Last week I got lots of writing done, but this week I am feeling the season again: slow and nonverbal. I like what a friend, Sue, said on Facebook yesterday: "Healing works better without a gun to the head." In the case of this seasonal affective thing, nothing is actually wrong or broken, life just needs to be lived according to nature rather than ( Read more... )

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This week I rounded up some missing parts for the loom: a nut, two quarter-inch round steel rods from the half-price bin at Canadian Tire, and some large finishing nails to make my own raddle. The rods are necessary to hold the ends of the warp threads under tension. Steel needs to be cut with the hacksaw to fit the width of the loom. A raddle ( Read more... )

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Another rough morning. I wanted to play mummy: go back to bed and roll myself in cloth in the eternal silence of my room. Things have been moving forward at an unprecedented rate. It is mostly good. Just now I'm tired and unfocused and wish it could stop, but stopping is not an option. I don't want to go back. I need to remind myself (like another ( Read more... )

Another thought from Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez:The land is like poetry: it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life.

Monotropa uniflora grows all around our cottage. It lacks chlorophyll and is parasitic on fungi, which in turn take nutrients from tree roots, so it ( Read more... )

I'm home from a week at the cottage. We had the best weather of the summer so far. I visited with Brenna and Tory, Dad and Betty, and Marian and Kerri, spending an inordinate amount of time on the highway between Lake Fletcher and Port Hope, but it was well-spent in conversation. I played Starship Catan with Marian, went with Brenna on a canoe trip ( Read more... )

Paula says I have an affinity for stone. We have been working a few days at a time on the patio and pond. She doesn't enjoy making precise measurements so much of the actual stonework has fallen to me. In this formal design the stones have to be perfectly aligned and neatly trimmed along the edges. Paula is a farm girl, so meanwhile she has been ( Read more... )

So many changes this year. Family is changing. I'm home from a long weekend at Lake Fletcher with Dad, and Marian and Brenna and their boyfriends. It's a little scary.

Dale (far left) is rough around the edges but sentimental, which reminds me of my grandfather on Mom's side. Tory is soft-spoken and athletic, has a lot going for him, but above all ( Read more... )