Just another Day on the Farm

Maria Dunn – We Were Good People (Live) – Copyright Maria Dunn & William…: http://t.co/ARpujqVQ

The Edmonton Hunger March took place on Tuesday, December 20, 1932. Protesters planned to walk in an orderly and peaceful manner from Market Square (currently the Stanley Milner Public Library) to the Legislature to ask for government assistance for farmers and the unemployed in the midst of the Depression. Wielding billy clubs, police on horseback broke up the march. In researching this event, I read an unpublished letter to the Edmonton Journal, written by William Dolinsky in 1999, in which he described the events he had witnessed. He wrote: “I remember well this Bloody Tuesday” and asserted, so eloquently and simply: “We were good people”. Of the 10,000 people reportedly in the square that day, I imagined the debacle from the point of view of a mother with two children.
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I was an ordinary mother in 1932 My husband out of work and more worries here than food I was weary with asking the man for relief Feeling like a beggar, being treated like a thief
So when word of a protest started going round I bundled my boys for the long walk downtown And bless them, they didn’t make a peep about the cold One was only 5, the other 9 years old
We were good people, gathered in the square It wasn’t ease and comfort had driven us there
Well the air was almost festive with Christmas trees in view But as we moved to leave the square and march the Avenue A sound I’d never heard before turned my heart to lead The sound of a billy club cracking open heads
Well I’d always taught my sons we were safe around police But when they charged on horses, I dragged us off the street It made me so angry they’d endanger children too In silencing the voices of 1932
We were good people, gathered in the square It wasn’t ease and comfort had driven us there But they treated us like criminals for showing our despair Oh I remember well this Bloody Tuesday
Where was the government who wouldn’t let us starve? Who wouldn’t take the farmer’s land, who knew we worked so hard We, the people, were just scraping by for our daily bread We had voted for the cowards and away they turned their heads
Now I’ve read it in the paper, this supposed “Hunger March” Was the scheme of Reds, they said, our hunger was a farce Well I don’t care what they say, for me it did ring true An ordinary mother in 1932

This is a little baby rant,  be it new stove learning curve,  a new brand of flour, trying a ton of new recipes or just plain old Baking Mojo, I have been very hit and miss this past week, some things have come out perfect, and others.. well.. let just say, thank goodness for the hounds!

I tried a new black bean recipe.. O I will not be passing it on, it was not even, see if I could fix it, it was a Fail in the cookbook, a Don’t make again and the hounds lapped it up for dinner as I had made a full crock pot of this dish.

Then there was the cake that would not hold its structure, I did my typical switch out tricks for apple sauce and it was the most gumpy cake, it tasted ok but it was like under cooked bread pudding..  the hounds loved it, it should have been called a hush puppy, because they did the rub of joy afterwards, while I snarled at losing a full pan of cake.

Then came the rhubarb crumble that was so tart (I forgot the sugar yikes) that hubby had one bite and passed it back to me.. That one I fixed and eat myself but it was certainly not up to par, I had tried a mix of my mom’s new trick of use orange juice in the crumb and then online it had said, used dried orange peel and orange juice mix, and I thought sure, that sounds yummy.. NOT.. it was was barely good enough..

Tried and True recipes are coming out, but its not a week for my typical farmgal winging it..  Its made me think about if I would be willing to take as many cooking risks as I do, if I knew that food had to be dinner, that there was nothing to replace it.. I don’t think I would, I would stick to very tried and true recipes in that case.

Truck in better days, learning how to be a farm helper, being loaded with cut and dried hay to be drove down to the barn LOL

I know that it seems like a odd thing to be writing a post about, but Dh bought this truck brand new when he finished his post secondary, and it was all bright and new when I meet him, it took us on our first road trip together, it carried us when we went to meet our parents the first time.. We truck camping and drove many of the roads in NWT, it came with us on our move across the artic, to Iqaluit, it is filled with memories from up there, as it drove us slow and steady down the very bumpy road to no where each spring and summer to the camping site to the sand pits and was the lead off of so many walks, hikes and camping trips..

It was flown down with us when we moved to ontario, and it has been our faithful farm truck for the past years, it has hauled home thousands of pds of feed, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, calfs and most recently pigs.. It has been used as a hay wagon, it has been filled with wild picked fruit, it has taken us down narrow twisted dirt lanes to amazing spots on the local rivers and woods.

In a way it feels like something is ending with its passing, but I know that its not the truck itself that makes it feel that way, its all the good times with my hubby, hounds, friends and family that has happened that makes my heart feel a tug..

Rest in Peace Truck 1997-2012- You never let us down!