268: Here's The Deal

We spent the Canada Day long weekend at the lake. It was our first chance to get up to Kerry's parents' cottage this summer, on the west side of Lake Winnipeg.

Kerry spent entire summers of her childhood at this place. She swam in the water and played here as a kid, while I spent summer Saturdays at the beach with my family on the other side of the lake.

She wrote a poem about this not so long ago. It's beautiful. It makes me think there was invariably a moment when as a gangly little boy I stood on the beach scanning the horizon. On calm days you could squint and see the other side.

And on the other side, she stood on the steps of the gangly, gaunt pier at the end of her place's gravel road and squinted to see my side of the lake.

Now we sit together on a still and humid night in the verandah. Store-bought firecrackers are going off. She's playing solitaire and I watch through my camera.

267: Away

It's been ten days since we returned from our lengthiest vacation ever – four weeks for me, three months for Kerry – and what strikes me now is how average this weekend seemed. I'm churning out freelance work. We painted the bedroom. Planted the veggie beds. And tried my hardest to cling to the reality that 11 days ago we were tired and trundling the streets of Barcelona. That two weeks ago we were ascending and descending the cliffs of the Amalfi coastline. That three weeks (and more) ago we were twisting our tongues around the Croatian language, just competent enough to ask for bread and beer. And that 36 days ago, I popped out of a 12-hour series of flights in an entirely foreign airport, hoisted my bag off the conveyor belt and proceeded through the sliding doors where Kerry was hopping up and down, waiting for me.

The time away really worked. Even though it was our first large-scale vacation where we remained fairly connected to the outside world (a fact that both irked and saved us), the distance and the difference from our routine, in almost every facet of our days, was remarkable. Our formula of not packing our days (or most days), breaking the time into installments unique from one another (big city, small city, island-at-the-end-of-the-world, mid-sized city, coastal/rural hiking marathon, big city), was honed, making each section feel almost instantly weeks apart from the previous.

Barcelona, a bustle and blur, a jump on summer, toasty and sun-dappled. A world center with certainly enough pavement to pound to last more than the week we could offer the city. We walked everywhere, the journey just as anticipated as the destination, each day out. We found noise and colour, in busy squares, raucous May Day demonstrations, squealing parrots and (figuratively) cheese-filled fountains set to television and movie anthems. And we found quiet, in hilly forested parks, at galleries and on our tidy little beer-friendly home street.

Dubrovnik, with its dollhouse old town, like a living, breathing theatre set. It was here we crashed for three days and first dipped our toes into a country that admittedly knew little about beyond a pair of recommendations and a well-worn, hand-me-down guidebook. An easy transition, Dubrovnik is a decidedly kempt, visitor-friendly scene. We spent our time here in and around quaint, cobbled alleys, the lushly treed and bizarre just-offshore island of Lokrum and pacing many times up, and down, the 337 steps from the town to our apartment overlooking the Adriatic and the early May super-moon.

Far, far from the hectic urban scene of Barcelona – even the postcard-like Dubrovnik – we departed for the soothing centerpiece of our time away, the distant Croatian island of Vis. It was here for five days, during the thick of our trip, we disconnected entirely. The island still felt very much a genuine and unexplored place, particularly in the summery heat of the (decidedly) off-season. We developed a routine here – sleep, lounging, reading, jaunts to the grocery and bakery, gawkings off our ocean-front patio, belly-scratching the apartment owner's dog, and beer o'clock. Of all the places we visited, the sheer do-nothing-ness of our time on Vis may have it resonating for a long, long time.

Next back to the mainland to acquaint ourselves with the port city of Split, our last destination before leaving Croatia. A working and honest city, Split's core is a lab-rat maze where generations upon generations slowly claimed, and reclaimed, squatter's rights within the remnants of an ancient Roman emperor's retirement palace. We roamed single-file lanes and markets, dipped into the still-intact basement, and looked behind doors (including one in the old-town cathedral where Kerry surprised a nun doing her morning ironing).

Our finale, a one-week self-guided hiking tour of Italy's famed Amalfi coastline, began with a manic, mostly airborne, late-night taxi ride through the dark and rickety streets of Naples (the single, greatest taxi ride of my life). But it was hardly representative of our time in Italy, which was even more airborne – seemingly – as we snaked and laddered the cliffs, old mule tracks and stony staircases of Amalfi over a six-day sojourn through gravity-defying towns and hamlets situated in the nooks and crevasses of an almost impossible landscape – all the while peering down on endless dictionary definitions of Mediterranean blue. These days – along with their thousands upon thousands of stairs – culminated with the famous, well-trod trek on the Sentiero degli Dei into Positano, and celebratory seaside prosecco.

