Archive for the ‘shelter’ Category
my COVID-19 kit
Since March 12, I have been almost nowhere. I am so careful, washing my hands until I have developed a thin outer layer of skin. I have stood six feet apart, even when no one else is there. I wore a mask when I went into the only store I’ve been inside in two months. My husband does the same. We quarantine every bit of mail coming into the house. I wipe down all our groceries. The grocery bags go into quarantine as well.
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In spite of all these precautions, I worry. I am probably paranoid. The only thing that helps me be OK is my COVID-19 kit. Each morning and each night I pull it out. I take my temperature with my thermometer. 36.2 Whew! I lift my little bag of lavender to my nose. Sweet, potent, floral. Whew!
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A high temperature and loss of the sense of smell are not the only symptoms of COVID-19. Our New Brunswick Department of Health lists the following:
fever above 38°C or signs of fever (such as chills);
a new cough or worsening chronic cough;
sore throat;
runny nose;
headache;
a new onset of fatigue;
a new onset of muscle pain;
diarrhea;
loss of sense of taste or loss of sense of smell; and
in children, purple markings on the fingers or toes.
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Do you have a ritual that makes things seem OK? Even when they are not?
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All my best,
staying at home,
Jane
the worry in weather
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Snowman waited on our back deck for the Nor’easter to begin …
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We are coming to the end of the rains associated with this week’s storm, a Nor’easter that brought snow, ice pellets, sleet and a lot of rain. In our area, we had about 45 mm of rain, but some parts of the province had over 100 mm.
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Many people in New Brunswick are coping with flooded basements as a result of all the rain. After our flooded basement experience in 2010, I spent the last couple of days in worry – hoping our drainage issues are fixed and making endless trips to the basement to make sure we had no water on the floor.
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Today I am grateful – we had no problems with flooding. Our space is safe and we are warm and dry.
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Last night, on the back deck in the dark, after all the rain, Mr. Snowman lay on his back. The rain took most of the snow but he is still smiling. He knows more snow will come!
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
snowflakes
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I woke on Saturday morning to the easy fall of snowflakes. A good day to write Christmas cards. Amazing how a frail curtain of flakes can create a personal, comforting space.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
february chill
memories of a walk on a cold night …
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spaces in the dark
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white on the pasture
interrupts the night
clings to cold twilight
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footfalls
beside me
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a black horse
assembles from shadow
ponders the snow
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your coat
folded around me
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the horse lifts its head
knows where deer hesitate
where wings brush against barn boards
where I stand in the snow
and shiver
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never so warm again
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chill spaces around me
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no feathers to fly
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
snippets of landscape – vernal pools and the spring migration
At the edges of our Grey Woods are several places where ‘vernal pools’ form. As a result, these spring evenings are alive with the peeping and croaking of various frogs and toads.
‘Vernal pools’ are temporary accumulations of water in depressions. This water may originate from snow accumulations or from rising water tables. The word ‘vernal’ comes from the Latin ver meaning spring.
Although vernal pools are ephemeral, they create habitat for many animals, including insects and amphibians, often at critical life stages. Amphibians such as Wood Frogs (Rana sylvatica), Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum), and Blue Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma laterale) depend on vernal pools for laying their eggs and development of tadpoles. Other amphibians you may encounter in a vernal pool include Spring Peepers, Grey Tree Frogs and Bull Frogs.
During a rainy night in late April or early May, you may be fortunate enough to observe the early spring migration of Wood Frogs and other species as they make their way to breeding locations. These frogs have remained all winter in hibernation and have unthawed in the early spring rains. Unfortunately, many must cross roads to get to the ponds and vernal pools where they will lay their eggs, and many become casualties of their attempts to cross the road.
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an uncertain spring migration
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if it rains
the night road
leads home
to lowlands
and hollows
vernal pools
north of the highway
swollen with rain
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mists crawl
towards me
vignettes
sweep the windshield
frogs cross the roadway
follow ancestral memory
blurred by rain
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some nights
the tail-lights ahead
are my only family
red streamers on wet pavement
tadpoles from the eggmass
grow legs
absorb their tails
follow the road
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I watch
the phone poles
the potholes
the hidden driveways
the headlight echo on trees
frog legs
crushed on the pavement
mailboxes with uncertain names
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the centre line is a zipper
seals the left side
to the right
the coming home
with the leaving
frogs plead
from the wetlands
never saying goodbye
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Published as: ‘an uncertain spring migration’, Spring 1997, Green’s Magazine XXV (3).
revised
© Jane Tims 2011
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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
witch’s broom
In the Balsalm Fir tree over our shed is a strange growth, like a dark mass of short deformed branches. This dark mass of branches is known as a ‘witch’s broom’.
A witch’s broom is a common term for an abnormal growth caused by the action of an agent such as a mite, virus, insect, or fungus. The agent causes a branch of the tree to grow from a single point, resulting in a mass of twigs and branches resembling a nest or broom. Many kinds of plants can have a witch’s broom deformity, including many tree species.
Animals, including the Northern Flying Squirrel, use the witch’s broom as a nesting place. The Northern Flying Squirrel is the big-eyed squirrel invading our feeders every night (see ‘spacemen in our feeder’ under the category ‘competing for niche space’ for December 23, 2011).
