Going Inkless

I encountered a toad the other day as I was preparing a garden bed for planting.  He nearly went unnoticed, being the same size and colour as a clump of the soil I was working.  But he hopped, and dirt doesn't do that. A toad is a very ordinary thing to find outdoors in spring time, but I reflected that I haven't seen many of them lately.  When I was young, there wasn't a day in the green or brown seasons when I didn't see a toad, a turtle, a crayfish, or some similar small creature up close and personal.  In recent years, these encounters have been less frequent, mostly just during camping trips.  Rarely, there will be some accidental visitor to "human" space.  A few years ago, during a torrential rainstorm, a toad had hopped into the library with the morning deliveries and had to be redirected.  Around ten years past, I rescued a crayfish from a hotel pool.  Still, the daily contact has been missing. Maybe part of my critter filled childh...

     I couldn't count the times I've wished I had brought the camera when I was walking in some park, forest, or other natural area.  I couldn't count the magical moments I've missed capturing because I was unprepared.  For years, I never thought to bring a camera anywhere when the function was not specifically to photograph something.  I'd be walking along and happen upon a scene of such beauty, where the colours and shapes were so perfect and the light was at just the right stage, that I'd stop and marvel and long to share without the means to do so.  Or else, I'd be sitting quietly in camp and a deer might slip silently from the trees and cross only a few yards away.  I'd hold my breath and watch, but then the magic was gone.  All the time, whether walking or camping or even just living my normal routine, the universe was giving me amazing gifts I was powerless to share.      So, now and then, when I had the foresight, I s...

     Mom's favourite colour is green.  It has been for as long as I can remember.  There was never a question about which colour to pick when choosing or making a gift for her or which sheet of construction paper to transform into her birthday card.  It was very helpful for us kids when we wanted to make something special even more so.  Grandma was more of a mystery.  When asked to declare it, she'd say her favourite was "sky blue-pink with purple polka dots."  Although that sounds a lot like lavender to someone learning to mix colours, I'm sure it was just her way of saying any colour we chose would be just right.  I still have no idea if she really preferred one colour over another or if, like me, she tended to love what suited the moment.  Then again, her car, the one she had for the 17 years I knew her, was a deep forest green.      Mom's love of green was sometimes puzzling to me as a child.  It seemed lik...

     The smell of old canvas in my car was comforting in the last few work days of the week.  I started packing on Wednesday for the trip I planned to make on the weekend.  It wouldn't be far, just a few miles from home, and it wouldn't be long, only a single night, but I would be ready.  This was to be my first solo camping trip in about a year.  Various health issues and scheduling conflicts had kept me from the experience, and now that I was feeling mostly better and could stake out a Saturday, I was eager to go.  Eager and a little nervous.  The past year has been busy pointing out that I'm older and less invincible than I used to be.  Could my skills have deteriorated while I waited to be strong again?  Those same health issues had impacted my daily walking routine and kept me from taking the longer weekend hikes I liked as well.  I could see the difference in my leg muscles.      Then there's the matter ...

     Back in May of 2010, I wrote a post on the joys of having a little untamed greenery in your domain.  Later, in July, I followed it with a tale of the conflict of landscaping philosophies we've had with a neighbor and how we managed to assert our autonomy in the face of his hostility.  What appeared to have been resolved then was only sleeping, it seems, to wake when the neighbor felt a little cantankerous again.      A little over a week ago, I was out pruning the lilacs and trimming some of the other plants that decorate our front yard when he asked to talk to my husband.  His complaint was that our son never mows the patch of "weeds" near the fence, and he was concerned they might creep over and affect his garden.  Now, there are certain areas where the natural plants flourish and add a woodsy quality to the shady parts of the yard.  There are also areas where we have deliberately planted native perennials because they're w...

"How do you expect to come loose in time when you pay so much attention to the clock," I've been known to say. Usually, I say this jokingly to my husband when he grumbles about coming in a minute or two off his estimate on some matter of timing. He's got a very good sense of it, and misjudgments of time don't happen too often. The inferences in my comment are three: A. Coming unglued and sliding around randomly in time as we know it would be desirable. B. The things we use to gauge time, the clocks and watches and calendars, have power over time itself. C. I am somehow less encumbered by the concept than most, and I am in a position to offer advice on it. These are only partly true. While coming loose in time might seem like a scary proposition to most, you would have to admit it probably wouldn't be boring. Imagine visiting any point in your life or in time as a whole, times from your past or future, other eras in history. You could revisit gran...

Today, the prairie grass was a green echo of the windswept lake. And sadness settled in as I watched the life in those racing waves. In the suburban world of buzz-cut lawns, how many people have forgotten or never really knew that grass was meant to ripple?

