Great Blue Heron

There is just one more source which has given me significant insight into who I am and confirms much of what I have outlined above. Not surprisingly perhaps, it comes from the natural world in the form of the Great Blue Heron which, some years ago I adopted as my totem, even had one tattooed on my arm. 

The tattoo served a double purpose to be honest. Not only was it my totem but it covered up a self inflicted tattoo from my late teens when I inked “VAL” on my left bicep. Problem is, I was so drunk that I didn’t realize until the next day that the letters were upside down, not entirely, but close enough. Even worse, a couple of my buddies, my very drunk buddies, were so impressed with my new-found skill as tattoo artist that they had me tattoo them as well. What were we thinking? What was I thinking? The good news is; they didn’t kill me the next day after we’d sobered up, none of us got infections at the tattoo sites and was good to know that I wasn’t the only one feeling embarrassed and just a wee bit stupid. Val said she was touched that I’d written her name on my arm, but only after she’d stopped laughing.

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Sunday, September 8

Finding the weather intolerable these past few days. Has reverted to the three h’s, hot, humid and hazy, with temperatures in the low thirties. Thirty-two today I believe, and even hotter tomorrow according to the forecast. Tuesday is supposed to be cooler again. I certainly hope so because I want to get back to working on the addition. I still have plenty of time so feel okay about taking the really hot days off. I have put in concrete bases for the posts, three of them, and installed lower face plates onto the concrete foundation of the existing house. I had a hell of a time getting the bolt holes drilled and, consequently, the bolts are not as deep as I would have liked. Hopefully they’re in deep enough to hold though. I also got a well estimate yesterday. Looks like two to three thousand if it’s around sixty feet or so which, I’m told, is most likely the case. If we have to go to two hundred feet, we’re looking at around four thousand. It’s a gamble of course but I’ve opted to go for it. Having a reliable source of good water certainly will make life easier and add greatly to my sense of independence. With luck, I’ll have a well before Thanksgiving.

Little House on the Hill

A house on a hill has a view. In my case, even though it is surrounded by trees, it is in the middle of a small clearing which is enough to stave off the claustrophobia imposed by a house surrounded by trees on flat ground, or worse, in a valley. And because the clearing extends downward along the slope of the hill I am gifted a permanent yet ever-changing vista to delight the eye. The broadest vista available to me is off the the south and southeast because this is where the land drops off. Consequently I can see over the tree tops to open sky and yet more forest off in the distance. 

...

But on a hill, aside from the view, there’s the effect of altitude on the very air itself. Clean and clear, invigorating, always on the move, a veritable travelling minstrel, carrying along with it the sounds of the immediate countryside, a barking dog, the low strident call of cattle grazing in a nearby meadow or, if one is exceptionally fortunate, the piercing bugle of a bull elk. The air also delivers a cornucopia of scents, borne on the wind across the tree tops, the sweet scent of wild cherry blossoms in spring, the pungent stench of rotting vegetation lying heavily upon the fall air. And the nights, oh the nights. Perched upon a rural hilltop far removed from the murky city sky obscured by smog and lights, how much closer and brighter seem moon, planets and stars filling that vast expanse overhead. An illusion, yes, but no less real because of it. And no matter the time of day or night, a hill provides a sentinel-like view from which to observe the approach of friend or foe, human or beast. 

And what of the alternative in the extreme, a house in a valley? What is a valley but a hole in the ground? Hills are for the living, holes are for the dead. Dark and damp and closed, life itself having been sucked out of the very air, hanging there limp and acrid, bearing the stench of death. There’s a reason these low spots are called depressions. One may as well be in a grave. 

First Impressions

On the positive side, the bush was dense yet easily negotiable for walking. The small building appeared habitable and sat perched upon a hill with an admirable view of the bush to the south and below. This also meant that there was an unobstructed location to set up solar panels and/or a wind turbine. 

Aesthetically, the property was certainly the most pleasing one we’d seen and this was nowhere more evident than on the building site. Twenty metres or so to the west, bordering the clearing and in full view of the cabin stood a majestic white pine, my favourite of the conifers. To the south and east, the hill gently sloping away from the cabin was populated with a small stand of sumac which would put on a gorgeous flame-red display in the fall. And their seed pods would not only attract birds but be a ready source of sumac tea. They also had the advantage that they were short in stature so as not to obstruct my view. To the west and north of he house was a clearing with a radius of approximately fifteen metres, lots of room for parking and the setting up of tents or campers should I get a large number of guests all at once. To the north was mostly second growth mixed bush dominated by several large aspen. And finally, immediately to the east and a couple of metres from the cabin was a small grove of luxuriously foliaged cedar trees. A convenient spot for the birds to hide as they waited to dart in to the bird feeder I planned to hang just outside the house. This was also on the road side of the house so contributed to my privacy. 

But I’ve saved the best for last, not a single blade of grass. It’s the manicured kind of which I speak here, that most evil of all urban evils, unnatural, high maintenance, water craving, overly fertilized, herbicide loaded patches of green that adorn millions of yards in this country and whose sole purpose it is to serve the vanity of it's owners each one trying to outdo his or her neighbours.  What a tremendous waste of time and effort to speak nothing of the environmental damage. Never again will I find myself begrudgingly bowing to the pressures of my neighbours to mow the lawn. Now that’s true country living.

