Square 96: Catan

One of the hottest board games around is Settlers of Catan and its various expansions. My friends, Brenda and Judy, introduced me to it several years ago and I've been addicted ever since, sharing the joy with my friends and family. The basic idea is that you build settlements and cities around the island of Catan, produce and trade resources from the surrounding terrain, use them to build more roads and settlements to expand your influence and win the game. One interesting peculiarity of the game is that you cannot progress without cooperating (to some extent) with the other players by trading resources. Another interesting element is that when your turns ends you don't stop participating; During other people's turns you can produce and trade resources.

This square represents the colours of the terrain hexes in Catan: forests produce lumber, hills produce brick, mountains produce ore, plains produce wheat, and pastures produce wool.

The expansion Cities and Knights of Catan introduces more complex strategies to the game. In the variant Starfarers of Catan, you blast into outer space, colonize new planets and encounter alien races who offer strategic alliances. Starship Catan is a two-player version. These are the ones Danny and I own, but there are other variations as well. In each game you must beware of pirates who can steal your resources and even break down your cities.

Through a friend of a friend, I hooked into a group that gets together to play Cities and Knights of Catan one Monday evening a month. On long weekends we hold day-long tourneys, bring potluck and invite other friends and partners along, and play all the other variants. Danny and I play practically every weekend. There is a computer version you can play solo—it's my favourite way to kill time. I've introduced the rest of my family to it as well.

Everybody likes it except for Brenna. You see, some of my friends are too competitive.

Two years ago I had just acquired Starfarers of Catan before Christmas. I was driving home from somewhere with my daughters and two friends, and most of us were getting excited about trying the new game.

"I'll pass," said Brenna, sounding blasé.

"Oh come on," said her sister. "It's more fun if we all play."

"No thanks."

We tried to cajole her, to no avail.

Finally I said, "What don't you like about it?"

"I think," said Brenna, "I've been over-exposed to Lesbians of Catan."

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 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 61: Kettle Creek bag

For years I have carried a small red canvas backpack my mother gave me, made by Kettle Creek Clothing Company. The name is embroidered on it in golden-brown thread. It is rugged and has already been repaired once by a friend, but is finally wearing out. Kettle Creek closed years ago, and cloth bags like this one are becoming hard to find. It is irreplaceable.

For years after I came out, I used to head into Toronto once or twice a month to visit the gay village, meet men I had encountered online, go dancing at the bars and spend time with friends I had made there. I dated quite a few. I traveled light, and this bag would carry everything I needed for a weekend.

Those were exciting times but also lonely, I suppose. I had lost my social network and was starting over from nothing. I couldn't go back to where I had been, but had to figure out who I really was and what kind of people I belonged with. I was doing what every adolescent needs to do, twenty years late. Few relationships I made in those days have endured until now. I came out in 1996, and it was five years before I started to figure out where I fit in. It turned out to be Guelph after all, not Toronto, but the big city offered a quick fix. That sounds cheap, but you need something when you're on your own. Toronto kept me busy and allowed me to experiment, and that was valuable. I had few constant companions, but the red bag was one of them.

Later I used it more often for carrying my writing things to the E-bar above The Bookshelf, where I liked to hang out and work. Since I moved seven weeks ago and could walk to pick up groceries, the bag has proven useful but suddenly started to show its age.

In one patch on the bottom the threads are wearing bare. I am afraid to carry anything heavy in it. Soon it will become useless.

I used to keep old, broken, lovely things that had sentimental value attached, but I am trying to overcome that habit. In striving for a simpler life, you can't afford to hold onto clutter. One day soon I must let go of this bag, but I need to retain the stories that hang from the fabric. They are part of who I am.

Square 53: Apricot conserve

This week I made apricot conserve. Considering I've been trying to improve my diet lately, this stuff is sugary and unhealthy as hell. On the other hand, it's such a fire pot of nostalgia it must be good for the psyche.

Toronto Transit Commission's Poetry on the Way program places works from Canadian poets in place of ad posters on subway cars. It's a nice way to bring a little culture and reflection into people's hectic schedules. A while back I read Margaret Atwood's "Apple Jelly" on one of the trains. It suggests that making preserves is not worth the cost, time and effort, until you realize the inestimable value of picking a jar of summer off the pantry shelf six months from now.

