Nature – Page 5 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Autumn, Fall colours, Gratitude, Nature, Ontario Autumn, Photographs, Spiritual, Trees in autumn

Autumn Colours in Ontario

November 7, 2013October 11, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

Thanks to Hamlin Grange for his lovely photographs

Imagine my first autumn in Canada. I’d come here from Jamaica, where the trees and shrubs didn’t change colours — unless you counted the parade of blooms on shrubs like bougainvillea and trees like the poinciana.

Autumn in Ontario was a wonderland of changing colours and scents. The fresh smell of a cool fall day, the rain having come overnight and disappeared by morning, replaced by brilliant sunshine. The smell of wood logs burning in the fireplace. The blazing colours of the trees. And the shrubs. And the pumpkins.

Colours, glorious colours.

I had seen pictures, but the first time I beheld the autumn colours with my own eyes, I was astonished. When I realized that the leaves would soon fall and the maple and oak trees would be stripped of their glory, leaving bare branches and trunks behind, I wanted to find a way to stop time.

It’s many years later. You’d think I’d be used to the sight of Ontario’s autumn colours by now. But they still surprise me, still make my face break out in a foolish smile whenever I see what nature has wrought. Even on those days of awful pain and reduced mobility, when I am stuck inside the house, looking through windows, it seems to me that the air outside shimmers with a golden beauty.

I’m thankful for the sights and scents of the autumn. And glad to share with you a few scenes of the fall colours in Ontario. Enjoy!

A Good Home, Autumn, Garden, Homes, Jelly, Nature, Thanksgiving, Vegetables

The Harvest

October 7, 2013October 10, 2013 Cynthia Reyes

Photos by Hamlin Grange

It’s just days before Thanksgiving here in Ontario and the harvest is in.

So much to give thanks for, once you think about it. From having a family and a home to having food to eat.

At this time of year, I’m reminded of something my mother used to say: “You don’t have to be rich to plant a garden.” No matter how little money our families had, my mother and my husband’s mother always planted a garden. (My mother-in-law still does.) And I have lovely memories of their abundant produce that sometimes came from just a small plot.

Our own vegetable garden has yielded abundantly this summer and fall: eggplants, beans, peppers, onions, zucchini, cucumber and raspberry. And a profusion of tomatoes.

In a fit of late-day ambition, the pumpkin vine has even flowered again and put out several perfect tiny pumpkins.

It’s a Jamaican pumpkin, grown from a seedling that came from neighbours Paddy and Jacqui. Only one of its pumpkins made it to maturity this summer, and now, in early October, this intrepid vine is trying again. I thank it for the effort, but warn that it’s indulging in a lost cause.

“You’re in Canada now,” I tell it – one of the foolish ‘conversations’ I tend to have with plants and shrubs when I walk through the garden. “Cold weather is just around the corner.”

But last time I checked, the vine had sent out yet another flower, atop yet another tiny pumpkin.

We’re thankful for the one mature pumpkin it gave us, and decide to treat it as if it’s a whole crop. So we call Paddy and Jacqui to come get their share of “the pumpkin harvest”.

“What about the bird pepper I gave you?” asks Jacqui soon after she comes through the kitchen door.

“It got overshadowed by the asparagus and raspberry bushes”, my husband says. “We realized it too late. It’s just blooming now.”

“But the raspberry bushes you gave us a few years ago are on their second or third yield this summer,” I chime in, wanting to atone for our inept treatment of the bird pepper plant and our failure to get more than one mature pumpkin.

Along with a half of the pumpkin, we give Jacqui and Paddy tomatoes, herbs and garlic. They’re happy with their share of the harvest.

The garlic bulbs were yanked out of the soil in late summer, and left to dry in baskets and boxes. The biggest ones are given to family and friends like Paddy and Jacqui, the smaller ones left behind for our own use. These garlic bulbs have grown by themselves each year. Untended, even unplanted, offspring of the seeds of a single garlic plant my mother-in-law gave us years ago. Who was to know that garlic is so easy to grow?

Before the harvesting of the garlic, there was the red currant. For years the birds got to the currant bushes first, picking them clean before we got to them. So now we get to them first, leaving behind about a third of the crop for the birds. The result of that harvest is beautiful red jelly, a surprising taste of sweet and tart. It’s perfect with cheese, crackers, toast, ham or even as a baste for roast pork or chicken. Or Thanksgiving turkey.

