Sweet Sleep and Squirrels

Sometimes I love waking up in bed, with the duvet piled around me and my hair still slightly wet from last night's shower. It feels like the most decadent thing in the world.

Last night a squirrel shared my ice cream with me. Jaja and I got great big cones from Ed's Real Scoop, and sat in the park looking out over the beach and the lake to eat them. A squirrel hopped up on the bench beside me and put both its paws on my leg and looked up at me appealingly. So I broke off a bit of my cone and gave it to him. He politely sat the bench with me and nibbled it, and when it was all gone looked up and me again as if to say, "Might I please have some more?" I dropped the next bit my accident, so he ate it while sitting beside my foot. When he was ready for more he would look up with soulful eyes and reach way up with his little tiny hands to grab the next bit I handed down to him. After a while he hopped back up on the bench to sit with us and we all ate out cones companionably looking out over the water. He ate till he was full, said his thank yous, and hopped off into the park and away. Jaja and I walked home with ice cream smears on our clothes and smiles on our faces.

I'd Sing You A Morning Golden and New

My Dad belongs to the Toronto Field Naturalists and they have been choosing nature-themed songs to sing at their 90th Anniversary celebrations. So Jaja and Dad and I went through the list, singing and listening and discussing options. Three songs particularly made me grin, and for days I've been trying to sing two of them without the benefit of knowing the words or the music.

Everyday as I work in gardens:


Another gardening song, and this one makes me giggle:


Finally, I fell in love with this song. It makes a perfect lullaby, perfect for a raspberry or a large zucchini:
Here's another longer version of it, if like me, you feel the need to listen to it over and over again:

beginnings and endings

I walked to work through a ravine this morning. It smelled of damp earth. The air was crisp and cool. It refreshed my heart and my sleepy eyes.

After work I made brownies. I added a banana and made brief glancing references to two recipes which I largely ignored (banana, egg, honey, sugar, butter, flour, chia seeds, flax seeds, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, cocoa, ground almonds - a dash of this, a dash of that). I added a melted chocolate glaze that I also improvised (butter, unsweeted bakers chocolate, almond milk, sugar), and it all came out tasting of heaven. I was halfway through my first brownie when I began to get excited for seconds.

December 7th

...happy winter weather from around the world...

Montreal, Canada:

Quebec, Canada:

London, England:

Amsterdam, Holland:

Suzdal, Russia:

Stockholm, Sweden:

Bern, Switzerland:

Chicago, United States:

New York, United States:

images via here, here, here, here, here, and here.

and a sheep!

December 6th

Happy St. Nicholas day!

Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of sailors, pawnbrokers and children.

plus, of course, a sheep:

Buffeted by Life

I've been reading a book (Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness by Nicholas Humphrey) that has large chunks devoted to discussing the joy in being alive. He quotes all sorts of things - poetry, philosophy, plays... that I think fit perfectly in a blog of happy things. They also make me happier when I read them, as if by osmosis.

Here is my first favourite:

"A common feature of the hot, dry inland of Australia is the dust devil or willy-nilly, a small vortex with winds about 60 kilometers per hour. It can carry dust hundreds of meters into the air... A common native bird, the galah, has been seen flying into these whirlwinds and being hurled upwards, screeching loudly. On reaching the top, the galahs fly down and enjoy another ride by re-entering the vortex near the ground. There is one report of a flock of galahs flying into a much less common and more dangerous tornado. The winds, spinning at over 100 kilometers per hour, immediately spat them out, screeching with delight."

~Report in New Scientist, 29 Oct. 1994

smells like summer

I went for a bike ride, and I saw a bunny! It looked at me with its big round eyes and then hopped off into the bushes. A flight of swallows rested on the path, darting and zooming a foot above the road when they had a sudden burst of energy. I rode about without holding onto the handle bars, arms outstretched, the wind swishing past me. Sometimes when I felt silly I'd hold on to the handles and dipsy doodle the front tire so I'd go in lovely swoops back and forth across the road. I looked up and a murmuration of starlings turned the sky dark above me as they flew in a cloud overhead. Then the rain started to fall. It felt as if the skies would open and pour down at any minute, but it stayed light and warm, speckling my skin. I really like the smell of rain on hot asphalt.

It was thiiiiiisss big.

Kryptonite and I went for a bicycle ride, and as we passed over a bridge we saw fish two feet long swimming in the lake. With the assistance of Daddy's vast array of knowledge and the internet, my guess is that they were carp. It was exciting and exhilarating to see such a flashy display of life in our lake.

small things

Five baby racoons gambol in my backyard and play in the birdbath.

Rafiki sends me a quiz of pleasing words, "ampersand" "dastard" and "onomatopoeia"

A Hegel Quote to be Happy About

"The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. The ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes these stages moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and constitutes thereby the life of the whole.