September has made its not entirely welcome arrival. I savour summer. The warmth, the freedom from our schedules, the togetherness for Ellie and me and the rest of our family. Time matters less, and I treasure it.
Last year I chose to “do” summer. I made that choice again this year, and we succeeded. It’s hard to let go of that.
September means routine, school, separation.
In some ways, September is a beginning. Ellie is starting senior kindergarten and for the first time we’ll be apart more days than we’re together. I’m also starting a new job as a college instructor. I’m excited and grateful for this opportunity, and I love watching Ellie grow and become more of her own person. I know we will both adjust and enjoy, but it’s hard to take that first step down a new path.
Over the summer, my university asked alumni to write welcome notes, sharing advice for first year students. As I was thinking about this fall and the changes to come, I realized that some of what I wrote to those young students applied to me as well. I’ve adjusted it slightly to share it here with you.
While you may have your path in mind, life is meant to be explored. Take advantage of those opportunities that come your way–and navigate the bumps as well. They may help you along your route, or they may open you up to a new direction. I hope that you will find the paths that fit you.
Through your life, you will walk many roads. I have changed jobs, switched fields, tried new things, and followed new paths. And that’s okay. The foundation of who I am, the skills I have and what is most important to me stays with me.
Be open to possibilities, today and for the rest of your life. Choose the path that is right for you, right now. Don’t be afraid to change direction. Keep moving.
I wish you all the best this fall, whatever path you are walking.
Two years ago, Matt’s brother organized a family getaway to Manitoulin Island at the end of May. We had a great time together, so this year he did it again. This time we went to Killarney in Northern Ontario. It was another wonderful experience. During that weekend, Matt’s Mom told us that when she returned home, she had an appointment for a CT scan to try to find the source of some back pain she’d been having for a while.
That scan led to scary doctor appointments, treatments, a couple of stays in the hospital, and, then last month, Matt’s Mom died.
Another hole in our lives.
I often say that Matt’s parents and I work hard at our relationship, but that it’s not hard. We prioritize each other and make sure we connect, through big things like weekends away and little things like emails about how our day went. We do it for Ellie and for Matt, and also for each other. We love and appreciate each other.
Every Monday, Ellie and I go to Matt’s parents’ house for lunch. It was a rare week when Matt’s Mom wouldn’t have a new shirt or hat or outfit for Ellie. She would comb through the children’s section at the library so that she had a stack of books to read with Ellie. She made sure she had food Ellie would like, and we always came home with enough Bear Paws to fill Ellie’s lunch pail for the whole week. And she and I would chat about everything.
Matt’s parents both support us in so many ways. We are different people, but we respect and accept each other. When Matt and I bought our first house, Matt’s Mom showed up on the first day and cleaned our bathrooms. When we bought the farm, she did the same here. I will always remember how when I finished Ellie’s treehouse, Matt’s Mom was so proud to share my blog post on her Facebook page.
When she was in the hospital, we talked about some things that are happening in the fall. She wanted to make sure we would still do what we planned. Right up to her last moment, she was assuring me that I would continue to do a good job with my work, the farm and Ellie.
That unconditional love is for me the epitome of family.
When we were in Killarney in May, Matt’s Mom was in a lot of pain. Yet she walked all over that little town, she went to every breakfast and dinner, she watched her grandchildren play, and she even went out in a canoe with Matt’s Dad. She worked hard, and it was worth it. She soaked up every moment with her family. And we soaked up every moment with her.
The new well garden has attracted a snake. Ellie has adopted it as a pet, and the snake seems to be just fine with that. He appreciated the picture that she drew for him and occasionally lets her pet him. I love seeing her comfort and gentleness with animals of all kinds.
Summer is a time of animals, plants, the outdoors and family, and we’ve been doing all of it. This summer has also had some hard times, some of which I will write about later. I try to meet the lows with love, and savour the moments of joy that we have.
We had a cottage week with my family, which is always the highlight of our year. Growing up, my siblings and I were at our grandparents cottage every weekend. We swam, waterskied and played with a big group of cousins. Now, we give our children that experience, though only for one week of the year. Watching them learn to ski and swim, seeing how they help and encourage each other, and being together as a family is so special. Giving each other our time, presence and love is very important. The most important thing I can do.
On a lighter note, here are some less important things that I enjoyed this month.
This book has changed the way I think about the rest of my life… and my breakfast.
Kid’s book of the month: Greek Myths & Mazes. A cool way to introduce Greek myths. Ellie has loved the mazes and the stories.
I made myself a cup of plantain tea on a particularly bad air quality day after watching this video.
