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Yesterday I walked to the mailbox. It’s about two miles away and some days I just take a small detour in the car to pass it and pick up the mail, but some mornings I look at the sky and know it will be a walk-to-the-mailbox day. The stars are still up there and a hint of colour slowly grows in the east, which says clear, cold, crisp. The walk is silent, the odd truck or school bus passes, sometimes there won’t be a vehicle the whole way there. Even though I walk past snow blown fields and through a forest of brittle trees, the whole place is alive with something–some kind of spirit–the wind clacking the branches together–the sun so filtered by the trees where it hits the edge of the escarpment an hour before it sets for good, that I swear it is pure silver without a hint of gold. This presence says nothing more than that all is well, on my little walk, in my little corner of this great big universe, where all is not always well. Nothing much matters on these walks. I have nothing to worry about other than a letter slipping out of its tucked place in a magazine.

We had an owl somewhere here the other night. I heard it and was delighted. I don’t know if I’ve actually ever heard an owl before or has it just been in the movies and seen in children’s picture books. When a friend visited in the late spring, we stood on the deck and listened to the busy birds in the yard and the trees. She said they sound so happy. The owl made me happy. I was delighted that it found some refuge, or a vantage point, or even the time to make a series of hoots.

It’s funny, this whole pallet of winter colour–white on white on grey until the sky burns at the end of the day–and sounds–ice cracking under the ferry, owls, ever present coyotes, the lone phantom woodpecker I have finally spotted in the woods–so much more limited maybe than the other seasons, but just as rich. It’s all here as the longer days start to race towards us and the arctic cold presses down upon us, and we are caught in this somewhere in between.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moon is in Aries today. At around five this morning, about an hour and a half before I took this picture, a strip of white light lay across the bed from my feet up to my head. Yesterday a clear wind blew from the east bringing a wall of cloud late in the afternoon, and after that a clear night for the moon.

I keep expecting grey and dull and colourless landscape but the fields, the garden, even the tomatoes that have fallen off the stems are rich with colour. This time last year a couple of medical concerns presented themselves to me, leading me to believe that my time here was soon to come to and end. All symptoms combined did not add up to a positive prognosis, but, fortunately, all symptoms were unrelated. I confess I was terrified and deeply saddened at the prospect of leaving so soon, and felt like there was still so much to do, strange, like life is one huge project that needs to be completed, for no apparent reason. I saw everyone else’s problems as gifts that kept them anchored here, on earth. Perhaps I felt I hadn’t loved enough, shared enough, used up all my life credits. What is it I am waiting for?

Where I live now is nirvana, birds eat out of my hands, finally, and bugs wait patiently for me to usher them back out of the house (Ivswat the flies). Everything captivates me, helped along by a beer on the porch at the end of the day while I watch the light fade from the garden and deny the fact that a chill is filtering into my bones, as I sit until the last possible moment.

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I run the risk of posting lots of pictures of sunsets and landscapes but there is something I am reminded of every time I stray out to the beach. First of all I am reminded of how beautiful it is and how easy it can be for me to neglect beauty when it is not plunked right in front of me. Perhaps it reminds me that the seasons don’t change quite as quickly as we presume they do. People are forever saying “well that’s it for summer, winter’s here,” believing the water too cold to get into now, not trusting the warm autumn sun that drapes everything in a golden light that you never get in the summer, or the winter. I passed miles of flaming deciduous trees, mostly hot oranges and really strong stubborn reds on the way to the water. But it was the beach I needed. The leaves need a slow walk along a country road to be appreciated, not a mad kaleidoscopal dash with finger tot he hutter though the windshield. So, amidst the colour, you have a very monochromatic scene. An for all of the heat of the day, the wind blew hard off the water, even the birds seem to tire of sitting on the air. The beach was empty more or less, a couple of bodies appearing intermittently, and a few sail boarders by the time I left.

And how does one turn ones back on this? You have to hope that the scene filled your spirit enough, as if the wind off the lake blew the horizon’s soul lifting elements right into you and filled you up, enough that you could almost make it to next time. The trouble is you never realize how much in need of a recharge you are, until you come back.

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voice from the planet

It’s the first day after labour day, a warm day after a tempestuous weekend of high winds bending the sunflowers close to the ground. I could do nothing but give them my assurance that the wind would pass. Things are different now. Sleep during the cool nights is easier, unpicked basil is turning yellow, and the rabbits have finally given in and helped themselves to the lettuce. But the squash, melons and cucumbers continue to grow, tomatoes keep ripening and various flowers bloom, though their number, size and intensity of colour is less.

