Tag Archives: snow

YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE

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You Light Up My Life

I am so porous to the prevailing moods around me. It is not an advantage. I am one of those people who can feel your pain. It is not a good thing. I’m feeling a little under the weather, mood wise. It is, of course, a very cloudy day. If not for the snow, my world would be very dark. Therefore, I do love the white stuff. It lights up my life.

The Covid-19 numbers in Saskatchewan today are 4 deaths and 235 new cases. I am still tracking the numbers. I should stop but it is better to be informed. It is depressing and difficult to understand why we aren’t all compliant with what we need to do. Why are some so defiant about wearing masks and having large gatherings? Why do some still believe it’s not real? I guess the answers are blown in the wind. I best get on with what I can do and not sink deeper into the rabbit hole.

Talking about rabbits, I met up with one on my walk. It was all white except for the tips of his ears. I’m sure if Sheba was still here, she’ll be lunging and straining on her leash. I have her to thank for my daily walks. It’s hard to give them up after 14 years. My body knows when it is time to get up and get walking. Sheba is with me in spirit. We go down the streets and alleys as before. And it is all good – for my body and spirit. Being out in nature, even if it’s in the city, is something good I can do for myself.

Gardening is another good thing I can do. I know it is almost December but spring in the greenhouse won’t be that far away. I’m excited to get seeds ordered,organized and started. We had the greenhouse built in record time. It’s hard waiting. Here’s the guy’s video of its construction to take me out of here. The greenhouse is a very good thing.

COME SATURDAY SNOW

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Come Saturday Snow

I’m looking forward to have a rest day tomorrow. I’ve had a full but good day. The prediction of a snow storm for the weekend was correct. I’m feeling the storm within. I’m feeling Caroline Myss’s statement of what is in one is in the whole. What’s in the universe is in me. It is a heavy feeling. I hope it passes soon.

I was happy to get my Saturday morning swim back. All the better that it is an hour later than the pre Covid time of 8 am. It wasn’t exactly a crowd but there were 4 more bodies than my previous pool all to myself. It is rather sad that it took a pandemic to make people stay home and not go south of the border. We have plenty of good stuff to enjoy. Too bad for me though. I lost my own private winter pool. But it was good for me to share and to swim a little faster. Some people are nervous. I could feel their frenzy in the water. I was happy enough to step out after doing 18 lengths.

The snow started coming down heavier in the afternoon. I was glad to get to the library after my swim. Two of my reserved books have arrived – Brave New Medicine and The Art of Fermentation. Both have very good reviews. I love Michael Pollan’s forward in the latter. He describes fermentos as a most interesting, eccentric and generous bunch. I like to think of myself belonging to such a group. To date, my fermentation adventure includes making sourdough bread and pancakes, yogurt, kimchi, kombucha and fermenting beans and Jerusalem artichoke. It is very rewarding. The book promises more.

Looks like winter and snow is going to stay. I don’t really mind. The snow makes everything look clean and lightens up the darker mornings and earlier evenings. We got our greenhouse finished just in time. It’s a good thing I rescued the little onions from the garden yesterday. It’s something already a little green I can plant in the greenhouse. Today I thought of the geranium and some succulents that can tolerant some cold. And I seeded some radish. The passive solar greenhouse is a total new thing to us. It is fun to experiment to see what can and cannot be done. What I could lose are a few seeds and plants. I will gain much fun and knowledge. It will all fill my spirit.

DAY 20 UBC – THIS DAILY THING

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This Daily Thing

Sometimes I wonder why I dabble in so many things. It keeps me going and going. Not too many idle moments do I have. But I did take 30 minutes this afternoon for a good soak in the tub. It took the chill out of my bones. The snow caught me by surprise. It was in the forecast but who pays attention, eh? Not me evidently. But I must have felt it because I worked like the dickens to get the garlic in yesterday. I felt like the Energy Bunny. Then I raked the leaves out front to mulch them and my perennial beds.

I was surprised to wake at 4:30am and unable to get back to sleep. I had lots of exercise and fresh air. I should have slept around the clock . Oh well, it was dark so it was nice to snuggle in. What a surprise to get up at 6 and find the snow. I was and wasn’t surprised really. I’ve always been a weather vane, feeling every little and big change. I’ve been trying not to use/blame the weather for all my missteps and moods. But it does make affect me. I think it’s better for me not to discount it.

I’m feeling a little chaotic. My dining table and my desk are getting cluttered again. Is that really a problem? My day has been busy. I worked on my black out curtains this morning. The half is half done. 60 inch panels requires a bit of sewing. It is also tiring. I’ve harvested my 2 beds of greens in the afternoon. They’ve been brave and weathered the cold for awhile. I can’t ask them to hang on further. So they are taken off. They’re be good in soups. I can’t waste. You can call me the No Waste Queen. Good fresh veggies will be hard to come by in a few months. I hope our Long Keep Tomatoes will last us till Christmas at least.

I feel like I’m nattering on and on about nothing. Only 11 more days to the Challenge left. Surely I can hang on till the end now. I am so close.

BAKING BREAD, SNOW AND MY TOMATOES

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It is almost 4 in the afternoon. Cloudy and rainy. Not inviting weather for a walk. I shall forego it if Sheba does not kick up a fuss. She is slowing down, her right hip giving her grief at times. She is always up when I mention ‘walk’. But today might be a good day to play hooky. She had her morning walk. We’ve both earned a day off.

Conversations are much easier to start in the morning but I had bread making on the start. Somehow it is always most the day affair. The day is almost gone but I have 6 golden loaves, minus the slices we ate, bagged and in the freezer. The pans are all washed, dried and put away. I haven’t always been this organized and orderly. I’ve learned it pays to be so. I’m trying to apply that principle to everything that I do.

