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After dark, when all the mystery happens, I put away my daily persona and with a touch of the magical mouse I turn into a wanderer of the night, - a Nomad in Blogland. An enchanting country where I find the most charming illusions, the most captivating word pictures and the most imaginative and creative stories.

My world expands as the magic mouse leads me down the lists of Spectacular Blogs, and a click of his little left ear takes me into posts of such beauty and detailed description that I turn crimson with pleasure and green with envy.

I am intriqued with my journeys to different lands, to the writings of different generations, to the appealing way certain writers have of interpreting the world of their imagination. And the marvelously commonplace words that invite you to share the smallest of details in their lives. I am sometimes absorbed in the knowledge they impart, and sometimes buoyed by the light-hearted and humourous posts. And the pictures! There, - look at that wonderful composition, see the brightness, the mysterious, the prosaic, the pastoral, the sea, the sky, the rocks, the hills, the architecture, the land, the flowers and the trees, - and the beautiful faces.

It is mesmerizing to be moved a world away to a farm, a stream, a village or a city, - to find oneself absorbed in the intimate atmosphere of a family, and to be enchanted by so many diverse ways of living, of thinking, of place and of language.

For the 'ancients' it is an incredible place to be, and the technology that joins the world together so awesome as to be almost unbelievable.

I give great thanks that I have lived so long that I am able to make these fascinating journeys, and I come back to bedtime with a smile on my face and great satisfaction in my heart. As well as a comforting realization that the more things change the more they remain the same, - and that in the very depths of it all there is a bond that holds us all together in kindness and generosity and a wonderful spirit of acceptance.

Hysterical Times

I was buoyed when I read an article by Kevin Libin in the February 6th issue of the National Post. If anything is capable of buoying one in these days when we are bombarded on all sides with news of calamity and rhetorical disaster.

Kevin Libin, in an article in The National Post entitled Making the Worst of It injects a voice of reason and encouragement into this daily drama of economic catastrophe.

He quotes Amos Kiewe, a professor specializing in presidential rhetoric at Syracuse University. "I wish they would induce more confidence".. Indeed, the media and politicians have much to answer for as they promote a hysterical response to present day economic problems.

Libin points out that "these times are not 'unprecedented'. This is not unlike anything we've seen. Serious economists do not call this a 'depression,' or predict a return to bread lines, work camps and street urchins peddling apples on the streets."

Unemployment rates in the U.S. are expected to peak "somewhere shy of 9%, jobless rates won't match the nearly 11% reached in 1981/82, let alone the peak of 25% during the Depression". What we have here is a rather bad recession, - but certainly more in line with 1975, 1981/82 and the early 1990's. The future of this recession bears little resemblance to the Great Depression of the 1930's, and when politicians and newspapers and TV heads shriek disaster and desolation it is wise to keep the statistics relevant.

It's always a mistake to do the ostrich routine, and hide one's head in the sand, but on the other hand when hard times strike it is fatal to collapse and wait for the catastrophe to rush over one.

Confidence, if not a miracle worker, can set a country on the right track. Libin cites a nationwide fireside chat that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made in 1933, when America's banking system was on the brink of collapse and a fifth of the country's financial institutions were out of business, - when people had started a run on the remaining banks' cash, preferring a bird in the hand to one in what they perceived to be an unsafe bush in the banks.

"Roosevelt, having ordered the banks closed, spoke to a rattled and frightened nation.....he explained the basics of how banks worked, why they needed cash deposits, why most remained sturdy and the plan to gradually reopen them.

He concluded "You people must have faith, you must not be stampeded by rumours or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work. Together we cannot fail.

When the first banks began to reopen the following day, thousands of clients were lined up outside, ready to redeposit their money. America was soothed."


I am dismayed that the world has, unconsciously, become so materialistic. And I think about the 'simple' life and the virtues and peace it brings with it. What we need is basic food and shelter. What we have in addition are the safety nets of Unemployment Insurance and Medicare.

Why do we want so much more? We struggle to obtain luxuries, and call them our 'standard of living' - we put all our energies into accumulating 'things' and are terrified at the thought of doing without them.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
William Wordsworth



People do live 'marginal' lives quite happily, - even now.

I had a beloved friend whose motto was 'things will always be someway', - and that is true. Things will always be someway, and if we have courage and confidence we will cope with whatever way they are.

