A Story - "At the Root of It All" and Walking on the Hill

 "I tried the mindfulness exercise you gave me last week," Dana shared with the therapist.

"How did that go?"

"After a few minutes, I felt more relaxed, but then reality hit again. I don't think zoning out periodically throughout the day is going to be much help."

"But you've only started. Give it time."

Dana gave the therapist a long look.  "I don't see how it is going to help my underlying anxiety. I'm worried about getting sick, I'm worried about losing my job, I'm worried about dying."

"You're a healthy young woman. You'll be fine. You're smart and organized. I'm sure you are valued at your workplace."

"That's a lot of denial. My aunt died of cancer when she was 40.  She used to run marathons. My dad was a senior executive and lost his job when the company restructured. He never found another executive position.  And guess what, my best friend died in a car accident."

The therapist wasn't quite sure what to say. She didn't have any sure answers.

"You want me to pretend that nothing bad will happen to me," Dana said, "but bad things happen to regular people all the time.  Life doesn't offer any guarantees. How can I not be anxious?"

"Well, the odds are you'll be fine."

"Somebody always wins the lottery, " Dana replied impatiently.

Back at her house, Dana felt another wave of panic smash through her. If her therapist had no answers, who did?

She got out her journal and made a list of her fears. Beside each one, she wrote out what she believed to be a deeper fear related to it.  She realized her fear of getting sick was based on a fear of pain, a fear of abandonment and ultimately a fear of death.  As she continued through her list, she began to realize that all the fears, in the end, lead to a fear of death.  So, she thought, I really only have one fear.  It was a big one. How could you not fear death? And yet, she knew some people who didn't fear death.

A new goal emerged.  She wouldn't try to stifle the myriad of fears that assailed her.  She would look death straight in the face and she would find a way to come to terms with it.

At the back of our house. the land drops off significantly. My son cleared a path through the scrubby bush a few years ago to make a walking path down the hill. It is about 300-400' long so not that long but because it is fairly steep it is a good way to get exercise.  In the middle is a short flat area where I usually take a little break. In the distance, you get a view of the bay.

Closer to the house, the land goes up sharply again. I really like all the moss that is starting to cover the ground.

When the sun shines on it, the moss is quite the electric green.  Because the topsoil is quite shallow in this area, big hardwoods like maples, birch and hickory aren't able to grow here. Unlike our old home where we had lots of native spring bulbs like trilliums, dog-tooth violets and Jack-in-the-pulpit, this spot isn't able to support those plants. 

Moss, rocks, and dried leaves make a pleasant combination.

A Story - "Muddy Waters " and Cedar Planter

A Story

Muddy Waters

When Laura's mother died, Laura had mixed emotions.  She felt she had lost her mother years before as dementia and frailty had taken over. There was something else as well. Her inheritance. 

 For quite a long time, Laura had been frustrated and annoyed at her husband. He didn't like to communicate, he didn't like to travel, he spent most Sundays watching sports.  Videos online said she deserved better. Why be miserable for her years of retirement? Her inheritance would give her the financial independence she needed to leave Lazy Len.

"Len, I'm not happy," she began. "I think I'll move into Mom's house."

"You want a divorce?" he answered sharply, more alert than usual.

"Well, a separation, I guess to start with."

Len studied her.

"You have been mopey lately.  Maybe time away would make you feel better."

That was it? He didn't care if she left? After 40 years this was all she got?

The next day, she began the process of moving into her mother's house. It was exciting to be stepping out on her own. She couldn't wait to be queen of her house.  Len didn't comment on the move.

Living  in the new house was glorious.  Laura decorated it in her style.  None of Len's mess got in the way.  She invited friends over for dinner and served the wine that she enjoyed.  She imagined that Len was probably eating frozen entrees.

One of her friends invited her to travel to Portugal with her.  They had a blast driving to small towns and sampling the local food.

