life of a sidewalk tree

Our front door abuts the sidewalk. Anything that happens on the sidewalk I hear through the windows. People walking past, talking, laughing, arguing and scolding, walking dogs, bouncing a basketball, rolling a grocery buggy or a washing machine strapped onto a dolly. They pass so closely that I could reach out and touch their heads. They can see into my windows as well, although generally they don't look because that's the unspoken understanding (cf Jane Jacobs on the "intricate ballet" of sidewalk behaviour), which I have to admit I don't necessarily respect myself. The sidewalk is the border between private and public. Cats, squirrels, and raccoons use it too. 

Given that it's a length of concrete, it's fabulous to have a few trees shading it. When we moved here 20 years ago, there was a beech tree in front of the house. It gave me a screen of leaves throughout spring and summer, and in the autumn the leaves turned brilliant yellow. Even the bare branches in the winter were preferable to seeing directly into the neighbours' windows across the street. (Sure, I could put up curtains but then I might as well have a wall.) 

Sparrows liked taking the morning sun in the tree, even though I didn't always like how loudly they CHIRPED about their prowess or the sun or food source or any of the many topics of sparrow communication. My office is on the second floor, so I was as close to the sparrows in the crown of the tree as I would be to passersby on the sidewalk below. When the sparrows got too loud and monotonous, I CHIRPED back at them until they moved along. Starlings visited the tree too, though they preferred the larger century-old cottonwoods in the back alley. Starlings congregate in larger groups.

The birds were loudest in the spring and summer. The part of the avian brain that controls song shrinks at end of breeding season. Their testes too--for a sparrow from the size of a baked bean to a pinhead. No, I don't know what kind of baked bean, nor what size of pin, but you get the idea. My source for this is the excellent book by Tim Birkhead, Bird Sense.

In winter the sparrows still came to perch in the tree with their feathers fluffed out to keep warm.  

Then a kamikaze cowboy crashed a sidewalk snow plough into the tree, damaging the trunk so badly that the city had to cut it down.  

The following summer the city planted a mountain ash, and for the first few years, the tree was healthy. It bloomed white in the spring, followed by clusters of orange berries. The starlings and squirrels had a heyday. 

Then the tree became infested with tent caterpillars which we tried to control by cutting away the affected branches. The following year we saw dieback--dried brown leaves and leafless branches. I called the city to tell them the tree wasn't well. They sent an arborist whose report said there was no significant dieback. I would have liked to invite the arborist into my office for a clear view of the significantly dead crown of the tree. 

After two years of increasing dieback, the city cut the tree down. I came home one day to a stub of trunk. A few weeks later a machine must have been sent to grind the trunk and part of the root. I came home to mound of sawdust. 

For the rest of the summer we had no tree. The neighbours across the street had no trees either, because theirs had been cut down as well.  

A couple of weeks ago trees were left on the sidewalk with No Parking/Horticulture signs along the street. It looked promising! 

The next day the trees had disappeared. Were they stolen in the night? Had the city reconsidered planting trees? Did whoever delivered the trees put them on the wrong street? In Montreal there are always many possibilities. The workings of the city and its employees are not transparent.  

Last week I came home to a new tree on the sidewalk. The tag on it said it was a Malus Dreamweaver which sounds to me like a word for Nightmare. Malus means bad. However, I looked it up and discovered that Malus also means apple. As in Eve and the apple? 

A Malus Dreamweaver is a flowering crab apple that is described as columnar with nearly vertical branches. I would have thought the city might want to shade the sidewalk, though perhaps a narrow tree makes more sense with power/telephone/cable lines overhead. 

The new tree, the Apple Dreamweaver, is still a small tree. The sparrows aren't interested in it yet. I hope it flourishes as well as it can in a city where the drivers of sidewalk snow ploughs crash into trees. I will pick up the litter around it and water it and plant a few flowers next spring. 

I look forward to it growing to within view of my desk.     

Thank you to Joanne Carnegie for pointing out errors in an earlier version of this post. 

fun things to do in the winter: sunrise

I know the sun is coming up when the sky starts to brighten over the roofs and past the trees I see from the chair where I read. I can't see the sun actually nudge up over the horizon because my horizon is circumscribed by buildings. That's as I choose: to live in the city.

I didn't always get up so early either. For many years I worked evening shift at a hospital. I didn't go to bed till midnight or later. The sun was always up when I got up, even in the winter when it rises later. I never had children that I had to get ready for school. Or that woke me up even when they weren't going to school.

