something orange
I love the colour orange. It must be so – it is one of the most used ‘tag’ words in my blog postings.
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This is a rather whimsical ‘side-view’ watercolour of an orange mushroom I saw recently in our cottage woods. I published the ‘top-view’ in an earlier post.
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November 22, 2015 ‘side-view of an orange mushroom’ Jane Tims
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November 5, 2015 ‘woodland floor’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2105 Jane Tims
in the shelter of the covered bridge – the record we leave
The Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge (Tomlinson Mill), built in 1918, is the only covered bridge remaining in Victoria County, New Brunswick.
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Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge, Victoria County, New Brunswick
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It is a charming bridge, with a long roofed window on one side.
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long window in Odellach River #2
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Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge, Victoria County, New Brunswick
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The sound of the nearby mill is part of the personality of the bridge. A small distance away are the foundations for an old water mill.
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old mill foundation – Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge
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Every covered bridge has a record of people who have visited. Some carve initials, some make brief statements, some draw. I know from finding my own initials 20 years after I left them, that these records persist.
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CT in the Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge
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CT and RF in the Odellach River #2 Bridge
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initials made with nails in the Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge
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how was the summer ‘orange’ ? … who was Laurel?
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who were the ‘Hillbilly Bikrs’ ?
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graffiti, names and initials left on a wall of the Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge
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Beti from Australia … Hilary and Macey were BFFs … Destiny was here … FTW – ‘the Wu’
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some of the inner structure of the Odellach River #2 Covered Bridge, Victoria County, New Brunswick
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Have you ever left your initials or a message for others to find?
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
Buying Local
The weekend before last, I attended WordsFall (a yearly event of the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick) in Sackville, a town in eastern New Brunswick. I read at the open mic session, enjoyed listening to the work of the other readers at the session, and attended two Saturday workshops.
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When I visit Sackville, I am always encouraged by the atmosphere of community that prevails. For a small town, they have a lot to offer. My favorite places are the campus of Mount Allison University, the Sackville Waterfowl Park especially its birdlife and boardwalks, the Cackling Goose Market with its delicious sandwiches and gluten-free products, and the landscape of the salt marsh.
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Brochure for the Town of Sackville, New Brunswick
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While I was at the workshop, I picked up a brochure about Sackville. The painting on the front of the pamphlet is by Mary Scobie, ‘Sackville Market Day’ (Oil on canvas, 24″ by 48″) http://www.maryscobie.com . As our winter approaches, it is great to remember the fresh and local produce available in summer.
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The Sackville Farmers Market is one of the oldest in the province and operates year-round.
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Do you attend a farmers’ market and is it open during the winter months?
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
winter around the corner
As the weather gets more wintery, I adopt a strategy for getting through the next few months. The aim of the strategy is to keep warm!
- Put the kettle on and have a hot drink every morning. My hot drink of choice is tea with a little milk, but I also like hot chocolate and occasionally a cup of coffee.
- Make soup for supper. I love onions so every hot soup begins with these. Tonight we added Canadian bacon, a can of corn, a cut-up sweet potato and some spices.
- Knit. As I’ve said before, I can knit anything. I even knit a new top for my strawberry cookie jar! My usual knitting produces socks on four needles.
I think I am the only one on the planet who has knitted a new top for her cookie jar
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3. Make small lap quilts. I love to work with fabric. My method is to piece together bits and quilt as I go. Last spring, my aunt gave me lots of fabric to work with so I will not be short of patterns! I am not a very good quilter but the work keeps me warm as I sew and the result is a cozy lap quilt.
a couple of examples of my latest lap quilts
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4. Walk outside every day, to acclimate myself to the colder weather. I have a great walking stick, wooden, hand-carved with an owl.
my owl walking stick
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What are your strategies for keeping warm in winter???
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
in the shelter of the covered bridge – update
Although my blog has been a bit silent this fall, I have been working! Among other projects, I am making great progress on my poetry manuscript ‘in the shelter of the covered bridge’.
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To provide experiences and inventory the plants and animals living in and around covered bridges in the province, my husband and I have visited 28 covered bridges in the drainage basin of the Saint John River and 5 covered bridges in Charlotte and Westmorland Counties. I have a few more bridges to visit, but to give a little seasonal diversity to my project, I’ll travel to these in early winter.
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Reading at WordsFall 2015, an annual event of the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation (photo by WFNB)
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As a result of these bridge visits, I’ve written 60 poems. I read five of these last weekend at two writers’ events: WordsFall (Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick http://wfnb.ca/ ) and Odd Sundays (a monthly Fredericton reading event). The poems include the results of my work on different poetic forms – in the manuscript I have examples of the sonnet, ghazal, haiku, tanka and villanelle.
