I’m back! This visit to Montreal was mostly work, very little play. Though I did get a chance to walk around my old haunts in St. Lambert, on the south shore. What a lovely little town – it just works, somehow. The trees are mature and reproducing like mad, to the extent that yardwork involves beating back strong saplings on a regular basis. It’s almost as though nature and habitation* have shaken hands and decided they’re comfortable living together. When I was a kid, I used to collect rocks along an abandoned railway line by the golf course. I remember it as a very industrial environment, all steel and gravel and creosote ties. 30 years later (ok, maybe a little more….), nature has moved in and it’s a footpath through a young forest. Amazing. And hopeful.
I arrived home tonight to find that as expected, the Queen of the Night (night-blooming cereus) had finished blooming – a flower for each night that I was away. Sigh. The evidence was four long limp dead flower things hanging off the side of the leaves. Oh well….
My labours in tacking up clear plastic on the walls and floors of the “grow” room (back porch) have paid off. When I walked in to check on my charges, the air was soft and smelled of growing things. With the humidity at 75% tonight, it’s a tropical jungle in there. The orchids, and all the other plants, are loving it. Lots of new growth and a couple of spikes.
Great weather – it’s Indian Summer. I sat in an outdoor cafe in Old Montreal this afternoon, and had a tourtierre (traditional pork pie) and a beer. These warm days are precious — the cold weather will settle in soon. It’s supposed to be nice right through until Sunday.
*“Habitation” is apt in many ways. The town got it’s start in the 1640’s as part of the Longueuil seigneurie. The old and elegant stone “habitant” homes still dot Riverside Drive along the St. Lawrence river.
POLLENATRIX 