Spring...

 May 20, 2026

It’s definitely spring. And not only is it spring, it is a spring with delusions of summer!

The last few days here were very hot and humid. Looking at the sky, it was easy to imagine that there would be a thunderstorm or two before too long.

What wasn’t easy to imagine? That my cell phone would go off with an emergency alert 10 times yesterday between about 4:30 and 6:30.

Usually that two-toned strident alarm, rare as it has been, is the announcement of an amber alert.

Yesterday, it was a weather alert of tornado warnings for our “mobile coverage area”. Our coverage area is a significant chunk of southern Ontario, so I wasn’t overly worried. But I took the warning seriously. I know of too many people who have paid too high a price when tornadoes appeared near them, not to.

A visit to the “maps” section of the Weather Network gave me an idea of what the situation was now and would be in the next few hours. Sure enough, a long line of active weather, stretching north and south of us, was heading, west to east, and would be over us before long. I activated the map “forward” feature and watched the forecasted progression. We would be in the active zone for the next two and a half hours.

A few minutes later, my daughter came downstairs and announced her intention to sit on the front porch and watch the storm. Our porch is now and has always been covered by a roof, but it is also open. It’s a covered space, not an enclosed one. As long as the winds don’t get too strong blowing from the north, south or east, we’re protected. But this weather was coming from the west, and our house quite literally had our backs.

I can’t tell you how many times through the years our family has done this very thing. It’s a tradition, of sorts, that goes back to our first days in this house when our children were 17, 12, and 11.

We’re all very lucky that storms have never frightened us. Mostly, we’ve appreciated the rain—especially if, like last night, the arrival of the downpour also gutted the humidity.

It was like old times, the two of us out there as the rain came down, hard and fast. The winds had died off a bit, and we enjoyed watching the lawns get watered, and drivers in their cars, few but brave, slow down as the drivers headed home.

It gave us a chance to see how the new sewer openings worked, and I am not at all certain that we could give them a passing grade.

Eventually, the winds shifted just enough that we began to be misted. Not long after that, we decided that inside was a better option.  

Fortunately, there were no tornadoes spotted in our area. This morning dawned, warm but not particularly hot, and that was a blessing.

This past weekend was Victoria Day weekend here in Canada. The holiday itself was observed on Monday, ensuring that most people enjoyed a long weekend. It used to be the weekend for fireworks; but those big, beautiful, pyrotechnic displays are now mostly enjoyed on Canada Day. So, if you’re visiting Canada on July 1^st, which this year will be on a Wednesday, you can look forward to a little something extra while on vacation.

The Victoria Day weekend is also considered planting weekend—unless, like this year, it comes earlier than normal (it’s the Monday before May 24^th). Most folks planting home gardens will be doing so next weekend. We’re looking forward, here in the Ashbury household, to being among them.

This year, with our enthusiastic encouragement, daughter will he head gardener. I just know it’s all going to go splendidly.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

 

My most priceless treasure...

 May 13, 2026

I hope that those of you who are mothers had a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday. I’m very much like my own mother, when it comes to this annual celebration. Like her, I don’t really care if I receive any gifts or not. As long as I hear from my family, I’m good.

This year, as most years, I did hear from them all. That’s easy for our daughter as she does live here with us. So, she took it a step further and arranged for her son to visit so that together they could do the jobs that have been nagging at me—and that I can no longer accomplish all on my own. And which, truth be told, she can’t either. She needed some serious muscle.

I love a good spring cleaning, and this past weekend saw the drapes and carpet in my living room totally refreshed. Window opened, overhead fan on to circulate the lovely spring-like air, I was a happy woman.

Then on Monday the girls bought and then prepared dinner—grilled steak, garlic shrimp, roasted potatoes. I had a green salad with my own home-made dressing. Usually, I’m the only one who indulges in this, but my second daughter opted to have some as well. She really liked my dressing, and I promised I would make some up for her.

It’s a simple combination of olive oil, honey, apple cider vinegar and “salad herbs”. I make it at least a few hours before I’m going to eat it so that everything can blend properly.

And as one might expect on Mother’s Day there were flowers. I do love the flowers I get—hanging baskets from each of my grown children. My porch is once more properly adorned, a place of beauty and greenery—along with my wonderful wind chimes—to make an appealing place for a brief respite.

