by Suzanne Stengl | Jun 7, 2019 | Garden
I have always loved the smell of lilacs, especially in the rain.
It’s raining in Calgary today. Not just “showers” or “chance of showers” but “rain”. This is unusual because it only ever rains for about an hour, maybe two, and it’s been raining all morning.
Today is welcome rain, soaking the lawns and flower beds, and clearing the wildfire smoky skies.
Into each life some rain must fall.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I grew up on a farm in Southwestern Ontario. When it rained, we didn’t have to hoe beans or pick cucumbers. There were multiple indoor activities on a rainy day – a game of euchre, a jigsaw puzzle, a pie to make. Once my brother built a telegraph from the house to the barn and we practiced Morse Code for hours.
At any rate, I still associate rain with rest. Today I sit in the kitchen and enjoy the view.
The backyard is mostly perennials because who has time to plant each spring? I suppose a gardener does but I’m not really a gardener. I am an Enjoyer of Gardens.
Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.
— Roger Miller
This bleeding heart comes back every year—
—and so do the Saskatoons.
These two bushes were recently planted. They are Haskap berries. Apparently, Haskaps are higher in antioxidants than blueberries. Behind the plastic is the strawberry patch. The plastic keeps the birds away and also keeps the plants a little warmer.
This is the new grapevine, with accompanying trellis. The backyard is on a slope—a sort of hillside. Grapes grow on hillsides, right? Even though Calgary has a short growing season, we can always hope.
I do plant a few annuals in pots on the balcony—mainly because I can bring them indoors when Calgary has snow late, or early, in the season.
A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.
—James Dickey
At the beginning of each spring season, we put the concrete birdbath outside. It’s in the basement over the long harsh winter and now it is enjoyed by the birds—
—and by the humans watching the birds.
I hope you are enjoying this rainy day!
by Suzanne Stengl | Oct 9, 2015 | Miscellaneous Moments
I haven’t been a regular here for a time. A funeral in August, another in September. Both unexpected. But then, thankfully, we rarely do expect them.
I grew up in a farming community in Southwestern Ontario. Now I live in Calgary, two thousand miles away.
I am blessed with lots of family that still live in the area. And then there are all the friends.
My late brother and late father had lots of friends. They show up and offer sympathy and support. They write interesting anecdotes on the funeral home’s Condolences Page. They send emails. They send flowers and donate to favourite charities.
In a very short period of time, family and friends and funeral directors help us to put together a Celebration of Life. Eulogies are written. People speak about our loved ones and surprise us with stories we’ve never heard.
The waitress in the small town gives me breakfast on the house. Someone else buys dinner for me and all my sisters.
Family shows up from everywhere. It turns into a photo op. My family does an annual family reunion but funerals are another kind of family reunion. Some of our best photo album pictures come from funerals. After all, when you are from a huge family, it’s hard to get everyone together. So we take those pictures and keep those memories.
It is a time for goodbyes, and reconnections.
After it’s all over, the sadness lingers and spikes, sometimes when we least expect it. But I have been to enough funerals in my life to know that the sharp feelings will lessen. The ache will pass. Life will go on. I know it will take time to say goodbye but life is for the living.
So.
Thanksgiving is celebrated on next Monday in Canada. Many people have the turkey dinner on Sunday and then just kick back on the holiday Monday.
I have much to be thankful for and I am going to focus on the good things. In fact, I am challenging myself to write a Gratitude blog for the next few days.
Today, I am grateful for the sunshine, the coloured leaves of autumn, and the love of family and friends.
When life gives you lemons, add sweet tea.
Lemons from Bigstockphoto.com #101320991 and 44177782
by Suzanne Stengl | Aug 30, 2015 | Miscellaneous Moments
I grew up on a mixed farm in Southwestern Ontario.
My dad rotated crops of corn, wheat, beans and occasionally sunflowers. My mother grew a garden of carrots, asparagus, string beans, leaf lettuce and a few tomato plants. There was a flower garden right in front of the living room windows with lots of petunias and morning glories. Mom used to put strings in front of the windows and “train” the morning glories to climb.
One year I saw her sprinkle morning glory seeds at the base of an upright juniper beside the lane. The morning glories topped the trees by the end of the season.
Everything grows well in the rich soil of Southwestern Ontario. Across the road, a few yards away from our lane, there was a ditch filled with orange daylilies. They are not technically wildflowers, but somehow they got started there. Since they are very hardy, they don’t need a lot of care. They manage to survive the intense heat of the summer even if there is little rain. They’re not fussy about the soil and the bugs don’t seem to bother them. And they bloom from early spring until the frost comes in the fall.
Notice that is one word. Daylilies.
The scientific name for these flowers is Hemerocallis. This comes from the Greek words hemera (day) and kallos (beauty). An appropriate name, since these perennials only bloom for a day, opening in the early morning sun and withering by nightfall.
Although they look like lilies, they are not of the lily family. True lilies grow from bulbs and daylilies have tuberous rootstocks. And, of course, the cut blooms of real lilies can last a week or more.
As children, we would pick bunches of daylilies and bring them home where they sat in mason jars and wilted by nightfall. Still, we kept picking them and our mother kept putting them in jars.
