Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

rightsideupsidedown

see ya

This just doesn't feel right.

I shouldn't be posting these photos.

They are so twelve days ago.

These say winter lingers but today, and for many days, there has been not a trace. The long hours of steady sunshine with the odd day of rain have made us almost forget that winter even was.

I did say almost. One week ago the temperature was still dropping below freezing (0°C/32°F) at night.

(Hello, Mrs. Duck.)

But even as I type it is 20°C (68°F) outside, ceiling fans are whirring inside, the trees are lime and leafy and water is dripping slurpishly from flower boxes and baskets.

So long for now, ice and snow. Summer is here.
For a good time, not a long time.
*

light flies

So here's the latest update.
Saturday, May 10th at midnight:

Sunday, May 18th at midnight:

Sunday, May 25th at midnight:

Wild, hey?
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beginnings

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Winter Vestiges - Part ½

While snow hides furtively behind rocks


and recedes from the sunshine like sea foam on an island shore


new things,
spring things,
are happening.


Brent has tapped five birch trees for sap.
The boy wants syrup.


Mr. Feil is pouring the sap into containers that will be easy to transfer.
I stuck my finger into the stuff for a try.
It looked, smelled and tasted like water.
It will have to be strained and cooked down before
its flavour emerges and pancakes can enter the picture.


The spring sap is flowing fast so once a day someone has to
check the trees and empty the cartons otherwise they would overflow.
Care is taken to choose trees that are old enough to handle the process
and afterwards the tap wound is sealed up to prevent disease
and ensure that the tree is alive and strong for years and years to come.


These trees are thinking very hard about leaves, I just know it!


Last years' aren't working so well.
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Winter Vestiges

     Last week I went out a couple of times into the back forty and was amazed at how quickly the landscape was changing. I haven't really posted anything from then and thought I'd better put some photos up quickly because already, in a way, the pictures are irrelevant. I can't find a spot of snow anywhere. Lake ice is slush. Trees are thinking of leaves. The pussy willows have sprouted. Evenings barely dip below freezing. I haven't worn socks for a few days. SPRING has arrived in Yellowknife and is unpacking it's things. You would laugh though, I think. The first day that it reached 10°C (50°F) skin appeared - as in short skirts, short shorts, sandals and tank tops. Yes when your winter has included several weeks of -40°C(-40°F) to -50°C(-58°F) trust me 10°C is balmy, baby. And most of said skin is blinding white - like light being switched on in the dead of night. You blink, your eyes constrict and eyebrows furrow, cars swerve. Watch the road for the love of all things beautiful! You should SEE the vitamin D-deprived epidermis we've got going on up here!

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minute hand

      You might remember that a week ago Saturday night I took this photo from the front steps of my home. It was midnight.

      Last night, exactly eight days later, I took another photo at midnight.

      I've lived here for almost seven years and every spring I am still blown away and amazed by this.

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slipping away

lighter days a'comin'

      This photo was taken from the front step of my house on Saturday night at midnight. Pretty soon I will be able to read a book outside at 2 am in the morning (if I should so choose to do something as ridiculous as be awake when I could be sleeping). I will try to remember to post more photos as the light changes.
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For you, Mom.

      You've given me the love for all things beautiful. I've learned from you that pure bliss comes with the first pussy willows of spring. You have shown me how to pause in the middle of daily life to really see the loveliness that's everywhere about me. And to look for it when it's hard to come by. In you I see what a joy-filled, beautiful, grateful, content, generous woman looks like. I am so thankful for you!
      Happy Mommy's Day. I love you. xo.
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projects

      When I was a young teen a friend of my mom's taught me to cross stitch. This new occupation came at a good time. Rather I should say it came at a good time during a bad time. In Grade 9 I had chronic fatigue. I dropped out of school for some time due to extended periods of great and unexplainable exhaustion. So I cross stitched. And wrote massive letters to friends in distant places. And cross stitched. There was one particular pattern that caught my eye when I was sixteen. I began it and somewhere in the middle of stitches energy returned to me and I returned to school and the project was laid aside. When I got married I wanted to cross stitch again but thought I should finish my project before I moved on. Of course now the picture wasn't something I wanted for myself but I thought it would be sweet for a little girl. And that's the way it seems to be with cross stitching. I can't possibly stitch everything for myself so I end up giving away most of it.

      This is the project I began when I was sixteen and completed ten years later.

      My bare windows have been talking at me for some time - PLEASE put something on us. It's cold and we feel so EXPOSED! My friend Kelli taught me this year (thank you!) how to make these little window toppers for my kitchen and living room. I love them! Just a little something makes all the difference. All I have left to do is my living room window and that is the one I'm most excited about.

      My friend Jenna showed me how to make this quilted table runner. AND she let me use her own material to practice with! As well as her beautiful sewing machine. And her thread, too. Basically I descended upon all her things and used them shamelessly. Now that I know how straight forward it is maybe I'll try a quilt someday not so far away. Hmmm. I wonder if she has enough thread and material for a king-sized ....

      And now I'm making these little Christmas ornaments. Yeah, you heard me. I know it's May. But the snow only just melted last week and there still is a frozen chunk of the stuff in my yard in the shade and today it was a mere 3°C (37°F). But most importantly, in my defense of holiday merriment in spring, is that my side of zee family has started a tradition of having Christmas in June since it seems to be an easier time to get the whole gang together. So that's who and what the ornaments are for. So leave me alone.

      However, not to be outdone by me and the thredz, Mark has taken it entirely to the next level and has begun the all-consuming and awe-inspiring task of making a cedar strip canoe from scratch. I know.

      First he made molds that are in the shape of the canoe for the strips of cedar to be wrapped around.

      He took 2x4s and other cedar planks of sizes unbeknownst to me and widdled them down with widdling machines into hundreds of strips and then put grooves into each strip that run the entire length of them all. Here are just a few of them. I know.

      And this is, more or less, where he is at presently - beginning the painstaking progress of gluing the strips together around the molds. He has put in 200 hours on this already and is not quite a third of the way done. And he's already talking about making another one as well as a kayak.
      I'm going to have to stitch myself silly to even come close to this accomplishment. That or a vacation. Yeah, I'm going to sew us a trip to Mexico.
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slurpee

fading