ria was identifying turkey body parts as she pulled the pieces of meat away: the hip joint, the back bone, the leg.


 I didn’t know if I should be in awe or fearful of that talent.

 She said some parts about her scientific learning just never go away.


A writer and a weeder are a good combination in the evening. I am finding I don’t know much about Ria, except about her writing. And she probably never knew I was such a dedicated weeder until watching me in the early mornings. “Are you really enjoying this,” she asks me. I have to tell her yes.


I don’t go on and on and tell her how every time I turn my pitchfork over in the soil and reveal a new stone beneath it, or am able to pull out the long root of a week, I am just overjoyed to be doing that work.

... bushes full of wild roses ...

I have always dreamed of a little house and a well-tended garden.


And now the garden part is up to me, so I attack the weeds with a vengeance, which isn’t really fair to them.


In the long run, they will take their rightful place in the soil, but for now, I look as though I am going to be the winner in the race for a good-looking garden.


 Arta