Witch’s brooms occur frequently … we have at least three in our grey woods. They lend an air of mystery to the woodland. People used to believe a witch had flown over the place where a witch’s broom grew.
If anyone knows of another name for the witch’s broom, please let me know. Years ago, we visited a small farm museum in northern Maine and an example of a huge witch’s broom was displayed in the shed, labelled ‘horrah’s nest’, but I have been unable to find this term used elsewhere.
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wood witch
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burdened by snow
a tree falls
tumbles a witch’s broom
the witch set free
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a hex on the snowfall
slate where the dog walks
cuts her feet
soft rubies in every track
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a hex on the room
cold as I left
now warm
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too warm
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© Jane Tims 2001
tracks in the snow
On Tuesday I went for a walk in the grey woods. Snow fell just before Christmas, so my walk turned into a quest to see who else had been walking (or running) in the woods.
I found many tracks, large and small. Mice had made their cylindrical tunnels, and occasionally had run across the surface. At some places, you can see where their tunnels suddenly go subterranean…
Sometimes several paths converge at a sheltered area beneath a fallen log, like a woodland bus terminal…
There were lots of squirrel tracks, often ending at the base of a tree where their paths move into the treetops…
Squirrel tracks crisscrossed with those of deer…
I followed the trail of two deer deep into the woods, thinking they were long gone since the tracks were filled with a slight dusting of snow…
This made me a little careless, and the next thing I heard was a high-pitched snort and squeal of warning and the bounding of hooves through the woods. I got a good look at two beautiful deer, but the camera was not ready. I did capture the very fresh track of one of the retreating deer.
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tracks in the snow
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ephemeral proof
I follow the beacon
of a stash of spruce cones
stock-piled at the base
of a crooked tree
careen from a foe
slip beneath a log
dive into a hole
secret hollow
a pause to still
thud thud of my heart
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© Jane Tims 2011
snow hollow at the base of a tree
Words are the tools of a writer’s craft. I literally wallow in words when I write a poem. Sometimes the right word comes immediately to mind. Sometimes I have to search for it, sometimes for days or weeks. When I do the final edits for a poem, I ‘press’ on every word, to make sure it is absolutely right.
Sometimes, I encounter an idea or image that seems to have no word. For example, I have searched for a word referring to the charming hollow that builds next to the base of a tree when the snow falls. Sometimes small animals use this hollow for a temporary den. Sometimes it’s a place where debris gathers, as it does in the corners of alleyways. Sometimes it is a calm, beckoning place where snow shadows rest in shades of olive green and blue.
I wonder if there is a name for these elusive places, perhaps in another language.
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snow hollow
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snow shuns the tree
manifest in the hollow
the empty gather of wind
at the base of the fir
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where snow-shoe hares find
shelter or dry leaves skipping
across a crust of snow
assemble and rest
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inside curve to fit
the spine of an animal
the heart of a man
curled against the cold
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a place where shadows meet
select blue from the prism of all
indigo to illustrate the space
of no snow, no warmth, no light
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© Jane Tims 2011
a safe space in the bridge
This past week I have been in Halifax for a conference. A part of my morning commute was the slow moving traffic on the ‘old bridge’ across Halifax Harbour, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge. The second day, I was more familiar with the traffic and the correct lane to be in, so I had a chance to experience the architecture and some of the wild life of the bridge (by this I do not mean that the commuters are holding wild parties).
The Angus L. Macdonald is an amazing structure, built the year I was born and opened in 1955. It is a long-span suspension bridge, supported by cables between two vertical towers. The bridge is 1.3 km long, with a supported length of 762.1 meters.
The bridge is usable by pedestrians and cyclists. Because of its reputation as a suicide bridge, it is equipped with various barriers to potential suicides, including high inward-facing bars on the pedway and nets suspended in the open area between the traffic deck and the pedway.
In these areas, hordes of starlings (Stumus vulgaris) gather, creating a din and an occasional cloud of startled starlings. Starlings are known for their synchronized group flights – the birds move as one in a shifting horde of birds. To hear the birds, I had my car windows open, but I quickly rolled them up since the birds were flowing very near to my car!
Starlings are an invasive species, introduced by Eugene Schieffelin to Central Park in 1890 as part of a project of the American Acclimatization Society. Their goal was to introduce all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings into North America. All of the birds I saw in the bridge are descendants of the 60 to 100 birds released in 1890!
A group of starlings is known as a ‘murmuration’.
For those of you familiar with the excellent series of made-for-TV Jesse Stone movies (starring Tom Selleck), The Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is the bridge featured in the movies (although the setting for the movie is a small town in Massachusetts).
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morning, Angus L. Macdonald Bridge
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traffic huddles and a thousand Shakespearian
starlings squabble one another
yellow beaks and feathers packed
soft slate bodies rolled into the safety
of the suicide net and pedway bars
porous barriers: a cyclist whips by
and starlings sift through wire
a mumuration between orange
cables and green girders
impossible way, red and blue
pulse of bridge security
weaves the path materialized
within three tangled
lanes of traffic
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© Jane Tims 2011
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