Bachelor Exercise No. 3

Bachelor exercise number three: documentation of a rarely-seen event – that of a modern bachelor wallowing in low, low, rock-bottom culinary standards. Peanuts & Corn Records' founder/producer/rapper mcenroe provides the soundtrack. Accompanied by a bowl of original shredded wheat bricks and brown sugar, a competent mix that provides the daily dose of both fibre and teeth-rotting sweetness.

So, milk carton is emptied. Fridge is bare. Bag is packed. And I. Am. Outtahere.

Addendum: add one more song to the list established in bachelor exercise number one.

Bachelor Exercise No. 2

In preparation for my trip overseas and anticipation of my reunion with Kerry, I underwent the process of bachelor-beard removal via three steps. It's not quite the 12-step opus of recovering alcoholics, but a man's return to civilization via grooming is no less important. Step One (above) is possibly the most important: Acceptance. Acceptance that not all men are created for beard growth – case in point the two months it took to even concoct this scraggly thing.

Step Two (above) is Denial. Chiefly, denial of beard failure as displayed through a final fling with one of facial-hairdom's most shunned and misunderstood creatures: the porn-star look.

Step Three (above) is Cowboy. This step needs no further explanation beyond the fact it is awesome.

266: Red Sky At Night

I almost missed this year's nocturnal owl survey. Anyone who's been around these parts knows it's one of my favourite rites of spring (as evident here, and here, and here, and here). This year the stars weren't aligning, as buddy Jason couldn't make it to town in time to squeeze into the early April window the survey results rely on. Too bad, since the astoundingly early spring would come with excellent road conditions – after our 2011 survey fell short due to heavy snowpack on the route we take.

But we learned on Friday that late-April results would still count so we made a go of it, building in an early burger run to Blondie's. The evening was incredible. Shoe Lake, a popular canoe launch in Nopiming Provincial Park where we typically stop and wait for sunset, was completely thawed. In our ten previous owl surveys the lake ranged from slushy to completely frozen, even in the warmest of springs.

And there was lots of activity. Our 20-mile route resulted in 18 owl recordings, among our best years on record. The results would have been more fruitful had the pitch-black forest not been inundated by thousands of calling spring peepers and wood frogs (especially because normal interference from geese, ducks and grouse didn't seem to be an issue). But no cause for complaint; even in years where numbers are low it's a treat to stand stark-still on an empty logging road in the dark and listen to the sweet nothing that envelopes me. Or the slap of a beaver's tail on water, which can darn near empty my bowels. Either way, it's cool.



And of course, we are not above spoiling the serenity of it all (photo by Jason).

Want to take part in the Manitoba Nocturnal Owl Survey? Head here. And stay out of the Nopiming – that's our turf.

265: That's A Paddlin'

My brother and his fiancée are getting married later this year. As part of the preparations, they asked me to craft their über-simple invitation that would take the form of a postcard featuring an illustration of the two of them in their "engagement canoe". They were angling for a look very similar to a self-portrait I'd done a couple of years ago as an homage to Hergé, one of my few select illustration heroes. The style, all crisp, defined lines and doses of flat colour, was right up my alley. So as daunting as it was to honour them and their big day – almost as daunting as the invites for our own tiny, perfect wedding – it was a request impossible to say no to.

One hitch: with the ask coming during the onset of winter, reference material for a soothing paddle in the water would need ample assistance from my imagination. So in its place, the equally soothing sensations of a faux-paddle through the snow in a neighbourhood park…

The postcards are in the mail now (we've got ours!). All that remains between now and the big day is that pesky little matter of summer.

Click here to have a closer gander at the finished drawing.

264: The Leaf Charmer

This was fun. This fellow and his leafy prey is about an hour's work all-told; output from last night's meetup with good friends Allan and Chris at Pop Soda's Coffeehouse (and brief after-party at my pad). The three of us had hooked up on a couple of other man-date occasions to talk shop – and decided for "ManDate III: The Reckoning" that there would be instruments of sketch destruction involved. It was some mid-week loosey-goosey catharsis.

