No big changes

No big changes:  that's my New Year's resolution.  No weddings, no moves, no job changes.  Just settling down, like an old house -- although maybe too much like an old house these days, full of creaks and cracks, with cold extremities and scarcely a level surface.

Despite expectations, we enjoyed a white Christmas.  The snow started to fall on the 23rd or 24th and has continued, on and off, ever since.  Not large amounts.  But the trails have opened in Gatineau Park, and I look forward to a ski through the woods.  I know that somewhere along the trail, I will stop and listen to nothing but snowflakes sifting through the trees.  That moment will carry me a long way into the New Year.

In between snowdays, we've had some spectacularly clear and beautiful days.  Sue and I went to babysit our granddaughters, Ella and Lyla, on Wednesday.  On the way home, along the Micksburg Road, we drove beside snowy fields silver and blue in twilight.  A crescent moon hung bright in conjunction with some planet.  A persimmon sunset silhoutted the distant line of forest and the nearer, solitary individual trees.

And still, each season carries the promise of the next.  Yes, we now enter the coldest part of the year, just as the hours before dawn are the coldest time of night.  But the sun has begun its return.  Within a few weeks, a restlessness will begin to stir in the shorebirds along the coasts of Central and South America.  In the southwest, seasonal rains will cause deserts to bloom.  Around Ottawa, I know that the trees already feel the change in light.  In just a few weeks -- well, okay, eight to ten weeks -- the sap will begin to flow, and the buds will begin to swell.  Almost before we've grown accustomed to winter again, snowdrops and crocusses will begin to unfurl wherever a sunny wall reflects warmth onto bare earth.  Then I'll pull my fly rod from the basement and look to the opening of trout season in Algonquin Park.

Bring on another New Year.

Let it snow

Now that I've resigned myself to winter's arrival, I want it to snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  I want it lining each tree branch, piled high beside the front walk, and clinging to my eyelashes as I walk to work.  Most especially, I want it deep, and light, and ready to receive the tracks of my skis.  I want my breathe puffing out in a fog, as I kick through the trees in Gatineau Park.  I want a headband to protect my ears from the chill, as I glide downhill.  I want to eat my lunch in a muggy, wooden lodge, with the smell of wood smoke, wet wool and ski wax.  Enough of these dustings; I want a good, old-fashioned dump of snow.

Stream crossings

A couple of weeks ago, I took advantage of unseasonably mild weather to explore the lower reaches of Sawmill Creek, looking particularly for a beaver dam reported by the City's water environment group.  The lower creek meanders through a deeply incised, wooded ravine -- a green slash through quiet neighborhoods.  At places, where it cuts close to the south transitway, the City has stabilized the banks and slope through a variety of techniques:  armourstone, gabion baskets, plantings, even realignment of the channel.  Not bad work.  Once the vegetation matures, the engineered portions should appear reasonably natural.  The hardened portions preserve the floodplain and the natural form of the creek.

The ravine, itself, has suffered a lot from the surrounding development.  In the open, leafless woods, I could see fill, yard waste and garbage spilling down the slopes.  Plastic flotsam lay scattered and tangled in the underbrush, carried there by spring floods and summer rainstorms.  In places, I pushed through dense thickets of Japanese knotweed.  Periodically, I stopped to untangle myself from downed crack willow branches, or to pull burrs from my jacket and pants.

The summer storms had brought down or split many trees.  Some lay in or across the creek, where they had caught other wood and debris to create impressive log jams.  I crossed several of them to avoid steeper slopes, balancing or crawling across the slipperly, canted trunks.  It reminded me of my teenage excursions around Goldstream Park and the Malahat Drive in Victoria, where I would scramble alone up the mountainsides along the tumbling creeks.  Probably not the wisest thing to do.  I would often find myself paused on a precarious foothold on a slick ledge, above a creek jammed with massive deadfalls, out of sight and sound of any help.

At the time -- and even now, I guess -- I believed that the rewards justified the risks.  Balanced on a boulder in the creek bed, with walls of stone and trees climbing high on either side, and a waterfall splashing down a mossy rock face into a secret pool, I felt transported to a different world.  With the forest closed in around me, I felt connected to the earth in primal way, as if I could have grown roots myself.