Keven Libin's article did not linger long in the paper. It did not inspire too many comments, - certainly not the comments that bad news and startling statistics engender, - alas!

It is time to strengthen the sinews of our hearts, embrace a ton of confidence, be unafraid, live prudently, but not miserly, enjoy small pleasures, be happy... and remember that Roosevelt, in his inaugural address in 1933, also made this statement

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

These words of Emily Dickinson, - I find them poignant and am mindful of them as February advances slowly and erratically into spring.

Last night I slept fitfully. When I wakened early in the morning, about two a.m., the moon cast a bright light to the north, and I lay watching it through the upper window, enchanted with the porcelain glow.

I didn't fall back to sleep immediately, and when I finally closed my eyes I drifted into that state of wakeful sleep, where you are conscious of being on the cusp, and your mind is still busily sorting and shifting and filing the day into the little drawers of the brain (or the heart, or the soul - I am confident that some things we remember in the heart and those are the things that stay with us to the end).

I woke, again and again, and then drifted back into the same dreamlike state, until finally I was conscious enough to control my thoughts and began to plan the coming day.

I would go into the garden! And so was born Hope. I would go into the garden with a shovel and move some of the drifted snow off the patio and the pathway, and perhaps a little where the bulbs are planted and where the Lenten Roses grow, to see if spring lay waiting beneath the snow that melts by day and freezes by night.

What a lovely plan, but first of all I must feed the birds, and make some vegetable soup for lunch and change the linen on the beds..and then I must go and pick up a friend to go to a ladies' meeting. And then, of course, it was time for happy hour, and dinner, and I never did get into the garden, even though I dreamt and hoped that life was stirring beneath the softened snow.

Well, "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings...." and tomorrow is another day.

September Day in the Garden

Early this morning when Caspar and I went walking there was the faintest aroma of skunk, again.

Can this be considered a sign of spring, - or was Mother Skunk just turning over in her comfy bed under the neighbour's outshed?????

No matter, the Groundhog saw his shadow, but my sister and my husband both discount the Groundhog's influence over the weather.

So I will go with Maw Skunk, and look forward to seeing her soon on her daybreak stroll, - with her little ones trailing behind.....

Let me tell you, nigh on to sixty-four years of marriage and six children can engender a rattling number of pictures, photos, snaps - and this is not counting the years we used a movie camera!

Nigh on to sixty four years of marriage and six children, (plus the cows and the sheep and the orchard and the work outside the farm and husband's fatal attraction to Directorships) - well, it doesn't leave much time to sit down and organize the pictures.

They get left out to look at, and then finally are put away (neatly) in boxes. However, by the time they have been riffled through by various children, or parents, the lack of organized filing is sadly apparent.

I think that probably in the last ten years I have been nudged by the urgency of 'getting things in order' at least a dozen times. I make a start on the job, full of enthusiasm. But you know how it is looking through pictures, - you linger here, over a long forgotten picture, and your mind wanders back as you reminisce about the time and place and the people and the circumstances.

Soon it is time to get supper, or go to town, or someone visits, and everything gets shoved back into the box until another day.

Now that age and mobility preclude us from cross country skiing or any of the other winter pleasures we used to indulge in, there is more time to poke through the pictures boxes and reminisce.

And that is what Charles and I did for a good part of the day.....

To get to the nub of the matter, - last July, when I wrote about cherry pies, and the picking of cherries, I looked for a picture of my father-in-law, taken when he was cutting down one of the large Lambert cherry trees in his orchard.

Today I found the picture.....



At the time of this adventure at the top of the cherry tree my father-in-law was past his mid sixties! Charles says his mother probably took the picture, all the while muttering imprecations. And small prayers, I would think....

The 20 foot ladder set half way up the tree is the base from which his father started his climb, sawing off branches as he went. A brave and careful man, - he lived to 102.

Cherry trees then were much larger and more robust that the convenient espaliered rows you find today. And as a consequence orchardists, if they were not larger and more robust, had at least to be sure of foot, nimble and finely balanced!

He who was chosen to pick the top of the tree had to have an accomplice. They went out early in the morning, equipped with pails and ropes, and the cherry picker passed his full buckets down to the ground where it was emptied and sent back up to be refilled. All morning, until noon, his deft fingers gathered the fruit, running the round, sweet cherries along his hand and into the bucket.