Growing up, I used to help Mom make jams, jellies, pickles and preserves. During my teens I started looking up and experimenting with recipes of my own, like peach chutney and zucchini relish. At Christmas each year I gave my older brothers and their wives boxes of jars containing memories of summer.

Now when I make preserves it's like spending time with Mom again beside a steaming pot of goodness.

Essex County where I grew up is the southernmost county in Canada, and one of the few places in the country where apricots will grow. They were easy to come by. A fresh apricot, not too ripe, is one of my favourite fruits, second only to peaches.

Sometimes in winter I wistfully approach the apricots in the supermarket, imported from somewhere else. They look so delicious, and their colour is incomparable, like a sunset or a hillside of maples in October. But if I am seduced into taking a few home they are always a disappointment, their texture mealy and dry, their flavour insipid.

The only way to enjoy apricots is during the few weeks in August when the real Ontario fruit can be found at the farmers' market. Even if I go to the trouble to make preserves, come next January it will not be the same—nothing can bring fresh fruit back until next time around. But like those imaginary visits with Mom, it's worth the trouble of evoking the colour, flavour and aroma of a memory.

Apricot conserve

• 1 quart apricots
• 1 can crushed pineapple (540 ml/19 oz)
• ½ cup maraschino cherries, quartered
• 2 oranges
• 1 lemon
• 4 cups sugar
• ½ cup slivered almonds

Drop apricots in boiling water for 10 seconds to loosen the skins. Remove promptly. Peel and quarter. Drain the pineapple, reserving the juice. Slice oranges and lemon, remove seeds, and cut slices into eighths. Put all the fruit in a large kettle.

In a medium-sized pot, combine pineapple juice and sugar and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Pour the boiled syrup over the fruit, and bring all to a boil for 25 minutes. A tiny piece of butter may be added to reduce the foam.

Add the almonds and boil one minute.

Remove from heat. Stir and skim for five minutes to prevent fruit from floating. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

Makes 4½ pints. This is good served with scones or vanilla ice cream.

Square 52: Favourite month

In August when the sun has started to travel south, its rays fall longingly over the drunken trees. Summer is like a lover departing when he realizes the situation can’t go on forever. Too much growth and heat would ruin this part of the world. He knows he must depart, but his heart is breaking. A wistful morning mist rises from the lake, blinding the sky’s eyes to the forest’s worst failings. The open spaces beneath the canopy smell of old leaves. Grasshoppers gossip in golden grasses along the lane. “He’s going now,” they whisper. “We’ll have our heyday now!” No one wants to imagine what will become of the land when August finally closes the gate and drifts beyond the hill. They don’t appreciate his light and warmth. Everyone has been too busy carousing to notice his disenchantment. August was the best companion we ever had.

Square 43: Lorraine Roy

The last time I saw Mom—we knew she had only a few months to live, but didn't expect it to be our last visit—she gave me $1,000. Two weeks later she died, and I wanted something to remember her by. In a situation like that you learn what you value. I bought a couple pieces of original art, which I could not normally afford.

It was easy to choose the artists. One of my favourites is Lorraine Roy, who makes art quilts depicting the interface between nature and human consciousness. My attention had been drawn a few years ago to a project she did in conjunction with University of Guelph Arboretum: Saving Paradise, a collection of 17 quilts depicting rare and endangered tree species of Southwestern Ontario. It was a subject close to my heart, and a medium that appealed to me.

More recently she has worked several series of quilts to portray tough little trees growing in rugged environments such as the Niagara Escarpment. These pieces speak of the fragility and tenacity of wild habitats, but also of the human spirit. Having hiked many stretches of the Bruce Trail I am familiar with these scenes, and it was one of these quilts I decided to purchase: Burning Bush 8.

I chose to knit this square at a time when I cannot actually see Lorraine's quilt. It is packed along with most of my other belongings in preparation for moving on Saturday. That considered, I'm surprised at how accurately the yarns selected somewhat randomly from my stash pay tribute to colours and textures of "Burning Bush". Had I set out to describe the piece in words, I could not have done as well.

