Square 90: Herb garden

One of the first gardens I had was an herb garden. I don't know what first attracted me to herbs. Mom had the usual spice jars in her kitchen, and used them only sparingly. I liked the fragrance of herbs, but they also possessed an esoteric, magical quality.

I had a National Geographic book entitled Nature's Healing Arts, which traced the history of pharmaceutical medicine from folklore to modern science. The pages were filled with photographs of traditional healers wading through streams and meadows, gathering mysterious and healthful plants. I wanted to be one of those people, and learned everything I could about the medicinal qualities of weeds, trees and wildflowers that grew around our house and cottage. I collected and dried them, but rarely used them because I really did not trust the idea.

I also kept my interest secret from my friends, just as I hid all my gardening prowess. Boys were not supposed to be interested in plants, especially not these kinds. Mom let me hang herbs to dry in the little room with the water heater and pump, and it's almost funny thinking back: I kept my herbs in a closet.

Now I mostly use herbs in food. The ones most popular in Western cooking are Mediterranean herbs from the mint family, such as sage, thyme, rosemary, oregano and marjoram. Their smells evoke warm lands and sunny skies.

Square 89: Amaryllis

Mom gave me an Amaryllis bulb for Christmas in 2007 and it bloomed that winter before she died. I had not been reliable at maintaining houseplants, but after the flower faded—and with Mom gone—I tried to keep the plant alive as long as possible.

She used to plunge her Amaryllis pots in a shady place in the garden for the summer so they could rest and store up nutrients, but I did not have an adequate garden space.

So I just left it sitting on the back of the toilet, a sunny place in my old apartment. Finally late in the summer its last leaves faded and fell off. I tossed the pot on dim shelf in the hall, unwilling to throw it out but not knowing what to do with it, and forgot about it.

A few months later (this is a year ago now) I was surprised to see new leaves. I moved the pot to a sunny place, and the plant produced another flower.

I had hoped to repeat the miracle. Last August I offered the plant a sunny home in my new bathroom, then moved it again a few weeks ago to a dark corner of the living room.

This week it began sprouting leaves, but I see no evidence of a flower bud. Did I not give it a long enough rest? If I care for it properly this year, will it have another chance?

I remember a few years ago when my friend Lisa lost her mother she commented how strange it felt to find herself at the top of the family tree. I'm not there yet (my father is still alive), but it hit me recently that when I die, some people who live on in my memory will vanish even from there. My children never met my grandfather, Van, whom I was so fond of. Someday when my children die, no one will remember my mother. What happens to people then?

Friday evening while walking home I saw the full moon, Mom's moon, gazing down from a velvet sky. She went away during the lunar eclipse two years ago this month. She is still there now, dropping by once in a while to say hello, and for now, for me, it is enough.

I'll keep coaxing the Amaryllis to bloom. We grasp eternity however we can.

Square 88: Red mulberry

A few weeks ago I had to run a Saturday morning errand to Acton. Danny was in the car with me. We saw a yarn store on the main street so I suggested we go in. I came out with one new skein for the blanket, this deep burgundy Debbie Bliss Donegal Aran Tweed. I've used it already in one or two squares, but wanted to base a square around it. Nothing came immediately to mind so this week I started knitting to see what would happen.

Within the first two rows I began to think of a red mulberry tree (Morus rubra) that grew beside the house where I grew up. Typically red mulberries are small trees growing in the understory, but ours was about 15 metres tall with a girth so large an adult could barely reach halfway around. Originally two of them stood a few paces apart, but one got hit by lightning when I was too young to remember.

The mulberry was a grand tree. Its strong, spreading limbs shaded the south side of our house. It was a great climbing tree. My brother built a fort in it when I was very small, and I continued to use it. My cousin, Bill, used to fall out the tree regularly and broke his arm on at least one occasion.

We had a grey cat named Smudge who thought she was a monkey. She mostly stayed indoors through the winter, but on the first mild spring day she would scramble into the mulberry and leap from branch to branch. Our older cat, Grey Shadow, preferred to lie in the soft, cool shade on the platform of the treefort.

It produced bountiful fruit in midsummer, which were small and insipid, but attractive to many birds such as cedar waxwings. Our patio and the soles of our feet would become stained purple.

The tree also attracted one of the large North American silk moths, the cecropia moth, Hyalophora cecropia. We never saw caterpillars, but sometimes in fall or winter we would find large pale brown cocoons attached to a branch or the trunk. One year we tried bringing one indoors, and the gorgeous moth emerged one sunny winter day. It lived for a few days but we could not release it. That was a sad lesson for us, and we left the cocoons alone afterward.

Our house had a deck off the second-floor bedrooms, and I used to be able to climb between the deck and a branch of the mulberry to get up or down. Sometimes as a teenager I would slip out of my bedroom and down the tree just to roam around in the dark.

After I left home for university, the tree suffered the same fate as its sibling and was destroyed by lightning. There used to be a few saplings around the woodsy edge of the vacant lot next door, but I have not seen one there for many years. I never saw another big mulberry until recently—in Toronto one of the cafés on Queen Street has a tall tree casting shade over the back patio.

We had no idea what a special tree ours was. Now I know red mulberries are endangered in Canada, confined to the most southerly part of the Carolinian Forest zone in Southwestern Ontario.

Square 87: 6 changes

I've never liked setting New Year's resolutions, but this year I needed a plan. I spent last fall trying to change too many things about my life and most of them fell flat. So I have adopted a new strategy for 2010.

I have mentioned the Zen Habits blog here before. Leo Babauta, bestselling author of The Power of Less, offers advice on simplifying your life and becoming more productive. He has also designed the 6 Changes Method, a model for changing behaviour, and this is what I have been following.

