The tiny musings found below will perhaps provide you an opportunity to pause and reflect on our world and our place in it. You can subscribe to receive posts in your inbox (approximately once a week)! Note: all writing and art is © Christopher Buddle.
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Cycling
Pedaling past fields and forests
– sacred country roads.
This past weekend was a long weekend in Quebec, known as Fête nationale (or Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day). My father-in-law and I used to always do a ‘Ride of the Saints’, which took us through many of the small “saintly” towns near where I live – Ste-Anne-de-Prescott, St-Eugène, Sainte-Justine-de-Newton, Saint Marthe, etc. The weather is always spectacular, and the country roads are quiet, peaceful, and perfect. It is about the best possible cycling you could imagine. And while my father-in-law died over five years ago, I keep the tradition alive (I wrote about this in the Globe and Mail a couple of years ago).
Traditions are important. Memories are important. Loving your people is important, even if they are no longer with you.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Lakeside
still, quiet waters
reflections, connections
– perfect shoreline
Earlier in the month we got away to Parc national du Mont-Tremblant and stayed in a cabin in the woods, next to a beautiful lake. There were no motorboats on the lake, so while there were many people out on the water, they were in canoes, kayaks, row-boats, or paddleboards. They were all having so much fun. The weekend was perfect – in addition to the setting, we enjoyed our time with great friends, ate wonderful food, and while the mosquitoes and black flies were fierce, they did not dampen our spirits or stop our adventures. We hiked, laughed, swam, and watched the calm waters. The watercolour, above, is a depiction of the view to the shoreline opposite our cabin, done en plein air* (although quickly since I was swatting the biting flies the whole time!). Being lakeside provides opportunity for reflection – about friends and family, human connections, nature, and our connection to our natural world (it helped also that there was no cell service at our cabin!). Wild lands are the best lands.
* the reproduction, above is not terrific – my apologies. I actually used a non-watercolour album for the image (it is done in a Moleskine sketch book album), you can see scratch marks from the other pages, my technical pen was almost out of ink, and there was just a whole lot of sloppiness in addition to the album crease in the middle. D’oh.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Bzzzz Bzzzz
buzzing clouds
incessantly seeking blood
summer in the north
Late spring and early summer in my part of the world means a verdant world, and the production of biomass in both the plant and animal world, and this includes mosquitoes. These insects are a dominant force whether in a backyard or local forest. And while I try to appreciate all of our biodiversity, mosquitoes are rather annoying. The blood-seeking* females hunt out humans with great ferocity, being all bitey-bitey and buzzy-buzzy; and while insect repellant can work effectively it’s not always pleasant having to cover yourself in order to do a bit of gardening or have a cocktail in the backyard. Mosquitoes do, of course, play important roles in ecosystems (and in many parts of the world, transmit disease): they are themselves food for various other critters (e.g., bats!), and they do pollinate some plants. Like ’em or hate ’em, these buzzing critters are certain part of the season!
* the blood meal they seek is for the female mosquitoes to develop their eggs.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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What is a tree?
Arms raised to the sky.
-wait for tiny night-flyers
mysterious tree.
Joshua Trees reach for the sky, as per their namesake*. They are emblematic of the Mojave desert and while on our desert ecology field trip, we got to stand in their midst at Joshua Tree National Park**.
These are plants in the Agave family and are in fact “Yuccas”. They are odd-looking, mystical, magical, beautiful. In addition to their stunning appearance, their biology is also fascinating- including their dependence on a moth (a tiny night-flyer!) for pollination. It’s a striking example of symbiosis, and such interdependencies are reminders of the power of natural selection. Big tree, small moth: they need each other for survival.
We had long debates about the question of trees, as both Joshua Trees and Saguaro challenge some conventional ideas on the definition of trees. My off-the-cuff answer when some students asked my view on the topic was “you know a tree if you see one”. And when I view the Joshua Tree, I see a tree.
Perhaps a more botanically sound definition revolves around a tree being a perennial plant having (usually?) one main stem (trunk?), with branches that support photosynthetic tissues (leaves and needles and such). I guess?