Here’s my question to you: What are you harvesting from your garden, if you have one? And what will you be giving thanks for this Thanksgiving (whether it’s the Canadian one in a few days, the American one next month or wherever you are?) I’d love to hear from you.

A Good Home, Book lovers, Garden, Homes, Inspiration, Nature, Photographs

A Reader Writes

September 27, 2013October 30, 2013 Cynthia Reyes

“As I sat down each time with your book I was curious as to where you might be taking me in the next chapter or two. There were so many surprises and turns. Life is full of them, I know, but yours are so well written of, they seem to be real and much more. Almost a window of opportunity: a window for your reader to look out of, to see his or her world in a different and better light.” Reader review by John Garside.

Umpteen readers have emailed me with their responses to A Good Home. Some send photos as well. Philip Young created an image that celebrates A Good Home:

Thanks, Philip. And your wife Marje, for reading and loving the book. And for this interesting image!

John Garside, a gardener, avid reader and editor from Prince Edward County, Ontario, took A Good Home with him on his canoe trip in a remote part of Ontario. Seems the book made good reading when he stopped for lunch, eating his bagels, etc.

When John returned home, he sent me photos and his review of A Good Home:

“I find time with a book a very rewarding experience. The book I read just before opening the cover on yours was ‘Half Broke Horses’ by Jeanette Walls published in 2009. I then read yours, and then the next in line was ‘John Cameron’s Odyssey’, transcribed by Andrew Farrell and published in 1928.

I now have finished his book and find myself looking back on all three books and saying to myself, “What a wonderful reading time I have experienced!”

Now I would like to talk about your book. There were several things that I really liked about it.

The first one was the topic. “Homes” are made from “houses” and not everyone can do this and not everyone is aware of the transformation of a house into a home. The “Home” topic really interested me as I have lived in several places and it is interesting how attached you can get to a home. For me it can be the actual house or more recently something outside the actual house, the garden! So the topic was just the thing to read as I was leaving my former home for a new place.

The chapter length was excellent. Short and to the point which is something that Jeanette Walls also did in her book “Half Broke Horses”. With a busy life you sometimes only have thirty minutes to read so a nice short concise chapter is just the ticket!

I enjoyed each chapter as it started and ended within my grasp of time. Long chapter books are nice but I find I sometimes have to backup and re-read from the start of the chapter to get into the swing of the book again. I did not have to do that with yours. Each chapter was a nice fit and I could see the “Home” being built one chapter at a time.

Your book is very much like a piece of stained glass. Each piece speaks to you and is wonderful as it stands. Then when all the pieces are put together the picture is much more clear and I could see your path from Home to Home to Home and beyond.

Your snippets of early life were very interesting and it is most unfortunate that more people do not or cannot remember some of the finer points of their youth. I can remember things that happened to me when I was three, and feelings and a sense of the world when I was two and a half. You too have this gift and sharing some moments of your Jamaican childhood was very eye-opening for me, someone who was born and raised in Toronto!

I also found it interesting how you decided that Jamaica may be “home” but not your future. It takes a very mind-centred person to do this as most of us are more than happy to stay where we are.

You mentioned that coming to Toronto and going to Ryerson was quite an experience. As I read these pages I really felt for you as I recall when I went off to university in Hamilton (McMaster). I was surprised to see so many foreign students. Now being a curious sort of person I was always interested in their story. I made many fascinating friends and look back on my university days as eye-opening not only for what I took in my courses but also what I learned from my many foreign friends.

Your journey in faith is also well described as it is something that not everyone is comfortable in writing about. The church in Brooklin must have been quite a change for you from Jamaica!

I also enjoyed your look into homes as a place where you live. Your homes have been that, a place where you and your family live their lives and take care of each other. The seed is planted early in the book and continues to grow through to the end pages.

By the end of the book, each home is special in its own right but all are equal in their own gift to you and your family. I feel the same way about the various homes that I have had; they have all given to me and my friends a life-giving joy.”

Category: Nature

Autumn Colours in Ontario

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The Harvest

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A Reader Writes

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