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I guess you could say I freaked out yesterday when I came across this little guy out in the meadow. I’d been pruning and “editing” the garden, everything reacting to the heat, the over leafy tomato plants, the dying echinacea, the wilting daisies, and never-to-perform black eyed susans. On the other side of the house I had transplanted the wild version of Phlox–the ones that grow like weeds, because they are weeds–pretty ones. The plants had dried so I was squeezing their seed pods and delighting in the small outbursts, all the while hoping that we will have a full section of phlox next spring. As I grabbed one of the dried stems I came across an insect that looked like a cross between a praying mantis and a bamboo twig. I didn’t get a photo of that, but did enjoy having him wander up my arm and approach me with the same curiosity. When I returned the “living twig” to its slice of grass, this spider caught my eye. She was waiting in the middle of her web. To me she looked like a cross between something very poisonous and a bumble bee. She looked foreign, tropical and nasty. A quick google calmed my nerves that she is harmless, native to Ontario and loves eating bugs. Her name is too long to go into, but then so are most names, just complicated latin or greek terms that take away from the impact of colour, touch, smell or anything to do with the senses, although I suppose hearing a latin term can be quite stimulating. I’m the kind that buys plants for what they do or where they will be happiest but promptly forget their names: “That one smells like licorice, that one attracts butterflies, that one is tall and blue, that one looks like that one but isn’t perennial” etc. Well this one eats her web at the end of the day and then makes a new one in the morning. The male makes a web circling her web. She lays up to one thousand eggs in the fall and promptly dies, and the eggs hatch the following spring. It should be an interesting spot come next spring with yellow spiders, blue phlox and green twiggy bugs.

I was recently up at my parents cottage, upstream from Ottawa on the south shore of the Ottawa river, for a round of cleaning and organizing for those who might arrive later this summer for a stay. Actually my motives were simple — just to spend some time with my parents while involved in an activity we were very familiar with: cleaning the evidence of three seasons abandonment to weather, forest, and fauna, away There were the usual new holes chewed where wall meets ceiling, mouse poop on the dinnerware, still-life moths from earlier this summer or left over from last year.

This tree, which you see from our outer verandah, on the slope towards the river, caught my eye, and you can see why, as any strange shape or shadow in the woods draws our eye. The bark had split from base to somewhere up in the sky, and was drawn back, revealing the bare wood of the tree. I don’t know if this birch is still alive. Probably not. But in its inanimate way it had a new responsibility, no longer a watcher of the woods, with its colleagues, now it was time to draw back its century old skins — its cloaks — unabashedly show the ravages of time, the way we do in the doctors office, bare, or in our undergarments, seated high on the bed, or standing by the scale, and tell the story of what our bodies have seen and been exposed to for all these years. I figured if the tree had to come clean with a story, the story is echoing deep within its core. This Grande Dame of a tree has got me thinking that it’s time to write what I believe she may have seen for all those years.

My parents built the cottage around the time I was born, so it has seen at least those decades of us running up and down the hill to the beach, with melting popsicles, a soggy dog, paddles, life jackets, canoes, people in casts, bikinis and beach towels. My recent novel is based on the land here, but the story is constructed according to the elements I believed and had learned would drive the story — quirky characterizations of fictional characters, conflict, simplicity, all told in the voice of a twelve year old. I have decided to relate what I can of my summers in this enchanted place and “blog” it on another page on this site. Perhaps to tell the tree’s story, and weave it into my own. There might be no pictures, unless they are those I can find in photo albums, and the bottom of drawers and show boxes, but I challenge myself to get it right with words so there need be no pictures. We’ll see how it goes…

We are constantly visited in our little corner of the county, and each bit of fauna has its own story. I found the tree frog in the bottom of a flower pot that was holding a bag of decorative stones. I removed the bag of stones and there was the frog sitting in a pool of water. I thought he was some forgotten ornament at first and then, when I realized he was real, figured he was dead. But he climbed onto my hand and after quite a while decided to wander onto a waiting leaf.

