Waiting for as long as it takes

I don't know who put this on the fence that surrounds the grounds of St. Joseph Seminary/Newman Theological College/Offices of the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton, but I thank them for their efforts. When I stopped to take this picture, another woman pulled up in her car, and we stood there, two strangers crying together. 

These little pink moccasins are likely a bit small for the Residential School children whose unmarked graves are in the news so much these days... but they can also represent the many little ones of all ages who have been lost in the years of the Sixties Scoop, and through all the intergenerational trauma that resulted from the last 200+ years of racist policies in Canada. 100% of our Indigenous community members have been living with that trauma.

All the Catholics I speak with can't understand why the Pope still hasn't apologized for the horrors inflicted by Catholic Residential Schools in Canada. Is it because he would then have to make apologies to Indigenous communities the world over? Well then, Pope Francis and patriarchy, get on with it. Those who are so deeply wounded certainly deserve more than an apology. How about some restorative justice work, too?

In the meantime, I want to sit with the survivors, listen to their pain, and wait for as long as it takes. 

P.S. If you're from elsewhere and don't know what I'm talking about, some of the school survivors told their stories in The Survivors Speak, a report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which can be accessed by clicking here.

Sharing with the birds

I had a gorgeous crop of Saskatoon berries that were coming along nicely. Looking them over last week, my imagination gave me enough to bake a pie, or at least to make a few dozen smoothies. I should have known better than to count my berries before the birds!

This year our garden has been a playground for three young crows, four noisy little blue jays, and probably a half dozen magpie juveniles (or maybe it's the same three who just visit at different times of the day). 

The jays are the youngest brood, and I get a charge out of how they overshoot their landings on branches and fences. Last week, I could have sworn the magpies were playing tag, or maybe "go in and out the windows" through my cucumber trellises! And the crows -- they seem quite determined to get the clothespins off the top panel of my lettuce and pea cage so they can have a feast on the unspoiled plants. It's a puzzle for them, one they have yet to solve.

On Sunday, I heard a lot of crashing in the Saskatoon berry bush, and when I went outside, I realized that the three crows had pretty much stripped the fruit by half even though most of it wasn't ripe yet. I shooed them away, but I'm guessing the blue jays and magpies finished the job -- this morning I went out and picked the half dozen Saskatoons that were my wee taste for this year. It's been so dry, I can hardly blame the birds for eating sweet juicy berries... but I have been keeping my birdbaths full so they can drink there! You'd think they'd honour the bargain.

I'm a bit sad that my berries are gone, but the youngsters have kept me company as I garden, and keep me laughing with their clumsiness and curiosity. The young crow in this picture often washes his food in the fountain before eating, but yesterday Lee exclaimed that he or she seemed to be using the fountain as a personal belly-wash station, sitting right on top of the little jet. To be fair, the sparrows do that sometimes, too. It probably feels good in this heatwave.

I guess I don't mind sharing my yard and a bit of produce in exchange for comedic entertainment, but next year I plan to find some netting for my Saskatoon berries before they're all gone!

A little goose parade

My eldest and I went on a couple of lovely walks on recent evenings near Chickacoo Lake in the Glory Hills west of Edmonton, during a dog/house-sitting stint for Christina's friends. We were looking at a map of the walking trails in the area when Christina suddenly said, "Don't move."

I slowly turned my head to see what was advancing upon us, but there was nothing visible... until I looked down. Two young Canada geese were puttering around our feet making funny little cheeping noises and nibbling on the grass. There were no other geese to be seen out on the lake -- just ducks, a blue heron, and numerous red-winged blackbirds.

Christina's experiences of geese have been on the unnerving side -- having a large goose come hissing and threatening with its baseball bat wings even once is enough to make the bravest soul keep a healthy distance. But these two at our feet weren't being aggressive in any way, nibbling grass and burbling to each other, analyzing Christina's toes for a minute or two. So we chattered at them for a few minutes, marveled at their seeming fearlessness, and then decided to walk further around the lake.

