October 19th, 2011

From 'A Calendar of Sonnets'

October

The month of carnival of all the year,

When Nature lets the wild earth go its way

And spend whole seasons on a single day.

The spring-time holds her white and purple dear;

October, lavish, flaunts them far and near;

The summer charily her reds doth lay

Like jewels on her costliest array;

October, scornful, burns them on a bier.

The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign

Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew,

Or Empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line,

October,  feasting 'neath her dome of blue,

Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through

Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine!

Helen Hunt Jackson

'O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained with the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest rest and tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe, and all the daughters of the year shall dance!  Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers'.    William Blake

Each day of sunshine is a blessing.  I fill my soul with each cool, crisp hour; the quick movement of the birds in the garden, the sunlight through the leaves, transparent gold; my hands in the damp earth planting purple allium; fortifying myself with all this loveliness against the dreary days of November.

ABC Wednesday
October 19th, 2011

The letter this week is N

N stands for Narcissus, and in particular for Narcissus Tazetta, or Paper Whites

paperwhites-teal-Miriam Schulman

A tradition at our house at Christmas, but it is always a problem to remember to buy them,

and then to remember to plant those lovely fat brown bulbs at just the right time, so they will be in their full glory at Christmas time.

Last week, when we were in Penticton, I went searching for paperwhite narcissus, but I was too early to find them on the shelves.  However, they did have them in the back room, and now a couple of dozen are sitting in a cool place in the fridge, waiting for the time to gather the pots and the small stones, put them where the light will encouraged them, and wait for the wonderful fragrant purity of the flower.

Three weeks before Christmas should have them blooming on schedule.

One of the problems with paperwhites is their tendency to grow tall and graceful, - so graceful that they often fall over and have to be tied up with stray bits of Christmas ribbon.

I read now that adding a weak solution of alcohol to the water in the pots will somewhat stunt the height of the plants without affecting the blooms, and I think I might try this with a few bulbs.

Directions for doing this can be found here.

For more interpretations of the letter N go here, to ABC Wednesday, and say thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her kind helpers.

October 17th, 2011

Another gorgeous October day - the sun shone and the sky donned its brightest flax blue gown.  A few wispy clouds embroidered the edges, but on the whole it was blue skies all around.

On my visit to the grocery store and then along to pick up a little Orange Brandy and Scotch for Happy Hour I didn't see one dismal, miserable face.  All smiles, smiling back at me.....

Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu.  When someone smiled at me today I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner, and someone saw my grin.  When he smiled I realized I'd passed it on to him.

A little Google poem, and I'm sorry there is no author listed.

Two doors down from us they have started to decorate with witches and pumpkins for a combination Halloween and Birthday party and across the street a few pumpkins line the picket fence.

This sent me on a 'witch' hunt and I found my old hanging witch in a box far back in the bedroom closet.

I have the witches boots and her long black robe; her broom and her peaked hat

which she can hang out on the porch while she comes in to refresh herself.

But alas, Evelyn, across the street, tells me that all Hallow's Eve will bring only a handful of elves and trolls and wee witches to call Trick or Treat on this street.  You have to live up in the area by the school, where three or four hundred children will fly along one side of the road, and then down the other -filling their goodie bags and returning to the school for hot chocolate and Halloween cookies.

At one time all the grandchildren came back to the house where Grandma and Grandpa had morphed into a witch and a wizard, and had cocoa and cookies, but those days are just a lovely memory now.

Ah well, - it was still a gorgeous day, and the sunshine gilded the golden trees along the street.

I got out the long lens and took a picture of the Aspens in the Cawston Basin,  cropped most of the telephone wires out of the picture and remembered the memorable morning Charles and I spent driving the old logging road to reach this golden wonderland, a couple of years ago.

I think it might rain tomorrow, but then again we might have one more sweet Indian Summer day

Late News......Beijing

A Banner Year for the Division of the Chinese Underground Railway

that operates a diversified line in the Hillside Garden

in the Similkameen Valley

Circumstances showered blessings on this thriving suburban line

when it was discovered that the Hillside Garden

was not receiving the attention that had previously hindered

operations and that the former deterrent to our

productivity was absent for long stretches at a time

during the summer.

Nevertheless, she came to garner the spoils and to gather  the Brilliant Lanterns

that amass along the line.  It is understood they are

now hanging to dry in her new back yard before joining

a vase of Silver Dollars.

October 12th, 2011

Bittersweet October.

The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause

between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.

