abandoned gardens: flowers, out of place
A flower common in flower gardens is the yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata). It is prized for its perennial nature and its whorls of bright yellow flowers. A closely related species, garden loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris), differs a little in the arrangement of its flowers and in other characteristics.
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These flowers occasionally persist at abandoned home sites, or spread by the roots. As escapes, they look out of place, a bright spot in the green landscape.
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We went for a drive in the countryside west of Woodstock in Carleton County last Friday and found two escaped patches of yellow loosestrife, one on the edge of a field along Green Road and one in the ditches in Watson Settlement.
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a patch of yellow loosestrife in a field on the Green Road
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large yellow loosestrife
Lysimachia punctata
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slash of yellow
blooms in the crease
between sumac and hayfield
campion, Timothy, bedstraw and vetch
ladders of golden flowers escaped
from a garden now gone
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closeup of the patch of yellow loosestrife
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At Watson Settlement, while I was photographing the flowers, a truck stopped to make certain we were OK. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about COVID-19 and social distancing, so although I chatted a bit, I didn’t ask the woman any questions. I could have talked to her about the history of the community and asked her about other garden escapes.
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a patch of yellow loosestrife in a ditch in Watson Settlement
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yellow loosestrife escape
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In the ditch,
in the angle of two roads,
armloads of yellow loosestrife.
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“Are you broken down?” she says.
“Hardly picked a cup
of wild strawberries this year.
But the Devil’s paint brush
is blooming again.”
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I am afraid to ask,
in these days of social distancing,
about the yellow loosestrife,
about the community,
about garden escapes.
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She smiles and drives on.
Unasked questions
unanswered.
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yellow loosestrife in the ditch at Watson Settlement
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All my best,
please stay safe,
Jane
abandoned gardens: a pantoum about lilacs
Over the years, faced by change, some communities continue to thrive. Others, once vigorous, may decline and disappear. Sometimes, communities may hang on but individual homes may be abandoned. Abandonment can occur if the owner moves away or dies, or if aspects of the home become unsustainable (for example, a water source dries up).
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When a home is abandoned, what becomes of the vegetable garden, so carefully tended, or the flower gardens, each plant chosen with love and care?
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Annuals are usually the first to go, although biennials may continue to grow for a year and some plants, like sweet William or pansies, may reseed. Perennials may thrive, sometimes for years. Rhubarb, chives and berry crops often continue to grow in a vegetable garden. In the flower garden, peonies, day-lilies and phlox may bloom year after year. Trees and shrubs often persist.
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rhubarb persisting in an old garden
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In my poetry project about abandoned gardens, I want to learn more about various poetry forms. The poem below is written as a pantoum. A pantoum consists of four line stanzas. The second and forth lines of the preceding stanza are used as the first and third lines of the next. The first line of the poem may also be used as the last.
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The poem below is written about an abandoned house in central New Brunswick. Keep in mind, these properties are still owed by someone and the owners may care a great deal about them and perhaps use the property if not the house.
lilac bush next to an old house
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lilacs persist
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delicate scribble of winter wren
lilac, a cushion of shadow and green
props the abandoned house
roof rusted, clapboards and shingles grey
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lilac, a cushion of shadow and green
at night leaves peer in windows
roof rusted, clapboards and shingles grey
features sculpted by overlapping leaves
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at night they peer in windows
stare, front windows to back yard
features sculpted by overlapping leaves
scented panicles of purple bloom
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stare, front windows to back yard
noses tuned to lilac sweet
scented panicles of purple bloom
lilacs persist and thrive
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noses tuned to lilac sweet
roof rusted, clapboards and shingles grey
lilacs persist and thrive
delicate scribble of winter wren
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Perhaps we can learn from the lilac …
persist and thrive.
All my best,
Jane
garden escapes: starting a project
This summer, one of my main occupations will be to work on a collection of poems about garden escapes. Specifically, this means abandoned gardens, plants left behind when homes or communities are abandoned. This work is being supported by a Creations Grant from artsnb.
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I have a short mantra to refer to these abandoned plants: “die, thrive or escape.” In a way, the project theme can be used as a metaphor for any abandonment. For example, when someone abandons a relationship, the one left behind can languish, or pick up and start over, or just leave, find a place to start over. I will be watching for these metaphors throughout my project.
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For today, I have to arrange my materials and get started with a plan for my project.
