I am running out of time to fix my flagpole. The cord finally wore out so I need a strong armed volunteer to help me dismantle the pole, so I can replace what needs to be replaced. Canada's flag will wave tall and proud along with others in the village on Canada Day.
At the side door, the real entry to the house, in honour of the day, I have begun a unique celebration. I love clotheslines. A long clothesline stretches from my side porch out to the barn roof. Well hung clotheslines are a thing of beauty and beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.
In the middle of June, I set aside red washing for a special load. On Canada Day the line is a fluttering extravaganza of waving red and white; the red winter flannelette sheets, red and white aprons, to remember the women of kitchens past, red wool socks, t-shirts, turtlenecks, bandanas, a bathmat, jacket and ball cap, baby clothes, doll clothes, tea towels. On and on and on the red stretches filling the line from house to barn. Everything rips in a strong sea wind, dances in the breezes, droops in the rain, becomes mysterious in the fog and waits at attention when there is no wind at all.
O Canada, no speeches here. This is my tribute to the country, that is such a part of me.
Thursday 30 June 2011
Saturday 25 June 2011
I have Winter Wood & This is Good
There are really few essential material things I absolutely need for the good life; a roof over my head, pure water, fresh air, clothes to cover and protect me, wholesome food and wood for a good fire in winter. These are the tangible things.
When that old wood truck rattles up the driveway loaded with wood, I greet it with joy and a little apprehension. When I set eyes on the first piece of wood, I am always immensely relieved, when it is good. This year my wood is beyond good, it is excellent.
The chunks of maple are the right size, the right quality, and the right dryness. This almost makes me look forward to winter and evenings by the fire.
In some years past, the wood delivered was just good enough or almost good enough. I didn't know my wood. In years that followed, they were good enough and sometimes more than good enough. The odd piece of poplar is ok but... Birch is good, though in my mind it hovers between soft and hard wood.
At the cottage we had logs from an old oak tree that would burn in the big stone fireplace, for eighteen hours. The wood from the ironwood tree gave a new dimension to the concept heavy. The wood from the elms was burned with love and respect. These trees had been long time friends.
My mother loved the scent of the smoke from the apple trees. As a child, I loved the fireworks of the cedar.
The stacked maple, row on row, let's me breathe easy. A fine fire will burn in my stove.
When fall arrives, firewood will be moved from the barn to the porch. On the very cold nights, it is challenge enough to bring in the wood from the porch, to the pile by the stove. A new little grandbaby will be welcomed into my family in autumn. Arms will be busy holding the sweet new life.
I sometimes love stacking wood. I hope I will have the stamina for both wood and baby. Both will warm my heart.
Tuesday 21 June 2011
I Love Solstice
Since I've lived in a small village by the sea, I am far more aware of the circles, and circles and circles of life. Today is a day to celebrate the sun, the longest day of the year, the beginning of Summer and in my case the happy birthday of my little friend Jack and my friends across the province, who celebrate their wedding anniversary today. A neighbour has just died.
There is something painful in the day. Just as the day of light reaches an apex, the lighted hours will begin to diminish, until the Winter Solstice, when we will again celebrate the light.
My friend, up the hill, is a lifetime friend. We may have met first in the nursery at Toronto General Hospital, when we newly entered the world. We met for sure in archaic First Form at a one of a kind school. We have been friends ever since. By an odd set of circumstances, North Toronto matrons in waiting, became neighbours in this tiny, glorious spot.
My friend's mother, not unlike her daughter, was a one of a kind human being. When I was young, she made a point of asking me to always remind her when it was the longest day of the year, so she could fully appreciate it. I did my best, but without fail I always think of her on this day.
There is a difference between acknowledging a day and celebrating it. I live in a place where days are celebrated. As I attend a little boys birthday, some friends and neighbours will be gathering on the stony shore, where Canada Creek runs into the Bay. Food a plenty will emerge from various containers, to be shared. There will be a glass of wine or two. Year after year, one family brings a large iced cake decorated with fresh edible flowers. This year, in celebration of their retirement, they are cycling across Canada, from west to east. Wherever they are in this great expanse of country, they no doubt will be toasting the sun and thinking of us without their flowered cake.
