Here in Ontario, summer continues to dominate with heat and spectacular storms. It’s too hot to work outside. It’s so humid we rival Texas most days. So the perennials in my gardens are on their own, left to thrive or perish.
Luckily, most of the late summer bloomers are very showy and do quite fine in weather extremes.
Bring on the heat!
Under this carnival of colour, though (and discovered when I took a slow meander through the yard) are a few plants quietly doing what they do in a more subdued way. Like the deep black seed pods of Baptisia australis: shake them and they rattle like little maracas.
Shake it, baby!
Or the high-gloss finish on the leaves of native Pacysandra.
Getting her shine on!
One plant in particular got me thinking about strengths and abilities, and inspired this month’s poem.
Maybe you’ll consider making a point of meandering slowly one summer day – it’s surprising what you can find when you take time to look a little closer!
My favourite kind of summer day has always been one that starts with rain and then clears completely. There’s an exaggerated brightness to that kind of day. The kind of day when the sky flattens to a slate of blue, all the clouds erased. The sun’s rays bounce off puddles, which soon sizzle and vanish… and briefly, the grass holds sparkly water droplets.
I remember one such washed-clean day when a troop of kids from my neighbourhood in Niagara Falls headed off to the Municipal Pool. Municipal Pool was on Valley Way, a good twelve or so blocks from home: down Scott Street to Portage Road, left on Portage, first right, then all the way down to the end, walking parallel to Morrison Street where St. Mary’s School sat, empty and powerless. A gaggle of kids in a straggly line, we wore flip-flops and bathing suits. Colourful towels draped our shoulders, weighted in the corners by nickels tied securely, for popsicles after the swim. Of course, little sisters dragged their towels and got dirt and grass all over them. And every block or so, a couple of the older kids would suddenly surge forward on the wings of their towel-capes. Suddenly – a rainbow! A miracle of nature above the line of giant chestnut trees on Portage Road.
This month’s poem, “What’s Under the Surface,” was inspired by a summer afternoon along the Ottawa River. It celebrates slowing down in this all-too-brief season. May you have the opportunity to do just that!
It’s Canada Day in my part of the world, and that brings me to thoughts about home: what is a home, what home means to me, and also the places I call home.
Do you ever think about that? I wonder how you’d define “home” for yourself.
To me, home is family, and I’m blessed to have a close one: my husband and our boys; my siblings and I; all our children – a.k.a. “The Cousins” – and now the next generation, for whom we’ll have a celebration this month, which has been dubbed the “Dozens of CousinsFest.”
Home to me means sanctuary. It’s the place where I create my definition of beauty: gardens and plants, warm colours inside and out, plus all the special items collected over time and generations.
Baptisia in my back garden
I’ve realized recently that there are three places I call home:
Canada. I’m so grateful to my ancestors who chose this magnificent country! I’m currently on a mission to visit the northern, southern, eastern and western-most points in Canada. Two down, two to go!
Richmond and Ottawa, Ontario. My village of Richmond is officially part of Ottawa, yet retains its separate identity and is actually older than the capital. I’ve been out in the village photographing and writing, and the inspiration I’m finding makes this Richmond 200 project so much fun! And recently, Geoff and I enjoyed a “staycation” in Ottawa, taking in the Jazzfest and other activities usually reserved for tourists. We barely got started on the list of things to do and see!
Ottawa’s Rideau Canal
Muskoka. The Smith family cottage is a magnet for all family members and many friends too. Ten people and 3 dogs are there this weekend, in the middle of a heatwave and a power outage. Still, as my sister is fond of saying, “a bad day at the cottage is better than a good day at home!”
Three Mile Lake, Muskoka
All of this is my long-winded introduction to this month’s photo and poem, called “Where is Home?” Originally inspired by a scene near our cottage, it’s a poem that has had quite a bit of exposure. It was first published in the May 11 issue of the Glebe Report‘s Poetry Corner (page 30); their theme was “home.” You can also see it in the Richmond Hub newspaper, where I paired it with a scene along the Jock River in Richmond, which was no less inspiring to me! I hope you click to take a look at that scene.
Happy Canada Day, everyone! May your thoughts of home be as satisfying as mine.
Two hundred and forty-seven years ago, on June 11, 1771, my six-times great-grandparents were accosted by a band of armed locals who assaulted them, threatened their lives, and then ran them off their land. Donald and Mary McIntyre were forced to flee several miles south with their three young children and six neighbouring families, caught in a jurisdictional dispute between New York and New Hampshire.
The McIntyres had just recently arrived to their 200 acre piece of the colony of New York (along the North River in Albany County) and had begun the onerous process of clearing and improving the land for farming. Donald had been granted this land by the British King after discharge from fighting in the Seven Years War. But on that day in June, the family found out that New Hampshire also claimed their land. Not only that, a group calling themselves the “Green Mountain Boys” had taken up arms to roust the “New Yorkers,” then tear down the log houses they had built, pile them in heaps and burn them.