- To start I have my grant application (outlines what I intend to do), a bit of reconnaissance work I did in 2018 to develop some ideas for the project, six blog posts from that time and eight older poems that fit the theme.
orange day-lilies, found in many of new Brunswick’s ditches, are escapes from older gardens
- To identify abandoned communities, I can refer to information sources and databases developed by others: the Facebook pages Abandoned New Brunswick and New Brunswick Upon Days Faded where interested people post photos and short anecdotes about abandoned houses and buildings; the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick website called Place Names of New Brunswick: Where is Home? New Brunswick Communities Past and Present https://archives.gnb.ca/Exhibits/Communities/Home.aspx?culture=en-CA; additional information on communities will be available in Census Records at https://www.ancestry.ca/; various maps including the New Brunswick Atlas (Second Edition); Google Earth and the associated Street View; maps posted in the Facebook page New Brunswick Upon Days Faded; the Walling Map of 1862 which I have used in other projects, F. Walling, Topographical Map of the Counties of St. John and Kings New Brunswick: From Actual Surveys under the direction of H. F. Walling (Publishers W.E. and A.A. Baker, New York, 1862); and, the Monograph about place-names in New Brunswick, Ganong, William F. A Monograph of the Place-Nomenclature of the Province of New Brunswick. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada: Second Series 1896-97, Volume II, Section II. 1896.
a sample of the Walling Map for an area in Kings County, New Brunswick. The map shows individual buildings and houses from 1862.
- For anecdotal stories about the gardeners and their gardens, I plan to use the resources of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick since often diaries and other documents contain amazing bits of information about New Brunswick history. Obtaining anecdotal information about abandoned gardens is tricky during the time of COVID-19 since social distancing means ordinary interviewing is not easy. I will use the websites above to obtain some information and, where possible, talk to people I encounter. I will create a Facebook Page called Abandoned New Brunswick Gardens to obtain some of these stories.
- For plant identification, I have my own skills as a botanist and my trusty guides: Harold R. Hinds, Flora of New Brunswick, Second Edition: A Manual for Identification of the Vascular Plants of New Brunswick, University of New Brunswick, 2000; A. E. Roland and E. C. Smith, The Flora of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Museum, 1969; Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny, A Field Guide to Flowers of Northeastern and North-central North America, 1968; and the website The Plant List: A Working List of all Plant Species (this is to verify plants names since I use older plant guides). http://www.theplantlist.org/
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My methodology is simple:
- identify possible abandoned homes and communities and create an efficient plan to visit these places
- drive to these locations and look for plant species that may be garden remnants
- photograph the sites and plants
- make notes about the sites, the plants encountered and various sensations encountered (sight, smell, taste, touch and sound)
- do pencil drawings of some plants and locations
- obtain any anecdotal or archived information about the former communities, their gardens and their gardeners
- write the poems using all the information collected
I am going to write mostly free verse but I will also use some poetic forms, for example the ghazal and the pantoum.
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Sounds like fun!
Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) is an introduced plant in New Brunswick. These are plants found on the New Ireland Road in Albert County, New Brunswick. In 1866, there were 68 families in the community (Source: NB Archives); today all the houses are gone.
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I will keep you up to date on my adventures and show you some of the plants I find. If you know of any abandoned gardens in New Brunswick, or abandoned communities, please let me know! I will acknowledge you in my book!
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All my best,
stay safe,
Jane
garden escapes: abandoned gardens and what becomes of them
I am so happy! I have just won a Creations Grant from artsnb (the New Brunswick Arts Board). The project is to write a book-length poetry manuscript on the subject of garden escapes from abandoned New Brunswick houses and communities.
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The landscape of New Brunswick is changing. As demographics shift towards populated areas, communities are abandoned. When gardens are left behind, some species die out, some thrive and some migrate, finding favorable conditions in adjacent properties.
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For example, in Fredericksburg, an abandoned community near Stanley, foxglove crowds the ditches; and near Carroll’s Ridge south of Canterbury, no homes remain, but forget-me-nots turn the woods blue. Although local people are aware of these escapes, the stories of the gardens and gardeners are mostly lost.
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The subject of abandoned flower garden escapes is the matter of poetry. The names of abandoned communities and of plants, common and scientific, provide a lexicon of poetic words. Abandoned and escaped gardens involve all of the senses: sight (pink of the foxglove flowers), sound (calls of birds who find new habitat), smell (scent of flowers), taste (sour stem of an abandoned rhubarb plant) and touch (the thorniness of escaped raspberry).
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I am looking forward to taking you on my adventures this summer as I search out abandoned houses and communities, look for remnants of the gardens left behind and capture these remnants in poems and images.
