Glenboro, Manitoba

In PEI, the locals say Souris as though it sounds like Surrey.
In MB, the locals say Souris as in Surris.
Aug. 8/08 Piet and Lorelie wanted to show me the swing suspension bridge in Souris before going to their place, although it is 20 miles out of their way. I am so grateful for them for that. I warned them that I had an inate fear of heights and/or bridges and might freeze up before I got a few feet out. One of the main concerns I had before leaving Ontario was the predictament I might get myself into because of my fear of heights. Mainly bridges, tressles etc. A few prairie hills were so steep that I actually had to walk down them as well as up.
In Brandon the night before, I had had to walk my bike over a rather high arched bridge, and had done so without much problem at all. I couldn't have ridden, though, because of the fear of falling over the railing.
As soon as I got on the Souris suspension swinging bridge, the kids who were already out there began swinging it back and forth. Even our walking made it swing, as well.
To my great delight and surprise, I was able to keep walking, and even look down at the Souris River, all the way across and back. It arcs down rather than up, and I enjoyed it immensely. We watched thick black schools of catfish babies swimming in the warm shallows. Hadn't seen that sight since my Wil-O-Lea days on Smith Bay.
It was wonderful and so freeing to know that that phobia had been conquered, thanks in part to this bike trip, I'm sure.
Well, it was an amazing feeling! I could, and did do it. The best feeling of all was when I realized I was walking, and kids were making it swing, and I suffered no anxiety nor fear. That dreaded feeling was gone. I am just astounded that this can happen after all the years I have suffered from this particular fear.


Aug. 9/08 In Glenboro, Manitoba, a large camel greets newcomers.
Her name is Sara (Sahara) and she has the most beautiful colouring, and the nicest mouth I have ever seen on a camel. If she were real, she would be the friendliest of pets.
Why a camel in Manitoba? Well, here is the explanation:
"Hi, Karen. The camel, Sara, was chosen because of the bare sand hills we have in Spruce Woods Park.
Unfortunately, grasses and other plants are growing over the sandhills and there is not so much bare sand as there used to be.
It is also the reason we have the skinks and the small prickly pear cactus and pincushion cactus, not found outside of the sand areas.
Love, Lorelie and Piet"
Spruce Woods Park is one of the loveliest parks I have ever been in.
Piet, Lorelie and her twin sister, Roselie, took me for a drive through it one evening. The Souris River that I mentioned earlier flows into the Assiniboine River, which flows into the Red River in Winnipeg. Anywhere there is a river, you find very hilly terrain, and woods, and beauty. The Assiniboine flows through Spruce Woods Park.
There are campgrounds for the general public, and also two for equestrain riders, and corrals for their horses. I highly recommend anyone visiting Manitoba in summer with camping in mind visit Spruce Woods.
There was the TransCanadaTrail, narrow, hard-packed sandy trail, looking so inviting that I began to wonder if I'd made a mistake. We followed it through the park for at least 20 miles before it became too rough - parts far too soft for cycling.
The park is about 36 sections square, meaning 36 square miles, I guess, or more.
It's so beautiful in there that I need to come back and spend a couple of weeks there. But not now.
This is the park where a very few people have had a fleeting glimpse of a resident cougar which, according to them, paces out a 75 mile circuit so it could be there today, and gone tomorrow. It hasn't yet attacked a person, but has done so to a couple of horses.
It's a mixed park - mix of prov. park, and farm land - some farmers still have farming rights within the park - dirt roads and lanes, spruce trees and hardwoods.
Lorelie walked 22 km. of the trail one time, with Piet meeting them at a set point later on.

In Lumsden, in the Qu'Appelle Valley, I biked the TCT for about 1 mile before coming up against a barricade. The TCTrail just seems to put up barricade after barricade for me, so my heart has kind of gone out of the desire to do this venture further.
The highways really aren't that much fun, I'm afraid.
However, when I saw how twisting and long the trail is in the park, with cougar sightings, maybe it was meant to be the way it has been for me, meeting such wonderful and interesting people instead of trees n birds n animals, bears, cougars, rattlesnakes, forest fires etc.
I am so glad I chose to try this venture. It's been great.

