dreaming of a house on another hill.... gumboots not included.

I never was the one who dreamt of the house on the hill.  But I can imagine that dream.  A beautiful home with a wide covered veranda and a porch swing with Victorian detailing and Queen Ann Spindles, casement windows and elegant gables.   The house sits  perched on a hill that drops away on all sides providing sweeping views of rolling hills, forested groves and gurgling streams.  Sunsets are glorious and in the fall the days are crisp the air is golden, it smells like apples, and cinnamon,  and dry leaves underfoot, the land is alive like a dancing flame in oranges, reds and gold.   It is a lovely dream,  sometimes a lone and ancient tree sits near the house, a perfect place to lounge in low branches and read, write or draw.  

While it was never my childhood dream to live in the house on the hill, there are benefits to living on a hill, and this is especially true when you are surrounded in muskeg that acts like a soggy blanket draped over the landscape  and allows water to stagnate on steep hillsides in addition to the low lying areas

I did, in the end, buy a house on a hill.  Actually my home is  more of a house propped up on a hunk of bedrock that just happens to rise out of the muskeg swamp. There is no veranda, no detailing, or elegant gables,  but it is home. And sitting atop my little hunk of rock, I console myself that water runs downhill (for the most part)  and therefore my yard is drier than most (theoretically).   Especially given that the majority of this island (apart from the stray outcroppings of bedrock) is Muskeg Swamp...  Muskeg itself consists of dead plants in various stages of decomposition, ranging from fairly intact sphagnum peat moss or sedge peat to highly decomposed muck.  (side note: sphagnum moss can hold 15 to 30 times its own weight in water, allowing the spongy wet nastiness to invade even the steepest of slopes. All in all a recipe for very wet feet. Gumboots anyone? )

© Spider Bug

 After 10 or so feet of rain in 2011, and more than 10 inches of that in the last ten days.  I’m feeling a bit waterlogged.  A trip out into my yard to chase my dog back in the house after she decided that digging herself her very own swimming pool in all this wet muck was fun has led me to the conclusion that the water table is variable.  It is not – as is commonly believed -  an inch under the surface... but it is a highly variable height and even on my little knoll raised above the rest of the neighbourhood the water table is exactly one inch ABOVE the surface.  Which may help explain why I have a unique lawn consisting of a form of semi- aquatic vegetation known as a liverwort that grows only in the deepest shade. 

*sigh* 

a boring, self obsessed narcissists blogging mainly as a means to discuss the inconsequential minutiae of my day to day life

I wonder about blogging.  I mean who really wants to read about the life and times of the average middle aged mom?  I live my life and really from personal experience I KNOW it’s not that interesting.. however here i am, a boring, self obsessed narcissists blogging mainly as a means to discuss the inconsequential minutiae of my day to day life .....  

What is a blog really?   An on line forum where I can post which ever strange bits of information I choose to share.  For which friends and family with any interest can visit and read or not as they choose. The odd photo and the latest art work can hang up alongside my text, and the odd inappropriate quote.  

The upside to this hair brained blog is that those who wish to read about the ongoing saga of what was once a very adventurous life turned into domesticated suburbanite yuppie-dom can do so without my clogging your inboxes at random intervals, and those who really don’t care can quit being bothered by the same. .. 

You have to believe most bloggers have few if any actual readers. The writers are in it for other reasons. …after all it is well know that many blogs are loaded with vanity posts, half-truths, rumours, and even intentional distortions… I’m not sure where mine fits in… no doubt smack in the middle of the classic middle class, yuppie bloggers with distorted views of how dull their lives really are….

Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE my life.  Love it.  I’m happy.  My job might not be my dream job, but it keeps me in the manner that I am rapidly becoming accustomed too,  and since yuppies are after all defined by superficial and selfish materialism… I should also state that … I love my house.  I love that it takes me 5 minutes to drive to work… 25 to walk, I love that there are trails near my house and clean air, and deer that sleep in the middle of the cul-de-sac.  I love my husband, and his willingness to indulge my artistic exploits… like painting the bedroom nuclear reactor green… with a hint of lime…

And speaking of green paint...... I’ve finished another piece.  I took that green smear... the I mentioned in an earlier blog (abandoned since before baby)  and with Chicken Little sleeping with his head cocked at an awkward angle jammed in the Snugli I managed to coax an image out of all that smear on paper.

