Life of The Land

renovations continue

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:32:00 +0000

We emerged from hibernation this summer with the task of building a new nest (pictures eventually...). In the midst of that process, we've been getting our musical muscles limbered back up. We've played a veritable smorgasbord of weddings and anniversaries. There's something great about playing the soundtrack to some good friends' greatest promise.

Anyway, the nest-building continues, with glee!

corn and apples and sunshine and weekends

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:15:00 +0000

This weekend we've been pretty lucky. A few drives out of our home town of Winkler... once to Winnipeg, and once to Morden. The Corn and Apple festival is a fun place.

Nothing else to report really...

Well, there's lots to report, mostly of a "this is what we've done to the house" nature, and so I won't bore you with it... perhaps someday I'll summarize what we've all done, but for now you can rest easy knowing that we've been sleeping in the basement for that last month while we renovate the bedrooms upstairs. And it will be a while before we start sleeping above ground... but we're getting a lot closer every day!

slackers?

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:03:00 +0000

We haven't been hibernating as of late. It's been more of a nest-building effort. This is the nest:

There's a bit of work to be done. I'l post details some time when I feel up to it.

Las Vegas

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Judith and I had a wonderful break celebrating a cousin's wedding in Las Vegas last weekend. There is nothing to get you back to life as a wonderful wedding, and visiting with family in a new setting, and 3 days of manufactured distopian fantasy in the form of 25 ridiculous hotels strung out like so many cubic zirconias along a 6 lane grid-locked highway beside the airport. These hotels had some pretty amazing features.

Birthday and Flood

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:22:00 +0000

I crossed the ol' annual milestone last weekend, and had a lovely day to
celebrate it, with wanderings and conversationings, and finally feasting.

Just the other day, Judith and I headed out with some friends to Glenlea
Manitoba, where the waters of the Red River keep on rising. It was
amazing to see the water covering the fields where crops are supposed to
grow. And seeing the iconic row of hydro poles marching through a lake
instead of across a grassy field. It called for Chinese food, which we
therefore ate at Delicious Vegetarian Restaurant. Recommend the eggplant
in black bean sauce.

That's your update of the moment. Hope you enjoyed!
S.

Failure

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:38:00 +0000

I've been practicing to get my Class 3 driver's license, with the hope that I'll be able to haul some equipment around the province this summer as part of my day-job.

Unfortunately, I failed. You know, I've always hated tests. They make me very nervous, and afraid of being stupid. It only gets worse now when it's a test for work rather than for school. And the last few tests I did for school went ok, though I hated them. Now I've gone and done a test, which I hated, and I failed it, which only makes it worse. A lot worse.

At least I didn't break anything...

S.

The end is extremely ... nigh!

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:18:00 +0000

With just some marking and submitting of final grades left to complete, Judith's life as a sessional professor is drawing to a close. It's been a wonderful experience, full of hard work and, in the end, triumph over what at times seemed like insurmountable obstacles.

We are still coming down from the high that was the Other Brothers CD release show - what an inspiring night. Inspiring enough that I signed up to drive out to Winkler on Monday night after work to play back-up on a few songs at their Winkler release. And that was a great time also.

And finally, I started training today in the fine art of operating a truck and trailer. By this time next week, if all goes according to plan, I will be allowed to drive commercial vehicles and trucks with a gross vehicle weight of... lots. I did jump a curb early on in my first trip, to which my mentor (in more ways than trailer pulling) responded, "well, now you've failed the test." It turns out that there is a bit of learning required before the test.

That's all for now.
S.

What the Dickens?

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:27:00 +0000

Every once in a while I've posted a blurb about a rather silly reading project I've been working on over the last year or so. Just to let you know, it continues.

Perhaps to give the project a fresh spark, or perhaps to give expression to some deep-hidden desire to speak publicly to myself, I've decided to create a blog dedicated to my reading project.

At this point, I'm about half-way through reading all of Charles Dickens' novels in the order he wrote them. There are rules and whatnot, and you can read all about it at

www.homeontheland.ca/dickens

S.

hibernation

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:48:00 +0000

The fact is.
Life is luggage. And we haul it with us everywhere we go. We are stuck like Ginger Rogers, calling for a porter to help us with our belongings.

