Fun on the Farm 3: True Tales of Farm Life!Compiled and edited by Deana J. DriverPublished by DriverWorks InkReview by Michelle Shaw$17.95 ISBN 9781927570630 Growing up on a farm on the Canadian prairies is a unique experience, especially in the days before cellphones and GPS. In Fun on the Farm 3, 20 prairie writers, including Mary Harelkin Bishop and Deana Driver, share some of their treasured memories. The book is full of all kinds of fascinating stories. There are tales of pet calves, malevolent bulls, and piglets like Arnold who was pushed around in a doll carriage. Laurie Lynn Muirhead shares the story of her brother plucking the feathers off the turkeys’ butts to make wings so he could fly. There are stories of learning to drive, usually before the driver could see over the dashboard, and the annual spring ritual of picking rocks in the fields before and after seeding. As Brad Hauber puts it … “This job was made specifically with farm kids in mind.” Mary Harelkin Bishop tells of the time her three-year old brother got stuck in the mud – literally – in the middle of the soggy, muddy garden one very wet spring, and Marilyn…

Flight: Stories of Canadian Aviation, Vol. 3by Deana J. Driver and ContributorsPublished by DriverWorks InkReview by Keith Foster$19.95 ISBN 978-1-927570-62-3 “Oops.” That’s not a word you want to hear when you’re flying. But that’s what one pilot uttered when he noticed things flying around the cockpit and realized he’d forgotten to secure them before taking off. This incident, and more, are covered in Deana Driver’s latest book, Flight: Stories of Canadian Aviation, Vol. 3. The third volume in the series has thirty-three chapters or stories by fourteen authors. Among them are Saskatchewan aviation historian Will Chabun, internationally renowned storyteller Vincent Murphy-Dodds, and fighter pilot Frank Hanton. The authors know what they’re talking about. Dave McElroy, for instance, has logged in more than 4,000 hours in twenty-nine different aircraft in more than sixty countries, and former bush pilot Peter Enzlberger has logged in more than 50,000 hours in the cockpit. This volume, like the previous two, has its share of accidents and near misses. Pilot Dave McElroy was amazed to see a huge DC-6 four-engine airliner bearing down on the very runway he had just taken off from. As a passenger, Murphy-Dodds recalled being in a small plane while the pilot…

Flight: Stories of Canadian Aviation, Volume 1by Deana J. Driver and ContributorsPublished by DriverWorks InkReview by Keith Foster$19.95 ISBN 978-1-927570-49-4 Fasten your seat belts. Flight: Stories of Canadian Aviation is about to take off. It’s going to be a wild ride. This collection of thirty-five true stories has mishaps and crashes galore. It brings out the thrill, and the danger, of flying. Author and publisher Deana Driver contributed nearly two-thirds of these stories, based on interviews she conducted. Readers will hear from, among many others, an air traffic controller, a helicopter pilot, a mechanic for the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, and a pilot who had to make an abrupt landing as her cockpit was filling with smoke. Flight unveils an assortment of flying machines, from gliders to helicopters to an air ambulance. Royal Canadian Air Force Sergeant John Enright compares the smooth handling capability of the Tudor to “flying in a 737 that could instantly turn into a Ferrari.” The authors display their love of flight and love of the aircraft. “The smell of burning jet fuel is as sweet a perfume as ever there was and the roar of engines a pure symphony,” Terry Lynn Lewis writes. Lewis describes how,…

Fun on the Farm Too Compiled and edited by Deana J. Driver Published by DriverWorks Ink Review by Michelle Shaw $15.95 ISBN 978192757037-1 If you loved Fun on the Farm: True Tales of Farm Life, then you’re in for a treat. The sequel Fun on the Farm Too is packed with 40 more hilarious and memorable stories and poems about life on a farm on the Canadian prairies. Once again there are stories about strange happenings in outhouses, stubborn sheep, terrifying turkeys, alarming stories of pigs and chickens and the inevitable antics that arise from growing up on a farm. Theodore Mikolayenko tells the story of how he decided to become a self-appointed goose flight coordinator, we find out what made mild-mannered Agnes finally blow her cool, and we discover the recipe for perfect mud pies (hint, it involves a fresh egg!). There will also be a trip down memory lane for many readers with June Hudy’s story about party lines (a forerunner of social media for those who are too young to remember this staple of rural life) which allowed the entire community to keep up to date on their neighbors’ personal lives. I particularly loved Carrie Ann Schemenauer’s…