I am beginning to feel that each of these squares is a painting (and Lorraine's work would be appropriate inspiration for that). A picture says things words cannot, and yet the words of this Yarn are also an essential part.

The yarns in this square: purple Cascade, unknown single-ply gold yarn, variegated green and gold Malabrigo, wine-coloured Patons, some interesting rusty purple wool-mohair-acrylic-alpaca Karen by Filtes King I've had in my stash for ages but not used before, deep orange Noro Kureyon, bright orange Létt-Lopi, chocolate Tupa from Mirasol Peru, and a frosted green remnant of another Noro yarn.

Square 39: Chocolate

I was browsing at All Strung Out when I saw the dark auburn Tupa yarn from Mirasol Peru. It was like smelling a fragrance that takes you to back to a particular time and place; in this case, the first time I tasted Soma Chocolate.

It is one of the most memorable taste sensations in Toronto, at the historic Distillery District. Soma's boutique offers all kinds of chocolate confections, but I recommend a shot of the Mayan hot chocolate. It actually comes in a small glass like a shot of espresso or Jägermeister. It is rich, thick and spicy, and goes down like velvet fire.

Soma products can be bought at artisanal food boutiques outside Toronto. I purchased a bag of the Mayan hot chocolate mix at Ouderkirk and Taylor in downtown Guelph. The ingredients are, "cocoa liquor, organic sugar, cocoa powder and our unique blend of spices." You blend one cup of the mix with half a cup of hot water (yes, it is very rich) and whisk in a saucepan over low heat until smooth.

A portion of the revenue from Mirasol yarns funds a children's centre in the remote Peruvian mountain community where the wool is produced. I alternated rows of Tupa with Noro Kureyon evoking the spices in Soma Chocolate.

Square 38: The harvester special

In the fall of 1922 my grandfather, Van, was 20 years old. Both Canadian railways ran a harvester special to the West. The return ticket from Toronto to Winnipeg cost $16 and you were guaranteed $5 a day plus food. Hearing it was a real adventure, Van decided to go with his friends, Art and Ernie. Art's home was in the West, but he worked for an uncle at the pickle factory in Simcoe, Ontario, where my grandfather had grown up.

The train coaches were called colonist cars. There was no dining car and the seats were all made of slats. They left Toronto with about 1,000 men in 20-odd cars. Each train stop everyone would rush to beseige the coffee shop for rolls, sandwiches, any food. When the whistle blew there was a mad scramble to get back to the seats. The seats would wear ribs in the boys' bottoms, so they sat on sweaters or coats for comfort.

Winnipeg station was jammed with farmers. My grandfather, his friends and two others were immediately hired by a farmer who took them straight to a restaurant for their first real meal in four days. Then they boarded another train, the farmer paying for their tickets, and early next morning they arrived in Margaret, Manitoba. After breakfast they dressed for threshing.

This was all done in the fields. One chap would drive the wagon and spread sheaves around while the ones walking on either side thrust their forks in stooks of wheat and lift it to the load. When the wagon was full it would drive to the threshing machine, and all was unloaded into a conveyor. By the end of the second day they all had big blisters on their hands. They didn't have gloves so they wore socks or wrapped their hands in cloth.

After settling down to harvester work way out on the Manitoba Prairie, imagine Van's surprise to find both Art and Ernie were receiving letters from Miss Fern Hyde, back in Ontario. Van had met my grandmother three years earlier and gone out with her, but they weren't married yet. She was attending normal school in Hamilton, so he didn't see her very often. His friends let Van read the letters, but there were none for him.

The third morning, Art had disappeared. Everyone was worried. The farmer called the station to see if any young fellow had shown. Yes, Art had walked five miles to wait for the train. He had found he was only 50 miles from home and hadn't seen his folks in months. He had bought a one-way ticket to Weyburn. Van and Ernie did not see him again till they got back to Simcoe.

They soon toughened up and liked the work. They were working outdoors, there was lots of food and the group was very congenial. Sundays they had the day off and would drive an old Model T less than 10 miles to a village in the USA. There was no Customs and Immigration, only a little store to buy chocolate bars and smoking stuff.

