Archive for March 2012
a moment of beautiful – traffic lights
the space: above the roadway, at an intersection, in the fog
the beautiful: green, yellow and red traffic lights, seeming to hover, like jewels in the fog
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Traffic lights!!! Beautiful??? Perhaps you will never agree. But I think those lights, when seen on a foggy day, suspended as if from the sky itself, are as beautiful as jewels. Emerald, topaz and ruby.
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Copyright Jane Tims 2012
from the pages of an old diary – cost of living
Some of the most interesting entries in my great-aunt’s diaries concern the cost of living. She often recorded the prices of food, goods or services they obtained. I read through her entries for 1954, 1955, 1957 and 1967 and noted some of these. By comparing the amounts for the same items in the 1950s and 1967, you can see that prices were on the rise!
| Date | Item | Cost |
| food | ||
| Nov. 22, 1954 | chicken | $3.00 per chicken |
| Nov. 10, 1967 | chicken | haircut (barter system) |
| June 30, 1955 | eggs | $0.40 per dozen |
| Dec. 14, 1957 | eggs | $0.50 per dozen |
| July 12 and July 14, 1967 | strawberries | $0.35 per box |
| July 19, 1967 | strawberries | $1.40 for 4 boxes |
| Oct. 22, 1967 | oysters | $2.00 per pint |
| Nov. 17, 1967 | box of chocolates | $1.29 per box |
| entertainment | ||
| June 5, 1957 | lobster supper at church | $1.00 |
| June 7, 1967 | lobster supper (community function) | $1.50 |
| November 1, 1957 | turkey dinner (community function) | $1.00 |
| October 25, 1967 | turkey dinner (community function) | $1.25 |
| Feb. 13, 1954 | Valentine Tea at church hall | $0.60 |
| June 22, 1957 | tea in church hall | $0.50 |
| July 9, 1957 | show (movie theatre) | $0.50 |
| goods | ||
| May 7, 1957 | T.V. from Simpsons | $269.95 |
| March 12, 1957 | ‘silence’ cloth for table | $2.00 |
| Sept. 10, 1954 | new shoes | $6.95 |
| April 23, 1957 | black Oxfords (White Cross) | $9.95 |
| June 14, 1954 | shingles for barn | $50.18 |
| May 17, 1967 | house shingled | $163.00 |
| May 17, 1954 | wood for stove | $40.00 (probably total for year) |
| services | ||
| July 8, 1954 | hair permanent | $4.00 |
| Dec. 16, 1957 | hair permanent | $3.25 |
| Sept. 20, 1967 | hair permanent | $6.00 |
| March 13, 1957 | tailoring – a ‘Black Watch’ skirt | $4.94 for material and sewing |
| Sept. 6-10, 1967 | vacation accommodation (room in house) | $8.00 per night |
| Sept. 6-10, 1967 | vacation accommodation (motel) | $14.00 per couple |
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© Jane Tims 2012
snippets of landscape – ice falls on rock walls
When highways are built, they often cut through the bedrock, leaving rock walls along the margins of the road. If these intersect a brook or seep of water, the result is a waterfall on the face of the rock. In spring or summer, rains can create wild cataracts. In winter the water freezes, building frozen walls of blue-shadowed ice. In sunlight, especially when they begin to melt, these ice falls are dazzling.
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one warm hand
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icicles seep between
layers of rock frozen
curtains separate
inner room from winter storm
glass barrier between blue
light and sheltered eyes
memory of water flows
along the face of the rock
one warm hand melts ice
consolation, condensation
on the inward glass
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© Jane Tims 2012
at the bird feeder #7 – Pine Siskin
After our heavy snow last week, the birds were all looking for perches and easy feeding. A few Chickadees and Pine Siskins were at the feeders early. Pine Siskins (Carduelis pinus) are fidgety little birds, staying at the feeder to get their fill, but ever vigilant and looking over their shoulders. They are heavily striped, sometimes with yellow bars on their wing feathers. They also have sharp beaks.
