Womanseyeview's Blog

Humbled again

Posted on June 28, 2015 by womanseyeview

Times when you are astounded by the beauty around you are such a joy at any age, but to discover what is just on your doorstep after a lifetime of travel is doubly so! Hiking the Bruce trail provides so many of those moments that it could get a bit boring for those of you patiently following my blog but here it goes again.

Looking out over Niagara escarpment on an early summer day on the Cape Croker section of the Trail, is like being in a deep, dark foreign jungle.

Complete with giant ferns,

And just when you need to catch your breath yet another kind soul has provided a bench to rest and have your breath taken away yet again by the view!

Quietly contemplating the peace around us an eagle hunts before our eyes, drifting on the thermals.

Not all is peaceful though – Cheryl and I have had the occasional dispute about whether we follow the white flashes of the Bruce or interpret the maps they provide. I am big on following the flashes although as we let them guide us into this crevice even I had a moments doubt!

But then it guided us out once again.

Scrambling up the rocks we spied these sparkling wild strawberries…tempted by the fruit we remembered they were the bears favourite too and carried on climbing…a little more quickly.

The spectacular limestone cliffs of this part of the Niagara Peninsula that the Bruce Trail follows is in Cape Croker, a part of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nations. At times it felt as though we were seeing the land as it might have looked when the First Nations were the only humans in this region…humbling indeed.

Posted in Environment, Hiking, Photography, Thoughts, Walking | Tagged Cape Croker, Hiking the Bruce trail, Ontario wilderness | 51 Comments

“Do we have to die first?”

Posted on June 12, 2015 by womanseyeview

Well the question did set me back on my heels a bit…Greed and corruption, the pursuit of wealth and power, self interest everywhere…there’s no doubt it can get you down sometimes. If you try however you can find the counter forces of community building, simple pleasures, selflessly helping others. That wonderful proverb about society being great when we plant trees in whose shade we’ll never sit sums it up perfectly.

Days last light

One example of this generosity, can be found along the Bruce Trail I’m walking with my dear friend Cheryl. We’re into our second year now – clearly we’re taking our time and relishing our days!

This is a nearly 900 kilometre trail along the Niagara escarpment and it’s maintained entirely by volunteers and has been for the 50 years of its existence. They keep the paths clear of fallen trees, build bridges, stairways, styles and even thoughtfully add an occasional dog door!

For dogs who can’t climb.

There are sometimes heaven sent benches along the way – such a kindness, especially in poison ivy season! Many of them are memorial benches to people and other creatures who have enjoyed this jewel of a trail.

But then there are the ones that are just there out of kindness.

We have no idea who these strangers are who provide a little comfort but Cheryl and I have often discussed how we want to be one of those strangers. If I should keel over on the trail one day, she likes to say, make sure my kids know I want to donate a bench…and I ask the same of her.

On the last hike Cheryl wondered why we had to die before we donated a bench – good question! Maybe a bench to celebrate our completion – check back here in a couple of years…

Posted in Environment, Hiking, Life, Photography, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Walking | Tagged community action, Hiking the Bruce trail, Niagara escarpment, volunteering | 46 Comments

Hippie symbols and union meetings?

Posted on May 20, 2015 by womanseyeview

Perfect in its three petals, most commonly white, the trillium heralds in spring on our forest floors. It’s also our Provinces official symbol. I don’t mean as the official flower of the Province – it actually is the government symbol and appears on all things official.

Sort of neat in a peaceful, hippie type way don’t you think?

It may have changed a little in design over the years but as you can see, the flower remains – do you think someone got big bucks for these design changes?

We have seen carpets of trilliums on our Bruce Trail walks and never tire of exclaiming to each other about their fragile beauty. There are several different species here although I could only recognize three – the big, erect white ones, the smaller white types and the rarer scarlet ones.

Patches of sweet woodruff also dot the forest floor and my hiking partner Cheryl and I look forward to a warmer spell which will release their delicate fragrance.

There are blooming lilacs dotted across the countryside, once part of homesteads that no longer stand, they have become naturalized and tough it out easily over our often brutal winters. Romy’s 2 year old friend Aria tried these out for taste and manages to wear them in her hair…hippie symbols seem everywhere this spring.

On an unrelated issue I saw this gathering on the pond out back and thought that it might be a union meeting of some kind. Maybe they were trying to work out a way to share the riches? Canada geese, mallard ducks, merganser diving ducks (I mentioned these here), a cormorant and a great blue heron all planning the revolution perhaps?

