A Recruitment Letter

 What follows is a draft of a letter for our local paper. I am not satisfied with it; it is too long and, frankly, boring. I would very much appreciate comments.

When was the last time you went to bed thinking “Well, I may not have everything done, but that was a good day, I enjoyed myself?” I have been reflecting lately, as octogenarians are supposed to do, on my life and what I have done with it. And what this seems to tell me is a pretty simple thing: when I was happiest was when I was engaged with my community. A lot of the fun in my life and a lot of the value and learning came from volunteering.

I started volunteering when we moved to a new city and my children started school. I could not find a job and so I had time on my hands and some basic skills. I ended up volunteering in our local school, working with children who did not have English language skills. This morphed into full-time work and part-time work which, over time, I still take on.  But I did not keep to my skill set to find interesting things to do. I have had a lot of happiness learning things like managing puppets, sewing gym costumes, learning shuffleboard, running a strawberry social, calculating amounts for ham dinners.  Some of the time over the course of my lifetime I have worked full time or part time, but I have always made time to volunteer somewhere, somehow. And it has almost always paid me more than it cost me.

When we moved to Lanark Highlands, a wonderful woman called Marion Paul found out I could take meeting minutes and (it seems to me within a minute) I replaced her as the secretary of the Watson’s Corners Hall Committee. That helped me to find my place in the community. Rural living, for those of you newly here, is not like the city. I think you will always find your neighbours there for you if you need them. But the winter days can be long and cold and slow. The Watson’s Corners  Hall Committee is charged with making a warm, safe space with kitchen and toilets available to the local community. While the hall belongs to the township, the community runs it. All done by people from the neighbourhood.

What is a rural community hall? It is a location, with roof, where almost anything can be done; a family reunion, a funeral, a meeting (with food), cards (with food), a walking group, art classes, fitness classes, yoga, a camera club.  At Watson’s, the committee volunteers use the kitchen to put on several community meals every year to raise money to heat, clean and generally keep the hall going. All done by people from the neighbourhood.

If you are still reading this, you may be ‘in the neighbourhood’, if not of Watson’s Hall, then of one of the others that the Township in its wisdom holds in trust. The Township owns it. The community runs it. And so, to be run and used, the community needs to step up and be part of it. If we all pitch in, even if we only have a bit of time to spare, the hall is and remains a hub. Join the volunteer pool, or even consider being part of the hall committee.

I have found that I could always choose a volunteer job that suited my availability and ability level (among the Watson’s kitchen staff, this relegated me to washing dishes but, hey, we put them through). A volunteer job could be a one-off for a few hours, or a small amount of time each month, didn’t matter. I was part of things; I was happy.

And so would you be. Watson’s will be calling an Annual General Meeting  in February, 2027 but you don’t have to wait until then. Talk to people. Join. You won’t regret it. Thirty years later, neither do I.

Bucket List

 June 25^th, 2026. I had to remind myself what year this is before I typed that. Just a small window into the mess that my brain has become this last while. And not only my brain.

 I found and brought forward this photo of my, as a much younger and stronger woman, bringing pails of sap in to boil into syrup. There should be a title, something to do with life making you lug things around. Suggestions?

I am surrounded, today as I sit at my computer, by: stacks of paper; minutes to go into the minute book, requests for money from charities we favour; medical reports; financial records for the file; a pile or two for my husband; all the rest.  And goodness knows what ‘all the rest’ will turn out to be. I have to clear this up and sort it before I can sort what I am prepared to lose of all my precious ‘stuff’. You never know, right, when you will need a gold-edged certificate page or quick-finish glue or a mid-sized manila envelope.

I have done a first and less than drastic sort of the basement storage, my clothes and the china cabinet. It is time to hit the bookshelves and drawers and storage in this, my office. Well, at least it now has a door.

