welcome, drear November
November is here. Not my favourite month, but a month I try to face with planning and determination.
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Why the word ‘drear’ for November? After the colours of October, November seems a month of blacks, whites and greys. Snow has already fallen here in New Brunswick (we had 10 cm on October 30). The days and evenings are colder. The trees are mostly bare trunks and branches. The days are shorter and lower exposures to sunshine encourage the doldrums.
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But November has some fine characteristics. The oaks and beech trees cling to their leaves, creating slashes of orange and copper on the landscape. The month begins this year with a gibbous moon, waning from the full Hunter Moon of October, so clear nights will be bright, at least for a week. The crisper drier air invites deep breaths as I walk the loop of our driveway. And cooler evenings invite warmer activities like quilting and embroidery.
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We have a few plans which will improve our lives:
- We are planning to add another loop to our driveway trail and are having some dead and encroaching trees removed so we can walk more easily.
- I am working on a special shelf in our house to be an emergency station, in case we have winter power outages and flooding. It will be a place for storing water, candles and other things we might need in an emergency.
- I want to complete a small quilt I began years ago with my mother-in-law. When it is completed, I will send it to my husband’s niece as a memento of her grandmother.
- Reading is always on my list of things to do and this year I have a new way of recording the books I read. Emily Arsenault at Dog Eared Books in Oromocto, New Brunswick has created ‘The Book Lover’s Journal’ with space for listing books read and making comments on the reading experience. ( https://www.dogearedbooks.ca/ )
- As you may know, I am working to complete ‘Pareidolia,’ the fifth book in the Kaye Eliot Mystery Series, to be available by the end of November.
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I am a planner by nature and by training, but I think having a plan at the first of any month helps it to progress more smoothly. Items not completed become the plans for a later month. And accomplishments feel so rewarding.
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In the next posts, I will talk about each of the plans mentioned above and give you an idea of my progress through ‘drear’ November.
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All my best,
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
Happy Halloween
October 31 is approaching and already houses are decorated for Halloween. Ghosts, imitation cemeteries, carved pumpkins and various ghouls decorate the houses in our area. The decoration I like the best is in Harvey, a community not far from where we live. Almost every year a circle of dancing ghosts appears, around an old apple tree, in a mowed field. Every year we drive to see them dancing.
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When I was a kid, most people did not decorate for Halloween although carving a pumpkin with a funny face was part of the fun. Halloween meant dressing up and filling a pillow case with goodies from a visit to neighbouring homes. Afterwards, we would sort the treats into groups and I would stow the pillowcase in my closet so I would have treats for many days to come. The last time I went out trick-or-treating was in Grade Twelve!!!!
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Happy Halloween!
All my best!
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
‘outside-in’
In the last few days, I was at the home of a friend and recognized a painting on her wall. I painted it years ago, in 2015, in a still life phase of my art. The things included in the painting were possessions I love and still have, mostly depictions of items normally found outside: a marble egg, a book of wild plant identification, two statuettes of mushrooms from my collection, a seashell from my Dad’s collection, a chunk of amethyst, a special fern-embossed candle holder and candle I keep on our mantle, red berries from our berry bush, and in the background, the fern curtains from our living room.
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I looked up the others I had done in the series, all still life. No. 2 was a painting of the stained glass window in our house (I can see it from where I am sitting). Included in the still life are my hollow silver bird, my large glass jar, filled with potpourri, and a stack of plant identification books. The pine cones in the painting are from our yard … every year this time the big pine releases its cones in tight, sticky packages. After they sit in the sun a few days, they dry and open, releasing their seeds.
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The first in the series was called ‘Outside-in’ and depicted the large green resin dragon I keep among my indoor plants. It also shows my moss garden inside its glass cloche. I makes me sad to see the vines of my Mom’s lipstick plant which died a few years ago.
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In these days of de-cluttering and getting rid of things, I am glad to still have all the items in the paintings (except the vine). However, the paintings themselves are no longer with me, sold in Isaac Way’s Art Auction in Fredericton. Who purchased them? I only know the whereabouts of the one in the home of my friend.