The next year, her friend suggested they go to Portugal for two months.  She readily agreed. This time, however, the weather was rainy and they were stuck in their apartment for much of the time.  Her friend had an annoying habit of humming and expected Laura to do the cooking. Her friend, out of boredom, started online gambling and pressured Laura to join in. When Laura refused, it made for an uncomfortable tension. She decided not to travel with her friend again.

Back home, she saw Len once in a while at family gatherings. He even showed up with a girlfriend at one of them.  She wondered where they had met. Online dating? Laura didn't think she could brave that quagmire, but she wouldn't have minded finding someone. But looking around, no one seemed at all appealing. Where were the men that women like her deserved? She noticed her single friends weren't having much success either.

One morning, about three years after moving out, Laura lay in her bed and listened to the silence. It wasn't a peaceful silence, it was oppressive. She remembered how Len used to clang around in the kitchen making his breakfast and how the noise had bothered her. Now she missed it. Not that particular noise, but the noise that someone else living in the house makes. Had she made a mistake by moving out? Len wasn't a terrible person, just annoying and sometimes inconsiderate. She thought about what it would be like as she grew old. Lots of silence. Some people liked silence but she wondered if that was really what she wanted.

Living on her own had been refreshing at first, but now she wasn't so sure that she was any happier than when she lived with Len. 

When her daughter called to ask if Laura could stay with Len for a while after his hip surgery, she actually smiled.  She would test the waters.

My daughter gave me this cedar planter made by Cedarcraft, which is a US company, but this particular planter is made in Canada. It's 48" long and 22" wide.

Super easy to put together as the sides just slide into the dovetail slots of the posts.  No tools required.  I put it together very quickly. The top of the posts have black plastic covers to protect the posts from the rain.

A cute watering spout with a little floral float to tell you when you've watered enough.

The bottom of the planter is two plastic trays, one on top of the other.  The top tray has lots of holes so that excess water will drain into the lower one.

I'm excited to plant in the planter as soon as it warms up which probably won't be before early May. I plan on putting in herbs, a couple of lettuce plants and a bean plant.  I have a rabbit that frequents our yard so it will be great to have a waist height planter that he (she) can't access.

A Story - "Comfort Food" and Lights like a Winter Garden

A Story

Comfort Food

Shelly packed her sports bag with her clothes and taped up her memory box. Her mother had already filled some boxes with their other possessions. They travelled light. It was too much work to deal with more than the essentials.

Later that afternoon, they stepped into their new apartment.  Hardly new, though.  The floor was cracked, scratched parquet. The kitchen cupboards were flimsy cheap wood with crooked hinges. In the bathroom, the bath was pink but the toilet was white, the sink cream coloured.  Shelly would be sharing the bedroom with her mom. Two single beds filled the space with barely room for the rack they hung their clothes on.

At school the next day, Shelly tried to blend into her desk, but at the first lunch hour one of the girls, who had a gaggle of friends around her, came up to her and laughed at her cheap clothes and well-worn lunch bag. It was going to be a miserable year just like the one before.

On her way home from school, she stopped at the corner store and bought a couple of chocolate bars and a bag of barbecue chips. That was all she could afford.

Curled up on her bed waiting for her mother to come home from work, Shelly slowly ate her chocolate bars, savouring the sweetness and the smoothness as they melted in her mouth. A feeling of warmth crept over her like a hug. She licked her fingers and popped open the bag of chips. Salty and spicy the chips crunched as she bit into them. She crushed them like she wanted to crush the bully girls at school.

After she finished the chips, she flattened out the chocolate bar wrappers and the chip bag and put them at the bottom of her memory box. Letters from her best friends.

The sparkling lights of the town across the bay are like flowers in a winter garden.  They are cheerful to see in the dark winter months.

 

 

A Story - "Prepared" and Perennials for Alkaline Soil - Phlox, Yarrow, Centaurea, Asters , Dianthus, Lilac

 A Story

Prepared

It all started with the Covid pandemic. Dan didn't just go down a rabbit hole.  He went down a mineshaft. The world became a scary, unpredictable place to him. The Youtubers that attracted him fueled his anxiety. Soon he was stocking up on food to feed them for five years.  He took most of his money out of the bank, just leaving enough to pay the regular bills.  After much nail-biting research, he decided to buy silver rather than gold. He built a secret storage space in the basement with a bookcase in front to disguise it and stored the silver in it.  His fear of dangerous substances in food made eating precarious and he began to lose significant weight.

