The sun is just going down; it is a quarter to nine in the evening. The dogs and I have just come back from a trip to our friend’s home up the road where we charged our cell phone batteries and laptop as well I traded my ice pack for a frozen one. Before I sat down to write, I let the dogs out for the last bathroom trip of the night because they are small and a variety of predatory animals live here in the forest.
Today, I had a special visitor from Jamaica, and went to see Mindi Fillion play in Battersea with my best friend Liisa. I meet one of my neighbours who says that they cut through my land on their four wheeler, and even though I am not crazy about this idea I agreeably say this is OK because I do not want any trouble with the neighbours and make a note to myself that I have to repair the fences soon. I wish I would have mentioned that they have a huge tree half blown over right on our fence line. It is perched dangerously and should be cut down and I worry about the children who live near and who roam through the forest here. Now that we have met, I guess that I can mention it again to them.
It was a fun day over all and well deserved.
As I sit here writing, I hear a horrible rumbling in the distance like far away and serious thunder, I also hear very few birds singing but I don’t yet identify them by their call. There is occasional rustling in the prickly canes which grow thick in front of here but the trees are as still as one can imagine. Even the coyotes and wolves are quiet now. There is no grouse or chicken sound either. It is atypically silent here; I imagine it is a calm before the storm.
I have washed the few dishes that were unclean and put them away already but worry now that I did not put the propane cooker away so I get up to check this. If this gets wet and does not work there will be no coffee in the morning for me. Checking things, is a normal part of off grid living, I think. I am glad for this on most days and tonight is no exception because even though the propane was away, I had left the cushions out on the cloth porch and they will soak through in tonights rain. I make myself a cup of soup and a cup of tea while I am up. It is too late to cook and eat a proper meal but I realize that I ate only about a cup or two of food all day and I am hungry so I keep it simple.
With the rain on its way, I admonish myself (without too much seriousness), for the day off. I should have been working on the garden today before the rain comes. It is May 27th now, two days since grandma died and I have to write her eulogy. The garden should have been in weeks ago, but I had to wait for soil delivery for the raised bed. It is very late now because the garden should have been in 4 weeks ago. Still, I tell myself that a couple of days won’t make too much difference because I will put in started tomatoes and things with a fast turn around too, like lettuce, onion, radish and the long crops like squash and cucumbers will be fine with the new global warmed summers that we have now. I hope that I can catch enough rain water to keep the planned small crop going.
Unbelievably shameful is that I am a little behind in my housework here. It is tidy and organized but I have to take the furniture out and scrub the cement floors. It is a job that I have been putting off for two weeks. If it is wet tomorrow I won’t get to this either.
Yesterday My cousin Tracey came from the city, my husband HJ came from Hamilton, and my sister came from Saskatoon and I planned to make a meal for them. I bought ingredients and then decided while I was still in Kingston that I felt too overwhelmed to make a fuss, so I stopped at the Pasta Shelf in Kingston and picked up a huge vegetarian pasta dish, some extra red pepper sauce, some roasted garlic as well as garlic bread and put it all on the BBQ to heat.
