Walkabout Photos

Those video links I posted the other day, to Jacob Lusk and Billy Porter, they thrill me. I’ve been watching them every day since, and when I watched them yesterday, I had a wonderful feeling. I don’t think I’ve ever felt better about being a gay man in my life. Those two wonderfully talented and proudly out gay men, make me feel incredibly proud to be a survivor of shame and guilt and AIDS, and very, very proud to be part of our community.

Her Highness and I walked with our small pack before I went into the village to do some shopping, and then I came home to enjoy another slow day. It was cloudy and uninviting outside, so I did only a little yard work before retreating to the warmth and comfort of the house.

I enjoyed watching Dave and Andrew putting the ring on the top of the roof where there will be a glass dome that can be opened in the Summertime. It will open with a switch and bring in lots of light. Once the ring is done, tar paper will go down on the plywood roof and then shiny metal panels (silver coloured) will complete the exterior of the roof.

•

There’s been a recurring mention of my “dull” life on this blog. (Please notice that I never say, “dull and boring.” I am incapable of being bored.) And when I posted this past Monday morning, that empty little post, I wondered, “Should I end this blog?”

The question has arisen many times, but I always plod on. I was always talking about things I was doing, be it travelling, creative projects, friends, or work. I have my old diaries. I’d buy large blank hard-backed drawing books, and I’d write and paste various things in them. It was probably 70% souvenirs and drawings, and 30% writing.

This blog only became a daily chronicle when I started seeing Dr. Shoja, 8 years ago. And sometimes there is nothing to say because, yes, I lead a very dull life. I must. I rarely leave neither my home, nor my island. Thank God for pets, gardening and books!

Then I opened my email, and there was a message from my friend, Cathy, that included this sentence: “You may think your life is dull, but be corrected.” This was the last sentence of a paragraph about why she likes reading my blog. No wonder people believe in God; coincidence in life can be a miracle. Bless your beautiful soul, Cathy. Yesterday, you had the voice of a loving God. 

•

I avoid politics, but I happened on this remarkable text by Gareth Fearn in the London Review of Books about the student protests on US campuses:

“This is a toxic combination: universities reliant on investment portfolios in a system where mega-profits are made by companies that threaten and destroy human life, influenced by an increasingly radicalised class of billionaires, teaching students whose degrees won’t earn them enough to pay off their loans, managed by supine administrators threatened by (or willingly collaborating with) a reactionary right, who have decided that young people’s minds are being turned against capitalism not by their own lived experience of austerity and racialised police violence but by ‘woke Marxist professors’. This situation has now met with a live-streamed genocide which is supported, and brazenly lied about, by political leaders and commentators who claim to stand for truth and justice. Students, like much of the public, cannot square the reality of what they see with the world as constructed by politicians and the media.

“Under such circumstances, pitching tents, raising placards and demanding divestment are really quite mild-mannered responses. That they have been met, in many US universities, with militarised policing reflects the fragility of liberalism — in the face of the growing hegemony of the conservative right as well as its own inability to offer a future even to Ivy League college students, let alone the less privileged.”

Whoa, that is one masterpiece of insight and language.

•

I'm off to see the ophthalmologist today. Last night, in sunlight at 6:30 pm, I did my evening walkabouts in my cage called Pinecone Park, and I took these pictures. Come with me on my walkabout.

This is the new bed, surrounded with stones from Eoin and François.
The ferns were here when I came.

There will be colour with bushy beautiful Ferns framing the
entrance to my backyard called Pinecone Park.

The Creeping Thyme helps make the garden look
mature. Time is the most beautiful part of a garden.

This garden was planted a year ago, after some of the deck 
steps were removed. You can barely see the dirt. That's what
I want everywhere.

This garden was a challenge. It's now 5 years old, but it's built
on tree roots that absorb all the water, and this garden gets 
very little direct sunlight, and what comes is late in the day.

This is my natural backyard. Look at all the daisies! I think
it's beautiful. The lawn failed, but where once there was once 
weeds, natural shrubs and plenty of prickly blackberry vines,
all mixed with years of needs, branches and CONES!

See all those blue-grey plants poking up between the Japanese
Maple and the log? Those are Campions, and they are native
plants with to-die-for brilliant pink/violet flowers. I love mixing
florals with native plants.

This garden has been a bitch. It's twin (next photos), is called
Valley of Death. They are between trees There are two, above,
on either side of the phone. My gardens compete for water and
nutrients with the trees. I need very hardy plants here. This garden
bakes in the late morning and noontime sun in Summer.

The Valley of Death is coming along slowly. I'm considering 
getting soaker hoses for these two challenging gardens. Water
is precious here, and I have weak water pressure.

This photo gives me goosebumps because it's so pretty. 

The Fern Garden is looking good, but it needs more work and
my gardener is MIA. But, what's that in the very back left corner?

Answer: This tree. It's a Chestnut, and I got a two-inch tall 
seedling from Anna who found it in her garden. This part of
the garden gets almost no sunlight.

This is a new garden around the base of a tree. More of E&F's 
rocks create the garden, framed by native plants: Oregon Grape
on the left, and Salal on the right.

This was once a lovely lush clump of Salal. This was a totally
native garden that I liked having as part of the park.

This is beautiful moss that I grow, split and 
transplant. Eventually, it will surround my very
long walkway. I water it every day in Summer.

The trellis is really covered now, with Climbing
Hydrangea and a climbing Rose. When the roses 
bloom on top, it's a glorious sight.