no one is the savior they would like to be....

two beautiful things this weekend:

- Selling flowers at market and the busker closest to our stall playing music from the Amelie soundtrack on his accordian.

- Sitting on the back porch tonight after hanging out with friends at Sugarbowl watching the heavy clouds break up and the air being so so so still.

these are some of the good things about this weekend.

and we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire....

Today is a very April day. I woke up this morning before 7am with the sun shining so brightly into my eyes that I couldn't hardly open them. By the time I was heading for a McDonald's big breakfast with Patrick the breeze had started up and the sky was clouding over. Now, as I sit at my kitchen table finishing up photos for Dawn Stiles Design, listening to Iron and Wine, the sky behind the tree in my yard is turning a very particular shade of grey-blue and the wind is whipping the green buds on the tree limbs against the fence and the roof. I love this kind of April weather. Would I prefer to be sitting outside reading a book in the grass while its 20+ degrees? ...maybe. But there's something really beautiful about this kind of day.

I've slipped up in writing something here every week so today I have two inspirational 'things' for you to enjoy:

First, is this Old Spice commercial which makes me very happy when I watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

The second one is this quote from...of course, Barbara Kingsolver (again)!

"People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around."

**sidenote: last night I fell asleep watching old episodes of America's Next Top Model and dreamed of Tyra teaching me to walk a runway. Don't know what to make of that in light of this quote!

with our minds on our hearts and our hearts on the line....

I baked bread this morning. Tried a new recipe, a new technique. It's cooling now and the kitchen is full of that thick smell of yeast and heat. I've been spending some time reading about Barbara Kingsolver and came across this wonderful bit she writes in her book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life".

"When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative task of molding our families' tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable."

springtime and the promise of an open fist....

I've been real crap at blogging lately. I don't know why. I want to blame it on lack of time...but that's not true. I want to say I've been doing other more useful things, but quite frankly, I can't call watching back seasons of America's Next Top Model particularly useful. So while I was reading all the new posts from my lovely blogging friends this afternoon, I had an idea. A new idea for blogging for the summer. At least once a week, I am going to post something that has inspired me or caught my eye or something I am thinking of. It might be a poem or a photo or a song or a bit of a book I'm reading, something I had to eat that day...anything really. And in doing so I hope that the rest of you all who read this will find something interesting or inspiring in it too. I will begin this trend today with this poem:

Scenic Route

For Lucy, who called them "ghost houses"

Someone was always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses wait like old wives
along this road; they are everywhere,
abandoned, leaning, turning gray.

Someone always traded
the lonely beauty
of hemlock and stony lakeshore
for survival, packed up his life
and drove off to the city.
In the yards the apple trees
keep hanging on, but the fruit
grows smaller year by year.

When we come this way again
the trees will have gone wild,
the houses collapsed, not even worth
the human act of breaking in.
Fields will have taken over.

What we will recognize
is the wind, the same fierce wind,
which has no history.

Lisel Mueller


and I took this photo recently that makes me think of this too:

we'll get lost in the warm...

It's beautiful today. Warm and sunny and 15 degrees. All those things you hope for in a spring day. The air smells of thawing soil and there's messy puddles in the ditches. I much more beautiful day than yesterday. Yesterday, I woke up to snow. I got all bundled up to walk to the LRT in the snow and grumbled about the snow all the way down my driveway. When I got to the LRT path though, I realized I could hear birds. Lots and lots and LOTS of birds singing to each other. All different kinds too. I kept looking around in the trees and the field and couldn't see any, but apparently they were loving the spring snow. It made me shut up about my grumbling and enjoy the rest of my walk in what might be the last snowfall until winter again.