McIntyre and the others tried to return later, but were again expelled. Without a crop, they were left completely without means to support and feed themselves.
From where they had fled in New Perth (now Salem, New York) they petitioned the Governor, asking what he would have them do. Should they give up the lands, or defend them with force? Or maybe there was some course of law by which the Governor could deal with the situation?
Petition of displaced Loyalist settlers, 1771. Note Donald McIntyre’s signature
The Governor dealt with it by ordering the Justices of the Peace in Albany to investigate this “riot.” Three months later, in November, one of the Justices responded. Here’s part of what he wrote:
On the very Eve of a long hard winter it is very Schocking to see so many poor familys reduced to so great Distress and if they had not been hospitably entertained by the Rev’d Mr Clark & his people their Straits must have been exceeding great.
The Governor then issued a warrant for the arrest of the Green Mountain Boys and their leader, who were determined to be responsible. The leader, Ethan Allan, remained at large and I do not know if the fourteen Boys who assaulted the settlers were ever captured.
In any case, after seven years of war, instead of beginning their new lives in the American Colony and reaping the first crops on land granted to them for loyalty to the King, for five months my six-times great grandparents had to live on the charitable gifts of friends and the congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in New Perth.
There is more to the story of these ancestors, which I’ll write about in Part 2. Meanwhile, I’m reflecting on the nature of hardship, imagining the conversations among those seven displaced families while they decided what next steps to take, and looking around at my own privileged circumstances this day in June, 247 years later.
My heartfelt thanks goes out to Jim Issak and John Blythe Dobson, whose diligent research unearthed this previously unpublished petition of our ancestor, Donald/Daniel McIntyre. Jim recently shared with me their excellent article, “Daniel McIntyre, United Empire Loyalist, of The Town of Argyle, Albany County, New York, and Grimsby Township, Lincoln County, Upper Canada,” published in the July 2017 issue of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.
Hello there! Is it finally springtime in your neighbourhood?
Last week as the air in my neighbourhood finally softened, I took the opportunity to explore Richmond Village – my community. I wanted to see what might remain from its original settlement 200 years ago.
Site of original settlement, Richmond Ontario
The short answer is: not much remains. The longer answer is that I spent a wonderful few hours along the banks of the Jock River, which bisects the village, in the vicinity of the original “Government Reserve” block of land. Most of this block is now a subdivision, but there remains a small undeveloped piece in the south-east corner. I wandered happily back and forth along a path that used to be where two major roads intersected, delighting in the experience of standing where key events in the history of my village took place. Here in 1818 was the Commissariat, where supplies were handed out and the soldiers collected their pensions. Here was the first school, which for the initial seven years of Richmond’s existence was also home to all denominations of churches.
Richmond was a military settlement, established by veterans of the War of 1812, most of them from Ireland. We know quite a lot about the first soldier/settlers: the ranks they held, the businesses they started, the legacies they’ve left in the village, including their names on our streets. As is typical with history, we know much less about Richmond’s first women. I found myself wondering about these women and lamenting how so few details about them survive, compared to their men. I’ve blogged about this topic before (How Women Get Lost in History) and last week I wrote even more about it: a poem based on historical facts, about what a Richmond pioneer woman might have experienced (published in the Richmond Hub).
Julianna Molnar, circa 1910
This in turn led me to think about my own ancestral mothers and how I’ve worked hard to unearth details about their lives that might tell me something substantive about them. For the most part, they remain shrouded in time. This makes me sad, and also makes me want to honour them – especially my pioneer, immigrant great-grandmothers, for the particular hardships they endured.
My way of honouring is writing. So this month’s poem is for Julianna Molnár Gerencsér, my maternal great-grandmother. Happy Mothers Day, to all our ancestral mothers!
We are experiencing a reluctant spring here in Ottawa. The ground is still frozen, the neighbourhood lawns sit brown and matted, tiny buds hold tight to tree branches. For an April-born soul like me, this extended grip of winter is like a tether I’m chafing against. I need the soft spring warmth and new green sprouts of my favourite season to renew my inspiration and energy. Are you feeling the same way?
It seems that for now my challenge is to seek out the few brave tips that have broken through the crust of soil and find inspiration with what nature has to offer, instead of complaining and protesting the latest weather forecast.
So I took myself out into the back yard and found these brave tips:
And I took myself out into my community and found some more brave tips and with them, the inspiration for this month’s poem, The Only Way You Get to Bloom.
I remind myself that Nature is wise and patient and steadfast – all things I am not. I’ll take these early signs as proof that spring is emerging… albeit on her own timetable. May you also experience the wisdom of Nature this month!
