Daybyday cum Garden cum Recollections etc. etc.

Off on my sidebar I have this long list

of Blogs which once I posted to

enthusiastically and with great energy

but times have changed

and so I have decided to amalgamate...,

(there's a good word)

the main reason being that I feel lazy and unproductive

when I go from one ABC Wednesday letter

to the next, without anything in between

even though I think in my mind

of a thousand things I'd like to write about!

So tonight it is DaybyDay cum Garden

and the picture above is redolent of the garden

in mid-summer

when all the springtime pastels have 

said farewell and the

vivid reds and yellows and purples of summer

come into their own.

I have stolen a few new potatoes

from the little curtain at the bottom of the 

potting bag that allows you to do that,

and enjoyed them with mint and new peas...

only a few of which twine themselves

around a pretty metal tower.

It makes me feel that I have a garden again!

Oh happy days, when I had a gardener too......

These days I find my happiness tending the flowers

(which sometimes requires that I roam the garden

with my machete, filling barrels of yard waste with extra greenery

I get so carried away at planting time)!!!

Here is a little smattering of these vibrant colours....

and the early morning smoke that drifts down from the

wildfires in the Cariboo/ Chilcotin

where my dear children keep vigil

and wait for the smoke and the danger to go away.

Bears, Bees and honey

ABC Wednesday
July 19th, 2017
The Letter is B for Bears, Bees and honey

When considering the subject of

Bears, Bees and honey

do we ever think of the morals involved?

Well, probably not,

but Aesop did

at least he considered the consequences of the whole affair

When the Bear came across the log filled with honey

and snooped around, thinking to fill his tummy

a single bee came out to protect the swarm, 

and stung the bear.

In a great rage the bear swapped the log with his huge claws

determined to destroy the nest of bees...

but a swarm of bees flew out and stung the bear

from head to heels

and the bear saved himself by diving into the nearest pond.

The moral of Aesops story?

"Better to bear a single injury in silence than

to bring about a thousand by

reacting in anger".

Probably Winnie the Pooh

ate his stolen honey with delight and serenity

but Mary Oliver tells a story in her poem

Black Bear in the Orchard

that delves a little further 

into the consequences and the morality

of the whole thing

Black Bear in the Orchard

It was a long winter.

But the bees were mostly awake

in their perfect house,

the workers whirling their wings

to make heat.

Then the bear woke,

too hungry not to remember

where the orchard was,

and the hives.

He was not a picklock,

He was a sledge that leaned

into their front wall and came out

the other side.

What could the bees do?

Their stings were as nothing.

They had planned everything sufficiently

except for this: catastrophe

They slumped under the bear's breath,

They vanished into the curl of his tongue.

Some had just enough time

to think of how it might have been -

the cold easing,

the smell of leaves and flowers

floating in,

then the scouts going out,

then their coming back, and their dancing -

nothing different

but what happens in our own village.

What pity for the tiny souls

who are so hopeful, and work so diligently

until time brings, as it does, the slap and the claw.

Someday of course, the bear himself

will become a bee, a honey bee, in the general mixing.

Nature, under her long green hair,

has such unbendable rules,

and a bee is not a powerful thing, even

when there are many,

as people, in a town or a village,

And what, moreover, is catastrophe?\

Is it the sharp sword of God,

or just some other wild body, loving its life?

Not caring a whit, black bear

blinks his horrible, beautiful eyes,

slicks his teeth with his fat and happy tongue,

and saunters on.

Mary Oliver

Pause for thought......

More Bs here at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Melody and all those,

busy as bees, who assist her.

Steeped in recollections

Sunday evening
July 16th, 2017

I am feeling well steeped this evening

just like an old tea pot

except tonight I am steeped in recollections

I may have mentioned before that our old Museum

(which was once a jail cell

for wild west law breakers, 

but for the past forty years has been a

reformed and respectable museum)

Small and somewhat inadequate, 

but now the Museum Society has another property

with a large building and room for

the old jail cell to settle in, outside.

There is also a great selection of articles, items and

newspaper clippings for which there

was formerly no room for display,

but which now need to be sorted and polished up for view.

I have taken on the job of going through old newspapers,

clipping what I deem to be precious and of value

to visitors and future generations.

This being a sit-down job and me being one of the oldest residents around.

This I have been doing for the last few days, and I must confess

it has been most enjoyable.

Things that happened - people I had almost forgotten

wonderful to make their acquaintance again!

I found a newspaper record of a talk Charles had given

at a Remembrance Day service

and it brought back the occasion,

and his words to young people of 1976

about preserving the Torch of Freedom

in peace time.

He said, in part " Nevertheless, it is good to gather once a year

and show the young that we do not forget, thought time goes on.

The Torch of Freedom has been passed to us, and in turn must

 eventually be passed down the generations.

Indeed, freedom is still the legacy, but its face has changed

with the times.  Today war is not the danger to Freedom.

There is not now a danger from without, but the

possible danger of loss of freedom from within."

The account goes on to say that Charles, taking quotes from

D.H. Lawrence and Plutarch, made the point that

freedom can slip away through luxuries and complacency.

and he posed the question

"Are we becoming slaves through default?"

In other words, by demanding more and more

from government services we entangle ourselves "in a system that

in fact restricts liberty".

And I remembered how we had discussed that when

he was preparing his talk (and at other times) and I still fear

that we are giving up our liberty and independence

for support that makes us beholden.

Well, I have gone right off the subject of 

"being steeped in recollections"

but you must forgive me....sometimes when you are the oldest

your mind wanders a bit!!!

post script - I have forgotten the Lawrence and Plutarch quotes

but nevertheless, they must have been relevant.