As to where the idea came from for the drawing, I have absolutely no frickin' idea.

Check here to see a more detailed look.

263: The Music Man

This illustration – as a sketching exercise – goes way back to those hazy, crazy days of the summer of 2010. I signed up and vowed an online pinky-swear with my American friends Melissa and Amy to try a little exercise in collaboration. Each of us would blast out an hour of sketching with some Pigma Microns, filling roughly one-third of a page, then mail it on to the next participant. Then repeat, and pass it on again. The end goal would be three filled pages, with illustrations shared and completed equally among the three of us. Easy-peasy.

Except that after two rounds of play, life set in and the exercise disappeared into the ether. I can't even remember what happened on my end of the deal, with the third piece, to let it sit on my desk for an eternity and a day. But fast-forward almost two years when, during a cleanup of my drawing space, I came across the incomplete final installment.

And I thought, nuts to this, finished the thing and mailed the finished three-person creation home to Amy in Arizona. I'm also holding fast to the assignment's original rule that no one finished piece be displayed until all three return to their humble place of origin. But in the meantime, here's a rejig of my original drawing that got it all started: a one-hour pen drawing of Canuck gadzoople-threat entertainer C.R. Avery, who I saw at the 2009 Winnipeg Folk Festival – run through the Photoshop-machine.

Click here to nab a more detailed look.

262: Drawing The Shades

Kerry and I bought ourselves an introductory class in letterpress and bookbinding techniques at Winnipeg's Martha Street Studio for Christmas. The sessions began later in January, just wrapping up last week. It was an invaluable experience for myself – I've always wanted to plant my butt at Martha Street and get dirty doing something decidedly un-digital. That it was something the two of us could share made it all the more sweet. The place kicks ass.

The basic bookbinding stitch techniques we learned bent my brain into a pretzel – always a sure sign that I'm learning something. I'm now unashamed to admit I had never needle-and-stringed anything before, beyond coasting through one term of a junior high home-ec class on charm and procrastination. Though I didn't exactly master the skill, I can at least be a tiny bit pro about it now and say hey, the stab stitch is my favourite stitch.

I was more enamoured with using the ink, chase, quoins and other old-timey tools of my trade with the presses. Again, all very basic stuff in this class – which was ideal. Scrounging through the studio's trays of type I found a face I liked, and set to work making these flash-cards – for lack of a better word – to underline yet-to-be-created illustrations I'd create to hopefully match. These pieces eventually became a quartet of simple, geometric – and above all, hand-made – cards featuring two-toned songbirds, shaded in brown and black for Illustration Friday's current theme of shades.

No computers were consulted/harmed/touched/even thought about, in the creation of these pieces.

261: Summer/Winter

I took a road trip today, to see if the countryside had transformed from winter to spring at as rapid a pace as it has the city. This past week has been unprecedented, with the weekend a staggering twenty-one degrees above seasonal average. It's been enjoyable, if not completely oddball – and thus, a little frightening.

I drove a circuit from the Seven Sisters Falls dam and Whitemouth Falls, up to Pine Falls and back down to Grand Beach where I snapped these photos. I went for a walk in the heat and humidity(!), the still-frozen-solid lake evaporating and shimmering out to the horizon. In these parts Lake Winnipeg usually doesn't crack and melt until the end of April, so I was encouraged by the ice not budging. But the temperatures were throwing other aspects of nature a curve: pussy-willows budding, but flocks of snow buntings still poking around in the sand and slush.

I like to make an annual pilgrimage to Grand Beach in the spring, trying my best to time it with break-up on the lake. I've never witnessed the place at its crazy flesh-parade peak, opting to visit during spring thaw and autumn – and winter, too, since we discovered the park's network of ski trails. The beach was fantastically empty and nearly winter-free. On my way back I stopped at Patricia Beach, a few kilometres to the south. It was completely socked in, nary a place to scramble without my bare legs sinking to the knees in snow.

The furnace has been off for three days now; I suppose I should be thankful for that. Windows have been opened, briefly. Bike tires pumped. The lawn raked of spring detritus. It's been a strange and incredible weekend. I was skiing a week ago. Now I'm not sure what to fear more: a slap-in-the-face return to the season we should be experiencing, or the possibility of this freakshow as the new norm.

This site never does justice to such horizontally-skewed photos. Click on the images directly to view them in greater detail.