Goodies and Greenery

E and I have been enjoying watching A Victorian Farm and A Victorian Farm Christmas together.  It's fun to know that the way we decorate our home is not unlike the way a Victorian farm family decorated their home for the holidays. 

(we drove by these guys on our way to find a tree, by the time we got the camera all we could get was a bum shot)


We've been collecting greenery on our walks for some time and last weekend we set out to the woods to get our tree.  We came home with red cheeks, a sweet little tree (which, I admit, took some getting used to after two years of massive trees) and assorted other greenery (we are fortunate enough to have yew, ivy and lots of other greenery right on this property including these gorgeous red berries, no holly but oregon grape leaves do in a pinch).

I've had some fun making two simple green decorations outside - one in an old milk can and one in an old cream separator.

The rest of the greenery has been placed throughout our home - I couldn't resist tucking a string of white lights under some old glass insulators on our mantel.

Simple, lovely and all able to be tossed back outside afterwards to compost - my favourite kind of decoration. ;-)

We've been doing a bit of baking, some of our favourites - toffee, brown sugar buttons, seedy crackers - with shortbread, gingerbread men, thimble cookies and nanaimo bars still to go.

Yesterday we made a treat for our favourite canine companion and, since I've been working on planning a new business, E and I talked about a business idea for him - homemade dog biscuits sold at the farm stand.  This batch - carrot, apple, molasses - seemed to go down a treat so it will be a keeper recipe.  Happily we have our own very willing taste tester dog (and actually E tested them out too as they are made with ingredients that non-furry creatures can also enjoy). ;-)

And, I don't usually like to post photos of myself (camera shy and all that) but I thought I would share this one because I wanted to show this great hat.  I wear it all the time because it is so warm (felted wool). I've had so many compliments on it and I love being able to say, "Thank you, I got it at the dump.".  Fun to see the looks that gets.  This summer we were camping on a little island and they have a re-store at their dump, it is a place where people can drop their stuff off and then others can buy it for a small donation.  There is a similar place up near my folks' house (although things are free at that one).  I LOVE the idea of this and wish there were such places at all landfills.  Such a wonderful idea and interesting to me that it is often in island communities where you will see these.  I'd like to be able to say that I usually look much tidier than this but, no...that's me, hair knotted in a bun, stuffed in a hat and off I go. ;-)

Now...to get back to that knitting.

An Important Message

Do you remember these letters?  We had them when I was little and I can remember them being on our fridge.  I bought some from a thrift store for W when he was very little and he liked to play with them.  They've been packed away for years and I came across them when we moved and brought them up to the kitchen.  They've been a source of entertainment ever since.

The boys make all sorts of messages and whenever we have company over people seem to find it hard to resist making some sort of message.  Sometimes I'll make one...

only to have it changed into something different the next time I come into the kitchen.

The messages get changed with surprising frequency and quite often I find myself giggling at what I read on our fridge. 

FYI - that message was not done by me (therefore not MY breath) and, as far as I know, not done by our dog either.  Hmmmm....

Things Take Time

I love to go for a walk each day on this property - 10 acres of woods makes for a very peaceful place to walk and think - or not think, if that's preferable.  I always see animal tracks, usually rabbits, different birds, deer, coyotes, squirrels, mice and raccoons.  When we first knew we were moving up here I was told that I might see a moose because we are near to the creek.  I've seen moose at a distance before and been surprised rather close-up by one once when I was snowshoeing but wanted to see one again.  I've been keeping my eyes peeled the whole time we have lived here but, although I've seen tracks on my hikes further up the road, I hadn't come across any on this property. 

Sunday I went for my usual walk down to the ridge above the creek and on the way back I saw tracks where there hadn't been tracks on my way down. When I got to the house I told my family that I thought there was a moose on the property.  E and I went for a walk together on Monday and, sure enough, we were part way down the hill and saw the moose across the fence in the neighbour's property.  We enjoyed watching for a bit and then off she went.  The next day I took W with me and I went to show him where we had seen the moose, as I was scanning the property to see if I could see her in the distance W pointed out that he could see some big ears under the tree right across the fence from  us. 

Not expecting to get so up close and personal with such a huge creature we backed off a bit towards the closest tree and watched and took some photos.  We called up to E and he came down to join us  to watch for another while.  Such an amazing creature - they seem so massive, strong and majestic to me but, at the same time, sweet and almost comical looking.  Truly beautiful. 

Lately my walks have helped keep me present while I've been working at not worrying too much about finding our next home.  I am a big believer in signs - although the last while I would have liked some signs to be bigger...and clearer...and much easier to understand - so it occurred to me when we saw this moose that this was a sort of closure on our time here - a time fraught with many stretching lessons and many ups and downs - and that things would be, and were, working out just as they should.   I had been watching the whole time we lived here and now, at last, just weeks before we leave, here was this moose...right in front of us.  A very good sign indeed.  So, I guess the moral of this story is that while at times things might seem quite...well, poopy...

there is likely a lovely surprise right around the corner from all that poop. ;-)  A lovely reminder for me that Things Take Time.  Life really is good!