The dragon flies seem to be very intuitive and trusting. This one kept returning to the dried stalk and posing. One night, at my parents cottage, I could hear a loud flapping, in the dark, on the porch where I slept. I knew there was some large insect trying to get out into the night air, and freedom, but couldn’t seem to find him. When I got up in the morning to watch the sunrise and then return to my bed, a huge dragon fly was lying right in the centre of the bed. He climbed onto my hand and let me release him outdoors.

I had been packing up some outdoor mosquito netting last summer, and just as I tossed the folded net to the ground I quickly retrieved it again, as I caught sight of this beautiful praying mantis. He too was very co-operative about having his picture taken. I’m sure I appeared as curious to him as he did to me. Last weekend as I salvaged the vegetable garden from a couple of very heavy downpours mixed with days of baking sun, which had turned the soil to an arid brick-like texture, I noticed a baby one of these. It reminded me that, earlier in the year, while taking a bus from Toronto because the train I was supposed to be on had derailed, I was seated beside a lovely woman, about my age, and the conversation turned towards nature. She told me the praying mantis was a gift and a blessing. These beings seem like glorious pieces of living jewellery that catch my eye and are more difficult to possess than an emerald or sapphire brooch might be.

They say “rain before seven, sun by eleven,” which seems to happen most times, even a few times in Vancouver. I see rain headed for us coming up from the states, Ohio, MIchigan or Illinois. It usually plows through Niagara or Toronto and I figure we’re next in line, but it often splits and heads north of the 401 or along the south side of the lake through New York state. Sometimes you can see Rochester getting slammed by huge thunderheads lighting up the stratosphere, or see north to Napanee and the nimbo stratus bursting their contents, while the skies above us are clear and the sun is setting in the west. This morning we had the full on thunder, lightening and waves of warm rain, for the garden to soak up. I knew it would be sunny by eleven but I didn’t know we’d have the heat and humidity—not that I mind. This is what summer in Ontario is about, suffering until you can make it to a beach, a pool, or just a cold shower. It’s not that easy for everyone; some folks are stuck in hot apartments with not even a fan or a breeze or an open window. Some don’t see it in as romantic and atmospheric a way as I do. I may not see it that way when I have to leave my air conditioned place of employment and step back out onto the street.

We live on what is technically an island in Lake Ontario about two hours east of Toronto. One of the beaches, about a 10 km stretch of lovely white sand, faces west towards Toronto, and most of the approaching weather. When I walk the beach I find, tangled in the grass, these remnants of foil balloons, let go from some child’s fist or some drunken wedding guest’s sticky fingers, as they turn to have one more dance before deciding they’ve had too much fun. The balloons leave amidst whoops and squeals and lazy laughter from backyards of tight Victorian homes, in neighbourhoods with names like Riverdale or Cabbagetown, or broad brand new back yards laid with perfect turf, in North York or Bramalea. They fly and float east and finally descend into the water or onto the beach and collect themselves, still bright with colour, but weak of inflation, and breathe only with the passing breezes. They disappear over time, whether it is under the sand or over another dune and into the dry blasted tundra of thorns and thistles and bleached white bones, visited by no one.

I was walking along the beach last weekend and found this guy floundering at water’s edge. I had rescued the odd monarch from the cruel fate of drowning in waves and wet sand. I was convinced that this moth/ butterfly was dead but wanted to give him a proper place to be displayed, somewhere on higher ground. After taking him onto my finger, and feeling no response, I was amazed at how sensitive my finger tip was to the feeling of life coming back into his little legs. He clutched the end of my finger, and, I suppose decided to trust my intentions. I am convinced that, at some point, animals do make that decision to trust–chickadees decide to eat out of my hand (because the feeder is empty). I took him to a wavering leaf above the beach where he could dry off and at least spend a few hours in the sun, whether they were his last, or just a recuperation before making a pilgrimage over Lake Ontario. Then I grabbed my camera…

There are times in the early morning when I can achieve a no mind state fairly quickly. I can close my eyes and see the surface of that thick sea of eternity. Other mornings monkey mind won’t let me be, and I jump from thought to thought: Why didn’t I get everything done yesterday? What will I say today if so-and-so rubs me the wrong way? This coffee tastes weak. Why does my back hurt? Will I ever hear from that publisher?

