Through a Naturist Lens

My wife had a project for me. For the project I needed to have a glass cutter. Now, I know I used to have one decades ago in a different house, but I didn’t have it any more. During our walk around town, there was a stop at our hardware store. I was in luck. They had two in stock, so I bought one.

Back home after the walk, it was time to see how it would turn out. We had an old mirror that used to be located in our long-ago sold camping trailer. Well, that was about eight years ago. I traded the camper in for enough money to install a new gas fireplace. We now joke about it being the best camper we have ever owned. Okay, I am digressing. Back to the tale.

We have this very old window frame that is severely out of shape, with room for four mirror inserts. Taking the old mirror, I carefully etched the mirror for the first cut. Oops! That didn’t go well. I tried again sectioning off another part of the mirror. The results were significantly worse.

After the umpteenth try, it was obvious that I wouldn’t/couldn’t do the task. There was not enough mirror left to use to cutout a pane to fit into the frame. It was then that an idea blossomed for both my wife and I, basically at the same time. Using a cardboard background, I could glue the broken pieces to create a piece of art. A half hour later, it was done.

We both studied it for a while until my wife suggested we could have the cardboard painted rather than left a dull brown. I suggested blue – as if we were looking through a broken window to see the blue skies on the other side.

It was her turn to get to work. The paint flowed and she was excited about the way it was turning out. When the cardboard was painted, she decided to glue the cardboard backboards to the frame. Then, we had to be patient. Lunch was our perfect excuse.

Two hours later, I used screws to attach the finished product to our fence behind the old crab apple tree. You can see the results in the first image above.

I’ve been having problems with my 26 year old gas lawn mower, major problems. Every time I wanted to use it, I would have to use my wrench set to loosen a nut on the housing and slip the housing back into place so that I could start the mower. Even that was another issue. The carburettor wasn’t feeding the gas evenly when it did allow some gas to flow into the carburettor. I wasn’t able to complete one round of mowing without having to redo the resettling of the housing. Enough was enough.

Yesterday morning, we made a trip into the city to buy a new lawn mower. We settled on this mower seen above. For some strange reason, despite the price advertised on the shelf, we paid seventy dollars less at the till. We didn’t know it was on sale. Needless to say, I was in a rush to get it home and out of the box.

It was surprisingly light and there wasn’t a lot of work to do to getting it ready. Taking it out of the box, I was in too much of a rush to get it ready. I mean, who really reads the instruction manual, anyway?

First, there was the bagger to attach to a frame. Common sense helped me figure out which end was which and then connect the channels which held the fabric bag onto the frame. Okay, I’ll admit, I did have to redo the first efforts until I got all connected to the right place.

With that done, I still didn’t turn to the instruction manual. I couldn’t get the handle to be pulled into position which told me that there was a lock that I needed to release, the same lock I would have to engage when the handle was in place. Two bright green levers were found and voilà, the handle was in place.

The rest was easy. Plug in the battery charger and find the battery for the charger. A quick look in the box it came in had me discover something wrapped in cardboard – the battery. I set it into place and found it was 1/4 charged. Before I could test out the mower, I would have to get it to fully charged.

Two pieces were left over. What the hell? I looked at them carefully and guessed one would be the side discharge funnel. Not sure about the last piece, I finally opened the manual. There it was – the mulcher which had to be put in place if I wasn’t going to bag the clippings or have it shoot out the side back onto the ground.

I have finally been able to get more time in the hills over the past week, something that was sorely needed. I took some liberties with imagination – I don’t have hiking boots. I wear hiking shoes. A second item – no old and bent stave. I use hiking poles. The rest is accurate.

The scattered stones shift
Beneath worn and faded boots
A barbed wire to lift
With a worn, old and bent stave
Carved long ago by callused hands

The wire now rusted by time
Its barbs still a threat
Complains in protest

Crossing the arbitrary line
Moving forward with a sigh, yet
Knowing there’s no time to rest

There is a place up ahead
Where I will lay my head

I take walks into the prairie hills as often as I can. Though the way seems barren to others, I have found surprises almost every journey I take. In the heat of a summer’s day, I have been known to find a boulder that serves as a resting place where I can meditate or simple rest.

The resting has nothing to do with physical tiredness. And the place isn’t necessarily on these prairie hills. There will be an end to my wandering, a time to hang up these dusty and faded boots.