His wife, Gloria, who didn't share his world view, felt him drifting away into his delusional world. He got angry when she questioned his decisions and finally she gave up trying to reason with him. He was sure something awful was about to happen.

Turns out Dan was right. One day when he was out buying more supplies, Gloria raided his silver cache and disappeared, ready to start a new life.

I am thinking about my new garden.  My old garden had clay soil on the acidic side which was good for lots of plants.  However, I didn't have many full sun locations.  In my new home, I will have lots of sun but the soil is on a limestone base so it will be alkali. I had originally wanted some roses but they like rich acidic soil which is not  what I have here.  However, phlox should grow here so I will get a couple of them in the spring.

Yarrow will be perfectly happy in the poorer soil. It will be less likely to flop over because the garden will be in full sun and the soil is light so it will be on the dry side.

I ordered a couple of asters - one purple, one magenta.  They are very tough and are great pollinators late in the season.

Centaurea prefers alkaline soil and full sun so I'm hoping for a good show with that. Easy to grow and a hardy perennial.

Also on my list is dianthus. I ordered a short bushy type and I plan on starting some carnations. I gave up trying to grow dianthus at my old garden but perhaps they will do well here. I really like the cinnamon scent of carnations.

Lilacs do well almost anywhere that's sunny and where the soil isn't too rich. They prefer alkaline soil over acidic, but they can grow in either.  I already have a couple of nice bushes  on this property and judging by the dried seed pods, the bushes  bloomed well last year.  

It will be an adventure to begin a new garden. 

A Story -"The Surgery" and Snowdrops

A Story

The Surgery

Peter had been feeling more tired than usual and occasionally had some chest pain, but both he and Brenda were surprised when tests showed that he had serious plaque build-up in his heart.  They had been eating lots of vegetables and lean meat, and walked every day.  The cardiologist said that often the cholesterol problem had a genetic base. However, the doctor explained that the necessary bypass surgery was pretty routine these days and that after the recovery time of a few months, Peter would feel better than he had for a couple of years.

"At least we caught it before you had a heart attack," Brenda said trying to find a silver lining.

"We'll have to cancel our trip to Portugal," Peter replied.

Brenda suppressed a sigh. They had been saving up for a few years to go to Portugal and now the trip would have to be postponed. Realistically, they would have to wait a year to make sure Peter was fully recovered. She didn't relish the restricted life of the next several months.  It wouldn't just be missing out on the holiday.  She knew that life would be quiet and boring while he recuperated.  

The surgery was scheduled quickly and their days were filled with appointments. Peter was nervous, agitated, and irritable. Brenda wished he would be more positive so this pre-op time wouldn't be so stressful.  There would be plenty of real pain after the operation. Let him fuss and complain then.

The day of the surgery the surgeon spoke briefly with them, reassuring them with the confidence that came from thousands of successful procedures.  Peter relaxed, and even joked with Brenda. She gave him a big smile and kissed him firmly. 

"See you soon, sweetheart."

But lightning strikes without warning. Peter died on the operating table.

 Snowdrops are fairy flowers that come up extra early, even before all the snow has melted.  They tide us over until the bright purples, yellows and pinks of the other spring bloomers come along.

Snowdrops are planted in the fall.  They can tolerate shade as long as they get sun in the spring. They bloom reliably for years and will slowly naturalize making a nice big patch.  However, they are not invasive.  Some bulb fertilizer sprinkled around them after blooming and again in the fall will ensure the plants are healthy and robust.

A Story - "Fly on the Wall" - Ring-billed Seagull

 Fly on the Wall

It was the beginning of the new season of the neighbourhood social hour. Darker days and damp chilly weather were pushing people inside. About a dozen guests were either perched on stiff dining room chairs or sinking into oversized couches or slithering on a shiny leather lazy-boy.