Our lives are littered with real-life manifestations of this reality. In each of our "big moves" (to Toronto, to St. John's, back to Manitoba, to Mexico, and finally back home to Manitoba), our little colt was filled to the brim. Every last thing that we couldn't trust to the moving truck or the shipping company or a basement was piled carefully in to the hatch until 90% of the air inside had been displaced, and the distance from the street to the rear bumper had been cut in half. The front seats were slid forward so that our legs had no room to stretch - but we could fit more in the back that way. There were hats on top of the gear shifter, snacks under the seat, pillows squished behind the head-rests. And we couldn't stop anywhere for any length of time: there were too many things that defined us crammed into our traveling home. To lose those would be to seemingly lose ourselves.

I've been thinking about how these travels are a perfect metaphor for a way we can live our entire lives. Our inner spiritual hatchback can become crammed with all the ephemeral stuff that we think defines us. Memberships in various circles of community, employment, academia, creativity, faith, and personal interests become the indispensable, never-to-be-neglected evidence that we are something. We are the things that we are.

So what are we to do about all of this? To get back to the physical hatchback again, we defined our road trips by the luggage we were carrying. We packed all of it in because we thought we needed it. But in reality, our trips were better defined by our origin and destination. We could have moved to Toronto, St. John's, Manitoba, Mexico, with nothing but a single backpack and a train ticket. Everything we had packed in the car was in fact non-essential. In just the same way, our life's luggage is also non-essential. I could quit my job, and the work would go on. I could quit playing guitar, and there would still be music. But there is, somehow, a nugget of something inside that is essential to "me". And it is THAT essential something that makes us who we are. And I will give up on the metaphor right now before it becomes completely threadbare and trivial.

S.

somewhere else

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:02:00 +0000

I'd like to point you in the direction of a new book launched by a friend of ours, Jan Guenther Braun. It is titled "Somewhere Else." She launched it in Winnipeg just the other day, to a packed house at Mondragon Cafe and Bookstore. It is well written, honest, controvercial, and definitely worth reading.

Here is how the publisher describes it:

"Jess is sixteen and aware that she is in an impossible position—being the homosexual daughter of the president of the Mennonite college. She hits the road in search of a language and the freedom to speak it. On the train to Winnipeg she is found by Freya, Icelandic princess of her dreams. Halfsteinn, fisherman and expert in the fine art of hand-rolling cigarettes, enters Jess’ life, helping her escape emotional captivity. Jess embraces pothead, videogame-playing housemates in the world away from her Mennonite being. Then, she meets Shea. Jess can barely utter the name—afraid of the word, the woman, the possibility, and her own past.

"Jan Guenther Braun, originally from a farm near Osler, Saskatchewan, now makes her home in Winnipeg where she is one-sixth of a worker co-op selling organic groceries. She was the Manitoba winner of the 2005 CBC Poetry Face-Off competition and selected for the Manitoba Writers' Guild Sheldon Oberman mentorship program."

Here is Jan's website.
Here is the publisher's website.

sermonizing

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:02:00 +0000

I spend my days in fields of wheat and pastures filled with prairie grasses and clover. I think about food. And I had the chance to put some of my thoughts into words a few months ago when Home Street Mennonite Church asked me to speak about faith and agriculture. That was a lot of fun.

Now, my words are freely available to all who care to read them. The Resource Centre of Mennonite Church Canada has posted my two cents upon their website along with a lot of other sermons. What to know why I think food is pathway to heaven? Read about it here:

http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/resourcecentre/ResourceView/5/11046

S.

Frau Doktor

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:52:00 +0000

Here she is, Miss Ethnomusicologist 1546!

What a doctor looks like

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:37:00 +0000

yes, master

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:03:00 +0000

On Tuesday, I successfully defended my thesis, titled "An evaluation of plant litter and its accumulation in Manitoba pastures". This means that I am a master. Yes, that's right.

And in just over a week, our household would contain a Doctor as well, except that we'll be in Newfoundland vacationing (we deserve it!) and so our household will be without either master or doctor.

Here's a picture of me looking scholarly.

Dates and figs

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:28:00 +0000

June 9 - Simon's thesis completion deadline...
June 24th - Simon's tentative defence date
July 4 - Judith's tentative defence date
July 5-16 Newfoundland party!
July 17 - new life begins as NON-students.

Completely nutters, let me tell you.