Behold!  The Mossy Grotto!!  A distant relative of Fern Gully  (ok... so you might have had to have been an avid follower of cartoons, or have had small children in 1992 to get the reference... bad joke. sorry. )

Mossy Grotto

Watercolour

© RiverWalker Arts

" Here in cool grot and mossy cell
We rural fays and fairies dwell;
Though rarely seen by mortal eye,
When the pale moon, ascending high,
Darts through yon lines her quiv'ring beams;
We frisk it near these crystal streams."

— William Shenstone (1714-63)

Lines inscribed on a tablet in the grounds at the poet’s residence

The wind shows us how close to the edge we are

In a world with a million possibilities I find myself in wonderment.  Fall has arrived, and although the temperatures aren’t much colder than they have been all summer the winds have picked up and stirred themselves into a howling banshee, a mournful spirit that wails into the darkness of the night.  I wake up to this hollow sound as it rattles through the trees and sends the damp brown leaves swirling – swept up in their own little tornados.  The accompanying rain pounds like automatic gunfire on the windows soaking the world and  rousing every creek into a torrent of frothy angry water.  I wonder that my Chicken Little can sleep so peacefully through the storm.

He grows in his sleep like a weed, a resilient and hardy little presence in my life.  I find myself holding him close staring through the sheets of water running down my windows.  My stalled mural project all but forgotten, my quilt abandoned mid stitch in the sewing machine, my latest watercolour nothing but a green smear on paper, shelved with the rest of my art supplies....  but as I stare and hug Chicken Little a bit closer my mind flourishes, a light in the eye of the storm, a thousand bits of inspiration waiting to bloom forth.  I’ve got the motivation, and the flashes of insight needed to bring forth at least a dozen projects...   and finish the ones currently on hold.   In all this miserable weather my inner light has begun to pulsate, and now it is up to me to put what little time I have at my disposal to good use. 

Here are a couple photos.... one of my stalled mural project, the other my very first attempt at a sewing project. 

a stalled mural project... 

but progress on my first sewing project... 

surely there is no such thing as boredom...

Motherhood has consumed my immediate world.  I’m out of touch not only on world politics and current events, but even the basic goings on in my own tiny community where gossip flows like a river in flood. Where if you so much as sneeze someone across town can be heard to say “bless you”  - however - cut off and out of touch as I may be, my heart bursts with love and although born in a violent  storm of lashing winds and pelting rain that bombarded us for days, Chicken Little has proved to be a calm little presence in my life.

Along with motherhood I’ve taken on another exciting new venture. They tell me that in the latter weeks of pregnancy that mothers-to-be with their cumbersome gait and swollen bellies are possessed with what is know as a “nesting” phase – where with a burst of previously unheard of energy women take to cleaning closets with a vengeance, purging unwanted things, tidying, and organizing along with cooking up a storm and otherwise preparing for the new family addition.   Although excited by this prospect of  energy, coupled with the desire and motivation for a clean home and freezer full of casseroles and baking… I waited in vain - this mysterious “nesting” phase never occurred. 

Instead, as I applied drywall filler – patching a hole in the wall following the replacement of bathtub faucets I got the brilliant idea to take up a new hobby….   As if my half finished mural - pottery projects, watercolours, 3 partially painted acrylic canvases, an unfinished commissioned ink portrait (abandoned for the past 4 years), wrinkled silk only partially dyed, and bin filled with the horrific half melted disasters of my last attempt at making soap were not enough in terms of hobbies…   This brilliant new idea involved investing yards of fabric and putting to use (towards something more substantial than hemming jeans) the sewing machine I inherited from my grandmother following her purchase of a much newer and fancier model.   And so my first ever sewing project was conceived (hemming aside) a small rag quilt for my Chicken Little. (a project possibly stillborn before it could get off the ground….)

I’m not sure when I thought I would have time to cut fabric, or sew it into something appealing to the eye… let alone take the time required to get all the little corners to line up…   but yesterday I found myself pushing Chicken Little in his stroller through a sprawling fabric store selecting flannels bedecked with images of same fish that fill my freezer, along with plaids, turtles and frogs. If anything ever materializes…I’ll post photos!

