It is one of those perfect summer days.   Rain might arrive overnight, but for now the sky is clear and the meadow is full of butterflies supping on the tall buttercups.  I have parked myself here, decked out in camera, sunglasses, brimmed hat, binoculars, and field guides.  Alas, no use.  Although I can readily identify black admirals and tiger swallowtails, the multitudinous  "skippers" (those small orange butterflies which flit every which way) all look alike to me.  I have somewhat better luck with the damsel-flies, a more delicate variation of dragonflies;  their wings come together on their backs when resting, and their bodies are slim and often jewel-toned.  My favourites have gleaming turquoise bodies and ebony wings.  They too have congregated here to eat, although they must be looking for smaller prey than the skippers because they dart towards them and then veer away at the last second.  Or maybe six-leggers also indulge in the odd game of  of "Chicken."



The scarlet runners I planted about ten days ago in memory of my maternal grandmother are six inches tall already so I'm on the hunt for the curly garden stakes I hid away so cunningly last fall.  Even the dark blue pansies continue to thrive, as long as I remember to deadhead them frequently;  their little faces beg to be painted, so I do.  Maybe I will plant some blue morning glory seeds too.  these ones, backlit by last August's afternoon sun, proved irresistibly paintable.

If you ever saw "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," the hilarious Steve Martin satire of film noir, you will remember that the phrase "cleaning woman" was a massive mood-changer.  Plein air has come to have the same effect on me.  

I am a studio painter.  End stop.  And it took a good year to do even that with any degree of efficiency.  As many have noted, I'm clumsy.  Brushes roll off tables, tubes leak, medium gets knocked over and then I step in it.  Now imagine all the usual painting gear outside in a gusty wind or a rain shower.  Plein air painting is my private recipe for disaster.  But I do love the tradition of sidewalk artists and sometimes that feeling overwhelms my good sense.

Luckily  I have many friends who can produce good art outside.  Mike and Cathy are two of them and we had a perfectly lovely time together in old Cambridge last week.  I decided to up the plein air ante by bringing acrylic paint, a medium which has never cooperated with me.  Any fool could have predicted the outcome.  By afternoon the heat had turned it to cement on my brush and I had to manhandle the sky blue.  You are not likely to see this painting, if you can call it that.

The day was saved, however, not only by the good conversation but also by a stroke of luck.  I had arrived early and taken myself for a walk.  Cranking my head back to take a shot of the spire on the huge 19th century stone Presbyterian church I noticed a loose bundle of sticks about halfway up.  Like an idiot, I lowered my camera to take a better look, only to see a huge wing stretch out.  A peregrine nest!!!  Who else would build a nest on a tall building!  Missed the shot, of course, but when we three met on the other side of the river and ended up painting that church, we watched the parents working the sky to feed the two growing youngsters.  At least one snake slithered its last that day.  And all bets are off for pigeon longevity in Cambridge.

One bird, however, was doing just fine, thank you very much.  The mallard drake was sound asleep in the shade under a secluded footbridge  There might have been a beer tucked under his wing.  Later I ran into his wife, who was frantically trying to keep track of their nine ducklings on the river.  Might paint those two photos as a diptych, if the women's movement ever sponsors an art show.  Guaranteed to sell.

(As further proof, check March 25th, 2014 in the “Archives” section.  Note absence of offspring.)

Recently,  a bog did its level best (get it?) to devour me.  Well, my right leg up to the knee broke through the floating bed of sphagnum into the lake underneath;  the rest of me managed to cling to the mossy log.  It was brisk, I admit, but well worth the pleasure of poking  through the Labrador tea, leatherleaf and colonies of pitcher plants in this wonderful wetland.  In fact the whole three hours were full of botanical satisfactions. One of the best decisions I ever made was to take a course in field biology;  now the natural world feels peopled with friends -- often ones I haven't seen since the year before.   With luck I even remember their names, although I realize now that I persisted in calling baneberry "cohosh" all day.  (Baneberry is terrifically poisonous, whereas blue cohosh is sometimes used as a coffee substitute, so don't you be counting on me to feed us off the land if we get lost.). Thanks, Elizabeth, for taking me along despite my deficits as a survivalist.

The hike seemed posited on degrees of difficulty.  The old field on the way in, which had been full of  veronicas scattered like blue stars throughout the grasses, was easy walking if you don't mind the odd invisible sink hole. Then we bushwhacked for half an hour through a mature maple forest with a robust understory. There were huge black cherry trees here and there and patches of bellflower beneath.  The painted trillium had finished blooming but now I know where to find it next year. There was even a swamp amaryllis at the edge of the open water.  We had hoped to find orchids, moccasin flowers in particular, but they eluded us.  Another time.