I don't know why I've changed the habits of my adult life and started getting up while the city is still sleeping. Maybe it made more sense to read in the morning instead of at night when my brain is blurry.

A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to see the sun rise on the river. It would be cold but light cuts more sharply in the cold. Or is it the shapes? Silhouettes of trees, the crusts of ice, frozen snow.

I got up at 6 and had a cup of tea. Pulled on some clothes, took a thermos. The river is a half-hour walk away. Where I can access it, the waterway is narrow because there is an island with condo towers and shopping malls in the middle of the river. Normally I walk past Île des Soeurs or Nuns' Island to where the river opens out, but I wasn't going to make it to see the sunrise. I tried to find a spot across from the island where the horizon wasn't too obstructed by buildings.

The sun wasn't up yet but the contrails were turning pink. The river was glassy, still and black, the reflection of dawn a yellow-pink sheen across it. The trees and marsh grass were black, the shoreline a sculpture of ice.

My footsteps crunched. I passed a few people and dogs getting their exercise before heading off to work. Evidence of beavers. Also two women sitting on rocks, facing east.

A few days before trekking over to the river, I wanted to see how high I could get closer to where I lived--if I could see the sunrise closer to home.

It's hard because the railyards block the east. But it was the worth the 5-min walk to the hill that overlooks that part of the railyards (not directly east).


Also to see downtown Montreal waking up.

You can of course watch a sunrise any day that the sky is clear, but this is the time of year when it doesn't happen at 4:30.  

moving day

Things you leave behind on moving day?

rainy day walk

A few pics as I warm up with ginger lemon tea and think about what to make for supper.

There is a theme here...

sunlight

From my kitchen window I see the sun rising past an urban horizon of roofs--flat and with cornices. This morning it was so bright and orange that it turned the starling in a tree into a robin.

Though that could have been me too--wondering when the ice and snow would end. Seeing a springtime robin.

shrink-wrap struggle

It's not an ethical/ecological struggle. I have a cupboard full of tubs with lids, parchment paper, waxed cheese cloth, jars, old yogurt containers. Lots of reusable or recyclable options. But I wasn't at home.

Yesterday was my first stint at the non-profit, community coop grocery store in my hood.

In order to be a member of the coop and benefit from the lower prices, one has to work in the store for three hours a month. I opted not to tackle cash because I don't like handling money. I would have liked to work in the kitchen where about-to-expire vegetables are turned into soups, stews and pickles, but those slots are filled well in advance. I decided to work "on the floor". That meant keeping the shelves stocked, the apples and oranges and grapefruits heaped, bagging carrots, spinach, arugula, cutting and packaging pieces of cheese.

There are many things I can do but yesterday I discovered that I can't make air-filled plastic balloons to keep greenery loose and fresh. I got the spinach and arugula into the bags no problem. I got the twist ties on. I punched the correct code into the scale, weighed, and tore free the sticker for the bag. But my bags all sagged. I watched the person training me, but he simply seemed to have the knack. Bingo, he closed a bag and there was air trapped inside. How did he do it? Comme ça, he said. No matter how many tries, my bags looked lousy.

Okay, then, let's try this. Cutting cheese off a slab and wrapping the pieces in shrink wrap.

Oh no! Not shrink wrap! Small boxes, big boxes, the teeth never work for me. The large boxes with the little plastic button that's supposed to force the film onto the teeth are the worst because I only end up with more possible film to ruin beyond use. And this box had lost its button! I tried every sleight of hand I could think of to tear the wrap across the teeth. I even considered putting the box on the floor and straddling it. I grabbed a knife to stab the wrap. I pulled every which way, gave up trying to make nice squares of plastic wrap, settled for jagged towels of it, bundled pieces of cheese inside, smushed the leftover edges around the back. Cheese on a cling film cushion.

The fellow stopped by to see how I was doing. Okay, I said. He picked up a piece of cheese to see why it didn't lie flat. I told him I was shrink-wrap handicapped. Joke? Ha-ha? I got a weak smile. He showed me his technique for getting the buttonless teeth to make nice, neat squares of shrink wrap. It looked easy, it looked good, but I knew the teeth wouldn't oblige for me. Then he showed me how to fold the film across the cheese. He explained the film had elasticity so that if I pulled it just so, it would stretch smoothly. I said I would try.

