Saturday, August 4th, 2012

The moon is at her full, and riding high,

Floods the calm fields with light.

The airs that hover in the summer sky

Are all asleep to-night.

William C. Bryant

Two full moons in August this year,

the second on the 31st, so it will carry its brilliance on into September.

Summer has finally come to us.....

five days of sunshine forecast and it seems like a visitor

on an extended stay, she has been so shy about showing her face

from behind a screen of raindrops...

we will have to get used to her warm, lazy August days.

Mornings are lovely.

Fresh and cool - the small birds delight in bathing

and fluttering, and keeping us entertained  as we all breakfast together

with just the wide window between us.

And Callie, watching carefully,

her tail swinging slowly, from side to side

Until she catches sight of the grey and white cat

strolling nonchalantly on the far side of the picket fence,

turning in at the gate, and, not even deigning to notice

the cat in the window,

continuing on her way through the neighbour's yard

where the apricots grow heavy on burdened branches.

In the afternoons we read, or nap...

I have The Shoreline of Knowledge - essays by Chris Arthur

to read one essay at a time, and then to ponder.

The roses are coming into their second bloom, but they whisper

their preference for the cooler days of June.

".......fragrant, delicate petals open fully and are ready

to fall, with regret or disillusion, after only a day in the sun.

It is so every summer.  One can almost

hear their pink, fragrant murmur as they settle down

upon the grass:

"Summer, summer, it will always be summer."

Rachel Peden

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Terrible traffic today as the cars started rolling East to West and West to East.

People from the Coast rushing to the Okanagan - the lake, the mountains, the campsites,  the beaches.

People from the Okanagan rushing to the Coast - the ocean, the mountains, the campsites, the beaches.

I wonder what it would be like if everybody stayed home and holidayed locally, in their own touristy town, around their own lake or ocean, hiking their own mountains, catching the sun on their own beaches, eating in their own restaurants, putting up a tent in their own back yard.

I guess the campsites might lose out unless people had a yen to live in restricted space for the week-end, side by each with their neighbours,  and that wouldn't really surprise me......

There is a nice Crowded Trailer Park right next to the Skaha Lake Beach in Penticton,  close to home.

Think of how much less stressful it would be, and what an incredible gift to the ozone!

Just a thought after going to town this afternoon for groceries, and to the library for books, and waiting, waiting, waiting to get across the highway through that never ending stream of early holiday travelers who are squeezing an extra day out of this long August week-end.

An added attraction for home bodies in Keremeos is an appearance by the 5th place winner in the World contest for Elvis Impersonators.  They have been sold out for weeks!

How many people in Keremeos have camped or picnicked along the Ashnola River -(well, lots, I know).  But lots haven't!!

Or seen the Columns -

or Cathedral Park...

or made the climb to the Snazo'ist Centre that the Indian Band in Hedley has established at the site of the 1920's Mascot Mine.

Oh, I know, - it is the lure of the road.  New places, new people, new adventures, - but it really does distract the locals and make them shake their head and roll their eyes a bit, as they try to cross the road, along with all the other chickens.

I understand some people have been heard muttering dire imprecations when necessity forces them to take to the streets.....if one must support the Tourist Industry, how about starting in one's own town!!!

Sunday Evening,
July 31st, 2012

This is what we did this morning!  Picked a couple of baskets of warm sun kissed  apricots that had been growing on the small Wenatchee cot tree between our home and the neighbour to the west.  A stray branch was lying across the roof of the shed that is built close to the property line,  so we took a ladder and a trusty pruning saw to the job, and between us we (Charles and I) summer pruned the tree and popped the apricots into a couple of pails.

Gosh, what will I do with all that beautiful fruit!!!!?.  Apricots are my very favourite, - even more than peaches.  I won't make juice, as I used to in days gone by, but I have visions of deep dish apricot pies, an apricot crisp, - perhaps an upside down cake....  Jam?  Well, maybe.  Muffins???

Perhaps Charles will take one of the buckets to the Senior's Centre for people whose neighbours don't have available apricot trees, and I will stay home, put on my apron and do something creative with these lovely ripe, juicy, gorgeous globes.

If I make muffins do come for tea......

Texture Tuesday

July 31st, 2012

Free and Easy

Free to make up his own mind if he will be a ring bearer at that wedding - or not!  Pondering the decision.

Kim Klassen's Free and Easy assignment for July 31st, 2012.

Follow the link on the sidebar for more Free and Easy photos

Sunday, July 29th, 2012

Serendipity....

We went to church this morning.  I am not terribly comfortable at church these days, for various and sundry reasons, but a particularly nice retired Anglican priest was coming to take the service and so we were up early, showered, breakfasted, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Off we went.  The Anglican priest arrived, prepared to do a service of Holy Communion, as Anglican priest's are wont to do each Sunday since the church began to define itself as a eucharistic body.

He had, however, been left instructions for Morning Prayer, which rather befuddled him but delighted all the older Anglicans attending as they had not heard Morning Prayer for some time, - certainly not since the UC Emerging Church leader arrived to sway the church into his pathway.......

The organ sat silent as the UC Emerging Church leader's Assistant manipulated the hymns from a tape into a boom box.  The Anglican Priest had a marvelous singing voice, and all the weaker voices in the congregation followed his voice heavenward as we started off with a rendition of All Creatures of our God and King.

We said the Venite - I haven't said (or sung) the Venite for years, and I was rather hoping we might go on to the Jubilate.

Great Sermon on the defamation of Mary Magdalene by this "headline" and atheistic age, and the movie makers who insist on her being portrayed as a whore in order to draw more sensation seekers to the box office....when actually history gives only five known facts about her, none of them questioning her moral practices, but rather emphasizing her faithful discipleship.  Poor Mary, - even Titian depicted her bare breasted.

But Bellini was kinder to her reputation

We closed with some more canned music, and went to have refreshments in the lovely adjoining Parish Hall which we built twelve years ago to accommodate the congregation which was bursting the Sunday School room at the seams as they jiggled around with their tea and biscuits after morning service.

All eleven  twelve of us went into the Parish Hall, (the retired Anglican priest had brought his wife) and had  lovely tea and biscuits  and friendly conversation.

But the best was yet to come!!!  On three or four tables at the back of the Parish Hall sat great numbers of books in the process of being categorized, each pile being identified with an orange card as to its Dewey classification.

Only one lonely book lay beside the orange card marked 'spirituality' but lo, it was ANAM CARA, that beautiful book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue.

My heart gave a little leap.  Our local library does not carry any books by John O'Donohue.  I had bought two copies of TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US - one for a friend who was sorely in need of his comforting words, and was about to go to Amazon.ca again for ANAM CARA.

The books are for borrowing, so I brought it home....

Wonderful!

Serendipity.......