Today is my favorite day of the year: summer solstice, marking also the longest day of the year. I made the usual trip out to the garden to weed and water our growing plants and began to think of creating a faerie tree, more on that in a bit. I went out to market, got …
My relief comes from going cold turkey on the game I was playing on and off for years. While I miss it, it was exhausting me because it was yet another thing I volunteered to do (lead a team), but real-life factored in and I just don’t have the time or energy for it anymore. …
It is almost May, and Nova Scotia is still under the tug-of-war auspices of spring. Our first daffodils, crow’s foot, and forsythia have arisen from the cold ground, which shows just how hearty they are. I’ve begun germinating some of the earliest plants: tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers and will start a few more this coming …
Spring comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb. This is so very true on the coast of Nova Scotia. We flit from snow storms to bright days of sunshine where no jacket is needed to thunderstorms and remnants of high winds and the cool sounds of birds. I’ve been keeping the front …
I’ve shelved Up the River for now because I feel that the 2nd part of my Wild Mountain series should come first. The 1st part, Back to the Garden, got some good reviews and is still being mentioned in academic studies and books that talk about fiction that addresses climate change. I think that a …
I haven’t done one of these surveys in a long time. Some background: After Dad died, some of the women in my family and I drew closer than we usually are. At that time and now, we all lived far apart, ranging from Los Angeles, the Chicago area, Vancouver, and central Indiana. For about 2-3 …
There’s no one magic moment in life that turns everything around–that makes everything 100% good. But today the inauguration of the 46th president and vice-president of the United States makes great strides toward light, hope, and good. Today decries the past four years of hatred and discrimination, of lies and promotion of cult groups who …
I normally don’t care much for Christmas presents, but this year, yesterday, I got a guitar. And it meant everything to me because I had to leave my old one back in Vancouver–and it wasn’t even that I played it much back then, just occasionally jammed on it and wished I could play better. We …
We got a big snow dump last night, the same storm that moved over the northeastern US. It was quite beautiful. I went out and shoveled our walk around 9:00 pm, then again, with Morgan at 2:00 am or so. After that it stopped snowing, and this morning, though still below freezing, our walk was …
Maybe I’m just getting older, but my life swirls around the seasons. In summer, we were outside on our property more often, planting and watering new trees, planting vegetables in our garden, mulching, weeding, and watching all the deer, birds, butterflies, and other wildlife foraging in the yard. In fall, we harvested and canned things, …