Pumpkinhead!

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(Clockwise from top left): The ghost pumpkin M carved into sugar skull goodness doing double-duty as my noggin; soontofu chigae and all the fixings from Kimch'i in the Exchange with my friend Perry after a morning of postering for UMP's Grassy Narrows event; still-life with slippers, specifically, M's and mine on the floor in front of our bed this morning; Kirsten Wurrman introducing Cheryl Miki and I at an Imagining Winnipeg event at Westwood Library,

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Is it just me, or has this fall been particularly pumpkinhead-y? (By which I mean chock full of deadlines and events...)

But in amidst the tearing around and the bleeding eyes (and that cold that lasted three weeks), there was lots of good stuff that I sort of wanted to acknowledge for myself, if no one else.

Like dressing up Aa in a sugar skull costume that involved an involved face painting and watching M apply all his small/precise skills to the ghost pumpkin he'd picked up.

Like unearthing my slippers and noting ruefully the wear pattern in the rabbit fur that edges it. I hate the idea of being predictable, but apparently I cross my ankles the exact same way every night, when sitting on the couch watching TV with M.

Like all the events, some for UMP and some on my own behalf. I sometimes forget, in the midst of planning and promoting said events, how necessary they are, not for selling books (or not only) but also for connecting, as people, with audiences. 

For instance, I spent an hour or so on election night in the basement of Westwood Library. I was there because I was doing a slideshow/talk from UMP's Imagining Winnipeg photo book with my smart-as-a-whip colleague Cheryl Miki. And I couldn't help but notice how everyone was made just a little bit happier by sitting in the dark, looking at photos and talking about bad old Winnipeg.

But after the outward push of effort out in the world this fall, I'm greatly looking forward to the blank slate that is the winter. I have one last deadline and then my writing days are ALL MINE.

Which is such a goddamn relief.

Has your fall ALSO been a great and marvelous gongshow? I'm curious...

Giantess

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I wonder what pumpkin sap would taste like?

Giant

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All photos from the Roland Pumpkin Fair, Roland, MB. October 6, 2012.

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So after an absence of two years, we went to the Roland Pumpkin Fair in Roland.

My friend Tessa is from Roland, so she introduced me to it's many varied pleasures a decade ago. For me, it's not fall unless I spend some time contemplating both the giant pumpkins that are the fair's main attraction but also the flower arrangements and quilts that are in 4H competition down the street.

This year's winner was approximately 1, 235 pounds but all the pumpkins in competition are behind the stage. And everyone goes back to see the also-rans, which vary in colour, texture and shape.

And while M lifted the girl up and onto one giant, I spent a few minutes contemplating the stems of two others. They're perhaps too obviously umbilical, but still. Much depends on the stem connecting these giants to their vines and ultimately to the ground.

Sharpener. Lead.

Shavings.

Pencils, freshly sharpened.

All photos Olha, MB. Friday, June 22, 2012.

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I've been really enjoying twilight the last few months. Not the movie/book franchise, but the day's last light. There's something about it that's been really getting to me.

So twilight PLUS the old table near the window at the hundred-year-old cabin I've been loaned PLUS my preference for lead pencils that need to be sharpened AND sturdy metal sharpeners EQUALS these photos...

It's such a goddamn relief, sometimes, to know that all I need to write is a pencil and a sharpener and a few pieces of paper. The computer is just a nicety. As are fancy journals.

(I tried to sharpen the pencils without breaking the shaving, the same way I used to try to peel apples without breaking the loop of peel. The same way I would pull the peel into my mouth like it was a line and my mouth the reel. A feat of strength. Something.)

Wrinkled! Cherries!

All photos Wolseley, Winnipeg, MB. April 1, 2012.

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So instead of walking in the forest this past weekend, we got out the girl's bike and walked/biked to the furthest-away park in our neighbourhood.

Along the way, there's a house that had a massive reno this past fall, their house split open like a rib cage during heart surgery. Like a log with an axe in it. And their fence is lined by a shrub that produces these cherry-like berries.

(All fall, I wondered, "Are these berries edible? And, if so, why hadn't the owners picked them?" And then I realized: massive reno...which is as much about no-time as it is about airborne-plaster-dust.)

I had my camera with me, hoping against hope for some early boulevard mushrooms. But was happy to instead shoot last year's wizened berries with this year's new leaves...

I still have the impulse to stand in front of their shrub and shove handfuls of these beautiful cherry-like berries in my mouth, mind you. Photos only describe impulses, they don't take them away...

But maybe some time this year, while out walking, I'll see the owner puttering in their yard and ask what, exactly, the shrub is. I might find out the tempting berries are not AT ALL edible. And I will be glad for the veneer of civilization that kept me from filling my cheeks with them.

Zion National Park, part the second

All photos Zion National Park, Utah, USA. March 26, 2012.

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We took the girl to Zion for our last hike of the trip. The trails we chose were congested and even paved (which to me is NEVER a sign of a good hike), but it was fun to stand and be misted by Zion's waterfalls.

And we saw many small plants in bloom, which was something we hadn't ever witnessed in Utah. (Our previous trips had all been in January and February...)

Here's to Utah greenery, eh?

