Reading

From the time  I began reading, I loved to read novels. They allowed me to experience someone else's world, in time, place, and emotional conflict. My love of reading led me to study literature at university. But there - living my own "adventure" - I stopped reading novels! I found them too emotionally draining, as I got caught up in someone else's problems - even if they were fictional! Books and characters lingered too long in my mind. Movies had the same effect on me. I found it hard to live in two worlds at once, so I stopped watching movies as well.

Occasionally I'd read a memoir - a real story about real people, or so it would seem. (We all remember events a little differently.) No happy (or sad) endings guaranteed - just the ups and downs of normal life.

This summer I began to read the books of Jane Christmas, a contemporary Canadian writer, who tells interesting stories about some of her own adventures. I started with her latest book, And Then There Were Nuns. It tells of her fascination with convent life. She stays in several, starting with a convent in Toronto where I have stayed several times. I enjoyed it, so I next read her account of her second last book,about her Camino de Santiago walk in Spain. Humorous at times, full of struggles - it has a happy ending.

Now I have bought the first two books she wrote. The first, The Pelee Project, is an account of a three-month escape from the city. I can identify: I've often thought about doing that... The other is an account of traveling with her mother in Europe. I did that once, too.






Am I ready to escape my daily life and jump into a reading adventure? Do I have time to get involved - and begin to care about what happens to her?! I'm hesitating for the moment. I know I'll be so caught up that I won't want to put the story down. Is that how I want to spend these last few weeks of summer? Or should I wait for a cool, rainy fall day to take the leap and jump in?!

Home

We often wonder where all the rabbits in our neighborhood live. They appear to be solitary creatures - unlike squirrels who share large nests in trees.

This one often sits under our weeping cherry tree.


















Seeing him (or her) sitting so contentedly alone - as evening falls - reminds me that there's no place like home, no matter where that place might be!

Mid-August Gardening

Cool weather inspires  to get out and work in the garden. It was long overdue... but finally last week we had some cool - though rainy - weather.

Between showers I headed out to the flower bed in the side yard and began to smother out the creeping charlie and gout weed that was invading that flower bed - using newspaper held down with stones and bricks. Then I put mulch on top.










Not perfect - but it looks better!















(In my world, there is no such thing as a zero-maintenance garden!)

Needing Neighbors

I recently came across an online article - in Macleans Magazine - about our increasing isolation from the people who live around us. We need people - connections in our community - to live a long, healthy life, according to the article.

Do I live in a more isolated community now than I did when I was young? I wondered. I don't think so... Not if memory serves me right.

When I think about our street in Red Deer (where I lived from ages 7 to 12), I remember that we knew the neighbors next door and across the street. But none farther away. As kids, we knew families with children our age, whom we played with. Ditto for Kelowna in our De Hart Avenue home.


The same holds true today in the suburban community we live in now.

There may be fewer stay-at-home moms these days than there were in the 1950s and 1960s. But nowadays some of my neighbors have home offices. (They may feel lonely and disconnected!)
On our street, there are plenty of retirees who chat when they see each other. When my children were young and I was at home alone with them, these same retirees all went out to work. I remember feeling isolated, especially in winter.



I recall staring out the window one particularly cold, bleak day, knowing I was the only one at home on the street. Who would I call in an emergency?















Perhaps there is more isolation and less willingness to make an effort to meet neighbors in the downtown core of large cities. But I know that my daughter, in her downtown Toronto apartment, knows all the people in the three apartments in her building, even though they move in and out annually. And last winter, when a pipe froze and her building had no water for a day, she ventured next door with a bucket, and found a neighbor more than willing to give them water.

Perhaps it's a myth to believe that we were friendlier and more connected back in the day.

The only group of people I know who are truly isolated are the elderly who no longer get out of the house much. They no longer drive, so many sit indoors all day. I hardly ever saw one of my neighbors, after her husband died, because she rarely left her house. When her daughter insisted she move into an assisted-living apartment as she was no longer steady on her feet, she was angry. Her life is better now - she will admit. She has exercise classes to keep her walking, as well as other activities in her building. She doesn't have to cook - and at mealtime, she has people to talk to. But she still misses the home she lived in for 55 years - even though her quality of life there wasn't what it had been before.

Appreciating the Art at Richard Gilll's Studio

It's always interesting to see the art work artists surround themselves with.

When taking a workshop at Richard Gill's studio last week...













  



... I noticed a lot of interesting pottery hangings...


















... as well as other art (like this quilted runner).













Was most of the pottery done by him?










 

I didn't ask, but I assume it was.














In his kiln room, we saw some of the work he is preparing for his next collection, debuting in October.

Here is some of it - sitting in the kiln.

I think the theme is music. I hope to go to his opening and find out.

Pottery Workshop with Richard Gill

I wasn't planning to do any pottery this summer - but when I saw that Burnstown potter, Richard Gill, was offering two-day workshops in relief wall hangings, I decided to sign up for one. My art style is very "loose." (Which may be why I gravitate to doing the human face in pottery.)

Richard, a former architect, has a totally different style. Could I absorb some of it in a 2-day workshop?!












Our group of five started out by learning his technique, which involved working with one hand under a slab of clay, the other on top, forming the relief of the picture. Details and texture were added later. This is Richard's demo plaque.

Working from the same sketch, we all ended up with something slightly different. (Here is mine... in process.) Working with clay is always fun!















The second day, we each worked on a design of our own. I attempted to create a relief of the lighthouse at Peggy's Cove, which we visited earlier this summer.












 

We left our unfinished pieces drying in Richard's studio. In the next few weeks he will fire them and glaze them. When they are done, we will be able to pick them up. I can't wait to see how mine turn out!

Mid-August Flowers

Spring began later than usual this year - but little by little, the flowering of perennials in my garden has caught up.



A lot of flowers are currently in bloom - though the reddening of the fall Sedum (Autumn Joy) warns me that the end is nigh!

But for now, I still have some pink Echinacea cone flowers in bloom... and brown-eyed Susans beside them...








 

A few Heliopsis...

Golden Glow Rudbeckia (Outhouse plant)...

Tall Japanese windflowers (Anemone tosermentosa)...

Coreposis...













These late blooming day lilies...













Phlox...

A daisy or two...












These low-lying geraniums that have been flowering all summer long!














A few red roses (beside remnants of white phlox)...













Achillea - both pink and white - together with a sprinkling of red Knautia (seen in the left of the picture)...







 





And these lovely mauve flowers that bloom in late summer. (I don't know what they are called!)

In my attempts to control the gout weed in my front flower bed, I have accidentally smothered out the Golden Rod! But it grows like a weed - so I expect to see it back again before long!