The Gardening Season

All winter we live with cold and snow and then April comes and things begin to change, some flowers begin to appear and tulips break through the ground. More happens in May, more flowers, more change, and life has returned to the garden. We've waited long enough for this and, still, it is slow. But you have to be patient to be a gardener, results are not instantaneous, they are slow, and the garden changes very slowly. It's years we're talking about, not days or months. And now, on the last day of June, the garden is still changing, the favourite lilacs are finished as are the peonies, and cone flowers, brown eyed susans, bee balm, and others are about to bloom. Some lavender has survived the winter and it is brave, it hangs on to life near a rose bush. Things are slow in our northern climate but even the climate is changing, we now have snails (many snails this rainy season) and these snails are new to us only in the last two or so years; otherwise, not much changes and what does change is slow. 

And then, last night, many fireflies in the dark night sky. What a magical sight!

Photos taken 30 June 2024.

Of winter days to come

It was -6 C and felt like -12 when I took these photographs on November 24, it wasn't even winter, it was a first taste of winter but without snow. As you get older you wonder if you can take another winter; it will be like this, and colder, all of December, January, February, March, and the first days of April. Too much, too long, too cold.  

It is what we, in Canada, must endure.

"October" by Robert Frost

 

Gilbert Layton Park in October 2012

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

The synchronicity of dates

It's mid-January 2020 and winter has set in, it's -18 C today. So far, the winter hasn't been all that bad, meaning that while we've had some snow the temperature has hovered around -5 C to + 2 or 3 C. That has now ended... 

In my experience important events happen in clusters of dates, these are meaningful for specific people; there is a synchronicity of dates. For instance, two friends were born on January 15; they are Audrey Keyes (Veeto) who died last October, she was my first friend in life, someone I knew from age four or five. The second friend was Artie Gold who I met in the early 1970s, Artie was my first poet friend. Artie died in February 2007. A third friend, Paul Leblond, was born on January 16; he died suddenly in 2015. My friend Pat McCarty, with whom I traveled the length of California and down into Baha California in April 1976, died eleven years ago, on January 18, 2007. Pat was a truly lovely person and I still miss him. Note added on 31 August, 2022: I've just learned that Pat McCarty's birthday is January 21 (not sure of the year, possibly 1947); this is the same date as my wife's birthday, she was born on 21 January. A final date, January 14, 1965 is when I began keeping a diary, something I have done on a daily basis since then, it has changed my life, it has helped to fulfill my life. All of these significant occurrences are clustered around the mid-January dates. 

And now we turn to winter! Mid-January winter photographs. 

Here are photos taken yesterday, on Greene Avenue in Westmount and then on the drive home along Cote St. Antoine Road.

Pinocchio outside the old Nicholas Hoare Bookstore on Greene Avenue

Walking along Greene Avenue

The Bistro on the Avenue is gone; we had many happy times there over the years, dinners with friends and family and with fellow members of the C.G. Jung Society of Montreal

Years ago the old Westmount post office, on the corner of Greene Avenue and Blvd. de Maisonneuve  was closed and then made into boutiques, stores

This is Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, Leonard Cohen's family synagogue; it is where
his song "You Want it Darker" was recorded

Murray Hill Park; I suppose the green snow fencing is intended to keep people
from tobogganing down the hill

Fire Station/Caserne 34 between Decarie and Girouard

That's St. Augustine Catholic Church on the right, just after Girouard Avenue;
the church closed and it is now River Side Church 

That's the Loyola Campus of Concordia University, almost at the end of
Sherbrooke Street West, almost home

Walking to Meadowbrook Golf Course

I've never golfed but I always enjoy this walk to Meadowbrook Golf Course. 

February

February

March

March

April

June

July

July

September

November

November

November