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Showing posts from May, 2020

Snowy Speculations

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If I could paint, I would have tried to replicate the landscape very early this morning. Illuminated by the faintest hints of light and hours before sunrise, the cold, stark landscape lay completely still in its snowy blanket. Naked trees stood proudly and quietly against this backdrop, this palate of pure white an unforgiving place for any creature, big or small, to attempt to cross without drawing attention to its existence at this time. Even our ancient tire swing looked sleepy and droopy, suspended precariously close to the ground, as if the effort of hanging from a tree limb was too much for it. To the east, the only rays of light visible were the ones coming from the across the river, and even those seem hushed and muffled, like a child tired and murmuring not to wake them up just yet.  The young families down the road have gone all out with Christmas lights this year. Bright colours adorn the night skies and my neighbours even have a Christmas Cat and a Christmas Dinosaur that i
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Our Squirrel is an Addict

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Our Squirrel is an Addict We don't have any street lights where we live. It does take some getting used to when you first move to a rural property. When it's dark, it's pitch-black. But on a clear night, the stars are absolutely phenomenal!  There are so many things in nature that happen under the cover of darkness.  A lot of animals are nocturnal and this is their time to feed and forage to their heart's content. My philosophy is that if I can't see them or hear them, I don't really care what happens out there. My husband, who gets up quite early, always goes out and turns off the pool pump that we run all night long during the summer months. We have a solar blanket that is attached to a roller with longer straps. One morning he noticed that the centre strap holding the solar blanket in place was torn almost through. The solar blanket was new, as were the straps that have to be manually attached to both the reel and the blanket. So the tear wasn't from
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Snapping Turtle Standing Guard!

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Snapping Turtle Standing Guard! One of the minor downfalls of rural living is that the roads are well traveled with high speed drivers. It is not always conducive to go walking without having to head onto the shoulder every few minutes when a car passes by. As an avid walker, I decided I would use the outline of our property as my  personal walking path. We have an ancient curly willow tree located right in the middle of our property and on one of my daily walkabouts, I noticed a large snapping turtle parked right the under said tree watching me intently. At first I was a little spooked. Rightly so since I noticed that even though I was generally 100-200  feet away from him at most times, he turned his craggy head ever so slowly and with beady eyes, watched my every step around the yard. True, my pace was a little quicker whenever I walked by the tree, having to pass by him fairly closely. In my mind, I was waiting for this ancient reptile to come charging behind me, snapping his a
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Gone Fishing...

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Gone Fishing... Our property is riddled with field rocks of various sizes, which seems to be a common plight on homes located on the lines and concessions in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  They're found everywhere in the yard, the flower beds and the gardens. Our side property once housed several rows of grapes that were torn out before we moved into the house. My husband spent a few weekends hand raking and digging that part of the property until it was smooth and finally seeded it so that it became a usable part of the yard. He collected piles of these rocks, some that we found uses for, others that remain piled by the edge of the forest. Whoever owned the property a few decades ago, must have been just as diligent as my husband was and possessed an artistic vision that can be seen in little details wherever the eye looks. There was a small fish pond to the east side of the house that somebody had shaped like a lily pad. The elevated rim was decorated with these stones, as well as a b
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Man versus Nature...

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Man versus Nature... When my youngest daughter needed to bring in some snacks for her kindergarten class, I decided to bake some oatmeal cookies. I mixed the cookie dough, measured the cookie size so that they would all come out in even portions and put them in the oven. Once they had baked perfectly, I carried the hot cookie sheet across the house to the back deck. I had a wrought iron table there that I always placed my baking on so that it could cool outside. While I was assembling the second batch, my daughter, who was four years old at the time, let out a tremendous screech! I came running from the kitchen to see her yelling at something outside of the living room window. "Mom!" she called as I rushed to her. "There's a squirrel eating our cookies!" And sure enough, a fuzzy grey squirrel sat cheekily on its hind legs, stuffing bits of oatmeal cookie into its mouth! I banged on the sliding glass door and wrenched it open as he scampered away. But there
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Coyotes in the Basement

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Coyotes in the Basement About a month after we moved into our little farmhouse, my husband called me up from work to let me know that he was bringing home a puppy that night as a surprise for the kids. He had promised them  that we would get a dog once we were settled in. He came home with the tiniest bundle of fur tucked protectively under his arm. The kids were over the moon and after a very short discussion, we named her Susie. Her parentage was questionable, but that really wasn't any concern to the kids. And so, besides still working through the number of boxes that had yet to be opened from our move, the next few months of our lives now had the excitement of raising a puppy, an experience similar to that of raising an infant and then a rambunctious toddler! But as Susie got older, she began the awful habit of howling in the middle of the night. The first few times it happened, we were understanding and were able to quiet her down after a minute or two. But my husband, who
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As Sheep to the Slaughter...

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As Sheep to the Slaughter.. I got up one dreary fall morning to enjoy a steaming cup of tea before the kids got up and stood at the dining room window staring at the vacant house down the road. The amount of rain we'd had over the weeks had turned the dry fields of late summer into vibrant green again, a stark contrast to the grey foreboding clouds looming close to the earth. I observed the plants and the various shrubbery in the flowerbeds around my house but was distracted by a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. Little grey shapes were making their way around the corner of the house that I had just been observing. As they came into view, I noted that the shapes were in fact a handful of sheep that must have gotten out of the neighbouring winery's field. I watched as about six or seven sheep trotted to the front of the house, all in a straight row.  Without even hesitating to ponder his next move, their fearless leader decided that he was going to march up the st
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