The hostess offered an assortment of drinks for any taste: beer, wine, non-alcoholic beer, soft drinks, tea. Nibbles were picked up with tongs and nestled into azure-blue glass mini bowls. A couple of floor lamps cast a dim light over the living room. No one was in the spotlight.

A couple of extroverts carried the conversation as newcomers to the group tried to see where they might fit in . Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle first attempts to connect didn't always work. Alcohol helped to blur the awkwardness for some of the people.

A nondescript senior woman sipped her tea and studied the others, noticing slight tensions here and there, little bursts of friendliness, maneuverings to get some attention. She joined in when necessary but mostly she blended into the background.

It was interesting to be the fly on the wall. More fodder for her stories.

A ring-billed seagull in Lake Ontario catching some waves on a bright autumn day.

A Story - "Pick-axe Hard" - Red Leaves and Pickaxe for Loosening Hard Soil

A Story

Pick-axe Hard

"It had been a dry summer and the untended garden space had solidified into unyielding hardpan.  

Carol's mother, Margaret, lived overseas, far from family.  She stubbornly refused to move closer.

A regular shovel wasn't going to make much headway with the garden soil.  It called for serious action. A pick-axe would be needed.

 Margaret wandered around her house, dusting old photographs, rearranging decorative items bought years ago.

The pick-axe easily dug into the earth.  The heavy sharp point loosened the soil and any interfering rocks.  

The heart attack that landed Margaret in the hospital had come without warning. Painful and earthquaking.

The blade of the pick-axe dug a wider swath and prepared the flower bed for the spring bulbs.

After Margaret was stable, Carol made arrangements for her to come to her home.

In May, the daffodils sprouted and bloomed their cheerful yellow trumpets.

Margaret sat in a garden chair and couldn't help enjoying the daffodils. When her granddaughter came to visit, she drew her grandmother a picture of the daffodils with a heart above her signature.  Their relationship was blossoming."

 

When confronted with very hard soil, I usually use a pick-axe to loosen it up. Because a pick-axe is fairly heavy, I don't have to lift it much above the soil surface, only 8-10", for it to easily go into the soil. I start by digging with the sharp pointed end, and then continue with the blade end. I find it much easier than trying to dig the hard soil with a shovel or a garden fork.

A pick-axe is also great for grubbing out shrubs and small trees.  The blade is powerful enough to cut through the roots and then I can pull up the whole plant so it's less likely to reshoot. The pick-axe is not a fancy high tech or new tool but it is very useful.

I planted my daffodils and will be happy to see them next spring.

A Story- "The Page Turned" - April Posey , Chickadee at Feeder

The Page Turned

The story had been moving along in a fairly mundane manner. Minor difficult disturbances and small pleasant surprises dotted the pages.  The overall curve of the plot proceeded along predictably, and glimpses of foreshadowing hinted at the probable denouement. 

But life can be special. You meet your soulmate in the most unlikely place.  You suddenly have a wonderful job opportunity that you never imagined you could get. You travel to a place that you always dreamed of visiting.

Yesterday does not predict tomorrow.  In the blink of an eye, the page turned for me and new excitement and life came streaming in. A new home full of family.

 

Some sweet April flowers.

In order to enjoy the frilly snowdrops, primulas and blue scillas, I put them in a glass bowl.

The small winter birds are still coming to the feeder although they aren't eating as much.  This feeder is squirrel-proof. The pegs that the birds sit on are spring loaded and will close access to the seed if a squirrel gets on it. Sometimes the squirrels try to stretch from the top down but the tube is just a bit too long and they end up falling to the ground.  After a few unsuccessful attempts, they go back to picking up the dropped seed on the ground. 

We will only feed the birds for another week. Feeding them in the summer is unnecessary and can attract mice and other undesirables.  In fact, a raccoon has been coming the last few nights and taking the lid off the metal garbage can that stores the seeds. We have tried tying the lid on with bungee cords but that doesn't stop the raccoon one bit. Surprisingly, he (she) doesn't spill all the seed on the ground - quite tidy about snacking on the seeds.

