On a very rainy day here a photo from Florence 2019

“I crossed over to Broadway and walked north to 

Twenty-fifth Street to the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral

dedicated to Saint Seva, the patron saint of the Serbs, 

I stopped, as I had many times before, to visit the 

bust of Nikola Tesla, the patron saint of alternating current, 

placed outside the church like a lone sentinel.

I stood as a Con Edison truck 

parked within eyeshot. No respect, I thought.

from M Train, Patti Smith

Florence Sept. 2019 / The Arno River rose to its highest levels today since 1992.

“Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine.”

Henry James

It does not seem to end.

https://www.theflorentine.net/news/2019/11/flooding-tuscany-florence/

Last night's storm, two out of there dogs were very, very, unhappy.

"My people, now it is time

for us all to shake hands with the rain.

It's a neighbour, lives here all winter.

Talkative, yes. It will tap late 

at night on your door and stay there

gossiping. It goes away without goodbye

leaving its gray touch on old wood.

—- barefoot, it has walked 

with us with its silver passport all over the world."

from Wovoka's Witness

by William Stafford

Last night's storm was brief, but came with one of the most visible storm fronts I have ever seen. We has some thunder and lightning. The clouds built up from the direction of the grid road with this layering of different coloured bands towering up into the sky. That was followed by the front itself moving out across the slough. Then there was a period of heavy rain when the slough almost disappeared. After that things cleared, it all probably took less than a hour all told.

After the rain.

"What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?"

from Days by Philip Larkin

Trip to the cabin

"As I sit for a while after breakfast

reading a few pages

with a shadowing sense

that I am stealing the moment

from something else

that I ought to be doing

so the pleasure of stealing is part of it"

from Theft of Morning

W.S. Merwin

Our trip was good, the south is very dry however, before Kindersley we saw a white dust devil from one of the salt flats. It rained between Kindersley and Bigger which was a blessing, The young lady at the hotel told me it was the first rain they had had this spring after not much snow. The cabin came thru the winter in great shape, no mice got in. We have seen lots of ducks and I have been able to get some nice photos, a real contrast with last year when my cataracts were so bad. I have already found three ticks, one on Whateley and two on me so I will have to use lots of bug spray and keep after the grass. I am also getting a haircut.  

“I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which 

being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, 

induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides 

cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting 

from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.”

from Moby Dick

by Herman Melville

“A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and 

full of wonders.” 

by Lord Dunsany

We had a bat in the cabin so the mouse related cleaning has 

expanded. Trips to the dump, nailing of boards, caulking,

reorganizing, plastic bins….,

 We brought the canoe over from the farm today so 

hopefully we can get out on the slough this week.

This Red Necked Grebe has nested on the far side of the 

slough directly across from the cabin.

We have had several days of rain for a couple of inches so far.

This family of Canadian Geese are also nesting on the slough, 

this is only the second year we have had geese here. 

The other night the beavers alerted us, with much slapping of tails,

to several deer on the far side of the slough. After several years

of only seeing a couple of deer for an entire summer it looks

like the population has rebounded.

We have also not see the bear or any of it's scat so far.

We have only see one garter snake in two weeks, normally we

would see multiple snakes each time we walked the dogs. It is

interesting to observe how the animal populations seem to 

fluctuate from year to year.

“Then I perceived, what I had never thought, that all these staring 

houses were not alike, but different one from another, 

because they held different dreams.” 

from A Dreamer's Tales

by Lord Dunsany

"Well, what tongue does the wind talk? 

What nationality is a storm? 

What country do rains come from? 

What color is lightning? 

Where does thunder goe when it dies?” 

from Something Wicked This Way Comes

by Ray Bradbury

On July 4th I wrote about a big thunderstorm we had. Aside from

dog related trauma things seem to go okay. However the next day

my brother-in-law found one of his younger cows dead on a hill 

in the pasture possibly struck by lightning. It definitely struck this

poplar trees in one of the hay fields.

