Planning the Garden

 A friend asked me today what my plans are for the vegetable garden this year. I suspect she probably meant it as a distraction from my sorrow over Brio. I've been trying to reconcile myself to not having him here, but it's hard. He was so entwined with everything I did! I can't open a can, slice cheese, put on my shoes to go out, come back indoors, go upstairs...without expecting him to appear, to stand on his hind legs trying to see on the counter, to come running at the sound of the can opener, to curl up against the backs of my knees on the bed. I sit on the couch and have nowhere to put my hand, because it always used to rest on his head.

Anyway, I grabbed hold of my friend's question as a gentle reminder that life does indeed have to go on. And here is my list of what I'm planting this year: various tomatoes, three kinds of cucumbers, zucchini, kale, lettuce, spinach, onions, sweet potatoes, Shishito peppers, basil, parsley, garlic, and chia (and raspberries, strawberries, and rhubarb). Every year I also like to try new things, and this year there are three: black lentils ordered from Nova Scotia, Delicata squash, which is sort of like butternut, and Good King Henry, which is a perennial green.

I'm planning to build some frames to fit over my raised beds to make it easier to toss insect netting or shade cloth over them. I anticipate this summer will be extremely hot, which seems to be the norm, so shade will probably be necessary.

The End of an Era -- Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you're familiar with my dog Brio. He's been a faithful companion, a cheerful and loving presence, in our lives for 13 1/2 years. Recently his health started to decline, especially the last two weeks, and today he wasn't able to eat or drink at all. He was trembling and wobbly and in obvious distress.

I phoned our lovely vet (also a family friend and fellow bagpiper) at home, and she very kindly met us at the closed clinic (on the Sunday of a long weekend). Brio was in full heart failure, and the end was inevitable, so we asked her to help him go. It was very gentle and quick, and I held him in my arms as it happened. Stroking that soft little heart-shaped spot on his head. Whispering praise and reassurance in his ear. Feeling his panting and trembling ease and his head grow heavy in my palm. A quiet release from suffering, and now I've lost two best friends in the past year.

Thank you, Brio, for your steady devotion and the joy you have brought my family. I'm sure Sheri will happily take care of you on the other side until I join you.

On Beth Brower and Immersing Oneself in Words

My mother sent me a Christmas gift of the first two in a series of eight novels, The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, and I'm so glad she did! I'm afraid Richard Osman will have to take a step back -- Beth Brower is my new favourite author. I broke two of my self-imposed rules and ordered the volumes 3-5 off Amazon (the first rule being to only buy secondhand books and the second rule being to boycott Amazon, which I've successfully done for over a year). But Amazon was apparently the only option to acquire these books, and I couldn't stand the thought of not continuing with the series. And Amazon would deliver to the church, where I was staying for five weeks, ostensibly on a writing retreat. An internal struggle ensued, a dose of guilt, a load of rationalization. Could I justify buying them off Amazon after forcing my family to do without American-grown sweet potatoes for Christmas dinner? Wasn't I the person who did without celery for months until I could grow my own, because no Canadian celery was to be had?

I threw caution to the wind and placed the order.

I gobbled vols 3-5 in just a few days, and then broke the rules again ordering the final three volumes in the series, because, well...Because. Adrenalin up, I manically read 7 other books while waiting for them to arrive, including Hazel Prior's excellent Penguins and Veronica series, lent by a friend. As soon as the last three Brower books arrived, I abandoned everything else I was supposed to be doing, including cooking, walking, writing, cleaning, and sleeping, and dove in again. This morning I've finished volume 8. I'm saturated with lovely words.

When you find a character with a humorous voice, carefully crafted development, fiery personality, and poetic phrasing, you start to think of them as real. You want them to be real. I expect to look up from my book and see Emma dancing past the doorway. I'm genuinely sad I won't be able to meet Islington face to face.

I feel my own language use is sadly lacking, now, and need to up my game...er, improve my articulation. 😁 My writing plods from A to B in predictable, efficient ways. Beth Brower sings.

Haiku for a Winter's Night

 1.

Night's peaceful duet

owls playing the recorder

gently in the dark.

2. 

Cloud's smudge residue

random scattershot of stars

missed the target moon.

Snow Storm!

Twenty-eight inches of snow so far in one day, and more coming. The city plows can't keep up and the side roads aren't getting cleared. My husband reports he can't get out our back door.

Meanwhile, I'm hunkered down at the church we're renovating, eating peanut butter cookies and reading a novel, because we only got 3-4 inches of snow here and it was no bother clearing it. Possibly a twinge of guilt I'm not there to help out...

My husband sent me this photo. He took it 30 minutes AFTER having cleared the car and driveway.

This is out the back door.

Wisdom from Sue Bender's Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish

A line jumped out at me as I was reading Sue Bender's book this morning: "...I didn't have to choose between one part of me over another..."

That's a simple statement, but it hit me particularly hard. I realized I've been puzzling over how to reconcile different aspects of myself. I'm an introvert, but I want to serve and be helpful to others. I'm a writer who often doesn't feel like writing. I love playing games with my kids and grandkids, and I also love solitude. I'm a gardener and sometimes I'm tired of gardening. I'm a conservative religiously and a raging liberal politically. I've written before how I'm always torn, wanting to be at home when I'm at the church, and wanting to be at the church when I'm at home. I crave adventure, and I love curling up with a book and not moving for two days.

I can be all of those contradictions. I don't have to choose. My galloping mind can exist in a silently meditating body, both working together and existing simultaneously. Each serving a function. When I'm at home, I can be content at home, and when I'm at the church, I can be content at the church. I can be a traveler and a homebody. I can be every aspect of myself, abiding together.

Somehow that idea seems both ridiculously profound and startlingly simple. Could peace of mind be as basic as self-acceptance? Is "being in the moment" really just enjoying what and who I am at that moment?

Snowed In

It snowed for the past 30 hours or so, finally stopping late last night. We had high winds with it, so we have the phenomenon of three feet of snow on one side of the building and bare grass on the other. I kept venturing out to shovel periodically, brushing the snow off the windows, tunnelling out to the yard so Brio would have a place to go. A kind neighbour cleared my driveway mid-day with his plow, and I've been trying to keep on top of the snow ever since so he won't have to come dig me out again.

The snow is light and fluffy, sticking to everything, caking my boots. It's so cold it instantly freezes to whatever it touches. The light turns it into a glittering fondant rounding out everything.

I love this sort of weather. There's nowhere I have to go, I have a stack of books and puzzles, and the kitchen is well stocked. Today's tasks are checking how much propane I have left and trying to shovel the snow out of the back stairwell, so that when it all eventually melts, we don't end up with a minor flood. Fortunately I have my fancy-dancy flood door installed.

Hazel Prior's Penguin and Veronica books. Homemade pizza. Hot cake with black currant yogurt on top. Brio curled beside me. Hurdy-gurdy music playing on the laptop. What Sue Bender calls "splendid isolation." It doesn't get better than this.