The Weather Outside: Frightful and Delightful

Dear Vi,

While my friends on the west coast are enjoying a bit of a cool and rainy summer, here in Dawson City, Yukon things have been quite delightful. Well, for the most part, anyway.We did go through a couple of weeks of being choked by smoke from forest fires, but thankfully no longer. Now we are enjoying cool mornings, blazing hot afternoons, and evening thunderstorms.There’s something shivery and delightful about being cozy inside while the storm rages at your door. Especially when you’re living in a tin can (er…travel trailer) as we are.Thunderstorms also make for great photography.Unfortunately, they also make more forest fires.Have you enjoyed a good crack and boom thunderstorm lately?

Languishing Along the River in Dawson City, Yukon

Dear Vi,

Last Friday Sam and walked a well-worn trail along the side of the Yukon River in Dawson City.The city was preparing for the annual Dawson City Music Festival. Facing the river, we could hear the echo of a band bouncing back at us from the opposite shore.. It sounded as though the very rocks and trees were singing.Above the trail is another: a double -decker trail along the top of the dike that protects the town from spring flooding. It boasts some lovely places to sit.Life is slow at the moment… these past weeks…these past months. Here at the top of the world I search out the internet in interesting locations. The library, the airport, parked in my truck before the laundry at a motel down the street.

The internet up here is as slow as I am. It takes several long minutes to load each picture.

I’ve decided it’s time to start querying for an agent to represent Holding Space again.

Like me, it has languished too long. What have you let languish?

A walk on a sunny October day

Dear Vi,

It was so pretty this afternoon, I just had to take Sam out for a walk. Actually, it was Sam who took me.

I was happily basting a quilt, head down, paying no attention at all to leaves blowing over the lawn, sunshine streaming through the windows and bouncing rainbows around the room.

Sam waiting not so patiently by the door

But Sam grumbled and barked and grumbled and barked until I finally gave in.

We walked through the forest, down a country road, past a horse in the field and a wild apple tree whose branches were busting under the weight of hundreds of little red apples. The sides of the road were covered in blue wildflowers – the kind that will turn to stickers as soon as their blossoms drop. I’ll hate them later, but right now they’re stunning.

Sam is not cooperating

I wanted to take a picture of Sam sitting with the flowers. It seemed like the perfect photo opportunity. There I was, squatting on the side of the road, juggling the leash and the camera phone and trying to cajole Sam into smiling (or at least looking interested)…

Yeah, right.After I gave up, we walked back along the beach, where the water level has dropped but the sand hasn’t dried out enough to walk out very far without getting muddy.

Sam loves getting muddy.

And then we came home and had some lunch.

Have you taken a walk today?

A frosty morning walk

It is such a joy to wake up and see the sun shining! Sam and I decided to go for an early walk.

img_0134.jpegI can’t go for very long because my fasciitis is back. Argh! But I do the best that I can, and this morning the pull was irresistible.

img_0139.jpegThere are so many things to look at!

img_0142.jpegI’ll bet this abandoned little house has some stories to tell..img_0137.jpeg

A garden waiting for spring. Don’t you wish you could walk through that gate and step right into summer?img_0156.jpegI hope Saturday is treating you well!img_0149.jpeg

 

Stolen Summer Kisses in my October Garden

We are greeted by a thick bank of lake fog every morning, lately. Some times we can’t even see the far side of the lake, it’s so thick. The air is chilly and everything is dripping with dew.  By noon, though, the sun has burned off the last wisps and the air is clear and bright.

The rest of the country may be deep in the thrall of autumn; but here in Sunnybrae, my garden is reveling in stolen summer kisses.

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Watching the laundry dry

My favourite room in the house is my covered porch. It’s a living room, dining room, library and laundry room and solarium all rolled up into one special space. Today it’s the laundry room.

002I don’t have a clothes line yet. For now, I use a laundry rack. And I dry the sheets and towels over the railing. They benefit from a bit of solar bleaching, too.

001It smells really nice, sitting out here surrounded by the smell of fresh laundry drying in the sun. And it feels kind of cozy and secret, the way the sun filters through the cotton.

003Sitting here on the porch swing watching the laundry dry reminds me of being a little girl. I loved walking between the lines of damp laundry on the line, my hands trailing along the lines of cool drying sheets…a secret hide-away.

004Misty certainly isn’t complaining.

Do you have childhood memories of laundry drying on the line?