What goes around

We woke to the season's first snowfall: about five centimetres, wet and heavy. I dropped my shoes in a plastic shopping bag, snugged my feet into my winter boots, and walked to work through large, scattered snowflakes. Pausing on the footbridge, I looked down the canal toward the Chateau Laurier and Parliament Hill. The snow obscured the Peace Tower like a mist. The trees bore crowns of white. The few remaining ducks skirted the fringe of ice along the canal and clustered close to the warmer water trickling from a stormwater outfall. I should feel thrilled by the first snowfall; but, really, I just feel oppressed. Perhaps I'll feel more excitement when I can pull my skis from the basement. In the meantime, I can't help thinking of the long winter before spring comes around.

All things come around again. I thought of the past on Saturday night, sitting in the Raw Sugar Cafe with a group of friends and new acquaintances, listening to Jen, Patricia and Carmel (3/4 of the Elizabeth Riley Band), drinking coffee and savouring a very good lemon tart. It reminded me of Sam's Coffee House (known as Sam's Deli during the day) on Government Street in Victoria, on a summer evening in 1980, where I first heard Ferron play. The Cafe was filled beyond capacity, and I had to sit on the floor partly under a table -- but just a few feet away from the small riser that served as a stage.

I had returned to Victoria for a summer job at the Forestry Lab after my first year of university. Although the city was full of friends, I'd found myself a housekeeping room removed from my usual haunts. When not working, I kept to myself, as if to become familiar with my own company. I grew my hair long (or, in my case, out) and took to wearing a headband to keep it out of my eyes. I walked a lot, particularly on weekends, when a day's exploration might take me across the City and back. On one of those walks, I'd struck up a conversation with someone who'd mentioned Ferron and the upcoming performance. I hadn't heard of her, but the description intrigued me.

I feel an odd connection with Ferron, that dates from that first night. I've seen her several times since, over the years -- but with long stretches when she seemed to drop out of sight. Those stretches, coincidentally, seemed to occur during the periods when my own life took odd detours. Then she and I would reappear, and I'd find myself sitting in the audience at a folk festival listening to an older, but familar woman growing into a microphone. I've never spoken with her, never been introduced. But I've always imagined that there would be a nod of recognition if we met in passing, an unspoken acknowlegement that we've both found our way and made our peace.

The difference between that night, long ago, and last Saturday night, is my appreciation for friendship. I'm still a somewhat negligent friend; it comes of an uprooted childhood (but that's not a complaint). However, I've reached a point in my life where the best times are spent with old and new companions.

Bare trees and quiet streets

We have entered the shoulder season, between biking weather and skiing weather.  This morning, standing on the kitchen heating vent and cradling a cup of hot coffee in my hand, I watched the wind rattling the few remaining leaves on the cherry tree outside our window.  The limbs of the big norway maple looked black and bleak; the sky looked grey and cold.  I curled my toes against the warm air issuing from the grate and shivered.

In the afternoon, I walked to the fitness centre in City Hall.  The wind had dropped, although a few leaves still skittered along the pavement.  I passed other people -- mostly students heading to or from campus -- subdued and huddled down in their coats.  It seemed oddly quiet for a saturday afternoon.  Even the traffic felt hushed.

Yesterday was the same.  About noon, I bundled down to Rideau Centre and the market, spent an hour reading in Chapters, and then sat at a window table at the Shafali Bazaar in the Market Mall eating chicken curry (very good) and watching passers-by.  In retrospect, I suppose the quiet lay mostly within me.  Sometimes I would catch myself staring unfocused into the distance, with no cohesive thought in my mind -- and no desire for cohesive thought.

Except... and it was a strange time and place for the realization... that I really love this world.  In the quiet of the moment, stripped down to their essence by the flat light of a monochromatic day, the streets and the people on them felt especially dear to me.  I felt a connection and a kinship to the anonymous figures hurrying along outside, and to my few, solitary companions lingering at the nearby tables.  They seemed inexpressibly noble.

Fishing Song

Down the path and through the trees.
Dappled sunlight beneath the leaves.
Riffle and pool, a sparkling brook.
Looking for a place to send my hook.
I'm going fishing.
I'm going fishing.

Cast my fly and mend my line;
drift and cast it one more time.
Lose myself to water and sky;
forgetting all life's hows and whys.
I'm going fishing.
I'm going fishing.

Oh, you might think that I waste my days,
and look on idleness with suspicion.
But I know God does not subtract,
from one's life the time spent fishing.