Fox and Geese, Birthdays and Boxes

For many years, whenever I was in the midst of something trying or difficult, I would think to myself -once I get through this then...fill in the blank with -  all will be well, life will be wonderful, I will be happy,  life will get back to normal, etc.  At some point I realized that there was, what I now call " always something" going on and that that actually was life.  Life wasn't meant to be day after day of ease and calm, that life was full of struggles, difficulties, challenges AS WELL AS beauty, peace, calm, joy and delight.  That they could happen at the same time.  That this Yin and Yang actually served me very well and helped me to grow and appreciate life - all of life, even the struggles.

The last two years have been filled with quite a bit of change and uncertainty for our family.  We've learned many valuable lessons from this time...and, I think, we are about to learn more. ;-) The house we have been living in has sold and it is time for us to move on.  I've been packing up boxes and taking this time to do some more decluttering.  We're looking for a new home to tide us over until we get our farm but just now we have no idea where we'll be living in less than two months- quite a stretching lesson for a home-loving person like myself.  Some months ago I came across a quote that really spoke to me.  I wrote it down in my quote book and thought it would be fun to share here.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it is about learning to dance in the rain.

Isn't that gorgeous?  And so we have been busy dancing in this latest rain storm...or more accurately - skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding, playing games,

(Fox and Geese Game with my folks during a visit to their place on the weekend)

celebrating birthdays, enjoying daily walks,

eating delicious pumpkin bars (with the dual purpose of using up pumpkin from the freezer in preparation for moving and they use up chocolate too!!),

along with some of the practicalities of a move such as packing - and these are just our books (dare I admit - not even all of them!)

And whenever these rains start to feel a bit overwhelming the gardener in me gently reminds myself that nothing grows well or thrives without a little rain.  I hope you're able to dance in the rain as well.

Friends

I haven't felt much like writing on this blog lately.  Two weeks ago my very dear friend of ten years lost her struggle with Inflammatory breast cancer and I am missing her dearly.  I think that if we are very lucky we will be blessed with some amazing friends throughout our lifetimes and I feel very lucky to have been blessed with this friend. I am heartbroken to lose her.  She was eight years older than I am and also a mom to two homelearning boys.  She had been there for me since the start of our homelearning years and was always a source of quiet wisdom - not just on learning at home and respectful parenting but on living life with grace, patience, consideration and zest.  Her calm, her steady pace and the way she never felt the need to rush were qualities I admired even though they were (and are) not natural to me.

I always felt that she was a person from whom I could learn much and in the last years, when she had been doing her utmost to beat her illness, she was even more of an incredible inspiration to me.  If I can live my life with even a portion of her grace, if I can face my difficulties with just a fraction of the positive attitude with which she faced hers, if I can move through life (even the challenging parts) with a sliver of her delightful sense of humour and if I can be as kind, considerate and joyful as she was throughout the years I've known her, then I will feel that I have lived my best life - well and truly.

I know she would want me to start trying to move forward now - past the sadness - and I'm going to make my best effort.  Whenever I start feeling sad I'm going to stop and think about her gorgeous laugh - the one that would literally burst out of her so that sometimes she would put her hand to her mouth as if to stop it - and her delightful giggle (yes, an actual "hee, hee" giggle!) which was joyful music to my ears and always made me smile.  She was an absolute treasure and I feel so very blessed to have known her, loved her and learned from her.  She has taught me so much about choosing joy and not sweating the small stuff  that I will be forever grateful to her.  And I'm sure for the rest of my days I'll be listening for her laugh...that beautiful, joyous laugh.

What I Shouldn't Have Done on My Summer Vacation

So now I have to admit to a very stupid thing I did on our vacation.  I saw several people pulled over alongside the roadway and so, curious and sometimes impulsive creature that I am, I wanted to find out what they were looking at.  I walked up along the roadside of a pulled over motorhome, popped out in front of it to see what was there and there I saw it indeed.  A bear. Not very far from me...standing there...on the side of the road...with no car around me as protection.   I should have known, I suppose, that it was a bear that had caused people to pull over but I didn't stop long enough to even think about it. 

And, even more stupidly, I took a couple pictures before common sense kicked back in, I realized what I was doing and high-tailed it down the road as quickly as I could.  I'm sure that look on the bear's face is disgust with another silly tourist. 

Oh Deer!

