Tag: just write

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Gardening in a Sundress: Retired in the Shuswap

Warning: my beautiful pictures have posted upside down again. I do not understand. sorry for the discombobulation…I hope you will enjoy the post anyway.

The early morning air is cool when I step outside and stand for a moment on the front porch. I’m savouring the start of the day, before heat drives me inside to take refuge under the ceiling fan.

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Noticing the flower pots are thirsty, I uncoil a bit of hose and turn on the tap. Water wand in one hand and coffee cup in the other, I douse the containers before moving on to the small raised garden where zucchini hang off the vines and nasturtiums tumble over the side. The sun is warm, but not too hot to stand under yet, so I uncoil more hose and move along the perennial bed, admiring the plants that I put in when I built the bed last year.

IMG_0033I need to research August-blooming plants because there isn’t a lot of colour in the perennial bed at the moment But, I note how each plant has grown and imagine how it will look after another two years pass. I remember reading that a perennial bed takes three years to mature. It won’t be until the fourth summer that it will be in its full glory.

IMG_0041I wander down the length of the bed slowly until I reach the friendship rose, a Blanc de Coubert Rugosa that I brought with me from Whitehorse. I call it the friendship rose because years ago, three of us (Kim, Candy & I) used to get together at each others homes over the summer for tea and a garden tour. We’d admire the progress of our gardens, dream over seed catalogues, plan for the next year. Sometimes we’d go out for lunch or visit a garden center. One time, on the spur of the moment, we all bought the same rose bush. Kim and I have remained in touch, but I haven’t seen Candy in years. I wonder if she still has hers? Sadly, although it is a zone 3 plant, the Yukon is not the ideal climate for a Blanc de Coubert, and my poor little bush just barely survived. It hardly grew larger than it was the day we bought it. Kim’s rose has fared equally poorly. When we moved, I couldn’t bear to leave it behind, so I dug it up and brought it with me. In two summers, the rose has already doubled in size.  A little bit of the Yukon in Sunnybrae. 🙂

Mine isn't in bloom at the moment, so here is a picture I got from the internet.
Mine isn’t in bloom at the moment, so here is a picture I got from the internet.

I water the friendship rose and move on to the blueberry bushes and the rhubarb. This end of the yard is still in the shade, lovely and cool. I see weeds. Oh, the bane of my existence! Beautiful green leaves that display dainty blue flowers in the spring. Foolishly, I encouraged them last year. Now I know better. And daisies, too. Back in Whitehorse I used to chastise Mr. C. when he’d mow them down in the side lawn. I worked so hard to encourage them to grow. But here! Here they grow everywhere. They take over the bed like a cuckoo bird pushing its host’s eggs out of the nest and leaving behind its own to flourish in the rich soil.

IMG_0050I march to the garage. Put my empty coffee cup down and don my gardening gloves. Three-prong hand-rake in hand, I march back across the lawn, drop to my knees and start digging and pulling. Inch by inch the area around the blueberries bushes returns to black soil. I move down the bed, leaving the shade and entering the sun. Under the lavender, more baby daisies are hiding, just waiting to grow up and assimilate the brethern. I yank them out.

IMG_0048A wasp buzzes by on its way to breakfast at the hummingbird feeder and I swat it away from my ear. I think, “here I am, weeding the lavender in the sunshine,” and I can feel myself smiling from the inside out. Did you know that lavender propagates by the root? I didn’t. I don’t think lavender grows in the Yukon, so how would I know how it propagates?  Lo and behold, when I lift the lavender to pull the weeds hiding underneath, I find lavender spikes coming out of the ground more than six inches from the parent stock.

After a while I sit back on my heels and take a little break. My back is sweaty. My head is hot. In only an hour the sun has gone from pleasant to brutal. I stand up and brush the grass off my knees. Suddenly, I realize that I’ve been gardening in flipflops and a dress.

IMG_0032This fact makes me smile, because back when I worked at Yukon College, I used to fantasize about my retirement. One of the things I wanted to do was learn to sew my own dresses. Another thing was to go out in the mornings and water the garden with a hose whenever I wanted to (not just on Saturdays & Sundays during July).

Well, here I am, this morning. I’ve just come inside, to wash the grass stains off my knees with a cool washcloth. to scrub my wrists and arms, and wash the sweat off my face and neck. And I am wearing a sundress that I made myself.

It’s pretty awesome.

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Just Write {6} The Hallmark of Summer’s End

Driving in to work this morning down the wilderness highway from Fox Lake

we pass the first clusters of school children standing in the clear morning light at the ends of long driveways

waiting for the first glimpse of the yellow school bus to appear on the horizon.