It was just a year ago that JG informed me that he had hired a finish carpenter to finish the carpenting in the house. Since we moved in, only my bathroom has had ‘finishing’ and so I have been looking, for over a quarter century now, at structural wood in the doorways, pipes and wires in the downstairs ceiling, subfloor on the stair landing, more but you can envision the level. This slow and patient carpenter framed in and built the hall downstairs and put in the ceiling. He put doors on my office and my storage cupboard (I cheered) and finished the stairway  floor. Then, sadly, he got sick and had to leave and we still have some cleanup to do.

Another extreme cleanup is underway this morning. My neighbour who is doing this is, she tells me, a ‘detail’ person. There is a lot of detail on that porch, pollen and dust carried in by the wind. It settles, sticks and is in crevices and cracks everywhere. She started right after breakfast and as I write this, just short of noon, she is tackling the worst of the accreted dirt on her hands and knees. She is worth her weight in shiny gold coins.

The two things I am doing for a peaceful future are these – divesting myself of things and locating people who can take over the things I no longer am able to do. JG is doing the same. We are considering divesting ourselves of some of the land, but that is a story all on itself.

And writing this is not getting anything sorted.

This Post May Bug You

 

 

Monday, May 18^{th .}Victoria Day in Canada. Note that it is NOT Queen’s actual birthday. I am not sure when that is. It is a holiday that supposedly celebrates our sovereign. And it is the weekend to open the cottage, or buy bedding plants or … stay inside lest you be eaten alive by little black flies.

I did not grow up with blackflies. Mosquitoes, yes, and deer flies and shad flies and deer flies (more later on these not dear devils), all of those. And my parents opened the cottage on what was then often called ‘The Queen’s Birthday’, so I had an intimate holiday meeting with some of those listed above. But I lived too far south to grow up with the little black miseries. And so, when I get bitten by one, I get a big red welt at each bite spot. A mosquito bite’s evidence does not last for more than a few minutes; I am acclimated to them, annoying as they are. My daughters, who did grow up with them, do not react this way. But I am really sensitive to the blackflies and they are, presently, thick.

I am not the only person to hate the pests. If you do a control/click on the link here Blackfly - NFB it should take you to a really wonderful short song about them. (If that doesn’t work, here is the link to the Wikipedia website The Blackfly Song - Wikipedia. Even if you know this short animation of the song, playing it is a pleasant few minutes.

Anyway, my first encounter with the little devils was in Deep River in 1962. We were driving to the west coast, and we decided to camp for the night in the town’s campground. By morning I had a ring of red itchy welts around my neck, my wrists and my waist and I was really, really glad to leave. We left the bugs behind about the Ontario/Manitoba border but the itchies stayed with me until June.

 If you can’t leave them behind, if you are working outside with both hands occupied, it can be pretty miserable. I have seen some of the neighbours, when they were cleaning up from sugaring, with blood dripping behind their ears. The flies are looking for a blood meal and they have, in fact, sharp jaws.

While we are here whining about wildlife, the other fly in the ointment is the deer fly. This is a much bigger insect, delta-winged, and it really bites hard. They are controllable with repellent, but miserable if you are stripped down to swim as they seem to like wet skin. They leave a welt on everyone. When I was a kid at my parents’ cottage we had horseflies, similar but bigger, that attacked us when we swam in the lake. I learned to swim underwater, as if you did that for a distance, you could lose one that was trying to take a chunk out of you.

We have an open field behind our house and at this time of year, if there is a windy day, the deer will come out and lie in the field to chew their cuds. I think the wind reduces the number of flies following them.

We had our first hot day today. Not enough to put the air conditioner on, but pretty warm. That will bring on the leaves and flowering trees, but anyone out and about this weekend should be covered up, in spite of the heat.