Other news:
1. Finished a Land project creating instrumental versions of some of our CD tracks for a documentary currently in production by Janelle Wookey: look here.

2. Preached a sermon at Home Street Mennonite Church about the problems in industrial agriculture, the failure of this type of agriculture to feed people in the world despite its high claims, and the importance of gardening as a solution to the global food crisis.

3. Judith submitted a certain gigantic work of writing to the School of Graduate Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland. So the defence date isn't that tentative anymore...

S.

conspiracies and confusion

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:36:00 +0000

Maybe we're a bit behind the times, but Judith and I finally watched our first 9/11 conspiracy documentary, Loose Change 2. It made a compelling argument for many things, adding up to a US led and executed operation to scare Americans (and everyone else) into doing whatever the Bush administration wanted to do.

Interestingly, my initial reaction was to soak up the entire argument wholesale - I was apparently hungry to hear an alternative take on the event. But over the next 12 hours, as everything mulled in my head, I started sifting through the presentation of evidence. I found myself arriving at the same place I'd been before - unsure. I don't know what happened on that day any more now than I did before.

But while I may not know any better (and really, no one ever will until certain tight lips either voluntarily or by some other means decide to start flapping), I feel a little bit more sure about one thing - there is a disease that comes with power, and this disease has led to blatant lies, smoke and mirrors, and two wars in coutries far away from the original supposed acts of terrorism.

S.

new lives

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Judith's sister had a baby the other day. That was exciting - J actually watched it all happen...

In other news, I built a bed.

There have been some other biggies in the last while. Judith has submitted her dissertation for committee approval, so she is very close to moving forward for defence. Which will mean, of course, a trip to St. John's (North America's oldest city). And if I manage to get my ____ in gear, I will be able to go along because I will be finished my degree as well. We'll be such a smart household then. Wow.

It's May 4 (Happy Birthday Sara) and it's snowing (Happy Birthday Sara).

While I'm at it, I may as well write some more. I was reading through the Charles Dickens catalogue in chronological order, but that got stuck halfway through The Old Curiosity Shop. It was a really good book. I miss it. So why have I stopped reading it? Well... let's just say that it got left behind by accident after I was reading in a public place. And when I went back to that public place, it was gone. And noone seems to know where it went. And so I must make a trip to the library. And so I am putting that off as long as possible... but not long enough to incur late charges on top of my replacement charges.

S.

What a thesis looks like

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:40:00 +0000

Hendrik's Journey

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:25:00 +0000

There's a little 11-month-old boy named Hendrik. He's full of life and happiness. He has also been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Please think about Hendrik (or think of him as Harry, as so many do) and wish him and his family strength, perseverance, and hope in the days, weeks, and months ahead. It is a long road they are walking.

You can read about his journey at this blog:

hendriksjourney.blogspot.com

Thanks,
Simon.

Further to a previous post

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:09:00 +0000

Here is an interesting list.
Charles Dickens' complete novels, chronologically by date of first edition completion:

1 Sketches by Boz (Nov., 1837 to June, 1839)
2 The Pickwick Papers (20 monthly parts, beginning April, 1836)
3 Oliver Twist (Jan., 1837 to Jan., 1838)
4 Nicholas Nickleby (April, 1838 to Oct., 1839)
5 Master Humphrey’s Clock By Boz (April, 1840 to Nov., 1841)
- contains the serial stories of The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge
6 A Christmas Carol (1843)
7 Martin Chuzzlewit (Jan., 1843 to July, 1844)
8 The Chimes (1845)
9 The Cricket On The Hearth (1846)
10 The Battle of Life (1846)
11 Dombey and Son (Oct., 1847, to April, 1848)
12 The Haunted Man And The Ghost’s Bargain (1848)
13 David Copperfield (May, 1849, to Nov., 1850)
14 Bleak House (Mar., 1852, to Sept., 1853)
15 Hard Times (1 April to 12 Aug., 1854)
16 Little Dorit (Dec., 1857, to June, 1858)
17 A Tale of Two Cities (June to Dec., 1859)
18 Great Expectations (Dec., 1860, to Aug., 1861)
19 Our Mutual Friend (May, 1864, to Nov., 1865)
20 No Thoroughfare (with Wilkie Collins, 1867)
21 The Mystery of Edwin Drood (April, 1870, and, owing to the author’s death, ending with the sixth number)

Total number of pages: who knows!
S.

