A Clothes Dryer, Ants, and a Baby Robin

In our new house in a new city in a new province, a lot of things are, not surprisingly, new. For example, birds. Our backyard is filled with birdsong. Unfamiliar birds swoop down from the trees squabbling and chasing each other. There is a black bird, smaller than a crow, with long fan-shaped tail feathers, an iridescent blue head, a white beak, and a short harsh call. Another interesting small bird, unlike anything I have ever seen, is sleek and tan coloured with a tuft on its head like a jay, and black, yellow, and red markings on its wings. There are also lots of flickers, robins, and sparrows; these I do recognize.

One morning recently, Rob and I stood at our bedroom window rubbing the sleep out of our eyes and surveying the backyard. We observed a short, very fat bird hopping on the lawn. We wondered what kind of bird it might be. I said to Rob, "It almost looks like a robin, except it is so short and stubby, and it doesn't have a red breast." Simultaneously, we both recognized it as a baby robin.

The next morning, we saw the baby robin again, a little bundle of feathers, dead on the back step. Our cat, Oliver, must have been outside doing what cats do. He is a fat, lazy fellow. As he spent the first year of his life in an animal shelter, we didn't know he he knew how to hunt. But apparently he can catch birds: baby ones.

This afternoon, in between doing loads of laundry, I was out the back working in the garden, and I noticed another baby robin. The little bird was perched on the fence (and the cat was safely in the house, sleeping). The dogs were in the yard with me, but oblivious to the robin.

As I worked the heavy clay soil (new to me: for the last twenty years, I have gardened in sandy loam), I was thinking about the clothes dryer. When we moved in two months ago, the first thing we did before the moving truck even arrived, was purchase a new washer and dryer set. The laundry area in the new house is a challenge. It is a small nook off the hallway. Because of narrowness of the space and the placement of the doorway, there were limited options. The previous owners, who are tall people, had a stackable set that they took with them, but I am too short to reach into a dryer placed up on top of a washer in any case. We settled on a side-by-side set with a top loading washer that was just barely narrow enough to fit in, and the dryer has to be positioned just so in order to have enough room to open the dryer door.

The set we bought was expensive. The two appliances are solidly made, and have touch-screen computerized controls. They are quiet, energy efficient, and most importantly, they fit the space. However, the computer in the dryer seems to not be working properly. The screen turns itself on at random times of the day and night with little beeping sounds. It flips through the programming options by itself without anyone or anything touching the touch screen. We have read the pamphlet that came with the machine, and researched the model on the internet, but have not found a solution to the problem with the controls. We searched for the warranty card and sent it in. I was fretting about this as I dug and planted.

From time to time, I glanced over at the robin. It continued to perch on the fence in the same place looking around, a bit of cottonwood fluff stuck to its head. I must have worked in the garden for a couple of hours, and the bird never moved. I wondered if it was able to fly, and where the mother robin was. The dogs remained oblivious to the baby robin.

I needed a stepping stone for my garden. On the edge of one of the nearby raised beds, there was a red flat rock, about sixteen inches in diameter -- a perfect stepping stone. As I had noticed quite a few ants around it, I began by tipping the stone off the raised bed and turning it over. As soon as the stone was removed, ants exploded in every direction. It was the roof to their anthill.

I sat down on a garden tie to watch. On the exposed top of the anthill and also on the underside of the rock, were many ant eggs. The ants urgently surrounded the eggs, and began dragging them down holes into the anthill. The eggs stuck in the clay soil of the overturned rock posed a greater challenge. Somehow the ants had to drag the eggs, each one larger than any individual ant, a height of five garden ties (about two vertical feet) off the lawn and back up to the nest. I watched the ants working together at a frenetic pace to rescue their eggs.

As I sat there with my back to the fence, I heard a commotion and then a swoosh of wings. Sophie, our terrier mutt, apparently finally had noticed the baby robin. She was standing up on her hind legs against the fence, and the baby robin was nowhere to be seen. After securing the dogs, I went out the gate into the alley, looking for the baby robin. It was not on the ground nearby. I didn't see it on a fence or tree, either. However, in a tree across the way, I heard robins twittering loudly. I would like to think that the baby, startled into flight, had managed to fly up into a tree and back to its mother. 