I've fished with my father on a cold, grey sea,
and I've fished with my boys in a warm, lake breeze.
And when they grow, I'll take my grandaughters,
down the path to the sparkling waters.
And we'll go fishing.
We'll go fishing.

An autumn to remember

According to Environment Canada, temperatures will remain in the teens until at least mid-week.  Although the nights have been very cool, the harvest moon has hung silver in a clear sky.  The air has seemed so luminous that I almost expect the northern lights to appear.  It reminds me of northern Alberta.  Most mornings have broken sunny.  Light jacket weather.  This afternoon, Sue, Anne and I sat on the front step, soaking up the sun.  A light breeze stirred the trees, coaxing down the last gold and yellow leaves, and scattering maple keys across the yard.

The fine weather has provided some unexpected chances to enjoy the outdoors.  Last weekend, members of the Co-op turned out for our annual fall clean-up and potluck lunch.  By noon, a satisfying row of stuffed leaf-bags lined the sidewalk between our house and the next.  With just a little sadness, I moved the canoe to a new perch on top of the north side shed, where it will remain until next spring.

The following day, I spent a few hours in Gatineau Park, looking for late-season ferns and fungi.  I concentrated specifically on a hillock adjacent to the lower parkway, where a tortured rock-cut had long tempted me.  Outside the city, autumn seemed more advanced, with almost all of the trees down to their bare limbs.  A hard frost the previous couple of nights had done for most of the mushrooms, and a thick carpet of leaves covered the forest floor.  But I still found a few ferns and herbs peeking through, especially on the steep cliffs of the hillock -- including my favourite, the delicate maidenhair spleenwort.  Mostly though, I marvelled at the topography and geology, imagining the pressure and the heat that had created and contorted the bedrock underfoot -- hard Canadian Shield -- and then the forces that had split and splintered, that had scraped it clean.  One particular image caught my imagination:  the sporangia of a common polypody fern framed against the backdrop of fractured, cedar-shadowed cliff.  It seemed to me that all power of the premordial earth had acted just to create a welcoming place for that one, small expression of life.

Corkstown Bridge

I cross the Corkstown footbridge each morning to work.  The City built it across the Rideau Canal several years ago, to take pedestrians from Sandy Hill to Centretown.  From the center of the bridge, one can look north along the canal toward Rideau Street.  The scene is beautiful and ever changing.

The Gatineau Hills peek through from the background.  The Chateau Laurier dominates the center of the view, while the Peace Tower stands against the sky on the left and National Defence Headquarters looms on the right.  In the foreground, a continuous line of mature maples and basswood screens Queen Elizabeth Parkway and broad band of well-tended grass spreads beside Colonel By Drive.  Walkers and cyclists wander the paths atop the canal walls.  From late spring through to mid-autumn, the canal captures and reflects the colors of the leaves and the changing sky.  On some evenings, a half dozen photographers may gather on the bridge to capture the sunset.  In the winter, the dark ice contrasts against the snow and the grey tree limbs, except on milder days when skaters come in the thousands to fill the canal from side to side with bright jackets and touques.

Even dreary, overcast days have their moments.  In the past week, I've paused in the morning to watch a waterfall of leaves tumbling into the empty canal before a cool, damp wind, and stopped in the evening to admire the way that a grey light reduced the landscape to a simple, but elegant lesson in perspective and geometry.

This time of year seems to invite a slower pace.  Perhaps it resonates psychologically, like a foreshadowing of old age.  Or maybe, I just don't want to hurry into winter.

Wind, Rain and Fallen Leaves

Last weekend witnessed a perfect coincidence of Indian Summer and the peak of autumn foliage.  Then the wind and rain swept in, as they inevitably do, washing the reds and golds like spilled paint over the lawns and sidewalks.  I know the leaves in the yard need raking, but I hate to disturb such a beautiful carpet.  All too soon, a gritty, grey layer of ice and snow will encrust the garden, and our boots will scrape over sand and salt as we tread down the steps and along the pathway.

I enjoy the wind and rain of autumn.  They remind me of many, many days around Victoria and Vancouver, hiking damp trails, my head full of the scents of wet cedar and forest mould.  But I also feel in them the chill of winter.

The Barron River on Thanksgiving Weekend

I woke to a quiet morning.  Slowing working out the kinks in my back and neck, I wriggled out of my sleeping bag and dressed as quietly as possible in the twilight of the tent.  Thomas stirred and asked about the time.  I told him that it was early, and that he could sleep longer if he wished.  He pulled himself deeper into his bag.

