Saturday Photo: Quoth the Raven, Nevermore!

Katrina and Mike, a young couple up the street, are extremely creative.  She has a high end couterière shop, making marvelous dresses.  He has a vegan restaurant that is supposed to be the best in town.  They're also parents to a sweet little sprite, Victoria, and they decorate their house for special occasions with great class.

This is what began this year's Halloween display: a pumpkin and a stuffed crow.  By the end of the week it looked like the pesky squirrels had discovered it, and had begun to gnaw at the pumpkin, but who cares?

Not I, certainly.  The combination of taxidermy and agriculture is simply delightful. 

Saturday Photo (Very Late): Fall Afternoon

This was taken about a week ago, before we had three days of hard ran. The leaves which had not turned colour, did so during the storm, and many of those who had are no carpeting the grass.

Fall is a lovely season. 

Saturday Photo: The Turning of the Leaves

This morning it's gray, but until today we've had a great run of marvelous weather.  Last weekend's rain pushed the leaves into glorious colour, and then the sun came out.

Yesterday I chatted with a couple of Argentine guys, out for a ride on Bixis.  The colours on the mountain, they said, were unbelieveable.

Yes, it's that time of year when the world seems to explode with reds, oranges, yellows and golds.  Simply spectacular!

Saturday Photo: Something Different, Only I Can See My Grandkids Loving This

Pretty terrific, don't you think!

Saturday Photo: Asters in Bloom

The front yard is full of asters right now. They're the last flowers to bloom, and this year, while there were a lot of buds, they didn't seem to be in any hurry to flower.

But the right combination of day length and rainfall arrived this week and now we have billows of flowers.

A reward for making it through the hot, muggy days to arrive at the other side....

Saturday Photo: Smoke in the West Usambara Mountains

The photo was taken 15 years ago when I was travelling in Africa--Burundi, Tanzania and Kenya. People were preparing for the planting season, burning the stubble left from the previous season. 

It was a little disquieting because the rains were weeks away, and the air was frequently filled with smoke. But people told me there was nothing to worry about.  Certainly there always seemed to be someone near the fire, and the fact that underbrush and leaves were raked away meant that there was little on the ground under trees to aburn should a fire begin to grow. 

Saturday Photo (Better Late Than Never): Road through Time

This is a little late because I've been doing such things as looking over the copy edit of my new book Road through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move.  And just as I was finishing up, I received the cover.  Pretty nice, eh?

Here's the bumph from the University of Regina's Spring 2017 catalogue:

In this thoroughly researched and beautifully written history of roads as vectors of change, Mary Soderstrom documents how routes of migration and transport have transformed both humanity and our planet.
Accessible and entertaining, Road Through Time begins with the story of how anatomically modernhumans left Africa to populate the world. 

She then carries us along the Silk Road
in central Asia, and tells of roads built for war in Persia, the Andes, and the Roman Empire. She sails across the seas, and introduces the  rst railways, all before plunking us down in the middle of a massive, modern freeway.
The book closes with a view from the
end of the road, literally and figuratively, asking, can we meet the challenges presented by a mode of travel dependent on hydrocarbons, or will we decline, like so many civilizations that have come before us?

Sound interesting?  If I hadn't written the book, I'd want to read it, says she, smiling!  The catalogue gives the pub date as April 15, 2017, so I guess we'll have to wait a bit to do that!

Saturday Photo: From Haiti, with Love

Something like 45 years ago I took my first trip outside the North American continent when my sister and her husband invited me to go with them to Haiti.  He had some business to do, and she wanted company.

It was a life changing trip for me.  They were not ones for venturing outside the hotel compound until mid day, but I decided I couldn't let the opportunity go to waste.  So I got when the church bells chimed at 5 a.m. and went exploring.  My reasoning was the the people out and about at that time were solid citizens, so a gringo lady would be safe. 

I was.  The experience was very rewarding, since I got to talk to people going to work, school and market, and could observe them going about their daily lives.  Since then I've refined the method a little: I don't talk to men ordinarily but greet all women with a smile.  But during the many miles I've notched up since then, not once did I come back with anything but positive impressions of the basic kindness of people, even though their circumstance may be difficult.

This is a painting that I bought on that trip, one of the many, many primitive works being sold to tourists then.  Love the mixture of colour and somberness.  Haiti has been on my mind the last few weeks as I finish up my next book, about unidentical twins, that is States and states that have much in common yet are very different.  One of the pairs is that of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but more about that later.

Saturday Photo: Out the Door, School Is Coming....

...and Jeanne just turned six!

It was a week of birthdays: Lukas on Monday, Stuart on Tuesday and Jeanne of Friday.  So last weekend they all were over to celebrate along with Thomas who'll be four Sept. 9.  Great fun!

And tomorrow Jeanne will start Grade One.  How time flies, to repeat a truism. 

Saturday Photo: Reflections on a Summer Day

This is the pavillion in the middle of one of our local parks.  In the winter it's closed up and is used as a place to warm up when you're skating (the circular pond becomes a skating rink.)  This time of year there are tango dancers and other activities. 

But I like it best at the beginning and the end of the day when the light is low and the reflections are lovely.

Saturday Photo: Back to Giverny

Reading a book about Monet and his garden at Giverny, and I'm transported back to one of the loveliest places I've ever been.  We've only visited in May, so I'd love to go back in another season.  Like right now: high summer!

