Shelley's Spring 2012 Literary Events Updated (with links)

 SHELLEY'S APRIL - JUNE 2012 EVENT SCHEDULE

The calm before the tours ...

*Thurs. April 26th, 7 - PM - Reading and music at Shelf Life Books, Calgary Shelf Life Books Reading 

*Saturday, April 28th - Edmonton Poetry Festival http://www.edmontonpoetryfestival.com/headliners/ 

     -"Free Range" (with two other poets, at Edmonton City Hall, noon)

 http://www.edmontonpoetryfestival.com/schedule/free-range-poetry              

    -"Poetry and Music for a Spring Afternoon", at The Artery, 3:00-5:00 PM (with John Steffler & Nora Gould)

  Poetry And Music for a Spring Afternoon

• Saturday April 28, 2012
• 3:00pm - 5:00pm
• The Artery
  9535 Jasper Avenue
  Edmonton, AB
• Free; Cash bar

Spring is that season when we cross to the sunny side of the ecliptic. It’s a season for changes – hot and cool, high flights and mud, departures and returns. Join us for an afternoon of mood swings and swinging music with poets John Steffler, Nora Gould, Shelley Leedahl, and local poet/songwriter Lyra Brown.

*Tuesday, May 1st, 7:30 PM - Launch of Wretched Beast at    Audrey's Books, Edmonton http://www.audreys.ca/index.htm


*Thursday, May 3rd, 10:00 AM - Noon - Reading\workshop at Elrose Composite School, Elrose, SK (Sponsored by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild)


*Thursday, May 3rd, 2:45 PM - Reading at Walter Aseltine School,  Rosetown, SK  


*Monday, June 4th, 7:30 PM - Reading at Reid-Thomson Public Library, Humboldt, SK (sponsored by the Saskatchewan Writers Guild)


*Tuesday, June 5th, 7:00 PM - Reading at Pilger Public Library, Pilger, SK (sponsored by the Writers Union of Canada) 
http://www.panet.pa.sk.ca/menu.asp

*Thursday, June 7th, 7:00 PM - Reading at John M Cuelenaere Library, Prince Albert, SK (sponsored by the Writers Union of Canada) http://www.jmcpl.ca/

*Monday, June 11th, 7:00 PM - Reading in Vertigo Series, Regina, SK Vertigo ... location, time, address

*Tuesday, June 12th, 7:30 PM - Reading at McNally Robinson Bookstore, Saskatoon, SK  http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/event-11051/Shelley-A.-Leedahl----Reading-and-Signing

___________________

Fall events include: November 30th - Planet Earth Series
                                Reading, Victoria, BC

                                Reading in Gibsons, BC (TBA)

Eagles!

Posted 4 new bald eagle videos on Youtube recently. They were taken by Logan Leedahl in our yard. Exciting stuff. One is below. The others can  be viewed here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/shelleyannleedahl/feed

Snowshoeing with Whiskey Jacks.

From sea to sky.

Lashing rain at sea level equates with heaps of snow up the mountain. Logan, Kira and I joined Greg and his students on a Dakota Ridge snowshoe excursion March 13th. It was a new experience for me and the young couple.

Greg with his students on a snowy field trip.

Kira and Logan, Dakota Ridge

I knew I'd dig snowshoeing. The outdoors and physical activity, that's a combo I thoroughly enjoy. Spotted three plump Gray Jays, which my bird book refers to as the "phantoms" of higher elevation forests.

Some say Gray Jay. Some say Perisoreus canadensis. I say Whiskey Jack.

Visitors, and Sea Stories (Part 2)

After one pacific March day on the Pacific, we and our guests woke up to a veritable hurricane on day two. To fully appreciate how riled the sea got, I offer a BEFORE photo of our (borrowed) rowboat:

Rowboat, and the vista from our yard.

And an  AFTER photo:

Greg woke up first the morning of the storm, and said: "I'm going to check the boat."

We'd left it high and dry on the rock wall in front of our house. Logan and I checked it before we went to bed. All was well.

Greg came back in the house, poker-faced. "Boat's gone."

"No way," I said, because Greg can be known to pull fast ones. I bolted outside, housecoat flapping in the 100km (or more) winds, and sure enough. Oh, there were logs and clams and a tire and rocks and other unusual debris on our lawn, but nary a boat in sight.

"Logan," I called to my sleeping son, "get up. We've got to find our boat."

Greg went to school and Logan and I slipped into rubber boots and rain gear and began splashing down Stalashen Drive, checking the beach at various points along the way for any flash of silver. We got to the beginning of the Davis Bay esplanade, about 1 km from our house, turned the corner and Logan said: "There's your boat."

Ahoy. Sure enough, there she was, washed up on the sidewalk beside the public washroom. It looked like a pitbull had had its way with her. Or a team of hooligans with baseball bats. Or the sea.

(Reminder at this point in the story: BORROWED boat).

I was feeling terribly distraught, and didn't know who to call. The authorities? The boat owner? A scrap metal dealer? Logan and I returned home. Bystanders were taking photos of the sorry boat. Waves continued to wash over and under her. Oh, god.

