Snowy Speculations

-
Image
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 th...
Post a Comment

No Campground Reservation Needed!

-

 No Campground Reservation Needed!


Our neighbours host an annual "camp-out" for a local rugby team. Every civic long weekend, the tents start popping up on the Saturday afternoon, a plethora of various colours against the background of the green, lush forest behind and the vehicles fill their driveway. This year they have upped the ante and even rented a Porta Potty, proudly displayed for all to see. But this is one of the perks that comes with living in a rural setting. Not the Porta Potty, but the ability and the space to host campouts whenever you'd like. No reservations needed here! Their campfire burned all night and this morning someone was cooking up a delicious smelling breakfast for the hungry masses. 

I remember our son hosting a few friends after graduation years ago. They set up tents and hung around the fire all night.  Since there is no high school in Niagara-on-the-Lake (besides a small international school), these St. Catharines teens had no idea that "camping" was possible so close to home. That is to say that they were thrilled until the birds starting singing their hearts out at the crack of dawn. When I got up around six that morning, the tents had all been taken down and the cars were gone. I was told that it had been too loud for them to sleep...

The unseasonal coolness of this last week brings to mind waking up somewhere up north, be it in a tent or rustic cabin. It's chilly enough in the early mornings and evenings to need a sweater to ward off the damp, cool air. Where we are, there is the ever present smell of wood smoke in the air from several neighbours keeping the home fires burning, reminiscent of the consistent smell of a campground.

In these pandemic times, it's been nice to see people out and about, using the outside spaces to see family and friends. Fear of Covid has forced us into thinking outside of conventional boxes and even going back to the way people entertained for centuries. I've always been an advocate of dining al fresco and have enjoyed my best moments of clarity spending hours in nature. 

So kudos to my neighbours and to all those families sitting outside this weekend, hosting barbeques, sleeping in tents or trailers and enjoying the beautiful landscape all around us! This is Canadian summer living at its best and before long, we will be pining for these days as the seasons turn colder.

Lolita Schimann Hale


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?

-
Image
 I was working in my home office at the front of the house early yesterday morning. The dogs had been taken out and fed and I was being quite productive already. All of a sudden I heard a little noise and assumed that the cat had come upstairs. Then Gus, our Pom-with-an-attitude, started growling. None of these occurrences were in any way different from any other day. Then the growling started again followed by his incessant, high-pitched barking and Sadie, our old lab who never does anything but eat and sleep, started growling and barking as well. I ran out to shush them both as the kids were still sleeping and heard another bit of scurrying in the living room. It had to be the cat, of course. I closed the pocket door between the kitchen and hallway and started heading back to my office to continue working when a small movement caught my eye. I turned around quickly to see a tan-coloured squirrel scurrying across the hardwood floors, past the grand piano in the living room (I woul...
Read more

The Sleeping Giant

-
Image
 Well, our Septic Sagas have finally come to an end. Our 75-year-old septic system finally gave up the ghost and we now have a giant burial ground to commemorate its existence. For those of you familiar with the Sleeping Giant in Thunder Bay, we now have the Sleeping Giant of Niagara-on-the-Lake! Our once flat property now has the privilege of having a septic mound that is our daily view right out of our dining room window - lucky us!  The kid in me can't resist walking around our new Hale Hill. Every time I stand on top of the mound, I feel like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic yelling out, "I'm the king of the world!" But I haven't been able to trek up Mount Rushmore this week as my husband spent several hundred dollars at Minor Brothers on grass seed and is tenderly watering the baby seedlings, now just a mere green shadow on the brown dirt, with the hopes that the Hale Hill will soon be covered in a blanket of greenery and blend into the existing landscape. That...
Read more

Man versus Nature...

-
Image
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 ...
Read more