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Showing posts from 2022

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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Sunrise Reflection

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Sunrise Reflection  Our first house was a little raised bungalow in the city. We bought the house and were thrilled with the greenspace behind us. Just a few years into our marriage, this land started getting developed and we began looking for another home. I think that is one of the reasons I appreciate some of the open spaces around us so much. We are minutes to Old Town, Virgil and St. Davids. Every morning when I look out the window at the endless rows of vines that seem to stretch all the way to the escarpment, I am awed by the streaks of vibrant orange and red at the edge of the horizon announcing the start of a new day. The sunrise this morning is especially stunning and taking a picture on my iPhone never equals the true quality of what I see before me. With the Christmas holidays approaching quickly and my kids still nestled in their beds, I doubt that visions of sugarplums are dancing in their heads . But I do think that the world around me is still sleeping in peaceful slumb
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Bugs on the Table....

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  Bugs on the Table A few weeks ago we celebrated Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful weekend and we hosted two dinners, one on Friday and one on Sunday. The menu consisted of a German dinner for my side of the family on Friday and a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday for Jim's side. Last year's Thanksgiving weekend was much different from this year's. This year we were missing one person. My sister-in-law, Kari, had really been the one person who had relished family dinners. She was the one who would be at our dinners without fail, regardless whether she had just been through a gruelling round of chemo or spent the last month in the hospital. But sadly her battle with cancer came to an end this year and our Thanksgiving dinner with the Hale side was a little quieter without her constant chatter.  I've always gone a bit overboard with my Thanksgiving table decor, so much so that there usually was no room to put the food on the table. So we ended up setting up the me
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Feathered Friends... with Benefits

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  Feathered Friends...with Benefits When our neighbours got chickens two years ago, our family was not receptive to the idea at all. Since we do not have a fence between our properties, we found ourselves having to coordinate letting the dogs out with when the chickens were not out. Just being honest here, but it was slightly irritating.  Our puppy, Gus, was and still is feisty and  has a natural desire to chase the chickens and ducks, which we couldn't allow. Especially in light of the fact that the neighbouring farmer's dog has already come onto their property and enjoyed six of these feathered fellows as his snack. It's terrible, but you just can't stop nature! Although I have always wanted a few laying hens of my own for several years now, my husband keeps reminding me that this will never happen. Of course I am picturing a little henhouse that is a mini replica of our home and is surrounded by a sizable, fenced-in run. But I digress!  Slowly the irritation at the n
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Home is Where Your Heart is

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  July brought with it the usual yellow, dry grass that crunched underfoot and the necessity to water the garden and flowerbeds every day. May and June's lush foliage now drooped with despair. My old wheelbarrow missing the front wheel that had been converted to a cute flowerbed, looked bedraggled and sparse. Even the mint that usually covered every nook and cranny of its surface, had died and left dried branches and crackly leaves behind. But after July's desert-like conditions, August has managed to bring a few weeks of reprieve. The rain greened up the grass right before our very eyes and our vegetable garden seems to be producing a hundredfold, thanks to the cool nights and dew-filled mornings. As I was walking around the perimeter of our little property last night, I took a picture of the back of the house. As you can see, it is surrounded by trees and foliage and the grey/blue siding blends right in with the evening shadows. But what struck me as I examined the picture la
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The Giant Bug

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 I love the end of July heading into early August. Although I was complaining yesterday that summer is too short, this is the mid-point where I try to focus on squeezing every bit of summer out of every moment. We have a whole month of my favourite season ahead of us yet! And while Facebook is dotted with people's camping and cottage posts, we are enjoying an equally beautiful serenity with all the comforts of home and zero packing and unpacking! Last night, Jim and I went outside to relax on the deck by the pool. It was a bit of a lazy evening and we just sat there, barely talking, taking in the scenery and sights all around us. Our neighbours were enjoying a soccer game with their kids along with the company of some friends who had come over for a last minute bonfire. The wind carried the comforting smell of woodsmoke over to us and was just strong enough to keep our masses of pesky mosquitoes away! The birds were flying all around, calling to each other and getting in their last
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Walnut Reminiscences...