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So, I won’t be staying home as much,
but I am still going to be staying safe!
All my best!
Jane
creating my niche
create: 1: to bring into existence;
2a: to invest with a new form, office or rank;
2b: to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior;
3: cause or occasion;
4a: to produce through imaginative skill;
4b: design.
– Webster’s Dictionary
I am very interested in creative endeavors and I like being creative. I am happiest when I am writing, painting, drawing, sewing, weaving, knitting, and so on.
Although I best like to write, I find creative activities substitute for one another. For example, when I am not writing for an extended period of time, I am often embedded in some other activity, such as painting.
Weaving exemplifies the lure of my various creative undertakings. The producing requires knowledge and skill, and builds confidence. The process is enjoyable and time is made available for thought and concentration. The threads and fabrics are luxurious to the touch and the colors are bright and joyful. When I am finished a project, I am so proud of the resulting textile, I want to show the world.
My loom is a simple floor loom, 24 inch wide. I bought it at a country auction, about 20 years ago. My sister and I were among the stragglers at the auction, trying to outlast a heavy rain. In the corner we saw a bundle of varnished wood and some metal parts. “I think that’s a loom”, whispered my savvy sister. When the item came up for auction, there were few bidders remaining, and no one know just what ‘it’ was. At $25, it was a huge bargain.
My loom and I have not been steady company. It takes forever to install the warp threads, and sometimes weaving is hard on my back. But the fabrics we make together, my loom and I, are beautiful and comfortable and good for the soul.
What creative endeavors shape your niche space? What materials do you use and what do you love about them?
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yellow line
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the road is fabric
weave of asphalt
ditch and yellow line
warp of guard rail
fence and heddle
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trees in plantations
lines on the hayfield
shadows on road
hip and curve of the earth
weft as she turns in her sleep
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shuttle piloted
through landscape
and watershed
textile in folds
texture the yearn of the loom
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faults in the granite
potholes in pavement
rifts in the fabric
where weavers might falter
revisit work of earlier times
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learning the lesson
taught by the loom
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choose your weft wisely
balance color and texture
maintain your tension
fix mistakes as you go
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rest when your back hurts
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listen
to the whisper
of weave
of yellow line
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All my best,
staying at home, staying safe,
Jane Tims
the yellow line
Rebecca
Rebecca
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in black
Gothic
advances
down the middle
of the street
oblivious to traffic
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dark mists
and Avalon
the perfect rupture of sky
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from her fingers
black threads
spin skirt
and widow’s weeds
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black painted nails
blackened sockets of eye
her lips black also
from a feast of berries
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All my best.
Jane
clues in a mystery
I am still revising my novel, the third in my Kate Eliot Mystery series: Land Between the Furrows.
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A mystery places additional demands on both writer and reader. It is the writer’s job to present the mystery, include clues to solve the mystery and then, work with the reader — ta da! — to solve the mystery. It is the reader’s job to accept the challenge of solving the mystery, look for clues, put them together and work with the writer to solve the mystery. The result is a story and plot where the writer and reader collaborate.
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Mine is a cozy mystery. In this book, there is something to find. At first it is not clear what the something is, but gradually its characteristics are revealed and the location (where the object is hidden) is revealed. The mystery uses a device, a stack of post cards and the messages on them, to present the clues.
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Most of the information is sorted through the gradual telling of the story and by the end of the first draft, I have a rough idea of the way clues will be distributed through the book. But, as for all writing, adjustment and revision is usually needed.
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To do this, I use two tools. One is my Table of Chapters and Scenes. The other is my List of Clues.
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So take a simple mystery. I have hidden an object in this room. There are really two sets of clues 1. What is the object? and 2. Where is it hidden? In a simple, straightforward mystery, the clues should be presented in a logical way and information should be progressive.
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So, here is the room.
List of Clues
What is the item? the clues are:
- it’s cold
- it tastes delicious
- it’s purple
- it’s on a stick
Where in the room is the item hidden? the clues are:
- in the library
- on a library shelf
- in a hollow book
- name of the book: “Warm Day”
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I use the Table of Chapters to make sure the clues are distributed completely and in order. These Table is not complete (there are probably ten chapters in this simple book), but this will give you the idea.
Of course there can be complexities: clues within clues; red herrings; dead ends; twists and turns.
By the time the book is near the end, I want to make sure all the clues have been given.
And Kaye and her kids get the Popsicle.
