The days are noticeably shorter, the evenings are drawing in.
Even though Environment Canada forecasts we’ll have Summer-ish/Autumn-ish weather until well into October, I can feel the change of seasons in my bones – specifically my knee bones.
Now that the cortisone shot to my knee has completely worn off, I’m back to where I was four months ago, mobility wise, staggering around using my two trusty walking sticks, and trying to adapt to every change in atmospheric pressure (usually a fast moving storm-front) that affects my joints.
I read the other day that our good old climate crisis, which creates, among other things, fast moving, swiftly changing atmospheric phenomena, can result in them’s of us wot are prone to migraines, to experience them at even more severe galaxy-busting levels of ‘owwie-ness’ than we already do.
My migraine scale of ‘owwie-ness’ starts at the base level of ‘planet-busters, (just your every-day skull-crusher) and slides up to ‘galaxy crushers’. (which is the sort where the sound of a mouse squeaking a kilometer away causes the most exquisite pain) Fun times ahead on that score I suppose.
-oOo-
More than 30,000 people have been evacuated in one area alone due to the wildfires, this month. Whole villages have burned to the ground.
I try and maintain some sort of equilibrium when I listen to reports of the devastation on the radio, but I find my tears flow none-the-less.
I’ve lived through wildfires (bushfires, for my Aussie mates) when I lived in Australia. They were a part of the landscape. I never expected to be doing the same thing here …
-oOo-
… here, I sit on our balcony on a Saturday afternoon, sipping my tea. Mrs Widds sits across from me, she’s a coffee woman, reading.
In this moment our world is quiet. Even the soft breeze that rustles the first golden leaves of Autumn seems quiet.
And yet, the sky is tinged with the shadows of drifting smoke, occasionally bringing with it the smell of stale ash and displaced lives.
-oOo-
A curious bee hovers over my pen as I make notes for this blog post.
We’re often visited by bees when we sit out here. Perhaps they’re studying us, taking notes, as though assessing our suitability as neighbours and co-caretakers of this little piece of Land.
-oOo-
We’ve lived here now through a full cycle of Seasons. We know what to expect as each one arrives, changes the landscape, and departs. We also expect that, as they did last year, they will bring with them un-known extremes. (looking at you -40°C)
-oOo-
Mrs Widds has finished her book and is pootling around in the kitchen making ‘left-over’ pies. That’s where she gathers all the bits of leftovers from the freezer, including, this time, some absolutely delicious-smelling butter chicken sauce, and chucks them into a big pot. She adds a few pie-ish veggies, spoons the mixture into her freshly made pastry pie-bowls, and into the oven they go.
-oOo-
This weekend we’re working on our trailer. (RV) There’s the regular yearly maintenance-y tasks, and then there’s the ‘just in case we have to evacuate too’, restocking tasks.
Just because we live in a relatively built-up suburban area doesn’t mean we’re impervious to calamity.
I wish that wasn’t the case.
I wish that bears weren’t wandering through the main streets of Prince George. Hungry because the heat ripened their berry harvest early and now there’s not enough for them to eat in the wild. Human carelessness provides them with a source of food, and thereby endangers their lives.
I wish these grave times weren’t upon us, that the tranquility I find sitting on our balcony writing and listening to the leaves rustling in the breeze could last longer than this one afternoon … but wishing won’t make it so.
In these ‘Interesting Times’, it becomes imperative that we find our ‘islands of calm and sanity, in oceans of chaos’.
This gently passing afternoon has been one such island for me.
I hope you find yours too.
-oOo-

Left-over’ pies in the making. The saucepan lid is the perfect size for the pie lids – Synchronicity!

Straight from the oven, and just before they get ‘et

A bonus – Leftover fruit tarts

Also, straight from the oven, and just before they get ‘et