The air felt mild but damp when I crawled from the tent.  I picked up my shoes from outside, gave them a quick shake, and then padded barefoot across the pine needles to the logs by last night's fire, where I slipped the shoes on.  Night lingered under the trees, but on the river I could see the first blush of morning.  I walked softly down to the canoe landing, careful not to disturb the beavers that I could hear munching on pickerelweed and lily pads up and down the shore.  No birds sang, not even the barred owl that had hooted periodically in the distance throughout the night.  Downriver, the trees stood darkly along the shore, silhouetted against a sky that shaded from navy blue through ochre to umber.

I stayed on the shoreline for an hour watching the dawn.  As the sky slowly lightened, its muted reflections became more distinct on the still water.  Mist loitered over the marsh downriver, lifting sometimes like a ghost to drift across the stream.  Upriver, the sky and landscape emerged more slowly from darkness, passing through a period of intense blue.  Autumn colors began to spread along the shoreline, like watercolors seeping along the fibers of handmade paper.  Around me in the trees and across the river, nuthatches and chickadees started to call, while red squirrels and chipmunks commenced their squabbles and chatter.  Just before sunrise, I called Thomas from the tent and, together, we watched the sun spill across the river to ignite the golds and oranges of the autumn foliage.

We only had one night in Algonquin Park.  Sue dropped Tom and me at Squirrel Rapids about 10 AM on Saturday morning, where a canoe from Algonquin Bound waited for us.  We didn't need to paddle far, just 500 m up the river to the lower portage, and then another 500 m or so to the second campsite, which I hoped would be free.  It was.  We landed, set up camp, made some lunch, and then enjoyed a lazy afternoon of fishing.

I'd chosen this particular campsite for several reasons.  It lay on a small point, with wonderful views up and down the river.  It sheltered under a canopy of towering white pines and cedars.  It seemed the most isolated of the campsites.  But most important, it lay immediately upstream of a marsh where Tom and I had caught several large bass on a daytrip to the canyon two years earlier.  On this occasion, however, the bass ignored us.  We worked several types of powerbait along the weed edge, and even tried a spinnerbait -- but without success.  Nonetheless, we soaked up the sunshine and the record high temperatures, and returned to our campsite at suppertime tired and content.

After supper, we went for a short, evening canoe up the river.  The sun set more quickly than we expected, so we turned around short of the canyon.  Beavers began to emerge along the shoreline, and as we crossed the path of one, he slapped the water hard with his tail in warning.  A flight of ducks whistled high overhead.  Blue jays called in the woods.  A planet began to glow bright in the sky, and the waxing moon appeared bright above the river.  We returned to our camp, lit a fire, and spent two mystical hours tending the flames and considering the embers, before slipping into the tent and our sleeping bags.

The next day, after the magical sunrise, we ate a leisurely breakfast amidst the chatter of the forest.  Chipmunks foraged around the campsite, hoping for a taste of oatmeal or hot chocolate.  A red squirrel suddenly burst into angry denunciation, and we looked up to see a pine marten peering around the trunk of a pine tree.  A pileated woodpecker cackled across the river.  Finally, reluctantly, we packed up our campsite, loaded the canoe, and made the short trip back down the river to the put-in, where Sue and Ben soon arrived to pick us up.

Some days last a lifetime.

A dry autumn

We've woken to rain the past few mornings, which is good news, because I have visited a number of very dry wetlands in the last month.  After three months of dry, warm weather, both the Rideau Valley and Mississippi Valley Conservation Authorities issued low water advisories.  The trees began to show color in late August -- a clear sign of stress.  The turtle pond, north of Lester Road was dry a month ago, as was Upper Poole Creek north of the Trans-Canada Trail.  In the latter site, frogs and minnows clustered in the sole remaining pool in the culvert under the trail, and turtle tracks led out across the muddy flats of the pond toward the cattails and some other sanctuary.  Shirley's Brook was dry at Terry Fox Drive.  The Ottawa River is at it's lowest level in fifty years.  I'd welcome several weeks of wet weather -- just not next weekend, when Tom and I plan to camp at the Barron River.