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Walnut Reminiscences  My favourite part of our property is the amount of walnut trees that we have. Planted strategically around the house and along the road, they give us shade and protection from the elements, especially with the strong winds that we have had these last few years. When we first moved here, after living on a new subdivision lot with one single tree planted on the boulevard, the fascination with these trees was great. We nailed some boards on a smaller walnut so that our youngest daughter could climb into the crux of the tree and sit there with her friends. The kids used leaves and branches in their creations in the sandbox or whatever type of play they were enjoying. Several teepees using thicker twigs were erected in the forest and the last one stood for over a decade. Since we moved here in the fall, we only really experienced the trees as they went through the colder season. But the next spring allowed us to watch the evolution as the trees came back to life. The l
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The Great Butterfly Rescue!

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The Great Butterfly Rescue!      After I had let the dogs out this morning and stayed with them on coyote patrol as they explored by the forest's edge, I eyed my empty clothesline and thought what a perfect day it was to hang out some clothes to dry. I grabbed a load from the washing machine, filled a basket and headed outside. After setting it on the platform, I went into the back garage to see if I could uncover my basket of clothespins from last year, hoping that no little inhabitants had made their winter home there.       As I opened the heavy door, my attention was immediately drawn to a strange whirring sound by the east window. Very carefully I moved the stack of Amazon boxes that had collected there apres-Christmas and started as an unexpected brown blob threw itself against the window, frantically scrambling back and forth.      The butterfly, I assumed it was one from the long, thin antennae and wing formation, kept getting caught in the old, dirty webbing that pulled it
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Curious Coyotes

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 Curious Coyotes As I drove down Highway 55 mid-morning yesterday, I had the privilege of witnessing a gorgeous male coyote make a mad dash across the road. The car ahead of me was barely driving 70, a fact which irritated me tremendously at that time until this magnificent creature made its way across the road and I was grateful that we were indeed driving much slower than was the norm. What really struck me was the way this coyote was running. He looked like a deer that was leaping in broad, graceful, yet slightly erratic, bounds. For a coyote that had just survived months of our harsh winter, he didn't look mangy or thin. In the seconds I watched him cross from one vineyard and disappear between the rows of the next, I noticed that he was a healthy weight and his coat was gorgeous.  But the odd prancing stayed with me the rest of the day. When I stopped at my parent's house later for a short visit, I told my father about my sighting and about how odd it was that the coyote h
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Maisy

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  Maisy On this cold morning with the snow softly falling, I am observing the sparrows, cardinals, blue jays and squirrels, hungrily devouring the mixed bird seed that Jim scatters on the asphalt for them every morning. We even have a resident rabbit who partakes in one or two meals on our driveway and it is enjoyable to see all these creatures co-exist without squabbling as they all enjoy some nourishment they didn't have to forage for on their own. As I look across the vineyards, I am reminded of a different critter that the kids and I used to visit and feed. The farmer down the road who owns the land behind the vineyards, used to pasture his sheep in the fields and move them to various locations every few days. One summer, he must have rescued an old mare from certain demise and I know that her last year on earth must have been enjoyable surrounded by the sunshine and greenery everywhere. He cordoned off a small area for her and the horse could be seen from dusk until dawn, a
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Good Old VW Van...

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Good Old VW Van...  With this winter's recent lockdown announcement, we decided that we were going to face it completely differently compared to last year. No bitterness at cancelled skating competitions or closed arenas. We were going to make the best of the situation! So on the first day of lockdown, I found myself making the trip to Hamilton to pick up an ice rink tarp for our youngest daughter. My husband ordered all the wood necessary for the rink and that evening we scrambled to see how we could get it all back to NOTL from Niagara Falls. Why didn't we wait and have it delivered, you ask? Patience is not a strong suit in this family. My husband called and asked if our oldest daughter could meet him at Lowe's in Niagara Falls at 6:00 to help load the wood into his midsize SUV. She drove down and called and texted her dad several times. No answer. Then she called me and told me she was sitting on a pile of lumber in the store without any idea of where her dad might be.
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