Regardless, you feel as if walking in another world when among the Joshua Trees, and I am forever grateful for the experience.
Here’s a photo from the trip:
*if you are curious about how these plants got their common name, some details can be found here.
**the artwork was done around the National Park stamp that was available at the visitors center for the Park (these are normally used to stamp a “passport” that some people (often young people) have so they can record the dates at which they visited different Parks). It was fitting to stamp my watercolour album and draw the tree around it.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
art, botany, drawing, ink, joshua tree, national park, nature, pen, Plants, tree, Watercolor, Watercolour -
Montreal
Salut-Bonjour-Hi
mountain, poutine, summer Jazz
– an island city
While I have lots of content to share after my trip to the desert, I thought instead to share some art and thoughts about one of the best cities in the world: Montreal! While I do not live right in the heart of the city, I do commute in and work in the urban center on a daily basis. It’s a place that always buzzes with activity. It has incredible restaurants, music, and is indeed a city of festivals (notably in the summer season). It has unique and fascinating geography too – with Mont Royal rising up next to the skyscrapers, and the city is surrounded by water. It is a city of contrasts – greenery on the mountain contrasted by the business sector and industrial regions. The vibrant and high density Plateau borough contrasted by the low-density and highly treed west island. An international city with a decidedly Quebec character. Poutine contrasted with fine dining. I love the place and if you haven’t visited, you must do so.
Montreal has a distinctive city-scape which is fun to try to capture with watercolours. The first image is a view from the water (drawn from a reference photo), and the second is the view from the Mountain towards the south shore. If you want me to create, for you, a watercolour of this city, don’t hesitate to contact me and we can discuss! (although the two pictured above are not in my possessions -they were gifted to friends and family)
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Dancing Lizards
Start, stop, look, start, stop
Dancing over arid flats
to the creosote
I am back from teaching the field course in the SW-USA. It was a tremendous trip. One that was full of adventure and excitement, lots of learning, and experiences that will last forever in our memories. Travelling, camping, and living with 28 other people for two weeks has an intensity that is difficult to describe, but overall so positive!
We saw wildlife, sunrises and sunsets, we gazed at stars, walked among saguaro, and saw first-hand how humans have transferred arid landscapes (the Hoover Dam and Salton Sea are two examples of the this).
I found the rattlesnakes and lizards to be particularly outstanding, in part because you just don’t see such animals in the Montreal area. The Zebra-tailed lizards depicted above* were charming lizards – they were never daunted by the heat, and perhaps the most frequent lizards to cross our paths – dashing from one creosote bush to another. They were always alert, quick, and had the most spectacular colouration (which I was really unable to capture in the watercolour).
* I took a very small Moleskine watercolour album (3.5 x 5.5″) with me to the desert, a little travel kit with paints, a few technical pens, and one brush pen. I filled the entire album, and look forward to sharing more of the art in the weeks ahead. Simple tools worked well, and I was so busy on the trip that I often had only a few minutes here and there to splash down some paint or outline an animal, plant, or landscape with a pen. Quite a lot of the resulting pieces are spread over two pages, like the lizard above, and quite a few are better for perhaps the memories they bring rather than the quality of the art! I do very much find, however, that an art journal is better than a photograph when remembering a trip or place.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Desert-bound
Arms outstretched, tall, proud.
Guardians of the desert.
While I promised to write posts every Monday, I’m about to head off to Nevada, Arizona, and California to teach a field course called Desert Ecology. This means I won’t be posting for a few weeks. But it also means I will have lots of content for when I do return, since I will be packing watercolours and sketchbooks.
This field course has been offered for decades, and I was one of the instructors back in 2019. We tried to offer it part-way through the pandemic, but plans were dashed, much to the disappointment of students and instructors. Needless to say, there is a lot of excitement about this year’s trip! We’ll be landing in Vegas, and doing a road trip to various desert ecosystems, including lots of time in the Sonoran Desert, and we’ll end in the Mojave Desert. We watch, study, learn, and be fully immersed in desert ecosystems. We camp among the cacti, gaze at the milky way, watch birds, scorpions, and marvel at the landscapes. It’s a transformative and immersive experience for all.
