And That's What I Think About That

It's a gorgeous day outside and my gardens are desperate for attention: 

they're calling me to rake and prune and transplant.

...Sara, Sara...come to us, come into the sunshine...

Yet I'm stuck inside till bedtime on a final push 

to get the book edits done by deadline.
Worth it, but still:

Poop. 

Happy Birthday, Chickie!

Here's the absolutely FABULOUS birthday gift from my niece, Mimi.

Who else would you give a handmade chicken hat to???

My only regret is that my head is too big to wear this wondrous creation.

Also, it has to hide in the linen closet because the cats will tear it apart. 

Every so often, I bring it out and admire its egg-cellence.

Mates

This is the first time we've had to help a robin recuperate. This one had a hard landing after hitting the side of the house on the weekend. When I went outside to check on it, another robin was bobbing nearby. As if they were together? Do robins bond like that?
We placed it in our now-empty bird feeder attached to the deck railing then determined there were no injuries. It took the bird the longest time to come around; if birds get concussions, I'd diagnose that injury. Eventually, Dwayne went out to see how it was doing and when it flew a short distance from the deck, its friend -- or mate -- was right there. As if watching for it.

Gone In 15 Minutes

Don't forget me, Mama

In mid-July 2006, the dogs and I were heading to Nova Scotia for a short vacation (my father was in the nursing home and my mother was recuperating from surgery so we weren’t spending that summer at our place in Pugwash). We arrived in Edmunston well after supper, and it was dark and raining. In fact, we arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm.

The motel we stayed at sits on top of a hill in Edmunston and I remember wondering if it could possibly be hit by lightning. Before crawling into bed, I decided to put the dogs’ leashes, my overnight bag, with everything in it, my purse and my shoes right next to the door so that if the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, I could scoop everything up in one minute and be out the door with the dogs to safety.

I don’t share this because I think the residents of Fort McMurray did anything wrong; I share this because I’ve been thinking about them and what it would be like to be evacuated on moments' notice – and to have more than a purse, a bag and a couple of dogs to think about.

I’ve been thinking about that announcement (or call, or knock on the door): "We are evacuating you because of the wildfire. You have 15 minutes to pack your things and get out."

If you're lucky, you get 15 minutes; one family friend says their daughter and husband, who were at work, couldn't even get back to their house. Their two children (aged 18 and 8) were at home and a neighbour brought them to their parents. They had their cars and their cell phones, they had their kids and each other. They had the clothes they were wearing. And that's all.

In five minutes -- "Get out now, the woods next to your home are on fire" -- you can grab a purse, a wallet, a coat, and car keys, maybe your passports if they're handy, but nothing. Certainly not the cat who sleeps in that cubby hole in the far corner of the basement.

If you're lucky, you get 15 minutes inside your home to grab what you can. I've been thinking about this and it's nerve-wracking enough without the life-and-death pressure.

First of all, suitcases; there’s no time to fetch them from the spare room upstairs or the basement.

Next, whose stuff do you pack first – kids or adults? I can’t imagine being told to evacuate when you have an infant and/or a toddler. We all know how long it takes the average mother to get out of the house on a normal day.

There's stuff from the bathroom; what do you need? Nothing is in one spot. The makeup kit is the easiest thing to grab but the least essential.

You rush into bedroom and everything you wear in a day whirls around in your brain. Underwear and bras. Socks. Jeans, shirts, pajamas. Shoes. What do you grab, what do you forget?

For those who aren't panicking (likely my brain would freeze and not work at all), you know there are the most important things to gather up -- medicines, photos albums, cats and dogs, passports -- and you know there are things to sacrifice. Likely clothes are the last things you grab, if there's time.

But there is no time to remember cell phone and laptop chargers, food and water for humans and pets. No time to pack, no time to think, no time no time notime. Not even time to wonder if you'll ever see your things again.

Only time to get out.

I'm sitting at my desk typing this. The 25 minutes to compose it, and think about it, has made my heart race. And I’m only imagining it. I don’t hear the shouting, I don’t smell the smoke, I don’t hear myself crying. I’m only imagining what it would be like to have 15 minutes to pack up a life and get to safety. And I haven’t even imagined what it’s like to leave everything – including pets – behind. 

Bon courage.