As an older person, okay – a very old person – my life has slowed down considerably. I still do things though not as much or not so quickly. It’s not that I take naps in the afternoon, I’m not that old. It’s just that I try to slow down and enjoy the things that I do.

For example, my wife set me a task to cut up and sauté onions, and then to do the same with some mushrooms while she was at an appointment. I didn’t rush the work and focused on what I was doing. It wouldn’t do to burn the onions or the mushrooms, something that used to happen when I was younger and perpetually in a rush to do something else.

A second task for me this morning, one that I set for myself, was the trimming of branches on a tree in our backyard as some were touching a fibre optic wire, and others were hampering the smooth operation of a clothesline. Since no one appeared to be moving next door on the other side of the fence, I risked doing the task in my preferred manner, sans vêtements. No one saw, and no one was offended.

After a delicious lunch of mushroom-chicken linguine, I went out onto the deck to grab some sunshine. This has become a habit when there is any sunshine to be had.

Then, we went for a short three kilometre walk around the edge of town, a day-off kind of walk with a stop at the post office to check for mail. Once back home, it was time for me to sit still indoors and work on a new novel. I am writing a dystopian story set a dozen years in the future, a story that is a natural result of how our contemporary issues as western nations caught in the throes of populism, lose their hold on democracy.

A final note, if you are interested is reading the story written so far, about thirteen thousand words, leave a message here in the comments, along with your email address, and I will send you what has been written.

We went for a twelve and a half kilometre walk in the sunshine this morning. The walk was different than our usual walk to the prairie hills. It wasn’t long before we saw moose hoofprints. Further down the dirt road, we met mud and were forced to walk through a wheat field until the dirt road became walkable.

By the time we reached our turn around point [well two hundred metres short of the turn around point – there was a small lake on the trail] we were happy to have gone that far. The road truly needs two more days to be dry enough for hiking.

Back home, we enjoyed lunch on the back deck. When we arrived, we noticed two parcels waiting for us. They were new rocking chairs for the deck. I planned on putting them together after eating. As lunch was just about done, we heard thunder and the sky was beginning to turn dark. That didn’t stop me from my post-lunch task. I had a garage with workshop to do the work of assembly.

I have to admit, I didn’t use the small manual when I put the two chairs together. Needless to say, I had to take the first one apart a few times before it looked right. The second chair went a lot quicker and the two chairs are now on the deck getting wet.

We are hoping that we can have our supper on the deck while sitting in our new chairs. And, just in case you didn’t notice in this last photo, the sun is shining again and it looks like we will have our evening meal while sitting in these new chairs on the deck in the backyard.

In the process of checking over 600 posts that remain here at Naturist Lens, I noticed that the past two years have seen very little posted here. During that time, I wrote mostly at Medium. Since the beginning of this year, I have basically given up on that platform as an income source.

In 2024, I earned just over $4,000 in royalties. So far this year, I have earned $40 in royalties. I have to admit that I have given up putting much there since March. It seemed so pointless. I have invested in a Substack account for better than a month and so far, not a cent has been earned. The world has changed. Even my Amazon Kindle sales have dried up. Somehow, I think I may have sabotaged myself. Damn that shadow side of me!

Now that I am back here on Naturist Lens, I am hoping that my readers return with comments and likes for the various posts that will appear. My life as a naturist hasn’t really changed other than for the fact that I continue to get older.

A bit of catch up is in order. Please be patient. I will get to where I want this blog site to be.

It started raining sometime during the night. The forecast was certain it would rain, but our visitors yesterday evening complained that the clouds somehow separated and left our town high and dry. Like so many people on the prairies, they view positive statements and expressed hopes as a sure way to have the opposite happen when it comes to weather, crops, or about their own lives. They embrace negativity while secretly hoping for good results. My wife and I are optimists. We don’t hesitate to say what we think because of some superstitious curse that the farming community allows to colour their world outlook.

As I said, it is raining – so much for the curse. By two o’clock this afternoon, there was two-and-a-half inches of the liquid gold. Since we anticipate another two days of on-and-off rain, we should be able to get somewhere between four and five inches of rain.

There is a small downside for us. We won’t be walking down country roads and dirt trails until everything dries out. It is worth the wait. We will still be able to walk around town when there is no rain falling. And for me, it means I get to do more work on the archives here at Naturist Lens. I have now taken care of the posts from the distant past until the spring of 2018. I have another 170+ posts left to update. In case you are wondering, there are over 680 posts in the archives.

