Category: Uncategorized

Well it hasn’t been a harsh winter; I can tell by the number of times we have been able to venture through the meadow to the farmer’s fields in the back. Recent winters have meant double layers of ice, and snow in between, like a large cake made of a rock hard icing, a combination which makes our forays to the back nearly impossible.

Today is one of the coldest, minus thirty last night and only minus twenty this afternoon, but no wind, no clouds, full sun that felt warm at times, on my cheeks. It was silent and holy out back. Both I and my dog stood stock still, listening to the nothingness and wondering if we would look back at the photograph of this precious moment, once we were far away in time and space, in heaven perhaps, or nowhere. You cannot help but wonder on a day like this.

A few weeks ago I found a dead rabbit by the house, feet away from the deck under which they hide, or live, or hibernate. Did he freeze to death, feet from his den, I wondered. he only had a small bit of blood coming from one eye. Since last year, and another unfortunate rabbit and a squirrel as well, who have found themselves whole and dead in the yard, I have come to the conclusion that perhaps a bird of prey had dropped the prizes and was unable to retrieve it.

The other night the dog was barking at the distant whoo, whoo of an owl. Later in the night, actually early in the morning he started up again as had the owl. I turned on the white noise making machine I keep in the bedroom for such moments; the sound of waves crashing dulls the noise of coyotes, owls, other dogs barking. I looked out the living room window and in the pale light of a crescent moon I could make out a large mass atop one of the junipers. He hooted again, periodically, and evenly timed I imagined, between hoots. Suddenly the mass grew, dropped from the tree top and curved in a grand fashion towards me, before turning and heading west. A mixture of surprise and fear swept over me, as did the satisfaction of almost seeing an owl.

What I noticed in the seconds following the departure, however, was the shape of the large juniper outside the window, upon which the owl had perched. The mid branches seemed much longer than the others, both above and below, and in the dimness had the look and feel of huge arms reaching out to embrace the house. It was with this image, being embraced, that I returned to bed. Once again I felt the comfort and security that this land offered, there to be acknowledged and noticed if one took the time.

Well I have written about road kill and various stages of life out here, so this may be no different. I was cleaning out the shed and adding a new shelf yesterday. I removed a box with a small piece of machinery in it, left by a repair man. Tucked in around the machinery was a lot of fluffy stuff, fabric, the kind of stuff you find in the dryer vent. I unpacked the machinery, deciding it was now destined for the dump, after spending the requisite number of years in our purgatorial shed. From the stuffing fell six little mice, only old enough to be covered in hair and no longer in the pink stage. Other than that, eyes were closed and mouths hoping for a tit to suckle. I hated myself for disturbing these little guys. They tried as best they could to burrow into the grass, but I pulled at their wee tails and replaced them into the box, with some amount of stuffing. Each one had his own particular character, and one, who nearly got left behind, if I hadn’t gone back for a second or third look, was quite bold and adventuresome, and finally quite content to be in the warmth of my palm. I returned the box to the shed with the hope and yes, prayer, that the mother would return. I fear I may find a box of dead baby mice in several days.

Some, even I, might have just as easily flushed them down the toilet, but we had been down this route before, with a younger family, who immediately died at exposure to the sun. Not only was it their vulnerability that touched me, but it was the unique definable character of each one, already, only days old.

Earlier in the day, on our walk on the road, my dog and I came across a dying baby snake. The vehicles leave them stunned, flattened or dead. This one appeared dead, but when I held his soft body, his tail started to move. I brushed the gravel from the little bit of blood on his mouth, and invoked all I could with my non-existent miraculous powers, to let the creature live, or then, I decided, at least die a painless death. I placed him in the grass and we went on our way.

As you see, the photo posted only shows the scale to which this tiny world exists, the size of a thumbnail, baby carrot or raspberry or less.

When we have time to stop, things happen, bright red dragon flies alight on our knee for a tiny conversation; a large fly with huge eyes explores my hand and then climbs on the finger I offer, with no threat of squashing him, not this time anyway. I look a the big eyes, and the proboscis as it taps my skin, tasting something.

Later though, as I open the sun umbrella on the deck, something huge and hornet-like falls out and seemingly takes a chunk of flesh from my back before soaring off into the tree. I wail. Long and loud. I am sure this will leave some swollen scar or that I will sink into shock. But there is no evidence of the painful event. I wonder now if it was the same wasp I rescued from the window sill yesterday, held by its wing as I pulled the screen from the window and flicked it out…

Regardless of the fact that my gardening philosophy is a somewhat slipshod mosaic of trial and error, there are moments of unplanned flora nearby that are quite orderly and not of my doing. While walking in the back fields –– many tens if not several hundred acres –– of fields cultivated from time to time, I came across this patch of wildflowers. I can only describe it as in the middle of nowhere. Once upon a time there was a farmhouse, but all that remains now are some disorganized slabs, a spring fed pool, collapsed fence and not much else. Trees and nature have grown up around this area, at least a kilometre from the road.