Storm

"Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, 

whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through 

the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!

 Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!"

Ahab; Moby Dick 

Last night we had a tremendous storm come thru in the late evening. 

The dark clouds boiled up the lane faster than any I had seen before,

 and then engulfed the slough in front of the cabin. I understand the 

front ranged all the way to Saskatoon which is about 90 kilometres

 away. While it raged we had a couple of very nervous dogs and 

Whateley who had a snack. Both my brother-in-law and my 

mother-in-law up the road lost power but thanks to my wife's

solar panel/battery array we kept our lights on and our cabin

cheery, after it was gone we had received an inch or rain. 

"The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? — 

Because one did survive the wreck."

Ishmael

Pelican, seen from the cabin porch on a day of rain.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, —and done a hundred things.

You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along,"

from High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr

"One dark and rainy night at the edge 

of a city on the edge of an ocean, 

a stray cat came walking down 

the beach. 

Across from an old hotel covered 

with vines, the cat stopped. As he 

looked at that place, he got a 

strange warm feeling inside him. I 

think, thought the cat, I am tired of 

being a stray cat."

from Mister Got To Go

Story by Lois Simmie

Illustrations by Cynthia Nugent

And so finally we will end our, in blog post time, fairly long

visit to the Sylvia Hotel which I want to mention is also the

setting for the two wonderful books pictured above.

So a quick look at some of characters and sights

we encountered on the trip.

                                                                                 

"These plants grew abundantly in the wet coastal 

weather and drooped out over the fronts

of the houses. If a person liked the fog and rain, 

he'd like Seaside. It seemed to Jonathan

to be the sort of place where a chap could 

write great poetry while peering down at the 

fog-shrouded streets from a fourth-floor attic study."

               The Elfin Ship

                             James Blaylock

 "You are so far away
On this cold and empty night
As I lie in a hotel room
Lookin' at a street light
Outside my window
I listen to the rain
And the sounds of the passin' cars
And the waves on English Bay"

 

   from English Bay

  Blue Rodeo

 

 

"The Sylvia Hotel is a designated heritage building,

ideally located on English Bay, beside Stanley Park

and just 5 minutes from downtown Vancouver.

Built in 1912, the Sylvia Hotel is a city landmark

and one of Vancouver's greatest treasures."

 

From the Sylvia Hotel Website

 

Helen and I have been starting to feel the grey

days of winter so in mid March we were off to

one of our favorite spots,  the Sylvia Hotel on

English Bay in Vancouver. On one side you have

Denman Street with lots of restaurants, in front

the beach and the Seawall, and a block or so away

on the other side Stanley Park. A  1000 acre park

with thousands of fir, cedar, and hemlock trees. In

Mid March we are still too early for the beautiful

displays of rhododendrons and azaleas but despite

the rain, off and on for two of our four days and the

occasional cold winds, it is green and there is no

snow. Our room a corner suite on the seventh floor

has a view of the lights of Denman Street from the

bedroom and views of the bay from the living room.

 

After a walk along the Seawall we had a wonderful

meal at the Legendary Noodle House and picked up

some flowers for the room.

 

 

 

Photo taken from our suite

someone braves the rain to explore

the beach.

 

 

Large groups of gulls and crows frequent the

seawall. Cormorants, herons and rafts of ducks

can normally be seen along the bay.

 

 

 

The Seawall is a favorite place to walk dogs.

 

 

 

A solitary Heron watching the waiting ships

 

 

The following photos were taken from our suite.

 

 

The lights of Denman St from our suite.

"About me the night   moonless   wimples the mountains
wraps ocean   land   air  and mounting
sucks at the stars   The city   throbbing below
webs the sable peninsula   The golden
strands overleap the seajet   by bridge and buoy
vault the shears of the inlet   climb the woods
toward me   falter  and halt   Across to the firefly
haze of a ship on the gulps erased horizon
roll the lambent spokes of a lighthouse"

 

      from Vancouver Lights

  Earle Birney