As I remember the children always came in with wine stained lips at cherry picking time, and although I didn't eat many cherries while picking them I was a devil when it came to tree ripened apricots!!

O what would the fellows who come around with booms and trucks to tidy up trees say about this daring entrepreneurship.


(When questioned as to what his father was carrying, up there in the blue, Charles replied, ' probably a parachute'.....)

We will be back to the pictures and the memories again tomorrow,,unless the sun shines and distracts us!

A week ago today we climbed the pass, searching for sun and blue skies, and here at the top we found not what we were looking for, but beauty nonetheless...



"...the hand that shaped the rose has wrought the crystal of the snow, has sent the silvery frost of heaven, the flowing waters sealed, and laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field" Frances Whitmarsh Wile, 1914


This morning's sunrise heralded a day that gradually grew warmer and kinder to old bones and spirits grown weary of Old Man Winter roaring around the hills, and the biting wind that accompanies him. A mild day, - even the faintest and first intimations of February thaws.



A good day to see things settling down somewhat in Parliament, but at what cost???

Last night I watched the media interview an auto worker, laid off. His wife had also lost her job.

Well, to be generous, he may not have been one of the autoworkers who have been making $70.00 and hour, - he may have only been making $50.00 an hour, - but it makes me very uncomfortable to think that a couple who have had two incomes and who are both drawing Unemployment Insurance should be in such dire straits that they expect the government to rescue them, and the industry that supports them, with a wildly indulgent, throwing-all-caution-to-the-winds-budget.

Hard times come to most of us sometime in our lives. And how we accept them and cope with them is surely indicative of our inner strength.

It dismays me that materialism has become a way of life, - that the thought of having to lower our standard of living is so terrifying.

There are not many still living who struggled with the hardships of the Dirty Thirties. What was there to relieve the dreadful economic times? There was no Unemployment Insurance, but there were Work Camps.





There were no great Infrastructure plans, but you could work on the roads for a few pennies a day...

Thousands of men traveled by rail, searching for jobs....



My grandparents lived close to the rail yards, - their gate was marked with the hobo symbol indicating kindness and generosity within.

Out on the farm if you had no gas to get to town, there was always the Bennettbuggy..



These are the days that not one of us could wish back. These are the days that cause the 'ancients' to still save string, and to fix and mend and make do. But amongst the heart ache and desolation that those years brought there was a strengthening of character, a bonding, a sense of community and an awareness and compassion for each other that inevitably resulted in good times and laughter and appreciation. And a pride in being able to withstand, - a knowledge of your own strength and your capacity to persevere and endure.

I ask myself if this childish reliance on government will at sometime destroy our civilization. O morbid thought....

If we could only temper our 'wants' and be content with our 'needs'.

Oh how does one pass the winter months when the joys of ice and snow and clear cold air and prairie sunshine and blue skies and the band playing on Wednesday night at the skating rink are all just a fond and faded memory??

Well, one can bake - muffins usually.

Or read - still devouring Ackroyd's London Tome and his history of the River Thames. To embellish these I have The Golden Age of the Thames by Patricia Burstall, an entertaining story of the frivolous life on the Thames above Richmond between 1870 and 1914. It is 'a poignant evocation of a golden age before the carnage of World War 1 made a mockery of its innocence'. And the pictures are delightful. I especially look for references to Teddington, where my grandparents were married and where all their children were born and baptised, including my mother, of course.

They lived on Luther Street, and just around the corner was the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, - this is the new version. The old church was damaged and demolished in the Second World War. As was their home on Luther Street.



And as a little light dessert after a reading of 'London', I have 'The Four Londons of William Hogarth', - a gossipy little tale of London in the mid 1700's.

I read with interest -

"This corner of London, near to St. Bartholomew's, was where the weavers had settled, as you could tell by the steady clack-clack of heddles, the regular thump-thump of batten on beam. Even had you been deaf as a post you'd have known by the street names, Cloth Fair and Cloth Court, and among these of old taverns and inns, long vanished, such as Rising Sun Court, Barley Mow Passage and Half Moon Court. The houses, wattle and daub, half-timbered as in the days of the Tudors, had escaped the Great Fire of 1666, and leaned their heads across the narrow passages, seeming to gossip of time long gone when London Town had liv ed almost entirely within its protecting walls. Now it was spreading outward, a rising tide, north and west, embracing moor and marsh and farmland as the lusty thriving population expanded year by year and the beginning of the Inclosure Acts deprived the country folk of wood and grazing ground, bringing them hopefully to London to seek new livelihoods.

