Making It Up As I Go Along #217

MONDAY…
--- Some e-mails and laundry to start the day.
--- Work is alright but strange. My old team is gone with only two members remaining. It’s strange not to see Laura, Karen, Michelle and Jaymie here tonight. I spend much of the evening training Louis to be my second in charge. It goes well.

TUESDAY…
--- Not a bad time at work… pretty uneventful. Montreal loses and is out of the hockey playoffs now. Seeing the score on the internet at work doesn’t seem like the right way to see how it happens but that’s it.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Work is fine. Chip Wagon for supper with Mike, Phil and Shannon… Bill, Mark and Dave are there too.
--- Two walks at breaks… one with Linda and the other with Joe.

THURSDAY…
--- Greek day at work for Louis and me. The AFIS crew had a potluck so not many more to go for supper. Walked at second break with Louis and Joe. And chatted at first break with Isabelle.
--- Looks like I’m getting published. No money involved and it’s hardly going out to millions but it’s looking like I’ll be a guest columnist for St. John’s local newspaper, The Independent. So that’ll be strange to see something I’ve done in a publication.

FRIDAY…
--- Work is fine… supper with Mike.
--- Not much sleep thanks to a phone call at 8:30 this morning followed immediately by fools out in the parking lot blowing dust around with leaf blowers. It hardly seems necessary to me but it’s enough to make me stay up.

SATURDAY…
--- Sleep until 10:30. Not a good thing going in to day shift at work. I likely won’t sleep too well Sunday night.
--- Talk to Edena on the phone… go to the Neil Young movie again (this time with Shannon) and we do Dick’s Diner and watch some baseball after that.
--- I’m published for the first time. The Independent (a weekly paper back home) pays me no money as a guest columnist… but I’m in there. It’s strange to know something I wrote is in a real paper.

SUNDAY…
--- Lazy morning delays my writing.
--- HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.... or not. After originally posting I realize that I'm a week early. I'm just not that bright.


A week after the walk it’s time to get into it. First of all, I originally called the place Mere Bleu (Blue Mother). That’s my Sesame Street French kicking in… it is actually Mer Blue (Blue Sea). Thanks to Melissa for pointing out my lack of bilingualism.

Mer Bleu

Karl comes by the house at 8:00 in the morning. Had I been coming off evening shift that previous week and getting up so early, I’d be in trouble. But with day shift behind me, it’s actually me sleeping in for a couple of hours, so I’m good to go.

Back home, Pippy Park is one of my favourite places to go and hike. You get away from people. You have spectacular views of the city. You have bits of civilization from past years being grown over by nature. You enter the wilderness while remaining in the city.

Mer Bleu is much the same. Fifteen minutes from my house to the parking lot. We hop out of the car with only three other vehicles in the lot. Seconds later, we’re within the woods with a dirt path and occasional boardwalks to guide us.

Where Pippy Park has mostly evergreen trees and low brush, Mer Bleu is more of a deciduous forested area. I find this makes for a spookier experience. I mean back home, you hear an animal scurry in the woods but there’s no chance of seeing anything through the wall of pine trees. Here, you get the same noises but you can look for the culprit. A deciduous forest allows you to peek in around the trunks and limbs. You can see a good hundred feet or so away from you.

So it’s a tad unnerving to hear something, look towards where the sound came from, and still see nothing. The genius of animal camouflage allows the mind to run wild. No wonder the Blair Witch Project movie was set in such a forest.

Regardless, I suspect my life is rather safe at 8:30 on a Saturday morning in Ottawa. And I do happen to catch a glimpse of a few little birds, as well as one that could have been a bigger partridge. So any unseen noise makers were assumed to be more of the same rather than centuries old witches.

Karl tells me of the brave birds of this area. He once had a muffin as he walked through these woods and a darting motion in front of him caused him to freeze in his footsteps. Then it happened again… and again. He looked down to see pieces of his muffin missing! Birds, in Hitchcock fashion, attacking him. Karl continued on that day with muffin drawn in to his body close, protecting it with both hands.

We come to some areas where Spring melt water remains pooled on top of spongy ground. It actually reminds me of walking along the shores of Newfoundland. For even though we are here in the woods of Ottawa, the standing water remains much like tidal pools of home. And like those tidal pools, a closer look at the standing water here reveals little creatures swimming about. I like to imagine that I saw small tadpoles at the early stages of life before entering froghood. But I probably was looking at bug larvae… the youth of disease carrying mosquitoes.

And also like the shores of home, where one would have to hop from rock to rock, trying to keep feet dry while traversing the obstacle, her in Mer Bleu, we pick our way through the maze of fallen logs and elevated mounds… looking for a dry path through the wet.

The woods give way to a wide open field. And here, signs of the past. Bits of concrete and asphalt poke out of the ground. Signs of an old farm house? Were these paths once the route to town back in the days of horse and cart? I have no idea but it makes the mind wander along the possibilities.

From open hilltops, Karl and I look out at parts of the city. Open farmers fields are in the foreground, the buildings of downtown can be seen miles away. And off in the distance, the Gatineau Hills of Quebec.

On the way out, a tame squirrel stands a few feet from us, nibbling on bits of food. It stays, watching as I pull out my camera. It poses for me and keeps at it’s munching as we leave.

New leaves with the morning sun behind them make the trees look electric. Karl and I both comment on this light. It’s as deciduous Christmas lights of summer. The forest is festive.

Just prior to leaving, we come across a woman and her two children. She’s teaching the kids how to hold out their hands in order for birds to land on their fingers and eat out of their palms. I’m sure the woman has been here doing this a million times before but she has such a look of joy and amazement that you can’t help but appreciate the affect nature has over us.

This family of three are the last of some ten people we see the entire time we’re out here. It’s a terrific change from the bustle of the city and anyone we see is quick to give a smile and a hello. Sometimes it takes the wonder of the wilderness to make people civilized.