A summertime note to readers

At this time of year, there is a way the morning wind rustles the leaves of the trees outside my bedroom window. The air is starting to feel crisp too. It has been a strange summer here on the south shore of Nova Scotia. The fires, followed by six weeks of rain and in some places, flooding, has left many (including me) feeling very disoriented and melancholy. It has also left me with a lot of unfinished projects. The gardens, slow to start, were wrecked by the rains and required replanting. The surge of slugs, and weeds, that came next has left my garden in a bit of a state. Normally, at this point in the season, I’d have zucchini coming out of my ears, and neighbours would be receiving (often unwanted) surprises at their doorstep. But instead the seeds had to be replanted at the end of June and are just now flowering. 

My garlic haul, in a beautiful basket made by Bob Smith.

But it’s not all bad news on the garden front. I have a wonderful harvest of garlic — the seed purchased last year at the Windsor Garlic Festival — and enough fresh basil (grown from seed under grow lights and planted in my greenhouses) to last well into the fall. Beans and kale are also plentiful. The strawberries also seem to be happily shooting runners everywhere.

Work in my pottery studio was also slow to start, and once it finally did, the humidity has made drying a very slow process. Yesterday I finally managed to glaze my first batch of cups and bowls. I’m also making tiles, for the first time ever, and have tried some hand building. We’ll see how that goes. 

Pottery in various stages of production, and yes, that’s my attempt at hand building a rooster!

I’m also in the process of trying to decide whether I’ll be embarking on a much larger, long-term project, and how readers of the Quaking Swamp Journal can be part of it. I need more time to ruminate on that, talk to some people, and see what’s possible. If it’s a go, you’ll be hearing about it first here.

This is all just to say that I wanted to touch base with you to let you know I’m not ready to immerse myself back into the writing life just yet. But I also don’t want any of my paid subscribers to feel they are losing out. So, I’ll be pausing subscriptions for a little while — at least for a month — which means that if you have a paid subscription, you will not be charged, and your billing cycle will be frozen, until I resume. New readers will not be able to purchase a subscription during this time, but everyone (paid or unpaid) will continue to be able to access the complete archive of articles, and will still be able to share.

I hope you understand, and thank you for all the support you’ve given me so far.

Wishing you all a wonderful rest of the summer!

I spotted a black bear in the top of an apple tree near Kemptville, Nova Scotia, on my way back from a writers’ retreat (or a retreat from writing, in my case). It was happily munching on apples. Someone I know called it auspicious. I hope so :-)