Here comes the meme again...

And I am told I am supposed to tell you six random things about me. And provide the sixth photo of the sixth photo folder in my iPhotos. Meming. Hmmm. All these sixes must mean memes are Satanic.

OK. Photo first. This is part of a series of photos I took one June day in 2005 while I was at a friend's cabin not far from Name of Town Withheld. We were crossing the lake by barge when I noticed an Arctic Tern hopping around on a small island in the middle of the lake, calling to its mate. I had just clicked off a couple of frames when the mate appeared with a tiny fish. In the frames that follow this one, the fisher hands the fish off to the other, and takes off again, while this one hops off, presumably to the nest to feed its young (which I couldn't see). It was total serendipity, but I was lucky I had the camera set to six frames per second, or I would have missed the whole thing.


Now, six random things about me:

1. My eyes seem to change color if I am standing near water or on a very green lawn.

2. I am on my third career and not entirely convinced this is the last one for me.

3. I hate clearing rain gutters.

4. I have one leg 3/4 of an inch longer than the other, but I can never remember which leg is longer and which is shorter when I take pants in to be hemmed.

5. I once served 15 straight points to win a volleyball game.

6. I have been snubbed by the Queen.

Random enough for you, Megan?

A Weekend in the Country

This past weekend, I was invited to spend the weekend at a friend's cabin on a small lake about an hour out of town. I am not really an outdoorsy person, especially if the weather promises to be hideous. Sunny, hot weather, or sunny, snowy weather, I'm all for being outdoors. Cold, wet fall weather, not so much. Despite all of this, I allowed myself to be lured into nature for the better part of two whole days, and of course had a lovely time, despite the odd snowflake blowing around on the drive out.

Unlike some cabins, where you basically drive up to the door, this requires a bit more work. First, one drives down a two-lane packed dirt highway for about an hour. Then, you unload all your gear in the parking lot at the top of the hill, with the able assistance of two keen, but elderly and arthritic, large dogs. Said gear must then be packed down a trail and rather steep staircase to a long dock, at which point your host putters over in an aluminum fishing boat to pick up guest, gear, and dogs. There ensues a complex calculation about who should sit where and what gear goes where to ensure the boat is stable for the ride over to the cabin, which is at the far end of the lake.

Here, Jake waits for her ride. Note the brilliant weather. It is about one in the afternoon, approximately two degrees above zero, and threatening to rain or snow. Neither the dog nor I am impressed. That is our host in the distance.


Given the weather, it perhaps comes as no surprise that most of Saturday is spent puttering around doing winterizing type things - stacking cordwood, covering up equipment, taking down screens and putting up windows, etc. There is a moment when I see a fairly round hole dead center in the pan of a winter shovel, and jokingly ask if it got shot during hunting season, but that moment passes when I am informed that the hole comes not from a bullet, but a bear claw. We are not in the Laurentians or Muskoka anymore.

At the end of the day, though, safely ensconced inside the cabin, you stoke a nice warm fire in the woodstove, pour some wine, and a great evening of chat ensues.

OK, there was the wee incident around 4 a.m., when Jake and I got really very interested in the sound of little footfalls on the back stoop, but no bears crashed through the door, so all was well, and we soon went back to sleep. Perhaps it was a wolf, or a lynx - definitely smaller than a bear, but bigger than a wolverine or badger. All I can say is, it is very friggin' dark when you are on a lake an hour out of town and there are only 4 other neighbours, and it is the middle of a cloudy, rainy night. Very, very dark.

Hallelujah! By the following morning, the sun has come out! OK, the wind has picked up, so it remains rather closer to zero than I might like for September, but at least the fall colors are popping. This is the view off the dock:


THIS is a reason to trek out into the country. Unfortunately, shortly after breakfast, my host has to go visit a neighbour in order to obtain some assistance with an uncooperative piece of equipment we can't get started. I get to stay back with the dogs. Normally, this would be great, except for the part about Sam not liking to be left by his person. Make no mistake, I am but a pale imitation of his person. Despite a short trek up the hill behind the cabin so we can both see where she and the boat are going, Sam gets upset. So upset in fact, that he proceeds to howl like a wolf. For an hour. He howls until he practically loses his voice, and all that comes out are rough little bleatings where a vigorous growl used to be. He even poses like a wolf to do his howling.


Jake on the other hand, wants nothing to do with her embarassing brother at this point. She has found herself a comfy spot by the lake, and is happy to keep as much distance between us as possible.


Far too soon, it is time to repack the boat and head back to the parking lot, and the realities & responsibilities of the city. We never do see any bears, or the family of eagles that nest on the lake. Maybe next trip.

The Radius of a Rainbow

The city that I now call home is located in a sub-Arctic desert, which mostly means we need to run humidifiers in the winter to keep the cat fur from sticking to the walls with all the static, and in the summer, we are largely spared the spectacular, but kind of frightening, thunder and lightning storms I grew up with in hot, humid Montreal.

Global warming however, means shifting weather patterns, and over the past couple of summers, we have slowly but surely been having more thunderstorms. Tonight's however, was even more spectacular than normal, if crazy weather can be seen to be "normal" at all.

It started around 4 p.m., when I could see a sheet of charcoal grey stretching from the horizon up into the equally somber clouds in the North sky. Over the next couple of hours, those clouds rolled in, until the entire sky was charcoal grey. And then those clouds opened, and for roughly an hour the rain pelted down, bouncing off the pavement like nickels, piercing the screen door until the entire patio door track was filled with water, and obscuring my view across the street.

When the rains finally slowed however, I saw something I don't remember ever seeing before - a double rainbow tracing a full 180 degrees in the sky, the inner rainbow almost incandescent, the colours were so vivid. I will always regret not having a camera to capture this astounding sight, but I stood there on the deck of the sailing club for several minutes, watching it fade and shift, even remarking at one point that it was being reflected in the lake, it was so intense. A handful of other people attending the same workshop also stepped outside to take it in while it lasted, and we were commenting about how you usually only see one end of a rainbow, and the arc tends to disappear into a cloud or fade away, and that this was something else entirely.

I was thinking the arc of this particular rainbow was perfectly circular, not stretched out the way they sometimes are, and then I thought, for no particular reason, what is the radius of a rainbow?

I'm pretty sure someone like Descartes has done the math, and figured out the complicated principles of refraction and distance, and the size of the water droplets probably matters too, but somehow all the science diminishes the sheer perfection of nature's beauty, this big, bright, multicoloured arc stretching from the North sky to the South over the massive dark lake, even for a moment shining back up at itself.

And then, like so many other things in nature, it was gone, obscured once more by another wave of rain.