Repeat

Writing my thesis.

Shaky spiral

via www.flickr.com

sculpture in Aperture park, taken on hookey day.

Thanksgiving

not an actual plan. Stasha made happy potato face before putting it in the oven to stay warm.

and of course, work never really stops, not even on a long Thanksgiving weekend, but I'm grateful for wireless internet and small laptops.

and we always take some sort of Thanksgiving walk.

Dogs hate posing for pictures.

but they like walking along as if ponies pulling a cart.

thankful

thankful for: a salad bowlful, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

even with the thread - and reality - of frost, there was just enough shelter and protection in the garden that tomatoes continued to ripen slowly, and though they are nowhere as prolific as they were last year, it is still a great pleasure to be able to have vine-ripened tomatoes in October.

it's true that the leaves were ragged, spotty, and frost damaged, but they held up just long enough to give us these, and for the pleasure of a home-grown tomato, we are grateful.

hookey

hookey, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

I had such an unproductive day yesterday - writing, deleting, cutting and pasting the same passages over and over again - that this morning I decided to take a mental break to read, draw, and ride my bike. I've hardly ridden my bike this year - partly crappy weather, partly dog priorities. It was wonderful to get out on this fall day, take a break at Aperture Park by the university, look at the trees, rocks, and leaves, and do a little drawing.

Quick watercolor sketch on the spot - it was nice to focus just on the shapes and colours, unlike the botanically detailed drawings I did during university.

in fact, I'd forgotten most of the names of parts of the leaf, till we went out for sushi later that day, and I showed the kids the oak leaves I pressed into my notebook - Stasha named these parts for me - odd that I'd forget them at all. 

letting go

letting go, originally uploaded by Sophie_vf.

sometimes it's just time, right?

I have complained vociferously all year about unseasonable frost, snowfall, and hail, cold rainy summers, mosquitoes and all manner of nature being contrary, but we are now being rewarded by one of the most beautiful autumns I can recall, full of warmth and light. I'll take it, gladly, along with the nights with just enough chill to keep us alert, to what changes the following months may bring.

(taken with my phone - I vow never to leave my camera at home again: mist rising from the Oldman river and lying low in the valley):

things in my life that are broken

Really, it was bad enough have a frosty, snowy start to the growing season, accompanied by more rain than we've ever seen in the summer (on the plus side, very green coulees). But the cold, rainy days and threat of frost continue to batter the best efforts of the tomatoes to ripen. My husband and I have been trying to cover them up in the evenings, but the night of autumnal equinox, we somehow forgot, and the first morning of fall indeed arrive with frost on the garden shed and the car windows. Still, gardeners in southern Alberta are nothing if not optimistic, and we're all going "woohoo! 22 degrees on the weekend! NOW we're going to get ripe tomatoes!" Foolish optimism is what makes gardening worth it.

and then, to come home after a day of work and flop on the bed to do some reading. To my horror, this is what my Kindle looked like.

I have faithfully (and somewhat hysterically) followed all the steps on the support pages, blogs and forums. No dice. This thing is bricked. Amazon is sending me a replacement, and the customer service rep remarked, as I paused for breath amidst my bleating, "It sounds like you really enjoy your Kindle".  I bet he says that to all the folks. On the plus side, I was thus forced to raid my daughter's bookshelf and read a paper book, an old, old favorite of mine from when I was a young girl: The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. Not only is it one of my favorite retellings of the old Tam Lin ballad (and suitable for younger readers), it is illustrated by Richard Cuffari, whose black and white ink and wash drawings have fascinated me since I was a child. As an adult, I find myself re-examining them with fresh eyes, trying to figure out what makes them so dramatic and appealing. This blog post at Daughter Number Three shows some great examples of his illustrations - some of them have a distinctly 70's feel to my eye, yet still seem fresh and very much in tune with the story. It was almost worth having a broken Kindle to open up the chance to revisit this book, for both story and pictures.