When we turned back for one more look at them, they were following us, and it soon became evident that they were determined to stay with us, waddling along at a steady pace. I'm not sure that they could fly -- they were small enough to be teenage geese, and their wing feathers looked a bit short. Not wanting to draw them away from their lake home and hoping that the parent birds would return, we turned back to try to accompany them to the dock where we first noticed them before they followed us up the hill.

Christina led the parade, and we eventually got them out onto the platform, then turned and high-tailed it back into the treed paths beside the lake. At that point, after all that walking, it seemed they were happy to return to the water.

I somehow doubt that it was pure curiosity that brought them to us -- I suspect people have fed them and they associate us two-leggeds with the idea of interesting food experiences. Another example of why we shouldn't feed wildlife -- as Christina says at the end of the parade video below, those two were a little too trusting.

Here's a little wildlife fix for you, friends... not that they were particularly wild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81TgWMNzIUI

Patience for something beauty-full

My six-year-old blooming
Lionheart amaryllis

Some years ago, I asked a florist to send an amaryllis to my dear friend in Belgium as a Christmas gift. Gaby was delighted and wrote to me, saying, "she is very beauty-full!" So the next fall, I ordered a bulb for myself, and planted it so it would bloom for Christmas. And yes, she was very beauty-full!

She also managed to produce a roundish pod where one of the flowers had been -- because I transferred pollen between the blossoms with my fingers. I allowed the pod to ripen into a hard brown shell, and eventually it cracked and opened to reveal many black, flat and crinkly seeds about the size of a loonie (dollar coin here in Canada).

I turned to the internet for information about how to grow an amaryllis from seed, but all I could find was that they produce the plants in Florida, and it takes about four or five years from germination to flower stage. Wow, that long, I thought.

I was game to try for germination at least, curious what those flat black seeds would do. So I spread them out in a large-ish shallow pot, covered them with a fine layer of soil, and kept them well watered. Before long, the pot appeared to be growing fine grass.

That fall, I transplanted a dozen of the grassy plants into small pots and left them to grow in a sunny window through the winter. By the next spring, they looked like baby leeks, and I put a half dozen into four slightly larger pots and set them outside, bringing them indoors before first frost. The next summer, I kept only the three healthiest specimens. For three years, they spent their days in the sunny back yard or the south-facing kitchen window, depending on the season.

But last fall, as they were ending their fourth year, I cut the leaves from bulbs about the size of medium onions, shook the dirt from their roots, and put them in my basement cold room for a winter's nap with my original bulb, which has bloomed every year after its winter break. 

I promptly forgot about them all -- until after Easter!

The one that didn't bloom

In the middle of an episode of insomnia, I remembered! The next morning, I planted them in some good potting soil and set them out in our little greenhouse, where they put out some healthy looking leaves... and two of the three plants sent up a flower stalk! All that patience had paid off!

I gave one amaryllis to my sisters and one to my mom, and the flowers didn't disappoint! As Gaby said, they were "very beauty-full." Perhaps the third plant hadn't stored quite as much sunlight as the other two, as it hasn't blossomed. Maybe next year!

The lesson I am taking from this is that people are like amaryllises. We all grow at our own pace -- especially when it comes to discovering and accepting the truths of life. For some people, it takes much longer than others. 

In this season of uncovering many painful truths about Canada's colonial history and its myriad injustices against our Aboriginal Peoples, we need to be patient with one another, not to give up on each other. If we can bring each other along with gentleness, kindness, atonement, forgiveness, and healing, hopefully we can all bloom together into something very beauty-full.

Please pray with me for that, and let's all do what we can to further reconciliation...

July 2021 Seven-minute garden tour

I guess I really wasn't awake when I made this video in my pajamas on Tuesday. It's not 2020, it's 2021, and the thing the lettuce is planted in is called a cold frame, of course. But in spite of spoken errors, at least this seven-minute video gives me a record of how things are going in the vegetable department this summer, and it will be fun to compare how things have grown when I post another video at the beginning of August. For today, though, Shadow-dog and I are keeping cool in the basement, hoping the heat dome we're under will dissipate so I can stop covering my tomatoes and peppers and get out there to pull some weeds! 

Stay cool, friends! And pray for rain...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8RUq6b7uo