It began as a border war, a conflict of philosophies that exploded in harsh words between my husband and our neighbor one day. As described in a previous post, ours is a yard kept in a natural style. The more green, the more wild and vibrant, the better. There are deliberate plantings here and there, but we also welcome the weeds and wildflowers that sprout up among them. In spring, our back yard is a carpet of wild violets. In high summer, a lush tangle of vines creeps along the fence and up the birdhouse pole. In fall, the maple tree that shades our deck drops its helicopter seeds -well- everywhere they can fly. Our front yard is kept shorter out of respect for our neighbors' preferences, but our back yard is kept more or less as Nature intends out of respect for Her preference. We are sparing with the mower and clippers, and we avoid the poisons and chemicals many consider a must for maintaining a perfect lawn. Conversely, our neighbor takes pride in his well-planned landscapi...

On some level, most of us feel a resonance with growing things. You may not see yourself as a gardener. You may not consider your thumbs green, but chances are, you feel plants are a positive thing. In general, people enjoy having potted plants in their home or office. Hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls decorate with foliage because people like it. Greenery softens the hard edges and improves the general atmosphere of a place. We put fruit or flowers on the table or present a bouquet to a friend because they make people happy. Just the idea of plants is symbolic of abundance, growth and good things. In springtime, we are thrilled by the first pale green sprouts that poke out of the frosty earth. We anticipate sunny days spent communing with the life we see emerging all around us. That recognition of life and its potential to nourish us lies at the heart of our affinity for the plant kingdom. It's what turns so many of us into gardeners and groomers of our own littl...

The old tree never talked to the human things, never once in the endless cycles of dark and light or the greater turns of buds and ice. They were disinclined to listen, so he had never considered it. Oh, he had watched them scurrying through their lives, passing his place on their way to some other. He had watched them coming and going, building and unbuilding , rearranging the world and moving on. Little by little, they cleared the grove around him, taking the timbers of his fallen friends for ceaseless projects in the far away. His wood was too knotty and twisted for that purpose; so, in time, he stood alone with the smaller lives. On quiet evenings when the breezes tickled his leaves, he listened to the rustle of the long grass and answered in his way. He shared his world with the soft moss and a tangle of weeds that sprouted up each spring. He knew their generations, untouched as he because they were equally insignificant to the men who remade the forest. In the fresh day...

For details of my attempt at camping in arctic temperatures, see the previous post. If you want the quick version, with pictures, this is the place. Arriving at White Pines Forest State Park. The fords on the regular road are dangerous this time of year, so the ranger directed me to this alternate entry. I had my pick of campsites, but had to carry my gear a bit from where the car was parked. After struggling with setting up in the bitter cold, my tent was finally ready! Only a few pictures of the scenery before my camera battery froze to death... At night, the temperature dropped too low to sleep safely, so I gave up and went to a motel. Even with the heater on high and my husband's special Bears blanket, the motel room was as chilly as a tent in autumn. Day two found me suited up and back at the campsite doing camp stuff. Don't be fooled by the sunshine, it didn't really go past about 15 degrees in the warmest part of the day. This is...

Winter camping holds charms that can't be matched in any other season: the solitude; the stark beauty; the contrast of warm clothes, fire or sleeping bag on a frosty night. Many fans would also note the absence of pests encountered on summer trips. There are no bugs, no snakes, no bears, no rowdy camper neighbors keeping you awake half the night. For years, I have enjoyed occasional trips in the winter months, happily alone through cold and snow. Though I have had my share of complications - frozen boots, six-inch snowfall overnight, a four day stretch of freezing drizzle - I have met these challenges with a smile. Nothing is quite as soothing as a long evening watching snowflakes sizzle in the embers, and nothing is quite as magical as a ghostly-silent deer passing through the silvered brush just yards from your camp. So, after hearing about the beauty of White Pines Forest State Park, I planned a cold-weather camping trip there. My original plan was preempted by a family...

We call her "Mother Nature" because despite the occasional antagonistic philosophies that have popped up throughout history, most people recognize Her motherly qualities. On an instinctual level, we know that this is where we're from, not what we've made. She nourishes and teaches. She loves all her children equally. She can be strict, for certain. You're never too old to be "spanked" if you're disrespectful or ignore what she's telling you. But, for one who has spent a lifetime in close contact with Her, there's no denying the motherly aspect. Like a family, we are all sprung from this parent and all bound together through Her, too. Growing up as I did, in an isolated community by the lake and, before that, at the edge of the woods, I came to know Mother Nature well. She taught me, fed me, let me climb in Her trees and swim in Her waters. You don't forget the ones who raised you. They weave their pattern into your life. So, wherever I go...