Posts Tagged ‘farm’
2020 resolution realized!
In the early days of 2020 I designed a project for myself … to hunt down and organize my older poems. I set a goal to organize the poems into files and to create (and independently publish) three poetry books from three of the files. I had a good start on these books since I had already completed the poems and the illustrations. Some revision work and formatting was left to be done.
The three books are done! I have a new book of poetry published: blueberries and mink – summers on my grandfather’s farm. To order from Amazon, click here
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A brief history and description of the three:
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In early September, I published ghosts are lonely here, a book of 45 poems and 14 of my original illustrations about abandoned features of the human landscape. If you are fascinated by abandoned houses, bridges, vehicles, churches and so on, you will love these poems. To order a copy from Amazon, https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08J5CQ4GC
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In early December, I published niche, a book of 65 poems and 16 illustrations about the spaces plants and animals, including humans, occupy. With a foreword by my friend, award-winning poet Roger Moore, these are poems about plants and animals in the places where I have lived: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Alberta. To order a copy from Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/niche-Jane-Tims/dp/B08QRYXS9D
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Yesturday, I completed my review of the proof of the third and final book in my 2020 series: blueberries and mink – summers on my grandfather’s farm. This book was begun as an exploration of the various buildings on my grandfather’s Nova Scotia farm and evolved to tell the story of change on the farm. It contains some very personal memories of my visits each summer to the farm and my ramblings in the surrounding countryside. The book has 45 poems and includes 26 illustrations. To order a copy from Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RH7MKJS
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By the end of January, these three books will be available in Westminster Books in Fredericton, or from me directly.
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Three new books on my author’s shelf! Hooray!
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All my best!
Jane
final touches
So, after a month of organizing and sorting the poems in my ‘forty-years-of-writing bone pile,’ I have three illustrated books of poetry ready for the next step:
‘niche’ – poems about the spaces occupied by plants and animals, including humans, as they search for home. A good friend of mine has written the Foreword for ‘niche’ and I am looking forward to adding his name to the cover.
‘blueberries and mink: summers on my grandfather’s farm’ – poems about life on the farm and the changes over the years.
‘ghosts are lonely here’ – poems about abandoned buildings and other elements of the countryside.
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Now that I have everything sorted, I know I have more collections to work on, but this is enough for now. My computer is more organized than it has been in years..
The next step in the process is to request Proofs. Once I get these proofs, I will do one more round of edits and make a few final decisions on formatting. Then I will publish them, using KDP. I have no intention of marketing these. I will get enough copies for family and friends who would like to read them.
Requesting Proofs is tricky right now. Amazon has turned its efforts to making and shipping Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). I don’t mind being patient.
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Sample drawings from the three poetry books:
All my best
Staying in my bubble!
Jane
illustrating poetry
I am in the process of creating several books of poetry from the many poems I have written over the years. I am now working on the third book, poems about life on my grandfather’s farm. The title will be ‘blueberries and mink’ since these were the main products of the farm.
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There are about forty poems in this collection. I have decided how I will order the poems and done much of the formatting. Since I illustrate the books I write, the next task is to pair the poems with drawings I have done.
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For some poems, as I wrote, I had an image in my head that my hands could draw. A good example is the poem ‘patience.’ One of the lines describes ‘staring down a cow.’ The drawing was fun to do.
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In some cases, a drawing I did for another purpose will find a home in my ‘blueberries and mink’ manuscript. An example is the drawing of old pop bottles I did for a blog post a few years ago. These bottles look much like the ones that used to sit on a window ledge in a shed at my grandfather’s farm.
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Once I have inserted the formatted drawings into the book, I have to make sure they are distributed evenly through the book. Sometimes a poem and its drawing can be relocated. Sometimes I have to do another drawing to fill a gap.
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Next, from the drawings, I have to pick one for the cover of the book. I want the covers for these books to be similar in style with the book title and author name superimposed.
