What to do on a smokey Saturday afternoon....

August 5th, 2017

As the sun rose this morning it greeted the Similkameen

with the promise of a smoldering, smokey Saturday

but somewhere the wind changed directions

and although the scent of the air is still reminiscent

of wildfires, in the distance,

it was still pleasant to be outside for a while,

watering the pots and moving the garden sprinklers around.

The house is all closed up, and the A/C hums away...

so nice and cool I am glad of a sweater.

Along about August in days gone by the peaches would be

getting ripe in the orchard, - fuzzy and warm!

The children would be wary of Mother when she came in from picking peaches...

they tell me now!!

And I must admit to being a cranky peach picker until 

a shower made me feel civilized again.....

But how we all loved peaches, - dessert was easy those August days

peaches and cream, peach crumble, ice cream and peaches,

peaches and chocolate cake....

After we moved to town, bereft of fresh peaches right off the tree,

I used to go to fruit stands and beg for their over-ripes,

(which they didn't sell to tourists)

hurry home, slice them up, and Charles and I would be in peach-heaven!

Because it is really not wise to be out gardening while we are bathed in smoke

I have been keeping busy in the house.

Well, not busy cleaning and re-arranging cupboards,

or dusting, or baking.....

just busy in the loom room and reading a bit.

I had hoped to start off August with a bare-naked loom, and I did

finish the garden scarf I was working on

but when it was all done and I threw the last pick

I discovered I had probably a yard and a half left on my warp,

quizzical as to what I was going to do with it!!!

I also have four bobbins of 20/2 white silk

and two bobbins of green silk, left over from other projects,

and I am hoping that they will stretch to make a rather shorter scarf

with a rather longer fringe on it!!!

As to the reading.....whilst roaming through blogland

I came upon a recommendation to read

Phil Rickman's series about Merrily Watkins, a Vicar

(Priest in charge) of a parish in  Bedfordshire (or Hertfordshire,

depending upon when the boundaries were changed). 

 In any case, from the home of some of my ancestors, which tempted me to

read at least the first book "The Wine of Angels"

I am at page 71 and think I am going to enjoy it! 

I have also been fiddling with the ukulele, if that is possible....

The other day I came upon the ukulele chords for "Bring me Sunshine",

which I love.... and they are easy enough for me to play.

I strum away, and sing to myself, missing

Charles who always helped me stay in tune when he sang beside me....

If I wasn't a church-goer and still believed

what I learned in Sunday School I could imagine him

looking down from heaven (gold streets, clouds, harps, etc.)

but there, the years have confused me and I don't know where his spirit is.

I feel him close and the memory of his lovely clear tenor is very dear, - 

and I imagine what fun we would have had if I had discovered

the ukulele earlier....

This one will make you dance....

Dolomites

ABC Wednesday
August 2nd, 2017

The letter is D for The Dolomites

The Dolomites

A mountain range in Northern Italy 

forming part of the Southern Limestone Alps.

The Dolomites are also known as

The Pale Mountains, 

They take their name from the 

carbonate rock, dolomite

The Dolomites are renowned for skiing in the winter,

mountain climbing, hiking and cycling

in the summer.

As you can image

The Dolomite mountain area abounds

in tourists

and here is a bird's eye view of

the lovely mountains

More Ds here http://abcwednesday.comat ABC Wednesday
with thanks to all who maintain this meme

Sunny Sunday Morning - This and That

July 30th, 2017

Saying goodbye to this hot, hot dry month of wildfires
 resulting in a dire game of musical accommodations
for those poor people in towns affected by the flames that have been devastating
the central part of our Province.

So many families leaving homes threatened by fire;
 so many other little towns nudging over to make room for these evacuees
 and welcoming them with hospitality and compassion.

Will August be any better?  

The weather makes no promises for rain in the next three weeks

but the last two weeks of August have invariably been damp and cloudy, 

and one can only hope.....

Our own dear ones still under Evacuation Orders, 

but like so many in the Chilcotin who have stayed home to protect their property,

 were elated to finally get into town (after three weeks) 

to re-stock groceries and farm supplies 

and that little refreshment after a long, hot, smokey day!!!

Here at home I have plans for August.
Well, I have plans for every month, - not always ones that reach fruition,
 but nevertheless ones that make the month meaningful.

