a little wheat-love for you

After a handful of years that saw my field primarily taken up by the seedy, tangly, oily canola crops that yield me no joy, this year the farmer finally planted wheat. You have no idea how much this improved my quality of life over the summer. 

I love wheat.

I am brimmed with fond memories from my childhood when I would play in it for hours; chasing butterflies, nesting in little flattened coves, inventing games or simply running through it for the sake of running. All those glorious hours spent thinking and adventuring really connected me to it. I suppose, somewhere along the line, I directly connected a wheat field with happiness.

So then there was today. Being very windy while still comfortably sunny, I decided to go for a proper play before my schedule really fills up (it's already three quarters there) and the wheat is ripe enough to be harvested. The latter should be any day now.

Wearing a shirt I stole from the boy I love, and flanked by my dogs, I scampered into the wheat like my inner twelve-year-old demanded. I ran and ran and tripped and my TOMS filled with fallen grains. The wind blew my hair into my face. Ivy almost got lost in the height of the stalks, but hopped her way towards my voice. I sang a little. I breathed in the grassy, bready, earthy wheat-smell. I watched a distraught butterfly swirl around in the wind and get caught in a tangle of stalks. I bounded along with the doggies.

Eventually, I made myself a nest. I laid down and the dogs laid with me. I cuddled them and got wheat-heads and doggy tangled into my hair. I stared into the perfectly blue sky. I smiled. I thought about the simplicity of real happiness. I thought about the things that make wheat beautiful.

 I love the way it holds onto rain after a storm.
I love how dragonflies cling to the heads while they await their prey.
I love the rustling sound it makes when the wind blows it about.
I love the slow process from damp fresh green to tindery pale gold.

I love ducking into it and feeling hidden away from the rest of the world.
I love how it moves like the ocean on a windy day.
I love the way the heads slowly curl over like an old man’s spine as they ripen.
I love flattening out a little nest-cove for star-gazing or napping or cuddling.
I love running through it until I trip (it always catches my fall).
I love telling people that my legs are scratched up because I’ve been running through it.
I love the way it tickles my palms when I drag my hands across it like Maximus in Gladiator.
I love it when my dogs run through it and have to jump three feet to see above the stalks.

I love how it gets tangled into my hair when I lay in it.

I love finding frogs in it.

I love chewing on the grains until they turn into a doughy substance in my mouth. 

I love jumping over the haybales once it’s all been harvested.

 

I couldn't resist going home to fetch my camera in order to document my wheat-love, just for you. Whether or not you too have a wheat field at the back of your house, or have known the pleasure of experiencing one, I hope this made you love wheat a little. It's a lovely thing to love.

hello again

It's been raining for days and days. Storm after storm after sun-shower. The smell has been fantastic. For once, I have no complaints about the weather.

It's been a long time since I've written to the generic Internet in the guise of a blog post, and between the last time and now everything and nothing has come to pass. There have been projects concluded and begun, people met, new experiences used up, alcohol consumed, money spent, weight lost and hair lengthened. Plans for the near/distant future have also been hatched.

After what felt like a century-long winter and snail-slow spring, the summer is looking bright. There will be festivals to attend, a lifeguarding course to pass, moth eggs to hatch, mountains to scale, bonfire parties to hold, people to visit, further clothing to construct, and an expensive bicycle to purchase. Later this month, I shall be taking my first driver's test.

In fact, life is looking bright. In this generation where "twenties are the new teens," I feel like I'm actually becoming more of an adult. I'm slowly finding that balance between girl and woman within myself. I'm learning new things, discovering new interests, mingling with new people. It's refreshing and exciting. I have so many things to look forward to and be thankful for.

And that's all I have to update about the life of Laura. Thanks for stopping by.

a bit of frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

These woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

snow and sun

Of late, the weather has been strange in the winter-scourged city; even all the way out at my little hide-away acreage. Though it is currently murderously cold and bleak under a depressingly white sky, a week or so ago, despite the -16°C and the hoar frost coating the trees, the sun was shining and the sky was clear and blue. Having made a photo record of the phenomena whilst adventuring into the field that day, I thought that now would be the best time to post such a record to my blog, to remind myself and my Canadian brethren that winter can actually be beautiful.

Not a cloud obscured the sky. The air was sharply cold, but the sun was penetrating and warm.

Up at the forest, I couldn't capture with my camera the snowflakes glittering the air, the shimmering frost, the curious cold-warmth on my face, or the sheer excitement my dogs as they revelled in the snow and sun. It was a marvelous morning excursion.

It was after going up to and briefly through the forest -and after having had our fill of icy air and sunny sky- that we set off of for home through a hallway of hoar-frosted trees.

 "Willow, tree of water nymphs, 
Don't block my way! 
Shelter the black daws in your snowy branches,
The black daws."

 Anna Akhmatova

a bag for unfinished novels

The following is a blog post I made at the close of last summer, featuring my sewing process in the making of one of the few projects I completed in 2012. I never posted it. Now, however, feeling happy that my hands yielded at least one nice thing last year, I have decided to post it now, outdated though it is.

Ever since the new schoolyear began, I have accomplished nothing. I have been stuck in the middle of five unfinished novels, two half-written letters, a shoddy english assignment and an unintelligible set of math problems. Oh, and I still don't have a driver's license. 

Not only have I sorely neglected the things I should be doing, but I've neglected the things that are important to me, like the sewing projects I've wanted to work on all year [I barely managed a skirt and a pair of unfinished harem pants over the summer, with nothing to show before].

However, last Saturday--after a stressful week of lack of sleep and neglected schoolwork--I awoke with only one thing on my mind: my sewing machine. It was a stress-free concept, and I left my pile of textbooks where they were and devoted the whole of that day [and a little of the next] exclusively to French press coffee, yellow pears, banana cake, Freelance Whales, Björk, and my talented Elna 5200.

After digging through my scraps of fabric, I decided to make a bag. Thick, purple drape material for the outside, rose-patterned cotton for the lining. I cut it out to suit a pattern I designed myself [first used to make a bag for Lizzie some time ago].

After cutting out the pieces, I started on the straps and a little pocket on the lining --wrestling a little with the direction of the roses.

Next, I sewed together the body and the lining [same shape; the latter slightly smaller than the former]; pinning in the finished straps.

Upon seaming those together with the exception of one side, I turned the bag inside out [or, I suppose in this case you could say, "inside in"].

After sewing the small hole closed and ironing the rim flat, I was finished.

The result: a bag to fit all my unfinished novels! Rather nice, yes?