 

Friday, May 22^nd

As predicted. A warm week has produced blossom everywhere, starting with ED’s cherished magnolia, and the blossom has enticed the female hummingbirds north. We appear to have a dominant male, at least one other male and at least one female being courted by the male’s swinging U flybys that, with our window feeder, we see close up. Also for sure two and possibly three pairs of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. And a robin that has decided I should be scolded off the screen porch and who, accordingly, has a chipping fit whenever I go out there. Robins can be very opinionated. Back in the archive somewhere is a description of persuading a robin that nesting on the light fixture outside our bedroom door was not a good option. This may be her great-grandkid that is bugging me. Fair trade, turnabout. Hmm.

Just to mention, blackflies are rampant. We have a neighbour who got his garden in, he says, because the day was windy enough to blow them away. I am not sure I buy that, but we do have a heavier tree cover to cut the wind and allow the evil little things to lurk.

JG is off to do a dump run and pick up prescription meds en route. Up until the start of this year we had a ‘transfer station’ on the next concession over where all of our trash could go and where recyclables were collected. It closed down and now we have about a twenty minute drive to the station outside the village. Annoying. I know the township wants to save money wherever possible, and the transfer station had to have a keeper and the deposits sorted and moved, but it was lovely to be able to drive a bit down the road and unload it all. We have a lot of recyclables, paper being the premium but plastic a close second. I hope people in this area will stiffen their spines and keep doing the clean thing, even if it is more time and trouble. It is a real blow to our community hall, as it generates a lot of trash when we hold a function.

 Rats and all that. It is now the 23^rd and I am ending this babble. Goodness knows why anyone would read it this far. Except I have to to proof it.

-30 -

Bringing May Flowers

 May 11, 2026

I have been quiet for a few days, mostly because I put my back out and was prescribed a hydromorphone. Plays the dickens with my head. This morning I dumped half a cup of hot coffee on my lap. But, I should be doing a post about the spring flowers, and will try to concentrate.

The daughters came out yesterday with all sorts of goodies for lunch, the highlight being a Mother’s Day cake with flowers and butterflies on it. The butterflies were paper, but the rest was icing and a sheer, indulgent, delight. They then went for a walk in the woods, trundling around the trails they have known since they were small children, and came back with some lovely flower shots.

It is amusing, in passing, to note that the daughter who can squat right down beside a flower to get the best angle had her sixtieth birthday last month. I am pretty sure if I had tried to do that at the same age, they would have had to bring in a crane to get me up again.

A few posts ago, I put  up a photo of my two little girls dancing down a trail. That is one of the trails on our land (we have 300 acres and I can get confused). We bought the first hundred when the daughters were quite young, maybe nine and eight and they grew up spending weekends and holidays here, in a four-seasons cabin that we built. For most of that time we had no hydro and so we heated with a wood stove, and lit and cooked with gas that lived in large tanks at the back of the cabin. We carried water from a well and our toilet facility was a township-approved pit privy. (Read, outhouse, urban friends.)

What did we do here in all of our open time? We made and maintained trails. JG taught himself woodmanship and did an inventory of our trees, bushes and plants. We cut quantities of firewood. We were able to buy more land, some of it carrying good sugar maple and so we made a bit of maple syrup and got ourselves hooked into becoming maple people. This involved building a sugar house, cutting even more wood, stringing tubing, clearing more trails and, finally, boiling, bottling and selling. Plus eating a bit along the way. In winter we played in the snow - skis and snowmobiles - and in other seasons we worked. Or built. Evenings, we read. No electricity means no TV. 

Around where the girls became adults we were able to get electrical power and a telephone. JG redid the cabin with electric lights and electric stove and frig. Glorious. Only, in drilling out the inlets for the power, we enabled mice. Somewhere there was a hole big enough to admit them and we could not find it. We never have found it, and the cabin is now a storage place.

Sometime after that, JG retired. Finished work on a Friday and on Saturday we started in seriously to build our dream home on our land, still referred to, with very little reason, as ‘the farm’. I should write a post or more about that building spree. Someday. I have to get the flower photos up.

