A Walk in the 'Hood

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I have been lurking around the neighborhood with my camera the last few days. Here are the mountains to the east I see every morning, waiting with Simon for the school bus, waiting for the sun to rise. Now that there is snow on the tops they turn bright pink at sunset. There is the church, a few blocks to the north, where (until this last year) I taught various Sunday School classes, where my children were baptised, where, in the hush that followed the choir's performance of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus one Christmas, my four-year-old stood up on the bench and announced in a loud voice, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! What a DUMB song!" --where most of the neighborhood gathers for wedding receptions, basketball games, summer bar-b-ques, Halloween parties, Christmas dinners, the blessing of babies, funerals.... The canal, its banks lined with willow trees and weeds, runs just east of the church.

People in the neighborhood are beginning to decorate for Halloween. Pumpkins sit in doorways, people are mowing their lawns for what is probably the last time this year before it snows. They're fixing their roofs and driveways, and jogging through the leaves on the road. The giant sunflower in my backyard has become a banquet for the birds. Just seconds before I took the photo, there were three or four birds feasting and scattering shells everywhere. My neighbor whose house is just across the fence suffered a stroke two weeks ago that weakened his right side and took some of his memory, but lately he has been out sitting in the sun, watching while his wife and two of their grown daughters put his vegetable garden to bed. My beautiful rose reminds me of the rose in Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, with only her thorns to protect her when the snow flies next week....

The streets here are named Village Green, Greenfield, Meadow Downs, Meadowbrook, Willow, Dawn Drive. I live on Cloverdale.

The boys were excited to get their new Halloween costumes the other day and were anxious to try them on. Simon is Black Spiderman. Jake is Darth Vadar (who he calls "Hopper" because of the sound he makes when he breathes. Inhale: HAAAAAAAA Exhale: PERRRRRRRRR...go ahead, try it! Worn out, Jacob sleeps on the end of my bed, his walking stick on one side, his other arm around the dog.

To be truthful, the two boys in the leaf piles are my grandsons who live far away in Minnesota, having fun in THEIR front yard. The pictures are from their dad, via the miracle of the internet. All the rest are mine. I had other pictures in mind-- my weathered birdhouse, filled with acorns Simon collected and brought home in a bucket--but my card was full! I'll save that one for another day.

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