Fun on the Farm: True Tales of Farm Life! Compiled and edited by Deana J. Driver Reviewed by Michelle Shaw $17.95 ISBN 978-192757030-2 I knew Fun on the Farm: True Tales of Farm Life was a winner when the opening story, Harvest Bonding, written from the perspective of a newlywed city girl who has married a farmer, had me giggling from the start. As Jean Fahlman wryly points out, “When soulmates enter the harvest field, the marriage may be entering the twilight zone, but newly married farmers and wives don’t realize that at first”. Harvest Bonding is the first story in this collection of humorous, true accounts of farm life in Saskatchewan, compiled and edited by Regina-based Deana Driver. The book is filled with tales of mishaps, adventures and childhood memories from riding “Bessie, our two-hundred pound pig”, jam-can curling and playing street hockey with a potato as a puck, chasing wandering cows, hens that lay Easter eggs and even an amusing incident from the filming of the James Herriot movie All Creatures Great and Small. That one I have to admit was set in Yorkshire, not Saskatchewan, although there is of course a Saskatchewan connection! Many of the stories…

Fun on the Farm … True Tales of Farm Life! Compiled and edited by Deana J. Driver Published by DriverWorks Ink Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $17.95 ISBN 978-192757030-2 Even if they’ve never lived on a farm, I’m going to take the bull by the horns and suggest that most readers will get a chuckle (and perhaps a nostalgic lump in the throat) from Fun on the Farm … True Tales of Farm Life!, a light-hearted anthology concerning the trials, tribulations, and tricks (including many practical jokes) inherent in farm living. DriverWorks Ink publisher, editor, and writer, Deana J. Driver asked for submissions of “stories, poems, and memories,” and two dozen folks responded-including published writers Bryce Burnett, Jean F. Fahlman, Mary Harelkin Bishop, Ed Olfert, and Marion Mutala-to recount the good old days back on the farm. Other writers I’m unfamiliar with also made generous contributions: Peter Foster (Craven, SK) has four accounts, Regina’s Keith Foster’s work is found six times, and Laurie Lynn Muirhead, from Shellbrook, appears seven times. Many of the writers shared shenanigans in which they did something foolish, innocently or otherwise. Jean Tiefenbach and her brother thought it a wise idea to tip the outhouse over…

Cream Money: Stories of Prairie People Compiled and edited by Deana J. Driver Published by DriverWorks Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $19.95 ISBN 978-192757019-7 I didn’t expect this. While reading Cream Money: Stories of Prairie People, I stopped several times and thought: we have no idea. “We” being anyone who did not live in rural SK in the early to mid-1900s, when even children worked hard to ensure that life ran smoothly on the farm. It was the era of large families and tight budgets, of rolling up one’s sleeves before the school bus even arrived, and of smothering foods of all kind in rich, delicious, straight-from-the-cow cream. Editor Deana J. Driver has collected 29 short and interesting anecdotes (plus several black and white photographs) from residents of the prairie provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan who well recall how hard they worked and how different life was in earlier times, when cream was regularly sold to creameries. It was not uncommon for farmers of that time to own at least one dairy cow, and the much-needed funds earned selling cream kept many families financially afloat during lean times. Within these pages we learn about specific animals, milking techniques, the…

The Sailor and the Christmas Trees: A True Story by Deana Driver Illustrated by Catherine Folnovic Published by DriverWorks Ink Review by Keith Foster $14.95 ISBN 978-192757002-9 Although a prolific writer with five books and more than 2,000 articles in Canadian newspapers and magazines to her credit, this is Deana Driver’s first children’s book. It is a true story, told in simple language a child can easily understand. The story revolves around John Hanlon, a wireless operator in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II. His ship, HMCS (His Majesty’s Canadian Ship) Royalmount, was protecting convoys bringing supplies to Britain. Knowing that on the return trip he would be at sea on Christmas Day, Hanlon and three other sailors cut down a few evergreen trees to decorate their frigate. When they found out that another ship was carrying children to safety in Canada, they got close enough to shoot a line across it. One of the trees was then pulled over. “Those children’s eyes were so big as they watched that tree bobbing along the line from our ship to theirs,” Hanlon recalled. “Those children started cheering.” Fifty years later, at a reunion in Calgary, Hanlon met a woman…