Flower or Weed?

One of the interesting things about moving is learning how to garden in a new place. I have moved from a coastal rainforest with a hardiness rating of 4a to 5a (depending on elevation and micro climate) to a sunny, semi-arid grasslands rated at 3a. It is also windy here. The soil is heavy clay.

One of my first strategies in figuring out how to garden here was to wait and see what would come up in my garden. The backyard of our new place is fenced, with one large spruce tree, a number of deciduous trees, and flowering shrubs. There are several raised beds planted with hosta, ferns, bee balm, and decorative grasses, and some creeping ground cover, along with the shrubs. One bed seems to have been well augmented with black humus, and I was curious to see what might pop up in it.

In the front yard, there is a flower bed. When I arrived in April, I could see three clumps of an unknown perennial, two clumps of (dead) decorative grasses, and not much else. By mid-May when it was safe to start planting, I could see an unfamiliar plant coming up in several places in the flower garden. Was it a weed or flower?

I am not much of a flower gardener; I mostly like to plant things that I can eat. So I do not recognize many types of flowers, especially ones that might be particular to an unfamiliar climatic zone like that of my new home. My second strategy was to look for my unknown plant at the plant nursery when I was buying bedding plants. I didn't see it, although at one garden shop, there was something that looked similar way up high on a rack that I could not reach.

I left the unknown plant in my garden, in fact several of them, to see what it would do. It thrived, grew tall, and began forming flower heads. The flowers when it bloomed were yellow, and star-burst in shape. The flowers opened during the day and closed at night.

Strategy number three: I walked around the neighbourhood, snooping to see if anyone else had the unknown yellow flower in their garden. No-one did, except for one neighbour, whose garden was as much weeds as flowers.

I was starting to become suspicious. The thing was growing like a weed, and although its flowers were reasonably attractive, the plant was scraggly and weedy in appearance. What clinched my decision to consider it a weed was that I began to see the same plant out in the grasslands park, and also in back alleys. Weed, not flower.

I dug them all up. I still don't know what it is. I should have taken a photo of it and posted it here. I suppose it is odd that wild flowers are considered a weed, whereas petunias and impatiens are not, and are therefore pampered.

And as for the back garden plot, nothing came up there but many (recognizable) weeds. I have weeded it, dug it up, and that is where I am planting my veggies. At least I know how to discriminate between vegetables and weeds!     

Stranger in a Strange Land

When I was seventeen, I left my small-town home and went off to a big city in the south to attend university. At the end of my first year, I moved back home to live with my parents for the summer and work. In September, I moved back to the city for second year, and so on. Pretty typical. Lots of young people begin their adult life this way. My experience varied only in that my home town was small, rough, and pioneer-like, and more than 1000 kilometers from the university city.

By the time I was 24, I had moved at least twice a year for seven years, almost every time to a different apartment or living situation, and I had lived in six cities or towns in two different Canadian provinces. I was an old hand at moving. I had worked my way through university completing two degrees, spent a summer backpacking through Europe, was just starting my first professional position, and was about to get married. However, I still wasn't ready to settle down.

Over the next eight years, I moved six more times, lived in three cities in two provinces, bought two houses, had four different jobs, gave birth to two children, and enrolled in another university degree program. Whew! I get tired just thinking about it.

In contrast, my middle years have been much more stable. I have lived in three houses, each in a different city, and stayed in the most recent home for eight years. And somehow, along the way, I have lost the knack of moving.

If you have been following my blog, you will recall that in April of this year I uprooted my family, sold my one-of-a-kind log house in a coastal rainforest, waved goodbye to friends and family, and moved far away in pursuit of a great job opportunity.

The new city is lovely. It has parks, walking trails, beautiful vistas, clear air, and good shopping. People are friendly and helpful. The new job is a little overwhelming at the moment, but it offers new intriguing challenges. We have moved into an old house with character and great bones, not to mention a large private yard with gardens, trees, and many song birds.

