From the Hermitage.

We've been through a rough time on this island. Power outages. No water. The pump house frozen solid. Outrageous weather of lashings of snow and freezing rain completely outside of the norm for the bay. We usually are all green until February.

I am trapped in my house as the ice outside is severe. I laid down salt earlier, hardly a dent on the ice pack. First time ever I had to cancel my Nollaig Na mBan. But, time and again I realize I am never alone. Neighbours astonish me. Trucks arrive with hot (yes, hot!) water, trucks arrive to ferry me elsewhere for dinner, plumbing genius digs out pump house, runs heater into it, defrosts pump. Blessed water pours forth after another day. I genuflect to my wood stove every night during this. I cook on it and it heats the house.

Perversely, I am glad of these emergencies. They show my 'hood in its true colours, kind, caring, sharing. My chicken lady's husband delivered eggs today. Calls of care and compassion come in. A friend hands me an old fashioned phone to plug in. Those wireless fancy things do not work in a power outage but the old fashioned kind do. Note to self. And others out there.

And all systems are now go again. But I'm wondering about tomorrow, wondering whether I can leave here to head into my office up the road. I am wary of this ice. I have the utmost respect for it.

It looks so damn pretty but I know it hides nasty underneath.

Hunkering

Can you believe the way the snow crept up my window? Photo taken this a.m.

The thing about storms and hunkering is that regular hours can be thrown for a loop. I couldn't sleep last night, the howling of the wind and those odd creaky things in an old house that come blaringly to life in a storm has thrown my night into day, day into night.

The 3.00 a.m. horror show also appeared - you know how that goes, don't you? Every thought you've had since you were two comes to life. First day of school is there, then a brand new film for me: beloved grandfather dying, mama weeping for what seemed like months afterwards. And no, you can't go to the funeral, we want you to remember him the way he was which always led me to the belief it was a huge big scam and Granddad had run off somewhere never to be seen again. So that film played for a couple of hours inevitably leading to the deaths of other beloveds and maybe it was my turn tonight, and the what about the dog? thought, this time left with my corpse? Would she howl? Eat me? Great, enough of that now.

I could go on and on about the stark raving horrors of the three ayems. I wrote a poem about it one time. And I salute the almighty power of the search engine for locating it:

In the three ayem darkness
To a mind run amok.
In the afternoon rainstorm
To depression unstuck.

In the loan of a shoulder,
To the lean of a hold,
In the ear of attention
To the warmth from the cold.

In the years gone behind us,
To the old you and me,
In the comfort we offer
To the days yet to be.

Written in 2002. I was young then. Well, old then. Well, much older now. In that way of passing sixty at high speed.

It is still windy out and drizzling. Cabin fever hasn't set in yet. I truly love being isolated in times such as these.

It sets the mind to dreaming without interruption.

Da Big One

This is the immediate forecast:

For Thursday night there's an additional 35 to 40cm of snow. Friday has another 20cm and this is all followed on the weekend by a dumping of rain. Winds are supposed to hit 100km/hour which will make it a first class STORM alright.

Right now it is -8c which is very chilly for here. It makes for a star struck night though. Every single star keeps the darkness of the sky awash in white. It is spectacular.

The dog barks outside. I can't see at what, but the bay bounces her voice back at her. There is an overstuffed cat who is patrolling the road out front lately. White with black splotches. You can tell by the strut that (s)he owns the place. It could be the cat out on night patrol putting the fear of gawd into the canines. I had a cat like that once. Owned the entire city block. Would walk with our dogs, head high. Other dogs would whine and run from him.

Grocery stores were so busy today with the impending storm coming. I am well stocked. Power outages are the biggest fear. I am grateful I have the wood stove which does just about everything except wash the dishes.

Hunker is the word I'm using. Lots of books, candles and even an oil lamp and Daughter has fortuitously stored a propane ring in my garage.

What could possibly go wrong?

I'll let you know.

And a picture of flower gifts from the weekend (as a scent-filled reminder of "can Spring be far behind?"):

Inside Looking Out

A Storm on the Bay

The wild of it
The wind of it.
The wend of it.
The weft of it
The warp of it
The whisht of it,
The whelp of it
The whinge of it.
=======================================================

It's a nor'easter - a savage day, wind howling, blowing the bedroom curtains across the room in jigs and reels. Trees screeching sideways. Reluctantly, I close all the windows and glance at the wood stove. And glance again and set a fire and light it. Birds dart around the empty bird feeder. I had to move it when I spotted the squirrels hanging upside down from an overhead branch and swinging towards it and tipping the contents on the ground. Barnum and Bailey acrobats had nothing on these critters.

I think, in gleeful anticipation, as I do on such days, safe indoors, wind and water tussling to the death in front of me, what will I do? A friend had recommended a great read, her favourite book for the last five years, and it arrives from England yesterday and I hold it for a while, heft the weight of it, find the love note within, savour that, read the reviews printed this way and that all over it. A Sunday Times bestseller that never found its way here, it seems.