Posted in Environment, Hiking, Photography, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts | Tagged Canada geese, cormorants, ducks, Great Blue Herons, Mergansers, Migrating birds, sweet woodruff, Trilliums | 43 Comments

It’s official!

Posted on April 30, 2015 by womanseyeview

With mud splashed on his long, muscular legs, stripped of the leather that until moments ago had clothed his golden body, his naturally streaked hair flying in the wind, … he ran with wild abandon, knowing the joy that awaited him.

Yes my boy Romy is finally back grazing in the Spring pasture! Who did you think I was talking about?!

And for two key reasons it seems to be officially Spring. First there is the afore mentioned pasture and secondly my friend Cheryl and I have been back on the Bruce Trail for a month now.

Song birds and naturalized daffodils dot the countryside.

Waterways are still a little swollen from the rains.

As Cheryl looks out over the countryside to Georgian Bay beyond, we both know that the long wait is over…

Spring at last. Spring at last! We have not been tempted to run with wild abandon or eat the grass yet though…

Posted in Environment, Hiking, Horses, Life, Photography, Thoughts, Walking | Tagged Hiking the Bruce trail, Springtime in Ontario | 40 Comments

Does Ikea have ‘grandmother issues’?

Posted on April 15, 2015 by womanseyeview

Taken along to amuse my 11 month old grandson while my son and daughter-in-law debated the merits of Ektorp vs Ekenas, I was having a grand old grandmother time! Not wanting to hurt anyones feelings but my little prince really is the handsomest, smartest little fellow – and he does seem to find me very amusing.

I happily traipsed him through the Ikea toy department which always seems to have colourful and imaginative toys…although the prices do make me wonder about child labour or at least sweatshops. They have a fairy tale line in toys…you know the stereotypes – princess, prince, red riding hood, wolf…wolf!! I couldn’t believe my eyes… there was the wolf swallowing grandmother whole:

Look more closely, this is gruesome stuff!

Horrified on behalf of my granny sisterhood, I hid it from my grandson’s innocent eyes and raced over to my daughter-in-law who, while not taking it as personally as me, declared wryly “hmmm wonder what toy designer thought that was a good idea!”

I wanted to stay around and watch what types might actually buy such a violent, granny- hating thing but the debate had been decided in favour of Ektorp and we needed to move along. I didn’t notice what this toy was called but after decades of experience with Ikea names it’s probably something like ‘Kilagran’.

And I always thought Sweden was such a peace loving place…

Posted in Humour, Life, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts | Tagged grandmothers, Ikea | 40 Comments

Hope flies in on the wings of a bird…

Posted on April 8, 2015 by womanseyeview

I’ll pretty much take what I can get by this point in the year! Hope it seems has flown in on the wings of a bird…or two.

It started of course with the geese, to whom I bid farewell last Autumn. Their familiar honking calls overhead pull your eyes skyward to their oh-so-welcome v-formations headed north at last.

Resting along the way

The song birds, shortly after, started frequenting my bird feeders as they returned a little worse for wear.

Then one morning I looked out and there he was walking his perimeter and making sure all was as he’d left it – the majestic great blue heron. Even the cheeky mallard ducks came for a closer look.

On closer inspection it looks like he’s had a tough journey north. It has been a brutal winter for us all and Spring is late in coming.

And then a new visitor – new to me since it seems he’s called the ‘common’ Merganser, a diving duck who fishes for whatever else lives in the pond.

Soon his fair, red headed, lady joined him along with other relatives making the journey to who knows where. She proved much more difficult to photograph whether because she was shy, better camouflaged or was having a bad hair day is hard to say.

The blossoms may not be blooming nor any flowers pushing up from the earth yet but the birds are coming home and so Spring can’t be far behind…

Posted in Environment, Life, Photography, Thoughts | Tagged Great Blue Heron, merganser ducks, Migrating birds, Spring | 37 Comments

Fire, Earth, Air and Water

Posted on March 20, 2015 by womanseyeview

There comes a time when you have to try something new…even if it’s just once! So when my blogging friend Nancy over at TwoTrails One Road included me in her challenge on the four elements I thought it was a good time to have a go. Many philosophies have their own way of interpreting these elements but here we are given a chance to choose a photo to represent our own. It also gave me a chance to look through photos and remember interesting places I have had the good fortune to visit.