But I am homesick. I feel like a tourist here in this city. I am ready for the visit here to be over now; it's time to go home. Except, oh no! I've bought a house here and committed to five years at the new job.

I really had settled into a happy life in that northern town. I miss my friends, and the activities and pursuits that make up life's fabric: fly fishing in the wild rivers, exploring logging roads on a mountain bike or cross country skis, buying Asian condiments at the specialty foods store and pants that fit at my friend Lori's store. I don't think I had quite realized how much my core identity is wrapped up in being a northerner from northern British Columbia.

I left for a great job opportunity. It was a sensible decision, the right career choice. I've moved many times before. What the heck -- we can do it. I'm sure that we just need to give it time. We will settle in here and meet people, and be glad we had the courage to make this leap into the unknown.

However, at the moment I almost feel as though I have lost both my home and my self. I am a visitor here in a strange land.

Carla Beerens, Artist

I came across the website of Canadian Artist, Carla Beerens, and wanted to post a link to it. I actually lived in the same community as Carla many years ago, but had lost track of her and her career. She works in various mediums. I have chosen a watercolour and an oil painting to feature here. Her studio is in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada.



This watercolour is Apples I, and it is one her latest works. Her colours are amazingly crisp and transparent.


This oil painting is Grizzly II. Look at the quality of the light!

Selling Your House? How to Make it Show Well

We are selling our house and have discovered many handy tips on how to show it well that I would like to pass on to you, the reader.

1. Declutter. Finally unpack the boxes from the last move, and realize that most of the stuff in those boxes needs to go to the dump. (But be sure to look through every box carefully, just in case the long lost original studio photo of your parents' wedding is in there, or the misplaced lid to the teapot.) Take loads of stuff to the dump -- five pickup truckloads in our case.
2. Hide stuff. Box up most of the stuff that usually lies around on every flat surface and stack the boxes in the storage space that has been freed up by all the trips to the dump. Especially hide the clunky chainsaw sculpture given to you by a doting aunt and the really hideous handmade pottery that somebody gave you (you can't quite remember who, but don't want to throw it away in case they come to visit you and their feelings are hurt). If you have boxes that haven't yet been sorted through or if there is no room left in your storage areas, temporarily hide the boxes in the back of your car. I, personally, have been driving around with a car full of boxes for several weeks.
   
3. Give away stuff. Every time anyone drops by for a visit, make sure that they leave with their arms full. Here are some examples: frozen meat from the freezer and homemade jams and jellies that we won't be able to eat up in time before we move; plants; old computer monitors; Easter baskets (ten years' worth); outgrown toys; bicycles; tatty old furniture (it was actually on its way to the dump but someone rescued it).
   
4. Repaint all the interior walls, if possible. This was easier for us because we live in a log house, so don't have many walls that need painting.
5. Dust, dust, dust. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Tidy, tidy, tidy. Banish the pets to the outdoors so that they don't track in muddy footprints and shed their hair everywhere after you have vacuumed. Hire a really good house cleaning service.
   
6. Pretend to be a home decorator. Put vases of flowers out. Keep a fruit bowl filled with colourful fruits on the table. Invest in lovely new towels that match, and hang them on the racks just so. Buy a new cheery doormat. Above all, do not throw clothes on the floor, leave the beds unmade, leave the sink full of dirty dishes, or allow smelly things in the house (like seafood cat food).
7. Just before viewers arrive, turn on all the lights (grit your teeth about the waste of energy; you can turn them off again after the viewing), open all the doors to the rooms, and leave a nice fire crackling in the fireplace.
   
8. Vacate the place fifteen minutes before the prospective purchasers are due to arrive. They do not want to meet you. However nice you might be, there is something about sellers' desperate need to sell combined with the craven desire to have their home properly appreciated, mixed in with a little ambivalence about whether they even want to sell ("the home where we raised our children!") that instantly turns off most prospective buyers. Realtors can be much more dispassionate.
9. Be patient. If it is priced right, it will sell sooner or later.
   