The home of Piet and Lorelie is 46 acres of woodlands with their house sitting in a clearing out of view of the dirt road to Glenboro.
It's quiet and lovely.
As we walked from the garage to the house, hundreds of grasshoppers flew into the air as we stepped onto the lawn.
I was surprised because while travelling south down to Saskatoon, millions played chicken with the cars, trucks and bicycles on the highway. After turning east at Regina on the TransCanada Hwy., I saw very few, and thought their season was over but certainly not here in this paradise oasis.
Lorelie says there are at least 30 varieties of grasshoppers. I rather like the colourful little critters and had tried to avoid them.
Here, at Van Dyken Estates, they are thriving, and thick, flying up from your feet on the lawn by the thousands. They bounce off your clothes and hands and face, and unceasingly bounce off the walls of the house making ticking sounds as they do so. I find it fascinating, but, of course, am speaking only of myself. To see one in the air in front of you is one thing; to have thousands around you all the time could make you kidda want to maybe step on a few. It could be rather disconcerting.

Every day about 5 pm, Piet and Lorelie have a 'wine-time' with a glass of wine and cheese and crackers. Delightful!!! I had gotten used to Gatorade, when I could find it, and energy bars.

Just as we were about to sit down in the livingroom, a still-spotted fawn happened upon the yard, and then we noticed the doe a short distance away in the long grasses.
She was pulling up poison ivy leaves and eating them.
I was aghast! I am so allergic I even hate to think about or see from a distance the poison ivy plant.
Apparently, deer eat the white berries, as well.

Also, they have resident flying sqirrels living in the various types of trees on their property. I would so dearly have loved to have seen one, but they come out only at night, and are very elusive.

Piet and Lorelie have a board lying flat on the grass up by the shed where a prairie skink has made a home. We tried to sneak a peak, but it scuttled down a hole it had under there so I saw only it's hind end. Skinks are primitive lizards, and very shy. In our attempt to see it, we inordinately walked through poison ivy.
As soon as Lorelie told me, I rushed into the bathroom with the Sunlight dish soap and dowsed myself with it and showered. When I came out, she had washed my socks, and I washed my shoes and the bottoms of my cycling pants with the detergent.
I was favoured that day, as I didn't get poison ivy. Lucky Stars, I guess for which I am deeply thankful.
The deer are welcome to it, but remind me to NEVER pat a deer.

Friends of Lorelie's and Piet's, Caitlyn and Graham, dropped over for a visit. It was just as I was coming out of the shower with the Sunlight detergent in my hands, after the skink/poison ivy venture. Graham is a doctor from South Africa now working in Glenboro and area. We played Bocce (sounds like botchee) which is a mix of lawn bowling and curling, I would guess. It was quite fun so if you're interested, get a set.

Aug. 9/08 Piet drove us to the farmer's market that Saturday. It is held from 10 am to nearly noon but the stuff sells out pretty quickly.
The Hutterites had a large bag of peas that I bought (before touching) as I wanted to give my hosts a nice gift, and enjoy a few mouthfuls myself. No treat like that of fresh peas from the garden. Only they weren't fresh. Turned out that they were a bag of previously frozen peas. Live and learn. I should have known better - of course, pea season was over.
Lorelie came home with fresh corn - so fresh that it was white, thin, and the cobs bent over when you held them. It looked so funny while you were eating at them.
She had a great idea, though. Horses love cobs, and these were so very tender. Her sister has a hobby farm nearby where she boards 3 former equestrian horses. We'd take them over there. She also has 5 dogs, 2 or 3 of which are neighbours' dogs who love it better at her place. Can't say as how I blame them. It's such a warm, loving atmosphere there.
Lorelie called to the horses but they just ignored us. Then she called again and dumped the bucket of cobs on the ground. Immediately, the Jack Russell scooted under the fence and grabbed one and came back out to chew on it for a while. The Golden Retriever also ran in and grabbed one and ran around the corral with it.
Finally, Lorelie banged the oats pail, and the horses came over. Trouble now was that they were crowding and 3 horses trying to eat from the same pile was kind of cute as they were reaching under legs, and over necks, and pushing each other, but the cobs disappeared very quickly.

