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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 th...
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Messy, Messy Nature

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Messy, Messy Nature Once again, we are blessed with a beautiful Sunday morning! The birds are singing their hearts out and in the distance, a tractor is rumbling around in the vineyard, a sign that the work week does not stop for our farmers. Just as I finished typing the title of this blog, I adjusted my laptop and accidentally hit the pot in which I was trying to grow my precious heirloom tomato seedlings. I had been pleased with twelve seedlings peeping out of the dirt several weeks ago and, as of last week, was down to four. So as the pot crashed to the deck floor, I hastily tried to save these fragile babies from the rubble of potting soil they found themselves under. I repotted them in record time and cleaned the mess left behind. As I was putting away the dust pan the irony of my title did not escape me.... My husband has been complaining for weeks how messy nature is. In this last week, the poplar forest behind us has been showering us with "snow" making the pool and ...
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The Watcher in the Woods

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                                     The Watcher in the Woods In one of the first springs that we lived in this house, our neighbour told us about the coywolf pair that lived in the thicket behind our property. He warned us that he suspected that they had a den somewhere close by and that the kids were to be careful when they were playing outside. Since I had grown up with woods and a creek as my backyard, I was not in the least worried about a danger factor, but more fascinated than anything else. Interestingly enough, a local magazine had done a feature article on coywolves that spring with a beautiful male on its cover. So the timing seemed uncanny. Every spring, a low area between our neighbour's property and ours fills with water and remains that way for several months. And every spring, we have a male and female mallard come and claim that patch of...
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Arachnid Habitat

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Arachnid Habitat  When we purchased our home in 2009, I was thrilled with the concept that mail gets delivered directly to rural properties. Although our mailbox looked like it had seen better days or better decades for that matter, we decided that replacing it was at the bottom of the to-do list. After keeping our reserved mailbox open at the local post office for several weeks after our move to ensure that our mail was still getting delivered to us, we switched everything over to the new address. Our move took place during a warm October that year and, for several weeks, the kids fought about who would get the mail every day. That novelty didn't last long at all and soon enough, it was Mom who was checking the mailbox on a daily basis. The only issue was that the mail was not the only thing resting in the mailbox. Tucked in its dark recesses, a couple of spiders had made their tiny cocoons and staked their claim, evidently receiving their mail there as well as ours. Squatters! Th...
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Working from Home

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Using your own "Green Space"...   With the Covid pandemic marking its one year anniversary, I am reflecting on the various changes that have come to fruition. Even yesterday, as I was showing a house, the discussion came up as to how crucial home offices are, especially main floor ones. If we are to work from home, or have the option to do so, home offices now come with a bigger wish list than they did a few years ago. Gone is the time where a room in the basement with four walls and a light fixture was sufficient. Now a window allowing a ton of natural light is a must. We need to see outside. We need to be stimulated and have something different to look at other than our screens.  Spacious rooms with high ceilings, creative light fixtures that are functional but also beautiful to look at and walls lined with tranquil pictures that offer the serenity of pastoral scenes are a must. Gone is the desire to have a dark executive office with a heavy, overbearing desk and furnishing...
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Hawks and Owls and Ice Rinks, Oh My!

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Hawks and Owls and Ice Rinks, Oh My! I often talk about our youngest daughter, who is a senior skater at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Skating Club. With the lockdown and closing of the local arenas, she found herself unable to skate for the first time in twelve years. So my husband decided to make a rink the old-fashioned way, without a plastic base or boards. This is risky as Niagara-on-the-Lake generally enjoys milder winters compared to surrounding cities because of our proximity to Lake Ontario which regulates our temperatures. Nevertheless he was determined. And so it began.  After compacting the snow into a rink formation, he spent the next several weeks getting up every few hours and flooding. After coming home from full days at work, he would rush out before the last of the daylight disappeared and flood until his hands froze, come in, and then do it again. Two red spotlights left over from Christmas illuminated his shape every night as he lugged the hose outside to the rink, on...
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The S.S. Willy

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                                                                                  The S.S. Willy   I frequently pass by  Four Mile Creek and this week, as I looked out over the grey water, I was thrown down memory lane for a few moments.  The creek and ravine were our backyard when we were growing up. We literally spent hours stomping through the marshy undergrowth, splashing around in the creek and the pond that formed close to the embankment. Every spring, after days of torrential rains, the creek levels would rise and spill over the banks. After the waters receded, we kids would go hunt to see what treasures had been left behind. The usual tangled fishing lines would be wrapped around tree trunks and rogue branches like spi...
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Christmas in the Country

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  Christmas in the Country In these times of uncertainty, I am reminded more than ever that our mental health can be reflected and improved by what surrounds us. This year, more than any other year that I can remember, everything that we hold dear has been questioned and life as we know it has been brought to a grinding halt. As I woke up to that dusting of snow last week and the world was covered in an undisturbed radiant splendor, I was reminded again of why our family chose to live in a rural setting. Before the dogs were let out to start the day, I took a few minutes to admire the pillowy tops of the snow on the trees and the vast expanse of fields and vineyards, quiet and serene on that cold, winter's morning. Later that day I spent some time cutting wild grapevines for some rustic Christmas decor and as I was listening to the quiet around me and feeling the warmth of the sunlight on my face, I felt a sense of peace. The occasional crack of a twig breaking in the forest as my ...
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