But the weavers had been here for a hundred years and more; they were cockney born, though many still spoke their native tongue and the powerful Cloth Guild held a mort of Flemish members. There was a song they sang sometimes; they were singing it now, to the thump of the treadles.

'The weaver knows his shuttle
The shepherd knows his dog.
Clack, clack, clack! Bow wow wow!' "

Having both a shepherd in the family and a weaver I have an empathy for those East Londoners who worked so hard at their trades, whilst to me weaving has been a wonderfully fulfilling hobby.

My grandfather was a Milk Boy in Hammersmith in the latter part of the 19th century. I am fascinated to read of the villages, the streams and the country-side that gradually disappeared as London stretched and grew.

These are both mighty weighty books, and in between I knit (socks) and lose myself in technology that enables us to transfer taped interviews with pioneers to more permanent and secure CD's. I am blown away by the advance from the ham radio my father had in our basement to the fabulous cell phones my grandchildren sport, - and which I also covet!!

I also dream about gardens, tend the recalcitrant amarylis and Christmas cactus, wash a little woodwork now and then. I play a bit of Scott Joplin and skim over the hymns for Sunday organ playing. We watch the birds, and feed them copiously, and somehow the winter passes. As the days grow longer our spirits rise, and the lengthening light strengthens the sinews of the soul....

Well, it is time to go and play cards and feed the little dog his biccies before we go out for a small walk...and so to bed...

Blue skies.
Smiling at me....
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see.

Happy faces hereabouts, - even the dust is lying around smirking in the sunshine....

Some thoughts...

My days seem fractured, - a week of damp, gloomy, shrouded weather have left me feeling sapped of energy and enthusiasm. Not despondent, not despairing and not dejected - just entertaining a little melancholy.....

I play a little music and read a bit (The Last Lecture and Peter Ackroyd's 'Sacred River).

Thoughts of warping the loom pass through my mind, but before I can do the math they dissipate amongst the clouds.

I contemplate the state of the kitchen cupboards and my bureau drawers, and if I tackle one I am momentarily exhilarated, but alas, not enough to engender a full blown clean out.

Husband is attempting a DIY method of transferring some precious pioneer tape interviews to CD, the better to preserve them. I call upon all sources of grace to preserve my patience and contain my frustration. I have so little knowledge to help him, but search the net for answers, - suspecting all the while that the only sane answer is to go to an electronic shop and buy a dratted machine that does the job in the wink of an eye, and with as little effort.

This project takes up many a morning hour, and I suppose at one and the same time it is a bane and a blessing to have this 'togetherness'......if you know what I mean!

I made a couple of apple pies the other day, and that lifts the spirits. So does the eating of them, but alas, they are all gone now.

I have a little bowl of creamy hyacinths just coming into bloom, and the late potted amaryllis are starting to thrust the beginnings of sturdy green stems through the round, rough bulbs.

The Christmas cactus, which refused to acknowledge the season, has lovely quarter inch buds on it...and the quail come twice a day to feed...

All is not lost, - the sun will return, or we will go to Penticton and search it out where it shines on the high passes. And Groundhog Day is only a couple of weeks away. I will be very cross if we have endured all these dark, glum, shadowless days only to have it bright and sunny on the 2nd of February.

I yearn for spring and early mornings in the garden....

Well, so much for the weatherman and his forecast for Sunshine in the Similkameen - the digital sun glowed on his weather map, promising a bright and energetic day.

But alas...we wakened to fog and frost.







About ten-thirty a frail, veiled sun momentarily broke through the clouds, and looked mournfully down at that silly woman hurrying to get a picture of Sunshine in the Similkameen....



Husband and I are sitting back to back in the computer room, sorting through drawers and disks.

A treasure, - we found a dozen or so glass magic lantern slides from his childhood, - held up to the window images of Winnie the Pooh and his friends, gamboling on a green meadow from long, long ago!

Growing old holds many pleasures, and memory has a favoured place....

To lift the gloom of mist and fog a trip to town this afternoon took me through a fairyland of frosted trees that reminded me of Narnia when the Ice Queen reigned, - perfectly splendid and perfectly romantic in an ethereal kind of way.

Finally, - a sunny day.