Once when Van and Ernie had a little spending money, they thought it might be an experience to try a woman, so they visited Winnipeg's large red light district. The women all seemed old and frowsy, and when Ernie told one woman they wanted someone younger she blew her top. Then the boys reached a dead end and had to walk back up the same street with all the ladies hurling abuse from the sidewalks and verandas. Never again, my grandfather decided.

Eventually threshing finished around Margaret and they moved north with it through Manitoba and Saskatchewan before getting back to Winnipeg the middle of December. Van had been sending all his money home for his sister, Myrtle, to look after, as there was not much to spend it on. They had their return tickets but finally decided to take one more job north of Winnipeg at Neepawa.

The bunkhouse there had been built in summer and the boards had dried so there were large cracks between them. At night the snow would blow in and across the beds. The boys slept with all their clothes on. In the morning they could only tell where the grain was by humps in the snow. After four days they decided they had had enough, and left without pay.

Ernie got a bank job in Winnipeg, but Van wired his sister to send money in care of a hotel in Toronto, as he was nearly broke. On the train back he spent the rest on chocolate bars and buns, whatever food he could get.

At the hotel in Toronto a cheque was waiting for him in the mail, but they wouldn't cash it or give him a room. He was hungry and didn't know what to do or where to go.

Then someone slapped him on the back and said, "What are you doing on Yonge Street in Toronto?"

It was the Sunday school teacher's husband from church in Simcoe. He took Van to his hotel room, took him out and fed him, and drove him back to Simcoe later next day. He wouldn't let Van cash the cheque. My grandfather arrived at his brother-in-law's farm three days before Christmas.

This story is adapted from memoirs my grandfather wrote down in 1980, four years before he died, and I collated and edited for the family in 1996. The booklet turned up this week while I was packing for the move. He was a good storyteller, so perhaps I will post more of these tales as time goes on. I didn't have any memories of my own to draw on for the colours in this square and I have never seen the Canadian Prairies in person, but the rusty-gold Noro Kureyon reminded me of harvest, and the blue of an endless sky.

Square 33: Pinatubo sunset

Beautiful sunsets frequent Lake Fletcher, but for several years after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991, they were especially spectacular. Our cottage faces northeast, so I used to take my camera out in the canoe after dinner, around the point to see the entire glorious show.

One evening I paddled eagerly to photograph the most resplendent sunset I had ever seen. Bright orange filigree laced the underside of a vast purple monument reaching high into the atmosphere.

In the middle of the lake I discovered the camera was out of film. Bitter was my disappointment. I would not be able to show anyone.

Then I realized, it was a moment just for me to absorb and enjoy. Much pleasure in life comes from sharing experiences with others, but why should it be so hard to appreciate this beauty privately? I pondered that question at length. It was the first time I remember considering I should learn to enjoy my own company. I sat for a long time in the canoe, residing in the moment.

I used to spend lengthy prayer time seeking the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, an esoteric aspect of God that could bring the power of faith to my life. Now I believe what I really need is to indwell my own self, to be fully conscious and appreciative of each day and what I in my native state can bring to it. I frequently fail. Anxiety particularly likes to get in the way. Jesus spoke wisely when he said not to worry about tomorrow, for each day has enough of its own trouble.

Consider the sunset, here tonight and gone tomorrow, but for the moment arrayed in greater splendour than anyone could amass in a lifetime of back-breaking labour.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted it ejected 17 million tons of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. The stratospheric aerosol cloud persisted for three years, reducing average temperatures globally by about half a degree Celsius, causing floods and famine, sharply depleting ozone levels, and bringing glorious sunsets.

That particular evening was lost to film and I never considered recreating it any other way until now. The orange yarn is Canadian, superwash merino from Mission Falls, and the variegated pink-violet-cerulean is Japanese Noro Kureyon. Both of these I picked up in a recent visit to The Purple Purl, a knitting cafe in Toronto's east end. There's also Icelandic yellow Létt-Lopi, local purple from Wellington Fibres, and deep burgundy Cascade (also Canadian) for the silhouetted earth.