Our Great Canadian Motto

I've been watching the news coverage on the Fort McMurray wildfires steadily for the past three days. An hour in the morning to get caught up on what happened overnight, and two hours in the evening because that's when the personal stories are shared.
In one day, the size went from 10,000 hectares in the morning to 85,000 in the evening. (And as of this evening, more than 100,000 hectares burning, a "self-perpetuating firestorm" that only heavy rain will stop.)
Time will tell if my memories of editing my Field Notes book are tied to my memories of watching the wildfire footage on the television.
I have nothing new to add to the story, no perspective that is worth sharing -- the videos and photos and personal stories say it all -- but I will write about what I think is our true Canadian motto: "Bon courage." Be brave. Don't give up. That quote was spoken in a CBC news report this morning, advice to the residents of Fort McMurray from a man in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, who lost three family members and an employee in the train explosion there three years ago.
BON COURAGE.
When I think of the pilots of the water bombers and helicopters flying into the smoke and the flames, I wish them bon courage.
When I look at the firefighters and police officers working ground level in the fire zone, I wish them bon courage.
When I look at the families carrying nothing but their children as they head to evacuation centres, I wish them bon courage.
When I think of those 88,000 people who know their home -- both house and city -- is decimated, whether literally or metaphorically, that before the years of rebuilding begin, there are weeks and months of uncertainty and displacement, I wish them bon courage.
When I see the response of every other Canadian (and non-Canadians like Syrian refugees who "know what it's like"), I believe strongly in our collective, national BON COURAGE.

When It Comes to Gardening, Start Young

As published in the Citizen-Record newspaper on Wednesday, May 4, 2016, by Sara Jewell.

My nephew Vinny's garden.

I was 37 years old before I dug a potato out of the ground. I was 38 when I held a warm, freshly laid egg in my hand. Even though my father was raised in the country, for most of my childhood, we lived above a funeral home in a small city so we had no back yard in which to plant a garden.

That’s terrible hole in my upbringing. What’s worse, I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s when children had far greater freedom to play and explore outside than they have now.

As spring blooms again, the land is calling out to all of us in a language fewer of us are able to understand.

It’s the language of dirt and worms, of water and roots, of plants and produce. How many children are growing up speaking that language? How many children know what it’s like to pull a carrot out of the ground or pick beans off a vine?

On a website devoted to women who farm, Susan R. Johnson, a pediatrician in San Francisco, posted an article in which she wondered what happens to children’s growth and learning potential when they spend hours inside watching videos and playing computer games?

Through her practice, she sees many children who have difficulty paying attention, focusing on their work, and performing basic tasks with their hands

“It wasn’t until the birth of my own child, however, that I came face to face with the real impact of television,” she writes. “It wasn’t just the content, for I had carefully screened the programs my child watched. It was the change in my child’s behaviour (his mood, his motor movements, his play) before, during, and after watching TV that truly frightened me.”

Dr. Johnson’s solution? Nature.

“Nature is the greatest teacher of patience, delayed gratification, reverence, awe, and observation,” she says in her article. “All the senses are stimulated. We only truly learn when all our senses are involved, and when the information is presented to us in such a way that our higher brain can absorb it.”

Gardening is the easiest way to get children into nature. We don’t need a lot of space or freedom to get kids digging in dirt and growing food and taking responsibility for the regular chores of watering and weeding. It’s as simple as a container on a deck or a section in a community garden.

My eight-year-old nephew Vinny grows his favourite vegetables, including broccoli, brussel sprouts and strawberries, in a six by two foot patch of sun in his family’s tree-shaded back yard in Atlanta, Georgia.

When I asked him why he has a garden, he told me, “I love to eat fresh vegetables. I like pulling stuff up. I like getting it and eating it.”

“It’s city gardening in a shady yard, that’s the biggest challenge,” my sister explained after Vinny had passed the phone over to her. “But planting stuff, and watching it sprout and picking it – he gets very excited by that.”

Children make great gardeners because of their natural curiosity and willingness to explore, and there’s no better way to activate their brains and their bodies than through the excitement of digging up potatoes they planted themselves.

Who Let the Hens Out?

The way I see it, if the hens are going to lie around in my flower gardens out front, they can help me fix up other flower gardens. I dug up a growing patch of Pugwash Point grass that came with the now-smothered evening primrose I transplanted from the old house we once owned there. I am sorry to see the primrose go because it originally came from the garden of Jean Nelson, the great old lady who lived on Pugwash Point and who, along with her black lab, was a fixture on the road -- and a wonderful women with whom to visit.

So the country boy and I spent yesterday afternoon outside in our yard, working on our various projects. Well, I worked on various projects while he created a fabulous space for our new fire pit, one we can use no matter what direction the wind is blowing (our current fire pit is located off the south end of the house).
As I was sitting on my butt trying to pull a great hunk of sod free, my husband walked by on his way to the garage and said, "Make sure you don't hurt your right hand!" How sweet. He doesn't want me to damage my writing hand -- he's hoping it turns out to be the money maker.

Speaking of, I'm in the middle of editing the Field Notes manuscript these days. The edits are due back to my editor by the 13th so look for me sitting on my butt trying to pull great hunks of words free. And that's all the flogging of that metaphor I'm going to do! But like the chickens getting into the freshly-turned dirt of a garden, I too am spending these early May days scratching up the best bugs to feed my future readers.