Rain Shower!

What’s that noise, I wondered this morning at 5:30. It was a sprinkling of rain falling on my tin roof, and soon it turned into real rain. It’s something we needed, so I was happy—particularly because I could see blue sky in the west that suggested the day would not be a complete washout—and that’s good because yesterday was a write off.

I did absolutely no work on Sunday; the weather didn’t inspire me. Instead, I frittered away the day after the big dog walk. Keith, my neighbour, dropped by with some pot plants for me to grow and we wound up talking for quite a while.

The best part of the day was watching the Inspiration Awards (for Indigenous people) on the Aboriginal Network. I was weeping all the time and then euphoric watching Jeremy Dutcher. (I bought his album a while back without knowing he was Canadian or Aboriginal and I absolutely love it.)

I really hope Aboriginal people wind up controlling the new and morally compromised oil pipeline. What a great way to make the project more palatable for all of us.

Above are photos of some of the Salal leaves I’ve been collection with which I intend to make a decorative wreath. They’re not normal leaves; they have, I think, some kind of disease—perhaps a parasite—that produces the brilliant colour and almost celestial “starry” look.

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Today I hope to be back at work, weather permitting. After a day off, I’m keen to get back to work. I’ve a new incentive.

Virtually all my life I weighted 77 kilos. When my mental health collapsed, I started eating more sweets and my love of long distance walking abruptly ended. And then, since I moved here, I’ve been using sweets to reward myself for the endless work involved with improving the yard here. My weight ballooned to 90 kilos.

Well yesterday I noticed my stomach had shrunk; I’m down to 84 kilos! I’m really happy about that. And by the time I finish this work, I may be able to get my weight down to 80 kilos. 

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Six weeks today, my ex and his partner arrive to stay for five days. 

I’ve known he’s coming for months and I think about it every day. His impending visit has been a part of my every action this year. I am over-the-moon excited he’s coming.

I’m not in love with him. I’m not excited because I want him back or anything like that; He’s just very special to me. His family was my first experience with belonging. His sister and her husband are coming here too, when Steve’s here. We’re having a mini reunion.

Summer: The Season of Work

These gorgeous flowers were here when I moved in. I'll
add Poppies and Digitalis next year to create my meadow.

I spent Saturday morning considering the workshops I want to do to earn the money for my lawn making. I think I’ll do them in late summer when our island population swells to twice its winter size and before the Thanksgiving Art Tour and Festival.

My plan is to do four workshops in my studio for a maximum of twelve people. During any rainy days this summer, I’ll develop the lesson plans and check that all my technical equipment is working before choosing the dates and placing the ads. 

This is the bird netting on my Strawberries and Pine Berries.

   
I got the frames with which I’ll erect protective netting over my berries to keep the birds focused on the seeds, water, suet and nectar. I also got six blueberry plants; there are many pies in my future.

This is more Ocean Spray, this time in another part of my backyard. The naked
soil is the second section of weeding and tilling that I did.

Section three is going to take weeks! It has a huge surface area and the work is tiring because a lot of this section is thick and knotted roots in a thin layer of soil/Fir needles that covers the sandstone. After four hours of work, I’d done just a couple of square meters. 

For a change of pace, I moved some of my beets and planted the six new Blueberry plants I bought earlier in the day. And then I was done. I had a wonderful long, well earned spa.

Today I’ll be back at the yard work after Her Highness and I go on the big community dog walk. It’s cloudy, there’s been a very slight sprinkling of water and it’s coolish; it’s ideal weather for working. 

My Peas, and the Beans behind them, are doing well!

I normally get 100 – 150 page views per day on this blog, but every once in a while something happens. One example: Very suddenly I started getting between 2,000 - 2,500 hits per day. The surge came from Poland and I’ve no idea why. It lasted for months and then stopped.

Now I’m getting hundreds of views a day from Russia. But this time I know why. It’s because of this paragraph that ended a rant about abysmal political leadership:

What if there were two ballots for our elections—one for left leaning people and one for right and you can only have one? What if each side chose their leader and governments were jointly led and social policy had to be hammered out between them? That way, perhaps public discourse would be less objectionable and not posturing.

My lettuce is not only beautiful, it's delicious.

Section Three Underway

My swollen throbbing wrist!

