Sequestered, 365 (CCCLXV)

Cooler on the Rocks

Wordless Wednesday - On the Edge

Friday Ramble - Swimming in Light

For a day or two this week, we awakened to gray skies and rain beating a staccato rhythm that shunned meter and metronome. Puckish breezes cavorted in the eaves and ruffled tiny leaves in the garden like decks of playing cards. A thousand and one little waterfalls appeared out of nowhere, and impromptu streams danced their way through village gutters carrying twigs, oak leaves, pine needles and catkins.

Here and there were precious islands of stillness. Sheltered by overhanging trees, the ornamental pond in a friend's garden was like glass, white and scarlet koi hovering almost motionless in the early light, their open mouths like tiny perfect "o"s. Sometimes, they seemed to be swimming in sky.

There was water in the garage now and then, a shallow lagoon until the wet stuff gurgled its way down through frantically working drains. When the tide receded, I scraped rust into glass jars and tucked them away - iron oxides produce lovely ochre hues, and my gleanings will be used in projects somewhere up the trail, possibly on other rainy days. I don't know when my fingers will be up to handling a paintbrush again, but that doesn't stop me from thinking up neat "stuff" to try out.

As I scraped away, I remembered that humans have been using iron oxides in artistic undertakings as far back as the prehistoric caves of Lascaux - I would be a happy camper indeed if I ever managed to produce something a scrap as vibrant as the magnificent Chinese horse. There I was in my wellies, splashing about and playing with basic elements of life - a heady brew of rust (iron oxides), carbon dioxide and water is where all sentient life began. The Japanese word for rust is sabi (錆), and it forms part of wabi sabi (侘寂), a name for the enfolding aesthetic or world view centered on notions of transience, simplicity and naturalness or imperfection. 

Clouds and rain, then sunshine and blue sky, then back to clouds and rain again, who knows what spring days will hold? We go rambling when good weather prevails, and I lurch up the trail a few hundred feet, a long way from the miles of rugged terrain I was once able to cover, but there is gratitude in every step.

On wet days, we listen to a little Bach or Rameau on the sound system, read and drink tea. We watch raindrops dappling the windows, the painterly way in which trees, roof lines, shingles and old wood fences are beaded with moisture and glistening in the grey. Each and every raindrop is a minuscule world teeming with exuberant life, whole universes looking up at us, great and bumbling creatures that we are. Rain or shine, up and down, in and out, them and us, it's all good.

Sequestered, Week 318 (CCCXVIII)

Little Wonders in the Woods

On a fine morning in late August, a weathered cedar stump by the trail into the deep woods wears a carpet of haircap moss (Polytrichum commune). The delicate wonders emerging from the thatch are dancing sporophytes, fragile strands topped by seed capsules wearing raindrops and filaments of spider silk. Just beyond the photo, a crab spider waits for a fly to put in an appearance, one fraught with peril.

How often does one wander along a trail and not notice such wonders? I suspect the answer is, most of the time, for this old hen anyway.

My moss colony was a miniature jeweled world, complete within itself, its glistening raindrops holding the whole sunlit forest in their depths, upside down of course. For the life of me, I can't come up with the right words to describe it. A tiny cosmos, teeming with life. Its own history. Its own traditions. Its own stories. Astonishing. Breathtaking. Radiant. Perfect.

Sequestered, week 203 (CCIII)

Frog on the Rocks

All Together Now, Winter and Spring

Happy April! Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

Wordless Wednesday - Windy

Go Out to the Rainy Woods

Wordless Wednesday, After the Rain

Wordless Wednesday - Harbinger

Wordless Wednesday - Adorned

Friday Ramble - Clouds in My Cuppa

Clouds, cooler mornings, rain and fog have been our lot this week. Oilskins and rubber boats wait by the door, and umbrellas bloom like peonies out in the darkling street.

On our walks, tall trees float into view like the masts of wooden sailing ships and then disappear again in the mist. There is the swish of early commuters splashing through lovely deep puddles when they think nobody is looking, the grumble of buses, the soft growl of motor vehicles heading uptown for the day's toiling.

Through the kitchen window comes the smell of rain and wet earth as I sip my mug of tea, the sound of branches in the garden shedding their cloaks of wetness, jubilant robins in the overstory singing down more life giving precipitation. This may turn out to be one of the wetter Junes in recent memory, but there is never enough rain for the robins, and they are giving the day their all.

There's something restful about a rainy day. If I could climb the old maple in the garden, I would perch right up there with the robins, trilling for more days like these fine soggy hours just unfolding. Getting there in oilskins and wellies might be difficult though, and what do I do with my tea and the umbrella?

Sequestered, Week 80, (LXXX)

Rain, rain, rain...

To Everything There is a Season

Rain and Blooming Umbrellas

Wordless Wednesday - The Song My Paddle Sings