The snow is coming down now after the rain. It melts as it hits the ground. It’s a cool 2 degrees Celsius. I wonder at my wisdom of planting some of my tomatoes. It’s going to be -2 Celsius tonight, -4 for the next 2 nights. The nights won’t get above 0 till Wednesday. I hope they will be okay under the covers. It will be an interesting experiment. And why not? Everything is so uncertain this year. Who knows what the summer will be like. I can dare a little, stretching our growing season a little. Maybe I’ll get a bunch of early tomatoes.

I won’t try  to stretch this post any longer. My mind is scattered. And I don’t have much more to say. Sheba is restless and pacing back and forth. I think she wants me to go watch TV with her.

LET NOTHING DISTURB YOU

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Winter came in October this year. The snow fell. The temperature dropped. There was nothing I could do about it except sit back and enjoy all that it brings. The world is in repose. There’s no need to hurry and fuss. Nature rests and so must we.

The snow lights up the dark mornings and evenings. It covers the ground in holy whiteness. No need to wipe the dirt off Sheba’s paws. She can roll and dig in the snow to her hearts content. I feel a peace grow inside as I gaze at my surrounding architecture. Love is here. Serenity is here. I hear the words of St. Teresa of Avila.

“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”

WHO I AM – Day 75 in a year of…

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Day 75, October 5, 2016 @1:14 pm

img_4891Lunch is over.  The dishes not quite put away.  I always feel overcome after lunch, unable to think or do anything.  So I come here to my space with my cup of tea to muse and tap on the keyboard.  I feel comforted and not so melancholy, surrounded by light from windows.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I am not unhappy or sad.  I am not in any dire straits. I am a muse.  I am by nature whimsical, sometimes melancholic.  I sigh, heave my chest, sip and tap.  That is how I am.  I poke along at a snail’s pace.  By chance I am reading a book about Patricia Highsmith who raises snails.  She takes them in her purse with some lettuce to events. The book, The Crime Writer, is a novel.  But Highsmith and snippets about her and her life are real.

Highsmith loved cats, and she bred about three hundred snails in her garden at home in Suffolk, England.[17] Highsmith once attended a London cocktail party with a “gigantic handbag” that “contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails” which she said were her “companions for the evening”.[17]   – from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Highsmith

img_7928I hope I’m not like Highsmith, though I have been called eccentric.  But I am meandering, straying.  Blame it on the weather.  Blame it on the snow.  It is only October the 5th.  It is snowing and still snowing.  I am prepared if not quite ready for it.  I am not fighting it.  It is a good day to sip tea, have a cookie or two, muse, read about snails……

What are you doing today?  Is it snowing where you are?

SOMEONE LEFT THE CAKE IN THE RAIN

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IMG_0558Someone must have pushed the replay button on the remote because we are getting the same scenario as yesterday.  Yes, it is snowing again.  I don’t know why but Richard Harris and strains of McArthur’s Park is playing in my head.

MacArthur’s Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain

I don’t think that I can take it
‘Cause it took so long to bake it
And I’ll never have that recipe again, oh noooooo

IMG_0559I feel like that cake melting in the rain. Little inconsequential things are like torches  under my skin.  My icing is melting.  I have to breathe to cool the flames.  They are spluttering in the wind and rain.  Ahhh!  They are out and I am saved.  I have found the recipe.   Wonder Woman faces another day.

ON THE WINGS OF MY HABITS

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IMG_5779This morning I woke to snow again.  I asked my Sheba if there’s a reason for me to get out of bed.  She licked my face and said, ‘Come on! Play with me!’   So how can I say no?  I got out of bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth and fixed my bed head.

I put the kettle on and went downstairs to turn on the grow light for my seedlings.  It’s all routine now, part of my repertoire.  The water is boiled.  I fix my lemon water with a tad of honey.  I take my medications.  I stretch this way and that way, warming up for my qigong routine.  Soon my languidness and what’s there to get up for attitude are gone.  And I’m into my day.

Snow continues to fall in soft fluffy flakes into the afternoon.  That’s how it is IMG_0558sometimes.  Into your life some snow must fall.  I get my cup of tea and wrap myself in my Hudson’s Bay blanket. What a good time to read a bit of Joan Hammersmith’s The Raw Bold Truth.  I’m ready to read it now, though I am not quite ready to face all my own raw truth.  Some day, some day I will.

I made plans to take my mother out for coffee in the afternoon.  I have my tax return to mail and a prescription to pick up.  It will be good for both of us to get out.  I have some of my best times with my mother. She is the wisest and strongest woman that I know.  I am lucky to be her daughter.

Days can start out on a dreary note.  But we can choose how it can go.  My day has been great.  I am glad that I have developed habits that have enabled me to fly despite the inclement weather.  How has your day gone?

TRYIN’, CRYIN’ TIMES

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IMG_0529I woke up this morning to be greeted by more snow.  This was after a day of rain all day on Wednesday.  Thursday morning, we discovered large amount of water had leaked in around the skylight in the garage.  So a quick call was sent to the roofer’s.  The trouble had started since the roof was re-shingled.

Then coming home yesterday afternoon, we see that there are large water muddles in our back alley – a problem we had the city fixed two years ago.  It is a bit disheartening to see we got our problem back.  Nothing to do but write the city again and send more pictures.  If only the neighbours IMG_0527could have done the same instead of digging a ditch to divert their puddles.

I could just cry but it would just add to the puddles.  Instead, I check on my bedding plants.  I turn on the grow light and bask in its brightness.  I see that the peppers, leeks and tomatoes are coming along fabulously.  If you look very carefully, you can see the celeriac are germinating.  There is one lone geranium, lost among them.  I will have a garden and spring and summer will come.  The leak and puddles will be gone.  I have faith and believe in the divine.