Angry Birds

I am one of those people who hides all game updates on facebook. I don't care about farmville, or wheel of fortune, or mafia wars, or angry birds...

Then this week I realised that I have my very own version of angry birds right here.

A couple of weeks ago I was out in my rhubarb patch collecting stalks for a cake and with a startling, chirping whoosh, this little lady flew past me, sat on the nearby current bush, and proceeded to shout at me.

As I cut the rhubarb, I realised why. She had a nest of eggs in there. For the past few weeks, evertime I have gone to get rhubarb, she's been there telling me off, and I've been cautiously picking rhubarb that doesn't disturb her nest.

Hey, it's my rhubarb!

Then there is my starling. She is nesting in the rafters between the new veranda and the roofline, where it is not quite finished. And every time I go out the front door, there's a flutter of panicked wings and she brushes past me to sit on a telephone wire and hurl insults at me.

What are you doing? Get away from my nest.

Hmmph. It's my veranda!

There are a couple of fighting robins too. As I sit outside in the afternoon with my coffee, watching Mamma Starling bring food to her young (who get louder each day - mom, mom, mom, mom - just like kids), the robins dance and squawk and chase and squawk and fight each other in flight and on the trees. So much for the peaceful countryside.

And this morning, my angry rhubarb nesting bird got even grumpier, flying at Anna and Grace whenever they got too close to the rhubarb.

The reason...

See those little guys in there...

Angry birds, indeed.

Wordless Wednesday: Spring Blooms

On My Own

What does a Saturday on your own look like? Here's mine:

• Drink coffee, kiss husband and kids goodbye and watch them drive away to camp.
• Check emails, twitter, facebook
• Drink more coffee
• Tidy kitchen, throw in laundry, load dishwasher
• Morning run, followed by hot shower and more coffee, on back steps, facing the warm morning sun
• Figure out what to wear to a writer's conference on a day that is neither cool enough for pants or warm enough for bare legs
• Writer's Conference, hang out at library
• Treat myself to a Cafe Latte and lunch, read a book on my kobo at the coffee shop before heading home
• Hang laundry, do a garden reconaissance, figure out what needs to be done, make a list
• Read on the deck in a lawnchair for a blissful, precious hour.
• Write
• Decide some work is in order so head back to garden to rake away some of last year's foliage and reveal new shoots :)
• Walk the dog through the fields, shout back at the nosiy snow geese, wish I had my camera
• Read
• Write
• Open Wine
• Listen to opera. Loudly. While having a long lesisurely bubble bath
• Eat scrambled eggs
• Blog
• Watch a chick flick - Eat Pray Love tonight. Will it hold up to the book (which I quite enjoyed)?

The End

(my plans to have dinner with a friend and then head to the arts evening fizzled after I raked my gardens and realized that what I really wanted was some down time. So lovely.)

Broken Record

We were blessed with a gorgous Saturday in Eastern Ontario. Oh, it was cold when we got up at 6, and the kids had to dress in their winter gear to go fishing with the cubs, but by the time they returned at noon, the day had shaken off the chill and the sun had burned the frost away.

I feel sometimes that I say the same things year after year. That I do the same things year after year. I suppose we all do to some extent. And so Saturday afternoon was spent in the garden. We dug up the rest of the potatoes and put them away into storage to get us through the next few months. We roto-tilled the gardens, and added rich compost to the soil, and then planted and mulched 150 bulbs of garlic that I had saved from our August harvest. The kids raked leaves into a huge pile and we spent a good hour leaping into them in the late afternoon sun.

All these things we do every year. And every year they seem important enough to write about.

As the sun started to get low, you could feel the day's warmth start to evaporate and I went inside to make pasta and stoke the fire. Andrew came in behind me and being the wise man he is, stopped me from making dinner.

Come and watch the kids in the sunset, he said, pouring me a glass of wine. We won't get many more days like today for a while.

And so wrapped in my plaid, I sat beside him on the deck and we watched the kids play together and laugh and race and run until the sun slowly sank behind the trees and the chill drove them, hungry and happy, into the kitchen.

September Morning

The first of September is a good day in my world, conjuring up promises: the promise of a glorious fall; the promise of new routines, new menus, new adventures; the promise of possibilities – endless possibilities; the promise of change, electric and static in the air.

I love summer, I do. All the seasons actually. I feel blessed to live here where they vary, sometimes dissolving into one another as Spring becomes Summer; sometimes striking unexpectedly as when an October snowstorm turns Fall into Winter overnight.

