Prairie Roots
I stare at the Saskatchewan landscape, mesmerised by a sense of space and feeling its impact on my whole being, this land where I was born, nurtured and raised. The view is endless, green fields of grain rolling into a flat horizon punctuated by clumps of farmstead trees and changing into a sky blending from the lightest blue at the horizon to a beautiful deep blue overhead. The rows of brilliant white cumulus clouds accentuate the blueness of the sky. A strange, melancholy feeling washes over me.
138 pages
ISBN 0-9808979-2-0
Synopsis
Prairie Roots is a sensitive and humorous story of Mike's childhood during the 1940s on a farm in Saskatchewan. He describes the joys and sorrows of farm life in the natural wilderness of the prairies where the appreciation of wildlife and native plants went hand in hand with growing crops and raising farm animals. In all, a memorable appreciation for the unique beauty of our vast and hauntingly beautiful prairies.
Excerpt - On the Farm
We had many winter sports and diversions. Perhaps my favourite was tracking through the south quarter, which you will remember, was the wooded one untouched by the plough. When the winds blew, which was almost all the time , and the snow fell, it was a joy to get dressed in a pair of felt boots with a warm pair of socks or wraparound rags(hanuchka), warm fleece lined underwear, overalls, parka, a toque and leather mitts with wool liners. Well dressed, the cold was not a threat, particularly in the woods where the wind howled overhead but was barely noticeable at ground level. We had our paths which followed the summer time trails and which we could stay on or ignore if we chose to. How different the woods were in the winter! We explored clumps of trees which we could not enter in the summer because of the undergrowth and crawled over or ploughed through snow banks on the edges of sloughs where water prevented us from going during the warmer weather.