I first noticed this area as a blazing patch of red on the far edge of a field into which I had never ventured. What was it? When I stepped toward the patch, it was as if I had set foot into a magical field; I saw a luna moth and there was a serenity surrounding me and my dog as well. The camera battery had died, so this picture is from the following day, when I revisited the site. I wonder why this little place, no more than a hundred square feet exists. It is a burial ground? Sacred ground? Magic? I have been told that there is a thin veneer between the sacred and profane world, on our property. Is this a sign of such a phenomenon?

I was by the area yesterday, and it continues to thrive, different annuals now, mixed with poppies, wave in the breeze. meanwhile my own garden chokes itself with weeds and thirsty perrennials.

 

I was in Toronto this past weekend attending a conference and, after taking the wrong turn to get into town, ended up following Bayview all the way to the Rosedale Valley Road, which, for all the years I had lived in Toronto, I had never come upon. It was charming I thought to myself as I followed the latest, sportiest and most silver Mercedes, up the valley. It was a place I would have found myself walking or biking frequently, were I to ever live there again. The city is blessed with lungs, the Don and Humber Valleys to name two, which provide recreation for humans and a natural highway for fauna moving north and south through the metropolis.

But there were other times as I navigated the concrete that I felt the distinct secondary place nature has in the life of the city. Since I moved to the country, hours that I might spend in a coffee shop, restaurant, or simply indoors planning and then attending an activity, concert, show, gallery, are spent sitting on the deck staring at the meadow and being enthralled by the crowded and busy world around me.

I woke that night realizing that all the houses, so close together, were covering the little worlds that had become so familiar to me. Yes, the tree frogs buzzed and crickets chirped, but they had to make there way though this maze of habitation.

What struck me, as I made my way to the conference centre (while bemoaning the fact that everything was covered in concrete), was that, as soon as I got to that little park you see in the picture (appearing to be at the foot of the CN Tower), the sound of nature filled my ears, surrounded me, and distracted me, a huge accomplishment, from the busyness of traffic on that corner, people going to the Jay’s game, a concert and waves of tourists. I felt for a moment that this acre was speaking my language.

Yesterday I was out for a walk with my poodle. On weekends we tend to go further afield to get a blast of exercise, fresh air and new stories that the scent trails have left us. Down on the road through Grimmon’s Woods, we sensed movement in the trees and I could tell that it might be something larger than a squirrel (and therefore risky though rewarding to pursue). We were as startled as the subject of our curiosity, when a mammoth turkey vulture became airborne for several seconds, and alighted on a branch about fifteen feet off the ground. I did my best to get a photo, and remain non-threatening, or he would have taken off again. The funny thing is, he kept hiding his small head and eyes from our line of view. Regardless of his huge body, he seemed to think he would be invisible if we were. With one last move towards his tree, he took heavy flight again for about twenty yards before coming to rest on a neighbouring branch.

Today on our walk, it being Sunday and the two of us having even more time for our walk, we ventured down the lane where we had seen the bird the day before. On the ground we saw what it was we had interrupted the day before: there lay the carcass, picked clean, of a racoon. The rib cage faced upward like the remains of Noah’s ark, the skull and teeth were rendered in perfect, picked clean relief. There was not so much as a bit of flesh remaining to even garner some sniffing interest from my poodle. I suppose the poor racoon had been hit by a car and then wandered senseless down the lane to die. Who knows. But it all seemed to make perfect sense that he had been respectfully cleaned up so to speak, and not become a fly coated, buzzing mound of rotting flesh.

This morning I narrated our walk as if we had recently arrived on the planet Earth. I used language that was familiar to me. I obviously knew what a tree was, but nevertheless marveled at how they root in the stone and soil and cover the land. It was cold, and the cold bit at my cheeks, and frosted Hugo’s moist nose. I explained that although this part of the planet was cold, there were other, warmer parts we could go to. It was overwhelming to think this all existed on one planet. It made it easier to watch the wind blow the frozen ice pellets towards us, from the east. It made it easier to understand the darkness of the morning. It made it easier to experience the harshness of the day.
But the hours have gone by and the wind continues to blow and the cold bites at my cheeks and reminds me that I haven’t done a good enough job at covering the bottoms of my ears. The wind whistles at the door, tosses stiffly at the tops of the trees, drifts the snow over the prints––deep wells––we have left in the snow.
Though the day came, and we ate our food and had our walks, and sent our messages and letters, listened to music, cropped photographs, I am not sure where the day went. It will be covered over, our footprints not even memories, until there is a thaw, and they will steadfastly be the last mounds of snow to melt in the meadow.

