Posted in Bowen Island on June 3, 2011| 1 Comment »
What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice.
That’s what little girls are made of.
But how will I eat cake if my head is over there and my hands are over here?
– Marie Antoinette
Sugar and spice
And everything nice…
Posted in Bowen Island on May 31, 2011| 1 Comment »
Grown don’t mean nothin’ to a mother.
A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown.
In my heart it don’t mean a thing.
– Toni Morrison
The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant,
And to let the air out of their tires.
– Dorothy Parker
Posted in Bowen Island on May 30, 2011| 2 Comments »
Someone reached a milestone today.
Ten years. A decade. Double digits.
Little punk!
The good news is she still retains the remarkable ability to fold herself, pretzel style, into a load still small enough that I can wrap my arms around her and … just… just… deny!
Do you like these quackers? Duckly denizens? A flotilla of floating fowl?
Cupcakes, TimBits, marshmallows, chewy orange candies, M&Ms and melted icing.
The sugar will slay you.
I should have warned the teacher — ha ha ha!
It’s always good to schedule your birthday on a school day.
See the similarity?
Posted in Bowen Island, Home Learning on May 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Once upon a time there was a little boy who, to his mother’s bittersweet dismay, was getting taller and taller every day.
Wah! Start the story over.
Once there was a strapping pre-adolescent who had revolving interests regarding fine art, the great outdoors, construction sets and odd little Japanese animated creatures from a bizarre story where the creatures were trained by their human masters.
One day the lad, whom we’ll call Pokéboy, wandered into the deep dark woods behind his house. He took along with him something of great importance to his mother, something he took without her permission, something he later returned to her, with water all over the body and splash marks on the lens and she tried so hard not to have a private meltdown!!!
*Deep breath*
So the boy wandered into the deep dark woods behind his house.
But he was not alone as he had tucked with great care, into his pockets, the strange little creatures he’d created from clay.
He took the little creatures over to the pond in his yard where he spoke to them, asked them their plans for the future, arranged for a photoshoot and promised to put their names in lights.
Oh gosh, I don’t know. I don’t even know why he makes these things.
They’re cute, tho.
Posted in Bowen Island, Home Learning on May 25, 2011| 1 Comment »
We’re very serious about child labour laws around here.
If you can wash your hands, you can scrub the sink.
If you can sort your crayons, you can sort the silverware.
If you can stand without assistance you can clear the table.
If you can zip up your jacket, you can hang up your clothes.
If you want money there’s a stack of dress shirts on the ironing board.
It’s important to delegate tasks when you’re homeschooling.
How else will you find the time to write on your blog?
Posted in Bowen Island on May 20, 2011| 2 Comments »
Snakes have charmed me for a long time.
Their simple streamlined scaled beauty appeals every time they coil around my wrist — a gentle squeeze. My feelings would adjust if the squeeze compressed my chest in the moments before a boa made me its weekly dinner but as always, I love my country.
If you watch children with a garter snake, the first one will hold it, the second, third and fourth clamour for a chance to hold as well. Then the adult begs for reptilian clemency.
We walked through a green patch of Bowen last Friday, learning about some edible plants found in the woodland — Miner’s lettuce, Salmonberry shoots and maple blossoms. Who knew? A few days later Homeboy told me he got hungry on his way home so snacked on some wild greens. Lesson learned.
And some wild flowers, out of deer’s reach.
I didn’t know Bleeding Heart grew wild in the woods. I think of it as a country flower from my father’s sister’s garden, a very long time ago. Perhaps she too found it in the woods.
And we learned a fire blasted through here about a century ago, leaving behind great shells of cedars. Fine hiding places if you’re a gnome.
Nice to land in a place where you can unlock a few secrets and know there’s more to come.
Posted in Bowen Island on April 28, 2011| 3 Comments »
Another year older.
Wah! Where did my little one go?
Okay, so he’s not perfectly lovely all the time.
But he’s very much loved! Happy 12th!
Posted in Bowen Island on April 27, 2011| 2 Comments »
You know, as the de facto official clan photographer, I really try to do my best to capture moments, memories and interfamilial relationships so that we’ll all have something memorable and remarkable to view in the days, weeks, months, years and memories to come.
I try.
I check my aperture. I watch the ISO. I think about white balance, shutter speed, focal length, back lighting. I read photography blogs.
I really try.
But my clients! Sheesh!
Talking about herding cats!
“Wait! How’s my hair?”
“Let me check your hair!”
“My cheeks hurt from smiling!”
“I wasn’t ready!”
“Wait! I blinked!”
“Wait! I blinked again!”
Did I say something about capturing memories?
Click! Done!
Posted in Bowen Island, Outside on April 18, 2011| 1 Comment »
This fellow wandered into the house yesterday. Sounding a lot like a big bumblebee, he hovered in the middle of the kitchen, looking for a way to return outside.
Other birds often find their way into the house when a door is left open — usually the greedy Steller’s Jays in search of peanuts — and flutter against the glass, seeking a way through the transparency.
This hummer, conversely, simply buzzed and darted, then drifted down to the windowsill where I enclosed him in my hand and then passed him over to The Princess for his little photoshoot.
Light as a feather indeed.
Posted in Bowen Island, Japan on April 10, 2011| 1 Comment »
Last night I attended a fundraiser on the island for the people of Sendai, the place of the recent earthquake, tsunami and worrisome nuclear leaks.
The event was held in Cates Hill Chapel, a modest cedar-lined pitched roof building, tucked between towering cedar trees and Homeboy’s A-frame school. Driving up to it in the night the chapel glowed with the activity within — no street lights on Bowen. Darkness doesn’t just fall here, it crashes.
Inside played some beautiful Celtic folk music with various tin whistles, a bodhran (Irish drum) and a lovely Celtic harp.
Midway thru the little coffee house-style evening. a woman who, like me, lived and taught English in Japan for about a year, rose to read a letter from ‘Michiko,’ a friend in Japan.
Michiko relayed a series of stories about life in the Sendai area since last month’s earthquake: A four-year-old boy who falls asleep in the day because the aftershocks make him too afraid to sleep at night.
A boy who found his grandmother, lifeless, on top of a muddy wardrobe.
A schoolbus full of kindergarten-age children who were to graduate the next day, clasping one another, gone.
“They are now stars in the sky,” said the letter.
Michiko wrote that there are hundreds of stories like that. I cannot imagine. I don’t want to imagine.
The woman here has kept in touch with three of the people she met while in Japan. She’s been able to track down only two of them since March.
The fragility of life.
Following the reading of the letter, a musician approached the mike saying, ” I know only two songs with the words, ‘Rise Again.’ ”
And he sang The Mary Ellen Carter, an inspirational song about triumphing over great odds. It was a hugely popular Canadian folk song circa 1979, by Nova Scotia singer Stan Rogers.
In looking for a link to post here this morning I learned that one man credited the song with saving his life. A rust-bucket ship was carrying a load of coal from Virginia to Massachusetts and when a storm rose up the ship went down. The man struggled to keep afloat and when he thought he would finally lose consciousness the words from the song came back to him:
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Rise again, rise again—though your heart it be broken
Or life about to end.
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend,
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
The man shouted out the words, “Rise again, rise again,” as the waves washed over him. In the morning a coast guard pulled him to safety. He was one of three survivors of the wreck.
Stan Rogers died of smoke inhalation in an airplane fire in 1983, returning to Toronto from a folk festival in Texas.
The Country Mice 