The drought reminds me of some of Saint Teresa of Avila's thoughts on prayer, which I read years ago in a brilliant little book called, a Renaissance Reader (which also included, if I recall, an exchange of letters between Erasmus and Luther).  Saint Teresa wrote about those times in our lives when we pray only with the utmost difficulty, likening them to a dry garden, in which no amount of effort seems to bear fruit.  Sue and I have a friend suffering through such a time, following a great loss.  Those are times, says Saint Teresa, when persistence is most important.  It prepares the ground for when the rains come.

A similar thing happens in certain kinds of wetlands.  Beaverponds go through a well known lifecycle, which includes a period of abandonment.  After a few seasons of inattention, the old beaverdams may breach, draining the wetland down to a low, ugly mudflat.  But then the miracle:  the seeds that lay underwater, buried in the mud and the muck, burst into life, transforming the mudflat into a vibrant meadow of sedges, reeds and shrubs.  The new growth, in turn, prepares the way for the return of the beavers.  What seemed desolate begins a rebirth.

Monarchs at Oshawa Second Marsh

Sue and I drove to Toronto this weekend for a wedding.  On our way home on Sunday (after a detour to Soma for the World's best chocolate), we stopped at Oshawa Marsh and the McLaughlin Bay Wildlife Reserve for a short hike.  The noon sun was warm, while a breeze kept us comfortable.  We walked to the viewing platform on the east side of the marsh, admired the many cormorants sunning themselves on the many perches and platforms, and counted the great blue herons stalking through the lilypads and cattails.  I watched a northern harrier hunting low along the far shore, hovering stationary for a few moments in one location, swooping quickly to the next, and then dropping on some unsuspecting victim in the reeds.  I was pleased to see no evidence of the ethanol plant proposed several years ago for the west shore -- the EA for which I briefly worked on as a consultant.  The wrong idea in the wrong place, as the harrier would no doubt attest.

From the viewing platform, Sue and I wandered south along the trails through thickets of golden-red sumac, and then down under the maples and willows of the Cool Hollow Trial.  The huge, aged trees -- a relict hedgerow from the days when the area was agricultural land -- seemed wonderfully decadent in comparison to the younger, adjacent forest.  At the lakeshore, a stiff wind blew off the water, raising small whitecaps on the lake and ruffling my hair.  In the distance, a line of more prominent whitecaps seemed to mark the edge of the bar off the point, but when I focused the binoculars I could identify them as a dozen mute swams bobbing on the waves.  Sue and I walked along the shore, slipping pretty cobblestones and fragments of slate into our pockets for later use in one of Sue's mineral identification workshops.  Four shorebirds flew and dipped along the beach ahead of us.

Leaving the beach, we followed the trails around to the west side of McLaughlin Bay, passing into dense fields of goldenrod and asters.  It took a few moments for us to notice the monarchs.  We had already seen some in the sumac thicket, flitting across the trail or above our heads.  As we moved deeper into the wildflowers, we began to see more of them fluttering this way and that.  And then a group of five, lifting and dancing together.  Looking more closely, we realized that they were all about us, hanging like orange fruit from the bouquets of white, blue and yellow flowers:  hundreds of monarchs, maybe thousands over the fields.  At any point, we could have stepped off the trail and found five or ten of them within arm's reach.

In retrospect, we shouldn't have been surprised to find so many monarchs at this time of year.  The north shore of Lake Ontario is known as a migration route for monarchs in the autumn, and what better place to rest and feed than at the McLaughlin Bay Wildlife Reserve?  Nonetheless, their poise and lack of timidity surprised me.  I've chased after monarchs many times, trying for the perfect photograph.  On this day, however, they posed tantalizingly still on each flower, slowly opening and closing their clean, perfect wings -- allowing us to admire them in detail, but seeming also to taunt us for our lack of a camera.  Sue and I resolved to find some reason to return to Second Marsh next year at the same time -- ready to capture the spectacle.

Labour Day Weekend

On Saturday, September 3rd, Sue, Thomas and I drove to Devil Lake, south of Westport, for a family reunion.  We stayed at Pine Haven Resort, on the south shore of the lake, along the Old Perth Road.  Cottage 3 lies on the east side of the resort, tucked up against a steep, wooded ridge of maple, pine and oak.  The front porch faces west, looking over a small, tidy, grassy rectangular campground of well-tended trailers.  The campground slopes from south to north down to faded, wooden boat docks, a sandy beach, and a shallow weedy bay.  Rocky shores, dark with hardwoods, pine and cedars, bound both sides of the narrow bay, which opens at the north end on to the wider lake.  Strings of green islands beckon across the water.  Standing on docks, one can see along the distant, far shore, a faint, paler line marking the place where a cliff plunges more precipitously into the dark waters -- the Devil's Face, the locals call it, as they slowly troll lead-core lines below its precambrian face for Lake Trout.