Early Days

Reflections 1

The Culmination of a Life-long Love of Nature

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Thoreau

The outdoors has always been an integral part of my life. As a child growing up in the heart of a small city, I had the good fortune to live across the road from St. Alphonsus Seminary, a sprawling forty acre campus, much of which was made up of apple orchards, small woodlots and vegetable gardens. From an early age my friends and I spent almost all of our free time there, occasionally being chased through the apple orchard by the priests who never seemed to catch us, probably because they never intended to or maybe those flowing, ground-length black frocks slowed them down. I suspect it was just their way of making sure that we didn’t get too comfortable lounging about in their apple trees. There was also the bee colony where I stole my first kiss, and farm buildings complete with foul and pigs. There was the huge strawberry patch which we would often raid after sundown to avoid the ever vigilant eyes of the priests in training, the sweet, unmistakable scent of freshly crushed strawberries assaulting our nostrils - and staining our clothes - as we slithered on our bellies, snakelike, through the rows of ripening fruit. 

We spent what must have been hundreds upon hundreds of carefree days there. We ate apples until we never wanted to see another, until next time, or until the priests discovered us. We played hide-and-seek, pick-up softball, cowboys - I was Gene Autry, and had the six guns in their black leather, steel-studded belt and holsters to prove it. Another of my childhood heroes was Davy Crocket and again, I had the ‘coonskin’ cap and fringed jacket to bring the “King of the Wild Frontier” to life as we explored our ‘wilderness’ territory and killed imaginary b’ars in the heart of small town Southwestern Ontario. 

Local Entertainment

Saturday, August 24

Enjoying myself this cloudy but seasonably warm Saturday evening. The crickets have been serenading me for the last hour or so as I sit here by the fireplace watching what must truly be a wonder of nature. Mutitudes of dragon flies fill the air around me. When I make the effort to watch a single individual, I find their aerobatic skills to be amazing - rolls, loops, flips, slides, stalls and spins - they’re all there and performed faultlessly putting any man-made flying machine to shame. Who new that I would find my own personal air show right here just a few short metres from my cabin, the tumultuous roar and buzz of airplanes replaced by the tranquil song of the crickets. I wonder, are these the same creatures flitting about for the last hour or are they different little beasties that come and go? And if they are indeed the same individuals, they must have voracious appetites - either that or their hunting skills are not terribly efficient. 

Speaking of hunter and hunted, I found another small red squirrel, dead, among the cedars bordering the cabin which brings to three the number which have fallen prey to Molly the killer Collie in the last twenty-four hours. Up to this point, I’ve not seen any squirrels, live ones I mean to say. I’m wondering if this was a family as they seem to have arrived and been annihilated together in a very short time. I only witnessed Molly kill one of these unfortunate creatures and I immediately scolded her but, I’m certain, to no avail; it seems to be in her nature to rid whatever habitat she she finds herself in of rodents whether of the bushy or non-bushy tailed species. Her tally, to date, is half a dozen grey squirrels, a chipmunk and a muskrat in addition to her latest victims. She has also tangled with skunks on three different occasions but I suspect it was they who walked away from those confrontations the winners. So much for the claim that border collie’s are the most intelligent breed of dog.

Turning my attention back to the sky, I notice swallows off in the distance in comparable numbers to the dragon flies. Due to the magic of perspective, they appear to be of the same size as the much closer dragon flies. And the similarity doesn’t end there for their flight patterns are equally impressive. The best part of all this of course is that both bird and dragonfly are are doing their part to control the mosquito population.

Wednesday, August 21

Installed the two solar panels yesterday with Mike’s help and the system appears to be doing what it was intended to do. I bought a thirteen watt compact florescent bulb and put it in the clamp-on light socket which I’d brought up from London. It alone provides enough light for the main part of the cabin. In fact it was a bit too bright to use as a reading light in bed so I’ll see if I can find a twelve volt auto light, maybe three watts or thereabouts, for that purpose next time I’m at Canadian Tire. I'll have to wire it up separately but 12 volt has the added advantage of being more efficient than using the inverter. While I’m at it I think I’ll include  a twelve volt dome light for the kitchen area as well.

Visited the library yesterday and withdrew Thoreau’s Walden. Today I finished reading For Whom The Bell Tolls so started into Walden. It was definitely a good choice as it is so relevant to my situation here although my little spring and stream is no Walden Pond. And certainly my one hundred seventy-six square feet of living space, two hundred seventy-six after I build the addition, seems rather lavish in comparison to Thoreau’s meagre one hundred fifty square feet as is my $27 000 price tag compared to his total cost of $28.12 1/2. And of course I will have electricity, but the fact that I’ll be producing my own is a reasonable compromise I believe. But our shared experience is less about the physical and more about our intent in being here. I, like Thoreau, am here to live simply, immersed in nature to see what I can learn.

This afternoon I trimmed the spruce which stands in the way of the line the telephone cable must travel to reach the new post I hope will be installed soon. A sense of pride swept over me as I finished this task, having had to scale the tree to a considerable height to accomplish this little job, to say nothing of my fear of heights. I think it simply punctuated the whole experience to date. Things are coming together nicely and I am gaining a sense of independence and, perhaps more importantly, the knowledge that I can not only do this but it’s going to live up to my hopes that it will be the adventure of a lifetime. Now that these branches are out of the way I see that there are a few others that should probably be removed but I’m not sure how to get at them as they are quite high and, unlike the spruce I’d just trimmed, the trees are unclimbable. Perhaps I’ll consult with my neighbour to see if he has any ideas.

I rode the bike over to Apsley today to visit the bank. I had a Canada Pension check to deposit as well as some other business to look into. It’s about 4:30 as I write this and much of the afternoon has been overcast but the batteries are fully charged from this morning’s clearer skies so I charged my camera batteries and another for my cordless drill.