In the mornings the mist has been gathering along the Similkameen, rising skyward until it hid the hills. Above the low, thin cloud that shut off the light and brought an eerie gloom to the valley the sun shone brightly on the upper hills and over the passes. I thought about my prairie childhood, where the sky was blue, the snow glistened and crackled beneath your feet, and the sun cheered you along your way as you walked in the frosty air.

The quail that live in the big brush pile came regularly for wheat, making their way across the pasture, oblivious to the mists that swirled and intent only on breakfast.
The small birds hover above them pecking at the wild bird seed and spilling a few seeds for friends on the ground. They were joined by a redheaded woodpecker, not interested in the wheat, but pecking in the gravel of the roadway, free of snow.



The day started with a gentle pink flush...



Along the river the mists gathered and rose with the faint air currents.





By mid morning the trees were still frosty, but the hills were shining under a blue flax sky.



Caspar and I strolled leisurely, enjoying the the sun, - and he slipping and sliding on the ice at the side of the road that soon grew soft and mellow under the sun's rays.

When we arrived at the door he went along in and I dug a little pathway to the loom room trailer and went in and retrieved the table loom, - filled with enthusiasm to make some crib blankets for the little guys who will soon be having birthdays.

Tomorrow is supposed to bring more sunshine to the Similkameen.....

The Frailities of Memory

In the foreword to his Collected Stories Wallace Stegnor says of autobiography:

'I am not to be trusted with it. I hate the restrictiveness of facts. I can't control my impulse to rearrange, suppress, add, heighten, invent and improve. Accuracy means less to me than suggestiveness; my memory is as much an inventor as a recorder'.


And in his foreword to 'Trying to Save Piggy Sneed', an autobiography, John Irving writes:

'This is a memoir, but please understand that (to any writer with a good imagination) all memoirs are false. A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have. Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.'

A few years ago I put together a small book of childhood memories as a genealogical effort. I was inspired by the excitement and satisfaction I had experienced whenever I found a tidbit about the life of one of the ancestors, and the yearning I felt to know more of the times they lived in, of their personalities, their passions, and the circumstances of their lives.

I tried very hard to write things as I remembered them; not to embellish or rearrange or invent. However, even then I was painfully aware that the integrity of our memories does not always bear up with those who have shared the same childhood experiences, and I have long been puzzled that memories of the same childhood experiences can be recalled positively by one person and unhappily by another.

Recent neurological research into the process by which the brain stores both working (short term) and long term memories are fascinating, but I have yet to read anything about the interpretation of the memory in respect to the way we receive it and the effect it has upon our lives.

Suzanne Warren, while a student at Bryn Mawr, expands upon the contents of a book 'The Society of Mind' written by Marvin Minsky, a philosopher and scientist and a leading expert on artificial intelligence. In this book he presents his conception of human intellectual structure and function, and defines memory as a holistic neural activity, involving many different areas and processes of the brain in an intricately choreographed dance. .

I have taken part in a U.K. online experiment to test Short Term Memory, and discovered the secrets of remembering small lists, and whether, when I pause on the landing, I can remember if I am going upstairs or downstairs.

But it is the secrets of Long Term memory that intrigue me.

I am sure that my childhood engendered unhappy memories, but it is the happy memories that are prevalent in my recall. Why is this so? I have a feeling that it is all caught up in the controversy regarding spiritualism/materialism and the argument concerning the existence of a Soul.

A great number of years ago I attended a class on creative writing, and was criticized for the lack of a counterpoint of laughter and tears, and of 'hurt' flowing through the pages of a project on childhood memories. Probably a very valid criticism when considering the quality and appeal of the writing, but I can remember at the time questioning my memory and searching for the hurt and tears which would have made my writing more acceptable.

I continue to be mystified by the relative qualities of our long term memory, and uncomfortable when I consider that the memories that are dear and familiar to me are not necessarily the plain unvarnished truth! When a tune, or a fragrance helps me to re-experience a moment from the past I would like to think that the happiness it engenders has some integrity!

Here is a picture from the past that makes me smile, an affectionate memory of a day of cousins that brings me pleasure.



Were we really that sunny, or were there small slights and hurts that happened that if I had been of a different disposition would darken the memory for me???

Nice that there is time to contemplate these questions.