I defer the actual reading of it. I smell it. Touch the slightly worn pages between my fingers. The energy of previous readers cling to it, I imagine. I anticipate the pleasure of reading that first page. On some books we agree, my friend and I. On others we engage in animated discussion. It's been that way since we shared Annie Smithson's Irish novels of love and love lost in Sixth Class back in the day. We each came out of the cradle reading, our mothers would say.

It's coming up to a night for a fire and a read and maybe a movie later. I've a few lined up, some from friends, some rescued from bargain bins in various secret shops around St. John's. Maybe a bit of knitting. I've always loved days and nights like this. It seems to me like the pressure is off.

You ask me what pressure?

Ah, sure now, I 'd be hard pressed to tell you.

Blog Jam

Our sheltered bay bounces high with the waves today, spindrift doing a fine job of gliding across the gallopping white horses, to dissipate in frustration on the shore. My bridge to the beach is awash in a strange mix of small icepans and detritus from the cowed alders. High winds with an underlying layer of....could that be Spring crawling in?

I watch in astonishment as the waves go higher, finding it hard to imagine their enormous bulk before they shrink on their long journey to here, our sheltered wee bay.

World news is interesting today. No surprise in Ireland with regard to the ousting of the decrepid, incompetent and criminal Fianna Fail, the lifelong party of my father, who incidentally got his glory moments on RTE in the sixties as a returning officer for the elections. He would be abject at their performance in the last decade.

I see Michael Moore has turned his eyes to Thompson, Manitoba and the mining industry there. More squeezing by Dems Wot Rulez on the little folk in the mines.

And speaking of the little folk, I see very little coverage of the civic protests that are strengthening in the states down south of us here. Oh, sorry, forgot. Corporatocracy controlled media. Again.

And gas is going up. And up and up. End of this year should see many of the Humvees, SUVs and monster trucks off the roads. At long last there will be a safe ride (and still cheap fill-ups) for us icky bicky little 4 cylinder drivers, takin' back da roadz.

By the way aren't we, like, owed some compensation for our frugal use of gas while the rest of the world took ten times their share with their obscene monster vehicle consumptions? I've often thought about this. If everyone had driven the little guys, and rail ferried Da Stuff around, we'd still have stockpiles of gas for centuries. Greed and conspicuous consumption yet again doom us to a very uncertain future and limited mobility.

Back to wave gazing.

Stormy, Snowy, Rainy day.

Stormy precipitation through the window.

Days like today get cancelled. In theory. Trips to the city with a long list are abandoned. The wind howls. The fire crackles. The precipitation can't make up its mind. One minute it's snow, next it's a hard rain. It drifts everywhere. I can't get at the bird feeders without risking a limb. The birds line up along the railing, their feathers in complete disarray, shivering. Glaring at me.

It nearly brings me to tears. My front door has the storm unit put up from outside, so I can't open it in the winter. And I have to go out the backdoor and along the ice and through the drifts to reach the bird feeders. It's not happening today.

I whisper to them: "Can you hear me? Double rations when the storm breaks. Seriously. And all your favourites too."

Leo tops up my wood pile. The only reason he is out in the storm is because he has to fight his way to the shop for his daily cigarettes. For once, I am grateful for someone else's serious smoking habit. I have enough wood in now for 3 days.

I watched A Dog Year as I ate the lasagna that has fed me for three days now. And cried over the movie. Therapeutically of course. And gave Ansa some extra cuddles as I tried to engage her in the dog scenes in the movie. Ever do this with a dog? They really try for a while, head cocked to the side, looking at you, looking at the screen, and then yawn and get bored and wonder, I'm sure, how their crazy humans could watch something so mind numbing.

There is something about the wind howling down the chimney and the house so toasty warm from the fire, a good movie on the screen and the feeling that all is well within my four sturdy walls.

Peace out.

Weather

It doesn't often get to me. I love the variety, the occasional wet day, even snow to the boot tops and the sunstroke warning stuff. But this is today's weather - destined to continue forever.

Depressing? Yeah.

Hurricane Igor - Update

Trans Canada Highway collapse - photo courtesy CBC

Power is finally back on in the last few minutes.

How dependent we are on the power grid! I am lucky I have a woodstove but so many are not. I am hoping my chest freezer is OK, I did not open it and understand that it's good for about 24 hours if not opened.

We escaped lightly in this little village. The worst damage was with old trees completely uprooted like matchsticks so people today are busy doing cleanup, chopping and sawing. The sides were blown off the community hall and one shop is losing its vast back and side walls of frozen products. The generator just couldn't handle the requirements.

The rest of our lovely province hasn't fared so well. Some are still living in their town firehalls, cut off by the savagery of the flooding from their own houses. Some were tourists and travellers forced off the Trans Canada Highway by the incredible floods, collapsed portions of the TCH, downed trees and blazing hydro wires.

According to the old timers, they've never seen the like of this. Damage in the tens of millions. Many still without power, but we are so, so lucky, only one death has been reported so far.