As the sun begins to set a dance gets danced. Each participant greets each participant with open arms in a moving circle. Uncomfortable with such things, I stand outside the circle ostensibly to take pictures. As the sun dips into the ocean someone begins to sing "This Friendly Planet" and will be joined by most others. The Solstice Sun sets for another year. The world hushes. Everyone returns to the warmth of the big, bon fire for some more merriment.
There is something painful in the day. Just as the day of light reaches an apex, the lighted hours will begin to diminish, until the Winter Solstice, when we will again celebrate the light.
My friend, up the hill, is a lifetime friend. We may have met first in the nursery at Toronto General Hospital, when we newly entered the world. We met for sure in archaic First Form at a one of a kind school. We have been friends ever since. By an odd set of circumstances, North Toronto matrons in waiting, became neighbours in this tiny, glorious spot.
My friend's mother, not unlike her daughter, was a one of a kind human being. When I was young, she made a point of asking me to always remind her when it was the longest day of the year, so she could fully appreciate it. I did my best, but without fail I always think of her on this day.
There is a difference between acknowledging a day and celebrating it. I live in a place where days are celebrated. As I attend a little boys birthday, some friends and neighbours will be gathering on the stony shore, where Canada Creek runs into the Bay. Food a plenty will emerge from various containers, to be shared. There will be a glass of wine or two. Year after year, one family brings a large iced cake decorated with fresh edible flowers. This year, in celebration of their retirement, they are cycling across Canada, from west to east. Wherever they are in this great expanse of country, they no doubt will be toasting the sun and thinking of us without their flowered cake.
As the sun begins to set a dance gets danced. Each participant greets each participant with open arms in a moving circle. Uncomfortable with such things, I stand outside the circle ostensibly to take pictures. As the sun dips into the ocean someone begins to sing "This Friendly Planet" and will be joined by most others. The Solstice Sun sets for another year. The world hushes. Everyone returns to the warmth of the big, bon fire for some more merriment.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Jigsaw Puzzle Season
I am literally excited beyond words. Not that "lie awake at night in anticipation" type of excitement, but that deep down feeling of knowing in a short time those I love most, will all be together and it will be good. I am already smiling at the witty chatter that will be. The chatter that inevitably emerges from a gaggle of gigglers, who have honed so much of a shared past down to hilarious key phrases.
Two fine little characters will be able to marvel at their tiny cousin, who will before too long emerge from their loved auntie's tummy. I hope the growing little bundle of life puts on a good show for them. I hope the babe will be absorbing the fun of it all, going on in the outside world.
It is time to search out a great big jigsaw puzzle and bring down my grandma's wiggly old card table from the attic. Part of summer and Christmas preparations for family gatherings is to make ready a central place for puzzling.
Christmas now seems like too crowded a season, to offer the moments to casually walk over to a puzzle to find the elusive piece everyone is looking for, find it and with great satisfaction put it effortlessly in place. Christmas belongs to so many new faces and new places and new traditions, it will be the rare time we will all be together. This summer I am hoping there will be time to do justice to a puzzling tradition.
From places on high, my Aunt Barbara will be trying to find that piece that looks like a dog's head, you know like a dogs head. My mother will be going over the trays looking for the piece that is mostly blue and grey with just a touch of red. I will feel the warmth of their smiles, when I by sheer chance find a key piece effortlessly. My quiet uncle, no doubt, sits nearby reading, mystified by the appeal of it all.
It seems a pleasant irony that the biggest and last puzzle we put together on my mother's screened porch, at the cottage, was the Bluenose.
My daughters, who at one time were held in arms or crawled through the legs to safety under the table, to drink juice from a Wibbly Wobbler, are now active participants. One with more zeal than the other. It remains to be seen whether a new generation of puzzlers have been spawned. From all indications, my elder grand was born with the special skills. Her younger sister is a whizz with her Tinkerbell puzzle.