"Well," I said, "at least we had one great day of crabbing with her. Let's go back home, call Greg and let him know we found it."

We did that, and at home I checked for any other damage. The sea'd turned maniacal. An otter skirted across the rocks before my eyes.

A few metres from our door.



Too close.

We returned to Davis Bay with Kira, because I didn't want her to miss a minute of this.



Later, after I'd called Sechelt officials, the boat was picked up and scrapped.

Does anyone out there have a good, used aluminum rowboat boat for sale?

If so, please call 604-989-4959.

I mean really ... PLEASE CALL.





Visitors, and Sea Stories (Part 1)

We've been pleased to host eight visitors recently. Edmontonians Anna (Poet Laureate), Douglas and Tallulah were out for a few nights.

It was great to play guitar with Anna again, enjoy word games and hiking, and show off the Sunshine Coast. 

Doug went swimming. We did remind him that it's just February, and none too warm yet, but he wouldn't be deterred.

Doug and Tallulah about to go swimming.

Unfortunately a big wave slammed Doug and he lost his glasses. He never complained once about the water being cold. :)

Currently my son, Logan, and his girlfriend, Kira (from Kiel, Germany), are here for two weeks, leaving Saskatoon in a blizzard, and arriving to full sun on the Sunshine Coast. They quickly on the water and caught enough crab for a huge feast, AND a wonderful crab appetizer that we served at our Games Night party on Saturday night.

Guests: six. Sea: zero.

Logan and Kira in the rowboat - six Dungeness crabs, and a few flounder.



Kira mending a net like she was born for it.



Claude and Rob

Logan and Kira on "Music Night" ... my usual gathering with guitar-playing friends and neighbors Claude and Rob.

Logan's friend Pete, from the Ukraine, is now living in Vancouver. He'd never been to the Sunshine Coast, so he ferried over and we hiked the dickens out of him.



Greg (left) and Pete (with cap) at Skookumchuk Rapids

Judit (from Germany) and Krista (Vancouver) were also with us on our hike to the Skookumchuck Rapids, then burgers and fish and chips at the Back Eddy Pub in Egmont.



Judit, Krista, Logan and Kira on Skookukmchuk Rapids hike.
Kira knitted Logan's toque (her first knitting project), and he says he loves the way the ties flare out, because it makes people smile, and that's never a bad thing.


This is one hike the guidebooks all recommend, and we're glad we had company and finally got around to viewing this phenomenon.

http://www.bigpacific.com/whattodo/parks/skookumchuck.html

Egmont, near the Back Eddy

And finally, music at the famous Garden Bay Pub. Full day! But the NEXT day .... read on ....

Joe Stanton and the Precious Littles.
http://www.joestanton.com/

Spring demands ...

running shoes and racing down wet streets. Leaping over puddles. Kite flying.  

I love the transitional seasons best. Autumn is my first love, but who could not fall for the moment you recognize the days are getting longer, and the air's losing its nip?

Here on the Sunshine Coast I imagine campfires on the beach and having friends over to play guitar. Parking on one of the beach logs with a glass of wine and watching the sun melt into the orange horizon.

Yesterday was about the yellow crocuses along the Davis Bay esplanade, and deciding, finally, to start documenting the shorebirds and ducks so I can recognize them without a doubt.



Yellow crocus.



Surfird.

Glacous-winged gull.

I always feel like a young girl again in spring. Today I bought a skipping rope (at a criminal price), and soon learned skipping's a little more difficult than I remember.

Better to have a friend holding the rope at either end, and chanting:

"Cinderella dressed in yellow, went to town to meet a fellow ..."

or

"My mother and your mother were out washing clothes ... "

On Valentine's Day, we took our ball gloves out on the beach and played catch. Years since I'd done that. Still love the smack of it. The jumping and stretching and chasing after.

I've noticed in my work, too, I'm frequently inserting references to childhood. 

From Wretched Beast, and the poem "Where He Takes Me":

"I am so simple. This is a tale of gusts
and sun, and I say: Close your eyes,

count to one hundred
in the the tall grass and find me, find me.

I am shadow leaping tree to tree, further, not far
from badger holes, deer dung, and fox."
_______________

An excerpt from "For You"

"and in this mew of light
I am a stone freed from a child's fingers

above a ravine, a trick
in measured-motion,. I wish you

had known the girl I abandoned in cattails
beside the forzen slough. Forever

in a suede jacket with fringes, wet mittens
caricaturing my hands. Shivering. Then, as now, sky

closing in, the cap of a blue-grey mushroom.
tidal. Winter winthin its waves."

Places on the map.

Yesterday, exploring.
Observation: sometimes beauty
can be overwhelming.

Egmont

Egmont

Madeira Park

We had planned to explore Garden Bay, as well,
but couldn't fit it all into one day.
Aw: we'll have to go back.


Greg at the Back Eddy Pub in Egmont
(the dark clump of trees is an island ... the multi-millionaire
who lives there apparently helicopters to work in Vancouver every day)

 

The little things that amaze.

Ruby Lake Resort Bird Sanctuary

Stream in Sargeant's Bay Provincial Park

I was picking my jaw up all day.

West Coast Wilderness Lodge

Madeira Park