I had just finished my dinner when I saw something moving in the bush so  I got out my camera and headed out to the deck.   We have deer in this property regularly but I like to keep an eye on them at this time of year to see if they are getting close to my garden.  As I watched I noticed our black cat crouched down into pounce position ...

and then saw the deer wander down the bank towards her.

She stayed there - crouched low.  The deer stopped to munch some weeds and then came closer to her. 

They both seemed interested in the other.

A little closer.

And then...

off to munch some more weeds while kitty stood guard and protected us. ;-)

Lightning Strikes

Well, suffice it to say it has been an interesting week around here, we had lightning strike the big tree right in front of the house, just off the deck, last Monday.  We were home and it was quite an experience.  Our computer (and satellite internet) has not yet recovered!  This photo shows one of the spots the tree was marked - there are two other areas near the top of the tree.

There have been all sorts of interesting things going on - large scale gardening, birds flying into our windows and subsequent bird rescues, lots of work for all of us, herb collecting and tincture making, several hikes, friends and family visiting, and yes, that lightning and the resulting fried hot water thermostat and water softener, burned up intenet connection and receiver, and our computer and printer.  E was outside when the lightning struck and he came roaring into the house just as W and I were racing out in fear the tree would crash through our big front windows.  There were bits of bark and strips of tree as far as 60 feet away and there were even chunks of bark thrown up onto our deck and onto a chair back.

Doing anything on the temporary computer/connection we have is agonizingly slow so I'll have to wait until we get  a new computer sorted out so that I can share some bird and garden pictures.  In the meantime I hope you have been having a slightly less eventful week than we have. ;-)

Happy May Day

The other day I mentioned it was raining here and Shelia commented that she didn't know we got rain here.   I was going to respond that we hadn't had much rain since I lived here, that we mostly had snow but that now that it was springtime and warm enough that I expected that we would get our share of rain.  And you can see by the photo of the little lupin coming up (I had to bring at least one with me) that we really did have rain.   I guess I thought too soon about it being spring here(or warm), you can see what we woke up to this morning.

Crazy!  I often wonder what people from town think when they come up here ( there's been snow in town only twice this year and it is just a regular part of life up this high), I think they find it quite shocking. So, I guess that puts an end to our biking plans today...perhaps we can showshoe instead?!?

E and I spent some time at a nursery yesterday so he could pick out some plants.  He is sorely missing our old gardens and wanted to get some things to plant whether we stay through summer or not.  Something tells me those plants will be living inside with us for quite some time still. ;-)  What a funny way to start the month of May.  Happy May Day!

Got Eggs?

The boys were given a dozen double yolk eggs when we were visiting a farm last week.  When we saw the huge shells we knew we had to do something with them. 

We decided we would grow some wheat grass in them.  We drew faces on them, put some soil into them and added some soaked wheat kernels.  Then we let them sit on the windowsill.

In a while they started sprouting some "hair".

E has already given his egg a "hair" cut while somehow managing to avoid having me give him his own overdue haircut.

These are so much fun that we've decided to make more...now we just need to decide what we should call them - Eggheads or Wheatheads (sorta like Meatheads). ;-)

Thanksgiving Weekend with a Little Bit of Everything

We celebrated our Thanksgiving weekend with a little bit of everything including a little bit of good company.

A little bit of apple drying.

A little bit of sewing and a little bit of knitting (more on the knitting later).

A bit of hiking.  Started the next section of the High Rim Trail, it is cold enough this high up now that the creek was still frozen during the middle part of the day and we were glad we had brought mitts along.

A little bit of archery practice. 

This little duck had no idea why S bought him from the thrift store.  He probably was quite happy to be chosen from amongst all the other bits and bobs in the thrift store and was expecting to be going to a good home.  Not so.

It didn't even matter that I was singing Burl Ives' There's a Little White Duck.

The poor thing was doomed.

There was a Lot! of eating.  The homemade giant perogies were a big hit.

My boys really admire Jamie Oliver and, after seeing a few of his DVDs and learning more about how he supports fresh, local food, I really liked him too but now, after trying this recipe...I luv him!  These roasted veg were delicious!  Seriously the best ever veg.  Four helpings later I decided this would be a regular meal in our home.  Yum.  The only thing we did differently was to sub thyme for rosemary because we prefer thyme.  We ate ours too quickly to take a photo but check out the photo from the above recipe link, you can tell they are delicious just from the picture.

So much to give thanks for - just within the simple things of our everyday lives - we feel very blessed.

Serious Lack of Self Control

Obviously I am seriously lacking in self control when it comes to free tomatoes.

No   Control   At   All.  And the really scary part is that I know myself well enough to know that I will take even more boxes along the next time I'm asked to come pick. ;-)

I also know myself well enough to know that even though I really, really want to know how to take better sunset pictures with our camera (love the views of the sun setting and the lake we get up here)...

that I still won't take the time to read the manual to find out the proper settings to use...ever!