Bowsman MB

Now that I have a bit more time, I'll try to tell you about Manitoba. Or at least the parts of it that I have seen so far.

We left Plentywood Monday morning and drove north to Regina and then east. It rained all the way across Saskatchewan. It rained all the way through Manitoba up to Bowsman, and it continued raining after we got here. In the greyness, with the clouds hovering low and the rain streaking the windows, it looks an awful lot like Washington. You can even pretend that the Cascades are right there - hidden behind the clouds. Lots of green fields; lots and lots of trees, all of them green too; frogs (yep, green)... and water everywhere. They get most of the water for convention (not the drinking water, but for the toilets and laundry and everything) from a dugout. That is, you dig a large hole in the ground and wait for it to fill up. This would never happen in Montana or Wyoming, but it works quite well here. Unfortunately, along with all this water comes mosquitoes and humidity. Two of my favorite things.... Not. It's not been too bad so far though - it's been fairly cool and rainy. Yesterday, there were several cloudbursts, and once it hailed. And for the excitement of the day, we saw a huge black cloud in the distance that they told us was a half-mile wide funnel cloud. I haven't heard that it ever turned into a tornado though, which is a very good thing. I took a picture of it just in case, but it doesn't look like anything other than a large black cloud. You can't even see any hints of funnelling.
They grow a lot of canola here. All the yellow fields are very pretty, and cheer up the incessent greenery quite nicely, I think. Oh, and here's another similarity to W. Washington that you don't see in MT/WY! I took a walk down the road (gravel) and all along it there are ditches!! Filled with WATER! And cattail reeds and little frogs. (Toads, Nichole told me. They're bumpy on the back, not smooth.) I managed to scare an entire herd of cows by mooing at them. Perhaps they aren't familiar with American mooing and only understand you if you moo at them in Canadian. None of the cows I moo at in the States ever takes off at near-stampede speeds! I was a little offended!

Bowsman is a smaller convention, about 450 people at the biggest. The barn looked very small tonight - not so many folks had shown up yet. I couldn't tell you a number... 200 maybe? But that is entirely a guess, I really have no idea at all. I don't even know how many people were in the dining room. Nichole and I arrived on the grounds Monday night to find out we were both speaking Wednesday night. So I was just a little distracted at supper time tonight. There are positives and negatives to being first off, we've found.
Plus: You're done right away and therefore have the rest of the convention free to listen comfortably.
Minus: You're done right away and therefore have no idea what to do with yourself for the rest of the convention, as you know no one to talk to and can't study for meeting.
I also think perhaps we were practicing for when we go to some other countries - our little cabin has the main ironing board as well as the main email plugin and telephone for the sisters near us; so lots of people were coming and going all day. It wasn't bad; we put in earplugs and stayed happily deaf and undisturbed - it was just a little amusing. Not quite like getting ready for meeting with chickens and pigs and shouting kids running around like some people do! No five-times-daily call to prayer either.

It stays light noticeably later into the evening, though we aren't even as far north as Smeaton (SK). It is 10:10 right now, and looks like about 9 at home. Some of this, I suppose, is because we're not far into this timezone. It really IS about 9. Or so my body thinks. ;) I never realized I was such a creature of habit... I even get hungry on schedule! I'm hungry now - at 9 pm (my time), when I generally have a snack. The problem is that they had snacks out at 9 pm (their time... an hour ago!) when I wasn't the slightest bit hungry. Le sigh. Guess I'll have to raid the chocolate stash again. After all, I can't go to bed hungry! Speaking of my chocolate stash... le sigh again. I cleverly had broken pieces off the latest candy bar Mom got for me, and put them in a little tin in my suitcase. Bite-sized, all of them. At least, until they melted together in the trunk. I guess it was hotter than I realized.

The only bad thing about it up here is that I am having the hardest time getting online. I'm sorry, everyone, that's why no speaking list yet. :( It's very frustrating. We've been having a wonderful convention so far.

Sunday night we go on down to Portage. :)