Something is already here

Nearly eight months old and growing into his highchair. Kid loves to eat! June 2019

Kroeker cousin pool party at Granny KK's double exposure / trouble! June 2019

Boppers 'n Smelliot.

Benny's first pool dip with Granny Kim. June 2019

Benny and his dad go for a swim at Uncle Jim's. June 2019

Petkau cousin picnic at La Barrier Park. I think Evey might be saying "Dis" along with her little pointer! June 2019

Evey, a natural joker. June 2019

Eating snacks on the picnic table at La Barrier Park. June 2019

Observing Benny in a sea of balls and babies in a recent Lullababies sensory class. Theme that day was Baby Chefs for which he went buck wild! June 2019

In his happy place! Babies and balls! June 2019

Summer bather. June 2019

Benny and Elliot having a dip in the kiddie pool I found in the trash! That bottom lip tuck of Benny's kills me! June 2019

Uncle Milkman and Benny boy. June 2019

Ni having a good chuckle at Mike. June 2019

---

All photos shot on Iain's trusty Canon AE-1 / FP4 100 film pushed to 400. Definitely feeling that film lately. I have been having good luck processing FP4 in Rodinal with a 1+25 ratio. 20 minutes / 20 degrees; bingo bango! SUMMER FILM FOREVER.

---

I didn't know, I never have known, what spirit it is that descends into my lungs and flaps near my heart like an eagle rising. I named it full-of-wonder, highest good, voices. I shut my eyes and saw a tree stump hurled by wind, an enormous tree stump sailing sideways across my vision, with a wide circular brim of roots and soil like a tossed top hat.
[...]

A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek toward that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off.

I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I'll not go northing this year. I'll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow's fringes, hilltops and backsides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow's seeded grasses, and pokes its chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and earthworms, the sowbugs and beetle grubs deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter of the Brocken over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming.

- excerpt from Annie Dillard's 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' pg. 243

Something is already here, and more is coming. 

Ohhh Dolly that line fans my flame of hope. When I close my eyes and rest for a second in the silence of the house while the baby sleeps, I can see a lazy brown creek of our own, a crumbling house, a tired barn and two outbuildings that are crying out to be painted white and filled with the sound of laughter. While our future is unknown, I have great hope for the coming chapter of country life. Annie Dillard gets it. I read her meandering thoughts to fan the flame of my own :)