Zion National Park

All photos Zion National Park, Utah, USA. March 23, 2012.


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I got a three hour horseback ride through Zion National Park as an early birthday present. Whee!

Seriously: whee!

Bryce Canyon National Park

All photos Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, USA. March 22, 2012.

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This was our fourth trip to Utah but only our first attempt on Bryce Canyon National Park, which was two plus hours away from St. George. It was a long day, both logistically and in terms of the hike itself: lost sunglasses and a walk of nearly 4 miles.

But...all that goddamn rock! It almost didn't matter that the trail was muddy or that the last bit of our hike was nearly vertical...

We ended our day at Thai/Asian fusion restaurant in Springdale, the town just outside the park. And then we drove home under all those stars, the girl snoring softly from the back seat.

Snow Canyon: Gila Trail

All photos St. George, Utah, USA. March 21, 2012.

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The Gila Trail is a new trail, built on the edge of Snow Canyon State Park. Which means that it was ALL overlook, which was very nice. Also fun was crossing paths with a rider on horseback...

Anasazi Valley Trail

All photos Santa Clara River Reserve, Utah, USA. March 20, 2012.

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The Anasazi Valley Trail was another new-to-us trail, having been tipped to its presence by the ranger on our Johnson Canyon hike. The trailhead was poorly marked, which is often the case with local trails, but once we figured out where it was, we had a glorious hike mountain goating from rock to rock.

And the petroglyphs were, well, amazing, especially the larger groupings. Though a subsequent internet search revealed some information on which symbols were common to the different Indigenous groups that occupied the area, it was very interesting to see the petroglyphs and not know which elements were from what era. You had to take them as a whole...

Honeycomb Rocks

All photos Dixie National Forest/Enterprise, Utah, USA. March 17, 2012.

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M's parents drove us to the Honeycomb Rocks Campground, which is situated in Dixie National Forest.

The campsite is situated in a huge, heavily eroded sandstone chunk. A few sites had their picnic tables situated inside caves (!) and even though it was quite cool, we had a lot of fun climbing into the various holes and crevasses. Nearby there was the man-made Enterprise Reservoir, which has changed the dry desert-y landscape, but eating fish was out: the water is sadly contaminated with mercury.

Snow Canyon: Johnson Canyon Trail

All photos St. George, Utah, USA. March 16, 2012.

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Though we've hiked pretty much every other trail in Snow Canyon, we'd never done Johnson Canyon. It was closed to the public while we were there, but we managed to sign up for a ranger-led walk, which sadly included someone who declared loudly they she didn't believe in evolution because "The lavarock we saw in Hawaii from an eruption in the 1950s looks exactly like this rock you say is three million years old..."

In any event, it was remarkable how green this trail was compared to the rest of Snow Canyon. Trees! Water! Grass!

Snow Canyon: Hidden Pinyon Trail

All photos St. George, Utah, USA. March 15, 2012.

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Snow Canyon State Park is sort of old familiar for us, having visited St. George four times now. It has the advantage of being close by, cheap, and absolutely goddamn gorgeous. On our last trip, when the girl was 3, we did this same trail. So it was a good starting point for her and for us...

glading

As ever, thanks to M for the pic.

glade

All photos Hillside Beach, MB. July 15, 2011.

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We pulled on pants on our second-to-last day at the cabin for walk down a moped/quad trail just off what we'd taken to calling pebble beach. Though I dislike it intensely, we also slathered on both sunscreen and insect repellent.

(I wonder how we smelled to the swarms of dragonflies, buzzing the pink clover lane at the trailhead, their wings rustling like paper all around us...)

There were far fewer mushrooms than I would have expected, but I suppose that felled trees take a long time to break down to mulch in non-managed forest...

Together, we discovered patches of wild raspberries and strawberries along one stretch, the fruit just beginning to turn deep red. We watched where we stepped along another, because there were dozens and dozens of tiny frogs jumping back into the bush.

But my favourite bits of the walk were when I spied a clearing under the trees and nipped off to see what mushrooms might be growing.

I couldn't prowl around willy-nilly, because M and I are sort of fuzzy as to what "leaves of three, let it be" looks like...

Anyways, M pointed out this particular clearing, filled with big old logs that were intensely green with moss. And these tiny mushrooms, almost too small to photograph.

What I'll remember about it was that the air was green, not from light mottled through leaves, but something mossy and earthy and dim.

And that when I leaned on the softness of the log to get this shot, some unseen mushroom released its spores and it was like a mouthful of smoke drifting under my nose and I was somehow only faintly worried, me in my long pants and layers of sun/insect ooze.

I could have spent ages in that glade, but M and Aa were patiently waiting fifteen feet away...

spike

And one more...

pebbled

All photos Hillside Beach, MB. July 10,2011.

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M mowed the lawn today at the (rented) cabin. Under protest and with beer breaks. But it had to be done...

When he returned, he told me that he'd seen five or six bunches of mushrooms on the lawn. And that instead of coming in and telling me about them, he mowed them under.

I must have looked like I was about to bite him, because he hastily told me he'd ALSO seen some 'bumpy orange ones' on some logs.

I retracted my fangs/claws/tusks and proceeded outside with my (underused) camera.