St. Nicholaas Naacht 2013

A beautiful lady named Laureen

Was a princess but now she's a Queen

She's a writer, an artist, an outstanding fartist

And because she's Dutch,

All her baseboards are clean.

by Steve for Laureen to celebrate St. Nicholaas Day

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, I like this work, you Know.

Well Steve is back, hard at work, being Director of the College of Sustainability. Last week he and his friends played for Orientation night. I believe he is singing Jungle Book's 'King of the Jungle'. I'll have to figure out how to video him for you.

Steve on banjo, Ute on ukelele

There is a new issue of Open Heart Forgery, grass roots poetry. See the link on the side of the blog under Blog List.

I've sent off 30 pages to be commented upon by my writing Mentor at Humber. That was a week ago. My nails are bitten to the quick. What's he going to say? How much red pencil will there be? 

I attended a workshop this Saturday on how to make Protest Posters. Led by Franke James, an artist who examines politics and the environment. She is on Harper's enemy list. It was interesting session.

Each person considered the question "What is the hardest thing I could do?" with respect to engaging in environmental sensitivity, or social action, or justice. Topics like turning the heat down, reducing air miles, looking at the larger picture of perplexing questions and so on were all turned into cool posters.

Here's mine.

The hardest thing for me to do is cook. But since I loathe it, instead I'm in charge of menu planning, shopping, preserving, clean up and more clean up.We stay local, we stay with fair trade products and we eat fabulously.

My needle is almost as active as my pen these days. I have knit the 12 bootie sets for my mom's charity, Happy Hands. I forgot to take pictures. I still have enough yarn for next year's dozen.

I have finally put the backing on this piece. I think I love it. For a change, I really, really like what I made.

And..... I am back at the blog. My head is a little loose on it's neck, trying to find the groove of what to write about, but I'm sure it will all flow smoothly again soon. Hot Flash Woman is about to recommence. Hop on over there if you have forgotten about her or have fallen behind in her adventures.

http://hotflashwoman.wordpress.com/

Two cords of wood are due to arrive this week and will need stacking in the wood sheds. Yick. I should book an appointment with my hero, Ken, the osteopath now to take care of my inevitably ruined neck. Now I am off to be a good student and read "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk and E.B. White. (yes, that E.B. White)

Local Poetry in Halifax

An espaliered fruit tree at Annapolis Royal Botanical Garden, Nova Scotia

Well, here's something new to me. I heard about this a year ago, but last week a hard copy of a poetry journal was placed in my hands and voila!

Open Heart Farming, The Second Seeding, Vol 2. is now available at
http://www.ohforgery.com/

Open Heart's mandate is simple, yet powerful. It is an annual journal of poems on food and farming by Nova Scotians. It is published by Open Heart Forgery, Halifax's grass roots poetry journal. Each month there is a free, downloadable collection and they ask you to share it with others.

Here we have a different kind of garden, local effort, local art, inspired by local greens or not, if there's a drought. It is modest, humble and perfectly beautiful.

There is an annual Anthology, available at Bookmark for $10 or you can order it online (I think)
http://ohforgery.com/OHFanthology.html

I'd like to share with you two poems, one by a Quaker Friend, Sylvia Mangalam and the other because I like it. Of course, I like Sylvia's as well, but there is the Quaker connection that is always fun to toss out.

Fall Rite by Sylvia Mangalam

The Kentucky Blue bean swelled
Bigger than they should.
Tired of the garden,
I picked them anyway.

It's a sort of rite
This anticlimatic harvest
Reaching for the high fat ones,
Rounded over full seeds.

Gathering up the dry corn--
What can I do with this?
The last green tomatoes,
Last marjoram sprigs--

This genuflecting gleaning
Respects all the work here
Of God, of worms, of me.

And this one by Jaywant (Joe) Patil

Fruitless Tree (inspired by Luke 13:6-9)
The farmer about to chop down the tree
which had been fruitless for year three.
Give me another chance begged the tree.
I will be fruitful for sure next year,
if you fertilize and dig around me this year.
Everyone deserves a second chance sire.

These two poems have a spiritual dimension, but there are lots of plain old secular poems as well. One dedicated to hops, another to alfalfa, another to saltwater.