splendid September

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(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!

delinquent

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As I mentioned before, I have been catching up with some printmaking the past two weeks. I completed the two editions as planned, then documented and photographed them. I have yet to process the images and post them here to my gallery, though I’ve been eager to do so. I’ve been delinquent in my promises! Blame summer.

Extreme fatigue and laziness set in as the weather got ever hotter, peaking at an oppressively humid and hot 39C (100F) on the weekend, at least in our neighbourhood (it’s always cooler at the weather station at the airport, should you be looking!). Heat wimp that I am, I struggled to do basic daily chores, never mind blogging and preparing for visitors!

Our eldest daughter is here for a week’s visit. As you may recall, we now have a house full with the other two daughters now living here, one with husband and two little girls. The three sisters are enjoying each other and the nieces are enjoying the extra attention from their game-loving aunts. At the end of the week, we will be joined by my sister-in-law from the US.

So we are overwhelmed by a big family and it’s happy noises, activities and appetite, but we’re not complaining for it’s for such a short while. The daughter with husband and kids will be off to the UK again soon, with trips to the continent revolving around work as well as sightseeing and family visits. We’ll miss the little ones in particular, but they will all be back for Christmas at least. If they are back in the UK in the spring, we may even make a trip over there at last!

You may be interested in reading Erika’s account of her day’s outing with her father to Pemberton’s Slow Food Cycle this past Sunday. I’m not a cyclist anymore but would have loved to see those farms in the Pemberton Valley.

Meanwhile this week we are having some cooler temperatures with occasional but much-needed showers, what a relief! Slowly body and brain are feeling a little more human. Maybe I’ll get those images up soon.

busy busy

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This first week of August has been a busy one for me with three days spent in the printmaking studio. I signed up for two weeks of summer access in order to complete two editions, of which I’d done the digital printing in the spring. I’m doing the hand printing on top of these now. I finished printing an etching on one yesterday. Today I was playing with a few ideas for the second edition, eventually deciding on relief printed collagraphs. I have some more to do on them at home this weekend. I hope the tests will be successful on Monday and then the edition can be completed. I’d like to have a couple of days at least left to do some playing around, maybe even trying out my new Dremel tool! I’ll write more when they are finished and photographed, hopefully at the end of next week.

As soon as I spend time in the printmaking studio, my time for other things gets squeezed, like time for the garden. It’s been incredibly hot and humid again and some of my plants were seriously wilting from neglect so I dashed around with the garden hose this afternoon. I too have been wilting into exhaustion, finding it hard to work in this heat. That may be why I rarely print in the summer; it must be my northern blood that I function far better in the cooler months!

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One non-studio day I had an appointment over town with my naturopathic doctor. The timing was perfect for my husband, who commutes by bicycle, to ride over from work to meet me afterwards. He loaded his bike inside our van and we headed west over to Spanish Banks, long sandy beaches along the south side of English Bay. It’s immensely popular for it’s warm shallow waters along here and many people were enjoying it and the gorgeous view of the North Shore mountains and the highrises of the downtown to the east. It was very hazy with the heat and humidity, and therefore smoggy as well so our photos were not clear. We walked and walked along the beach, looking for a certain new seaside restaurant but eventually realized we’d gone too far west past the Kitsilano beach area where it actually was. As we drove back east, we spotted an interesting looking little organic food place on 4th Avenue instead and enjoyed a tasty light dinner. It’s fun to be a tourist in our town for a little while now and then.

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summer in the backyard

A glimpse into some of the best in our backyard right now:

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a type of trailing lotus plant, maybe this one, in the hanging basket,

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a red bee balm or monarda,

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and ripening red currants for a sweet tart taste of summer!

This July is a hot one, at least for me, who dislikes the heat and what it does to me. Ten months of the year we have rain, then two months of drought in the summer. Usually Vancouver’s hottest period is mid-July to mid-August, but now I’m dreading that it will be all summer. Most of us in older homes do not have air-conditioning here, and we have still not installed my hoped for watering system in our large garden, so both garden and I are constantly hot and dry! I have so many blogposts I’ve wanted to write but I’m too hot and tired for words, so then I fall back on more garden photos to show off.

How is your summer, my friends?

Friday July 4th

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I’m still very busy in the domestic front these days, alternating between gardening outdoors and purging indoors. My studio is looking less like a hurricane hit it, but I can’t speak yet for the areas where the returning family has moved in, for it is hard to downsize!

All this work during a heat wave too! This morning we had a light shower but it’s still humid and too warm in the house. Taking a break from work, I was sitting on our deck and spotted the first bloom on my young tibouchina plant – a deep velvety purple that this camera could not capture accurately – but here it is.