Our long walks through the snow out back are physically taxing. Hundreds of steps of lifting my leg and shoving my boot into the next step forward. I don’t always notice the effort until we are on our home stretch, at which point my canine companion has very wisely opted to follow in my foot steps, leaping from one hole to the next, to conserve his own limitless energy.
Yesterday, on our walk, the walk during which this photo was taken, I asked myself to leave my thoughts, by now a Santa’s bag load of thoughts, and return to the moment and focus on the exterior. It was then I noticed the large cold flakes which had settled on the fields from the night before. It was a dusting of several inches of very light large flakes. Among this layer were shimmering mirrored surfaces, caught in the bright sun.
If I hadn’t consciously forced myself to take note, I would not now be recalling this event, very suddenly and vividly emblazoned on my memory. Of course other things pull me into the moment, the biting cold, the dog too, and his attention on smells and sounds, and the fact that I like to keep him within eye and earshot.
Perhaps I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts on our walks as the thoughts tend to be repetitive, with little that is enlightening. Perhaps opening my eyes to the vast tiny world of light, the reflection and refraction is enough.

Here is the original version of “Heaven and Earth” I submitted to the Globe and Mail, Facts & Arguments earlier this year, which we then edited. The link to the final Globe and Mail version is below this article:
When I moved to the country seven years ago the locals took pleasure relating gruesome stories of deer being hit on the highway, or boasting of the number of deer they themselves had hit, totaling their vehicle while managing to survive, which then led to stories of the people they knew who had tied the trophies to the hoods of their cars, which led to stories of road kill, which led to stories of those who ate road kill. I’m sure all of this was geared to elicit a reaction on my stone-cold expressionless, nonplussed, city face. (Even though I hadn’t arrived from Toronto, that was the noun, used as an adjective, to describe me, and the likes of me, whether from Edmonton or Halifax. He’s Toronto. Not, he’s so Toronto. Just he’s Toronto.)

And behind my glassy stare I secretly dreaded the day that I would witness the inevitable deer in my headlights, seconds before it smashed my windshield and I met my maker, perhaps arriving at the pearly gates with the deer at my side, as we escorted each other into the unknown.

So far most sightings have been at a distance, and I have learned that they rarely travel alone. And recently I came between two deer on our crossroad, one had leapt well ahead of the car, allowing me time to slow and keep an eye out for others. I found myself between the deer and its kin, mate, fawn, whatever, and I stopped, rolled down the windows and took pictures of both lovely creatures as they stared, doe-eyed, at one another, through the windows of my car.

I am not guiltless. Since arriving, I have had the misfortune of colliding with a few wayward birds who did not know whether to hit the ditch, the road or the grill on my car. Those seconds of indecisiveness cost them their lives. Forgive me, but the amount has been less than I could count on the fingers of one hand.

There has been a rabbit I partially rescued from the road. As I slowly approached, it seemed to be lying there enjoying a summer day, much like a dog might. But when I lifted this dazed being off the road I saw that, sadly, his insides had been shoved out his underside. It was the kind of situation where you aren’t sure if they know the gravity of the damage, and you don’t want to be the one to tell them. I gently placed the wide-eyed creature in the tall grass. I hoped that he would be a fresh and quick meal for a hungry coyote. I wish I could have had the guts, my own guts, to kill him and put him out of his misery right there. He was warm, he was trusting, and it was probably the only time I would ever be able to hold one of those elusive beauties in my hands –– or make that dreaded decision.

Riding my bike on another section of country road I came across the cracked and thankfully dead, corpse of a turtle. It was the kind of road kill you don’t want to see, the kind you view through the light between your fingers as you cover your eyes. Suddenly dead, I hoped, out of his misery. Most of the time I have had the good fortune and foresight to recognize the turtles –– and we have many –– and not mistake them for rocks or dirt, and stop and lift them towards the side of the road they seem to be traveling. They always come across a bit cranky, regardless, as if to say I can do it myself, while they shift stubbornly toward the marsh.