Well chilled

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:24:00 +0000

The weather is cold, but our apartment keeps the heat on, so we don't suffer too badly. Still, it gets a bit much after a while. And I don't like having to put on a jacket just to walk from one building on campus to another, so I usually just suffer and freeze.

Meanwhile, in the world of Charles Dickens, I am in the middle of Nicholas Nickleby, and it is a very pleasant read, full of evil uncles, crazy old men courting widows, fight scenes, german merchants, and a healthy dose of humour at the expense of local amateur theatre.

I am on a quest to read everything Dickens wrote, in order, start to finish, without reading other fiction in between. This is book number three, not including the "sketches by Boz" he wrote prior to his serialized publications of the Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist. While these other two novels were nice reads, Nickelby strikes an extremely successful balance between the slapstick humour of Pickwick and the social satire of Twist.

So There.
S.

I AM LEGEND / OMEGA MAN

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:13:00 +0000

I am not what you would call cinematically aware. When I see the movie listings in the paper I have no idea what any of them are about (and the ads don't make any effort to help, either). But when I saw the ads and preview for "I Am Legend" starring Will Smith (and his real life daughter!) I did a mega-double-take.

"I Am Legend" is actually a remake of what was the most ridiculous movie I've seen in the last 12 months, namely "Omega Man". Omega Man stars Charlton Heston. He is the last man on earth, which really means the last healthy person on earth (you can't consider cannibalistic albino mutants human, I suppose). Ditto, I Am Legend.

So I guess what I am trying to say is this: if you want fast paced post-apocalyptic non-stop action, see Omega Man. If you want a cheap rip-off, see I Am Legend.

And if you want my musical response to Omega Man, you can listen to it at The Chumpend Songs.

Cheers,
Simon.

Southern Manitoba Choral Society

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:46:00 +0000

Judith plays viola in the orchestra for the SMCS's performances of Handel's Messiah. As an audience member at last night's performance, I can confidently say that the performance is wonderful, and that Handel was a genius.

Here's what Peppermint Patty has to say about it:

What I Love

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:55:00 +0000

A while back Judith and I went to Edmonton, and witnessed the grand extent of the Folkways Records catalogue. I would encourage everyone to visit Smithsonian Global Sound to get an idea of how much is in that catalogue. Just select "Folkways" in the Label/Archive option under Search Options, and you will have access to the entire collection. Plus you can buy the music for quite cheap.

A few selections of jacket art from the Folkways collection:

random things

noreply@blogger.com (the land) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:02:00 +0000

Well the weekend ran by quickly which does seem to be the norm these days. But I wanted to say a few words about the happenings since the last time I posted.

1. The infamous "Helvetica"
You may remember the post from many months ago about this font and its attractive characteristics. Well there's a documentary about that font, called (no big surprise) "Helvetica". And it was an extremely well made movie that I would recommend to any and all with a modicum of interest in design and modern-era philosophy. However, after almost two hours of helvetica, I am a bit sick of the high modern, and am looking more to an earlier era, specifically art-deco style.

2. iBooks and irritation
We don't have a DVD player. We just watch them on Judith's iBook. And we always intended to acquire the proper converters/adapters/cables to allow us to watch the movies on the TV from the computer. So after several false starts, wrong purchases, returns for refunds, and what-have-not (sic.), I finally had the full contingent of supplies for the task. So then I took everything out of their packages, and went to plug the adapter into the computer, only to find that it was the wrong adapter. Only works on newer laptops, and Judith's (having been purchased in 2004 when dinosaurs still roamed) is too old for these sorts of things. We need an adapter that is only available from apple themselves, on account of so few people buying things for such an ancient piece of technology. You should get me to tell you the story of our last laptop, "chubby".

3. Scholastic objectives
Judith will be submitting her dissertation to her committee on January 15, which means having a draft ready for Christmas. Good Luck! I hope to finish not long after her if I can. We Shall See, as said the man to his optometrist when asked if he needed a new prescription.

What a waste of your time this post has been. But do follow that link up there to the movie website. Sending you on to another website will help me feel like it hasn't been for nothing. Because reading websites is a valuable use of time for everybody.

Stay tuned for more updates as warranted.
S.