Now, I’m not one to embrace aging (friends insist they are past their best before date when I feel I have yet to reach mine) or even the autumn, regretfully sighing that summer is over. We’ll celebrate autumn soon enough. I sat out in the warm September sunrise this morning, not feeling that sudden jolt that launches school children back into the classroom, with new pens, crisp note books, combed hair and clean ears. Yes, the sun rose a little later, a smidgen farther to the south, but the morning still held its own characteristic magic. A squirrel stood on his hind legs and helped himself to the finally ripening raspberries, before I quietly shushed him, forcing him to boldly climb a sunflower and help himself to the seeds. I had to get my kitchen knife and decapitate the sunflowers (not the squirrel) so that I have some seeds for next year’s crop. Last year the squirrels and bluejays beat me to it.

Yes there is an impulse to want to dig things under, and mulch, and add soil, and flatten the dying and dead stems so that next spring’s garden is that much better, but for now, the in between time, the headless sunflowers, golden grass, and fists full of tomatoes, have their turn before the autumn wind does knock them to the ground, and they freeze to a brown mush. I close my eyes and halt September, let the crickets’ song fill my skull, sparkling inside my brain, punctuated by the far off call of a jay.

I’m always saying that the morning is my favourite time of day, but I am not the only one. There are hummingbirds now, about four. I always thought there was just one who was very busy. They enjoy almost all of the flowers, not just the nectar bearing ones. I am not sure if they are feeding off of the small bugs or perhaps drinking the bit of dew left before the day warms up. meanwhile the birdbath gets busier as the day grows warmer. Late morning the birds are not as territorial and there will be at least five of them all splashing and sharing the bath. (Yesterday morning I caught a picture of this one, which I believe is some kind of baby bird of prey.) I give them fresh water whenever I can. They seem to appreciate it, although some might say that appreciating and enjoying are things that birds do not do. After all of this activity I head to work and a deer crosses my path. I know there will likely be another and slow the car. I find myself between the two of them –– a mother and a faun perhaps. So I stop the car and we all just look at one another and I grab the camera and start taking pictures out the window. Half the time I wonder whether to grab the camera, or just enjoy the moment as it is. I do a little of both.

Many of my friends were pulling full heads of lettuce out of the ground in June. I had barely been planting much by then, although I was relishing my pickaxe and how I can now plant anything I want anywhere I can slam it into the land. It’s a grey day and no promise of anything other than more grey––the rain has been unspectacular, no thunder. I made a pie from not ripe peaches, hoping the cooking of it would miraculously make them flavourful and ripe seeming. Then with the extra crust I made a small blueberry pie, using the large BC blueberries, although I believe the smaller ones to be more flavourful. After all of this activity and endlessly washing dishes and raw pie goop off of everywhere, and eating some pie, and feeling quite full (summer demands we comsume beer, pie, ice cream), I decided to take a walk out in the yard and to the back of the lot. It’s amazing to see all of the edibles ripening. I get my tomato seedlings down the road from a woman, Vicki, who produces over 150 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes.

I bought and planted five. Everyday now, I have enough for a salad. I’ll buy some bushels for my tomato sauce later this month. I had reconciled myself to not having any raspberries this year, this being the second season of the raspberry bush. Sometime late in the season they appeared, not red yet and I wonder if it will happen. But today I did notice two absolutely red and ready and after I took this picture we ate them. I wandered to the back of the field and found that our old apple tree, in dormancy last year, had yielded a huge amount of apples, many of them on the ground now. On the way back to the house, judging by the amount of deer poop on the ground, I figured that the deer were making good use of the apples. Half way back I noticed that our juniper trees, red cedar we usually call them, are covered with little blue berries. When you pinch them they small like, yes, gin. I have looked for recipes for gin but the closest I can get is to buy vodka and infuse it with the berries. I suppose I would have to buy a distillery to actually make gin. Add this to my to do list. I should also be looking for something to press sunflower seeds for the oil. The sunflowers are now twice my height, although this one, one of the shortest is at eye level. I’ll get the seeds before the birds or squirrels do, save them for next year’s crop and maybe give away some for Christmas presents. In the  meantime I’ll be having tomato salad for dinner and probably more pie.