But if I have a favourite, it is Autumn. Fabulous autumn with its colour and vibrancy. Crisp days and the smell of apples on the air. Making soups and eating them hot on the veranda, a rug around your shoulders against the chill. The crack of a bonfire and the smell of woodsmoke as the last of the yard clearing is completed. The herbs hanging to dry, their subtle pungency wafting across the kitchen in the breeze. Piles of crimson and golden leaves under the maple trees. The gardens cut back, the vegetables harvested and the ground tilled in neat rows, next year's garlic in the wheelbarrow ready to be planted before the frost. Wearing an old faded pair of jeans and a colourful wool sweater to go for a hike through the woods and then come back and watch the early sunset over the fields.

Today is still Summer. But Fall's promise is just around the corner.

Bring it on.

Intrepid Explorers

One of the greatest things about living where we do (ie: the middle of nowhere) is that there is lots of scope for the kids.

I'm bored is a phrase rarely heard, partly because they know I'll make them weed carrots or something equally entertaining, and partly because there are lots of opportunities for adventure.

When they were toddlers, I'd let them out for a few minutes at a time without me, as long as they stayed in sight from the french doors. As they got older, I just had to be able to sight them from one of the windows in the house, and the boundary line was the maple tree and the Enchanted Forest, the pastures, and the fence in the back.

Three years ago when they were 7,6, and 4, on a pleasant sunny winter's day when I was spackling the kitchen ceiling and they were restless, we gave them a walkie talkie, set them up on their skis and allowed them to cross the field and back. We checked on them with binoculars, but the sense of independence and joy they got from that expedition was worth every second of extra time the ceiling took as a result.

And today, they are adventurous, independent, spirited explorers. They know first aid and safety. They carry water and granola and walkie talkies, and they explore. They make plans, make maps, and make forts.

And make memories.

Days of Summer

Summertime...and the living is easy...

The jazzy notes tumble out of the open window and here on the porch swing, in this instant, it seems true. Summer is easy - no need to match clothes for the kids for school....they toss on shorts over their swimsuits and are off;  dinners tend to be simple...barbecues and salads, and fresh ripe berries for dessert; bed time has more flexibility....we are often up until close to sunset biking or playing croquet in the coolness of evening.

In this instant, the living is easy.

But that is mostly because I have a knack for enjoying the moment and pretending there is nothing outside of it.

In this space, there is no half-acre garden to re-mulch, no weeds to pull, no flowers to deadhead and nurture. There is no hay to bale, no sheep to tag, no grass to mow, no driveway verge to trim. The mud room does not hold the remnants of a school year's worth of artwork and books and papers to be organized, and dressers are not overflowing with pants and skirts and shirts and sweaters that will be too small come Autumn and need to be sorted.

In this space, we are not planning camping trips and beach picnics, a week at the cottage and a canoe trip into the wilderness. We are not counting down the days until the Highland Games or the Williamstown Fair - must-do things in our summer. We are not still working, and grocery shopping, and heading off on hot sultry nights to sit at the site of a soccer field and watch the kids play. We do not have eight family birthdays to celebrate before September.

In this moment, in this space, in this instant, there is only the sweet jazzy belief that summer is, in fact, easy.

Bittersweet

I like to enjoy a glass of red wine on the veranda as the sun sets. The Linden Tree is in full bloom, the scent of lime drifting by on the breeze, and red-winged blackbirds chase each other in and out of the small copse of trees beyond the wild roses. The sights, sounds and smells of early summer make it a nice way to wind down on a Friday night.

I took these pictures on the weekend. My Linden tree with its sweet-smelling blossoms, hanging over me like a bower.

It's a bittersweet remembrance now. My van spontaneously caught fire yesterday. Luckily the fire was caught before it spread to my new veranda, but not before the heat of it had destroyed the vehicle and scorched the surrounding trees - my growing Ash sapling, a mature Pine, and my beautiful Linden tree.

We knew some branches would have to go, but today I noticed the curled leaves on the veranda side of the tree. Brown and fragile, the leaves and blossoms are just a shell of what they were, and I cry not for the van - which can be replaced - but for my trees.

There is hope. We may still be able to save the tree as it is not damaged all the way up.

But I write this with sadness in my heart.

Inch by Inch

Planting is done for another year. It's an arduous task to get everything in - the chard, the carrots, onion sets and potatoes, tomato plants and sweet peas, broccoli and cabbage. The herbs, the salad, the garlic, the hops, the corn. Tilling, planting, hoing, trellising and mulching. Usually in weather that is either too hot and sticky, or too cold, with black flies or mosquitoes and often both buzzing around like you are an all-you-can-eat buffet.

An arduous task. But a rewarding one. 

Sowing seeds and picking stones

Man is made of dreams and bones

Feel the need to grow my own

Cause the time is close at hand

Grain by grain, sun and rain

Find my way in nature's chain

Fuel my body and my brain

To the music of the land

Inch by inch, row by row

Gonna make this garden grow

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

And a piece of fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row

Someone bless these seeds I sow

Someone warm them from below

Till the rains come tumbling down

Plant your rows straight and long

Temper them with prayer and song

Mother Earth she'll keep you strong

If you give her love and care

Old crow watching hungrily

From his perch in yonder tree

In my garden I'm as free

As that feathered thief up there

And sitting back watching it all grow...That feels really good!

