FTLComm - Tisdale - April 10, 2000

Fall seemed to occupy most of last year and now an endless post winter - pre-spring prevades our land and landscape. A few trees had considered budding out a few times during the mild winter now they are more then cautious and remain dormant waiting with all of us, if things will at last move along. It is a time of brown and grey, of delay and doubt, as the agricultural world is poised to plant knowing full well that only loses will be incurred, yet there is always a glimmer of hope that bides in the inner thoughts like the faint spot of light coming from above the clouds that

signals the location of the hidden sun. Maybe, just maybe, if the sun comes out and the few puddles vanish, the soil warms and seeds will be in the ground, cheaply, provided there are no break downs, or further increases in fuel and fertilizer costs. Between the place where these pictures were taken and the slope beyond runs the little stream that some years is a swollen run off river, today is it mopes along, partly covered with thin ice along its edges. Small birds flutter in the bushes looking for berries and hawks sit watching for mice and gophers to tempt them into the air. It is quiet. There is no breeze this morning and

with the temperature at -5 it is all but a motionless world. This flock seen a few minutes earlier South of town is wandering. Concerned about the dull skies and low temperatures they hold themselves at their ominous flight pattern twelve hundred feet above the ground now heading South, not North, indecisive and like us on the ground. . . waiting. Patients, so often touted as a virtue is a burden that weighs heavily on all living things. Prepared to act and react, life is not particularly accepting of "stasis". Lack of motion is not a regular part of life and so with imposed inaction comes stress and a measure of discomfort.

The second load rolls into town at 8:30 as early bird truckers have already loaded up at a farm and are on the move, beginning another week of shuffling back and forth from farm yard to terminal, terminal to farm yard, burning up precious fuel on a shrinking margin, compelled to drive on, there are bills to pay, payments to make and it is better to be in motion then be still - waiting.

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