I packaged nuts, no problem. Tamari almonds don't have to be in balloons like spinach. I kept the oranges and lemons and apples and grapefruits heaped. I cut some day-old baguettes into cubes for croutons. Why there are baguettes left at the end of the day, I don't understand. The bread at this store is fabulous!

Shrink-wrap challenges aside, I'm happy to play a small (very small) part in the coop which is part of the Bâtiment 7 project in Pointe St. Charles in Montreal. A repurposed CN train workshop, Bâtiment 7 is now a community centre with art space upstairs (painting, pottery, metal, wood), and so far a grocery and tavern downstairs.

finally... cycling!

Given the late spring, a hospital stay, a bruised leg, feeling achy with shingles and generally wary of anything that might turn into an accident, I only yesterday went for my first bike ride this year. We cycled by the river at suppertime when the bike path tends to empty as people get hungry and go home. I prefer the slant of early evening light. We got home in time to have a bbq and wine in our tiny backyard where a rogue rosebush is blooming. Rogue because I don't do anything to it and am surprised that it continues to make buds and flower every year.
(Pics erratic because my camera is kaput, my phone is cheap, and as always I tilt. It's also possible that our backyard and our old house are crooked.)

daily grain of sand

Our neighbour's fence blew down in a spring wind storm and during the time it will take him to get around to building another (months? a year? two years? he's an absentee Pointe landlord and no one uses the backyard), our tiny yard gets more sunlight than usual.

This is the first year my iris are resplendent with blooms, so it's the first time I discover that no matter how ponderously about-to-burst the buds are during the bright light of day, they open at night. It's a small and insignificant discovery in a world of horrors, but there is it. My daily grain of sand. It helps keep me sane(ish).

Yesterday's was noticing how the modest chandelier in the room where I do my prescribed anti-sciatica exercises cast a magnificently structured shadow on the ceiling. I lay on the floor, lifting my legs, tipping my toes, rubbing circles at the back of my knees, noticing the elongated twists of the shadow.

my version of the gabrielle roy walk

A drizzly day but I felt well enough to do my version of the Gabrielle Roy walk. Among other experiences, she wrote of the distance between the working-class poor of St. Henri looking up at the moneyed houses of Westmount on the hill overlooking their crowded hodgepodge of row houses. 

Yesterday I had one of several follow-up appointments at a clinic in Westmount and I decided to walk home down the hill, if slowly, stopping for breaks here and there along the way. 

Gabrielle Roy wrote about St. Henri but I aimed farther east where I live in Pointe St. Charles, which is next to St. Henri. There are some roundabout ways of getting to the Pointe. Most direct is to cross one of the two truss bridges across the Lachine Canal that separates the Pointe from the city. I do sometimes wonder what city planners in the 1800s meant by that--whether separating the hoi polloi from the bustling, fashionable metropolis that Montreal was becoming was deliberate or coincidental.

There's a difference in urban vibe almost as soon as you begin to walk through the Pointe. A man  (no longer a friend) once accused me of enjoying slumming. Do I? I have Alpie peasant and Canadian blue-collar roots. I'm not a snob. I might not wear or hang out Santa Claus pyjamas but I also don't find them an eyesore.



We have green spaces here as well, if with a train overpass in the background since rail lines cut through the Pointe. This is the route you'd be on if you were travelling between Toronto and Montreal.

And here, on the weekend, I planted tomatoes and basil and got R to pound in some stakes. My garden is still messy because I'm not bending down so easily, but it's getting there. 

little awakenings

Slowly/lentement growth is unfurling in Montreal. The ash tree outside my window is bursting with fat furry buds.

A neighbour's plant snaked its way under her fence and our patio stones to find a sunny spot against R's artisanal parging.









In the garden the garlic cloves I planted last fall have sprouted. Yay!

And of course, rhubarb!

One of the reasons we decided to move to this neigbhourhood was the trees. It was August when we were looking for a place and the rest of the city was dry and hot. Even the grass and the trees on the mountain were yellowing. We came to the Pointe that was *so* green there was moss on the trees. I've since witnessed that the only time there isn't moss is during the cold-freeze of winter. So this is another sign of spring...

inner-city ice rain

A night of ice rain--thankfully not too heavy, though it looks treacherous enough from a ground floor back window. Trees slick with ice. Not yet sure about heading out for a walk this afternoon, though I didn't miss a walk one single day all winter, no matter the snow or how the wind blew.