On The Road Again

I am about to make a change in my life, a very big change. I am selling my house, leaving my employer of eighteen years, and moving to another province where I have accepted a new position. I am leaving behind the province where I was born and where I have spent all but three years of my life. I am leaving behind family, and many dear friends.

No big deal, right? People do it all the time - move across the continent for a job, or to go to school, or to be with a new partner. For that matter, I have done it myself many times. I've owned four houses, each in a different city, and now I'm about to buy a fifth. During my university years, I lived in countless rented digs. So why the Sturm und Drang this time round?

Well, the thing is, it is a big deal. It involves jumping off into the unknown. Right now, I am comfortable in my log house. I can walk through the house in the dark in the middle of the night and not bump into furniture. Through experience, I have discovered preferred ways of doing things and I have developed routines. For example, I have a certain way of shoveling the snow, certain favourite walks around home where I take the dogs, and I know roughly when to dig up my vegetable garden, as well as what to plant and when.

I have routines at work for each day and each season. Although I don't know specifically what will happen on any given day, most of the challenges that I deal with are fairly similar to things I have dealt with before. Basically, I'm bored. The day-to-day stuff doesn't engage me anymore, and there is little support from above to move forward with new initiatives. This is the flip side of secure and predictable - boring. Stifling, in fact. I came to the realization that if I stayed on here in this job, I would waste away. I'd become a twisted, dried up little shell of a person.

I really struggled over this decision. In fact, I think I had come close to deciding to leave four years ago, but then I met my husband-to-be, and was gloriously, happily distracted for a few years. (And I am still very happy in love; it's just that dissatifaction with my work life eventually reasserted itself.)

It will be hard to leave our friends, and although our family is a bit scattered, we'll be further away from most of them. These last few months, I have been grieving everything that we will lose. Step by step, we have been doing the things to wrap up our lives here and move on. Now as the time comes close, I am letting go and looking forward. I don't know exactly what we are going to, but it is taking shape in my imagination. We'll buy a house. We'll meet people. I'll somehow figure out how to do a new, quite different job.

Isn't that exciting!

Why a Blog is not a Diary

Or, more specifically, I am writing about why my blog is not a diary. Now, I well know that when blogs originated in the 1990's, back when they were still called web logs, they commonly were described as personal web pages that either served as a personal diary or as a repository to store (and comment about) links and information found on the Internet. Back then at the newborn baby stage of the social media revolution, people valued the utility of having a paperless personal writing and filing space, and few people envisioned the development of the interconnected social web in which we are now enmeshed, where we not only find and consume information but also write to/sing to/share images with an audience across the globe, and mash-ups are the new black. Back in those early days, it seemed perfectly safe to write anything online, as people just didn't imagine: a) having an audience actually read their stuff, and b) the permanence of postings in such an ephemeral-seeming medium.

So that takes us back to my original implied question, and the answer is quite simple. My blog is not a diary because what I'd write in a diary would be the kind of stuff that I would not want anyone whom I know to read. (I don't really care about strangers; they can read whatever.) Some people who read my blog or who might do so in the future are people I know or might come to know someday. Therefore, I take care not to write the the whining, self-pitying, despairing, or angry kinds of things that that I wouldn't normally say to my broad circle of friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances, but that I would typically put in a private diary.

For me, a diary is a place to work through difficult things: emotions, relationships, important decisions, and self-critiques. There's quite a bit of misery in my diary (an old fashioned paper and pen type), and not many joys, pithy observations, or intellectual analyses. I save those latter kinds of writing or discussion to share with people, for venues that potentially have an audience, whether one individual, a set of colleagues, or potentially anyone in the world. I hope for and value feedback and discourse relating to those ideas. But I save the ugly stuff for myself alone, in my diary.

Probably I'm a bit old-fashioned in cordoning off a private writing space like that. After all, this is the age of reality TV, and of doing whatever is necessary to get as many blog hits as possible, even if it involves acting out or exhibitionism. Although it may have been said that every person has a book in them, in this age it seems more accurate to say every person's story is a soap opera open to the world.

I'd love to hear what you think about boundaries of public versus private material in online writing. Do you have personal boundaries around what you write online? Why, and what are they?