Aunt Elvina's Garden

In a busy heart-of-the-city section of Toronto, just south of the 401, is a half acre lot with a small war bungalow on it. Around it the city has grown up, with highrises and fancy wrought-iron fenced homes, and over the years this once-rural street has become a bustling, diverse community. One by one the other war time bunglaows were torn down, their lots turned into town homes and single-family montrosities, but smack dab in the middle of all of this is Aunt Elvina's.

She bought it post war and has been happily living there since. She planted the maple in the front yard, close to the street, and she still has raspberry canes and rhubarb in the spacious back garden behind the garage. Now in her mid 90's she still maintains and looks after the gardens and the house, though apparently she now hires someone to clean out her eavestroughing.

We were there the other weekend, and it's always so peaceful. The city is all around, but you can sit in the swing on the patio and not hear it. You leave the busyness of the world behind and instead watch the breeze blow blossoms across the grass, and listen to birds in the trees that are all around the garden.

You know what I'd like, she told us. An Inukshuk. So Andrew and the kids made one in the shade for her while I did helpful things like eat cake and sip tea.

Inukshuk means Someone was here. Or You're on the right path. In both senses of the word, the inukshuk fits Aunt Elvina's garden. She has been there probably longer than anyone on the street - such is the transient nature of life in the city. And while it might not be progressive, the peace and quiet of a country garden seems like the right path to me.

Gardening Your Words

It has been gorgeous weather and I'm spending much of my time in my vast gardens. It struck me as I raked and hoed and spaded and transplanted that spring gardening is very much like editing. It's the same basic steps.

1. You start with a mess, a jumble of plants/words that you're pretty sure belong together.
2. You go over it as a whole, raking off the excess leaves/descriptions to see what lies beneath, to reveal the bones of the garden/story
3. You consider the plot. Does it work for what you intend?
4. You do some judicious pruning of plants/words, cutting back where necessary.
5. You look for gaps, and transplant with complementary plants to fill the gaps in without marring the lines of the garden.
6. You look at form/structure, colour/description, variety/character, and location/setting, ensuring that everything works harmoniously together and nothing is forgotten or overlooked. Having a shade plant in full sun is the wrong setting, and it just won't work.
7. You add compost or fertilizer to improve what is there, to make it stronger and to help your garden/story flourish.
8. You take cuttings and surplus plants/plot elements and put them somewhere else. There will be a place to use them in another garden/story.
9. You sit back and enjoy a job well done.

Dear Angus:

Dear Angus;

When your were born, a tiny calf on a dairy farm, they didn't want you. You were too small, and of no use to anyone.

I took you. I hand fed you milk. I brought you warm bottles at first, and then pails, trudging up the snowy track in minus 20 degree weather, in snow, and sleet, every morning before work.

I cleaned out your stall. I turned you loose once the new grass of spring was here and made sure you had young shoots to whet your appetite.

Yes, I know I shot you with a stun gun too, but seriously, you wouldn't have wanted to go through that little operation awake.

For a year and a half now, I have had hay brought in in the winter, and allowed you to roam free through the pastures all summer, sheltering under the apple trees, playing with the other steers.

And this, this, is how you repay me. By leaping over the fence, churning up my gardens, eating my new flowers, and stomping on my freshly planted bulbs?

And then you tried to walk up the stone steps to the patio door! Did you really think I would let you in?

Really, Angus. This is too bad.

Be a good little steer and go back to the field now, will you.

And take those darn lambs with you!

Sure Signs of Spring

Wellingtons and Cleats in the Mudroom.

Cherry Blossom Budding

Muddy, Dirty, Tailgate

Garden Waiting To Be Tilled;

Wood Waiting To Be Stacked & Dried

Maple. Ash. Come Back To Me Now.

(This was me channeling Treebeard)

New Grass Seeding. New Path.

My Darling Spirea Shrubs. Hmm. And Weeds.

Pastoral Sheep

One of them on the wrong side of the fence

(Because they truly believe the grass is always greener.)

You Know You've Lived In The Country Long Enough When...

...you smile when the snow arrives because it will fill in all the pot holes on the roads and make your drive to work smoother;

...you've stopped cleaning the back windshield every time you get in the car because it will just be covered in mud and dust again by the time you get to your destination;

...you take the dog for a 20 minute walk and don't bother telling the kids because you're just outside on the property;

...you don't even blink at the $400 worth of gravel it takes to grade your driveway every spring;

...you've traded in your gym membership for a half hour daily chopping wood because it's a more practical way to exercise;

...you've learned about substitutes for every food imaginable just so you don't have to run the 20km into town every time you're missing an ingredient;

...you think it makes perfect sense to stockpile six months worth of food in the cellar;

...you think wellies are an important part of your wardrobe;


...you keep extra wellies (rubber boots) around for when guests come to visit and want to see the sheep;

...you recognize your neighbours by the tractor they drive;

...you give directions using compass bearings and local landmarks (as in turn North at the rock shaped like a rooster;

...you've been known to weed the garden or shovel the steps in your pyjamas in the morning because no-one can see you anyway.