March 14

Opening the curtain of my study window this morning. Usually see the brick house fronts across the street. 

blue cornice

Taking a break from work to look out my study window at the snow coming down. The 100-year-old brick row houses across the street. The painted cornices. The trees. White sky.

winter... do you remember?

Now you live in a milder climate. It's a big and unexpected event when there's snow. But do you remember what it was like when you lived back east?

This is what I call diamanté snow. Fresh, still coming down, lit by city streetlights. My camera (in truth, my phone) didn't catch the brilliance, but if you look closely, you'll see the glitter.

And remember this? Trudging along sidewalks not yet cleared of snow. How the bottoms of your jeans freeze. There was once... we got together for a beer at Le Cheval Blanc, and it was snowing and afterward we walked to where you split off to go your way and I went mine.

This too. Having to sweep your stairs when you come home at the end of the day.

Snow hoods and capes and toques.

I didn't take pics of the dog frolicking and gamboling in the snow because you wouldn't be able to see how his tail wagged unless I took a video and he didn't stay in one place long enough that I could keep up. Nothing as happy as a dog when snow is fluffy and fresh.

Do you remember?

last errand of the day / montreal Dec 23

Snow falling, almost dusk, and we've got one more errand. It's got nothing to do with the holidays or tourtière or chestnuts or last-minute gifts or coloured lights. All of that is done. The beans (for the tourtière) are baking.  

We're looking for a squeegee to clean the shower stall because the $$ store squeegee we had broke. So where do we go? To the $$ store. It's easy. There, people are cruising the aisles with carts. The last Saturday before Christmas. I cast no aspersions. We're there too.  

There is no squeegee--called un squeegee, even though the proper French word is raclette--so we head to another store much similar. They, too, have no squeegee but direct us across the street to the hardware store. 

It's an old-style store where you tell the owner what you want and he or his daughter go behind the counters to look through their stock. He not only has squeegees, he asks if we want to use it for outdoor windows or the bathroom. He spends a while looking. His daughter goes to help. They know they have the bathroom ones. They even describe them to us. They have white plastic handles. They're either over here, or over there, or behind this, or maybe in that box. 

We look around in case we can see them, though stock is piled to the ceiling and I suspect you need to belong to the owner's gene pool to understand where to begin. There are door handles, plumbing elbows, brooms, boxes of shoelaces, anti-freeze, chocolate bars, rolls of carpet. A cream pitcher stuffed with plastic combs flanked by a few Elvis LPs. A bubble gum and a jelly bean dispenser. 

  

By now, several of the outdoor squeegees have been found and R picks one. It costs $3. 

We don't need a bag but the owner tells us he's ready for the municipal law supposed to come into effect in January when stores in Montreal are no allowed to give out plastic bags. He's got paper. He's all set. He can even remember when he used to tie purchases up with string and he can do that too.

We walk home through the snow sifting, drifting, falling. 

Happy holidays!

Dec 24: news from the bathroom. Outdoor window squeegees don't work on shower stalls. Nor does raclette cheese. 

Quebec roofs / Pointe cornices

Where I live in Montreal, the streets are lined with row houses, predominantly brick though there are a very few grey stone facades. The houses that have siding on them, are brick underneath. That's how they were built in the late 1800s. The roofs are flat--which I've always thought an odd choice in a city that gets so much snow, but the Irish and English who settled here were nostalgic for County Cork, Dublin, Manchester, London...

This particular house has the rare advantage of a strip of lawn and fence. Most of the houses (including ours) have front steps that abut the sidewalk.




That doesn't mean there aren't roof details. The house above has a plain, wood cornice. But look up and notice the ones with more interesting woodwork or paint.

That's Montreal, more specifically Pointe St. Charles.

When I used to come from Ontario to Quebec to visit my in-laws who lived in a village farther northeast along the St. Lawrence, I had a different sense of Quebec roofs. They're high and steep. Some have what I call a ski jump curve. On a trip to the country a couple of weekends ago, I took pics of roofs.

This house has the traditional tin roof. Dormer windows are extra.




A fancier roof has cedar shingles.

Here's the resto where we were returned at sunset to watch the apricot colours fading over the water that grew ever darker, and had lamb brochettes on homegrown salad greens in a yogurt dressing.

This roof (red-painted tin) is an interesting variation, but I'm not sure about the brick reno. Question of taste.

And of course, this is Quebec.

Next to the big old river, under the big old sky. Big old mountains on the other side.