Each day comes bearing its own gifts.

On Friday I officially became a mother.  Chicken Little was a bit late, but he eventually showed up and  after some serious stabbing of his feet with a glucose monitor he was given a clean bill of health.  Amazing how you can check yourself into the hospital.. and a few days later.. there are 2 of you checking out.   

Friday also marked our first wedding anniversary, we’d even booked a nice romantic dinner for two at the same restaurant we’d dinned at a year previous.   But when I woke up with rather significant labour pains in the wee hours of the morning...  all thoughts of a romantic evening went out the window.

While the anniversary of my marriage to DH passed ensconced in the local hospital with all attempts at modesty abandoned and a storm brewing in the background – the forecast calling for unabated monsoon style rains and high winds. I still did manage to gift DH with a token to mark the occasion.  (no I’m not talking about Chicken Little... although he is the very image of love personified.)  

Two years ago while DH and I were living on separate islands, and I was slowly filling his home with my art work, he asked if I could do a painting just for him.  One where the Chinook chased the herring in the kelp. Ack... I thought.. I’m not sure.  It’s similar to what I do. But I worried it wouldn’t be “real” enough for a guy who’s spent his life admiring , studying and chasing salmon...  Animals in the world and dinner on the plate.  Catching these majestic animals never fails to put a huge grin on his face.  I never painted that image he described....  not that I forgot about it.  Somehow something always kept me from doing that for him. 

Finally Two years later this is the painting that I gave him for our anniversary.  It measures 22”x 30” unmated or framed and is painted on 100% cotton rag 140lbs cold press paper.   While the original will hang above the sofa in DH’s den,  I plan to have prints and cards made so that others can enjoy the image that took two years to emerge from the paper. 

“Silver Bright”

an Original Watercolour

© RiverWalker Arts

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow.  ~Author Unknown

the stored honey of the human soul

Looking like I had swallowed a large watermelon in it’s entirety and armed with a note from the Clinic indicating my fitness to travel.  I set out for a final jaunt on the airplane to visit my family, and watch the annual sailing regatta. 


The plane was full, and decidedly uncomfortable, but fortunately only 2 hours long  - allowing me to grit my teeth, stuff my earplugs in and survive the journey.  There is something about airtravel, or maybe it’s the combination of having to catch a bus, to catch a ferry to get the air terminal in the first place in combination with the actual flight that makes me irritable.  But as much as I enjoy watching people do the things that people do there is something about air travel that gets under my skin and I am always so very grateful when I can slide into some blessed silence when I arrive at my destination.  Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me… in fact… don’t talk at all, and turn off the radio too would you?   

The feeling fortunately is short lived, and I whole heartedly enjoyed my visit.  I played with my one year old nephew for hours, I sat on the deck with my book and floated in an alternative reality where nothing could possibly go wrong in my life.  I soaked up warm weather and watched the sailboats go by.  It was an inspiration to life to be there, the kind of feeling where you are suddenly inspired to just live your life in the moment. To be who you are and enjoy all you’ve been given and more. 

DownWind Leg

©RiverWalker Arts 

I’m back now in the land of rain and fog.  The chill air that sucks the life out of summer and has caused my poor flower garden to rot rather than bloom.  But it is good to be home too – a few more days of work and then a year’s leave to focus on my newest family member.  The world is filled with adventure for those who are open to appreciate it. 

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.  ~Danny Kaye

a new career illustrating children's puzzles???

A quick update on the Mural...

Namely.. after some effort.. I’ve got a bit of a cartoon look going on –  maybe I should take up drawing for colouring books, or maybe designing children’s puzzles..  that being said I think overall this project will lend a splash of colour to the side of an industrial building.  

There is still work to do on it. But the fundamentals are all there.  This is a totally new medium for me.  I’m a watercolourist who dabbles in Pen & Ink.  So to take a whole new approach using something as absorbent as smooth plastic coated plywood... and an opaque medium like household latex  and I’m WAY out of my element...  now add to that the fact that the pigments aren’t very pure... meaning that the binders and fillers change the chemical reflection and absorption patterns which affect the final “colour” of the paint – making it difficult to mix colours or get the look one is going for.  Or maybe I’m just making excuses for myself.

I’ll let you decide for yourself. 

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