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A couple of the possible covers I am working on are shown below.
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all my best,
staying home,
Jane
harvesting colour – the vegetable stand
Gardens are bursting with fresh produce and we have gone to the farmer’s vegetable stand every couple of days to get our fill of locally grown food. We usually look for new potatoes, yellow wax beans, beets, carrots, green onions and zucchini.
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vegetables at the farmer’s stand
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This year, as a result of my ‘harvesting colour’ project, I am more anxious than ever to collect those carrot tops and the abundant leaves of beet and radish. Cooking these leaves in my dyeing ‘cauldron’ fills the air with the savory smell of vegetable soup, and makes me wonder what colour will emerge from the dye pot.
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beet leaves and stems ready for the boil
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Orange carrots, red beets and scarlet radishes … I am sad to say my expectations were low. I was certain every batch of leaves would yield yet another shade of brown. For radishes and beets, I was correct. Beautiful browns.
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my hand-spun balls of wool from radish and beet leaves … the pink is from my earlier tests with pickled beets
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Imagine my delight when the carrot leaves yielded a bright celery green!
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dye and wool roving from a boil of carrot tops
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I tried to repeat the colour on a second length of wool roving, but the second simmering gave me a gold shade of brown. The dyestuff had offered up all its green colour in the first boil!
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colours of wool obtained from the first and second boil in a dyestuff of carrot tops
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vegetable bin
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most look for
vitamins and
anti-oxidants
seek the colourful plate
look at the farmer’s display and see
carrot orange
radish red
spinach green
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a dyer looks
for juicy leaves
and the possibility of yet
another shade
of brown
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
small scale economy – picking berries
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small-scale economy
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my box of berries spilled
on the footpath,
between leaves
of Kalmia and wintergreen
hawkweed and cow pies
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the cousins, their boxes brimming,
stood gawking, dismayed,
I was certain they were thinking
dumb city girl, spilled her berries
box only half full anyway
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instead, they gathered around me
sympathy in every hand
scooped most of the berries
into the box
added a few from nearby bushes
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seventeen cents he paid me
half the value of a box at full
the cousins had picked a crate or more,
remembered the wasted berries, left on the trail
and wept at the loss
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Published as: ‘small scale economy’, Canadian Stories 16 (94), December 2013/ January 2014
Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
water and stone 7-13
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treed archway over road near Lansallos (image from Street View)
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map showing distance travelled (map from Google Earth)
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After seeing hidden doors and arched roadways, I am on the lookout for other evidence of enchantment on my Cornwall journey. So, when the road dipped into one of those treed valleys …
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treed archway near Lansallos (image from Street View)
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I was not surprised to see an unexpected stone stairway …
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unexpected stairway (image from Street View)
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and a roadside fountain …
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water ‘fountain’ in roadway west of Lansallos (image from Street View)
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I think this is a way of making the water in a hillside stream more accessible, but it made me think of the magical associations of woodland pools …
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July 25, 2013 ‘reflection’ Jane Tims
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Best View: a stone house near Lansallos … pen and watercolor …
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July 22, 2013 ‘stone house near Lansallos’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2013 Jane Tims
an abandoned house
On my virtual biking trip along the Sèvre Niortaise in central France, I saw an abandoned house. Its roof had collapsed, its side buildings were reduced to ruined stone walls and its windows and doors were empty eyes …
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It reminded me of a painting of an abandoned house by Liam Rainsford (published as ‘Abandoned’ on his Blog on April 15, 2012). You can see his painting at http://liamrainsford.com/2012/04/14/abandoned-oil-painting/
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I have been writing a series of poems on the theme of abandonment and Liam’s haunting painting inspired this poem:
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abandoned house
– response to the painting ‘Abandoned’ by Liam Rainsford (April 15, 2012)
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stone ruin,
vacant, a shell
disinterested (since they went away)
in the state of the road
or comings and goings
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only the fence posts have opinions
one, a stoic, is the neighbor’s boy,
waits by the gate
one post swoons in disbelief –
roof fallen in, garden weedy,
fields overgrown
what’s a good fence for, but to keep hunger away?
