(scan of maple leaf found in old telephone book)

After a very wet and cool second-half-of-August, we have had non-stop sunny days, and hot ones this week too! I love the contrasts of the cooler nights and occasional morning fog with the bright days, the very long shadows against brilliance, the heavy dews in the morning and drying leaves later. The full moon last night was amazing, sparkling on the water as it rose over the mountain across from us, then lighting up the house and garden all night.

As always in this major month of changes and new beginnings, I’m torn between many jobs, mainly my art work and the garden (taking cuttings and preparing plants to come in). I’ve been back to the printmaking studio and happily working on a piece already. Sometimes it takes me a while to get into the groove after the long summer break, but this time I’m raring to go. It probably helped a lot to have spent two weeks in August printing and to have another piece that is already partially in progress to dive into right away.

A rather upsetting distraction is observing the elections and the economy here at home and at our neighbours to the south (and northwest). I’ve cut back much of my reading about all the nastiness and just deeply hope that voters will have common sense on our election days. Though we talk about politics a lot here at home, I don’t wish to talk about it on my blog other than this mention of its effect on us.

Lunch time, then back to work!

Like September, April is a busy and transitional month for me.

Instead of going to ‘school’ aka the print studio, I go through the reverse. Last week I packed up and brought home my completed editions and supplies. To even organize the work to go into the flat files, I had to clean off the table top first, which started the snowball effect. Some prints that had come back from Europe in a mailing tube some months ago had to be laid on top of the grand piano under weights for a week before I could store them.

Then there’s the garden with weeds growing even faster than the flowers. Indoors, seeds of tomatoes, peppers and basil are up nicely and needing to be planted into little pots to continue growing in the solarium. The pelargoniums await bigger pots. Houseplants need repotting.

Spring cleaning is having a slow start as we prepare for a visit next week from old friends from Alberta whom we’ve known since our days in Fort St. John when we were neighbours. It has been many years since we’ve seen each other so we’re looking forward to this!

Some sad news too, with the recent death of a dear aunt at the age of 87. Emails and long phone chats with my amazing cousin who cared for her mother at home the last two or three years. I’ve sent emails to family in Finland and eastern Canada. Memories are being revisited. We shall have a family gathering in her memory sometime soon.

Yesterday evening’s gorgeous sunset brought these words to mind:

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears
(from Fiddler on the Roof, of course)