Though the toughest to negotiate, the bog itself was the highlight.  We squished through it under a cloudless sky in perfect temperatures.  I still can't understand why there were no mosquitoes but one should never question perfection.  The only small challenge was trying to photograph pitcher plant flower stalks;  kneeling in a bog is not recommended.  But this time I managed to balance on the log on the way out although it was something of a Pyrrhic victory by then;  my feet had shrivelled to prunes.  They may still be.

Jon had opted to paddle up river to fish.  He claims he had just as good a time.  I don't believe that for a minute but his right foot does smell better than mine.

Keats called autumn the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" He might have added fruit flies.  A young David Suzuki could have done his genetic lab work in our kitchen;  every day the drosophila swarm seems to double, with no end in sight.  And yes, I have tried the old wine vinegar trick but frankly they are reproducing faster than I can assassinate them.  their entire life cycle (eggs, larvae, adults) takes a mere 12 days and Great Grandpappy can live up to four months, merrily munching away in the company of all of his descendants.  Not a bad life, if you're into big families.

So I've been thinking about life in the fast lane. 

On the whole, I favour the slow route.  Let me give you an example.  Jon's been researching windows.  Ours are ninety years old and like everything else in our house they bear little resemblance to modern versions.  Those in the front bedroom are not only non-standard in size, but leaded and set into a stone arch.  Try finding one of those at Home Depot.  So every few years Jon works up the courage to watch DIY videos in hope of figuring it how to replace those on the second floor so that he doesn't have to carry storms up and down an extension ladder.  What he learned yesterday was fascinating, if somewhat discouraging.  Apparently the wood in our current windows was cut from trees fifty to a hundred years old;  it is dense and long-lasting, as contrasted to new wood frames with the much younger and lighter wood that is currently being harvested.  And that, friends above fifty, is why so many new wooden items seem to break down faster than what you expected.    Because they do.  You are not imagining it.  One of many cases where old is decidedly superior to new.

Now while it remains to be seen whether young people will acquire the starch of old ones, I do believe that maturity is a value-added attribute. Friendships in particular benefit enormously from slow growth;  every year together reinforces shared memory (though you will remember that memory ain't exactly perfect).  Nonetheless, much time spent together grows a friendship, even setting up shorthand as it does in a good long marriage. One summer Mom, Jon and I found ourselves staring at the Peterborough locks on the hottest day that year and discovered that none of us had actually wanted to come;  we had all obliged the other two.  Lesson learned.  Now Jon and I know to ask each other the question "Are we going to Peterborough?" before we commit to an adventure. 

The value of age is never more apparent than in old dogs.  Molson, Maureen's beloved Aussie shepherd, had the lovely temperament of one who had lived long and well.  He had only one flaw, which he shared with other old dogs;  they never live long enough.

I saw her shadow before I could spot her, but there she was, moving purposefully over the garden like a seasoned shopper in a discount mall.  Finally the Eastern Swallowtail settled on the Russian olive, a puzzling choice given that it was not in bloom while the pagoda tree next to it was covered with flowers.  While I stood and watched, a Painted Lady settled down besides me to lap at a rhododendron.  Several dragonflies flew missions here and there, and a honeybee doused herself in pollen.  A purple finch and a gold finch shared the sunflower feeder.  

Haven't seen the toad today.  We have great hopes for his attaining great age and girth:  they can live to twenty, dignified and judicial.   We put old plates here and there, propped up by a small rock, for him to seek shade.  No garter snakes so far, although I can't imagine this old garden without one or two and trust that they are in there.  Pre: West Nile, we had small ponds where we unsuccessfully tried to raise goldfish and grow waterlilies.  The raccoons put paid to that effort, although they had no luck catching the elegant leopard frogs who showed up and moved in.  Because the ponds were too shallow for the frogs to overwinter, I formed an emergency plan.  In November, I dug them out of the mud where they were peacefully dormant and popped them into their new styrofoam sleeping chamber at the back of the fridge.    All went well until they realized that the temperatures were above freezing and liberated themselves.  Bit of a shock, that, when you're expecting to find milk, not half a dozen perky frogs.  Jon and I agreed that Plan B had to be executed.  Under cover of darkness we released them in a large deep pond nearby, where they gratefully dug in again, and probably founded a dynasty the next spring.

Butterfly shadows and froggy mud make me think of "ombre," which is French for "shadow."  One of my favourite lines from a novel was "The archbishop's wife was a pale penumbra of the archbishop." Shadows certainly get a bad rap in literature until you think about how the world actually looks when there is a high overcast.  All of the extremes of colour and value disappear and everything becomes bland.  For this darkening, "umber," whether burnt or raw has proven to be a crucial colour in landscape painting.  But apparently Umbria is running short of the original pigment and other sources have had to be found;  as a result the tubes you buy can vary wildly from one to the next.  Maybe I should be looking to grind my own. There's a pond nearby that just might work.