Also across the road, and down about a quarter mile, was another farm where the bachelor Gordon lived. He was a soldier from WWII who had taken up farming and, like many farmers, he supplemented his income by working at the steel factory in the city about 30 miles away. He didn’t have a phone so if the factory needed to get a message to him, they phoned our farm and one of my brothers or sisters delivered the message.
Every Christmas, the factory gave him a huge turkey. Since he lived alone, he gave the turkey to my mother and she cooked it and invited him to dinner.
Gordon also had a pear tree—a single pear tree that stood in the middle of a field. He must have liked that pear tree because he drove his tractor around it as he worked the land. Each October, that tree produced the most beautiful yellow pears I have ever seen. We would go across the road and bring back bushel baskets of the pears. We ate a lot of them and my mother canned some.
I was back in the area this summer, and I drove past the old farm. The pear tree is gone. Maybe because the new owner didn’t like the inefficiency of driving around that single tree. Or maybe the tree died.
But in the ditch, although not as abundant as I remember, the daylilies are still there.
Daylilies from MorgueFile
Mason jars from Bigstockphoto #9102760
Pears from Bigstockphoto#98820719
Daylilies from Bigstockphoto #95722331
by Suzanne Stengl | Feb 10, 2015 | Miscellaneous Moments
I grew up in rural southwestern Ontario. Until the end of Grade 5, I went to school at Puddleford, otherwise known as S.S. #14 Howard—a one-room elementary school which taught all eight grades.
In early February, the Valentine’s Box sat on the teacher’s desk. The teacher covered a large cardboard box with red construction paper and decorated it with paper doily “lace” hearts. There was a slot on top to drop in the Valentines.
Tradition dictated that you give everyone a Valentine so no one was left out. Since the enrollment was only ever about 20 students, it did not mean a lot of Valentines were needed.
Every February my mother bought a “book” of Valentines and my brothers and sisters and I spent a lot of time cutting out the little cards. The book came with pages of envelopes that also needed to be cut out along the dotted lines, folded, and glued with mucilage. 
We signed the cards, put them in the sometimes unevenly made envelopes, addressed them and brought them to school. Everyone stuffed their Valentines in the box. A couple of the older children sorted and distributed the cards.
That afternoon we brought home the Valentines we’d received and counted how many were the same. There were a lot of duplicates since most of the Valentine books had been bought at the one general store in the nearby town.
Did you remember Valentine books in grade school? Were you able to make envelopes with nice square corners? Do you know what mucilage is?
Heart from bigstockphoto.com #39232588
Scissors from bigstockphoto.com #47364538
Mucilage from old craft box
by Suzanne Stengl | Sep 2, 2014 | Miscellaneous Moments, Movies, Travel
In the time I went to school, I don’t remember ever having a teacher use this writing prompt. That may have been because I grew up in an agricultural community in Southwestern Ontario.
Corn tassel
Summers meant hoeing beans, picking cucumbers, picking tomatoes and/or detasseling corn.
It was hard work and no one wanted to relive the experience in a school essay. When you lived on a farm, you worked on a farm.
Sometimes there were swimming lessons at the little pool in town, but I usually only got there for the July lessons. By August, there was too much work to do. As a result, I never moved pass Advanced Beginner. Although, I did have a pretty good dog paddle.
When I was twenty-four, I signed up for swimming lessons at the local YMCA and finally passed my Advanced Beginner and now I love to swim.
This summer, I was in the little town of Deep River, Ontario. One of my best summer vacation memories is jumping off the boat into the warm deep water of the Ottawa River on a hot sunny day.
That’s me on the far right, swimming with Makita, Liz and Ryan in the Ottawa River by Oiseau Rock.
Other than my trip to Ontario, I didn’t do a lot of summer vacation stuff because I was focused on the WIP. The Working Title is HIGHBURY and it’s almost finished. Almost. I am smoothing out the last two scenes and tying up loose threads. Along the way with this book, I discovered it was actually the Second book of a series. Once I am completely finished with it, I will begin the First book of the series. Nothing like starting in the middle.
I missed most of the summer movie fare, but I did see Guardians of the Galaxy. If you like the Marvel movies (The Avengers, Ironman) you will probably enjoy this one. I did. As usual, Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance. What a guy.
We had one BBQ in the backyard this summer with a few friends sitting around the fire. I will make sure to have at least one more BBQ in the warm days of Indian Summer.
And I only went hiking once, to Johnston Canyon, so I must make time to do at least Larch Valley this fall.
This summer, I signed up for an eleven-week session of drop-in Yoga. The Summer Sizzler. Turns out I love Yoga and I managed to get to 28 classes. I’ll go back to swimming at the Y this fall, but I want to do more Yoga.
Did you swim in any rivers, lakes or oceans this summer? Did you see any blockbuster summer movies? Did you take up any new sports or activities? How did you spend your Summer Vacation?
beach chairs from Bigstockphoto.com #5904213
corn tassel from Wikipedia
Guardians of the Galaxy movie poster from Internet Movie Database imdb.com
yoga from FreeDigitalPhotos.net
