mumma yaga

 apr.17    The snow and my rain gauge, mocked! We had no precipitation for 15 days and I began to feel that I, myself, was beginning to need rain as much as the thirsty meadow. At last it began to rain on Thursday. I scrambled to find my rain gauge and planted it by the henhouse fence. In the morning we woke to find a wet snow falling, the valley gone once again in clouds and snow. A surprise, but not unexpected. Now, just after noon, it is 5 degrees and the green meadow is re-appearing, but the sky is overcast - we do want more rain: April showers and all that.  It felt chilly in the house while the snow fell: how quickly the body acclimatizes to changing weather - we were already used to the warmth and sun. I lit the fire in the morning and we had a game of Scrabble before lunch instead of venturing out. It felt like a rainy Saturday at the cottage. Oh wait, except that it was Friday, that's what it was, a rainy day at the chalet, except it was snow and we wouldn't...

 Apr. 14 Is today an "ides" or is there only one in March?  This view is familiar to you by now, I know. There is a perimeter, along the borders of our lawn, of seemingly random fence posts. They are unprocessed bits of tree and seem to have no purpose. However, yesterday the fence was repaired and where the posts were down they've been re-planted. The fence, invisible at this distance, is lengths of wire, able to be electrified. The farmer at the bottom of our road will be bringing his cattle up to our meadow for two weeks out of eight throughout the summer. Just now they are calfing. Every day there are new skinny calves standing unsteadily beside their mothers in the field below the farm. Won't it be fun to watch them growing up!  There is such charm in the work-a-day bits and pieces visible in the idyllic environs of this house. The mismatched fence posts, the crooked birdhouse, the horseshoe board, the abandoned chicken yard with its ramshackle day-shelter. These...

 Apr. 13 having tea i ran home after school through iced-over ditches in hand-me-down boots and in the kitchen mom made tea i told her everything i don’t remember how but i felt as if i’d handed her my day i don’t remember her arms but i felt as if she held me to her secure in her lap she was fearless, mom and she had strength enough for everything  i came home late and talked about boys and friends angry at teenage life, at growing up and things i didn’t understand at all in the kitchen, having tea mom listened patient as the earth she didn’t say she’d been there took nothing away from me poured the tea afternoons or evenings we ended up in the kitchen said, how about some tea? the eternal respite  from walking in life having tea in the kitchen we shared a lifetime of inside jokes a history words and gestures so bred in us we knew with a certainty exactly what was meant when someone spoke shall i make tea? was a touchstone a metaphor for coming home from school and work ...

 Apr. 12 The sky is turning pink along the south hills. (I was up today before the dawn.) A Ruffed Grouse is drumming on the ridge. Sounds like a gas generator starting up. And a woodpecker is knocking. A skein of geese went over, honking.  I seemed to have a lot to do yesterday. My father, after he retired, used to say he didn't know how he found time to go to the office! I did some laundry, loving the laundry butter *, which gets the clothes clean with very little suds. Of course the dirt is cleaner, no pollution or city dirt. No dryer, so softener, just pure water and sunshine and clean air for drying.  Each week I cook a batch of beans. Yesterday it was two pounds of chickpeas, soaked overnight then cooked for one hour. They are still a bit firm, but if you cook them another ten minutes, they start to lose their exquisite flavour, nutty, with butternut squash notes, tasting pinky-gold. I reserve some of the broth and freeze it in small amounts for soup and for adding ...

 Apr. 10 The first vulture to appear over our meadow arrived on the 31st. of March. Yesterday, K saw a pair. I hope it was our original with a mate! Perhaps they will come and live here! After the last snow, April's fools' joke, Robins began to show up in ones and twos, then a flock of a hundred and more blew across the lawn - I have never seen Robins in a flock before - just arriving in town! I can only tell Ravens from Crows by their voice. The Ravens are larger with bigger beaks, but they won't come and stand beside a Crow while I am looking at it!  The other night just at dusk a woodpecker was knocking on the ridge, and I heard a Ruffed Grouse drumming! Haven't ever heard one, or seen one for that matter! They beat their wings against their sides to create a thump from the sudden expulsion of air.  Also this week, two Dark-eyed Juncos came to peck about the apron (where the car parks), then a couple of days later there were ten or more all about the lawn, eating bug...

April 7                                             Kismet Gefilte Fish with horseradish. "Though April showers may come your way, they bring the flowers that bloom in May.... It isn't raining rain, you know, it's raining violets."* I want to share my little musical revisit to an entertainer and singer that I learned to like as a child, and with whom I became enchanted, through his biographical films,  The Jolson Story and its sequel, and his charismatic performance in The Jazz Singer , 1927,  t he first talking picture made. [I will not attempt to address blackface in entertainment. I include a reference article in the footnotes.**] I wanted to hear again the opening number of The Jolson Story, which is a young "Jolson" singing Banks of the Wabash .***[3] The boy actor sings beautifully as he demonstrates the first budding mannerisms of the adult performer hesitantly...

 April 2 written in february at the vineyard. lemon clouds on a sundown sky the snow is a thing it breathes  it is a paintbrush the ice stalactites frozen time. what is this place? i don't know who I am. i wake up here, i live the day, i go to bed.  i'm not really tied to any pier when did the line break? i'm not at sea if i am i'm a fish. a river runs down the valley snow pretending to be a tide avalanche of air. i have never felt  the ground so sure under my feet the superimposed river  the green hills the woman on the mountain there is no reason to wait.  the witches have been here for a long long time there is much to learn it is now: the thing is now. you do not know who I am it hasn't happened yet. the winter is on the wane. 25th red circle round the moon. the round moon. a legitimate storm blows down the mountain. Mumma Yaga

 Mar. 31 This morning the sun is shining and it feels like a true spring morning. Our meadow is filled with pink sunshine and the branches of the pine trees are red with expectation of new life. Suddenly there are birds. Through the winter there have been chickadees, crows and the pair of ravens who live here. This morning in the early sunshine I hear bird song all around and there are mating pairs flirting across the sky. A redwing in the first witch's hair, and three Bluejays in the blind witch's branches. Last night I heard the owl on the ridge for the second time.   Fig, glad to be back, he is king of the mountain! We arrived back at the Vineyard at supper time on Sunday. The drive was uneventful in the extreme. Traffic was very light on the 401; we ran into a bit of a rush as we started south from Montreal. But those cars gradually trailed off to their destinations and we were almost alone for the last 70 km. It was quite surreal to be here at first, after spending a week...