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Perhaps I will be inspire to do a 4th painting in the still life series, depicting some of the other things I love. We will see.
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All my best,
Jane (a.k.a.) Alexandra
new Kaye Eliot Mystery, coming soon
I have spent the last week doing the final edits on my next Kaye Eliot Mystery. The name of this one will be ‘Pareidolia,’ meaning the tendency of people to see specific, meaningful images in random visual arrangements. Those who see a ‘man in the moon’ will know what I mean.
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In this book, the Eliot family will tackle another rural mystery, this time in a huge old house and its marble floors – marble floors with images embedded for those who look closely … a story told in ‘pareidolia.’
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The book and the mystery occur around the planning for Clara and Daniel’s upcoming wedding. Clara and Daniel, the stonemason, are Kaye’s friends and will be known to readers of the Kaye Eliot series.
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The image for the cover of the book is completed, an acrylic painting that shows some of the scenes within the old house – a house being used as a venue for weddings and anniversaries. The marble tiles are also featured in the cover image. Only a rectangular area of the painting will be featured on the book cover.
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The book will be available in late November 2023. This is the fifth book in the series. Come roam with Kaye and her family in rural Nova Scotia and enjoy the antics of the Eliot kids and their friends.
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The other books in the series are:
How Her Garden Grew
Something the Sundial Said
Land Between the Furrows
Stained Glass
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Looking forward to sharing this mystery story with you!
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All my best,
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
autumn red
We visited our camp yesterday and found a bush of hawthorn, sharp with thorns and red with berries. On the way home, we saw mountain ash, laden with clusters of red berries. And in our driveway are red rose hips and the dark red of the fruit in our crab apple tree. There is a drab side to the fall months, but these bits of colour make me happy.
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All my best,
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
a drive along the river
Two weekends ago, my husband and I took a favourite drive along part of the Saint John River in New Brunswick. The Jemseg Ferry Road is a short loop, beginning at the Scovil side of the ferry at Gagetown and continuing along a meandering road to Lower Jemseg. The area is a cluster of bogans, ponds and meadows where we often see osprey and eagles, ducks and turtles. Once, many years ago, we saw a glossy ibis and I added it to my life list of birds.
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On our drive, we were amazed at the blooms of swamp (or giant) sunflower along the river banks. This sunflower has yellow petals (not dark towards the base), lanceolate (long narrow) leaves, alternate leaves, and a magenta stem. Helianthus giganteus, a relative of the cultivated sunflower, is not native but an escape. Crowds of the flowers followed the road and framed almost every view of the river.
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The sun was setting as we drove along and the yellow flowers were all facing the west. This tilting of the flower head to follow the sun is known as heliotropism.
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As you can see from the colour in the trees in the photos, we have only a short time to enjoy these beautiful fall flowers. We drove the same road just yesterday and most of the flower were already gone.
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All my best,
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
the rock project continues
My ‘rock project’ has an important personal implication: keeping me physically fit and active. Every day, I try to walk the loop, at least twice. Not a long distance, but it gets me outside, in nature, for some time each day and keeps me ahead of being crippled by my arthritis.
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The ‘rock project’ includes anything that encourages me to walk the loop. Today provides a great example. Today, I walked the loop twice, once to collect some rocks to create a small table-like structure in the woods beside the loop. I used three piles of rock to create the legs of the table and a larger, flat stone to create the table top.
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I have used this table to display two small iron birds.
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Now, when I walk the loop, I will watch for these little metal birds, a small tribute to the real birds I often see on the path or near the bird feeder.
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Small projects like this keep me active and encourage me to walk the loop. Other projects include:
- clearing unwanted vegetation from the small iron faerie beside the path
- continuing to work on the rock wall at the start of the loop
- planting mosses and periwinkle on the platform of ‘rockhenge’
- finding two ceramic ‘mushrooms’ I put into the woods years ago and giving them a new home by the edge of the loop
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Keep walking!
Best regards!