Pine Haven caters to an older, quieter crowd.  Any children tend to be grandchildren.  The campfires and music begin to die down around 10 PM, although country and western may continue to drift across from the neighbouring campground much later.  Likewise, the days begin quietly, with the suserration of 9.9 hp outboard motors slowly pushing aluminum boats out for the morning fishing.  Most of the non-resident guests are regulars, respecting the atmosphere.  New guests quickly learn the way of things, or they don't return.

Three of my uncles have trailers at the lake.  Jack and Lesley came first to Devil Lake, purchasing a trailer and a campsite about fifteen years ago.  Phil and Stella joined them a year or two ago, as did Bill and Bev.  My cousins visit frequently.  Cousin Jennifer's kids, Jack Austin and Zoe, spend much of their summer holidays with Jack and Lesley.  This year, Aunt Susan and Uncle Jacques came to visit from England.  Of the older Stow's, only my father couldn't join us at the lake, as he and Jennifer wait in Nova Scotia for Jen's upcoming cornea transplant.

We had many reasons to celebrate:  Susan and Jacque's visit; the recent birth of Jason and Zou-zou's son, Luke, and their pending departure for new adventures in Winnipeg; Bill's retirement; a first anniversay for Sue and me.  Several parties were planned, and I brought my guitar.

We arrived in Devil Lake just after lunch, in bright sunshine and hot, humid air.  Soon after unpacking, we made our way to the beach, where we joined Jack, Les, Phil, Susan, Jacques and the cousins and second cousins under the trees.  Jack Austin and Zoe chased minnows and turtles in the shallows.  Sue spread out on her towel, reading articles from Nature and Policy Options, and Thomas hung out on the swimming dock.

I snorkeled along the shore beyond the float and the roped swimming area -- feeling cool and fresh for the first time in days.  Gliding over a forest of weeds, I watched pumpkinseeds, bluegills and crappies suspended between the green tendrils in aqueous sunshine.  As the shoreline steepened and fell more sharply into the lake, I saw more sunfish and bass hovering below the bleached wooden skeletons of drowned, downed trees, and flitting in and out of the shadows of the cedars that leaned over the water.  When I swam back toward the beach, Tom joined me.  I lagged a little behind him as he cruised along the surface, marvelling again at the changes in him.  Not just how he's grown -- probably an inch or two above me now -- but how much confidence he shows.

At suppertime, we joined the family for a barbecue at Phil and Stella's trailer, near the top of the campground under an enormous maple.  Hot dogs and hamburgers; pies from Westport; a slab cake for Bill's retirement.  The family dogs lolled about in the heat, played with each other, and circled the tables looking for food.  The women took turns holding Luke, who tolerated the attention with well-fed patience.  He'd just learned to smile, Zou-Zou reported, which prompted no end of cooing and coaxing from his adoring grandmother, great aunts and second cousins.  Bill broke out a bottle of champagne to toast retirement.  We ended the evening around the campfire, where I played a few songs.

The next morning broke unusually dark, with the rumble of thunder behind the ridge to the east.  I got up and walked to the front room to look out the window toward the lake.  A dawn kayaker paddled urgently back to the docks.  I watched Uncle Jack walk down to pull something out of his boat and, then, as the rain cascaded down, hurry up to the neighbouring cottage where Susan and Jacques were staying with Jacques' brother, Roger.  The thunder rumbled continuously, as the storm passed overhead.  Sue joined me from the bedroom, and we watched the lighting together, especially admiring one particularly vivid bolt that seemed to strike with a sharp crack just beyond the trees across the campground.  Then, as the storm slowly subsided, Sue stretched out under a blanket on the couch and was soon asleep, while I curled up on the daybed to nap.