Because the Pine Siskins are striped, I confused them at first with female Purple Finches. The female Purple Finch is also striped, but is a slightly bigger, chunkier bird. Its beak is large and wedge-shaped, and it has no yellow coloration.
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Pine Siskin at the feeder
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female Purple Finch - wedge-shaped beak and stripes around eye (a male Purple Finch at left)
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two Pine Siskins at feeder - sharp beaks and yellow wing bars
© Jane Tims 2012
snippets of landscape – the bogan
Along the St. John River are sluggish side-streams, flooded in spring to form full tributaries of the river, but isolated and stagnant in low-water conditions, sometimes completely cut off from the main river. These are known as bogans, a word of Algonquian origin. The words logan and pokelogan have a similar origin and meaning.
My favorite bogan is a strip of water next to the Trans-Canada Highway near Jemseg. The bogan creates an island, Thatch Island, in the St. John River. Old Silver Maple trees lean over the still water, creating reflections and shadows.
bogan along Thatch Island
On maps of the St. John River, a bogan on Sugar Island, just north of Fredericton, is called the Sugar Island Padou.
bogan (padou) on Sugar Island
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bogan
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appendage of river
footnote on water
predictable as the day we walked
the dead-end backroad
and retraced our steps to return
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in spring, by canoe, at high water
or on ice skates in winter
in summer sluggish
stagnant, secluded
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we lurk, eavesdrop on whispered
conversation
we are river folk
unwelcome
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© Jane Tims 2012
snow-bound bogan to the north of Thatch Island on the St. John River
a moment of beautiful – tracks in the snow
the space: new fallen snow
the beautiful: a Red Squirrel’s tracks
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An expanse of new fallen snow is like an unwritten page. When you find something written there, it is a message of beauty.
In our driveway, after the last snow, a Red Squirrel was the first to write on the ‘page’. The prints were delicate, traced in blue shadows.
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Our Red Squirrels are certainly not afraid of the snow.
digging for sunflower seeds
red squirrel with snow accumulating on his head
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a love letter, unsigned
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the meadow in winter
a sheet of paper
folded
where the stream
flows under the ice
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the sky
an envelope
lined in blue
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tracks on the snow
cautious
afraid
words
pressed to the page
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erased
(erased)
by melting
or a dusting
of new snow
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Published as: ‘a love letter, unsigned’, 1999, Green’s Magazine XXVII (2): 44.
Copyright Jane Tims 1999
warm room
We had another snow storm last night. In our winter climate, can anything compare with being settled in a warm room with a cup of tea, perhaps reading a good book, and listening to the storm throw handfuls of ice-pellets at the window glass?
As I write this, I know everyone is not so fortunate.
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within
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winter lays a cheek against the glass pecks at the window
rattles the door
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the room is a yellow lattice on the snow a frail package
of warmth firelight a quilt the pages of a novel
kneading paws
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field mice and ermine etch fleet trails in the thicket breathe
in the velvet space beneath the fir
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kettle and cat are purring
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© Jane Tims 2000
at the bird feeder #6 – Purple Finch
On Thursday, we had a Hairy Woodpecker and a large flock of male and female Purple Finches at the bird feeder. The Peterson Field Guide describes the Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus) as ‘… a Sparrow dipped in raspberry juice.’ I can’t improve on that description! The other particularly noticeable feature is its large sturdy beak. My husband took a few photos since I was not home, just enough to give me one to draw.
I miss most of the feeder birds since I leave in the early light and come home after dark. Nevertheless, the Chickadees and Goldfinches are usually there to see me off. We have one Chickadee who always has his ‘hair’ ruffed up, like a rock star with a ‘do’.
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Purple Finch
(Carpodacus purpureus)
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sunflower seed and millet
purple finch posed in the maple
sullen brow
blunt beak
metallic tick
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he knows my eye
at the edge of the glass
my struggle for stamina
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he is immobile as a post
a vermillion bird stuffed
with husks of sunflower seed
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he sees me sidle to the chair
watches me settle
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he is still
as a post card
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seedless husks of sunflower
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© Jane Tims 2012
© Jane Tims 2012
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