H. E. Stewart

This book is a collection of vignettes about life on a farm 350 miles north of Calgary, where the author and her family stayed “off and on, for over fifteen years (7). Helen left Berkeley, California, and moved with her anthropologist husband to Canada in the mid-sixties to try sheep farming: “His special interest was in nomadic peoples, living with their animals in extreme environments” (4).

Helen knew nothing about farming so the undertaking had many challenges. She describes learning about the raising of sheep, chickens, goats, pigs, turkeys, and bees. Her gardening adventures were equally challenging: “This was the very same summer I tended a fifty-foot row of planted peanuts only to learn that peanuts do not mature in the far north” (62). It is understandable why she sometimes felt “as if I was reaching the end of my tether” (41).

Some of the situations described reminded me of episodes of Green Acres, the late-sixties television show. She describes shelling peas using a wringer washer and cleaning blueberries using a hair dryer. She managed to keep her sense of humour, agreeing with W. C. Fields that “anyone who hadn’t seen themselves as a cartoon was missing the truth of life” (40).

I can’t decide whether to admire this woman’s courage and determination or to shake my head in dismay at her patience with her husband. It was he who convinced her to try farming and then he basically abandoned her to the task: “I was often left on my own to manage. I came to realize that anthropologists, like writers, sometimes prefer observing from a distance. My husband was definitely a part-time participant, somewhat detached and rather nomadic himself, constantly on the move, collecting experiences along the way” (7 – 8). He seemed to have little understanding of how hard she had to work. She was so happy to finally acquire a washing machine: “My husband, who seemed to relish hardships, especially as an observer, had finally realized that washing clothes on a scrub board was not the best use of my time” (7). She had to put out a chimney fire, and her husband “was only disappointed he had not been the one to put out the fire – an experience, he said, he had always wanted to have” (56). Frustrated with all the work, Helen sometimes felt like leaving: “Instead, it was my husband who went on his way. The next morning he returned to his university job, leaving behind a house in disarray, hives of frustrated bees, and a long list of unfinished chores” (64). She had to care for the farm, the animals and the children while he “was back at the university, often expounding to eager young students upon the benefits of country living” (76). Sometimes she worked until she was utterly exhausted, but she tried not to feel sorry for herself: “After all, my neighbours worked harder than I. And, as my husband liked to point out, there were places in the world where women had none of my advantages” (90). Oh I hope she divorced him!

The photos and drawings that accompany the text are charming. The book is not a great work of literature, but then it never purports to be other than an episodic memoir of life on a farm from the perspective of a total neophyte.… (mehr)