Prose Poem Story

 In this time of lockdown, I am trying to keep busy with some things I can do at home. Recently I have been working on some short fiction. There are a number of sites that publish very short fiction but the one I have settled on for now is Friday Flash Fiction based in Edinburgh. It takes stories of 75-100 words. It does have a category for stories up to 500 words and for poems but I am concentrating on the 100 words stories. It's bit like writing poetry hence the title for this post. I am aiming for one a week as they publish every Friday. Here is one I submitted a little while ago.

"Country Living

Here was John’s chance to get out of the city. His boss was making distance work permanent.

 

John’s budget was limited but the small town had very affordable housing prices. He bought a quaint older house and moved in.

 

All summer he fished in the nearby crystal clear lake. At night, the stars were spectacular. Every day he heard beautiful new bird songs. He even once saw a bear. He made new friends and hosted relaxing beer-infused barbecues. It was fantastic.

 

On October  15^th winter began with ten inches of snow. John sold his house on November  30^th."

I had commenters from Australia who totally didn't get it but I think anyone from a northern clime will have met a John or two.

I hope you are finding ways to keep busy at home.  

Keep well.

Merry Christmas

 The Light of the World

Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light. John 3:19 NIV

Afghan squares

I've started knitting some squares to put together as a patchwork afghan.  Each colour will have a different stitch pattern. I'm enjoying doing the 6" squares rather than knitting the afghan in one piece. Each square seems like a completed project in and of itself. I'm learning new stitch patterns as well and that's interesting. When I'm knitting with a particular recipient in mind, as I am in this case, the added pleasure is that I think of them every time I work on the project.

Mystery

Life is full of mysteries. How does a little brown seed transform into a large green plant? Why are all the galaxies so different from each other? How do bumblebees stay up in the air? So many mysteries all around us.  But here is a question which rattles around my brain: Why do some people hear the call of God’s love and embrace it, and others don’t? It truly is a mystery to me.

Blue Hills Of Sorrow

Blue Hills of Sorrow

Between the yielding inviting sand
And soft fresh clouds and sky,
Lie
The blue hills of sorrow
That launched one-way boats
Made of lumber cut by men
Whose lives were felled, too.
Hills
In whose depths, men and women and children
Picked and dragged relentless loads
Of darkness.

Blue hills of sorrow not forgotten.

Off To The Races

 Inverness has a harness racing track just on the edge of town.  My sister knows somebody who is involved with one of the horses so on race day we decided to go see the ponies.  I know next to nothing about harness racing other than they drive Standardbred horses and some races feature "pacers" and some "trotters", but I thought it would be more fun if we tried to assess the horses and put some money down. 

We bought a program that listed the nine races and which horses were running.  That seemed simple enough, but wait a minute what was all this on the other pages...

all kinds of statistics, and breeding history, and other inscrutable information. We were, after all, just at the Inverness (population 1,500) racetrack.  I had sorely underestimated how seriously the local people were involved with the horses.  We decided that given our ignorance, our best chance of picking a winner would simply be to watch them warm up. We placed $2 bets for the top three spots in three races and managed to get the show (3rd place) right in a couple of races. That earned us $4.20 on our $18 investment.  The last race featured a horse called Seaside Lizzie, and because my sister's name is Elizabeth, we decided pick her as the winner even though her odds weren't great.  Well, she came through for us with a thrilling finish and we made a whopping $8 for our $2 bet. We also managed to pick the show for that race.  All told we were only down $10 for the afternoon. 