I hope to greet the new month with an empty loom,
 having great and illustrious visions of finishing
my Summer Garden Scarf today.

Sometimes my hopes, no matter how great or illustrious, forget

to take into account the amount

of energy available to me in one afternoon!!!!

Tomorrow is the last day of July, so that gives me

twenty-four hours grace.......

Here in mid-summer, as the days grow shorter (than they were)

I take Bruce out for his evening jaunt a little earlier

and at the end of the lane the sweet sliver of the new moon

grows a little each night.

If it is dark enough a gleaming scythe, holding

the old moon in its arms.

mister google

That choice of words is quite ominous and I didn't mean it to be

It is really very beautiful, despite having rather

dark connotations!!

During these summery days when the car finds a home

at the front drive-in, rather than in the garage,

it has been easy to hop in and go visiting or to shop

but lurking in the back of my mind  l am conscious of the fact

that the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles is going to run his finger

down the list of drivers in their nineties

and when he discovers my name he will immediately jot it down

on the list of the ancient who will receive orders to visit

their Doctor before the next birthday rolls around

so that he can examine your wits, your eyesight, and any other physical factor

which might give the Doctor pause to recommend that

you continue to drive.....

I ponder this, and wonder if I should make the effort to keep my license.

I don't worry too much about my wits and general health,

but I know they place a great emphasis on eyesight

and IF I plan to continue to have that precious piece of paper I must

make an appointment with the Optometrist, Dr. Zak,.

Probably in August!!

Which brings me to my next "this and that" for the month...

Charles mobile electric cart sits in the garage, fully charged,

just waiting for me to feel less vulnerable when I take it down the lane,

trying to get familiar with the beast.

Last Sunday I went for supper with a dear son and DIL

and during the course of the meal the subject of the cart came up,

and my reluctance to use it.

Son said - "It's just that she doesn't want to be seen on it..."

And I have to acknowledge that he is right.

Dratted ego again!

Don't want to appear ancient

and one of the crowd who swish down the road, 

flags flying on their mechanical cart...

So that is on my August list, (as it has been on every monthly list

for the last three or four years)

But this time I am DETERMINED.

On my list for today is the creation of a number of small quiches

(company coming for lunch during the week)

and I think it is time for kitchen duties.

Tomorrow I will pay obeisance to the White Rabbit,

but today I must say farewell to July

and put the air conditioner on...

Right now!!!!

C is for Crow

ABC Wednesday
July 26th, 2017

The letter is C for CROW

Every morning

crow 

steps

along the beach

as though he found the world

brand new,

and wonderful,

and without a doubt,

made especially for him.

The eiders stare,

the black ducks are busy

with their own affairs

as he marches 

along the wrack line

on his sturdy feet

to the bounty of stranded sea worms,

crabs,

abandoned bags of popcorn

"oh yes" his big black beak seems to say,

"this is good,

here is breakfast and lunch both

and as for dinner

I'll be back.

What a good world!"

I wish we could be friends,

but when he sees me

daring to look at him

he opens his strong arms

that are dressed,  always, in the darkest ribbons,

and floats off...

but only a little way

and he's down again on the sandy track -

and who has seen yet anything cleaner,

bolder,

more gleaming, more certain of its philosophy

than the eye he turns back?

Mary Oliver

More Cs here at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Melody and 

all who maintain this meme

Happiness

July 24th, 2017

Monday, and the week stretches invitingly as I open my daily journal.  Nowhere to go except Ukulele practice - how lovely!!!

I breakfast, send messages, water pots and then come in to wander lazily through Facebook in case something momentous is happening that I should know about!!!!

Well, I came upon a picture of the Reverend Shane L. Bishop, a Sr. minister at Christ Church in Fairview Heights, Illinois, who was posting about "Twelve things I see happy people do (that unhappy people do not).

That caught my eye, - for two reasons.  Fairview Heights is the name of the Veteran's project where Charles and I settled five years into our marriage, and where, in the next forty years we cleared sage brush, established a farm and  brought up our children. Happy years.....

And it has long been my belief that despite genes and circumstances happiness "is a choice".  The Rev. Bishop thinks so as well, so I read what he had to say about this topic....

of course, the bluebird of happiness.  Make room on your windowsill!