Carol Bishop Hips

Such a beautiful month, and I can't believe how fast it is flying by.  Our days have been filled with medical visits that take us up and over the Yellow Lake Pass where for the past eight months a friendly flagman has waved to each and every motorist who has waited, frustrated, while the rocky cliffs have been ground away to make a wide safe road the length of Yellow Lake

And some days we still sort and store as we try to accommodate all the precious paraphenalia we brought from the house on the hill.

Today was such a day, but delightful.  Charles went singing, and early in the morning I had an aha moment about where we could put the old oak dining room table and chairs that have been languishing in the garage taking up room that the SUV will soon need when the weather grows cold.  The buffet moved from the kitchen into the dining area.  The high table and chairs took its place in the kitchen, and in a most serendipitous moment our oldest son and youngest grandson turned up to move the heavy oak table, and it all looks quite homey.....

Nice days keep happening.  On Saturday we decorated the church, and on Sunday we expressed our thanksgiving for the great gifts we continue to be blessed with.  A small church, and humble. but dear to our hearts after sixty years of worship and association.

In the afternoon Charles kept a singing date at the historic Grist Mill in Keremeos which dates back one hundred and fifty years (a long time for this young western valley).  At the beginning it was the only mill in this southern part of B.C. and farmers came from as far away as Vernon at the northern end of the Okanagan Valley to have their grain milled into flour.

 I left my camera at home, but a dear DIL had hers, and shared her pictures.

The Singers, - Charles and Steven in the background.

Only a few of them, but all in good voice and well received.

Photoshop and I spent a wonderful evening with these photos.

Out in the front garden where we put the blue iron swing whose top bar serves to hang all the bird feeders there is great fluttering and scattering of seeds.

Our first visitor was a Stellar Jay, but mainly the clientele is made up of finches and chickadees, thrushes and sparrows and robins.

And cleaning up all the scattered seed the quail from the neighbourhood have had the word and gather beneath the bar, lovely and plump and happy that the 6th Avenue cafe has opened.

Complete with spa for bathing......

ABC Wednesday
October 11, 2011

We have reached the letter M already, - half way through this entertaining round of ABC Wednesday.

M is for Claude Monet and also for  Edouard Manet, both French Impressionist Painters who became friends when they met in Paris.

Monet  (1840 - 1926) was the founder of French Impressionist Painting, a style of painting which expresses one's perceptions before nature, especially in plein-air landscape painting.

Monet's impressionistic Sunrise

Eduoard Manet  (1832 - 1883) broke new ground in choosing subjects from events and appearances of his own time and stressing "the arrangement of paint areas on a canvas over and above its function as representation" (Encyclopaedia Britannica)  This painting of "Luncheon on the Grass" aroused public hostility because of the perceived scandalous presence of a naked lady in the company of two gentlemen, and the painting was refused exhibit in 1863.  However it made Manet a hero in the eyes of other Impressionistic painters.

I have always admired these two painters, - especially Monet - and I have tried to incorporate his use of roses and blues and lilacs and other pastels in the garden, and even in our first kitchen on the farm where I painted cupboard drawers and doors in Monet colours.

For more interesting takes on the letter M visit here at ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbit and her mates.

October 5th, 2011

A rainy day......

Yesterday's clouds were a good indication of what we might expect today.

But nevertheless,  when I had trouble getting to sleep last night I consoled myself with plans to visit
 the hillside garden when Charles went singing this morning, gather up all the pots and collect the lovely loam we packed into them in the spring to make a bed for the day lilies that have been waiting restlessly in a big tub.


Instead, I cleaned the fridge.  A real necessity with turkey and pumpkin pies looming for Thanksgiving feasting.

Which brings me to the subject of gratitude!  Hear the words of Hafiz of Persia...

Even after all this time,

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe me".

Look what happens with

A love like that.

It lights the whole sky.

Which pretty well says it all, doesn't it ?

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.  Kahlil Gibran

this beautiful photo by Giangiorgio Crisponi

 I have read somewhere that the new Testament teaches that religion is grace, but ethics is gratitude, and so for all these magnificent gifts the universe dispenses the ethical person will be mindful and find happiness in their appreciation for even the smallest of them,

 and awe at the greatest.

Well, today I am grateful that after lunch and a nice visit from Son #1 the rains went away and Charles and I took the truck and went up the hill to retrieve some  pots of flowers that were past their best shelf date but still had lots of re-usable soil.......

Another snippet I read today about gratitude.....

"We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. 

 But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness".  Ellen Goodman

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is the elegant L

The last time we visited L I brought with me Lang Lang, playing Leibestraum by Liszt.