Some of the winners had their picture taken in front of the scoreboard.  I love the way it's a family affair -even the dog gets to be in the picture.
A little bit of info on harness racing.  Harness racing goes back to the end of the 1700's and the founding sire for Standardbreds was an English horse called Messenger.  The standard was being able to do a mile in 2 minutes and 30 seconds at a trot or pace.  Horses that could meet that standard were eligible to be registered as Standardbreds.  They are similar to Thoroughbreds that are used for regular flat racing, but they are a little heavier and less high strung. Standardbred horses sometimes have the ability to pace which means that instead of trotting with diagonal legs moving at the same time, the two legs on the same side move at the same time.   The races are set for either trotters or pacers as pacing is a slightly faster gait than trotting. Most Standardbreds are bays or dark brown, but they can be any colour.
Many small towns in Canada had a track similar to this one.  It used to be the only legal way to gamble.  Now even the large tracks are struggling to stay afloat as there are lots of other ways to gamble.

On To Cape Breton

 We drove an hour south-east of Charlottetown, and lined up to board the ferry to Nova Scotia.  The bow of the ferry lifts up, and then the cars and trucks, including transport trucks, slowly make their way into the lower deck. It's a bit claustrophobic, and I was glad to get out of the car and up to the upper deck.

We passed some lighthouses on our way out of the harbour.

 The opening in the sea wall seemed pretty narrow for the large ferry, but the pilot expertly did a 90 degree turn and put us exactly through the centre of the gap.

 A smaller ferry passed us going the other way. The weather was cloudy and misty, but fortunately the sea was calm. As it was, my stomach felt a little queasy if I went inside the boat.  I was OK on the outside deck.

 The never-ending painting that has to be done to keep the rust at bay.

 The approach to Nova Scotia was marked by a narrow path of buoys.  Again I was struck by the skill of the pilot.  We had to scramble down to our cars before the ferry docked so there was no opportunity to take pictures then.

 Another hour on the road and we came to the edge of Cape Breton.  The weather was intermittently rainy; we had left sunny PEI behind.

This is on the causeway that joins mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The dark hills were dark and broody at first encounter, but, as we drove further along up the coast, the landscape began to remind me a lot of the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal.

 We stopped at this welcoming gift store in Mabou, a small village up the west coast.  The owner gave us an exhaustive (and exhausting) run down of all the opportunities to hear local music.  Something happening every day. In October, a big Celtic musicfest happens, and people come from far and wide to participate in and enjoy the music.

 The view across the road from the gift shop.  By and large, the area is not prosperous, and the farms are often on hilly ground that probably doesn't have very good soil.

Finally we arrived at Inverness Centre for the Arts to meet up with my sister who is the manager of the centre.

 View  from her office.

 In the late afternoon, we made it to the Inverness beach that has very beautiful water in shades of dark turquoise, purple, teal blue, and green. 

North Rustico, PEI

 An old anchor in North Rustico on the north shore of PEI.  The name Rustico is an Anglicization of the French name Rassicot.  Some of the French Acadians came to PEI when the British kicked them out of Nova Scotia in the 1700s.

We decided to check out the gift shop.

 Lots of odds and ends, but nothing terribly interesting.  I ended up buying a few seashells.

 These potato gloves are kind of fun and practical, too.  They are made out of a  scratchy material so that when you rub the potatoes with your gloved hands, the dirt comes off.  But then you have to wash the gloves.  Hum, maybe it's easier to just scrub the potatoes with a brush.  PEI is well known for its potatoes, and I was expecting to see lots of potato fields.  I saw a few of them, but also lots of fields of corn and soya beans. Perhaps we were just in the wrong part of PEI, not in real potato country.

 A small lighthouse.

 An osprey, I think.

 A typical fishing boat.  It's hard to imagine that they take these boats out into the wide ocean to fish.  They look like they could so easily be swamped .  Brave men, those fishermen.  Some of the boats don't even have a wall at the stern because it's easier to haul in the nets with the open back.  Seriously scary.

I didn't know that we had tuna off the Canadian coast.

 Lobster traps are everywhere in the Maritimes.  The fisherman sell off their old ones to tourists, and get a little extra money that way.

 Ever since I was a Girl Guide, I've had an interest in knots.  Maybe that's why I like knitting.

 The supervisors.

A row of boats neatly tied up. Click for full photo.