Monday, May 20, 2019

Women Friends


This is how I grow a tree in unfenced space on Gabriola. It’s my new Paulownia in a cage of lath and wire (with extra screen because Fawns have thin noses) that I stabilized by hanging a pot containing a heavy rock inside. It's about 1.3 metres and easy to remove when I want to mow the lawn. With any luck, the tree will be over the top of the fence by September.
The weather for Sunday morning’s dog walk was perfect. 
Right now everything is stunningly green. We were on trails, wide as narrow roads, densely covered in grasses of varying colours. There was no visible trail. And every leaf is perfect; there are no dry ones. Everything looks magnificent in Springtime. 
Last Spring, in fact during my entire first year here. When I was walking then, I was thinking about my illness, my renovations and projects and not seeing all that I am seeing now. And the smells are so, so powerful and sweet. 
I got an email from Margy just before I left for the walk. She wants to go for coffee. And a lovely dog walker whose name I don’t know (but whom I admire due to her tales of life in Yukon), put her arm around me as we were walking. And when I was driving home, just over a block from my house I passed an elderly woman in a large, flimsy white sun hat and lovely golden blouse. She looked up and gave me a radiant smile and a hearty wave—not a gentle little movement, but a truly welcoming gesture. I arrived home feeling really pretty good about myself, thanks to these Gabriola angels.
In the afternoon, I did not work on the gardens after all. Instead, I cleaned all the peeling paint off my back deck. It was looking really shoddy. The previous owner painted the deck brown but the wood is treated and so the paint did not adhere. I cleaned off a bucket-full of dried shards of paint.
Today it’s cloudy. I’ve shopping and baking to do. Annabel comes tomorrow for an afternoon visit, and on Wednesday night I have three guests for dinner—all women and former professional actors.
















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