I awoke to disappointments: It’s cloudy, so working in the yard is less fun for me. And last night something stung or bit me. My wrist is swollen; it both burns and itches. Sigh.

Ethel loves the sunshine by my desk.

I, like millions, am a devoted Joni Mitchell fan. 

I saw her once walking her dog with a friend and a cigarette on the beach in L.A. I desperately wanted to say something to her, but what, I wondered? All I could think of to say was something she’d probably heard a million times before and it was my need, not hers, that we speak. So I did nothing and it hurt to watch those brave enough to speak to her. She was gracious to each one of them.

This morning I came across this video on YouTube and I could not believe my luck. It’s Joni singing Coyote. And get this: She’s singing in Gordon Lightfoot’s home. They were there whilst part of the Rolling Thunder Revue, the Bob Dylan tour that involved various guest artists in each city it visited. Dylan and Roger McGuinn, front man of The Byrds, accompany Joni as she sings. 

This photo doesn't do justice to the beauty of
this Rose growing in my backyard.

Finally … Section three got well underway yesterday and it’s immensely satisfying to see how much better my yard looks—at least to my eye. In patches, up to three meters square, I rake away the moss and old Fir needles to find pristine construction gravel that’s four inches deep. I have to remove wheelbarrows full of it and thin that which remains with soil I steal from next door. There is precious little soil on my lot.

It’s clear that I’ll be buying soil mixed with fish manure to scatter over the areas I’ve exposed. It’s money I’d rather not spend, but it’ll better support the kind of lush lawn I want. A nice lawn will serve me well for the rest of my time here and it’ll add value of the house when I sell.

Sidebar: I’m considering doing 4 workshops in my studio for which I have lesson plans and support materials all prepared from when my book was hot. I’d put an ad in the local paper and hope to earn the money it takes for me to lay the backyard lawn. 

Today I’ll be back at it. I see some patches of blue sky.Rose

This is the Ocean Spray one one of my fences.

This is my second summer but it’s the first time I’ve seen the massive orgiastic bloom of Ocean Spray that is happening now on Gabriola.

Ocean Spray is a “weed” bush that grows large and abundantly here and this Spring must be the ideal, in terms of sunshine, rainfall and temperature, for the massive bloom that’s going on right now everywhere—everywhere!  It’s a magnificent show!

What I'm Doing

This is where I'm working now. I pull up the weeds and old Fir needles and
in a fairly large part of the yard, I find a deep layer of construction gravel.

This is what the soil looks like. I'm covering this with soil I steal from next
door and then another layer will go over that in the Fall before I seed.

Renewed

I’m a new man today! I’ve been a whirlwind of activity since rising, doing things I didn’t want to do yesterday. Soon I’ll go on the community dog walk and then I’ll come home to get started on section three of the backyard—the last section for this year.

I should be able to finish section three, depending on the weather, by the end of the month. That would be excellent because then I’ll be capable of management of my yard. Right now, with my “huge” landscaping project underway, I can hardly keep up with the demands of the vegetable garden. I cannot believe how much work it is. 

Come July and August, the watering will be far more manageable. I’ve learned a lot already and in those months I’ll be making some changes to what I grow.  

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The most highly awarded film to debut at Sundance  is a film called Honeyland. If concerns the struggle of the last female bee hunter in Europe. She must save the bees and return the natural balance in her homeland when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade and threaten her livelihood. You can see a preview here.

https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/honeyland/

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I heard Buffy Saint-Marie sing her song Universal Soldieron the CBC today. What a national treasure she is! She, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young have always made me terribly proud of my country. Perhaps our best writers are songwriters.

An Idle

It felt both strange and wonderful to return to solitariness today. Although I felt keen to get to work on yard, I did nothing all day and now I’m about to have a spa and drift through the evening.

I floated all day in a wonderful uninvited lethargy—likely a response to two, almost back-to-back short-term visits that ended with a bang with Edwin’s late departure yesterday and with a dinner party here (Vic and Jay) last night. 

Today has been gloriously sunny and hot—a perfect day for comfortable, welcome idleness—and for baking a batch of my favourite cookies. And now, off I go for a lovely late afternoon spa before a lazy evening in front of the TV. 

I’ve thrived on this day of rest; it is my perfect soul state. My passion for yard work will return tomorrow, as will my vigor.