Piet and Lorelie are avid birders, and had known each other for years before being in the same naturalists club in Mississauga. Any time/place we drove to, they would point out the various birds for me, and for each other. Binoculars in the car are always at the ready. With a gentle touch on the arm, and pointing, several interesting birds were pointed out on every drive. Because SK and MB don't mow most of the sides of their roads, birds feel welcome in these 2 provinces, and have lots of food available. You hear their songs from early morning to evening. We had a resident Kingbird in Bloomfield, but they pointed out both the Eastern, and the Western Kingbird to me on one road. Raptors were on every road, as they have been on my cycling trip, and they pointed them out, and identified every one.

Aug. 10/08 Sunday morning we drove a fair distance to go to their Icelandic country church. A 16 year teen girl sang with the voice of an angel. There was a picnic lunch afterward and I was delighted to taste several Icelandic treats.
It's a lovely heritage church on a rise above a small lake with farmland next door.
The lake, hills, lawns, farm crops and buildings, heritage church - Paradise is what it was called by the first farmer to settle there. I agree.

It's a Small Small World:
While at an annual public picnic put on by the Heritage Committee for the Criddle/Vane Homestead, on Sunday, a woman called out to Lorelie.
She introduced herself as Shirley Christianson.
The usual chatting occurred, and then my introduction, and questions.
When I said I was from Picton, Ontario, she said her niece lived there, and so I asked her what her niece's name is.
'Oh, she died. She was only 52.'
So again I asked what her name was, specifically her last name, and she said Gorlitz.
'Susan?' I asked.
She was astounded/floored. She was Susan's aunt, and tears welled up in both our eyes. Susan was the wife of Will, who is an artist as is one of their daughters. Will was in our Picton Cinefest art film group, before he moved to teach at Guelph University, so I knew her through my position as treasurer of Cinefest. Susan died of cancer a year after they had moved to Guelph.
It was a strange encounter and I was left with mixed feelings...of memories of that time and my friends then, and of our own fragile part in this universe.

January 8, 2009 to fieldofcedars@hotmail.com Hi Karen Thanks for the message about our Susie Gorlitz. We have e-maile her daughters and her sister Mary Cowan who has a Bed and Breakfast in Westport, Ontario. We still miss our Susie who died in March 200l. If you ever come to Manitoba again, please phone from Piet or Lorelie,we would love to see you and maybe have lunch or something. I'm still involved in the making of a book about our Delta Beach on the shore of Lake Manitoba and when it is published, I will let you know. Talk to you another day. Shirley and Stephanie Christianson, Portage, Mb.

At the same picnic, I met another Boston Terrier and his owner.
The young girl and her mother had been given this gentle Boston by a couple who moved into an apt. before finding out it was a no-pet building.
They told me that every year near end of summer, Brandon has a Boston Tea Party.
There are at least 15 Bostons and owners attending now. Wish I was one of them. What a delightful little dog a Boston is.

At 5 pm, Sun., we were invited to Wendy's in the town of Glenboro for a BBQ in the most beautiful backyard of impressive perrenials and trees for their friend, Shirley, who, like me, reached 65. The food was also impressive, a buffet fit for a queen. Roselie was also there with her husband who stays at a residence just across the street from Wendy's because he is now in a wheelchair. Southern Manitoba and Sask. has a rather high incidence of folks with Multiple Sclorosis.