Tonight I went to the 6th Annual Anti-Colonial Thanksgiving Dinner in Guelph. My friend, Lori, invited me, and I didn't know anyone else there, but when I was sitting alone a young fellow named James moved across from me and said, "You look like someone who likes to go hiking." That led to an interesting conversation mostly about birds, and he gave ( Read more... )

It is good to work on the land with my own hands, feet and back. I spent part of the week helping with fall cleanup on Brenda and Judy's farm near Mount Forest. Judy broke her ankle on the job a few weeks ago, so my help brought Brenda some relief.

The heaviest task was to remove some oak stumps from the verge of their front lane, using a stump ( Read more... )

I started a daily photo journal on April 29, so this makes 150 days. I haven't missed one: every day at least a fifteen minute walk with the camera, one photo picked for the journal.

Most of the summer it happened first thing in the morning, but when the sun started rising later and I was working full-time, I had to shift to after work. I've walked ( Read more... )

There is hardly a place and time in Ontario more beautiful than a September meadow. The past few weeks have been wired with worries about work and money, but these roadside treasures caught my eye on the way home this afternoon. All I needed was eyesight to make me wealthy, and the camera made me a philanthropist.

It reminded me of the country ( Read more... )

I got up early and went for a long-overdue walk up the Eramosa River, along Lilac Way, this morning. Things have changed. Apparently someone has cleaned the mud nests out from beneath Victoria Road bridge, and the bank swallows are gone.

The Turfgrass Institute has turned one of the adjacent corn fields into an expansive cottonwood plantation. ( Read more... )

Recently leafshimmer asked whether my walks along the Eramosa River have become a thing of the past. It is not without reason I call this the Eramosa River Journal, or that my user name is vaneramos. His is such an essential question that I'm revising my reply slightly and reposting it here.

Not a thing of the past, but definitely a rarity. Actually those walks have ( Read more... )

Once in a while a certain image takes residence for a season in my mind. It is always a real image, a place and time, but evolves gradually into a metaphor. Frequently these images come while I'm driving, perhaps because that's one of the few times I'm naked and alone with my thoughts, not distracted by things I give myself to do.

The most recent ( Read more... )

Recently I acquired the entire Der Ring Des Nibelung in a 14 CD set, featuring James Levine and The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. This Deutsche Grammophon recording was apparently released to mark the opening of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto last year, and the Canadian premier performance of the Ring. I ( Read more... )

The schedule designates Fridays as my official day off writing the novel. Those afternoons will be adventure times. I intend to head out of town with my camera to explore nature and the countryside. What a blessing it is to have a car at my disposal for my own purposes again.

Last Friday I stopped at Canadian Tire to pick up an Ontario Road Atlas: ( Read more... )

Marian and I made a covenant to hike the Bruce Trail, all 800 kilometres (500 miles) of it.

For me, hiking is more than a pastime; it is a sacrament. I might never make a pilgrimage to Rome or Mecca, but every summer I trudge dozens of kilometres through Ontario's countryside and backwoods. It brings the mind close to nature, in rhythm with its ( Read more... )