Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba — 24 - Letter 24

August 6th.

We are rejoicing now that we have settled to go to the Rocky Mountains, as the hot weather we speculated on avoiding has come in with a rush, and for a whole week the thermometer has been at 80 to 85 degrees.

One morning before a thunder-storm, when it fell forty degrees in a few hours, it was up to 90 degrees.

We have had some rain, but not the heavy if storms we have seen wandering round which generally follow the course of the Assiniboine--a relief to our minds, as our hay is still out.

It has been cut nearly all round the property outside the fence, in spite of the risk one runs of having it subsequently claimed by the owner of the section, who is generally a half-breed, a loss only to be avoided by leading it home at once, which we are doing.

This has happened to our neighbour, with whom, I am afraid, we do not sympathise very keenly, as he had taken up the marsh which our men cut last year, and had the full intention of doing again this year, so they looked upon it in the light of their special property.

We have only two waggons working here, as nearly all the men and horses are gone over to Boyd's; and as our hay is a mile and a half away, we don't get much more than five loads a day, so that the stack does not grow very fast.

Our excitement this week has been a cricket match with Boyle's Farm; four of their men we challenged.

It really was too amusing.

They had a bat and ball, stumps, but no bales, and played on the prairie, which was so fearfully rough that it was almost dangerous, the ball shot in such various directions after hitting the tufts of grass.

Everybody fielded, but a ball going into the wheat-field behind the wickets was not counted as a lost ball.

The total score of the two innings was only ten, and in one our opponents went out without a single run; so you may fancy the howls of either applause or derision at every ball.