The past few mornings when I have been stretching my sore back and my stiff arms, or sitting in the garden, the bunny has appeared. I tend to think I’ve already startled him by this point, and he will be taking off, but on the contrary, I seem to have piqued his curiosity. (Do I know what a bunny thinks?)

Each morning he has taken the opportunity to come closer, nibble on weeds or grass and then wander through the garden. He pauses and turns his head sideways to get a good look at me. I wonder, is this my spirit guide? My animal partner? He certainly causes me to focus my attention and leave monkey mind off where it belongs. I wanted to photograph him this morning, but he must have sensed something was up with all the beeping and bleeping of the camera, so he left, casually, but he did depart. He was in this shot, seconds before I took it. In fact he is in the photo but he is somewhere there in the grass, I can tell because the movement gives his location away.

There is something about getting up early, putting on the kettle, grinding the coffee beans and then paying a visit to the plants outside the front door. It doesn’t always happen that way, but it should. The land is flat and I can see the sun rise orange from the bathroom window. These days the mornings are still and warm. I check the bird feeders and the birdbath. Sometimes the garden has to go neglected–has to wait until later for a good soaking or weeding. But more often than not it gets my attention, these days–deadlines must be extended, submissions delayed. The garden isn’t as much demanding as it demands, if that makes sense.

It seems all the sunflowers I grew from seedlings on our kitchen counter somehow didn’t make it, after being transplanted. But the seeds I carried in my pocket and randomly poked into the ground have taken hold with a vengeance, and if the growing season continues we may be able to use these things for firewood to get us through the winter. The funny thing is they have been the least demanding of water. Perhaps they have found our aquifer and are drinking the well dry. I may have to name them “Audrey” and “Audrey 2” if they get much bigger. They certainly have personalities and do the happy dance when I spray them with the hose.

I’m not sure when they arrived, but on the entire six acres these few golden shoots of some kind of grain–barley, wheat, oats–have made their presence known. Regardless of endless extraction of stones from soil, and planting of perennials, and construction of stone walls, porches, pergolas and potted pansies, these few strands of grain found themselves catching the sun every evening, shimmering above and beyond it all.

Last year two trenches were dug, one for electrical and one for the well. We’ve come to believe that the soil turned up from the five foot deep cuts churned dormant prehistoric seeds which have now woken, planted themselves and are covering the five hundred foot length of previously scarred land. Some of the flora looks like it came out of my childhood Dr. Seuss books: curly-cue blue petalled long stalks of fantasy plants, that open at dawn and close in the full sun.

I also planted seeds to grow and keep the deer and wild turkeys fed with wild kale, turnips and clover. But for all the growth, these golden strands are one of a kind.

I have wanted to do this for some time, especially since we are living in a bit of a rainshadow. I had a few ideas floating around in my head, but most of them depended on what I’d seen and known that a bird bath should be.

We have a small area of gravel on the property, where we park one of the cars when we need to, and I decided it would be the perfect spot to shape out a concave mould for my birdbath idea.

I dug a shallow depression and used a concrete mix from the hardware store. The bag of concrete weighed about 60 pounds and more disagreeable than a sack of potatoes. I mixed it in a plastic tub with the measured amount of water. I put broad leafed weeds to good use; lined the depression with a plastic bag and leaves, and then poured the wet concrete into the depression. I pressed another depression into the top of the concrete and covered the surface with more leaves, plastic and gravel, and a large stone to maintain the shape. Two days later the concrete cake was baked, and I peeled away the lining and heaved the bowl onto a stack of stones by our garden. I look forward to new visitors once the rain stops.