Harvest Time

We all get to help out this time of year.

Potatoes, corn, tomatoes, chard, spinach, broccoli, carrots, garlic, onions.

It all has to be brought in and stored.

And then eaten. The best part.

This Old House

The women who used to live in our house 20 years ago (10 sisters and 4 brothers) showed up today. Andrew found them at the end of the laneway taking pictures of the parts of the house they could see from half a mile away behind the forest that is our driveway, and he invited them up to the house to take a closer look.

-

They were visiting from Alberta, and Andrew - home sick today - said that when they saw my flower garden on the east side of the house, they collectively burst into tears.

This is the garden our mother always wanted, the weeping women told a rather uncomfortable Andrew. She could never get flowers to grow here, and she'd have loved this.

Obviously discomoded by this display of emotion, Andrew let them into the house to see the massive stone fireplace hearth that we just finished restoring. More tears of joy.

And the kitchen...!

If our mother were alive, she'd be so happy to see this, they told Andrew.

Which made him feel pretty good as he did most of the work.

It was an emotional visit for them, as nostagic trips are wont to be. And when I got home I was happy that they'd seen it, and oddly happy that it would please some long dead woman that I have never met.

But underlying all of that was one thought running relentlessly through my head...14 children! Here? And I stopped feeling so guilty that Anna and Grace still share a room.

Herb Therapy

When friends and family visit they always comment on how laid back and relaxed it is around our house. The trees, the meadow, the wildflowers, the bleating of lambs gambolling in the field....

It's not always that relaxed, of course. They just haven't seen me at 5:15 pm on a Thursday night when I have just got home with the kids, they're busy emptying the contents of their bookbags all over the family room, and I'm trying to fold laundry, get phone messages, make dinner, organize soccer cleats and socks, and get everyone back out of the house by 6pm.

But luckily, this time of year, restorative measures are right out in the kitchen garden. Nothing is more calming than wandering around the garden at dusk, running my fingers through the herbs, and enjoying the wafting aromas.

I can't decide which of these is my favourite aid to relaxation:

Lavender?

or Rosemary?

Of course, they're both trumped by the bottle of Wolf Blass Yellow Label Cabernet that Andrew has opened for me.

Farm Fashion

We dress up for dinner around here.

Sort of.

Grace, our resident photographer, got me snipping scapes in the far back garden to frizzle for Father's Day dinner.

Notice the tailored shirt.
Notice the skirt.

Notice the delicate shoes.

Wait a sec - are those wellington boots?

Personally, I thing wellies add an air of je ne sais quo to any occassion.

Side Note: What I noticed about these pictures is how overgrown the hop yard behind looks. I guess that is why it is the far back garden, where we plant all the unsightly stuff like potatoes, hops, garlic, and corn. I don't usually spend much time looking at it, but now that I have I feel an urge to weed it.

Lemonade On The Verandah

We don't actually have a veranda - yet. I have wanted one since I first heard Stuart MacLean talk about them on the Vinyl Cafe one rainy Sunday afternoon a decade ago up at Cape Croker Park where Andrew and I were camping.

It's coming - and for now we have a deck. Doesn't sound like much of a difference - just add a roof! But the veranda is so much more than just a deck with a roof. To me a veranda is a metaphor for the way I want to live my life.

A veranda is speckled sunlight and shady nooks. A place to hide with a book and a place to socialize with friends. A place to daydream with my spouse and snuggle with my children. A veranda says sit yourself down in that deep cushioned wicker chair, and relax, because the world can wait.

Sipping lemonade or iced tea on a veranda in the late afternoon, peeping out through a curtain of clematis and climbing honeysuckle, gently swinging (all verandas need a swing) in the breeze - this is the vision that keeps me grounded when the pace picks up. This is to what I aspire.

Smells of summer

It doesn't look like summer with all the rain we've been having, but it smells like summer as all the lilacs are in bloom.

The heady scent of lilac blossoms floats across the gardens on the breeze and through the open french doors. Inside, Andrew and Grace cut some beautiful clusters and left them in vases around the house, including a sprig or two on my bedside table where I can enjoy them with the thermos of coffee Andrew leaves me in the morning.

The lilacs come on the heels of apple blossom time and the world changes from white to pink. Soon the white lilac trees will bloom too against the garage, and the linden tree beside the veranda, and it will truly smell like summer.