Wait a Minute!

Suddenly, we are faced with a week of temperatures in the high 40's and even low 50's.  And only mid-January. What can this mean?  The Indian Plum bushes, one of the most common  tall bushes in the undergrowth here has buds that are green and aching to open.  The crocus tips are greening up nicely too.  Seems a little early yet, but they don't look like they are in the mind to wait.

What mostly occupies my mind about this (after just being thankful for it not being so very cold) is that all those garden chores that were left undone last November are still out there waiting to be done: one raspberry bed not quite cut back;  peonies not cut back; fuschia bushes, ferns, campion, hydrangeas, all of it not cut back.  Which might mean that instead of blog writing, I should be out in the yard in this light moment between rains.  The Protestant Ethics calls.  Although, of course, one could be playing golf, if it didn't rain for a couple of hours and if the golf course part of the golf course were open.

What's Open

Kind of an update from last week, but more just an astonishment. Today I saw, coming in to the Point from Tsawwassen, a sign by the side of the road informing me that the Point Roberts Golf Course is open every day..like the International Market and the hardware store and the gas stations. Except it is near freezing most days and raining or snowing most or many days, and people are expected to be golfing? That's some devotion to sport!

Update: Ah, I'm informed that it is the restaurant at the golf course that is open everyday.  I'm glad I didn't run right over with my golf clubs.

Art at Home

This past weekend, Pt. Roberts hosted a little art retreat.  Eight or so women (as it happened, they were all women) came to spend several days together working on altered books.  Or at least some of them worked on that while others worked on other things.

We are living through something of an art renaissance right now and it's nice to see it gathering here at our Community Center.  Of course, Point Roberts has probably a particularly high incidence of artists among its residents, partly because it is something of a retirement community and lots of retired people, once they have the time, turn to the reengagement with the world and the imagination that art offers.  But, also, it is the kind of place that artists of all kinds are inclined to show up to.

There is a general inclination in this culture to equate art with galleries, New York City, museums, things like that that might be called 'high art,' but might just as easily be thought of as commercial art.  And then there is the other kind: not low art, but non-commercial art.  Art that is made for the joy of it, not in order to try to become famous or even just to make an adequate living.  It is more about the opportunity to learn something about a material or variety of materials and about one's self in relation to that material and to the ideas that the material inspires.  To see what one can make, most simply put.  Like God creating the heavens and the earth in the Bible, the artists reaches out their hands and make things with what lies before them.  And then they think about what they have wrought.

The Community Center's  tables were overflowing with things when I was there on Sunday.  I wasn't participating in this particular event (although several of the Point Roberts quilters were), but I dropped in to see what they were doing.  And they were doing lots of things: making altered books and making brand new books with old things, making art journals, making paper sheets for backgrounds, making nuno felt scarves, which last has nothing to do with altered books but everything to do with making art, in this case wearable art.

Luckily, I can pretty much do this kind of thing most days of my life, freed from the obligations of employment and child rearing.  And I know how much joy it can provide.  And was providing to these artists.  It was the first time this group had been here (usually, they meet on Whidbey Island, I believe).  There is lots of art here in our townlet and there is always room for more.

If they come back, which they might in the spring, drop by and see what they are doing.  You may catch the fever.

Not an Economic Development Plan, But....

I've got three or four threads coming together here, so stay with me.  First, looking at the weather report for the next five days, I'm seeing nothing but days in which the high is below freezing.  This is cold weather for here.  I know, it's not cold weather for Alberta or Minnesota, but we don't live in Alberta or Minnesota, we live in Point Roberts and we think 40 degrees F. is about cold enough.  And we've had more than usual sub-32 degree F. weather since last November.  So it's cold.  And we are all in this cold together.

Second.  Fortunately, for us, Llily the llama and her four pygora (pygmy angora) goat companions have shared their fleece with us and Ed has a lovely full llama fur/fibre hat to keep him from the cold, and I have a brand new pygora headband to keep me warm.  And these are very good things.  The llama and the goats don't seem to sense any particular close relationship between them and us when we are wearing our new hats, but you can't have everything.  Anyway, we've got cold and we've got these lovely llama and pygora headgear, see below!

Now, third.  Recently, the library has been sponsoring a knitting group at the community center/library on Tuesday evening around 6 p.m.  Included in this group are some of the local teenagers who are just learning to knit.  Knitting a headband or a plain hat is a very easy and nice thing to do when you are just starting knitting.  And having everyone in Point Roberts have a chance to have a llama or pygora hat/headband is a really cool idea, I think.  (Speaking from experience, it is actually a very warm phenomenon, as well as a cool idea.)