The Old Tree

 

The View From Forty-Two  -  Sarah Piazza
  written in 2010

Mommy! My son exclaimed Just the other day: You look like A tree! — and He chortled, then, At the offense: This green shirt, Those brown pants. I was delighted.

When I am old I hope the boy, Grown to man, sees Value In weathered skin Like bark, In hair so white It might cap Even rogue waves, In ropy-veined legs Working overtime, Bulging, and blushing, With dedicated effort.

And all that day I felt strong. Rooted. Proud, to provide Shade, and a moment Or two to contemplate For a wanderer Who might weep, grateful, To find me sturdy, To find me Still.

 

Way back when blogs were popular, Sarah wrote and posted this. At the time, I was 68, with a seven-year-old grandkid, and this poem spoke to me in a way that the author and the other young mothers in the blog ambiance could not relate to in the same way. I was backing up my daughter in caring for her daughter, looking after the child when that was needed. My other daughter was working overseas, in a job with a lot of stress, and calling on me to manage something she could not here, although only rarely. And, yes, I was proud to be in their lives, to be a convenience. Sturdy. Yes.

These same words curl into my conscious thought now so differently. If I once provided shade, I am now shaded, generously, often. Both my daughters live in the city near us and they check on us, carefully, thoughtfully, often. They do things for us that need doing. They are a great and continuing help for the parents whose skin has weathered, hair turned fine and white as foam on a breaker, legs ceased to work well anytime.  For whom just living is an effort.

I am so grateful for them. For them to be here for us. For all that I know they will do, willingly, cheerfully, until they no longer find me. 

Words, words, words.

 

On Monday, we went to an event where both a candidate for our federal riding and the incumbent of another nearby riding were on hand for a meet-and-greet event. The incumbent got up to say a few words and by the time these words were finished, I was very unimpressed. What I heard was the same descriptor used at least five times in as many sentences. And the descriptor was one of those useless ones that should never be employed as positives. My memory being what it is, the exact word has now escaped me, but it was one of ‘amazing’ or "awesome' or ‘incredible’. The welcome received, the candidate’s quality, the food and ambiance of the venue, the importance of the time, all were ‘incredible’. It annoys me greatly when such a descriptor is used once, but the repetition was, if you will excuse my saying so, amazingly very annoying.

I really wished that I had had a thesaurus to hand, to use to whack this person.

For those of you who are not ancient English teachers, ‘amazing’ as defined in the Oxford dictionary, means causing great surprise or wonder; astonishing. Similar words include; astonishing, astounding, surprising, bewildering. Stunning, staggering, shocking, startling, stupefying, breathtaking, perplexing, confounding, dismaying, disconcerting, shattering, awesome, awe-inspiring, sensational, remarkable, spectacular, stupendous, phenomenal, prodigious, extraordinary, incredible, unbelievable, wonderful, marvelous, thrilling, exciting, mind-blowing, flabbergasting, dumbfounding. A second and informal usage is startlingly impressive.

Please note that this meeting, while having enough people so that the seats were mostly filled, was not in any way outstanding, let alone spectacular. The candidate, a pleasant and qualified person, was not, for sure, breathtaking. The food was okay. The meeting time was not the best choice, really, as we were called together over the supper hour. As I think about it, the speaker may have called all of these things ‘awesome’, as that is another descriptor that is getting badly overused these days.

People who are elected as our representatives should, clearly, be prepared to speak to a group, both formally and informally. The verb ‘prepare’ is the key here. I came away convinced that the speaker was either careless or out of their depth. Not what you would want in a member of Parliament. I found the speech literally, if you will excuse me, marvelous.

A Perfect Hour

In a lot of things we do, it is easy to think that parts of it could be better. “If only” whatever it was … was sooner or later, longer or shorter, darker or brighter. If there had been less fog, or warmer water or fewer people or less noise or ….! Yikes. The list is endless, once you start to think about it. But, in the midst of this clatter and clamour, sometimes there are small islands of perfection, of what a poet I once read called the ‘still centre, the heart of rest’. I think it is probably a really good exercise, when the snow lingers or the guest does not arrive when expected, to search in your memory and heart for these times, recall them, even if not in tranquility, and cherish the memory.