I know everyone says it, but it’s hard to believe that we’re already halfway through summer. As I’m looking ahead to August, I feel like time is going to fly even faster. I’m hanging onto as much as I can and making sure Ellie and I continue to work through our summer bucket list.
How’s summer going for you? Have you had any getaways? Do you have any wildlife (or weird “pets”) hanging around your house?
The vegetable garden is a mix of highs and lows right now. A nice change, since the last few years have been all lows all the time.
I’m not quite as high as I was last fall, when the garden was cleaned out for the season and I had grand visions for the possibilities that awaited us. But I’m not in the doldrums either.
I’m working at it.
We are using about half the garden this year. One quadrant has mulched pathways and beds that I established last fall. My mission there has been filling the beds (mixed success) and maintaining the paths (mixed success there as well).
The highest of our highs is a surprise. Three potato plants that appeared at the edge of one of the mulched pathways. I am pretty sure the last time we planted potatoes was 2018, so these have been lurking in the weeds for some time. Potatoes are always Matt’s, so these three plants feel like a gift from him. We’re calling them Daddy’s potatoes, and we’ve pledged to always leave some surprise potatoes in the garden.
The next high is our raspberries. We have so many canes and they are loaded with fruit. One of the highlights of working in the garden this spring was hearing hundreds of bees pollinating the berries. This is also our first year harvesting from plants I transplanted from Matt’s Dad, and the berries are beautiful.
The lowest of our lows is of course the weeds, which are still thriving. I’m reminding myself that they are very well established. It’s going to take effort to knock them back. Thistles and milkweed are our major invaders. (I know milkweed is important for monarchs. We have lots all around the farm and have transplanted many plants this year. I’ve decided they don’t get the vegetable garden too.)
Then we have the plants that I want to grow in the garden. These are not as well established as the weeds. We were a bit late in planting this spring, so they’re all still a little small. We also used our old seed stash, so we’ve had some spotty germination. The old seeds worked great for the tomatoes and watermelon, but the zucchini, carrots, and lettuce didn’t come up at all and the beans and peas are sparse. I bought fresh cucumber, spinach and beet seeds, but the beets didn’t sprout either. (Though I did have a spinach salad for lunch yesterday.)
But speaking of tomatoes, our bumper crop of seedlings led me to open another quadrant of the garden. This one had been tarped, so it was fairly weed free, but there were no rows or paths or beds. I stuck 70 tomato plants in the ground and figured I’d deal with the infrastructure later. But of course as soon as the soil was exposed to the light, the weeds sprouted. The tomatoes are not placed how I want the beds to be, so I can’t work around them to put in my paths and beds. But I’m going to try to lay down some cardboard in between the rows to try to fight the weeds a little bit.
I planted the herb spiral at roughly the same time as the tomatoes, and I mulched the spiral with wood chips. We have had barely a handful of weeds from that whole bed, so contrasting the herbs with the tomatoes has been a great lesson in the power of mulch.
I’m so committed to my no dig and mulch and cardboard and paths and beds that seeing and walking on the exposed soil in the tomato section felt weird. The areas where I spread cardboard and mulch last year are definitely less weedy than anywhere else in the garden. They’re not weed free. I didn’t have enough cardboard to do the whole quadrant, and the cardboard I did have has now decomposed. So the weeds have broken through in spots, but there are not as many and they are much easier to deal with than the bare soil.
I think I entered no dig expecting truly no dig. The weeds would succumb with one application of cardboard. The worms and bugs and plants would thrive. My garden would be lush and beautiful and low maintenance.
The more I’ve studied, the more I realize that it’s a process. Battling the weeds takes time. Finding my balance of mulch, compost, interplanting, succession planting and just plain planting takes time. I believe that no dig is best for the soil, animals, bugs and plants. I also believe we can get there to a lush and beautiful (but not necessarily low maintenance) garden. I’m working at it.
How is your garden growing? What are you growing at your house? Are you a mulcher? Anyone else experimenting with different growing methods?
Our patio is done. We celebrated its completion with a party with a capital P. There was pizza, pop, party mix, and pie. (We also made a psalad with pecans and prusciutto.) Our landscapers are good sports and did a great job. They also enjoyed all of our homemade treats throughout the project, so it felt appropriate to treat them one more time.
We now have a beautiful flagstone patio, large boulders edging the front garden and herb spiral, and gorgeous stone steps for the living room patio door and mudroom entrance.
I knew from the start that I wanted real stone. As always, my goal is to make this house more “farmy,” so I wanted the patio to look like it could have come from the property. No pavers or tiles here. I’m grateful that our landscapers worked with me on the design, so that natural stone was possible within our budget. And that they were willing to take the machines across the fields to pull rocks from our own farm. (We worked with RS Landscape & Construction and they were awesome.)
