Badlands

Time changes everything Time sculpts our thoughts, our bodies and ultimately our lives. And the lives of those close to us...if only by default.

Because of the complexity of human nature we really don't have much say in where we end up. We can only stay true, do our best and then hang on.

I've come to the conclusion, whether right or wrong, that it really is as fragile as a house of cards. There are no guarantees in life. It's never a done deal.

I read a great piece the other day. It went something like this.

"At the end of our life - as we lay in our death bed - we will not ask to see all of our accumulated material goods. We will only want to see those people we have shared our life with...the people that have been with us and cared for us. The people who have had a hand in shaping our memories and who we are. That is the only true gold. In the end absolutely nothing else matters".

When I need to gather my thoughts I sometimes visit an area called the Badlands. It's located near my home in Caledon Ontario. The pic I've included today is a dead tree that I discovered while exploring there. One could say it's time has passed but I would argue it's role has simply changed.

Fly Backwards

During the weather storm this past weekend I watched anxiously from the safety of a window as the wood fence stood its ground..barely.

It flexed and groaned all the while the Mountain Ash towering above heaved and recoiled threatening to snap at any moment where it would more than likely have found its mark on the corner of the house.

My attention was soon redirected as the teak garden bench tumbled across the lawn and through my frame of view. And it was just days ago that I had assessed it's fractured back from the last storm it had braved.

Most of my life I've enjoyed storms and all the inherent theatrics. The jagged shards of lightning, swirls of wind and the birds that appear to magically fly backwards. But as the years go by it's all become more of a reminder of just how temporary we really are.

This pic is from my last visit to the rock garden area at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton Ontario.

Oh The Drama

A friend of mine liked to say, "you need to do what you have to do...before you can do what you want to do." For me that meant there are always landscaping tasks waiting in cue. Not that I'm complaining. Landscaping is my time to contemplate another project piece.

There's quite a bit of repetition when working from one home landscape to the next but sometimes a simple task can become rocket fuel for a short story.

For example, recently I was asked to relocate a Cherry tree as soon as the weather permits. This relocation would be to a different property. Not really that unusual until you find out that I had just moved this same tree to this property last year from yet another home. And it had only been at that home for about a single season. Oh the drama of it all. The world truly is a stage and we are all but mere players...and grips...and writers.

This pic shows a cast stone bowl created from a Hosta leaf and finished in rust.