my father turned seventy years old today;

My father, Douglas Ian McLennan, turned 70 today, born June 26, 1941 at 4:40am to John Duncan and Ellen (Campbell) McLennan. Christine, Kate and I went down to the farm to watch that happen, almost like a car turning over in kilometres (is that a bad comparison?). We met them in Casselman, including sister, husband and their three kids, for the Chinese Buffet (which just felt odd) before heading back to the house.

Can you imagine, he's lived in the same house since he was a year old, and born in the back room of the house my sister (pictured, here) now owns. With his father and grandfather born and raised next door, and the original homestead where he is now, we came full circle, it seems.

[here he is having an early 70s birthday] Sitting on the back deck, he unwrapped presents, the kids tore around (jumping up and down on bubble wrap for a while), Christine and I harvested some of the rhubarb from the back of the house, and he talked about some of his plants, including grapes growing wild beside the house, or some of the white flowers he planted a couple of years ago. We could hear the bullfrogs, close by, in what used to be the manure pit. Lovely.


He told us he used to have a dog when he was little, but couldn't remember the he only remembers him called "bad pup."

He told us another involving a collie they had when he was a kid, named Peter. Apparently Peter used to jump back and forth over the long row of cutters used to cut the hay, and "he zigged, when he should have zagged," and lost a back leg during harvest. My grandfather brought the vet out, who was able to do little else but simply sew up the wound, and the dog was not only okay, but back out the next day jumping over the cutters, with only three legs. Never slowed him down for a minute, my father said. A couple of years later, the dog was hit by a car. 


What a strange, random story that was. 

Happy Birthday, Father!