The cicadas sing their doppler song of midsummer. We are dry as long-dead bones pressed into rock and exposed to a thousand years of sun. Grass is brown, frogs huddle under leaves in watered gardens to protect their skins from shriveling. You can hear wood and metal expand in the 10 am heat. The sky […]
What a rich world we are in here. I’m surrounded by colour and flavour and scent, birdsong, squirrel screeching and leaves describing the breeze. Internally too – three new large creative projects on the go – fabric art, an installation/ performance art piece on the value, history and beauty of hand tools, and a new […]
…trees like green walls out every window, on every floor. This happened suddenly, when the ash leaves opened – about 3 weeks ago. Now the air tastes still and green and humid-heavy, builds in a dark blustering crash to thundering rain on our metal roof, then abates and burns with full sun again. Even the […]
six am & bright outside, as we approach midsummer. It is beautiful, yes. There are birds, yes. I will garden this morning, yes. But not now, damnit. I am distracted by a nagging, irritating thorn that will burrow in deeper unless I pluck it out. Immediately. As of this past Thursday when my job was […]
Every year my family plants well over 100 trees – some at our farm (we’re reclaiming a field that was cleared for haying many many years ago), more at Mom and Dad’s property north of Annan, more at our house in Kemble. It’s a grand feeling, to pick up these wee treasures at the Grey […]
I Love it! Here’s my friend Lynda’s picture of 1.5 feet of wet snow in Chatsworth, where they cancelled the school buses this morning. That’s 15 miles from here. One of the reasons we all live here is that WE NEVER KNOW WHAT’S COMING! And we’re better for it. Life is NEVER dull.
It’s as good a time as any for reflection. 6am, still dark outside in the northern hemisphere. I sit at the downstairs table beside a pinging wood stove. It’s beaming heat onto the cat, who’s a puddle of contentment. We began this house project in 2006 with the enthusiasm and energy of young saplings reaching […]
As a child I was terrified of snakes. Now I love them. The other side of the same fascination perhaps? We live right beside an old quarry, which garter snakes love. Last weekend though, this lady graced us with her presence. she may have come to hunt garters, or mice, which we have in abundance. […]
she docked beside our building all winter last year- I shot these then. every time I passed her I sensed immense strength, impossible age, and exhaustion. Turns out the sailors call her the ‘salt-pig’. She’s the oldest ship in the fleet, and she’s being eaten from the inside out by the road salt she’s carried […]