And to discover more about Marvin Minsky. After a cursory perusal of his writing and his thoughts I am considering that Marvin Minsky has many theories to de-mystify the human experience. Is this good??? Well, probably quite splendid to a humanist.....

The rising sun caught the clouds,




and the quail came up from the meadow to breakfast alfresco in the mild morning air



a heavy mist rolled in from the south, but the sun worked his magic



and turned the fog to whipped cream clouds in a beautiful blue bowl




And all before ten o'clock this morning......

Amazing!

How go the Resolutions, Horatio!!!

The Resolve : to live a focused life...
a simpler life.
A cleaner life (that refers to my careless housekeeping)
and a more mindful life.. (translated: don't forget to take bags to the grocery store, - you will never be able to recycle all those plastic bags into doormats!)

Well, yesterday I took five cloth bags to the grocery store and felt immensely 'green' as I handed them across the counter. Virtuous, and pleased with myself.

When I came home and unloaded them, still feeling pure and Polly Anne-ish, I left them in an accessible place for next time shopping.

One swallow does not a summer make, and I can see I am going to have to nurture this habit before I can feel truly righteous.

For some time I have been examining the kitchen cupboards, the linen closet, the cobwebs on the ceiling, - all with my Company Eyes.

This morning, when Husband went singing (as a matter of fact I didn't hear him leave, I was so enthusiastically hauling things off the pantry shelves...) I planned to be doubly efficient. I would do the Pantry, which has been all higgeldy piggeldy for too many moons, and Roomba, the Christmas vacuum, would do the carpets....

I went to tell Ruumba the plans! She was plugged into her Port, but sadly, someone (Husband says it was the Cat) had knocked the electrical cord partly out of the wall, and instead of her green light shining at me all was quiet in Roomba Land. I plugged her in, and the orange charging light came on.

Nonplussed (well, fairly nonplussed) I returned to the Pantry while Roomba charged her batteries.

What amazing things I found tucked into corners and behind the front six inches which is the most active part of the Pantry shelves.... I threw things away, wiped down containers, found two jars of Mincemeat in addition to the one I bought this year. Every once in a while I would go and check on Roomba, but she seemed to be enjoying herself with the recharger, and was taking her time about getting ready for work.

Half way through I heard # 3 Son plowing the snow around the house. Once more into the breach, dear boy. Yesterday's snow piled another few inches on the road and it seems a never ending job to keep it clear.

I ran from window to window, and finally caught his eye to wave our thanks.

Eventually Roomba reluctantly turned on her green light and declared herself ready to work. I returned to the pantry while she scooted around and around the floor. The Dog found a safe spot out of her way. The Cat was terribly curious at first, and I thought she might jump on for a ride, but in a while she turned away in disdain and got up on the top of the couch to watch the quail eating under the bird-feeders.

I was through in the Pantry before Roomba had barely got started, so I had a shower, and when I came out I could hear her gentle hum, but couldn't see her, - until she came whizzing out from under the buffet.....

After a while she stopped, and when I went to investigate a pleasant voice politely asked me to check and clean Roomba's brushes, - which I did and soon she was back doing her cheerful merry-go-round act.

Time for Husband to come home from his morning outing, - I put the soup on to heat, - Roomba went back to her Port to rest, - every once in a while when I went past the Pantry I opened the door and glowed at the neat and tidy shelves.

A good morning's work, and that took care, momentarily, of the housekeeping Resolve.

I still have the Simpler life and the more Focused life to deal with, but I think that getting ancient eventually ordains that we shall not run around wildly doing myriad things that tire us out and distract us from the Mindfulness of life.

Had a nice nap this afternoon, and then Caspar and I went for a Simply lovely walk...
while the pleasures of a clean and tidy Pantry kept popping into my mind....



Perhaps I should just leave the door open so that I can be inspired about the Linen Closet, too.

I have heard it said that when Old Man Winter exhausted himself yesterday with his huffing and puffing and icy demeanor, picking up the drifts of snow and sliding them into great huge piles, and roaring around in wild exuberance while people snuggled deeper into scarves and pulled toques down around their ears, - I have heard it said that when he finally crept home in the wee small hours his Wife, the gentle breeze of summer, scolded him heartily and told him again about the virtues of making friends and influencing people with his many charms and virtues.

Therefore - today Old Man Winter was just a little shamefaced, and went around making up to all those he insulted yesterday. He charmed us all, - the sun shone, the birds sang, the clouds were white and soft. It got a little warmer and everybody's heart was stirred a little at what a sweetheart the Old Man can be...



