4 short stories

SHORT STORY #1   In the blog post where I shared my Perseids Meteor watercolour painting, I also shared this statement "This painting may be enough to satisfy the wondering without venturing out there!"  Well, the painting was not enough to fuel the wondering! In hindsight I should have listened to my intuition and stayed the course.  As the hours passed on Monday, the more I leaned towards heading out to Forgetmenot Pond.  At 10:45 PM Monday night, I exited my front door to go to The Pond!  When I opened the door, I startled the resident rabbit who was sitting there and it startled me!  I should have taken that as a sign!  I hit the main highway then hit the 22 then hit Route 66.  Thankfully that was all I hit!  I read peoples' stories about how they saw aurora chasers parked on the sides of roads with no lights on, standing outside their vehicles being an accident waiting to happen. I have now witnessed that for myself!  Even with my bright lights on, I spotted them at the last second having to quickly swerve to get around them. This happened three times on the way to The Pond.  Do the deer, cows and wild horses not sleep at night?  They were all meandering on and off Route 66 and by now it was nearing midnight.  I drove roughly half of the speed limit, I had my brights on that entire stretch.  There were no other vehicles driving ahead of me nor behind me and no other vehicles were in the parking lot when I arrived.  I pulled into a parking spot and before I even shifted my car into park, a vehicle pulled up on my driver side.  I had no idea where it came from so quickly but it totally freaked me out.  I looked at the guy & girl inside then put my car in reverse and drove away! I got out of there!  I just wanted to be back home!  The drive back along Route 66 was the same as the drive in, aurora & meteor chasers on the side of the road not visible until the last second, the deer, cow and wild horses still had not gone to bed.  The only difference was that now numerous vehicles were heading to where I just came from.  I saw two meteors flash across the sky while I was driving and I saw some sweet shades in the sky.  I have no photos to share! I JUST WANTED TO GET HOME!

SHORT STORY #2   It was a sleepless night other than for two hours!  By the time I got home from my Perseids & Meteor chasing adventure, it took lots of time to settle.  I eventually did and later on made it out the door to head up to Nose Hill to get some exercise, fill my lungs with fresh air and clear my head of what occurred over the past number of hours. This time there was no resident rabbit at my front door when I opened it and there were no worries of what I might hit along the drive there.  Once I ascended The Hill, I hiked along the lovely long trails in the wide open and those that went through the treed sections.  The cloud coverage was captivating the entire time while I was wandering!  With a good ten kilometres under my belt, lungs filled to capacity with mostly fresh clear air and no lingering thoughts of the past only ideas of what to look froward, I headed home because I felt fulfilled not because I just wanted to get home! 

SHORT STORY #3   My Camino de Santiago virtual challenge medal arrived! It will be my final medal!  I decided this chapter of my life has come to an end.  In total I completed 21 virtual challenges.  I started these challenges the first week of January 2021 when our world was in the midst of a mess.  They were a godsend at the time getting me through tough times that we were all experiencing.  They motivated me to get out the door and be active, to be in a better place mentally and physically.  The conqueror community that I belonged to was wonderful, we were all supportive of each other.  We came from all walks of life from all over the world and we all had one thing in common, we were conquerors.  I got to virtually travel to places I would otherwise never go to.  Some of the challenges opened my eyes to places I would now like to travel to.  Even though this chapter of my life is now closed, I do see my medals every day and they will be a reminder of the value they brought.  When one door closes, another door opens!  I don't know at this time what might be beyond that door that is opening, but I know how to embrace what brings good into my life!  

SHORT STORY #4   I kept looking at the photo I took of the Eastern Kingbird on the day it graduated from being a baby to becoming a fledgling! Last week I made a water-colour painting of it.  I was not content with the first try, I did not give the little bird a messy look.  The original outcome was neat and tidy with bold black and white colouring.  Today, I went for my second try at creating a watercolour painting that I was happy with.  I added more grey to the white and dark blue to the black.  I used more loose swish strokes.  I painted the yellow beak with downward strokes to give the sad look and added some grey around the eyes to help them look bigger and stand out.  In this painting it looks like it is sitting on the log on its rear with the legs outstretched which was not what I portrayed in the first painting.  I like the look of this second try, to me it looks sad, messy and to be the sweetest little thing!      

my reference photo