He has come again with Beethoven's Appassionata (Sonato No. 23, Op. 57, First Movement), - one of my favourites and Lang Lang seems to play it with some discipline and at a fairly reasonable pace.

For more lovely L's visit here, at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her kind helpers.

I wake this morning, and it is October.

Wild October, with its beautiful russets and transparent greens

the sunflowers, small suns against the laden apple trees

glowing grasses, delicate and sun blown

Mary Cassett 1880

the garden on the hill glowing with intense purples

And down here in town my hundred square feet of transplants that look like nothing more than sticks, thirsty for today's rain that gathers any lingering summer energies and deposits them around the newly planted roots of peony and delphinium and daisies and one lovely potted rose in the centre of it all - the Abraham Darby that was waiting for me at the garden nursery.............

I love October, - I wait in eager anticipation for vivid sunrises, fiery sunsets, scarlet rose hips, misty mornings and that wonderful feeling of quietness, - the hush of autumn as the earth prepares herself for sleep.

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells

with a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

and still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er brimm'd their clammy cells.

John Keats

Ode to Autumn

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is K

and K stands for the Kootenays

Kootenay, which is the name used for the south east corner of British Columbia, comes from the Kootenay First Nation, a group of linguistically distinct Native people who occupied the eastern part of the Kootenays, and whose territory extends into northern Washington, Idaho and Montana.

The western portion of the Kootenay district was also occupied by Interior Salishan Natives,  related to the Coastal people, or by Thompson River-Shuswap Natives.

About 100 years ago prospectors came to the West Kootenays, attracted by its rich ore deposits, and mining and ghost towns haunt the area, silent relics of past treasures.

Ghost town of Slocan Mines

Geographically the Kootenays are spectacular.  Four parallel mountain ranges march successively across the southeastern B.C. landscape, - the Monashees, followed by the rugged Selkirks, and further east the Purcells, and then the Rockies.

Kootenay Lake , which is 65 miles long, runs in a north south direction, and the Kootenay river joins with the Columbia near Castlegar.

The part of the Crowsnest Highway east of Grand Forks is called the Skyway, and it is the highest elevation paved highway in Canada.  The stretch between Salmo and Creston, where avalanches are a fact of life, is infamous for dangerous driving conditions in the winter.

The Salmo Creston Pass

The Kootenays are a marvelous part of British Columbia.

There is skiing and hot springs, wildlife and parks. wonderful backroads

to travel and all those mysterious ghost towns

to investigate.

Here is a pictures of the caves at the Ainsworth Hot Springs

and below it a picture of the famous Cody Caves, which heat the springs at Ainsworth.

The Kootenays are a super place to spend some time if you are celebrating the letter K

and for more interesting K's visit here at ABC Wednesday.

September 26th, 2011

"A late summer garden has a tranquility found no other time of the year".   Wm. Longgood

Well, I am busy trying to beat the clock and the calendar.   Up early, once again filled with Monday morning zip!

Breakfast over and the bread machine busy making its own peculiar noises as it kneads the bread, I leave it to its own devices and am off up the hill.  The SUV is stuffed with odd pails and pots and plastic boxes.  Overhead dark clouds loom ominously (have you ever know dark clouds to loom any other way?), a west wind blows, and I am aware that this is going to be a fast trip if I am to beat the the storm home.

I make my way through the overgrown garden, coming first to the Oriental peony. which is surrounded by ranunculus running rampant through the iris.

 A delight to dig the peony, - the soil is moist and crumbly and I find about a dozen lovely brown tubers that look like small sweet potatoes.  I will be able to make a whole row of Oriental poppies, I think to myself.  With great enthusiasm.  Until I remember the scope of this new garden and my determination to keep it within bounds.  It is such a lovely plant, and has a history of being moved, - first from David's garden, then to the old lost garden, - from there up to the hillside and now it will flourish as a townie.

Not too far away is the red Bleeding heart, that looks like a real push-over with all its stems cut back in preparation for the move.  It comes out nicely, as does the bergamot....the wind comes up a little, but I ignore it and go to tackle the big peony plants, which I suspect may request more brawn than I have......

But I persevere and eventually I have two large clumps of peony tubers in my plastic pot. and I heave it into the back of the SUV.  I like that word 'heave' - I did literally heave it, as it was much too heavy to lift.

Now to find that beautiful rust and gold iris that I posted a couple of weeks ago.  I know which bed it is in, - but which particular tuber might it be????  I dig up the one I think it is, and two surrounding it, and hope that if I am wrong whoever cares for the garden next year will be generous.....