Wishing a happy Independence Day to my American family, friends and readers!

white nights

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Awake at 3:30 this morning, unable to get back to sleep, I made myself a soothing cup of hot cocoa (with goat’s milk and stevia) and sat at the table reading yesterday’s paper. Looking outside, to the northeast I could see a band of light contrasting against the dark blue lines of the mountain tops and the darker clouds above. As I sipped my drink, my eyes wandered to that ever brightening view more often than to the words on the paper.

I remembered then that today is the summer solstice, (or properly June solstice for it’s winter in the southern hemisphere). Memories of magical midsummer nights in Finland, Denmark and Sweden made me long for those white nights of the north, and to feel again that amazement with how joyful and energetic the people were. Celebrations rooted in pagan times abounded. It seemed like no one slept much, just soaking in the light, as if refueling after the long dark winter. How could you sleep when the sun hit your eyes where you lay in bed, with only sheer window coverings?, I thought the first time I visited as a teenager, grumpy from jet lag.

This is the time that most Finns start their summer holidays, their trips to summer cabins by serene lakes, leaving the cities behind. Businesses reduce to minimum, it’s as if the whole country slows down. How come here in Canada, a northern nation, we don’t celebrate midsummer night? Oh, the Scandinavians communities have their events in various cities this weekend, but is that all there is? Where is the magic? Even up in northern British Columbia where we lived a few years, there was no celebration, no sense of the ancient rituals of the seasons.

At 5:00 I crept back to bed with the light in my eyes, thinking I was not going to be able to sleep. But I dreamt of midnight sun glimmering through birch trees, shining on smooth lakes, of bonfires on beaches and smoking sauna chimneys. This, then, was my own private Juhannus ritual.

Hauskaa Juhannusta! Happy solstice, all!

Related posts:
When “the Sun Stands Still”
summer solstice 2004
midsummer nights 2005
midsummer dreams 2006
solstice memories 2007

June garden

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Still working much too hard in the garden.
Here are a few images of what’s lovely today,
a drizzly day and a relief after yesterday’s heat.
How does your garden grow?

Addendum June 18th:
Leslee asked for a wider shot of this part of my garden, where the above photos were also taken.
It was cloudy so the colours aren’t very bright.
I have not yet put out all my potted plants and the garden bench.

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June beginnings

passionflower.jpgThe Opera Gala with Anna Netrebko, Elina Garanca, Ramón Vargas, and Ludovic Tézier performing opera favourites in a live concert from Baden-Baden, Germany. My husband joined me for a most pleasurable two plus hours of wonderful music by these superb young artists, all new to us except for Netrebko. I think we’re going to purchase this DVD or CD!

A late bedtime, then I was awake at 5 this morning, restless in body, still sore from the weekend’s labours, and a wee bit anxious with the work ahead of me today and tomorrow. An afternoon nap is on the schedule!

summer’s here

Today is the Victoria Day holiday and what a busy long weekend it has been. My husband took Friday off work and we’ve been working hard in the garden for three days in a row. Three gorgeous sunny days, the first of summer at 30C (86F), much too hot for us heat wimps! After a cool wet spring, the heat has made everything lush and green. The tulips and magnolia were finished off by last week’s rains. Now the heat is bringing forth lily-of-the-valley, lilacs, laburnum, clematis montana, azaleas, rhododendrons, forget-me-nots, bluebells and yellow poppies.

I’ve been hardening off pelargoniums and other annuals to plant out in a few days, and repotting tomato plants to go outside a little later in the month when the nights stay above 10C. We brought outside patio and deck furniture and umbrellas, and one evening enjoyed sitting outside until after dark while waiting for the house to cool down, enjoying much talking and spirited games of Liverpool Rummy with our visiting eldest daughter Anita.

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Saturday evening, husband and I went out for a delicious Thai dinner to quietly celebrate another wedding anniversary. I was much attracted by the interesting reflections in the windows across the street from the restaurant!

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After the meal, we went for a stroll along the waterfront park where many couples and a few young families were enjoying the warm evening and the view of downtown Vancouver on the other side. As we sat for a few minutes on a bench, another middle-aged couple walked by just as my husband said to me, “We live in the best part of the world”. The woman turned around with a smile and said, “I think so, too”. Surprised, we laughed. On our stroll back we discovered a secluded garden between an adjacent office building and a condominium, with numerous gorgeous wisteria in bloom – a gift!

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Today is pleasantly cooler and rainy, Anita has left and we are enjoying a quiet and restful afternoon, reading books and catching up on some blogs and blogging. Like looking back through a diary in my youth, I find it interesting looking back at past blog posts on the same date or theme. In this case past Victoria Day weekend articles were revealing. We seem to always work on this weekend instead of going away camping or visiting. And this year’s blooms in our garden are quite a bit later than these past years: 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

outside, inside

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looking at spring, outside the patio door

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inside the solarium, waiting to summer outside