Back east

I'm sitting on my bed in a B&B, Les Jardins de L'Achillée Millefeuille, in Les Laurentides. Micheline is reading in the Jacuzzi-type tub that took us a while to get used to last night, mainly because we didn't read the instructions clearly posted on the wall before using it. We biked on Le Petit Train du Nord yesterday when we arrived and again today. We had intended to do more today than we did but we stopped in Val David to visit a potter that Maurine knows and stayed so long with him that it was well past lunch, so we went to a cafe in Val David for a revivifying café alongé followed by pizza and salad.  By the time we were finished, 

rain was threatening, so we decided to ride back to Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts where we had left the car. By the time we got there it was raining. We waited a while at the station to see if it would stop but it didn't so we racked our bikes and drove to Mont Tremblant. The weather was fine when we got there, so we walked around.  Then we bought some food and wine, drove home and had a great meal and talk. It's now 10:35pm, and we're relaxing. We've 'shut'er down' as Jay says. Anyone who knows this area will realize that our bike tour today was only 14 kilometres in total, but the time we spent visiting with the potter, Kinya Ishikawa easily compensated for our lack of physical activity.  He spent well over an hour walking with us around his Jardin de Silice, a project he has been working on for the last 9 years.  It's a testament to his love of pottery and the community of potters. Every summer he hosts a three-week gathering of potters on his property. It's called '1001 Pots'. He knows that making pottery is solitary work and this gives them a chance to get together, socialize, see each other's work and sell some of theirs.  The works of these potters and many others are incorporated into the walls of the garden that he continues to work on every summer and plan every winter.  His imagination is vast and the work he has done to realize his vision of a huge instalation of steel and pottery, boulders and vines is impressive. It really was a privilege to walk around his creation with him as he explained how he had envisioned and executed it. 

My time in the east has been spent with good friends, Pollocks, Baughans, Don and Mela, Barb Steers and now Miche. Gardens seem to be a feature of this visit. I've helped in both of Caroline's gardens, admired Micheline's, relaxed in the Baughan's and Barb's and next week I hope to visit with Don and Mela and help her in her garden. The reason for my coming was a sad one, but things grow in the spring in spite of everything. Life carries on. 

Micheline in her chicken house with three eggs. 

Kinya in front of his Jardin de Silice in Val David. 

A view down the length of the Jardin

A small portion of one of the walls of pottery encased in steel mesh in Kinya's exhibit, 1001 Pots.