It has been a year of busy, so much so that I almost abandoned this blog altogether. Surprisingly the weather seems to wreak some havoc here and there so far this year to the point of life-interruption. Not in any major way on our home fronts but in an awestruck reality of much devastating loss in floods and hail throughout the southern Canadian Prairies. Hardest hit was Calgary with much loss and rebuild but sadder hit was the entire town of High River in a devastating flood that will take decades if not a century to recover from.
 
A hectic year on all fronts so far and it did not help that hail damage in our Alberta home left me vehicle shopping half the summer and dealing with house repairs. Funny how 10 minutes of Mother Nature can put you back months. Even though I had my car written-off, our truck just getting the last of the repairs awaiting body replacement parts for months, our new roof now on, the siding finally replaced, and the eaves and gutters on their way, our loss was manageable and minor compared to many who only an hour or so north of us lost everything.

The irony in all for me is that our little loved shack of a cottage-home, Landlocked, on the Saskatchewan prairie sits in a little town where life moves along at a slow comfortable pace and much goes unnoticed, in a good way. Not able to get away much to visit Landlocked these past few months it is always comforting to know that little changes there. The tarped roof awaiting new shingles still leaks when it rains, the temperature cooling has a floor of dead flies to greet us on arrival, the house chills off and the grass browns in the early frost, and life quietly carries on.

Getting to spend a few days there this past weekend had us readying it for winter. Although we do not close it off and will still visit often in the snow months to come we do check things a little closer on departing. We tucked the patio chairs into the garage, shored up a few draughty spots, check the plastic on the upstairs windows, turn off the ceiling fans, tilt the blinds a little to let the winter low sun warm the rooms, and then locked it up and tucked it in for winter.

The carefree summer days spent there are so different than those of the coming winter when we shovel our way in around the drifts and layer up shivering as the new furnace hums it back to warmth. We relax more, have less company and enjoy the isolation of feeling so far away from the big busy world. Spring planting is discussed, summer company and reno project ideas abound but we know when the time comes it may or may not happen as this is a relaxed place to be and that priority trumps fix-er-up-er work all summer long. It doesn’t seem to matter as the house has quietly stood the last century with little help from us and seems to happily carry on the same way. A new toilet here and some flooring there, maybe some fresh paint and a roof next year, maybe not.

The seasons ahead will bring what they will and we will enjoy the escape often and always.

Michelle

     Is it just me or have you noticed a trend of late on the new man? For those who also follow my antique & collecting blog Thrifty Diversions you already know that thrifty is “IN” in a big way! But for those who get a more subtle message eventually and enjoy the slow dance you may have picked up on a gentle shift in all that is circling your history channel viewing pleasure of late. 
     It turns out the men of the much watched History Channel shows, the Pawn Stars, American Pickers, American Restoration, Cajun Pawn Stars, are the new sexy! Yes ladies you are not only looking for mister right – you are now hoping for mister into-great-junk! Women of a certain love-for-vintage age are wanting a man that will go picking and troll thrift stores and yard sales on a weekend. No elegant late Saturday morning yuppie coffee shop dates anymore, we just want a man who pulls up with two paper cups of no-name steaming coffees and an empty truck bed ready for some weekend action – auction action! A man who travels with a little be-prepared essentials rolling around under the seat of his pick-up next to his fishing gear – ropes, big garbage bags, gloves, multi-head screwdriver, hammer, crowbar, shrink wrap, an old-furniture blanket and the likes as you never know when you might come across an old abandoned barn door to liberate or have to dismantle a century old armoire at an auction to get it in the truck.
     Yes ladies we want a man who loves long back road drives in the country at dawn’s first light … looking for good junk! How do I know that to be true? I’m marrying one of those guys this coming weekend! Not only did he come to love the thrifty collecting lifestyle I exposed him to early on he has become a great picker himself, even worked the front counter of my antique store to great success on his weekends off the day job, and an expert tie-down man who can make anything fit in the back of a truck. As I am writing this he just texted me pics of a typewriter he is standing in front of at a thrift store he popped into while he is on the road to see a client – “works $8?”- like sexting to a collector – we call it thrift-porn.
     Our wedding is as simple as our love of a thrifty vintage lifestyle, all happening in a small prairie town at our shack of a cottage with no frills, but surrounded by family and fun.  Saturday afternoon ceremony in the town park gazebo, my minister brother marrying us, and a few blocks back at home we will be swinging open the old double carriage house doors to expose the tacky man-cave garage bar surrounded by vintage chrome stools. The yard will be full of guest campers, reception on patio tables covered in vintage linens surrounded by lawn chairs on the dirt driveway. Food will be plentiful simple family fare off the grill, fresh cut garden flowers all around in mismatched vases and stuffed into cream can urns, wine and beer out of iced topped galvanized pails, vintage mismatched dishes, and even the traditional, almost tacky vintage bride & groom cake topper on a simple real get-eaten white cake. There will be fire pit sing-a-longs, crib tournaments, lawn croquet  and best of all a celebration of a perfect match.
     If these auction loving, junk-hunting, pickup truck driving, rugged haulers are the new man – can the up and coming round of Mountain Men, Shark Wranglers and Swamp People filling up airways be the next great man to snag? Move over American Pickers – trends don’t lie.

