today's count

A perfect Saskatchewan summer day.  Sunshine, warm, dry, windy.  Shorts, barefoot in the grass, straw hat.  Two gophers, one in a hole a few feet from where I sat who began to get used to the idea I was there.  A big orange bumblebee.  A dragonfly.  The daycare kids in bright colours like flowers.  Blades of grass showing lime green in the sunlight. The leaves budding out, turning the trees a hazy green. The smell of them, still sticky and sweet.

S

Yup, the s-word has come.  Not that we are all that surprised it's just we had such a glorious fall.  I have seen since the leaves rolling along the surface of the snow like rushing hordes across the steppes, or the plains.  Tip to tip they turn, propelled by surface wind.  It is completely different from the way they move on the ground.  Or perhaps it is only that because of the snow their movements are so clear to be seen.  I also saw green leaves on snow as I walked home along the lower path by the river.  A whole section where the leaves would not give up summer and are now scattered brightly across the snow in blue shadows and yellow patches made by the setting sun.

100 handmade books

Okay, truth is we are making 102 because the book has an ISBN which means the National Archive requires two copies and it is sooooo much easier to make them two copies than to buy two copies because all the money you are making on the project is going to charity.

 

I am involved with Happy Leopard Chapbooks.  Twice a year we create a limited edition book to sell for charity.  Different charity each time.  Mostly.  And if you think making one book by hand is time consuming --- I must digress here to say that while I was spending the weekend with my mother I was also spending the weekend with my father, two people who courted in Latin.  My father gave me the tid bit that manufacture, from the Latin, means to make by hand.  So Ford, you ain't manufacturing those trucks.  I just know you're not.  Nor are any of the others, but this digression has gone on long enough --- you should try making 100, and two.

If you are around, come on out for the launch, June 21st (ah summer, when the days are getting shorter) at 8pm, the Refinery 609 Dufferin, Saskatoon.  There will be food.

today's count

Not a single blossom left in the crabapple grove.  I look forward to seeing the little green apples appear.  A single magpie at the tip of a pine tree.  And the grass scented mist of the sprinklers. 

Have a lovely weekend.

summer in Saskatchewan

Amazing what 12 hours can do.  But we can be happy that it did not snow. And I am happy it rained because the plumbers forgot to turn the outside water back on, so I am hauling from three floors up to keep my newly planted tomatoes happy.  My planting them is not the reason the weather turned.  Honest.