We will be welcoming friends, who walk in unannounced to the big kitchen, drawn by the allure of the emerging picture.
Doing a communal jigsaw puzzle is one of those things that make little sense and make all the sense in the world.
I am so excited.
Two fine little characters will be able to marvel at their tiny cousin, who will before too long emerge from their loved auntie's tummy. I hope the growing little bundle of life puts on a good show for them. I hope the babe will be absorbing the fun of it all, going on in the outside world.
It is time to search out a great big jigsaw puzzle and bring down my grandma's wiggly old card table from the attic. Part of summer and Christmas preparations for family gatherings is to make ready a central place for puzzling.
Christmas now seems like too crowded a season, to offer the moments to casually walk over to a puzzle to find the elusive piece everyone is looking for, find it and with great satisfaction put it effortlessly in place. Christmas belongs to so many new faces and new places and new traditions, it will be the rare time we will all be together. This summer I am hoping there will be time to do justice to a puzzling tradition.
From places on high, my Aunt Barbara will be trying to find that piece that looks like a dog's head, you know like a dogs head. My mother will be going over the trays looking for the piece that is mostly blue and grey with just a touch of red. I will feel the warmth of their smiles, when I by sheer chance find a key piece effortlessly. My quiet uncle, no doubt, sits nearby reading, mystified by the appeal of it all.
It seems a pleasant irony that the biggest and last puzzle we put together on my mother's screened porch, at the cottage, was the Bluenose.
My daughters, who at one time were held in arms or crawled through the legs to safety under the table, to drink juice from a Wibbly Wobbler, are now active participants. One with more zeal than the other. It remains to be seen whether a new generation of puzzlers have been spawned. From all indications, my elder grand was born with the special skills. Her younger sister is a whizz with her Tinkerbell puzzle.
We will be welcoming friends, who walk in unannounced to the big kitchen, drawn by the allure of the emerging picture.
Doing a communal jigsaw puzzle is one of those things that make little sense and make all the sense in the world.
I am so excited.
Sunday 5 June 2011
Gardening's Fanciful Paths
Long ago, I gave up the idea that any two people think alike, especially about personal gardens. This is never more so, when my thoughts run free as I garden.
My garden is my joy. I dreamed it up, as I lay in bed day dreaming, through the winter of the year of my fiftieth birthday. My fiftieth birthday was the same year as my mother's ninetieth birthday. She wanted to do something special for me. It is my garden I missed most, when I moved here, so I asked for a garden.
For a city, we had a big back yard. My children were the fifth generation of the family that lived in the house. It had quirks we loved. A great big old maple tree reigned from a back corner of the yard. This is where my daughters and some of their friends pressed their ears hard against the rough bark to hear the fairy elevator go up and down inside the tree, when they were small. This is where the fairies left them sparkly tiny treasures. It is also where they buried most of their grandmother's costume jewelry, for the fairies.
Under the shady, ancient friend, I grew a wild flower garden. Trilliums from a friend's farm, lady slippers from the cottage woods, ferns from beneath a cottage window, perriwinkle that grew wild on land where the Ontario government had once planned a second airport - violets white and purple, umbrella plants, jacks-in-the- pulpits and the list goes on.
Under my bedroom window, in full sun, was my second garden. Rich pink, climbing roses, likely planted by my great grandfather, grew up to the second floor. Between the roses I planted a non spectacular little garden. It is here I planted the special plants my family or friends gave me. I usually plant a perennial in honour of people or occasions, so this garden was full of so many memories. All of this continues to grow in my imagination, but I can't smell the roses, when I wake up early on a summer morning.
My new garden, at my home by the sea, became a creation. A neighbour pulled up, behind the truck, huge pieces of driftwood and logs that washed up on shore. These logs and curiosities were arranged in a large circle. A path edged by logs, opened from the grass into the centre making it possible to walk in and be surrounded by garden. A willow hangs overhead. A truck brought topsoil of questionable origin to make the garden. I set out to make the dirt into the black gold my mother always had in her gardens. This remains a goal.