Oh lovely, lovely home and my stalwart old trees for only shedding a few old branches and the uprooting of one young (15'footer)beech!

Thanks to all for your lovely thoughts and safe wishes to me. It means so much!

Hurricane Igor

Photo courtesy CBC of the St. Lawrence area not too far from here.

Yeah, it's here. Igor has hit and he's brought some really strange weather. House so warm within and so wet outside that all windows are fogged up. The trees sway as their still green leaves get wrenched and thrown at the windows in handfuls.

My niece, who lives about 400km from here tells me her roads are washed out, she ventured out briefly and saw cars floating in the water, something she'd never seen before. She turned and went home. All of her town has folded up into itself, many have lost their homes. Her brand new home has roof leaks, but it could be the force of the wind.

Here we are slightly more sheltered but it is still an awesome sound with a frisson of uncertainty as the windows, under the pressure of the wind, leak in odd places. The roof, so far, is solid.

Only the odd dudely truck rolls by on the streaming flooded road. The stream across from my house has burst its banks, the bay is a mass of whitecaps. If the windows were clear I would try and capture it. I have never seen it like this, a complete turmoil of white and grey flowing in with the north wind.

With all of this maelstrom around, I feel grateful that we are far better off than the unfortunates of Bermuda.

The power is still on, with emergency supplies standing by and the woodstove ready to be fired up.

I'm dry and safe within broken by the odd accusing look from the dog.

You see, in her world, this is all my fault.

**Update - 4.40pm my time
Now the power is out. I have large battery back up and I am on "turbo stick" for internet and had the sense to stockpile a bit of water this morning as my pump is now down and also landline is out. Lots of candles and battery radio. CBC is going to stay with us until it is over but it is on generator power only as all of St. John's now in blackout along with all of the Avalon. Wind is frightening, small branches flung like matchsticks off my trees. Oh, we are such midgets in the force of awesome Mother Nature.
**Update - 7.10pm my time
Well the sun peeped out amongst the speeding clouds for a few minutes. Radio says the rain storm is now over and another two hours of wind. Hurricane has been downsized as of now to a tropical storm. Leo came over and started picking up the branches around the place and then stopped as the wind picked up again. Mr. Igor is not done with us yet.

Sheila’s Brush

Legend has it that Sheila was especially close to St. Patrick back in the day. Whether sister, mother, mistress or wife is up to speculation.

Here in Newfoundland, a final winter storm that falls between St. Patrick’s day on March 17th and any time during the month of April is known as “Sheila’s Brush”.

Sheila brushes out the old weather to make room for Spring. Whether she did it mighty early this year is a matter of debate, but our unseasonably warm weather is marvellous.

Most old fishers and sealers won’t hit the waters until Sheila has been and gone with the brush.

They have been proven to be 100% accurate.

We’re not too sure if the last March wee storm has been it for Sheila or just a trial run for something more in the lines of one serious big wallop.

PS I’m overloaded with work so blogging and blog-reading are sporadic until end of April.

I Play Well By Myself At Recess

There are about five berry seasons here. Immediate bottling, pickling and jamming are things of the past with the advent of the ubiquitous deep freeze so these lovely berries are all bagged and frozen right after harvest.

I still have a dwindling stock of frozen bags of cranberries, marshberries and blueberries left from summer’s happy picking.

Yesterday, which was wet, cold and stormy with multi-footer waves (who goes out and measures these things anyway? A measuring tape would get too wet, so do they use a ruler?) crashing on the shore, I cancelled my plans for a trip to town and hauled out my daughter’s recipe for oatmeal cranberry scones. I also made the loaf of Irish soda bread you see in front of it. I use a loaf shape and not the traditional round with a cross shape as I find it much more workable to slice into squares to enable an easy pile-on of the sangy filling.

Outport Woman uses cast iron cookware (I am the fortunate giftee of most of these pieces) on the woodstove fire for these housebound, unexpected-storm-event-baking days. And there’s something about the woodsome taste of such wonders.

It makes all those tax returns preparation go down so much easier.

(Recipes will be posted subsequently - they need to be keyboarded from my brain to paper - upon request)

Stormy Weather

Ella Fitzgerald sings in Germany, 1975.

I don't know how long it had been since I heard a live version of this song. But I did yesterday, at a small venue on Roncesvalle Avenue in Toronto. A late afternoon performance by a very talented singer by the name of James Christopher who had one of those voices like Mel Torme - best described as 'smoky velvet'.

It is one of my favourites. Written way before I was even born (I know, I know, pre-Cambrian times!). Ella was 68 when she performed this version. Ill with diabetes, nearly blind, but the voice, one of the most remarkable ever, still intact and luscious.

I never tire of her. Often on long journeys in my car I will play all of her greats. Stormy Weather seems appropriate for these times, the uncertain state of the planet -the unastable regions, the climate change, the (perhaps) Peak Oil situation and the overall economic instability.