Raining

It's raining today.  It has been since some time last nite - I didn't look at the clock when it woke me up.

It woke me up because it was an unusual sound...  it having been so long since water fell from the sky.  The ground is baked and hard, and surely much of the rain must be running off, unabsorbed.  But this is the slow, gentle rain that Seattle does so well, so perhaps I am wrong about that.

Anyway, we need it, badly.  We even have wildfires on this side of the mountains now.  Hopefully this will put them out on both sides of the Cascades.

Raining

It begins again

Jane's blackberry crisp, already sampled

The great wheel of the seasons continues to turn, bringing us now to the time when the blackberries ripen.  Last nite, Jane made the first blackberry crisp of this year.  As we sampled it (with ice cream, of course!), a warm memory came to me.

It was a little later in the year - the blackberries were ripe and plentiful, especially at the head of Blakely Harbor, back by the concrete boiler pillbox that is all that remains of the old Blakely sawmill.  We had dinghied thru the opening into the millpond, and Jane went ashore to pick those berries.  It was one of those days where it is warm when the sun is up, but quite cool after sundown.

And as the sun went down, Jane fired up the oven and made a blackberry crisp using those freshly picked berries. 

Only a little later the sun was gone.  But the residual heat from the oven  kept the cabin cozy while we enjoyed that crisp, watching the stars come out.

It begins again

Problem Solved

 

Yes, that is 9 gallons of the good stuff. A local TruValue hardware store was selling off their old stock of the "environmentally irresponsible" thinner for $7.89/gallon. I bought all their stock.

I should be fixed for life.

Or perhaps I'll be like the lady who is selling off cans of pre-EPA formula Brasso on eBay, one by one.

(If you haven't been following my paint thinner odyssey, you can catch up here and then here.)

Problem Solved

Peace

I mentioned earlier that while on our Shaw Island hike, we encountered and had a mid-road conversation with a nun.

But that bald statement gives nothing of the event.  Despite the warmth of the morning, Sister Miriam, a woman in her late 20's or early 30's, was dressed in the full black regalia, and yet she looked entirely comfortable.  Our conversation ranged over the usual topics one might expect when just meeting someone on an island...  where are you from, where are you going, how long have you been here...  like that.  And Sister Miriam is a woman who quietly and confidently knows where she is and where she is going.  But far more than the topics, during this conversation we were presented with an overwhelming sensation of... PEACE.  It was subliminal, but it was powerful.

It was so powerful that immediately after we resumed our walk we both turned to each other and remarked on it.  It was so powerful that even now, as I am writing, it is with me.  It is simply amazing to me that a brief conversation in the middle of a road on a small island could be so transformative.

I wonder if Sister Miriam knows she carries such a powerful aura.

Peace