Today I was extremely productive. I bought a deep freeze of a perfect size to hold all my meat for a good deal which in turn really helped out the Med student I bought it from who was moving to Ontario. I feel good about buying used things when I know that I'm happy and the person who sold it is happy too. There's so much stuff lying around in this world because everyone wants something new. There's a line in a movie I watched recently that says "things aren't made to be fixed these days". I thought that was really true and really interesting. I think things have a certain lifespan and are indeed, not made to be fixed, but made to die prematurely to give way for consumers to buy NEW things. I'm not trying to tackle revolutionizing this kind of thinking because capitalize runs on these ideas...but instead, I'm trying to make sure that the things we choose to buy and use, live as full a lifespan as possible rather than tossing more half-used items for newer, more fragile things.
Anyway, I bought a freezer. And it is lovely. I have desperately needed one for my food for so long and it feels good to open the garage door and see it there humming away.
I also baked bread today in my crockpot for the first time. It was good, but it got a little dark on the bottom. I tried to scrape off the worst parts and took some to the Fernhouts who have graciously housed my meat in their freezer for the past few months. In between all this I made some chili and did a number of hours of work for the university and transplanted my garden...which is growing out of control so I also measured out the garden boxes I will be making in the next week. I played some darts with Patrick and took a walk on the farm and am planning to do some laundry before the night is through.
But right now I'm listening to good music, sitting on my back porch in a t-shirt and watching the sun make long shadows at 7pm. I'm cautious to say it but....I think spring is finally here.

everything I want that I never knew I needed...

There's something to say about having a job where you feel productive. I spent three summers working at a job that paid me well for...well...not much. The longer I worked there the more I found myself stretching hour chores into day chores into week long chores until I was simply just driving around wasting gas and time until the clock said I could go home. Working at the farm is just the opposite. I work until I'm exhausted and then I work some more and at the end of the day when I go home, I have all this extra energy that comes from pushing through and getting things accomplished during the day. And that carries over to the weekends too. So far this weekend, I've cleaned, vacuumed and washed the inside of my car, put in some good hours for the university work, read most of a book, planted seeds in starter pots for my garden, did my taxes, held a photoshoot with a band, cooked interesting and healthy meals AND am currently doing some laundry.

These are all reasons why I love doing things that make me feel productive and good about what I've accomplished.

ANYWAY, last week we went to Vancouver for a couple of days. It was beautiful and green and full of birds...ducks and pigeons and pretty little yellow ones that hop through back alleys and make Patrick jump and declare it to be a rat. It was a trip full of visiting and relaxing. We came with no agenda other than to spend time with those friends we missed at Christmas. I like visiting Vancouver. I'm not sure it's a place I could live, but I really like visiting it. And I really like the people who currently live there. Sarah was conveniently available the entire time we visited which was nice to be able to sit back and chat over a cup of tea or walk along Wreck Beach and enjoy that friendship that we have never outgrown. She made us fresh bread the first afternoon we were there and it was amazing. There's nothing quite like fresh bread.
One night we all went out to this place in Gas Town called 6 Acres. It was all brick walls and low lighting and enormous beer list and I loved it. As Trixie and Jon and Sarah and Patrick and I all sat around that small table drinking our beers and talking about each other's lives and pasts and futures, I felt like it was one of the most beautiful moments I've had in 2010 thus far. There was something so comfortable about, yet so charged with everything all of us are planning to do and all the things we admit to not knowing yet. I loved it.

well i'm waiting, 'till I don't know when, 'cause I'm sure it's gonna happen then...

I woke up early yesterday morning and drove out to the farm for my first day back working there. It was a quiet drive. Cold. I watched the sun rise behind the refineries. Before most people were on their way to work I was reaching the outskirts of the city. As I hit the gravel road that winds its way down to the river, the most incredible fog came up and made it almost impossible to see the edges of the road. It only lasted a few minutes though and cleared as I crossed over the railroad tracks that made a sweeping left turn back into the fog. It wasn't a particularly hard day of work. We were getting stuff ready for market so there was some potato grading and bagging and some cabbage cleaning and then some packing it into crates into the truck for the morning. It was beautiful. As I walked around the yard doing the various chores that needed to get done, my shoes were alternately slipping on ice and slurping through mud. The sun was bright and warm and by noon I was down to a t-shirt and jeans. In the afternoon we swept out some sheds and then organized multiple pallets of bales of garden mix to get them ready for the plants coming next week. The bales were almost as heavy as I am and it took all I had in me to pull them down off one pallet, carry it across the shop to the next pile and hoist it into position to thaw. We were done half way through the afternoon so I went home early and as I drove through the city, my window was down, my music was up and I felt better than I have in months.
This morning my arms are sore. They have a few cuts and bruises, but I'm wide awake at 7am watching the sun creep across my wall and turn the whole room golden and it feels like it's going to be another good day.