While this interpretation of FIRE may be a little predictable it’s the shadowy figure walking by that brings me pleasure:

Fire

When I think of EARTH I always marvel at how, when we treated properly it can provide us with such riches. This photo I took of a village out collectively farming in Rwanda is the one I chose for its simple harmony:

Earth

Across a windswept veldt this windmill in South Africa represents such a benign harnessing of the energy of moving AIR…it reminds me that there are so many ways we could find power while doing less harm:

Air

As the spring is starting to return to us here in the North and the snow and ice melts and the WATER once again starts to run it makes me think of renewal. How the world wakes up from the winter but also how the predictability of the seasons and our natural elements is very vulnerable unless we change our ways:

Water

Posted in Environment, Photography, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Travel | Tagged Blogging 101, Fire-earth-air-water, Four elements, Rwanda, South Africa | 44 Comments

A Little Spring Cleaning

Posted on March 2, 2015 by womanseyeview

International Womens Day 2012 was when it all began with my first modest foray into the blogging world. Not many of you would have noticed back then when I nervously posted this introductory piece: https://womanseyeview.me/2012/03/08/hello-world/

Well not quite nervously but perhaps ‘perplexed’ would be a better description of my mood. Why do I want to bother and would anyone actually read it? Did I have anything worth saying or anyone I really wanted to say it to? At first playing with what to me was a new format was satisfying enough. But soon I discovered an interesting community and I’ve stayed for the other nice bloggers I’ve met along the way.

My format however has pretty well stayed the same – comment, photo in the middle, comment and I’m feeling like a little ‘spring cleaning’ is in order for my 3rd anniversary.

Canadian spring

So I’ve signed up for ‘Blogging 101’ to see if there are any more tricks to be learned because, let’s be brutally honest here, I can’t even figure out how to do a hyper link if that’s what it’s even called! I’ve watched with envy as my blogging pals seem to move on to fancier things and I’m still technologically stuck at where I began.

So with the duster poised metaphorically in my hand I’m ready to go after the cobwebs in the corners of my blog…and some have grown a little large!

Posted in Life, Photography, Thoughts | Tagged Blogging 101, hyperlinks, new beginnings, Spring cleaning | 60 Comments

Turn Right at Jesus

Posted on February 12, 2015 by womanseyeview

Was it turn right at Jesus or was it 100 metres north of KFC? These aren’t existential religious or political questions, I’m simply trying to find my way to the Guayabo National Monument. It’s always fun trying to get around in Costa Rica when you’re used to actual addresses.

Turn right at Jesus.

Ask someone their address and they’ll say something like ‘100 metres east past Coca Cola, red door’. Or how about this, for a popular new restaurant I tried to find: ’75 M Oeste Del Blue Valley, Oficentro Trivium’. Or ‘ 1st blue gate past the guanacaste tree’!

There are some very developed cities here and I’ve found those locations somewhat easier to find. After all, they usually involve a church or fast food outlet or lots of people to ask…it’s the ones in the country where blue seems to be a popular colour for a gate that often baffle me.

After driving through heavenly countryside with clouds below us and many a hairpin turn we did eventually find Guayabo and it was worth the drive…so I guess it was ‘turn right at Jesus’!

Guayabo is a partially uncovered archeological site which appears to have been inhabited from 1,000 BC to 1400 AD and was used for ceremonial purposes. We walked in through the rain forest on the slopes of the Turrialba Volcano – still active as of this week.

There below us lay precisely placed stone mounds, platforms, aqueducts still running into stone pools…

and a road so sturdy it would make the Romans envious!

Apparently there are networks of these roads still to uncover and given the state of many roads in Costa Rica they should study them carefully for tips.

Posted in Life, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Travel | Tagged Costa Rica, Driving in Costa Rica, Guayabo National Park | 50 Comments

For the love of horses.

Posted on February 5, 2015 by womanseyeview

Sitting outside on a balmy Costa Rican morning I sip coffee and think fondly of the horse I’ve left behind in the cold. Some of you may have met my boy Romy in previous posts – he brings me much joy and tranquility but he’s not very portable.

It was bitterly cold in Canada last winter and while we had a slower start this year it’s a polar express to the deep freeze once again. So here’s the thing – I can get away for a while but Romy can’t… now it’s not that he doesn’t grow a big winter fur coat every year – he’s downright teddy bear like…and he has a cover for really bad days and can chose shelter when it’s especially brutal. But if you had a choice between riding at minus 23 celsius (without the famous windchill)…

…or plus 23 celsius with a warm breeze in your hair…

…what would you do? Well, me too…but please don’t tell Romy you’ve seen me with another horse!

Posted in Horses, Life, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Travel, Winter | Tagged Canadian winter riding, Canadian winters, riding in Costa Rica, Winter riding | 40 Comments