For me, one of these loved times was a fall afternoon, here on our land, taking a walk through the woods on a sunny day, a cool but clear afternoon, with my two little girls. There were a lot of leaves down, still at their crisp, curled best, and the girls ran through them, shuffling and rustling and giggling. They would run ahead of me, the sun glinting off their shiny blowing hair, or dart off to the side to investigate something intriguing. Or they would run back to me to share a perfect scarlet leaf or a tattered last summer aster. Sometimes they were together, sometimes off on solo explorations, but always the music of their voices and the grace of their movement informed the perfect hour. Slanted sunbeams picked up the fine dust of the autumn’s leavings as it swirled from their flying feet. I knew as I walked that what was happening was precious, was perfect, I took a photo.

A photograph can only capture one tiny slice of such a day. Even a video, the kind of thing my camera chooses to take from time to time, would not give you scent, the surrounding tall, enduring trees, the  golden leaves on the trail edges. But if I try I can remember all of it, scent, sound, the golden sun’s illumination, the serenity. Even so, a photo helps. The one above may not be of the day I am describing; the girls look a bit older, the sun is not breaking through. But I can edit it in memory. A place in my life to treasure, forever.

A Drift of Diary Pages

Outside, snowdrifts.  

March 17^th

I feel a bit guilty about not acknowledging St P. today. But not very guilty. I did consider wearing of the green, but on further thought realized that I do not have a single green garment. JG has green shirts in plenty, but his chosen shirt for the day was sort of moss coloured and could not really be said to count. Nor did I launch into making green iced cookies as I have, in the past, done to celebrate. I did make a pie on Pi Day, but it had a plain crust. In fact, I have been negligent in many ways of marking the days. If I were to be really honest, I would say I am marking time, waiting for the snow to go and the birds to come.

March 20

I am, however, continuing to downsize and, with the help of a wonderful neighbour who is coming in one day a week to do the things I can’t manage, I got rid of a lot of stuff yesterday. A lot. All the extras spare bedding went, and a good deal of similar goods, like cushions. When we first got the final furniture for the living room and tv room (both with couches that make into double beds) I bought small couch cushions and fabric to cover them co-ordinated with the armchair. I never made the covers and so unused cushions plopped into the recycle pile. In a chest I found a little blanket that JG’s mother and grandmother had made for one of our girls. I kept it and will mend and wash and, possibly offer it for the new step-grandchild if the ‘girls’ (um, both close to sixty and sleeping in beds) do not want it. The wonderful helper stuffed many, many bags of this pelf into her truck and trucked it all off to our recycle store. I keep one spare bed made and still have enough bedding make up three guest beds - using the couches - if I have to, and that will do me, thanks.

I can now see the counter in my laundry room. Ms Wonderful cleaned it, besides. There are two terrible jobs left in that room though. One is sorting the drawers and the cupboards. All my sewing stuff and painting stuff and wrapping stuff and cleaning stuff is stuffed into those containers. The other Herculean task is is making an inventory of what is in the freezer that lives in there with the laundry machines. I just made up a check sheet, doubled, which I will date and keep one page at the freezer and the other upstairs. If it works. If I do the work. And so, goodbye for now as I stump off with my lists. Report later if this actually works.

March 21^st.

Happy Solstice to you. Well, we tossed a lot of containers, some with labels. Some not, but I spotted the lasagna and we are keeping that. I have not done the inventory yet. I did exhume one drawer, and in it found all the pieces for a baby sweater, not made up. I intend to make it up and give it to the step-grandson and his wife for their baby girl. Not sure if there is such a thing as a step-grand, but I watched this boy and his brother grow up, They spent half time with their mother and half with my ED and her man, whose sons they are, half brothers of my granddaughter therefore, and I am fond of them. The YD keeps referring to her father as the ‘grandpa’ of her dog, much to his annoyance. Relationships are sometimes fraught, eh?