All this sounds very grand, but it isn't. To be honest it is one of a kind, in that one of a kind style. It is small, as gardens grow and has been deemed peculiar by some visitors. The first year it appeared, the spring arrivals teased me that there must have been an extremely high tide in the winter. We have the highest tides in the world, but to have reached the garden's position, the tide would have had to rise thirty feet up the cliff and then a couple of hundred feet inland. That is a little much, even considering global warming. What they were saying was that it looked like the beach's flotsam and jetsam had made it pretty far inland.
Despite all this, I loved it from the beginning. I make some of the garden decisions and allow the plants to make some their choices. The wild thyme has taken a course all of its own.
Fifteen years later I stand at my bedroom window and see a dream still coming true below.
Right now the garden is in its beyond tangled garden phase. I promised myself, I would bring the house a little order, before I go out to the garden where my heart already is, so I must be off to chase a few dust balls and move stacks of paper of unknown origin from one room to another.
I do want to get the the garden ready for my small grand children when they come to visit this summer and and make it welcoming to any fairies that may choose to live here while they are visiting.
My garden is my joy. I dreamed it up, as I lay in bed day dreaming, through the winter of the year of my fiftieth birthday. My fiftieth birthday was the same year as my mother's ninetieth birthday. She wanted to do something special for me. It is my garden I missed most, when I moved here, so I asked for a garden.
For a city, we had a big back yard. My children were the fifth generation of the family that lived in the house. It had quirks we loved. A great big old maple tree reigned from a back corner of the yard. This is where my daughters and some of their friends pressed their ears hard against the rough bark to hear the fairy elevator go up and down inside the tree, when they were small. This is where the fairies left them sparkly tiny treasures. It is also where they buried most of their grandmother's costume jewelry, for the fairies.
Under the shady, ancient friend, I grew a wild flower garden. Trilliums from a friend's farm, lady slippers from the cottage woods, ferns from beneath a cottage window, perriwinkle that grew wild on land where the Ontario government had once planned a second airport - violets white and purple, umbrella plants, jacks-in-the- pulpits and the list goes on.
Under my bedroom window, in full sun, was my second garden. Rich pink, climbing roses, likely planted by my great grandfather, grew up to the second floor. Between the roses I planted a non spectacular little garden. It is here I planted the special plants my family or friends gave me. I usually plant a perennial in honour of people or occasions, so this garden was full of so many memories. All of this continues to grow in my imagination, but I can't smell the roses, when I wake up early on a summer morning.
My new garden, at my home by the sea, became a creation. A neighbour pulled up, behind the truck, huge pieces of driftwood and logs that washed up on shore. These logs and curiosities were arranged in a large circle. A path edged by logs, opened from the grass into the centre making it possible to walk in and be surrounded by garden. A willow hangs overhead. A truck brought topsoil of questionable origin to make the garden. I set out to make the dirt into the black gold my mother always had in her gardens. This remains a goal.
All this sounds very grand, but it isn't. To be honest it is one of a kind, in that one of a kind style. It is small, as gardens grow and has been deemed peculiar by some visitors. The first year it appeared, the spring arrivals teased me that there must have been an extremely high tide in the winter. We have the highest tides in the world, but to have reached the garden's position, the tide would have had to rise thirty feet up the cliff and then a couple of hundred feet inland. That is a little much, even considering global warming. What they were saying was that it looked like the beach's flotsam and jetsam had made it pretty far inland.
Despite all this, I loved it from the beginning. I make some of the garden decisions and allow the plants to make some their choices. The wild thyme has taken a course all of its own.
Fifteen years later I stand at my bedroom window and see a dream still coming true below.
Right now the garden is in its beyond tangled garden phase. I promised myself, I would bring the house a little order, before I go out to the garden where my heart already is, so I must be off to chase a few dust balls and move stacks of paper of unknown origin from one room to another.
I do want to get the the garden ready for my small grand children when they come to visit this summer and and make it welcoming to any fairies that may choose to live here while they are visiting.
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