...the weatherman says we will wake up to snow tomorrow........

A bitterly cold day. The snow swirls off the roof, and the little birds have abandoned the feeders in favour of shelter in the bushes..On the way home from church we saw a hawk, diving and circling with the tempetuous wind.

It reminded me of Hopkins' Windhover...

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

But more than that, the wintry landscape and the blowing snow gave me cause to reflect on the benign sweetness of a summer's day, the great, growing greenness and the lively vitality of the garden, the valley, the meadows, the hills, and the bright blue of the sky.

Close the curtains, poke up the fire, and come and join me in a little Summertime nostalgia. And a little light summery music by Django Reinhardt - does it make you want to jig down the garden path?

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2009

I sit idly watching the snow, - once again.... It is calm, - the flakes drift straight from heaven, restoring the pristine beauty of a snowy landscape and foiling the efforts of those who labor to keep the roads in passably good shape.

While the snow was still fine Caspar and I went walking, he keeping to the plowed paths on the road after being rebuffed in his blindness by the stacked snow that lines the lane. When we came back up the road he scooted in to have his sweater taken off, and I made a little path to the bird feeders with sunflower and seed supplies.

Instant response, - by the time I was in the house the word was out, and a flock of little birds came calling.



I watched them, on this first day of the New Year, and thought about their brief lives, and then about the relevance of Time and the moments and the months and the years we live.

Our bodies are inclined to betray us. We hope that our minds grow into some semblance of wisdom. But our spirits remain the same - it seems the years have no dominion over them and we are the same today as we were when young. This is some kind of a miracle? When I was twenty-two, thirty seemed the end of youth, and when I was forty-two, sixty seemed the acme of enjoyable old age. Now that I will be eighty-four (tomorrow) I feel young and exuberant when I think about dear friends of ninety-three, and I am filled with plans for the next ten years. It is all relative - there is no general Truth to apply to any particular time of our lives.

Nevertheless, if we are hopeful of extending our time here, I am slowly accepting the fact that it is important to respect our energies, and to govern our day to day lives by what they will allow.

That is probably my first and most important resolve on this Day of Resolutions, - to remind my Ego of the priorities I have to home and loved ones.

In a way the process of withdrawal comes naturally. If I imagine the family as a wide circle there was always a small ring at the centre where Parents resided. Now, I find that small ring has drifted further and further towards the periphery of the circle. And has even, perhaps, shown signs of translucence, as the ring parts a little where a path wanders off. A slow realization that we are approaching the station for a journey which inevitably must be made alone.

In the meantime there is so much beauty to absorb, so much gardening to enjoy, so many meals to share, so much music to listen to, so many fragrances to surround ourselves with, so many books to read, so many things to talk about, (so many socks to knit...) I see Time stretching far into the distance and I know that if we maintain our health and keep our wits about us the years will continue to be happy, and positive, and full of joy.

Christmas Blessings

And here, at home......

On Christmas Eve, enjoying Oyster Stew......



The little old dog, still interested in Christmas toys, with tail high and a little swagger!



Mama, and the Star of the Christmas Show



Playing second lead, - a deer festooned...


a granddaughter home with family...



and a sumptuous table...



Small ordinary blessings, dearly treasured!

The Last Sunday in Advent

A fresh fall of snow and Caspar and I made new footprints as we investigated the early morning garden - the round flowers of the sedum carrying jaunty hats and the roofs of the birdhouses looking very alpine and Christmassy.

I took my white bell playing gloves to church and our Handbell ringers played the Angelus for a Prelude.

Part way through the opening hymn I looked up from the organ and my heart gave a nice comfortable little thump when I spied our 'furthest away' son and his Dear Wife, home for Christmas and sitting with Husband in the back row.

It was a lovely, musical service with bell music throughout - the sermon was fitting and thoughtful, musing on Mary's bravery and generosity in accepting the task the Angel brought her to fulfil. When we sang the last hymn I could hear those dear familiar male voices singing lustily from the back row.

When one gets ancient all time spent with family is precious, and so lunch and tea and an afternoon of visiting and listening to #1 son's wonderfully strong left hand accompaniment to the carols he played, brought us a lot of joy and love, (which is what the fourth Sunday in Advent is all about).
The day had a nice plus with a quick visit from Katie and Will, bearing gifts to and fro.....