The stairs, flagstone and boulders are all random. We bought the stairs and flagstone from a stone yard, and the boulders came from the fields. Our landscapers spent days laying everything out and fitting them together. I love the precision of all of the joints. They had amazing attention to detail.
For the mudroom step, they set out the three slabs and then spent a half an hour with me flipping and rotating them with the excavator until I was happy with the layout. They were super accommodating. Now when we go inside, there’s plenty of room for Cigo, Ellie and me to all stand on the step together–since no one in my family has heard of the concept of personal space.
The purpose of the patio is to give us proper stairs to access the mudroom and living room and to create a small landing area that’s separate from the driveway. The design gave us that, along with two pockets of space. One is just large enough for a small dining table and four chairs. The other fits a little lounge chair that’s the perfect size for Ellie and me to curl up together.
Starting our day out here with a book or breakfast has been a beautiful treat.
The patio is a major step in finishing off the garage renovation. I’d still like to pave the driveway, but I think I’m going to wait until my budget has recovered. In the meantime, we’re enjoying entering and exiting the house easily, our new herb garden, the improved view of the southside of the house, lounging in the chair, eating at the table, or simply perching on the steps.
I’m very grateful that we were able to build the patio and that it came together the way I envisioned.
Do you have a patio at your house? Who else likes outdoor lounging and dining? Are you a fan of natural stone? What outdoor projects are you tackling at your house this year?
We’re halfway through 2023. (Yeah, I know. How did that happen?)
We’ve made progress on all of the home goals I set for this year (yay!) and I’m excited about how far we’ll get over the rest of the year.
Are you excited to check in with me? Here’s how we’re doing so far.
Coop
The last trace of the 100-year-old coop disappeared last month when the crumbling foundation became part of our (now massive) rockpile behind the barn. It was a huge job, and I was grateful that our landscapers were able to handle it while they were here for our patio construction. Next up, the building phase, starting with a new wall for the (still massive) gaping hole in the side of the barn.
Patio
The patio is almost done and it’s fabulous. All the details are coming soon.
Swing set
The swing set fittings and lumber that I bought last year are still stacked in the garage. I sold Ellie’s too-small playset, so we have a spot for her new swings. Then I took delivery of a big pile of mulch, which was dumped in the swing set site (say that six times fast). As soon as I spread the mulch underneath her treehouse, I can build her bigger swing set. In the meantime, our girl has mastered the firepole on her own. She’s so proud of herself, and I am too.
Vegetable garden
I’m still trying to be cautious in the garden. Some days I’m quite optimistic. Others I feel like it’s close to being overrun with weeds (as has happened in years past). We have mostly cleared and planted about half the garden. We have 70 tomatoes, 6 watermelons, plus beans, beets, spinach, carrots, lettuce, zucchini, peas, cucumber, grapes and about a trillion raspberries on their way. I feel like we are getting closer to a no-dig, not too weedy, productive garden. But it takes constant vigilance right now.
Turnaround garden
Most of the plants Ellie and I moved to the turnaround last fall survived. We’ve added some more, made a path to the flagpole and spread some mulch. There’s lots more to go yet, but we’re getting closer to my original vision to fill the whole turnaround with plants.
Ellie’s bedroom
Ellie loves her new room. She has been sleeping in there for several months (although this weekend she started sleeping on the floor). I still have a few things I’m hoping to do to fully finish off the space, along with convincing her to move back into her bed.
I’m really proud of everything we’ve accomplished so far. Every item on my home goals list has had some attention. At the start of the year, I felt like we weren’t just playing catch up anymore or fixing things that were broken. We are finally making progress. Reviewing these goals makes me feel like we’re making lots of progress. I hope the momentum continues.
What’s your big accomplishment so far this year? How are you doing on projects this year at your house? Do you have any home goals?
Summer has officially begun. We marked the solstice with a bonfire and our first campout, which felt like a great way to celebrate–although I have to admit the reality of sleeping on an air mattress is not so great.
Ellie is done school and, like last year, I’ve made the decision to “do summer.”
There’s been a bit of an adjustment to being around each other all the time. But we’ve had picnics, playgrounds, and water fights. Met up with friends, visited a local festival, worked in the gardens, picked strawberries, had family parties, watched hay baling and kept an eye on the patio construction. There have been late nights and sleeping in.
We’re off to a great start (air mattresses aside), and I’m looking forward to soaking up the season.
Here are some other things I’ve been up to this month.
I bought a basic soaker hose at the dollar store last year, and it’s been great in our garden. I also have these quick connectors for changing fittings quickly.