So, what I'm thinking, is that the teenage and other knitters ought to be making hats and headbands from llama and pygora fiber to sell at the Community Market when it opens next Eastertime, and keep knitting them and selling them until winter comes upon us again.  And then we will go out into our exclave and immediately recognize one another: who belongs and who is just dropping in for packages, gas, or groceries.  Of course, the visitors could come to the Community Market and buy a hat/headband, too, but then that would just indicate their willingness to stand in unity with us in the cold, no?  And we would welcome that.

Now, Llily and the pygora goats probably can't single-handedly (or whatever the proper word should be there) supply that much fleece/spun yarn, so it would have to be outsider fiber at the beginning, but over the years, it could be different...Well, it's an idea, or the beginnings of one.

Are We Open? Or Are We Closed?

News from the Cafe Capanna that they have entered their winter schedule, which would be open on Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday, and closed on the rest of the days.  The healthcare clinic is on its all year schedule, which is open on Monday/Tuesday/Thursday.  The library, also on its all year schedule, is open on Tuesday/Wednesday/Saturday.

The grocery store has a just regular open every day schedule, like the gas stations.  Neilson's Hardware is open most days, but it has special winter Sunday hours that I can never remember.  The liquor store is open most days, I think, and maybe even all but one day, which could be Monday.  Brewster's Deli/Fine Foods is open some days and closed some other days but I haven't a clue as to which days.  The Blue Heron Gallery is normally open Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday, but in January isn't open at all.  The Maple Studio Gallery is open only by request.  The dump/transfer station was open Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday, but now it's open only Sunday/Tuesday,Thursday, I think just winter hours, though.
update: according to the newspaper, Brewsters is open for lunch every day.
What is the point of all this here on the Point?  Well, it seems to me that it is getting harder and harder to remember all these odd times and days and perhaps we ought to urge somebody (Chamber of Commerce?) to try to standardize them a bit?  Or maybe someone could put out a little magnet item for the refrigerator which would have the complete schedule for all our enterprises and civic institutions?  Or maybe a big magnet.

What Do You Know?

Today's headlines: "Canadians Not as Healthy as They Think."

Tomorrow's headlines, doubtless: "Canadians Not as Nice as They Think"

How about: "Canada's Health System: Much Better Than Americans Would Like to Think; Also Much Better than America's (Non)System."

Out!

New Years Day and if we were the relaxing sort, we would be relaxing because we had completed moving out of our British Columbia house and returned safely and sanely to Point Roberts.  Not an easy move, all things considered including our advanced years.  We are considerably in debt to our friends who brought their trucks/vans up and over to move the boxes and who came to pick up the remnant goods in the dark on Thursday night, with a promise to bring them down to us next time they come this way.

Our Canadian neighbors, both here in Point Roberts and in Roberts Creek, B.C., have been, every step of the way, helpful in every conceivable way.  Barry and Lynda, who watched out for the house when we weren't there all those years and who mowed the lawns for us in our absence over this past summer when it was for sale; Don and Jean, who took us in for Christmas every year, who offered their truck for many problems for which a truck is the only answer, and who the first day we moved in got our moving truck unstuck; Tom and Lorinne who have answered every call even when we were not sure we needed to call.  I've never had such neighbors in the U.S.   Maybe just chance, but maybe Canadians are just really kinder and more generous than we are down here to the south, crazed as we still are with conquering whatever is in front of us.

We left the house looking like the Joads on their way from Oklahoma to California in the 1930's, car jammed full with boxes and then finally just loose goods; boxes and things tied to the roof rack.  A young deer came round shortly before we left and while I stood there, he ate all the buds of a rhododendron bush, as if to say, 'Take that! You quitter!"  Paid no attention whatsoever to my urging him to move on.  "Move on, yourself."  Yes.  Yes.  That's exactly what we are doing.  Someone else will have to protect the rhododendron and hydrangea buds now.

A dark, clear, starry sky and freezing temperatures accompanied us southward on the ferry and through Vancouver.  When we arrived at the Point Roberts border crossing, one of the CPB agents we have known for years was there to greet us.  "Bringing anything in tonight?" he queried, before he noticed that we were bringing virtually everything in tonight.  Ed explained that this was the last of our goods from our Canadian house that we had just sold.  "Oh, well, yeah," he said.  "Welcome home.  And the computer says I have to look under your hood."  So we struggled, all three of us, to find the hood release  button, and he checked under the hood.  Then, waved us through with the comforting news that "You've still got a motor there."

And we were Out, or perhaps In.