After the fantastic

...Festival of Words, we headed to Dougan Ridge in the Coteau Hills, a place I know well. There we played.






And there I drove, trying to keep my back to the sunset.
Still, it surrounds.

Guess

...which elf I am. H took this photo in Watson, SK. on our way to Moose Jaw today. After that I came up with a song. It goes like this: "what's in Watson"...


I took this photo myself. I call it Self-portrait of the artist as a not-so-young ma'am.

Tomorrow I'm off

...to Moose Jaw for the 10th annual Saskatchewan Festival of Words, which kicks off on Thursday. What an incredible line-up of presenters. I'm thrilled to be among them. It will be a fun weekend full of readings, workshops, launches and other entertainment. I look forward to seeing everybody. One of you owes me a piece of cake.

Community

...has been a topic on some poet's blogs recently. Here's a post by Lisa Robertson and here's a response to the post.

On a related note, I received a card from a writer the other day. I read it and pinned it up with the other cards. Today I stared at it until I finally had to take it down to check the back. There I found the artist's website. I visited the site and its gallery of cards. The one I received is among them.

Just call me

...the frog whisperer. Tonight I was shooting culverts, so I had a small lens on the camera at the time. I think the only reason I was able to get so close to the frog is because it was amazed at the number of deer flies and horseflies that were bombarding me and that I was just standing there, taking it all. I couldn't hear anything but the buzz. H says he's never seen so many around a person before. Dragonflies were having a heyday picking deer flies off me. My mind wasn't on the bugs or the bites, but rather the great culvert stories someone had emailed me the other day. I gratefully printed them off and added them to my culvert file. They make me grin every time I think about them. So there I was grinning through the flies.

I finally finished reading The Master a couple nights ago. I'd read only a couple pages per night, so it took forever. The book was worth every penny. I even dog-eared a couple pages - something I rarely do - so I'll be able to locate the passages later on.

I'm happy to say I've been working on new poems. It's been a fun, but tiring ordeal. Bits of lines will come to me just as I'm about to fall asleep, so I'll get up and jot them down. Then I settle back into my pillow only to have another thought strike me. On goes the light again.

In forest news: tonight we ate our first blueberries of the season. It will be a good year for berries.

Dating books

...with biology.

I never saw the fun

...in leapfrog. Not one bit. I'm not alone.

Suddenly

...it's July. Posts will be sporadic until September.

The last couple weeks seemed to pass in a blink. I wrote, painted, gardened, watched birds, found spiders, washed walls, started painting the house and walked and walked and walked. I was told some great stories. Some fantastic thoughts came to me as I was brushing and flossing my teeth. Maybe if I'd brush and floss a bit longer I'd finally get my novel written.

While it's already been a summer of sensory overload, three things stand out.

Last week the cat and I stood in the sun room and watched the high school grads' annual drive-by parade. The honking horns, the RCMP's flashing lights, the occasional siren, and the screaming chorus of woohoos really impressed the cat. Her ears were flat for the entire time. I had been working on a poem that morning and as I watched the parade pass by I wondered if there were any writers among them. Maybe in twenty-some years one of them will be spending a morning on the beginnings of a poem, trying to feel out a line. I'd gladly give them the line that I was working on.

This weekend I decided to go to a free pancake breakfast in Flin Flon. While my love of pancakes is not news, I can't remember if I've ever been to a pancake breakfast. My hankering for pancakes was strong, but what I craved most was the experience. I went expecting to see something unusual or useful. Something I could write about. As I stood in line I observed the smiling pancake flippers, the smiling sausage turner, the smiling syrup pumper and several picnic tables full of smiling people happily chatting between bites. As we looked for a place to sit, I took note of the sunlit steam rising from my pancakes. The pool of syrup. When we finally found an empty spot, I put my plate down and stood there frowning, suddenly realizing I'd have to somehow get my legs over the picnic table's bench in order to sit down. I had a skirt on. There was no graceful way.

Speaking of grace, yesterday, against a backdrop of greenstone and trees, I watched a tiny motorcycle become tinier as it sped into the distance. On it, under a huge helmet, was a small child wearing a bubblegum pink dress.

Basho brings new meaning

...to the daily grind.