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 May 9

I am here. I had forgotten what magic is here: the sisters in the moonlight, the old witch beginning to leaf. The blind witch is being later; she is old. I note with interest, since there are several dead trees fallen this winter, that the old witch, the hawthorn, is not a tall tree, and spreads out like a hat brim rather than grow tall and subject to winds. 

The moon rose late in a perfect sky. The big dipper is high in the west. In the morning the flickers were calling in the trees. Rocky is a dog in his element. Outside, about the house he is making the rounds, without collar or leash at last. He was as good as gold at 48. He would stay on the front lawn and watch the world, like Fig, except that Rocky needs no chain, while Fig wandered. I wonder if he would have learned to stay on our property if allowed to. Rocky only left me twice in the five months we were in Etobicoke, when he went to the field by himself, and when he went off along Tyre Road for several blocks and I had to search for him. Fortunately, a couple with a dog had seen which way he went. 

Rock was very happy to see Blackie and I am sure the feeling was mutual. They just picked up where they left off.

Everything seems as once familiar and new. It was like this to arrive at the Hideaway on the Bruce when I was young, everything both home and novel, as if never before seen. "Like coming home, but to a place I had never been before." (Perhaps I paraphrase; Tom Hanks says this about taking his wife's hand as she steps from a car, in Sleepless in Seattle.)

Today the sun is shining as if to welcome us. Last night as we drove in, too, there was a lovely sunset, not a regular occurrence here, beccause the sky is usually quite clear. 

The woods are well into spring. Here are the trout lily and the pink Carolina spring beauty. The red trilliums are in flower. Here is even a butterfly already, making the rounds of the spring beauties.

 

 

I had some turmeric root that began to sprout, so I put it in water. When it came time to leave Toronto, I put it in a jar to bring. It survived the trip well and now has a place on the kitchen sill. I will get it planted in a pot. It is native to south-east Asia, so I will not introduce it to the Canadian soil, even if it could survive. But I would like to watch it grow for a while.

  

I am cooking. There is a pot of beans for baked beans, and a pot of spelt pudding. Mostly whole food, it consists of whole grain spelt, almonds, pecans raisins and oat milk. There is a drop of maple syrup in it. and a pinch of salt. The body sings. My baked beans were vegan, though they sometimes are not, so I used some ketchup, the conventional kind not the Quebec tomato chutney that they call ketchup. I am sure that the latter is what is referred to in recipes, but outside Quebec cooks must use the regular stuff. The beans taste very nice, they need a "base note" like the pork, which the ketchup provides in a small way, and also the molasses. But I would like to find something else to use as well. Some vegan recipes use soy sauce but that seems to me to be too far outside the Quebec cuisine.

This is the spelt porridge. I have begun to make something like this with whole grains, rice, wheat or oats for breakfast and nighttime snack. You could add anything you wish, until it becomes a well-rounded meal.

Our neighbour has begun to keep bees and he brought us a jar of his honey. It has a multitude of flavours; magical, like a sort or manna. I fancy it tastes of cedar trees, and it must taste of the local flowers and tree blossoms, but I don't know their flavours. 

 

*****

Rain's son seems much older than his twenty months! He has an endless interest in everything. He accepted me without hesitation, as if I had never been away. He walked across to the ridge with me, already familiar with the way to the cow pond and up into the woods. He is talking so much, uses lots of words and signs, and repeats words one says, with better pronunciation every moment. 

I talk about magic a lot here. Indeed, it was more difficult for me to see it in the city, where the natural world is subdued by human surroundings, cars, buildings, business. But here, where there is little that is human compared with the hills and trees and sky, it is more accessible and tangible. It is only perhaps the life that pulses through the earth, but one feels it, sees it and breathes it. 

I feel grateful and undeserving. I must live up to the responsibility of this privilege.

Mumma Yaga