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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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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 ca...
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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 ...
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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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Cathartes Aura

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  Along our morning walks this summer, my friend and I continuously passed by an abandoned house on one of the Lines. It was situated on a larger lot and it looked like someone had purchased it with plans to eventually build a home there. It was a tear-down if ever there was one! The windows had been smashed to pieces, the roof had huge chunks missing and the peeling paint on the old wooden siding looked tear-streaked as if the house had been crying in sheer loneliness and abandonment.  As we passed the house quite early one morning, we were both astounded at the row of silent shadows perched on the rooftop. We both shuddered involuntarily at their presence. They looked like something from a horror movie, like black ravens against the blue morning sky, the stuff that would have inspired Edgar Allan Poe. My friend remarked that she had heard that they hovered around places where death had occurred, making us walk past the house at a much quicker pace than we had been walking un...
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Under Autumn Skies...

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I know Thanksgiving is a pretty big deal south of the border, celebrated later than our Canadian one. But I am happy that we can enjoy ours earlier, right at the end of the traditional harvest time when the last of the fall tomatoes are ripening, the pumpkins abound and the vibrant fall foliage is a background to our celebration! A big plus is that most years we can even enjoy afternoon appetizers outside in the warm autumn sunshine. Last year's Thanksgiving took place right in the middle of lock-down and I wrote then about my previous outdoor Thanksgiving dinners where I enjoyed setting a festive table almost as much as I enjoyed seeing smiling faces gathered around it. There is such a selection of natural decor to pick from when you drive down our country roads. Purple branches, golden leaves and gnarled vines showcasing burnt orange foliage are abundant and merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the natural selection out there to choose from! I placed our outdoor table close ...
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Homegrown Happiness

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  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! But what about apples and plenty of them? Cider would be the obvious choice! For years we have tried our best to use the apples from the trees that were planted years before we moved here. But this year, the trees seem to be groaning under the weight of their rosy-cheeked crop. Today, of all days, the sun was shining and the temperatures soared like a beautiful summer day. But our day consisted of a true fall activity. We pulled out the old wine press that my father had given us years ago and our day of making apple cider began. Jim and I worked tirelessly to the background noise of his favourite movies playing on the garage TV behind us. Around noon my father-in-law stopped by to drop something off and pulled up a chair to the tables we had set up, grabbed a cutting board and joined in. It was a lot of work! We quartered the fruit for the food processor, then put the mashed-up apples into the press and watched as the elixir of the gods ...
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