His first advice is to FOCUS ON WHAT YOU HAVE AND NOT ON WHAT YOU DON'T....... 

 be thankful and aware of all the good things in our lives.

QUESTION THE SOURCES OF YOUR EXPECTATIONS,

 are you trying to keep up with the Jones? 

 Have you fallen victim to an inviting ad for things that are beyond you,

 - be realistic and content.

BE GENEROUS -

 selfish people are miserable....happy people give of their time and resources.

HAPPINESS IS NOT A DESTINATION -

 happiness is learning to enjoy the ride!!!

IF YOU DON'T LIKE YOUR LIFE CHANGE IT. 

 Don't daydream, - take control and replace dreaming with doing....

SLOW DOWN and smell the roses.

REALIZE THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS. 

 work hard, put in the hours, pursue your dreams...

STOP FEELING ENTITLED.  

So relevant to today's era of handouts. 

 Make your life happen, independently.

THINK SIGNIFICANCE  and leave the world better than you found it!

FORGIVE and be free of regrets - 

especially forgive yourself!!

ATTITUDE - cultivate a good one. 

 Don't let your miseries control you, - look on the sunny side.

SPEAK LIFE. 

 Choose words that uplift, encourage and bring positive energy into every situation.

The Rev. Bishop says 'people who speak life 

are like human air fresheners!!!'

This happiness advice reminded me of a poem by May Sarton, - 

oh, so many years since I have read her.  At least twenty, 

but I do remember her "House by the Sea" and "At Seventy" 

as well as some of the poems she wrote. 

One is called "The Work of Happiness". ( I had to look it up!)

I thought of happiness, how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours

And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:

The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,

White curtains softly and continually blown

As the free air moves quietly about the room

A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall -

These are the dear familiar gods of home

And here the work of faith can best be done,

The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,

The timeless sense of time when furniture

Has stood a life's span in a single place,

And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir

The shining leaves of present happiness?

No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,

But where people have lived in inwardness

The air is charge with blessing and does bless;

Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

May Sarton from Collected Poems 1930-1993

Now that the morning is half over I must go and do what makes me happy

 and continue weaving the current colourful scarf that awaits me.

I must cultivate happiness, if not in the garden

then at the loom...

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.

ABC Wednesday
July 10th, 2017

The letter is A

for Anxiety

At this late stage in my life I have tried to banish anxiety, living day by day, depending upon circumstances and experience to enable me to handle problems with some serenity.

Today, tho' I must admit to some anxious thought for the thousands of people here in British Columbia who have been distressed and made homeless by the ferocious wildfires that are so prevalent, fanned by summer winds and encouraged by the hot dry weather we are experiencing..

Oh, I am particularly anxious for family - two dear sons and a precious DIL who are living. off-grid, in the midst of this inferno in the Cariboo/Chilcotin area of the province.

News last night that the fire down the road is now threatening the neighbour's house, and these are the circumstances that the ever-vigilant firemen immediately respond to..... . 

So my anxiety is somewhat relieved to know this little stage of the greater fire is being acknowledged and dealt with, along

with all the dreadful fires that have driven whole communities from their homes

 throughout central British Columbia,

 and also forty miles from here along the road we traveled so often in the past, 

(it being dotted with wonderful lakes and fishing spots, now ravaged).

This is the second time the Meadow has been threatened by wildfire 

and they are encouraged by memories of the concern and competence of the fire fighters 

last time around. 

They are also well equipped with huge mobile water containers,

 fire hoses, large moving equipment, and even a drone that makes morning 

forays into the surrounding countryside to assess the situation.  

Their father would be very proud of the way they are coping with this threat,

 and their continual awareness of living where your welfare and safety

 depend almost solely on your own spirit of independence.

Although domestic animals are being moved and cared for,

 my heart hurts for all the wild animals who call this ravaged countryside home...

And there.........when I thought of the start of a new round of ABC Wednesday,

 and the letter A, 

ANXIETY immediately sprang into my mind...

However, anxiety is furthest from my mind

when I consider this new round of ABC Wednesday

so ably and generously undertaken

by Melody and her helpers.

Here, you will find other "A"s