Here are the basic principles: pick six changes you want to apply in the coming year, address them one at a time instead of all at once, spend two months on each one beginning with small steps and moving to larger, more difficult ones, and be accountable by telling your friends and family.

I've been going with it since the beginning of the month. My first change is to focus on creative writing. I want to finish writing a novel. So I've been getting up earlier to establish a daily writing practice, and it's going well.

Here are a few tips I have learned, partly from personal experience and partly from Babauta's advice:

1. Don't start anything immediately. Make a plan. When you have a new habit in mind, give yourself a week or two before it starts. Choose a date and time. The anticipation will help you prepare.
2. Don't try to change more than one thing at once.
3. When things are going well you might feel inclined to work ahead, but resist the temptation; if you change too many things at once you're more likely to backslide.
4. It takes a minimum of one month to successfully ingrain a new habit, ideally two months.
5. Break each change down into steps and start with one so easy you cannot fail.
6. Make some of your six changes fun.
7. For harder changes, build a reward system into your plan.
8. Forgive yourself. One of my friends suggests an 80/20 rule, so if you follow your plan 80 per cent of the time, that counts as success.
9. Blog about it. It's a good way to be publicly accountable, and your friends can encourage you.

For this square I chose six variegated yarns to represent 6 changes. Some of them are subtle, others more stark, some bright, others earthy, some simple, others complicated.

If you want to simplify or become more productive, there's no reason to wait until next January. Start now. Happy changes!

Square 86: Ancient white cedars

The oldest trees in Eastern North America are Eastern white cedars (Thuja occidentalis) that grow on the cliff face of the Niagara Escarpment. The oldest live individual so far identified is located at Lion's Head on Georgian Bay; it has 1141 growth rings. Some dead trees have been found with as many as 1653, and some, with pith wood missing, are estimated to have lived 1800 years.

T. occidentalis is a small tree, normally growing less than 20 metres, but the ancient trees of the escarpment are diminutive, stunted by exposure to the elements. Cedars are a favourite forage plant for deer. The cliff is the only place where they are safe from browsers, forest fires and competition from more vigorous trees.

My plant ecology prof in 1986 was Doug Larson. Imagine my surprise to see him appear a few years later in a Canadian Geographic article about the discovery of these ancient cedars, with which he is credited. The story is recounted in a book I hope to get my hands on soon, The Last Stand: A Journey Through the Ancient Cliff-Face Forest of the Niagara Escarpment by Larson and Peter Kelly. Larson was an energetic teacher, compelled with desire to impart the importance of botany to the masses. I don't know how far his enthusiasm spread, but it has certainly affected my life.

Lorraine Roy's quilt, Burning Bush, which hangs in my living room (see square 43), also reminds me of the flora of the Niagara Escarpment. Sometimes it is not the big, impressive things that are most enduring.

Square 85: Purple

Violet is the colour associated with Sahasrara, the seventh primary chakra, positioned above the head and also known as the crown chakra. In traditional Indian medicine, the chakras are focal points for transmission of energy through the body. The crown is the chakra of higher consciousness. It is associated with dreams and creativity.

In the new year I have launched a plan to implement six changes in my life, one at a time. I've published the list in my other blog. You are welcome to follow along and encourage me to stick with it. The first and most cherished hope is to focus on creative writing, particuarly a novel I have had in progress for several years. I have designated tomorrow as the day to commence a new writing process dedicated to that goal.

I am calling upon all the forces at my disposal to bring this change about, and so decided to knit a square of purple yarn to direct my conscious and subconsious faculties. I threw in some of Danny's "kitchen sink" handspun yarn, because it is all about the creative process. Writing or making art is an incredible journey and you must be willing to set out with only a sketchy map of the path ahead. Today I stand at the head of the trail.

Square 84: Organ building

Work on the blanket has taken a hiatus over the holiday season while I busily knitted gifts. 2010 is a new year and I have new projects on the burner—well, actually not so new, but an old project tackled with refreshed vigour and concentration. You can read about it on my other blog, Eramosa River Journal. Meanwhile I plan to continue working on these squares, perhaps at a more relaxed pace than before, but with some regularity.

Another important change is that work has picked up. For months my boss has had a contract in the works to build a new pipe organ for a church in Vancouver. During December we were able to get started on some preparatory work, which set me up to keep busy while he has been on holidays the past several weeks. This job will keep us busy until next fall.

One of the woods we use to build organs is tulip wood, known at the lumber yard as poplar. It is a beautiful tree, uncommon in Ontario, but further south it is grown commercially. The wood has two colours, pale cream with a rosy undertone, and a greenish-brown. This darker colour reminds me of yarn I dyed with black walnuts.

We use poplar to construct toe boards because it cuts cleanly and is stable, not prone to warping. The toe board is the structure on which the feet of the pipes rest. It is full of holes and channels to conduct air into the pipes, and is set up with a system of valves and sliders to shut the air on or off depending on which pipes are being played. We use the band saw, table saw, jointer and thickness planer to cut the boards to precise thickness, then the drill press to drill holes, and the router to hollow out channels on the undersides of the boards. This is my current undertaking.

Many of the pipes are being subcontracted to other shops specializing in their construction. The majority are made of metal but a few are made of wood. We will build some of the wood pipes ourselves. But that is all weeks in the future. Rack boards will also be assembled to hold the pipes in place on top of the toe boards and the rest of the organ—the winds lines and casework—will be constructed around them. Much of the organ will be built in the shop in Fergus, then taken apart and shipped to Vancouver where we will assemble it again.

Building a pipe organ is a journey.