Jane (a.k.a. Alexandra)
I’m Buying a New Brunswick Book
In spite of the weather forecast, I plan to be at Dog Eared Books in Oromocto on Saturday, September 16, 2023, to chat about my books and see a few other NB authors. It’s Buy a Book by a New Brunswick Author Day!!!!
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I’ll be focusing on my Kaye Eliot Mystery Series and I’ll have some props! I’ll bring a ‘grinning tun’ from How Her Garden Grew …
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a ‘sundial’ from Something the Sundial Said …
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a piece of granite to represent a grinding stone from Land Between Furrows (no way I’ll lift a real grinding stone although we have one on our front doorstep)…
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and a bit of my own stained glass work to represent the stained glass in Stained Glass…
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I’ll also bring a cover painting or two so I can talk about creating a cover….
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Hope to see you there from 11:00 to 2:30 at Dog Eared Books (281 Restigouche Road in Oromocto). I also hope to see other local authors, including Chuck Bowie and Jordan Trethewey!
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All my best,
Jane
a Kaye Eliot Mystery — number 5 in the series
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The Kaye Eliot Mysteries are cozy, family-based and set in a small fictional community in Nova Scotia. So far, there are four in the series.
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In November, the fifth volume in the series will be released. Pareidolia continues the story of a family who loves solving mysteries together. ‘Pareidolia’ is the tendency to perceive a specific, meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern. Think of ‘the man in the moon.’ In this cozy mystery, Kaye and her family search for images in the marble floor tiles of a century-old country house, now used as a wedding venue.
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The floor tiles are clues to the location of a valuable hidden sculpture. Each tile reveals the next line in a story, told in the black and white patterns in the marble of the tile. If Kaye can find the sculpture, a beautiful wedding venue will be available for Kaye’s friend Clara, free of charge.
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You will love the various rooms in Marshall’s Elegant Weddings, the quirky folks who live in the community of Stone Ridge, and the members of the Eliot family, especially five-year-old Matthew. You may not love Kaye’s plan for her family to spend the entire week of March Break staring at black and white tiles. You may never again look at the floor in the same way.
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This week, I am working on the book cover painting for Pareidolia. It will show Clara and her husband-to-be, the stone-mason Daniel, sitting in the hall of Marshall’s Elegant Weddings, dreaming of their future together. All around them are the marble floor tiles, some showing clues to the mystery.
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All my best,
Jane
(a.k.a. Alexandra)
the rock project – update
It sometimes takes years to make progress on a project. That has certainly been the case with ‘the rock project,’ begun November 2011 and reported here https://janetims.com/2011/11/13/plans-for-a-rocky-road/
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The original project was to add a circular component to the driveway and to install a few rock features along the way. In part, this was to allow us to avoid backing out to the road in front of our house. It was also meant to give us an interesting walking ‘trail’ as we get older. This was the feature map as it existed in 2011.
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Over the years, we built a rock fireplace and added a concrete bench. And, last summer, we brought in gravel and rock to finish the circular roadway and a rock feature I refer to as ‘rockhenge.’
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‘Rockhenge’ consists of a platform, fronted by six very large rocks and accessed by a stone stair. Eventually it will be planted in periwinkle and moss.
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The roadway allows a pleasant walk in the grey woods.
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Now that the road is done, we have more plans for the rock project.
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This summer, every time we go for a drive, I bring back one or two rocks towards the building of a stone wall along the front of the area where I feed the birds. I also added two small solar-powered lanterns; they shine every night and make the woods less dark.
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The next step in our project has begun, with the creation of a small platform, a flat surface to put another concrete bench. It will be a place to sit and watch the woods and occasional wildlife.
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A future part of the plan will be to build a narrow roadway through the grey woods, to the back of our property.
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Not having to back out of our driveway has made life better and safer for us. The circular drive is also an exercise opportunity — every day I try to find the time to walk the loop. Every evening I watch the little lanterns flicker and shine. I love this place where we have lived now for 43 years. And with the ‘rock project’ ongoing, I love it even more.
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All my best,
Jane
(a.k.a. Alexandra)
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