The clouds are lowering and looking rather mean, so I quickly dig up a small shrub we planted for our anniversary last year, - pop it into a pot, and just then I feel the first drops of rain.  Off down the hill, - I arrive just as Charles is disappearing into the garage and closing the door!!!!!  Nevertheless, I quickly unload and hope I waken with the same cheerful, energetic spirit tomorrow morning, so everything can get replanted!

"Spring flowers are long since gone.  Summer's bloom hangs limp on every terrace.  The gardener's feet drag a bit on the dusty path and the hinge in his back is full of creaks".   Louis Seymour Jones

Saturday night -

And I am remembering Monday morning and all the plans that buoyed me as I rose early, full of energy and enthusiasm.

Well, Monday was fine,  - I was up early and cut the side lawn, started the sprinkler on the raised bed and then went up to the garden on the hill and dug up a small yellow rose, a bit of the coral bell and a pretty daisy that I planted in the spring.  Brought them home,  planted and watered them, and was pleased with myself!

Tuesday morning Charles needed the SUV to go and sing with the senior's choir at a funeral, but undismayed, I planned an afternoon excursion to the garden for some peonies, but alas, it didn't materialize.

Wednesday was a repeat of Tuesday, except this time Charles needed the SUV to go to the Care Facility and sing with the senior's choir, - what a skylark he is becoming!!!

Thursday and Friday were taken up with preparing a short history of our ninety year old church to put into a brochure for an Anglican Regional District Car Rally, and today was the day we were inundated with 52 extra Anglicans, having fun, spreading good cheer, and hungry as bears.  They ate up every bit of the lunch we had prepared for them!!!!

At a very brief service before they were able to pounce on the food, Nick (our new minister) finished with a prayer, and I immediately recognized the concerted Amen that followed as Anglican, pure and simple.  No hesitation, they responded as one and my heart remembered my early days in the Anglican church and I felt at once poignant and comforted.

I have been reading lately about 'cellular memory' and the heart being a possible storage spot for memories - very interesting concept.  Surely the memories we gather in our childhood are the ones that catch us unawares and touch us most deeply.

I cherish the time we spent this week with our 'landlord kids' in whose house we are living.  They hung things for us, put in new doors, with our oldest son's help put Charles' lift into the garage and replaced the sunroom steps, - were a treasure to have around and have now gone back to their meadowland in the Cariboo.

Only one week left in September, - the month I had earmarked for settling plants into the new bed.  Will I make the deadline?  MUST I be so organized??????

an early morning sunrise

The landlord son...

I think we could exchange his beard for my hair, and vice versa - just turn them upside down!!!

The Skylark in his singing regalia, and off to the side a portrait of him when he was 17

ABC |Wednesday
September 21st, 2011

The letter of the week is J
J is for Jester, and we give you Danny Kay in the role!


Enjoy...

For more happy J's please visit here at ABC Wednesday.

September 19th, 2001

I am out cutting the little side lawn, enjoying the pearly fall crocus and the few delicate pink roses that have deigned to provide a small but exquisite autumn show.  The hand push mower makes a lovely whirring sound and there is the faintest aroma of freshly cut grass as I enjoy the blue sky and the summery clouds in the crisp, cool September air.

When I am finished I go to measure the length and width of the raised garden bed in which I plan to plant the peonies and delphinium, the scarlet bergamot and pristine phlox, a couple of iris, a few roses, some pearly everlasting, a bit of coral bell and probably some sage - stop, stop!  It is only 24 feet long and 3 and a half feet wide.  I must be content with small snippets...... but I will smother the composter in the far corner of the back garden with day lilies, some Stella d'Oro and the big red streaked ones that are so showy.

It is very hard for me to admit to myself that I am now eighty-six, and the day-long sessions I once enjoyed in the garden have shrunk to an hour or two in deference to aching muscles and failing energy, but for those shortened hours I am incredibly grateful, and I can always dream on a grand scale!

This afternoon I will go up to our house on the hill that stands, empty eyed, gazing over that lovely vista to the Cawston hills, and I will delight in the garden that continues with its business of creating beauty while it procreates, - making seeds, pushing the Chinese Underground Railway a little farther into the suburbs, swelling corms and bulbs and  rosehips.  I will gather the dried pods of the heritage sweet pea that will crackle and burst in my hands, scattering more progeny at its feet and bring home roses and the second flush of delphiniums to sweeten the house and reflect in the mirrors and our memories.

Life is good.....