My father passed away at the young age of ninety-one on July  20, 2008. As we were recycling his belongings, we came across a  metal strongbox and a double entry ledger. When we opened the box we found it full of letters and receipts that had belonged to Mr. Joe Spessie, my father’s stepfather. The ledger contained Joe’s diary depicting his life and travels between 1908 and 1919, when he left New Mexico to go to Moose Jaw and establish his homestead in Crane Valley. It appears to have been written over the course of a weekend sometime during the 1920s. Joe refers to it as “his remembrances.” I remember seeing this diary when I was very young. Reading through it again as an adult and seeing his receipts and photographs gave me the incentive to write my own stories. Like Joe, I needed to write things down. I wanted my family to be able to look back with me to a time long past when life was simpler. Though sometimes I may not have had shoes to wear, I recall it as being wonderful.   In Let's Forefoot da Sonovabitch, I relate true stories from Crane Valley, Saskatchewan: catching wild horses, eccentric neighbours, my great-grandmother's homebrew, and life on a family farm in the 1950s & 60s. The reader will soon see that Saskatchewan was not only about sweeping skies, huge horizons and heartbreak on stricken farms, it was also a wonderful place for children to grow up, with wholesome, remarkable and hilarious people.       

Married with two children