Pinery driftwood

On Friday we drove to Pinery Provincial Park near Grand Bend and hiked more than a kilometre to the beach on Lake Huron. The weather seemed to threaten more thunderstorms, like the one that had drenched our campsite the night before. Suddenly the sky turned blue. It took us by surprise, and we both ended up with sunburns.

But until then, it was one of the nicest beach days I can remember. The sand was littered with driftwood, which inspired me to create a work in the style of environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy. Brenna helped me collect the wood. This dome is actually a miniature version of one he built on the beach in Nova Scotia, as told in the documentary, Rivers and Tides, which I've written about before.

Just as we were leaving and I paused to take a final photograph, a teenager playing bocce threw the jack (a baseball, actually) to land within inches of the dome. Of course the game would proceed with several more balls being thrown as close as possible to the jack. An appalled girl, perhaps his sister, darted forward to retrieve the jack, stammering compliments on my work. She returned scolding him, "You beast!" This thing is supposed to be ephemeral, but I was glad to escape the beach without witnessing it carelessly shattered.

If you'd like a closer look, there's a gallery of eight images on Flickr. There's even a puzzled reaction from a strolling gull.

More of Brenna

I have more stories to tell about the trip, but no time this afternoon, so for now here a few more photos of Brenna. We're leaving in a few minutes to take her back to Lindsay until the weekend. This evening I'll stop to see Danny before returning home.

Tomorrow I'll work at Two Rivers, then in the evening put in my first shift at Out On The Shelf, Guelph's queer lending library, more than six hours of volunteer work in a single day. And I don't feel overwhelmed.

As of this hour I own the Sunfire. The usual pile of red tape has been complicated by the accident and by a parking ticket I received earlier the same day. Every piece of documentation costs money: $10 here, $60 there. But finally it is over. At least my driving record kicked into a better category and my insurance premium dropped by 22 per cent, so we'll receive a refund. I haven't owned a car since November 2000.

The first shot was taken Thursday evening on the beach in Goderich, the second Saturday evening in our campsite at Falls Reserve Conservation Area, and the last two on the beach at Pinery Provincial Park on Friday.







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