I read an article the other day about loneliness in old age that has me thinking quite a bit. When we first moved from the city to this very rural home a long hour’s drive outside of it, I knew I would have to make connections and get involved if I were to be happy here. JG got an early retirement and we were both in our fifties. I had lots of energy and it was easy to find things to join and do. Line dancing, board memberships, socializing with the neighbours, giving dinner parties – and going to them – all worked well for me. I went on trips with the YD. JG and I also did a lot of travelling, both in the states and overseas. I was in my early sixties when the grandkid came along, and I drove into the city to babysit as needed. I was busy and content.

And then, crunch, what I was convinced was a bad back turned out to be a bad heart and I ended up in hospital getting bypass surgery, plus surgery on my aorta, plus, subsequently, two knee replacements. Driving vacations and a lot of my activities were no longer possible, for various reasons. The bad back was also real and it was a long fight to get mobility and the basic homemaking chores back to being doable. Now, in my 83^rd year, I am losing dexterity, even though I have had both carpal tunnels fixed, losing hearing acuity, losing concentration ability and, some days, losing my temper all too easily with JG’s loss of ability to either hear what I tell him or remember it.

I note in passing that this situation occurred in my parents’ household and my mother said that on occasion she wrote something down and insisted that her husband sign it and date it.

Yes, I can identify that I am lonely from time to time.

I just opened the drawer of my desk to look for cuticle scissors and found myself picking up my grandmother’s pretty china thimble from the tray. It is a silly thing to keep since it does not fit any finger of mine except the smallest one, but I can see her sewing me doll clothes and that thimble flashing away and I want it, for the link I guess. This was my mother’s mother and the grandmother that babysat me as necessary. I, philistine that I was, took her entirely for granted but I did, one day as an adult, turn on a tape recorder and get her talking about being a wife and mother and housewife and I love to play a bit of that tape now and again. It has my mother’s voice on it as well.

I wonder what my grandkid will take away from her time with me. Not a flashing thimble, that is for certain. I appear to have made the body of the sweater mentioned above from one pattern and the sleeves from another, and I am struggling to remember how to finish the neck. Beyond annoying, how my skills and positive personality traits are leaving me.

And, drat it, it is now almost March 24^th and this nonsense is getting posted. Feel free to have skipped a lot of it. And I don't with all the wool stuffed into those drawers, have one that is a good match to mend the little blanket. Grumble. Grumble. 

Pages

 March 4, 2026

I just looked at my office window and saw two houseflies crawling on the glass, on the inside. They have now been firmly squashed and deposited in the waste bin. Luckily they were sluggish and easy to kill. Ah yes, it is THAT time again. The warmth of the sun brings insects out of hibernation – or whatever it is that they do all winter – and they are back with us again. Our windows are original to the house and showing their age and I think that the flies can crawl into cracks and crannies and work through to the inside.

Just in passing, isn’t ‘cranny’ a lovely word? The online etymological dictionary says this about it. “The word "cranny" originates from the Middle English term "crany," which is believed to be a diminutive of "cran," meaning notch or fissure. It is derived from Old French "cren," and ultimately traces back to Medieval Latin "crenare," meaning to notch or split. The root is also linked to the Proto-Indo-European root *ker-, which means to cut or separate. The term has been in use since the 14th century and is often used to describe a small, hidden, or secluded place.”

You might hear it used in the phrase ‘every nook and cranny’. I could look up ‘nook’ as well, but I am guessing it is Old English. Yep. Interesting that the two words used together come from two different languages. One could speculate that they were used together to make sure of the meaning, and grew into a phrase that way.

March 11, 2026

Ah well. Lost that train of thought. Not even the light on the caboose is still showing. And there is a word. ‘Caboose’, Mirriam Webster tells us, is probably from Dutch kabuis, kombuis, from Middle Low German kabūse. It is 1. a ship's galley, 2. a freight-train car attached usually to the rear mainly for the use of the train crew. 3. one that follows or brings up the rear, or 4. Buttocks. Its first known use is found in 1732, in the meaning defined at sense 1. We are not told how or when it became attached to the train car.

There is something positive to be said of a world in which I can find that information by hitting a few raised keys on a board, rather than trudging off to the library for access to the encyclopedia. Although when I was in senior grade school, my mother purchased a multi-volume encyclopedia set. One book a week from the grocery store. I remember sitting on the basement floor reading odd bits from it, just for entertainment. And I did use it for high school projects. I know that my best friend’s parents had a set; not sure of others. I wonder whatever happened to those books. When I packed up my parents’ house to move them here, the set was no longer in the house.

And as we are speaking of packing, There is a pile of boxes beside my office door into which have been packed, with great care and lots of wrapping, all but one teacup and saucer of my grandmother Holden’s precious dishes. I think this set would have been wedding presents, as ‘good’ china and silverware were often the gifts of choice. You had ‘everyday’ dishes for normal use but on Sunday dinner and for holiday meals, you brought out fine china if you had it.

My mother’s mother started me on this path at age sixteen. I was marched to a high end store called ‘Birks’ that sold expensive jewellery and high end table furnishings. There I was encouraged to choose a silverware pattern. And, following this, I received from my grandmother a piece of this silverware for each gift-giving occasion that followed. I also received some pieces as wedding gifts and when my grandmother died, age 92 and counting, I was one fork shy of place settings for six. I also received wedding money from her and some great aunts to purchase my china. I bought a set of Japanese dishes that, as I recall, my daughter took from me to use when first employed as a diplomat, as she was instructed to have such a set. I could still use the silverware if I were to polish it.

Just in case you did not notice, I am continuing with the downsizing. The only reason that the boxed china is still here is that on my daughter’s last visit, the laneway was a sheet of ice. Not conducive to carrying boxes of fragile china out to her car. She is now off to meetings in Europe, and the boxes await her return.

The next project will, I hope, be bedding. At one point I had a double bed and four single beds in our cabin, and kept enough sheets, pillowcases, quilts and blankets to dress all of them. Then we built this house and added a queen bed in our bedroom, plus two couches that pull out to double beds. Latterly, we put a guest bedroom in the basement, with a queen bed and shut down the cabin. I have a lot (understatement of the year) of bedding, and I really only now need enough for two beds. There are going to be a lot more boxes and bags. A group in the city runs a 'store' where these items are laid out and can be taken as needed. A fine idea, truly.

Cupboard Love

 March 1, 2026

At last February is behind us and, as I write this, the sun is streaming in my office window and a pale blue sky is stretched overhead. But. The temperature is some distance into the freezing zone, there is a sharp wind whipping through the tree branches and I am enjoying my March day by trying out different ‘come in like’ descriptions.

Not a lion, this day. Certainly not a lamb. A hawk? Wrong colour values. The ground is still deep in shining snow and ice. Yesterday, as we sat at our kitchen table and watched the bird feeders, all the small birds and squirrels suddenly disappeared. To our great pleasure first one and then a second huge owl landed, one in the apple tree and one on a maple beside it. They were absolutely beautiful, graceful, commanding. It was a perfect moment. They did not stay long, as lunch was not making itself seen.

So, March came in like a barred owl. I guess. I have just spent some time looking up information on the barred owl and photos. This one is pretty close to what we saw as the birds came in.

The problem with sunshine flooding a window is that it emphasizes how dirty the window has become. And how dirty they will stay until the weather warms up enough to open them up for cleaning. Our windows are ‘casement’, chosen because they crank open and are, therefore, supposedly easy to clean. This may be true if you happen to have long, thin arms that can manage the aperture to reach to clean the outside. The windows we chose are standard, and the ‘pin’ on which they swivel to open is quite close to one side. I have hired a worker to take on a lot of the jobs I can no longer manage, but I confess I did not check her biceps. Mine scraped.

When I had muscle. This last while I have pushed myself into trying to ‘downsize’ a little, both to make things simpler for me and to make things easier for the daughters/executors. We live in our ‘forever’ house and while we designed it for mature adult living (two bedrooms with a bathroom each), it is still a big house and full of stuff. The outbuildings are HIS responsibility and I am not even thinking about them. But the cabinets and drawers that hold things I use also hold a large number of things that I used to use, or thought I might use, or was given, or inherited.

One of these infestations is my grandmother’s ‘good’ china. My father’s mother probably received it as a wedding gift and it descended from her to my aunt, her daughter, and thence to me, the sole grandchild. It is beautiful. As you see. I have cherished this set, feeling it as a link to a grandmother who, because she died when I was only three, I only know through her things. Sadly, the dishes are not really useful. They have gold rims and, accordingly, must be handwashed and they are a smaller size than we need for celebratory dinners. My grandchild does not want them.

As of Thursday the set is counted, labelled and boxed, ready to go to a resale location that my daughter knows of.

I have also made a start on my closet with things I don’t need or can’t fit into. And, horrible job that it is, the storage room in the basement.

Along with Grandma Holden’s china went a lot of fragile bits and pieces. And some less fragile. I have a small stack of silver plate to clean and add. Last week, in the first stage of the storage room clean, I dispensed with a crystal punch bowl that we got as a wedding present and that I have never used, except occasionally as a display receptacle in the dining room. I have always disliked it. But, wait for this, when my family (well, two members of it) found out it was gone, they were very sad. The offspring would, I think, have taken it.

You know, you can play the game for a long time and not, not even close, ever win.

Hitting the Wall

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then?
Poor thing!
He'll sit in the barn
And keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing.
Poor thing!

When I was a young swimmer, slogging through many lengths of the pool in training, there would come a time, usually pretty late in the session, when I felt as if I could not go one more turn, one more kick, one more arm pull. It would seem insurmountable. But, if you made the turn, gave the kick, grabbed the water and pulled, you moved, you kept going, if slowly. That point of feeling stopped was referred to as ‘hitting the wall’. 

I know it is a saying in other endurance sports. I looked it up in Wikipedia and found it easily. “In endurance sports such as road cycling and long-distance running, hitting the wall or the bonk is a condition of sudden fatigue and loss of energy which is caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. Milder instances can be remedied by brief rest and the ingestion of food or drinks containing carbohydrates. Otherwise, it can be remedied by attaining second wind by either resting for approximately 10 minutes or by slowing down considerably and increasing speed slowly over a period of 10 minutes. Ten minutes is approximately the time that it takes for free fatty acids to sufficiently produce ATP in response to increased demand.”

The description is fascinating. No one hauled us out of the pool and fed us a high carb drink. No. We were just told to get on with it. And it is harder to drink in a pool than while running along the road -  not that the latter looks easy in the videos I havc watched.  I do recall seeing photos of the support boat in marathon swims where there was someone holding a bottle out on a long pole and thinking ‘REALLY?” I guess, it really happened.

At any rate, what I started out to babble about was that I think I hit the wall today. It is the start of the last week of February, February being trapped at home by winter month here, but I had three occasions to be with people planned. The first one got cancelled this morning, the third one is not going to work, I am afraid, and a fine warm winter morning, with sun, has given way to howling wind and arctic temperatures. Two might get called on account of weather. Wall right in front of me. Thump.

So, what will the robin do then, poor thing? She sat herself down and wrote it all out and while this may not be the carbohydrate load that is recommended, it is at least making the turn, eh?

Our poor hockey players. They did not ‘win’ silver. They lost gold. But they did us proud. There is a group of people who are allowed to feel blue.