Lost on the Prairies

These are pictures from last week. This morning Luke and I ran out to get groceries first thing, so I didn't get a chance to take a new picture yet today.

They say that if your dog ran away on the prairies you could watch it run for three days. But yesterday Luke and I got lost on the prairies. There's actually a valley called the Pembina Valley, and we got into it and lost our way.

We were headed for the Pembina Hutterite Colony west of Morden. We got some directions that said to turn on a certain road and once you hit gravel it's just a bit further. So we turned on that road, hit gravel (which was actually an enormous mud hole!), and drove a way in. And a little more. And a little more. Where was this place supposed to be? Did I miss the sign?

I kept driving down this gravel road thinking, "A bit further" can mean different things to different people. Plus, I was afraid to try to turn around in the mud. Finally I came to a dead end. The road was closed up ahead due to the mud. I turned around and the first house I came to I stopped to ask directions.

"Whoa, you're really lost", was her reaction to my tale. Miles and miles and miles away the Hutterites were laughing. I'm sure they weren't laughing at me, because they're very polite people, but I sure felt silly. So I drove all the way back down the muddy gravel road, down the paved road, onto the highway, and 20 kilometers after that I was at the Hutterite Colony.

When I drove up there were kids playing in a field, but the rest of the place seemed totally dead. I parked in the first lot I came to and got out thinking I would knock on doors if I had to. I was not going to leave without my chickens now that I've been driving for an hour and a half!

As I was getting Luke out of the car a young boy came up to us. He couldn't speak, his toes were pointed in, he seemed to be double jointed, and he was real scrawny with his hair buzzed off and pointing in all directions. I asked about buying chickens and he nodded his head in an exaggerated way, grabbed my hand, and off we went. Down the garden stairs, across several court yards, into a dark building, down some more stairs into a smelly basement, past some cattle carcasses hanging from hooks, through banana boxes shouting "California" in yellow and blue, and finally we stood next to a man speaking German into a telephone next to a bloody meat shaver underneath a clock that was frozen at 10:24.

The man nodded at us and the boy made a sound like a seal. Finally the man got off the phone and said, "Good job Joseph! You knew I was here." Joseph had let go of my hand only when the man nodded at us, and my sweaty palm was shaken by the man and I asked about chicken. "Yes, yes. How many do you want?" "How many in your family?" And Joseph came out of a freezer carrying sausage and pickles. "No, Joseph. Don't bother the lady." But Joseph insisted I carry the sausage. So the man said, "I'll give it to you half-price. You try it and if you like it you come get more."

Joseph smiled and disappeared. The man carried my very own banana box full of chickens and sausage through the cold storage, up the stairs, across the courtyard, up the garden stairs, and put it in the trunk of my car. $40 got me six chickens, and a package of sausage! And I had such an adventure finding the place, and then following Joseph around, that I left without remembering I wanted to buy eggs, too.