Maureen Bush

My Mock Orange is Blooming

A few weeks ago I met a couple of city workers out to look at my malingering butternut. We discovered we all adore the smell of mock orange. One raved about simply lying underneath it when it was blooming, to breathe in the smell as long as possible. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t come to work today. My mock orange is blooming.”

My mock orange is blooming. Guess where I am?

Maureen

Yes, I am working. Really.

I have been writing, even though all my recent blogs are about wildlife in my garden, storms, and the mountains. I’m working on the sequel to Feather Brain. It took a couple of years to come up with a substantial enough idea for a sequel (bad sequels drive me nuts).

Now I’m writing away, sometimes pleased with progress, sometimes frustrated at what feels like a plod. Whatever the pace of the week, I’m accumulating chapters, working forward when I can, polishing when fresh writing is slow.

Of course, this is all interspersed with kids off for the summer and holidays and hail storms and gardening and . . . well, life.

I have a title I like (which I’m not sharing, not yet), and a plot that works (won’t reveal that, either). So there’s not much to blog about! But I am working.

Maureen

From Marble Canyon

Storm Mountain

We spent two nights at Storm Mountain Lodge, near Castle Mountain, in Banff National Park. Sunday night – a huge thunderstorm, rain hammering the metal cabin roof. We heard about a huge grizzly wandering through that morning, scattering the cleaning staff. Dinner was amazing, buffalo tenderloin and a great wine.

At breakfast, we overheard the waitress advising a couple about her favorite all-day hike. “Do you have bear spray?” she asked. They didn’t, so she replied, “We have some. I’ll lend it to you for the day.” The question used to be, “Do you have bear bells?” Now they’re considered dinner bells.

We saw all the traditional sights – hikers standing behind their cars changing into or out of hiking boots, everyone layering up in all their clothes and still shivering, hikers huddled around wood fires indoors as the rain poured down, a few flakes of snow in the air, fresh snow on the ground at higher elevations.

From the front of Storm Mountain Lodge we could see Castle Mountain to the north, in the Bow Valley, right down to the Rockwall to the south, on the road to Radium. This is the range of my third Veil of Magic story. I wish I’d brought the manuscript to read while I was up there.

We climbed up Marble Canyon in a dry interlude. It’s not a tremendous achievement unless you’re three, or have exercise-indused asthma, as I do. It felt great to make it to the top.

The hike is more beautiful every time I go up. The canyon itself is fascinating, but it’s the burn I love. A forest fire killed almost all the trees within view, leaving standing dead trunks in a surreal sculpture in black and white, and an astounding view – high mountains in three directions. Pre-fire you couldn’t see anything beyond the dense forest. Below the dead trunks new growth is springing up, lush and green and bursting with energy.

I wasn’t so pleased to have made it to the top by the time I was half way down. Lack of oxygen to the major muscles in my legs turned me into a raggedy doll, struggling to keep my knees steady on the down hill. Two days later I’m still a little staggery. No, I haven’t been drinking! But I am very happy.

Maureen

Hail and Dill

We came home from a lovely, although cold and wet, two days in the Rockies, to find our garden thoroughly hailed. The old van has pockmarks on every panel except the back one, where the rust spots are. The pears and apples will be bruised this year. And we need to rake up the greens scattered and crushed across the lawn. But we figure we got off pretty lucky. No new roof this time. No broken windows. No broken branches. Or heads.

We’ve collected some treasures with broken stems – an otherwise intact delphineum bloom, most of the dill from one flower bed. Dill with tomatoes and cucumber for dinner, I think.

Maureen