arden e_o_i Here I am again: making batiks, practicing piano, staying quiet while Aunt Sarah conversed with customers, and talking_to_animals (mostly chickens, though I told a toad it was cute). 220816 ... e_o_i Huh. I could've sworn I started a blathe about this town before. Illegal_milk is one, but Arden should be one too, I ardently argue. Ah. I was thinking of batik_boutique. Anyway, this town is where my dad's sister lives, the aunt who has the art store. My cousin and his partner live across the street, but they come in here a lot. With my aunt, they share the property that has all the gardens and bees and chickens. 220816 ... e_o_i I walked to the edge of town this evening, up Arden Road. Up, because hilly. From that vantage point I could see road lights as well as the red light of a metal tower (cell? power station?) on a faraway hill. I miss David. Last year I'm pretty sure he came here on a Thursday. 220818 ... e_o_i Re "Spanish": I happy at figuring out what Julia was telling Rafa and Jose when she pointed to the stream, made a spinning motion with her hands, and said something with "molino" in it. I waited for a pause in the conversation, then said, "Were you saying this town used to have a mill?" Yes, Julia said. It was part of why people settled here and was running as late as '65, converted into an electricity generator. In the 70s the town was still fairly populated, but the stores started disappearing. When I was a kid, it seemed the main businesses left were farming and artisan-ing - Sarah, Joanne the potter, Judith the painter - but I didn't know about the landscaping, construction, and so on. Now there are two convenience stores and Sue and Isaac's garden things are selling, people don't have to go so far away for food. A mini renaissance. But not a lot of other stores or public buildings in general. The Legion has a snack shop as well as a bar and I think they sell some dry food staples; there IS that all-important institution, a library; a community centre; two parks; two churches; some campgrounds and a kids' summer camp. I don't know if I'm leaving anything out. There's something satisfying in a village this small - it's like seeing a tiny house. But if I lived here full time, I'd learn how to drive and/or get a mountain bike. My preference wouldn't be too, for all that I like visiting: I'm more accustomed to living on the outskirts of cities. 220819 ... e_o_i edits *My preference wouldn't be to (live full-time in a small town) 220819 ... past i gave a wave as we drove past arden road and the distinctive town sign this morning! 220820 ... e_o_i I mentally return the wave! though I'm currently in a train that's stopped somewhere near Toronto because someone climbed on the next station's signal tower, apparently. Okay, it's moving again. Anyway! The sign, is that along Highway 7? ...Which reminds me, there was a documentary about part of it called The Lost Highway (www.thelosthighway.ca). My aunt is one of the people in it! Only they didn't spend much screen time on her, because, as she suggested, she wasn't fighting with anyone, unlike the other folks. No drama in that regard. Also, the film took the angle that the Arden area was an abandoned, dusty place where dreams fell apart. Ironically, it brought more business to Sarah's shop: people had seen the doc and were curious. The characterization is partly true, in that it used to be more populated than it is now. Like Gracefield in Quebec. The thing that changed with both is that there used to be a railway line to them that's now gone...and that was due to industries changing, too, but I still think a lot more investment in Canada's railways is worthwhile so people can move around more easily (says she, blathing_on_a_train). Failure and success is relative too: The loss of people in Arden is a success for nature, at least judging by the abundance of frogs. Frogs thrive in places with clean air, Sue says. 220820 ... e_o_i adds linkages also: rooster memorial the_house_that_was_a_hotel 220820 ... past almost always 7. there's been a lot change along the corridor, and a new stretch east of the target of that documentary is really growing as some kind of tourist area. though the old bus stop at actinolite near tweed closed (maybe before the end of greyhound) and is now up for sale. i don't miss taking crowded buses across the province, but it is a missing link that cannot be good for the communities. a fun fact about 7, it used to stretch the width of the south of the province, but at some point the middle bit was downloaded to municipalities. as a result there are two disconnected highway 7s. one here in the east, another down near where you currently are (but closer to guelph and kitchener-waterloo, at least that i've seen). 220821 ... e_o_i Here for six days, until Monday. If only I wouldn't keep saying "I wish Y. were here" and "I wish David were here" whenever I look at trails they'd like to walk on or things we planned to do. Well, my brother is at Gracefield and didn't plan to be here this summer; David WAS supposed to come up from Toronto for an afternoon here, but he's too busy packing. For England. Again he's got a research fellowship in England. That's a whole other thing. But I want to be more "in the moment," not just for the phrase's hippie-dippie-relaxey vibe, but also because I have lots of batiks to finish, my aunt having kindly lent me the use of her studio again. What is art? What is craft? Sometimes one dips into the other - something you thought was repetitive and mindless lends itself to the imagination (e.g. when I leave an unasked-for splotch of wax on something and try to make it part of the design). ...I was talking with Aunt Sarah about this. The art/craft thing. Art is when you make something new, at least for you. (Does a dad_joke count? Dad_jokes? Okay, only one dad joke. This is art: the idea came into my head to write "no time like the present" above a picture of a gift. And I did.) 240824 what's it to you? who go blather from