All my best,
staying safe,
Jane
Strawberry Kool-Aid Hair with Ribbons
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Strawberry Kool-Aid Hair
with Ribbons
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strawberry Kool-Aid hair
with ribbons
she pushes the button
to cross Dundonald
serious with her boyfriend
her backpack heavy
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she is like
the student on roller blades
skilled with traffic
not slowing near the top of Regent
reckless to the river
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or the man
a block from here
a man with a briefcase
leaning across the fence
making a bouquet
of pussy-willows
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All my best.
Stay safe.
Jane
dates, days and seasons
After the first draft is complete, after I’ve done a little work on continuity, I take another step in ordering the manuscript. I assign dates to each chapter and scene of the book. In the kind of mystery story I write, it is useful to the reader to know the date as the story progresses.
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This is important for several reasons:
- I have children in my Kaye Eliot mysteries and I want to be certain that student Katie is actually home (and not in school) for her scenes
- my characters often interact with government professionals. They don’t usually work on weekends.
- my book is set in Nova Scotia where the seasons change; knowing the date gives me information on the likely weather
- my protagonist, Kaye Eliot, is a botanist, so from her point of view, the vegetation is an important part of her descriptions of setting. To help with this, I keep a setting journal, so I know that apple blossoms are out around May 30, lilacs are in bloom in mid-June and lupins line the roads from mid-June to early July.
- I often put the phases of the moon in night scenes. Knowing the date lets me assign the correct phase of the moon to my settings. Have you ever read a book where the full moon shines all month long?
- Knowing the date lets me weave long weekends and holidays into my story.
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My book is set in 1996. A quick Google search will find me a calendar for that year. Believe it or not, most phone books once included a calendar for every possible year. No longer necessary.
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As I said before, my Table of Chapters is a useful tool for keeping track of dates, days and seasons. I can refer to it to get an instant idea of how much time has passed and where I have “time” to insert a new scene or chapter.
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All my best.
Staying home.
Working hard.
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Jane
continuity errors
As I do revisions of my new manuscript, I find continuity errors in the First Draft. A perfect example cropped up today.
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The story revolves around the clues contained in a shoe box of post cards. About a quarter of the way through the book, someone steals the post cards. In the next chapter, Kaye and her friend Clara make a list of the post cards and a summary of the clues. Hard to do if they don’t have the cards with them! This kind of continuity error is easy to find and correct. Switching the chapters and correcting any new continuity errors is relatively easy.
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Fixing continuity errors begins with identification.
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My main tools in this process are the “find” feature of my word processing software and a “table of chapters” that tracks the characteristics of each chapter. The table includes chapter-specific information on scenes, days/dates, setting, characters, Point of View, symbols and so on. This table is a lot of work, but it helps me over and over again during the review process.
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In my search for continuity errors, I consider:
1. days and dates: I begin every chapter and scene with a day and date. This helps the reader to understand passage of time and helps me with time-related continuity errors. For example, Katie is in Grade 10 at school. On Tuesdays, she can’t be driving around with her mom looking for clues. The table lets me check on these various characteristics of the story and the time/order when events occur.
2. symbols used in the story: mentioned once in a story, a firepit is just a firepit. Mentioned twice, it begins to resonate; it refers to earlier mentions and takes on metaphorical meaning. Mentioned three times, it is all metaphor, a reminder of family, warm memories of a cold night and gathering. When these symbols are identified in the table of chapters, I can forward search on each symbol and read the context. The progression of meaning should be steady and discernible. Ideas out of order can be identified and their order fixed.
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3. character development: sometimes continuity errors are about an out-of-order character arc. When Clara’s home suffers a break-in, she is fearful and unwilling to trust strangers. When she meets Daniel, she learns to trust again, but the progression of this change must be logical and gradual.
4. gradual changes to setting: sometimes significant changes to setting create continuity errors. For example, in my book, an old road is bulldozed. The first time it is used it is muddy, almost impassible. When cars use the road later in the story, I have to explain the change with a spell of dry weather.
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Continuity errors can creep into a story in so many small ways. Character names, hair colour, vehicle make and model, even community names … everything needs to be checked. In the revision stage, it is important to review the story with intent and focus: continuity errors are most easily identified when the writer’s brain is attentive, alert. Drowsy-minded reviews are for finding and removing adverbs!
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All this effort is needed. Readers can be ripped from the world created by a book if the heroine with curly red hair suddenly has hair that is wispy and blond. Readers can be unforgiving.
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Have you ever found an unforgettable continuity error in a book?
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All my best.
Stay home, stay safe.
Jane
