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Showing posts from May, 2023

Snowy Speculations

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If I could paint, I would have tried to replicate the landscape very early this morning. Illuminated by the faintest hints of light and hours before sunrise, the cold, stark landscape lay completely still in its snowy blanket. Naked trees stood proudly and quietly against this backdrop, this palate of pure white an unforgiving place for any creature, big or small, to attempt to cross without drawing attention to its existence at this time. Even our ancient tire swing looked sleepy and droopy, suspended precariously close to the ground, as if the effort of hanging from a tree limb was too much for it. To the east, the only rays of light visible were the ones coming from the across the river, and even those seem hushed and muffled, like a child tired and murmuring not to wake them up just yet.  The young families down the road have gone all out with Christmas lights this year. Bright colours adorn the night skies and my neighbours even have a Christmas Cat and a Christmas Dinosaur th...
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A scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

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 I was working in my home office at the front of the house early yesterday morning. The dogs had been taken out and fed and I was being quite productive already. All of a sudden I heard a little noise and assumed that the cat had come upstairs. Then Gus, our Pom-with-an-attitude, started growling. None of these occurrences were in any way different from any other day. Then the growling started again followed by his incessant, high-pitched barking and Sadie, our old lab who never does anything but eat and sleep, started growling and barking as well. I ran out to shush them both as the kids were still sleeping and heard another bit of scurrying in the living room. It had to be the cat, of course. I closed the pocket door between the kitchen and hallway and started heading back to my office to continue working when a small movement caught my eye. I turned around quickly to see a tan-coloured squirrel scurrying across the hardwood floors, past the grand piano in the living room (I woul...
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The Broken Lady

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The Broken Lady  Before we purchased our home, it had belonged to a raku potter and water-colour artist. From what I heard from people in the area, she hosted artist's retreats and held seminars in the studio that we converted back to a garage. In the first few years after moving here, I continued to discover eclectic pieces in the flower beds after digging out overgrown plants and bushes. Items like broken pottery, several containers of gorgeous seashells, large fossils, a little Buddhist temple garden ornament, bones that looked like they may have been a donkey's jawbone and an angel with fragmented edges held in place by wire. Some items I kept, others I discarded.  But one item always pulled me in on some unknown level. It was a broken statue about three feet high. We found her on her side in the forest. Her head had been broken off and hung dejectedly by just one thin rusty rod. She was made of cement  and was obviously quite old. I couldn't find another statue like ...
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