You know the kind of day....

...where the breeze through the window a shade cooler than mild blessing the skin in puffs scented softly of damp leaves, the sky a gentle blue with the faintest haze of high cloud, trees lightly dusted in gold, sounds of children playing out of sight, a magpie chuckling to itself at it's own joke, the swish of car cruising lazily past our street.

This is my fall morning.

The potted tomato yields a few red cherries every morning. The zucchinis have worn themselves out. Thumbelina carrots pop out plump and ready. I've pulled all the leeks save three. Flowers are resting except for my geranium which is bursting in a half dozen broad red blooms. Hubby asks if we can have "more of those" next summer. Parsley overflows in it's own pot, ready to be brought inside when the cold weather comes.

It is as if the land waits in stillness for what is sure to come.

Visiting Dad

I followed up on a personal vow to spend some time with my dad before the H1N1 hits. Call it morbid, but a virus like that is just the thing that could take him out. I want to be sure I have some time with him, to hear him talk about things, to let him know the profound impact he's had in my life. Before he's taken away.


As usual, the conversation was a lot lighter than I planned. It comes a lot harder to say, "Your integrity, your example, shaped me who I am. Thank you." So we talked about family and work. Dad was suitably horrified when he found out how much I spend on my energy efficient furnace. The big difference from past conversations, I think, is that I am not devastated by his assessment. I laugh. I am allowed my foolishness. Without the lenses of insecurity, I see his concern and comments as a sign care and concern rather than judgement.


Dawn and dad have been having fun. They took a grand field trip through central BC and the coast. I lost track of how many ferries they took. One ferry trip was thirteen hours and they were accompanied by dolphins and whales. They toured hot springs, undeveloped, undiscovered. They found an unnamed lake with water as warm as bath water. They saw turkeys. Dawn says she thinks dad had as much fun watching her as the discoveries they made on the way.



They gave me a tour of their garden and watching their happy fussing gave me just as much pleasure. They have two compost heaps behind their shed, making me jealous for a yard big enough to play with. Their elevated garden is a delight. They pulled beets, carrots, and potatoes for me to take home. Dawn loves dahlias as I do and she has some great ones! She's storing the tubers this winter out at the campground where she says they keep a room just above freezing. I am jealous all over again.


We go for dinner and as we leave, dad mouths, "I love you". My answer was awkward I know, but the message was delivered. There were no grand words exchanged, but I got my wish.

I borrowed the picture from an article about Anne and Andy Dunstan's Dahlia farm.

Flowers and Bees

One of my great pleasures, as those of you who know me, is watching my garden grow. Long hours of contemplation means I have come to know my garden, and it's bees, pretty well. The bees make their way through the garden methodically, checking each flower in turn. He makes his circuit and leaves. A few hours later, he does his tour again.

His grazing pattern reminds me of my Farm Town character, bobbing and weaving with an economy of effort to each task. It made me think that the bee's life, just like all others, is concerned with survival. His ability to find a good feeding ground, and avoid wasted effort, could mean the difference between life and starvation.

I find he has a strong preference for simple flowers that bloom for a short time only, maybe a day. Watching a bee harvest flax flowers is always a delight. The long stems bow under his weight and then catapault him away when he's done. The flowers drop in the heat of the day and then there is a fresh bloom the very next morning. I love watching flax.

He avoids the long-lasting compound flowers as long as he can. Is it because with the new flowers he is guaranteed fresh? Have we as humans, in our desire for complex and exotic shapes and long-lasting blooms, complicated the bee's life?

An exception to the compound bloom avoidance theory, was this bee. Naomi and I took pictures. But he wasn't acting normally at all. He was either drunk or very near death. He literally rested on the flower as he took his drink. This was the first time I ever saw a "lazy bee".

Linda's Bees is a blog I follow. She watches over her bees with an intensity that I can relate to.

Excess

I've often wondered what a person from the third world would think of some of our television shows. I don't always have to guess. My girlfriend from Uganda was horrified when she first came to this country by what she saw on the screen. And not for what you might think. We get hung up on nudity and sexuality. But what bothered her was the gratituous violence. After all, she'd seen enough of the real thing to never want to see it again...let alone glorify it. A commentator on Access television gave me insight on how we have given ourselves permission to see horrible things done to one another. Make the villain very, very evil. Have him harm innocents on screen. For the rest of the movie, we are given permission to cheer his and his associates' destruction. In the most horrible way.

But I didn't mean to talk about violence today. What I wonder about these days are the shows that help us deal with our excesses. I think of shows "Clean Sweep" and "The Biggest Loser" that helps people shed their excess. Whether it be a household out of control, or a body out of control. What would such a pile of goods look like to people outside of our bubble of prosperity? Our problems must appear vacuous, silly. But they are real. We do really struggle to pare down.

Perhaps a leaner society would be a happier society. I'm thinking of planting a victory garden this coming spring, in commemoration of our survivor past.

As a closing note, have you ever seen Time's photo series, "What the World Eats"? Well worth a visit.