When we rose again, the air was perfectly still.  Where the wind had recently thrown the trees into a frenzy, I watched a water droplet dangle precariously from the tip of a maple leaf for a full minute, without any hint of falling.  The weather was more changeable than on the previous day, although the storm was followed by no more than a sprinkle of rain.  At lunchtime, the family convened at Susan and Jacques' cottage for a surprise baby shower for Zou-Zou and Jason.  After lunch, Thomas and I borrowed Jack's canoe and went fishing.  We trolled and cast along the shore.  Tom picked up a small pike on a spinnerbait, while I employed several flies without success.  At dinnertime, the family again convened at Phil and Stella's trailer for another barbecue feast.  Sue and I tired early, and left for our cottage soon after dark.

Monday morning dawned grey, cool and breezy, threatening rain.  Not a day for swimming or fishing.  We packed the car and slowly worked our way up the campground in the car, stopping at each trailer to say goodbye.  Saying goodbye to Susan and Jacques was particularly hard, but we consoled ourselves with promises to visit them in England.  Maybe next April, when the daffodils will be blooming.  We drove back home to Ottawa, stopping briefly at Sue's favourite pottery shop in Perth.

And so passed our last summer weekend of 2011 -- surrounded by family, joy and promise.

The late summer of life

The heat has broken.  The days still climb into the mid-twenties, but the nights have grown cooler.  Instead of lying in bed above the covers, longing for the faintest breeze, I can now lie under a sheet or light blanket with the evening air lapping through the window like ripples on a beach.  I can even roll over and curl an arm around Sue, without breaking into a sweat.  Sue complains that "winter's almost here", as she puts on her sweater to step outside.  As much as I love summer, I revel in the cool morning.  All of the humidity settles overnight into dew on the grass, and air tastes sharp like old cheese and cider -- even here, with King Edward Avenue running past our front porch.

The approaching end of summer comes with clear signs.  Students begin to sift back into our neighborhood.  They appear with their parents or friends, unloading trailers and minivans into rooming houses.  The more tardy of them walk along the streets with scraps of paper, scanning the addresses and stopping to note vacancy signs.  Out in the countryside, the starlings and blackbirds have formed their flocks.  They whirl in and out of golden cornfields.  In the wetlands along the highways, the uppermost leaves of the maples begin to deepen to orange and red.  In the evenings, mist emanates from the warm earth to linger in low fields, valleys and coves until morning.

Sue and I saw a lot of the countryside this weekend.  Much of it, unfortunately, was along Highway 401, as we drove to and from Toronto to attend a baby shower for our friend Abena.  However, on Saturday afternoon we attended a musical gathering at a farm near Ashton, meeting up with friends and making new friends.  The farm is owned by the parents of Jen, one of our friends from the Elizabeth Riley Band.  We started with a informal song circle on the back porch -- just a few of us telling stories and playing our favourites, while the others relaxed in the shade of the trees.  Jen played a few songs.  Lyle Dillabough, the "Ottawa Valley Troubadour" was there, taking the lead or laying back as appropriate.  A neighbor, old Jim, who came to the area from northern Alabama about forty years ago, told stories and sang a cappella gospel in a fading but true southern drawl.  A family cat wound itself between chairs and around ankles.  Hummingbirds darted past the eaves.  Thunder muttered distantly, but somehow steered clear of us.  I took the lead on several songs, playing Our Town (Iris Dement), Call Me the Breeze (JJ Cale) and To Live's to Fly (Townes Van Zandt).

As a few more people showed up, the porch metamorphosed from a song circle to a small open stage.  Electric guitars, amplifiers and speakers made their appearance, and familar 60s and 70s classics began to echo over the surrounding fields.  Patricia and Carmel, our neighbors from the Co-op, arrived to complete the Elizabeth Riley Band.  They took their turn on stage, playing old folk and roots favourites.  The food came out:  new sweet corn, chili and salads.  Surrounded by a small, comfortable group of friends -- about twenty of us altogether -- I ventured to play a short set on stage:  a very nervous and shaky version of The Weakness in Me (Joan Armatrading), a more confident rendition of Don't Think Twice (Bob Dylan), a fair approximation of Red Light (Jonny Lang), a first public performance of Last Song to the Night (Nick Stow) and a reprise of Our Town -- accompanied beautifully by Lyle and the members of the Elizabeth Riley Band.  Sue and I stayed until sunset, then drove home through the dusk, dropping off one of the other guests en route.