Enough about the archives, back to the rain. As almost always when there is rain, I take the opportunity to be in the rain, even today when it has been 12 degrees Celsius since we woke up before six this morning. I just make sure to take out the hearing aids before going out to get thoroughly wet. I don’t want to compromise the hearing aids as they are too expensive to repair and/or replace.

Twelve degrees? Well it sounds better to use Fahrenheit which translates to fifty-seven. Don’t worry, I’m not crazy. I went back into the house before I got too cold. The house is kept to a toasty 19 Celsius / 66 Fahrenheit. When we feel it will be too cold in the house, we will turn on the fireplace, not the furnace, as we want our bedroom to stay cool. We have a quilt to keep us warm at night.

Are all Canadians this brave with temperatures? Of course not, not even those who are wrapped in layers of clothing.

The weather forecast for the next few days is incredible. It’s supposed to rain. There is a tiny downside for us – the country dirt roads will become pure mud. So, we opted for a long thirteen kilometre hike down dirt roads this morning.

We both started off wearing a tee shirt and a long-sleeved shirt. Three kilometres later, the shirts were hung on a sign. Another kilometre had the tee shirts tossed on the side of the dirt trail we were following to reach the base of the hill where a sign “Road Closed” marks the end of the trail and our turn around point.

Once back home, pleasantly tired out – after all we are both in our mid-seventies – and with lunch taken care of, it was time to rake old thatch out of the lawn so that I could put some white clover seeds to help the lawn get natural nitrogen. Now, the whole backyard is done. I have done the front yard and the backyard in bits and pieces over the past two years.

There is no sunshine this afternoon, so there will be no sunbathing unlike yesterday and other sunny days. However, there will be company coming over for wine, hors d’oeuvres, and a pot-luck supper. Yes, I know. I will have to put on some clothes.

Okay, who said that every post has to be anything but prosaic. Most of our lives are unexciting to say the least. Think about it. We sleep, get up and start each day using repeated patterns. For me, it is making morning coffee and sitting on the backyard deck to enjoy that coffee when the weather is right. Other mornings coffee is on the love seat while looking out the picture window at the silent world. We get up early, it’s a blessing or a curse depending on one’s point of view. Being retired means neither of us has to run off to work.

Then, it’s breakfast time. Again, predictable patters – toast or oatmeal for the most part unless we have company when we add in pancakes which are my specialty. After breakfast, we typically go for a six to ten kilometre walk weather permitting. Otherwise, we settle for a measly 3Km walk around the perimetre of the town.

You get the picture – repeated patterns. Yesterday, I changed it up with taking care of a request from my wife. She wanted me to replace the shelf liner under the kitchen sink and in the cupboard that holds our pots. Finally, something different in the mix. Today, I do another cupboard – the one holding big bowls and such on the opposite side of the sink.

Since I am from the old school, I tend to use what’s at hand rather than rush off to buy something to do the job. For this task, I had leftover flooring tiles which could be cut and fitted. I don’t like to waste material, so the number of times I measured and remeasured the space helped me make fewer mistakes. Where I do err is on the side of not cutting off enough rather than too much. It was a tight squeeze to take all these measurements as seen in the accompanying image. And yes, all of the work was done while unclothed.

Then, feeling more comfortable with the measurements, I got down to cutting one piece at a time and fitting it into place. I did all of that work in the garage as my wife doesn’t want me doing it outside because of new neighbours beside and behind our house. Our old neighbours have moved on, mostly to senior residences.

The cuts progressed with minor changes as there was an angle which necessitated extra attention. Finally, the last piece was in place and the job was done.

We went for our usual morning walk in between cuts and placement of the tiles. Walking is one of those things which we prioritize. I will return again later. It is time for our morning walk.

The wedding is over and our third grandson in now married. We got home late yesterday afternoon, no time to go for a walk. Rather, we decided to sit on the back deck and enjoy our beautiful yard while celebrating being home with some wine.

It’s almost noon here and we have just finished our six-kilometre walk around our small town. After lunch, I will be heading out for another walk, this time alone. There is a free-hike on my agenda. This will be my first free-hike for 2025. By this time last year, I had two free-hikes completed. They were the last such hikes as life, forest fires, and family events got in the way. I wonder if this summer will be different when it comes to free-hikes.

I then checked the archives here for free-hikes in 2023 and was surprised to find nothing there. I had completed 14 free-hikes two years ago. I wonder what will be the result for 2025/