But given all the stuff I've got to do between now and the middle of September, I think I'll just have to get to work.....Another year, perhaps.

Saturday Photo: Ducks Again...

There have been years when there have been at least three duck families cruising around the ponds in Outremont.  But last year I don't think I saw any--bad timing, bad year for ducklings, better pickings elsewhere

This morning, though, I saw two families in Parc Pratt, just kanoodling around, bum in the air parat of the time, looking content at whatever goodies they found in the dirty water.  The immature birds looked big and healthy, so this must have been a good year for them.  Didn't see any  ducklings earlier on, so perhaps Mom and Pop are taking the young ones on a tour to show them the possibilities for later on.

Saturday Photo: Red Day Lilies Showing Their Colours

I find myself getting confused when reading about Red States and Blue States in the US.  The Reds are  Republican and the Blues are Democrat, which is just the reverse of the political line up in Canada.  Here the Liberals are Red and the Conservatives are Blue....not to mention the NDP's orange.

So what message is this day lily sending?  Simply that summer is one heck of a time to obsess about politics.  But I can't help myself.

Saturday Photo: Raspberry Moon

There seemed to be a flurry of comment about last month's Strawberry Moon. Seems Native Americans in the North East States and Canada called it that because wild strawberries were ready for picking then.  Last month's was special, those who care about such things said, because it coincided with the solstice. 

This week the full moon was extraordinary, and according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, it's the Full Buck or Thunder Moon.  The former apparently refers to the fact that male deer start growing their new antlers: who knew?  The latter seems to me to resonate more with us city dwellers.  Certainly we've had thunder storms several days this week. 

But if June is the Strawberry Moon, then July could be the Raspberry Moon.  They're at their peak around here right now.  Delicious!

Saturday Photo: Day Lilies for Difficult Days

A long time ago my son had to take a class that when I was an adolescent would have been called Home Ec (the only advance in his day was that both boys and girls took it.) 

One of the units was on home decoration (!) and a colour wheel was given with what colours were good for what purpose that the kids were supposed to memorize.  I forget what they all were, but I remember that blue was supposed to be calming.

So, there was a test and one of the questions was: your friend is very upset about what's happening in his life and can't sleep.  What colour would you suggest he paint his room?

Lukas answered "yellow."  His reason was that yellow was such a cheerful colour, his friend would feel better.  The teacher said no, the answer was blue because it was restful. 

Lukas was furious and so was I, but he was of an age when he was starting to fight his own battles so I don't think I intervened. In the end he got
part credit because his reasoning was good, as I remember, but I think his point is very well taken: yellow is cheerful.

Given the long string of sad and troubling news this week--the Nice craziness, attempted coup in Turkey, Trump and Hillary neck and neck in the polls, and the list goes on--we're all in need of some cheerfulness.  So here are yellow day lilies which conveniently are in bloom in my back yard right now in hopes that they will make you feel better enough to continue the fight.

Saturday Photo: In Clover...

When something is going good, you can say that it's in clover.  Certainly thing are not going in the world these days, but it's nice to know that clover still is growing in the most unusual places.

This was taken in a corner lot that had been left to go to ruin--only I don't think clover looks bad at all.  Hope no one cuts the grass--although the smell of fresh cut clover is delicious.

Saturday Photo: A Beautiful Immigrant...

The fields along the CPR track through Mile End was full of dancing blue chicory (Cichorium intybus) flowers this morning. A lovely sight. 

The plant, of course, is an invasive import from Europe.  Some have used it roots for a coffee substitute, and apparently it makes good forage for cattle.

But mostly the plant has escaped along the roads of North America, colonizing waste spaces, beautifying urban and rural landscapes. 

Like so many other immigrants, it has made its place here.  Thank goodness.

Saturday (or rather Friday) Photo: Fête nationale and Brexit

This is what our house looked like yesterday, with our Quebec flag unfurled. The grandkids were over and we put it up together.  They don't know the political import of it, but for me this is a sign that we belong here just as much as anybody else. 

Not all of us are Québécois de souche (although grandson Thomas Édouard has ancestors who arrived in the middle of the 17th century from France), but Lee and I chose to live here and the grandkids and their parents were born here or (in the case of Jeanne's father) also chose  Quebec.

This reflection comes as the British are trying to come to grips with what they did on Thursday.  People, it seems, didn't really believe that  Brexit would pass.  Can't understand how people could vote to leave without considering the implications.  But apparently that's what happened in many cases.

Now, there may be good arguments for leaving the European Union, but just because you're angry is not one....

Saturday Photo: Summertime and the Grass Is A-growin'

Summer won't arrive officially until sometime tomorrow, but that hasn't kept the grass and weeds from getting away from people. 

I'm always of two minds about overgrown, shaggy spaces. A weed, after all, is just a plant growing where you don't want it, right?  And my own approach to gardening is what I call Darwinan.  In other words, what grows, grows.  Sometimes the unplanned array of flowers is truly wonderful.

But then there are yards where people have opted for grass and yet who don't do anything about what grows there until it becomes a grass fire hazard.  With just a little thought they could have a low maintenance yard that is a delight for birds and butterflies and also is easy on the eyes  too.

Saturday Photo: Gate into Summer

The photo was taken a week or so ago, before the trees fully leafed out.  But I think it shows nicely where we are headed--toward summer.

Thanks goodness...