May 25, 2008:

It’s been pretty cool today; didn’t get up much above 10°, and as usual a stiff wind. We got a very light rain last night, but everything was dry by this morning. Since we got home from our bus tour, which was February 15^th, we have had one snowfall worthy of the name, and a couple of light rains. It seems to us the trees are slow to leaf out, but maybe it’s because we are in a period of extreme drought. Great for getting seed in the ground but I suspect the farmers are saying “Let it come!” A nice two-day soaker would be welcome.

Our townhouse faces towards the north. There is a sound fence between us and Attridge, but it doesn’t stop the wind which sweeps down across the fronts of our places with gale force. The condo association has taken out some little shrubs which didn’t seem to be amounting to anything, and is building privacy fences between each house’s patios. They will be about six feet tall and extend twelve feet out from the front of the house.

We don’t care about privacy, in fact like the idea of being able to chat with our neighbors if they ever stick their heads out of their houses, but we do hope it breaks the wind. We bought a new barbecue (a real good one – seventy bucks) and a new cover for it. First good windstorm and the cover was in shreds. Once the fence is finished, we will invest in a new cover, and hope it lasts a little longer.

I played myself out spading up Doreen’s flower garden (one foot wide and eight feet long) and she has some petunias all ready to plant once the fence builders are finished tramping over it. Maybe with the fence, the petunias have a chance against the wind.

This weekend was “Garage Sale Weekend”, and we did our part. We started on Thursday afternoon, with Doreen and Lucille marking the ads that interested them, and me locating them with the aid of our trusty GPS navigator.

I must confess that garage saling is not my idea of a scintillating afternoon; I occasionally find a book to buy but mostly I do the driving and visiting, and that can be interesting.

On Friday, we went to Osler, where there were town-wide garage and yard sales. I was wearing my “ Greenwater Park ” T-shirt and the second place we visited was owned by Larry and Gwen Ingram. Larry grew up north of Greenwater Lake , on the McKague grid west of Chelan and they still visit the area occasionally. We had a great visit.

Osler seems to be a young town, for the most part. Almost all the garage sales were heavy to childrens’ clothing, toys, etc., which didn’t hold much interest for us, but we dutifully checked out every one we could find.

Back in Saskatoon , we visited a sale in the Silverwood area. I looked at the man running the sale, and he looked at me and my T-shirt. I asked him if his name could be Maksuta and he said “It sure is!” He almost recognized me but needed a little help. Ed and his son, Adam, had Mak’s Service in Tisdale for years, and they also had a cottage at Greenwater Park . I had taken family photos of them a couple of times, and they had visited the Studio and Tearoom.

They sold the service station in the lat ‘80s; Ed retired to Saskatoon and Adam moved to Swan River . They sold their cottage in the early ‘90s. Another wonderful visit.

The next place we went to, a man and his son were sitting behind the table of garage sale offerings. The son saw my T-shirt and asked if I went to Greenwater often, or did I steal the T-shirt? I told him we used to live there, but had recently moved into Saskatoon . The father asked me: “Are you Crawford?” Turns out he is a faithful reader of The Greenwater Report. His name is Olshewski (I didn’t get his first name) and he lives at Okla ; was just visiting his son in the city. He complimented me on the column and told me to keep on writing it. I left there considerably puffed up.