I used to spend a lot of time outside but have curtailed that practice over the last few years in deference to my arthritis. But I hate not going outside, so I’ve decided that I really don’t care if I look silly on the porch with a blanket over my legs in spring or summer. And a sweater over my shoulders which also tend to ache lately, too.

We had our Mother’s Day feast on Monday so that both girls could be there. They’re both busy with sometimes competing schedules. Moving a celebration is an accommodation that is easy to make, in order that we can all be together.

The very best gift that my family can give me, the one I cherish over everything else is, of course, the gift of themselves, and their time spent with me.

Nothing makes me happier than when I am surrounded by my loved ones. Because when they are here, they are not single beings in one place at one time. They have with them a flavor of every memory we’ve made together. I see them as they are, and as they were. Good times shared are never farther away than those memories.

Those memories—mine and their own—form the story of us. And that story is filled with all that we are, have been, and will be. It is a priceless, priceless treasure.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

Imagination...

 May 6, 2026

The sun is shining intermittently through the clouds and the birds are singing. The dampness of yesterday is hovering in the wings, like an understudy who prays the lead will stumble and fall. And swirling around and above and through everything is the sound of an earth-moving machine grunting and groaning, shifting and shoveling, as the work begins on the piece of construction that shall be created for yours truly to have full and unfettered access to the road from her house.

Of course, I have decided to be grateful for whatever the end result turns out to be, because I do know what was there, however temporarily. This, whatever we end up with, will be better.

The gentlemen at work in front of my house are not landscapers. They are a construction company. This is a difference that my husband had a bit of difficulty grasping earlier today. Fortunately, after the requisite amount of steam was released from his soul, we were able to set him to rights. First the concrete work, and then the landscaping.

I reminded him that the properties up and down the cross street to our north looked rough and tumble after their road construction – before the landscapers came and did quite a lovely finishing job of it all.

The challenges of getting older are not confined to one subdivision of the human experience.

I haven’t mentioned to him, but will, if necessary, that worse come to worse and he doesn’t like the end result? We have grandsons for that very purpose.

It’s springtime here in Southern Ontario. The neighborhood trees are beginning to leaf. Our walnut tree, of course, will be the last to provide its shade. In that trait it reminds me of that amazing weeping willow we had when I was a child. The last to get its leaves, and the first to lose them.

I miss my willow. That tree was impossibly high and incredibly magical to seven-year-old me. A very mature tree, its branches provided twigs that grew up and out and then down, creating the perfect childhood sanctuary where my imagination soared. Umbrella like in structure, it would keep the soft mists of a light rain from spoiling my play. I practically lived under that tree from spring until late autumn. When those protective twigs grew so that they lay on the grass, as they did every year, it was my job to trim them. I used the long-handled shears and trimmed them just enough. My first priority of course was protecting the sanctuary atmosphere of that, my most personal space.

But it wasn’t just the pocket of shade and the privacy provided by my green “screen” that I loved. One could sit on the grass, back to the trunk, and lounge within the luxury of a long-armed divan as sturdy roots on either side of me invited me to drape my arms over them. That natural nook had, I was convinced at the time, been created just for me.

One substantial and accommodating branch shot straight out from the trunk, several feet above my head, at a level ninety-degree angle from the ground, the perfect host for my own private swing. Made of strong rope and a cut and drilled and sanded four-inch-thick plank, I could swing to my heart’s content.

I was never lonely under my tree. My imagination furnished me with endless imaginary friends and wonderful adventures. I understand now that all of my play at that time was aimed at honing myt imagination.

I’m certain that if my parents were alive when it happened, they would not have been surprised in the least that I became a published author. My mother would have said I got the talent from my father.

She would have been right.

I am certainly learning how to be comfortable in my new office chair. I have it working to my best advantage, too.

For example, I don’t always need it raised up. Having it up is best for writing, and for whatever not-so-rare but still precious moments I may indulge in a game or three. All in the interest of keeping my mental faculties sharp, of course. Wordle and acrostics keep the noodle prime.

But if I’m going to watch videos, or podcasts, or just indulge in research, then I lower the seat. Lowered, I can more easily relax as I don’t have to be concerned with keeping my wheel-bearing chair, sitting on a somewhat sloping floor, from rolling away from my keyboard.

The ability to adapt is a valuable skill to have, don’t you think?

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury