Category Archives: Spring

The Magic of Willows

Willows in fall

After the leaves are gone from the trees in the fall, and before they make their miraculous appearance in the spring, I only have eyes for willow!! Not quite true, but it is during late fall, through winter, and into early spring when the willows – the small reddish bushes by sloughs, water of any kind or in ditches – claim my heart. Especially in the season of spring, when the colours of their branches seem to change daily, when they start to look like burning bushes along the road. One willow bush can have branches that are gold, yellow, olive green, copper, rust, red, burgundy, purple/black, grey, brown and a myriad of shades in between.

Catkins are edible, high in vitamin C, and can be eaten on their own, fried with other food or added to soup.

This spring, the spring of the pandemic, we will all remember. Amongst the gifts of this time for me has been more time outdoors to truly take time to notice. Just across the road from our farm are two small sloughs, both surrounded by willow, aspen, and red osier dogwood. Each day, I have visited the willows, noticing not only 4 varieties of catkins, but especially the vivid and ever-changing colours of their bark. How a very old gnarled willow, which is mostly grey, can have young shoots of every colour. How some branches are greeny gold at their base, moving into an almost orange, and as we get towards the top they turn red or burgundy.

Taking time to notice meant that I could bring willow boughs into the house to paint as it has been wintry and cool outside. I spent a week painting “Willow Meditation#1”. You will see some red osier dogwood here as well because I simply couldn’t resist it! Painting is a way of becoming acquainted with my plant relatives, and teaches me to notice, to take a second or third look. Painting humbles me – the colours look different once I bring the branches inside, and they are very hard to replicate. I never quite do, but I certainly have fun trying!

Willow Meditation #1 (1st week of April), 11″ x 18″, watercolour

As i was painting Willow Meditation #1, I began to notice more and more yellow and orange branches, so I began a second willow meditation. Sometimes I ran outside with a branch, looked at it with the sun on it, and ran inside to see if I could I could come a little closer to the vibrancy.

“Willow Meditation #2″ (2nd week of April), 11″ x 18”, watercolour

on the left, watercolour sketches, on the right an acrylic effort and at the top, the inner bark of willow

This spring, I have been inspired to paint the willow branches close up. Other years, I have tried to catch a bit of their spirit from far away.

Not all willow trees have pussy willows. An individual tree will produce either male (pollen-producing) or female (seed-producing) flowers, so cross-pollination and fertilization is necessary.

A compound called salicin is found in the inner bark of willow trees – this compound is used as pain relief in aspirin, and many other herbal medicines.

What will I do with my bouquets of willow branches? I will enjoy them a bit longer and then can cut them up and put them in jars of water. After a few days, remove the willow stalks and you have root hormone which will help you with spring transplanting! New transplants also love to be watered with this willow water. Or perhaps I could plant them and create a “living willow hedge”? I could scrape out the inner bark, add it juniper berries collected on the hillsides, and put in my bath with epsom salts – this combination is said to soothe aching muscles.

Willow is flexible and has long been used to make baskets, and more recently furniture, fences and art. The photos below show outside art made with willows in Dawson City, Yukon.

Thanks to Beverly Gray, The Boreal Herbal: Wild Food and Medicine Plants of the North, Aroma Borealis Press, 2011, pages 269-273

What I Notice

I notice that I love this slowed down world, even as I sometimes feel grief and worry, or even guilt for appreciating the leisurely pace of life.

I notice that I am breathing more slowly.

I notice that after a week of steady Covid 19 news, I had to shut off the radio and social media for a few days to let my head and heart clear, to give myself time to really take this in. I felt too full – of information, of statistics, of black humour, jokes and diversions, of helpful philosophical takes.

I notice in a new way how deeply grateful I am to live where I live, to have discovered the richness of a small piece of land across the road made up of shelterbelt and wetlands, marsh grasses and willow, ruffed grouse, rabbit, fox, coyote, deer and more. My “noticing walks” take more time because I don’t have to rush off anywhere.

I notice new tracks each day.

I notice my joy in the easy companionship with our two old dogs, Lady Lucy and Hercules, who are the reason I walk here. Noses to the ground, ears alert, tails awagging, their body language reminds me that I am missing so much.

I notice the male ruffed grouse who has lived here all winter, successfully avoiding the fox, and who is drumming for his mate. I haven’t seen her yet! I notice the pairs of hungarian partridge who I disturb as they sit together near where I walk. I notice the magpies, the ravens, the spring call of the chickadees.

I notice the marsh grass and the brome grass and how the posture and bearing of each is unique. I spend longer than usual looking at dried weeds and I take some home to paint. I become completely captivated by their forms and paint dead plants and their seed heads for several days.

I have always wanted to paint plants at this time of the year, but I have never taken the time to do so before this quarantine. I like to befriend wildflowers and plants – getting to know them better in all seasons and stages is an investment in this rich friendship.

Each day I notice things that I have given a fleeting glance to before, but which I have never before given my full attention.

It’s a little like my gradual understanding of Covid 19 and being quarantined. The other night I dreamed that I was at social gatherings and no one was social distancing. I didn’t have the right language to tell them they must. In this way, Covid 19 has entered my dreams and my sub-conscious world. But in so many other ways, it feels surreal.

Each day, I learn about how the threat of Covid 19 is affecting others – the homeless, those in prison, those seeking shelter from abuse. The cracks in our society are more evident – people being paid minimum wage, losing work with nowhere to fall. The moms who are working at home, and homeschooling, and holding it all together – or not. How this might feel for those in poor or compromised health. Businesses on the brink of shutting down. The grocery store and pharmacy workers, some elderly, going to work day in and day out. The cleaners and laundry workers, care workers, nurses, lab technicians, nurses and doctors who are keeping our hospitals and long term care facilities open and safe. Just yesterday, I read about a woman with breast cancer whose scheduled mastectomy has been cancelled, and who cannot learn how her breast cancer is progressing. I hear these stories as if through a layer of fuzzy wool, distantly. Somehow, these realities are not fully penetrating my being.

My sitting chair in the marsh. Wonderful place for long phone calls or just to sit

Noticing the weave and colours of this chair

I suspect that this will change with time. It will most certainly change when I or someone I know contracts Covid 19, or is affected in some direct way by this pandemic. We learn by degrees. Our minds are absorbing so much. It takes a long while for our bodies to catch up, to fully take in all that this pandemic means. In the meantime, I will accept the gift of time to truly notice the beautiful world just past my door. To be truly here.

It seems fitting to close with this beautiful poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer called “Here”.

Even as the snow was falling,
the birds in the branches
kept singing into morning,
easing their bright notes
into the thin gray spaces
between snowflakes.

There are days, imagine,
when the birds go unheard.
And it isn’t for lack of song—
the single note chirp
of sparrow, the bass of raven,
the chickadee’s hey swee-tee.

Some gifts come only
when we stay in one place,
come only when we are alone,
come only when we stop praying
to be somewhere else and instead
pray to be here.

Y0u can receive a poem a day from the wonderful Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Go to her website and subscribe at the bottom.

Tree

First, I bought the paper. Last piece in the store. A vivid luminous green just like the spring we know is coming….someday. Couldn’t leave that paper alone….I saw a tree in that paper, a tree with the roots showing. I took out the scissors and followed the patterns on the paper, and slowly, cut out a tree. Next came birds in the tree. First try, the branches obscured the birds too much and as my favourite art critic, Jessie, said, “Mum, that really sucks.” She was right!! But the birds persisted…. that tree was calling for BIRDS!! With some birds, I recreated the branches with a lighter green rice paper so the branches would not be so overwhelming. With others, I took the branch right out of the tree showing the bird’s colours boldly. Time after time, I turn the tree over and hold it up to the light….the tree is different on each side.Sometimes I am surprised!

the branches on this bird are made with a lighter coloured rice paper than the original branchescc

Linda came for a visit and made an artists trading card while we worked

A few weeks previous, I had Glacier Glass cut a variety of sizes of plexiglass. When I picked them up, I was amazed as one piece was huge (30″ x 42″) – certainly the biggest piece I have worked with so far. “What was I thinking?” I wondered. “Where will I store it?” I hid it under the couch. Turns out that this piece is exactly the right size for this tree!!

Next step is to put the tree on plexi glass with tape and add more birds and branches before I can apply the special glue used with plexiglass.

Just one piece of plexi glass with the protective wrap on the other side giving it that wax paper look. There are still some branches, roots and birds to add.

“Tree”is complete. large and unwieldy as it is, I take it out to photograph it!! It blows off everything. So, finally, I lay it in the grass.

“Tree” lying in the grass!
Rice paper, other paper in plexiglass

Then I lean it against the barn door and get some photos, inside and out!!

“Tree” Rice Paper in Plexiglass sitting in the barn door. This is the opposite side from the one pictured in the grass above.

“Tree” Rice paper in plexiglass, from the inside of the barn…love the shadows

detail “Tree” – rice paper and plexiglass

Thanks to darlene dePourque who lent me Mary Lou’s window and took this photo with a fish eye lens. My friend Maggie wrote that it looked like the tree had uprooted and let the birds take it for a flight!!

Next stop – the Paper Umbrella in Regina!

My first ever “What a Lark!” party

I received a phone call from Laureen after she visited my post entitled “An Exultation of Larks”. Winter was not loosening its grip on us. It seemed like it would go on forever. During this particular winter, Laureen had broken her leg and been homebound. So the longest winter in memory was even longer for Laureen!

Laureen was certain that she could bring on spring by dreaming up a party that celebrated women’s enduring friendships, the promise of the birds returning and a chance for all of us just to be, to play a little and have some fun. My part in the party was to read from my children’s book, Madame de Toucainville’s Magnificent Hat and to lead the women as they created their own colourful rice paper birds. We would have a lark together!

All of this was a surprise for Laureen’s friends.They knew they would be fed, and they each brought a pair of scissors but they knew not why! Many had never been in the “Lantern” before – at the back of the Early Learning Centre in Regina. Laureen has friends from many walks of life – some were meeting here for the first time. Laureen began with a warm welcome, a short rant about the evils of plastic and packaging (and what she was going to do about it). She had prepared a delicious bag lunch for each woman attending – no plastics were used. Homemade quiche, chocolates, cookies and a beautiful fruit cup. I first met Laureen at a True Knit Art Show. Laureen is a warm, loving, and creative person full of joie de vivre and it was so much fun to be with the women in her world for an afternoon. Below are some pictures of how together, we encouraged spring to come and stay in Saskatchewan. “What a lark!” it was.. Thanks, Laureen!

P.S. For those who attended, I never did share where Poached Egg Woman comes from. Click here to find out!

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