heat wave whine

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too hot to plant my garden
(I’m way behind because of the trip)
too much weeding and watering to do
too hot to sleep, too hot to think, too hot to write

We’ve had only one partial day of rain since we got home two weeks ago. This record-breaking heat for this time of year is more like our usual weather in the latter half of July. Like most Vancouverites, we do not have air-conditioning, in fact our home is designed to take advantage of all the sun it can get, which is okay for most times of the year. I’ve noticed, besides the heat induced smog over the city, a faint smoky smell. Apparently it is drifting down from forest fires to the north of us.

Such extremes this year with an unusually cold winter and late spring and now this heat which has forced many flowers, such as the late rhododendrons, to come to bloom quickly and to fade even more quickly. Just like me, that is, the fading. Hope to be back to the travel posts soon, but now I must find a cool spot somewhere…

April Fool’s

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I was shocked on waking up to see snow coming down and it just keeps coming, wet yet sticking. What an April Fool’s Day joke Mother Nature is playing on us! Rare though it is, we’ve had snow in April before and later, like last year’s very damaging one.

We hope today’s snow isn’t going to build up so much as to cause any trouble, like a prank gone bad. Oh, just as I’m ready to press ‘publish’, it has started to rain – phew!

May the practical jokes you experience be funny ones, dear readers!

spring and birthdays

‘Tis the first day of spring and I’m longing for the weather to match! A very cold winter not easing up for spring means this year the garden is unusually late for normally balmy Vancouver. Blame the depressing weather if you like, I’ve been wandering through several years of digital photos. Curiously I then got it into my head to search for images taken on March 20th since year 2000. The equinox as we know is sometimes on the 21st, which is also son-in-law’s birthday. Thus many of the photos were of family get-togethers to celebrate his day, for sometimes we celebrated the day before or the day after. As you can see not every year on March 20th did we take a photo.

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2004 – birthday cheesecake made by eldest daughter

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2005 – the rainbow that appeared after the birthday party

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2006 – that’s me at another birthday feast I prepared

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2007 – tulips from my garden. They are a long way off from blooming this year!

Wishing you, dear readers, happy spring (or fall) equinox, may it be a warm and creative one!
And happy birthday, J! I think in a few hours it is the 21st in the UK.

foggy January

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19 days of fog
few sunny periods
cold below, warm above
an air inversion* they say
fog horns, monotonal musical nights
black white and grey
moody haunting magical
inspiration for old English novels

Added Jan.25th, 2009: Listen to the fog horns in Howe Sound!
(Thanks to Chris at Bowen Island Journal)

*expired link has been removed

shape shifting

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shrinking shapes of white
shifting from all white
to black-and-white
to green-and-white

epiphany deluge

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It’s the 12th day of Christmas and Epiphany (or loppiainen, a national holiday in Finland). It’s the day we try take down the Christmas tree and decorations and I’m making a slow start on that, leaving some of it for this evening when youngest daughter is home from work.

Following another snow dump on Sunday night, today looks like the end of snow days are near. Something like an amazing-for-Vancouver 26 days of snow on the ground still didn’t match the 33 day record of 1964/65, but oh, the snow’s not going away that fast. It’s being mixed with a LOT of rain, causing flooding and problems with collapsing roofs. Husband has been shoveling the snow off our flat rooftop (thankfully most of it is sloped) and the decks, as well as the walks and driveway, heavy work indeed with our kind of snow. With this deluge now, we may have to make a quick change from snowshoes to hip waders in the coming days, one reporter quipped! Small ponds are emerging, scattered across our snow-full yard with a bird having a happy bath in one, small mercies! The buried kiddie toboggans are reappearing. It is getting so much darker indoors.

New Year’s Hope

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‘Tis the sixth day of Christmas and another New Year’s Eve before us, how the year flew by! As I drank my breakfast tea over our local newspaper, the editorial pleased me in putting some of my own thoughts about New Years into focus. Now let me say, I’m usually displeased by the usual right-wing writing offered by this paper, though I do continue to loyally subscribe for the local news and events and certain more enlightened writers.

I had been thinking about how our long ago ancestors might have felt about New Year’s and this writer has done so as well in 2008 leaves us with a gift: Hope*. Here’s an excerpt:

Two thousand and eight has been something of a Pandora’s Box of a year. It seems virtually all evils were unleashed on the world this year, including seemingly endless wars, political strife both domestic and foreign, and the worst financial crisis in our lifetimes.
But if the legend of Pandora’s Box has it right, there must be something left: Hope. […]
New Year’s is, in fact, one of the oldest holidays on record. First celebrated by the Babylonians some 4,000 years ago, New Year’s was originally observed after the vernal equinox, the first day of spring.
This was obviously a hopeful time, as spring is the season of rebirth, the time when the days grow longer and everything else just starts growing. The Babylonians took this mighty seriously, as they spent not one, but 11 days celebrating the New Year.

The horrific events in the Middle East are dominating our thoughts at what should be a happier time of year and is reflected upon in many great posts on New Years out there in the blogosphere. May I point you to this very thoughtful one by one of my favourite writers, Beth of The Cassandra Pages. And the lovely words and photos by Lucy of Box Elder are not to be missed.

And please sign this petition to call for a ceasefire and stop the bloodshed in Gaza!

After this crazy year, my best New Year’s wish to all of you, my dear readers, is hope, friendship and love in 2009. Thank you all for reading and commenting and I hope we continue the conversations in the New Year.

Related links:
Wikipedia’s New Year
My favourite New Year’s posts in 2006 and in 2007

*expired link removed

thaw

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yesterday: rain, melting snow, flooded streets
this morning, sunshine; this afternoon, more rain?
heavy clumps of snow falling off trees and roof edges

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still deep white yards, snowbanks, tracks on roads
tilting snowmen, carrot noses pointed to sky
broken tree branches, twisted half-buried shrubs

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I stay home and enjoy the light and beauty

Lael’s Winter Story 2008

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Once again, we wish to share our pride and delight with what has become an annual tradition: a gift from our now eight-year old granddaughter and her family, Lael’s Winter Story 2008. Lael made up the story and created the drawings and her daddy took them into Flash to produce this wonderful animation.

If you haven’t already seen them, do have a look at the past Winter Stories on Lael’s Web Site. Enjoy!

season’s best to you

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Dear readers, take your pick:
 
Happy Christmas, Hauskaa Joulua, Frohe Weihnachten,
Joyeux Noël, God Jul, Happy Hanukkah,
or whatever you celebrate… or not.
And please: peace and an end to poverty!
 
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for visiting and commenting this year!
 
P.S. Thanks for asking, our daughter and family arrived from England safely last night. And we have been having ever more snow! The grandkids have been out playing in it. The three- year-old had to lifted up over it, it’s that deep! Husband has been shaking snow off tree branches, shovelling and more shovelling. It’s sounding like a once-in-fifty years accumulation of snow! Next he’s going up on part of the roof and decks to clear them in the event that rains follow. We hope the power does not go out when it’s time to start cooking the Christmas Eve feast.