Country road, take me home
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Country road, take me home
By Caitie McRae Journal editor cmcrae@humboldtjournal.ca / Humboldt Journal
September 25, 2013 01:00 AM
Kathy and Larry Moorman sit outside their country home on a sunny autumn day. The Moormans' farm and garden will be
featured on an upcoming episode of CTV's Prairie Farm Report. Photograph By photo by Caitie McRae
Many of you know the property.
It's about 20 km outside Humboldt, along Highway 5 East, just outside St. Gregor.
A candyapple red barn, sticking out among beige wheat fields like a shiny piece of candy, and hay bales dotted
along a sprawling pasture, the only homestead for quite awhile between the desolate area after Muenster.
During the Christmas season, the bales of hay are propped up and spray painted to look like Santa and Mrs. Claus.
In the spring and summer, their garden, although not visible from the road, is a colourful, lush oasis rivaling the flat
prairie landscape.
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And in the autumn, the trees and brush, a mosaic pallet of reds, oranges and yellows, greet visitors as they drive up
the winding gravel road to their house.
It's the home and farmland of Kathy and Larry Moorman and it'll be featured in an October episode of CTV Regina's
Prairie Farm Report.
The show was informed of the Moorman's property by Kathy's friend, Helen Duguid.
She had also tipped off Gardens West magazine about the farm's eviable beauty, who ended up featuring the garden
in its July 2012 issue.
"So we've been pretty busy lately," laughed Kathy. "We've had a lot of people wanting to come by and see the
garden."
The Moormans bought the property shortly after they were married nearly 40 years ago.
Standing adjacent to their powderblue country house, Kathy points towards the garden.
"There used to be a whole line of beautiful maple trees running along here diagonally," she said, tracing a line in the
air with her finger across the presentday garden.
"But a huge plow wind 37 years ago ripped them all down," Larry chimed in.
"It's sad. They were great trees for climbing," Kathy added.
Ironically, that nasty plow wind may be the reason the Moormans' popular garden exists at all. When the trees were
torn down, it freed up an enormous amount of room behind their house.
And Kathy, a lifelong gardening enthusiast, dug out her trowel and soil and set to work on a garden bed about 20
years ago.
"I would have started earlier but was really busy raising four kids," she said with a smile.
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Well, what once started as a garden bed is now a vast, tranquil scene of a variety of plants and flowers; hostas,
various kinds of lilies (her signature flower), sunflowers, towering evergreen trees framing the garden, perfectly
trimmed hedges, emerald green lawns, a burgeoning vegetable patch, Kathy doesn't really have a rhyme or reason
to the flowers she plants.
"Honestly, if I see it and it catches my eye it has beautiful colour or just stands out in some way I'll buy it. I just
buy anything that I think is pretty. Sometimes I don't even know their names," Kathy said.
She does have a strong affinity for Asiatic lilies though.
"Those are my favourite," she smiled.
So, lilies aside, Kathy is definitely not a gardener rooted in routine and yearsold traditions.
"Every summer, I like to try something new. Plant a new type of flower or revamp the garden in some way," she
explained.
When touring around the large acreage, it's immediately apparent that Kathy is always thinking; surveying the land,
brainstorming ideas on what she can add next.
Standing outside on their stone patio, she points down a couple of steps to a café table and pair of chairs,
surrounded by sweeping maples and pots of homegrown gourds.
"I set that up this year," she said. "I looked at that little area and thought 'Hmmm, something should go there.'"
Strolling through the gardens, an obvious duhmoment comes to mind: weddings.
"Oh we've done them for our kids," Kathy said.
"Our daughter got married here, one of our sons had his wedding photos taken here and our youngest son got
married in Calgary but we threw a postwedding reception over there," she said, pointing to a long, straight pathway,
framed by a corridor of willowy trees, lanterns hanging in their branches.
"It was just gorgeous at night with all the lights," she said.
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That's one aspect of the Moorman's property that is the most important: it's not just calmingly peaceful, with a coy
pond and small babbling fountain on the front part of their yard, but it's personal.
It's a reflection of them, their family, their life.
Eight stones throughout the brush beneath the maple trees have a different type of bear painted on, the name of a
grandchild above it.
"I'm running out of ideas for bears though!" Kathy laughed. They have a new granddaughter and a stone is currently
being worked on.
"I'm thinking I'll go with a koala bear."
The archway from their daughter's wedding is close by and a trace of stepping stones depicting Kathy's talent for
painting cut through the grass on the other side of their house.
An old mailbox that Larry found as junk has been repainted to say "The Moorman's" and sprouts up from their border
garden in the back, and a swing set next to the vegetable patch awaits its next visit from their grandchildren.
"I just love it out here," Kathy said, amid a calming stillness as only the sound of chickadees and other song birds
can be heard.
"Sometimes if I've had a hard day at work, I come and sit out here. It's the best antidote," she said.
Kathy has been a special care aide at Humboldt's St. Mary's Villa for 26 years.
It's a wonder she's had the time to work on the garden at all, but Kathy insists once she's retired in the next couple
of years, there's still more work to be done.
"I want to spend more time fertilizing because I can see what a difference that makes. I also want to move some
flowers around, plant more and just spend all my days out here," she said.
Larry, who also works for Cropp Insurance, also has retirement looming on the horizon.
But any plans for a Caribbean vacation, timeshare home in Florida or monthlong trip to Europe are quickly
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dismissed.
"Why would we go anywhere?" Kathy said, sitting at the island in their kitchen, the afternoon fall sun peeking in
through the windows.
"This is where I want to be. The nature, the fresh air out here. It's so peaceful, I'd have no need to leave," she said.
Larry, a native of St. Gregor and Kathy, who grew up in the Muenster area, aren't seduced by the bustling noise of
cities, of neighbours just over the fence, of the cacophony of sirens and dogs and horns honking that make up even
some nights in a bigger city.
"I could definitely live in a big city," Larry said. "But I'd want to move back to the country as soon as I got there," he
laughed.
"So my advice to people?" he continued. "Move out to a farm. It's just so peaceful."
With wildlife like deer, rabbits and a variety of birds visiting their garden, and the sound of nothing but Larry's tractor
off in the distance and the humming of bumblebees poking around on nearby flowers, the Moormans' land really is
its own little oasis.
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