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black horse painted in the Quisibis River Covered Bridge (Pont Lavoie)
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As I develop the manuscript, and to help organize the poems, I have sorted them into categories:
- gaps between boards (deterioration and loss)
- liminal, shore to shore (transitions)
- grit of a blade (carvings and history)
- notch of a lily pad (habitat)
- a blade of grass between thumbs (mystery)
- heads of timothy (miscellaneous)
- a loose board rattles (sounds)
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Writing these poems has given me a glimpse into the living world of the covered bridge. We may cross a bridge daily but it takes a little time to know a bridge and discover the life there. Most of the animals living in or around a covered bridge are timid or hidden, and avoid human contact. The plants provide the setting for the bridge but there is a pattern to the places they grow and some will only be seen if visitors to the bridge slow down. And carved in the beams are the stories of the humans who have been part of the history of the covered bridge.
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Baker Brook #2 Covered Bridge – a deer and a crow are watching us from the hay field
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
colour on the woodland floor
Today, we went for a walk along the trails at our camp. My favorite path runs along the boundary, next to our zig-zag cedar fence and among young white pine, grey birch, red maple and balsam fir.
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The weather has been very damp, so I expected to find fungi along the way. But I was surprised to see a beautiful patch of bright orange toadstools, each with a distinct orange-red center. They stood out among the red-brown leaves and green mosses.
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I am not good at the identification of fungi, but I think this is Caesar’s mushroom (Amanita caesarea). It is easily confused with the poisonous Amanita muscaria, so no one should use my painting as an identification guide. Just a celebration of orange and red on a fall day.
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November 5, 2015 ‘woodland floor’ Jane Tims
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Copyright Jane Tims 2015
impressions of the day – early morning
Every morning, after waking, I spend a little time in my guest room. I get myself ready for the day – doing a few stretches, looking from the window, greeting Zoë (our cat), planning my day.
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Usually this happens just before sun-up and I am able to watch the sun rise behind the woods in our back yard. I am always amazed at the shift in the location of sun rise, season to season. These November days, it is to the south of where it rose in early summer.
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This morning the sunrise was brilliant, a fire of orange behind the trees. The flaming colours burst through small gaps in the darker trees – inspiration to get out my watercolours!
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November 3, 2015 ‘morning fire’ Jane Tims
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Copyright Jane Tims 2015
Calling all Dragon Kind
Congratulations to my son who, today, opened a new store in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick. The store, Meta GameZ, specializes in collectable card games, including Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Force of Will and Star Realms. There is also a large comfortable space for tournament-style play of the card game Magic.
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To show my son how proud I am, I gave him a gift of my newest painting, ‘Dragon Kind’ (acrylic, 40″ X 40″, gallery edges). Dragons are a recurring theme in the fantasy worlds of many collectable card games and I hope the players will enjoy the painting.
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
Ground cover
The autumn rains have begun and already leaves are changing colour. Before the plants go into their winter sleep, I want to pay tribute to the greens of summer. In particular, I love the ground covers in my garden. They create thick carpets of green and provide a backdrop for other garden colour.
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Periwinkle is my favourite ground cover. In early summer blue flowers dot the shiny green foliage. The plant grows well in our very shady yard and makes a good transition from lawn to woodland.
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The Creeping Jenny in our yard is a transplant from my grandfather’s farm, probably by way of my mom and dad’s property. The flowers are bright yellow and the leaves grow in pairs of gradually smaller size.
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Lily of the Valley grows along the paths in our yard. I love the white flowers and their gentle perfume. Although they are poisonous, the boiled leaves make a pretty grey dye.
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Soon the ground covers in our area will be layers of autumn leaves and then, blankets of fallen snow. My challenge for next year’s garden will be to find another low-growing cover plant to add to my collection. What are your favourite ground covers?
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Copyright Jane Tims 2015
in the shelter of the covered bridge – a puzzle
Most covered bridges in new Brunswick have some unique feature that makes them memorable, distinct from all other covered bridges. Sometimes this is because of a puzzle. Why, for example, are ropes and chains hung from the rafters of a covered bridge?
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Digdeguash #4, McCann Covered Bridge in New Brunswick. 2015
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At the end of August, we travelled to some of the covered bridges in Charlotte County. One of these was Digdeguash River #4, the McCann Covered Bridge near Rollingdam. The bridge was built in 1938. On the day we visited, the water was very low, so we could see the ‘bones’ of the Digdeguash River. The bridge walls and beams were covered with names of people, done in knife and pencil and pen, felt marker and paint. The air was thick with the whirr of cicadas.
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In the rafters of the bridge thick ropes, now frayed, had been hung from the cross beams. There was also a chain hung from one rafter and a piece of steel cable from another. We discussed possible reasons for these, but didn’t have a chance to talk to any local people who may have known the true reason.
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This is my list of possibilities (some more sad, ridiculous or unlikely than others):
- a rope swing inside the bridge after midnight
- a suicide pact
- a hanging
- ghosts and ghouls strung from rafters at Halloween
- a challenge – a timed climb of a knotted rope
- a hammock slung, a cool snooze to the trill of cicadas
- a banner draped by a graduating class
- a way to right a truck’s load after striking the top of the bridge
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What do you think might be the reason for the ropes and cable and chains?
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
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