I look forward to the next three days, without any commitments and free for us to prepare leisurely for Christmas Eve - a little bit of baking still to do, a scarf half knit, a batch of peanut brittle to make, a few presents still to wrap, but all to the glorious fragrances of Christmas and the sounds of carols and BoneyM.

A Trip to the City

Over the hill and into the Okanagan on the last day before the Big Snow!



Similkameen ranch lands



A frosty forest beside the road to Yellow Lake.



The water shimmers as a skim of ice declares itself....



We round the corner, past the golf course where the camera catches the bright sun and the sparkle of the snow......



through Marron Valley and up the hill where we catch sight of lazy clouds floating above Okanagan Lake.



Beneath the clouds the lake is alive with puffs of steam..





And on the summery beach a light skiff of snow makes promises for a white Christmas.



We shop! What a bewildering array of gifts, - some beautiful scarlet faux flower decorations catch my eye - and so does the price! I put them back reluctantly and keep looking for presents...

We make a false start home, - have to go back to M & M's and to the Hearing Man. Eventually we turn down the beach road and up the hill. At the turnoff to the Similkameen I catch a nice picture of the hills where, in the springtime, I watch for black-eyed Susans.



As we turn the corner to go up Roadhouse Hill I loosen my boots, stretch my poor shopworn feet, put the camera back in my purse and go into nodding mode!

It was a lovely day to go to town......

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
   Antoine de Saint-Exupery


The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)


I have been thinking a lot lately, - about life, about the glorious living of it, about life after, and about how long this life is perpetuated by those of us who remember, and those of us who care enough to preserve...

These thoughts first arose as I recalled my father on the 110th anniversary of his birth. All the small and intimate bits of knowledge that I have about him are in danger of being forgotten unless I can somehow convey them to those who will will live after me, and to those who have even a small portion of the love I felt/feel for him.

These thoughts were flitting through my mind as I prepared to do some baking for Christmas. I laid out the book of Small Town Secrets that the church ladies put together a few years back. After the submitted recipes and before the Hints and Tips, there is a section devoted to Nostalgia. Recipes that were copied from a book prepared by another generation of ladies who took pride in 'starting from scratch' and producing the lightest and the best!!

I came across Lucille Beecroft's recipe for Lemon Cheese for Tarts, and I remembered how perfectly top notch it was, - and then I remembered Lucille's small home, and the women she played bridge with - Margaret and Glady's and Agnes. All dear friends who are probably carrying on their game at some ethereal table. I smiled inside, and they were all alive for me again, - women I have loved.

Lemon Cheese for Tarts Lucille Beecroft

6 eggs, well beaten
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup butter

Mix well together and cook in a double boiler until thick. Makes about 1 quart.


Margaret Ritchie's Welsh Cakes

2 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tsps baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups currants softened in water and patted dry
2 eggs beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients and sift. Cut in butter to a coarse meal. Stir in beaten eggs and flavouring with a fork, making a soft dough. Knead 10 to 12 times. Roll out 1/3 inch thick.
Cut with cookie cutter and fry in electric fry pan (ungreased) at 340-360 degrees F - five to six moments each side. Serve buttered, with jelly or jam or cream cheese.

Margaret, with whom I have devoured these marvelous creations and who taught me that 'things will always be someway' - who was generous and kind and a friend our children loved. No problem passing on that love to future generations.

In my genealogy I came across a great-great Aunt, and the story told about her was that in the spring of the year she painted her front door yellow. And that she was the matriarch of a family called the 'Clean Clines'. And that her passion for cleaning fostered a love of the outdoors in her husband. Now I do not share that passion, but I know people whom I have loved who did/do, and so it is not hard for me to feel a certain wry fondness for this great-great Aunt of mine.

And as she is remembered with affection so does she live on???

Above the recipe for Lemon Cheese for Tarts is a recipe for Cheese Moons such as my pseudo Aunt Molly used to make. I remembered my mother telling me that if I wanted to learn how to iron with style I should get Molly to teach me. How do I convey to others an appreciation for this skill she had, her special friendship with my mother, the essence of her 1930's home? Who do I tell who will keep this memory alive?

Just musings......

Perhaps tomorrow I will make some Welsh Cakes. The grandchildren love them, and it would be nice to have Margaret's spirit close for Christmas.