mumma yaga

 May 27 Once there was a caterpillar who by a random mutation looked a little bit like birdshit on a leaf and he had a survival advantage and his grandchildren looked a little bit more like birdshit... You couldn't make this stuff up. ***** Rocky is my guide. If we cut through the woods, he follows deer paths that I can get through. I tie a bit of orange trail tape around his neck, enough to tell a hunter he is a dog. (I wear something orange too.) But if he snags on a branch the tape will break easily. Rock has fine-tuned his behavior, to come back for me at regular intervals, probably the same interval I leave from last sighting to calling him to wait. He is keeping closer in general, keeping an eye on me. I still wonder sometimes if he is not real, and everyone just humours me and says, "Yes, nice dog." He is too good to be true. He is my familiar, my soulmate.  He was injured last week, his neck it seemed, and was on pain meds for five days. He is better now. I think ...

May 24  As soon as the snow is gone, it begins. First are the primitives, the fossils. They were on the planet before the trees and flowers. This was in April. Shining club moss. Pincushion moss British soldiers lichen and reindeer lichen. Fan club moss, and broom fork moss. By the end of April, frail spring things are up, ephemeral in their smallness and underfoot, on the path, where a bit of sun penetrates. Tiny yellow violet, the white and the blue come soon after. The trillium barely up, but its buds are already nodding awake. Carolina spring beauty, although the leaves about it are the trout lily. Trout lily: Its leaves are everywhere, but only a few of them flower. The azure bluet, in the meadow, like an alpine flower. We were only away a few days, but have missed the waiting time. It is green now. The interrupted fern is already being interrupted. ***** Saturday a storm came through. The witches are in flower. The upheaval is still in motion. It is "still", and in moti...

 May 22 We had a few   hot days in Toronto and the kids and I were at the creek. Of course they went in. ***** K and I were in Toronto for summer tires and other errands. I was in Shoppers' Drug Mart at Six Points, then I went to the Valley Farm Produce and the Six Points Dollar Store. In Shoppers I began to feel sick, looking at the aisles of unnecessary, over-priced stuff - we spend and we spend and it is mostly so unneeded. You are even sent to enter through the high-end beauty section at the front door, but I wait for someone to come out and enter through the exit. I will NOT go through the beauty department. That is "super-crap"! The products in the food aisles are so over-processed that most of their nutrition is gone, and so full of substitute flavourings and colours and preserving chemicals that they are barely food. But our lives are so busy that cooking whole foods is a luxury, and we are told and reminded that these foods are yummy and nutritious and sometimes ...

 May 20 It is time. It is going to be a terrible revolution. The people are going to rise up, because the climate is driving them from their homes and farm lands. They are going to rise up, too, against the mega-monopoly consumer chains that transport goods around the world and back again. Against the mega-monsters who control the governments through lobbying and financial support (blackmail). Against the government infrastructures that fracture the support they are designed to provide. Against the vicious poverty that enslaves most of the people on the planet. Or perhaps it will all come crashing down. Village - we must return, wherever possible, to the village model: the people of a local community providing the needs of that community, healthcare, and a grocer who arranges with some nearby farmers, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick... I KNOW that we now live in big cities and that the farmers are far away. That is why there is going to be a terrible revolution. Because we canno...

 May 6 The trilliums are showing their nodding buds while still only inches from the ground. I may miss them in flower if we are gone to Toronto. (We still have to go and get our summer tires put on, and run other errands.) In Ontario I am used to seeing the trilliums tall and white.  They are Ontario's official flower and are depicted white in logos and photos, but I have only seen one white one in these woods. Here, they are a burgundy colour, which I rarely saw in Ontario.  ***** 18 degrees on the porch, and hotter in the sun. Rain and the baby spent the afternoon on the porch while I came and went, mostly from the kitchen. I was making bread: sourdough with potatoes and chickpeas. (Recipe below.) I made this mashup by happenstance last week, while feeding my sourdough starter. I don't like to discard the "discard" when feeding the starter. It is too precious and alive. So I made bread with it. I had some leftover chickpeas and potatoes on hand so I added them to t...

 april 25 It seems a long time since the forest became naked, disrobed of snow. I was afraid it would be fleeting, and I wanted to know it better like this. I can see its roots, its dead, and its broken limbs, among the rocks, and walk where I can't go, once the undergrowth has covered up everything. When ferns and brambles and green life have filled up the spaces, one cannot see one's footing or the swampy places and is forced onto the paths again and open meadow. But it has gone on, like something sleeping, or just breathing, for a couple of weeks. (April has been a waiting time.) Underfoot is papery leaves lain thin on rock and root, dry knoll and wet hollow, like the skin of an old woman. The trees are their naked selves, trunk and branch.  The trees live among their dead and fallen. A grandfather long dead may stand branchless among the living, on and on. A mature tree may be knocked down in a storm and crash among the other trees, bringing some down with it, or leaving i...