keep people in?
fence wires lead off, toward the east
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walk through the front door, into open air
views unobstructed
tree tops, remote hills, expanses of sky
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ghosts are lonely here,
peering into windows, entering
the lean-to door
with a basket of eggs,
over and over
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Copyright Jane Tims 2013
the mysterious ‘x’
On my virtual biking trip along the Sèvre Niortaise in central France, I have encountered a mystery. On many of the houses I see, there is an ‘X’ on the side of the house. Occasionally there are two. Sometimes the ‘X’ appears to be made of iron. Sometimes it is pressed into the structure of the wall.
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an ‘X’ on the wall of a house (image from Street View)
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another ‘X’ (image from Street View)
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At first, I thought they might mark the location of some feature, such as an underground water line…
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a pair of ‘X’s (image from Street View)
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Do you know the meaning of the mysterious ‘X’?
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another mysterious ‘x’ (image from Street View)
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I think I have figured it out, based on the photo below which shows a bolt in the center of the ‘X’. I think, at some time in the past, the metal ‘X’ was part of the method of shoring up an older house with bowed walls, in danger of collapse. I think the ‘X’ is the outside part of a cable that runs through the walls of the house. The ‘X’ is a kind of cleat, distributing the pressure over the outside walls, preventing the cable from pulling through the wall.
Do you think I am right?
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yet another mysterious ‘x’ (image from Street View)
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Copyright Jane Tims 2013
gathering eggs
When we visited my grandfather’s farm in the 1960s, boredom was never a problem. Every day brought a new discovery or learning. One of the best activities was to help in the gathering of eggs.
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gathering eggs
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first breath after rooster presses
crowbar under sun catches
dew in the three-angled strawberry leaves
and light pings sapphire,
red, amber, emerald to opening eyes
I see Dandy waiting
black and white counterpoint to rainbow
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he greets me, ignores
the chickens scratching
along random lines, we trek
to the barn together
push the man-door, open the pen
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Diane has promised a gather
of eggs, shows me how
to shoo the hen, part the straw,
roll the egg into my hand,
build the stack in the basket
set each in a three-angled
cradle of eggs
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Dandy watches the rooster
red comb and wattles,
amber neck, iridescent tail
ignores white eggs and chickens
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Previously published as ‘gathering eggs’, Canadian Stories 15 (84), April 2012
Copyright Jane Tims 2012
a moment of beautiful – a swing in the orchard
the space: in the shade of a tree
the beautiful: an old wooden swing
The sight of a swing hanging from the solid limb of an old tree recalls happy hours of swinging when I was a child.
On my grandfather’s farm, the swing was a swing-chair, and I spent hours pushing the old swing to its limits (see ‘in the apple orchard’ the post for August 9, 2011, under the category ‘my grandfather’s farm’). At home in Ralston, Alberta, the community playground had an adult-sized swing set, strong enough to withstand our approach of ‘stand on the seat and pump’. And, when my son was little, we had an old-fashioned board and rope swing – it was a little off-kilter and seemed to go side-to-side rather than forward-and-backward but I remember he and I had lots of fun.
My own childhood story about board and rope swings is bitter-sweet. My Dad built me a swing and hung it from the rafters in the basement of our house in Medicine Hat. I loved it, but … one day I let go of the ropes and fell backwards, hitting my head on the concrete floor. I can still remember the intense pain and the big black star that dominated my vision for a moment. People who know me will say this explains a lot.
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swing sway
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the old swing
hangs frayed from a limb
of the apple tree
sways
hips as she waits
for the downtown bus
rocking learned
in baby years
when rhythm brought peace
and a quiet evening
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© Jane Tims 2012
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