There are hot foggy summer nights near that same marsh that sound absolutely tropical, as they bring out hundreds of frogs onto the road, which you don’t realize, nor do they, until it is too late. Then the challenge is to weave slowly, hoping to be out of the thick of things, and try to forget the earlier popping sound, as you come to understand the source. Again, locals do their best to shake my foundations by telling me frog-popping was entertainment for their friends when they were younger.

There are days too, when there seem to be many more corpses, a fawn, a few raccoons of course, a skunk, all within the short space of time or distance. It can just seem like a bad day for wildlife. On those days you try to think happy thoughts.

But when I am out walking my dog, there is a smaller world we see, not something that you notice from the car. Yes, there are the flattened rabbits, a solitary wayward dog, dead, lying with his back towards us, as if sound asleep in the grass. There are messy squashed bullfrogs of course, and a large fish that some passing heron, I imagine, has dropped. But from there the world gets smaller, tinier, and more demanding of closer inspection.

Each day we pass what I believe to be a spot of tar, but I see this morning it is actually a flattened baby turtle, the texture and size of its shell no rougher than that of a large coin. Further along, on the shoulder, is a hole, freshly dug with soft white eggshells littered nearby, of more misfortunate turtles no doubt. It doesn’t officially qualify as road kill, but literally seems to. Was the perpetrator a raccoon? Coyote? Fisher? We pass a beautiful snake, dead, whole and perfect, Garter with bright yellow-green stripes, and further, on a Diamond Back, copper and gold, like decorative bands woven around Nefertiti’s neck, wrist or waist. I love snakes, they let me know the land I am on is nourishing, safe, and full of life.

On our noontime walk we come across a rare treat, a tiny live salamander, bright orange like a child’s sticky sweet jelly candy, but it is real, and alive, and has found itself on the asphalt. I coax him onto my hand while my dog comes in, big wet nose for a closer sniff at this tiny creature. The eyes blink upward, tiny fingers support its barely wavering body. I find some cool grass, congratulating myself for saving the day for this gem.

I remember, as a child, seeing a dead porcupine, robin, or skunk, and wondering what its family was going to do tonight when they realized Mom or Baby Number Six wasn’t coming home. It’s funny how we keep those thoughts at bay the older we get. It makes life easier.

Late afternoon, we head towards the sunset. Waves of heat rise off of our crossroad. As orange as the salamander was, a brilliant sliver of green catches my eye. It’s not a leaf. We are too far into the season for a green this bright. I come close to what could be a bent blade of ditch grass, the kind you hold between your thumbs and whistle through. Reluctantly my brain assembles the evidence: it is a Praying Mantis, and I perceive it as half squashed and struggling, until I realize it is whole and beside the flattened corpse of another. It appears to be keening, arched skyward in a silent scream. My heart breaks to see this pose, something so familiar to me, a memory in my own body from the deaths I’ve mourned, as if there is not enough air to fill our lungs, feed the wailing, dilute the pain and take away the suffering for the moment.

Once again I am convinced that intellect is not confined to brain size or size of being, nor is emotion solely a privilege (or curse) of the human condition. I slip a leaf under the reluctant jewel and a small rage fills him, as though he refuses to be taken from his dead mate. His front legs –– those used for praying –– are now boxing the air in a silent tantrum. I am not endowing this living emerald with human qualities, I am merely observing. Say what you will, I know mourning.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/my-rural-education-on-life-and-death/article19976648/

Yesterday in the blowing snow, out on the county road, I thought about the fact that I hadn’t posted something recently, not since the summer! There is something going on, a kind of “I dare you not to write something.” I have had ideas and some of those ideas have turned into larger pieces and been sent off into the world, the not-so-free world of writing, where I hope the merits of the writing will be rewarded by peer recognition, publication or perhaps a prize.

Living out here in the country, things seem to fit, and this dismays me. I know it would be hard to go back to the city and be part of a quickly changing world, or at least have those changes bombarding me every minute of every day. I am aware of that bigger world out there, but I feel a sense of control here, perhaps control over a decision to be here. Like I said it dismays me that I have taken to this environment with no question. I know little about it but right now, early this winter morning the stars are bright points of light just over my left shoulder, they are my reward for getting up so early. And last night when I took the dog out for a last pee before bed, our path, that we had so frequently trod and dug through the snow, had completely disappeared under huge drifts, along with any evidence that flower pots or plantings had been there. The snow was so smooth and pure and clean — the sky so black and clear.

There are millions of things to inspire me here to put these words down, sometimes I am afraid, I suppose, that I will run out, and that if I don’t write it all down I will have saved those very words, and perhaps prolonged my life, by not using them.