Among my favourite species in the region is a keystone species in the Sonoran desert: the Saguaro cacti. These are truly incredible – symbolic of that part of the world, and numerous species depend on these cacti for their own survival. They do stand tall, very tall, and I am quite excited to be in their midst again.
See you all later in May! Stay well.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Blooming
Purple petals rise
from frozen April soils
– garden rebirth.
Notes: The first flowers of the season started blooming a week or so ago, and in our backyard, these are crocuses. These are such perfect spring flowers – and always so appreciated after a long, cold winter. For many of you, spring is in full swing, but in my region, it’s not until mid to late-April when the snow fully melts and the landscape starts to shift from browns to greens. This time of year feels pretty great.
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
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Snow Geese
white specks, high above
thousands of friends in flight – honk!
Arctic lands await.
I am very fortunate to have seen snow geese on their breeding grounds, which is in the high Arctic. Over a decade ago, I spent time on Bylot Island one summer (searching for spiders) and I was staying in “goose camp” with researchers studying snow geese. It was an astounding and awe-inspiring trip. I’m also thankful that my home now is along one of the (more minor) flight paths of snow geese as they make their way north in the spring. About 30 km away is a location where they hang out for a while as they migrate north. A few weekends ago we drove down to see if they were still there, and true to form, we saw thousands of them huddled together on the ice (the bay they were in was about two-thirds ice-covered still). Seeing snow geese is another sign of the changing seasons.
It was breathtaking – so many birds! And so much noise! After about 20 minutes we saw a few dozen more fly in to join their friends, and about ten minutes after that the entire flock took off and started slow skyward circles. Thousands of white birds on the wing is difficult to describe and even though they were about a kilometre or so away, you felt as if in their midst. The black tips of their wings create contrast and a vibrancy to the movement- almost as if they were shimmering as they did slow circles.
Our earth gives and provides so much for the most amazing flora and fauna that has evolved to perfection; the value of this cannot be estimated in terms we can grasp. It is everything. So, watch the trees, spiders, birds*, and moose at every chance. Nature’s Reverie is all around us. If we watch, we might start to care more, if we care, we pay attention more, and spend less time tied to screens indoors and in sterile environments. When we pay more attention, we notice changes, including those that are causing harm and those that are beyond normal variation.
Thousands of snow geese in flight is surely an easy pathway to astonishment; nature provides a palette for astonishment every single day.
*I realize that my posts are very biased towards birds! I’m a bit obsessed with our feathered friends and, well, make no apologies for it either!!
© Christopher M Buddle 2023
Arctic, art, drawing, geese, ink, migration, nature, pen, snow geese, spring, Watercolor, Watercolour -
Electric
frozen April rain
branches fall with icy weight
plunged into darkness
Last Wednesday we had heavy freezing rain (about 20-30 mm accumulation), and with the winds that followed, many trees fell and branches broke. Since most of our hydro lines are aboveground, this resulted in massive power outages (1.1 million customers at the peak)*. Our power was restored on Sunday evening, well into our fifth day without electricity. We fared well enough** – a combination of a charcoal grill, camp stove, and a small generator which allowed the fan on our fireplace to keep our place from feeling too cold. And while it is spring, nighttime temperatures were well below freezing most nights last week and over the weekend. Many people are still without power, and it might be a few more days for some.
It was stressful, and unsettling, in part because for a few days the cell networks were down as well, so getting updates was tricky. We actually pulled out an old radio from the basement to get updates – evidence that old technology still plays a role in our high-tech society! Overall the last few days was a strong reminder of how dependent we are on comforts of a warm home, cell phones, stoves, and hot water. It is good to be grateful, always, and not take such things for granted. Now, time for a hot shower!
*In this part of Quebec, freezing rain and power outages are not uncommon, but the one last week sure lasted longer than most. Such events bring back strong memories in our region, as the ice storm of 1998 (which occurred in January of that year) was truly historic and impactful. We weren’t in Quebec at the time, but many of our friends talk of that time often.
** and we fared well because of the generosity of so many of our friends – THANK YOU! (you know who you are)
Nature's Reverie 