Thanks for all the wedding wishes everyone!

 I can’t say there are too many weeks in my life where I have given myself some time off! Not that writers ever really rest, but I am working without distractions. Spending the next week or so out of the city and here at Landlocked is peaceful but proving to be hard work to bring myself down to a relaxed pace. The excitement is limited to the occasional pop in from my mother who lives nearby, the odd dog barking, and having to pause to wave from my makeshift driveway patio as a car passes by (everyone in this town waves to one another walking or driving by). About the only things interrupting my quiet writing time are the birds chirping or the breeze occasionally whisking in a lost piece of paper up against the fence, but other than that there is really not that much going on.
I find it difficult to take the pace down to a slow meander and still my mind. Proof in that statement is that I had only been here a day and a half and had already harvested the raspberries and made 18 jars of jam and sewn an entire quilt top which has patiently laid waiting beside my machine in the city for months. Excitement is Thursday mornings when the fresh farmers market runs – nothing like in the city as this market has one small family vendor but no shortage of fresh potatoes and string beans, and a loaf of fresh baked Hutterite-kitchen bread. In a town with only three eating establishments the opening of the new Chinese restaurant was big news and packed in the patrons in spite of the temperatures soaring into the 30’s Celsius and no air conditioning.
Small town life (about 700 people in this prairie hideaway) is a lifestyle all in itself. As this is a self- professed lifestyle blog it is obvious then that I see a correlation between where I am sitting and what I am writing. The best part about small town life, for those that have not experienced it for any length of time, is that it is, to sum it up in one word, simple.
Simple in a good way. No stress unless you make your own, no traffic or rush hour, and especially no retail shopping therapy distractions. People are madly sharing the raspberry harvest around town as the harvest is plentiful, jars are being pulled up from the cellar in anticipation of the garden harvests and for the most part people are simply relaxing. The day starts early on the hot prairie as the gardens need watering and the house cooled overnight needs shutting in from the day’s heat ahead. Evening cold suppers are planned and prepared in the morning before the kitchen is too warm leaving the rest of the day carefree to enjoy the shade and a good book.
Surprisingly this past weekend one of those prairie storms that come out of nowhere late in the day when the temperatures seem almost too hot to manage anything more than a shuffle around to fill your cold drink. Leaving as fast as it arrived and depositing inches of heavy rain, thankfully no hail on the gardens, this storm took with it the power. In the city life halts to an anxious standstill if the electricity doesn’t flow as if a lifeline has been cut for what seems like an eternal hour of waiting for that flash of lights and the modem blinking again connected to the world. Here on the open prairie the power remained out a full twenty hours, into the next evening literally shutting down the town with no shops open, no eateries, no liquor store open on a hot long weekend Saturday, no Friday night out or Saturday hustle bustle shopping. The long weekend passed just felt even longer in a relaxed gift- like way as the busy world out there somewhere hummed on the grid without this quiet prairie town. Luckily there is no street light in town so traffic was not snagged!

I promise some updated pictures after the weekend … enjoy yours!