SMALL, WITH GREAT LOVE

Mel Shaw’s Love Affair With Foley Mountain

Leave a Comment / Animals, Birds, Deer, Foley Mountain C.A., Inspiration, Retirement, Simple Living

Mel Shaw and His Love Affair With Foley Mountain Overlooking Westport From Foley Mountain I wanted to interview my long-time friend, Mel Shaw, not just because his intimate nature photos please me, but because he is a good example of someone who enjoying retirement. (Some of you may know him from the attractive calendar he and his wife Rose Ann designed and sold the past two years as a fundraiser benefitting the Foley Mountain Conservation Area.) Recently, I sat down …

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So, This Happened

Leave a Comment / Inspiration

So, This Happened So, after Christmas, this happened. And I am still at a loss to explain to you why it happened. Nevertheless, I have to confess that the completely unreasonable arrival of the yellow Kitchenaid mixer on my kitchen makes me very happy. Even still, though, this shocks me. In fact, this mixer is the exact opposite of the simplicity I pride myself in practising, in fact which generally I take pleasure in practising this. “Why now?” If you …

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Still Life With Chickadees

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Still Life With Chickadees Courtesy of Mel Shaw It’s almost four o’clock, and on this startlingly cold winter day, the sun is already sinking towards the western hills. When I carry my steaming tea, in my favourite pink mug, towards the dining room couch I am savouring simplicity. My great pleasure will be spending time with one of the five black, grey and white chickadees, likely a family, who frequent my main bird feeder. Although they are …

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Nature Writer
Courtesy of Mel Shaw How I Became a Nature Writer Originally published in A Wing in the Door I grew up surrounded by a small woods and, because of my artist parents’ solitary life, the trees became more my kin than people will ever be. But alas, for all its charm, my woods was threatened […]
Wonderful
Wonderful Recently, in an effort to dodge all my Facebook wannabe suitors I decided to replace my portrait there with a representative image. Rummaging through 20 years of my own pictures, I was arrested by this blurry, long-ago snapshot of Merak, the human-imprinted red-tailed hawk, who flew free at Foley Mountain, but saw me and […]
Begin Again
Begin Again Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and afraid. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Rumi “I can’t do this!”It’s early morning, […]
Mel Shaw’s Love Affair With Foley Mountain
Mel Shaw and His Love Affair With Foley Mountain Overlooking Westport From Foley Mountain I wanted to interview my long-time friend, Mel Shaw, not just because his intimate nature photos please me, but because he is a good example of someone who enjoying retirement. (Some of you may know him from the attractive calendar he […]
So, This Happened
So, This Happened So, after Christmas, this happened. And I am still at a loss to explain to you why it happened. Nevertheless, I have to confess that the completely unreasonable arrival of the yellow Kitchenaid mixer on my kitchen makes me very happy. Even still, though, this shocks me. In fact, this mixer is […]