It seems that the late summer of life is much like the season.  I feel more comfortable in my skin and more inclined to sample the sweetness of things.  Ten years ago, even five years ago, I would never have played guitar before an audience -- friends or not.  In fact, I would likely have shied away from such a gathering altogether, too self-conscious and too cautious.  More and more, I've come to identify with the words of the song, Ten Mile Stilts, by the Wailin' Jennies:  "I've got a heart that opens clear in this cool September dark/ and it sits on treetop leaves/ and it bursts it's little sparks/ And sometimes it sings its songs/ and it lets it's secrets out/ except for one it sears inside/ that it cannot live without."

I don't have any searing secrets -- I've learned that I can't with those -- but I've come to feel that my heart sits out there in the treetops.  And I don't fear it; and I look to autumn with anticipation.

Goodbye sweet companion

Hercules died on Sunday.  Chris and Dawn called in the evening from their home and property in Oxford Mills, where we had dropped off Hercules last year.  He'd shown no signs of illness or injury on Saturday night, when Chris let him out with Goldie and Shadow for a final run.  But he didn't return with the other dogs.  Chris looked for him in the darkness, to no avail, and then returned to the search in the morning.  He found Hercules by the pond, about 75 m from the house, alive but unable to stand.  Hercules died on the way to see the vet in Kemptville.  The vet couldn't find an exact cause, but saw signs of internal bleeding.  He speculated about cancer, although I wonder if Hercules finally realized his dream of cornering a deer and received a fatal kick for his troubles.  Hercules was ten.

Dawn, Chris and their boys (Shay and Matt) had always been fond of Hercules, having known him since he was a puppy.  We'd spent many hours with Hercules at their property, which I've always fondly referred to as, "Fair Prospect" (from the A & E version of Pride and Prejudice).  Hercules loved to romp with the other dogs, roll himself in the dirtiest parts of the paddock, and then plunge into the pool.  He needed to run, and when it became clear last year that we could no longer provide him with a happy life in the City, Dawn and Chris generously agreed to take him.

We purchased Hercules from a breeder in Quebec City as a fifth birthday present for Thomas.  He was a purebred Brittany, just a little too independent for a field dog and with the wrong markings for a show dog.  Instead of the requisite white stripe down his forehead, he had a white heart.  And a big heart... a sweet heart.  From the moment that he arrived at our home in the co-op, he became the darling of the children in the courtyard.  He tolerated any amount of enthusiastic cuddling and wrestling, and always greeted every girl and boy with an eager, welcoming kiss.

Thomas fell in love with Hercules immediately, although in the first few years he would say that Herc was more my dog than his dog.  As Thomas grew, however, he and Hercules became greater buddies.  I'm pretty sure that Hercules and Thomas thought of each other as siblings.

Hercules loved nothing more than to run through fields and forests, or to plunge for a cooling dip into a lake or river.  Spring through autumn were his seasons.  He never grew accustomed to winter, being prone to ice buildup in his paws, and our only attempt to fit him with booties provided some despairing looks and an exaggerated clown walk.

Hercules loved to go to canoing, although a romp on the shore was never far from his mind.  He accompanied Thomas and I on many fishing trips, and never failed to make us laugh at his reaction when we hauled in a pike or bass.  Together, he and I explored many waterways and wetlands.

Goodbye sweet companion.  We won't forget you.  I certainly won't forget the feel of your coat under my hand as I reached down unconsciously to pet you, or your comforting smell during our raucous "family cuddles" on Tom's bed.  Thank you for the happiness that you brought to our family, as well as Chris and Dawn's family.

Images of summer

The signs of summer's demise appear all around.  I feel the season slipping away from me.  We have passed lethargically through some of the hottest days on record.  The asters and goldenrods are blooming in fields and along roadsides.  The starlings have begun to gather, while all the other birds have gone into hiding.  Only the cicadas seem evident, trilling in the grasses and trees.

The farmers brought in the first cut of hay in June, and some are now starting the second cut.  Hay bales stand sentinel in the fields, or in shrink-wrapped loaves along fencelines.  In the market, local vegetables brighten the stalls, and the first sweet corn went on sale along the roadsides this week.  The midday sky arches blue overhead, and thunderstorms rumble in the evenings.

I still haven't replaced my camera.  Fortunately, I've been able to borrow one occasionally.  But with or without a photographic record, summer always passes for me in images -- in landscapes and portraits.  I pause often to witness the moments and places, turning for a second look and a lasting memory.  I sit often on the front porch or back step in the evening, playing guitar in the cooling air and cultivating my own image.

Here are few images of this summer and summers past.