Tendrils and wisps of fog rise from the wet chip-sealed highway

making misty the dripping scarlet leaves of fireweed gone cotton

the blown wild roses, the foxtails and cold-stunted aspen.

These fledglings scamper madly amongst the hillocks of wet grasses

lunches packed securely in backpacks of hello kitty pink and batman blue

unaware of the long vista stretching before them

thinking only of this moment

this first day of school

this hallmark of summer’s end.

 

This is my 6th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. I am linking up with The Extraordinary Ordinary.
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Just Write {4}

Mr. C. ( for considerate) went away last week to do some training in Vancouver and then off to visit family and friends for a few days. It was so nice for him because he really needed the break. It was considerate of him to do that, too, because I took the opportunity to take that week off myself. I stayed home. All by myself. Everyday, alone in the house. Because I had a goal…to get the house ready to sell.

It is a big job, physically and emotionally. What did I do in my 10 days? I unpacked every cupboard and closet, washed it inside and out, and sorted things into 3 piles:

  1. Things I want to keep but can live without for the next 6 months
  2. Things I want to keep but can’t live without for the next 6 months
  3. Things I no longer want to keep.

The things I can’t live without until we move went back into the cupboard.

The things I want to take with us but don’t need in the meantime were lovingly wrapped in foam and/or tissue and packed into boxes for moving.

Everything else went into the give-away pile.

Over that week I touched literally everything that I own. I packed away dresses and clothing into boxes.. I boxed up books. I boxed up dishes. I even boxed up a few bits and pieces of my sewing room. My closets and cupboards now look wonderfully inviting…spacious and sparkling clean.

I got onto my hands and knees and wiped the dust off the baseboards. I washed scuff marks off of the walls, I took the photos off of the fridge and looked at each one before packing them away. I cleaned the blinds, I cleaned the tops of the cabinets, I wiped the dust from the tops of the windows. I used Old English oil on the kitchen cabinets, rubbing them until they gleamed like satin.

I wrapped up a memory with every item I packed. I started the process of saying goodbye.

Maybe it is a bit like cleaning and preparing the body of a loved one for burial. Gently touching and caressing and cleaning and in this way preparing both of you for the transition from life before to life after.

Oh, my beloved little house –  this is how I am preparing myself to say good bye to you.

 

This is my 4th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. I am linking up with The Extraordinary Ordinary. (Please see the details here.)

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Just Write {3}

Mr. C. joined me for lunch today. We went to The Bistro, a little restaurant that is run by the Culinary Arts & Hospitality programs here at Yukon College where I work. The menu this week is East Indian, and loving curry the way we do, we couldn’t pass it up. I love this little bistro. The walls are rich golden yellow, like the mane of a lion, and beautifully display the work of local artists, so that everywhere you look you are surrounded by beauty. The furniture is dark, the chairs are cushioned, the waiters are attentive and dressed impeccably in black and white. There are only two things on the menu, and the menu changes every 2 weeks. It’s open by reservation on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The culinary arts students run the kitchen, and the hospitality students run the dining room. I love supporting the students in this endeavor. And honestly, you can’t get better downtown. You just can’t. They also make the best coffee. I think I drank a whole pot. I’m fighting a cold, and the caffeine has now got me quite alert and upright in my chair. I hope it will see me through the rest of the afternoon, because all I want to do when I get home is put on my jammies and curl up into the corner of the couch with the TV and my knitting.

I love going out for lunch with Mr. C. It doesn’t matter that we’ve been married for over 32 years. It doesn’t matter that we go to sleep and wake up together. All that intimacy of living together doesn’t change the fact that when we are away from the house and out of our routine we have the best conversations ever. The best. We talk about all kinds of things. Today we talked about some of the things we look forward to doing after retirement: researching & making recipes for all manner of ethnic foods; spending afternoons on the boat and exploring the hiking & mountain biking trails in the Shuswap area. I talked about what I will miss when I leave my job at Yukon College (the institution is doing great things, with more great things coming and I’m sorry I won’t be a part of it) and he talked about how busy his summer is looking to be at the flight school. I talked about suddenly wanting/needing to do one more dance performance before we move. We talked non-stop for an entire hour between bites – enjoying the good food, good coffee, good service and each other’s good company. This always happens when we go out on a date. After 32 years we still love spending time together. After 32 years we still haven’t run out of things to talk about. And the best part? I know that we never will.

This is my 3rd installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. I am linking up with The Extraordinary Ordinary. (Please see the details here.)