In case you were wondering, strawberry icing on chocolate cupcakes is a good idea.
This week, we’re finishing off June with wrapping up our patio. I am not so patiently waiting to set up the furniture. The reveal will be coming soon.
How has the start of summer been for you? Are you going camping this summer? Who else is a strawberry fan? What’s your favourite way to eat them? Anyone else feel too old to sleep on an air mattress?
As I was writing about our patio project and the herb spiral around the well, I took a journey through the blog archives. I came across this post that I wrote just over 10 years ago about the plans I had for outdoor projects and another about some of the progress we’d made.
I marveled at what I accomplished in one weekend and then laughed at myself for all of the landscaping I thought I would accomplish in one year. We’ve completed most of the projects, but they definitely took more than one year. In fact, some of them are still in progress.
The post also included my long term plan, which, I said, “will take who knows how long.”
Funnily enough, we haven’t done too bad on that long term plan. What I enjoyed most, though, was seeing how little my plans have changed over the past 10 years. Some of the projects are done. Some are not. But I still want to do them.
Come take a look back (and ahead) with me.
Here’s our (extremely ambitious) list from 2013.
I’m still working on the turnaround garden (though we were in pretty good shape by 2015). We eliminated most of the flowerbeds around the house, but the ones we kept need ongoing attention (welcome to gardening). I’m continuing to ignore the rubble and rock piles, though they’ve been very helpful for the fireplace and sunroom demo and every rock pick-up we’ve done for the past 11 years. We kept the longe ring and put the vegetable garden there (also in 2015). The pond shore was a saga for many years, but we finally cleared it and built our firepit (in 2020–just 7 years late).
Here’s the long term plan.
The garage and the driveway trees and lights are done. The bridge over the creek, the tree line clean up and the coop are in progress (some farther along than others). I still want to level the dirt pile behind the barn (now known as Grassy Hilltop courtesy of Ellie), although it’s come in handy over the past few weeks when our contractors needed topsoil (and Ellie does not like the idea of Grassy Level Ground). I still imagine how nice it would be to have a dock down at the pond, and I still want to shift the laneway to the back field slightly westward.
Overall, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. And I’m learning that landscaping is a process–and usually takes longer than I planned. Each thing I do builds on something I did before. And there’s always more to come. Thanks for following along.
Do you have a long list for projects at your house? Do you find what you want changes over time? Who else is ambitious about how much you can accomplish?
As part of the patio project, the garden around our well was completely ripped out. It hurt a little, as this garden was our most established flowerbed, and the plants were huge. But Ellie and I did a lot of transplanting last fall, and despite our rushed, late season, haphazard technique, the plants survived. Our contractors were also very obliging and moved some of the larger shrubs for us.
Faced with a blank slate, I started to re-evaluate the well garden, and I decided to try an herb garden. Herbs can be lovely and decorative, and also of course functional. This garden is very close to the kitchen, so it’s a convenient location for herbs. Plus it receives a lot of sun, which most herbs like.
I decided to try a different planting pattern: a spiral. (Hint: a garden hose is helpful to plan out the curves.)
I came across this idea on Pinterest. Spirals are an established technique for planting herbs. Usually people use some kind of edging (bricks, rocks, wood) and build a twisting bed that gets higher toward the centre. The spiral creates different growing conditions based on where you are on the curve, and herbs are planted in specific locations based on how much sun or water they prefer.
The well garden is round, so it’s a perfect shape for a spiral. I didn’t make ours rise very much, as I don’t love the “tower” visual, but I think the design and principles will still work. We have lots of rocks, so I used those to lay out the spiral, and we even had a start on the herbs.
My Mom gave me a big planter of herbs for Mother’s Day, so I used that. Matt’s parents gave Ellie a lemon balm plant, which she loves. Another friend gave me some echinacea. We also have chamomile growing wild around the farm, mint behind the house, and chives that I transplanted from my parents years ago. Ellie and I bought one lavender bush, a plant which I’ve wanted to add to the farm for a while. I also took a broad interpretation of beneficial plants and added some milkweed too.
It took us just a couple of hours to lay it out and put all the plants in the ground. Everything is small and a bit droopy right now, but I’m looking forward to seeing them grow.
Thinking about this new garden was energizing and fun, and I’m excited by how it came together.
Do you grow herbs at your house? Have you tried any new gardening techniques? How do you mix beauty and utility in your garden? Anyone else starting a new garden this year?
Around June 1 every year I try to take a photo of the front of the house. Everything is out in leaf and beautifully green. The farm is looking its best. And it’s really fun to look back and see the progress we’ve made on transforming the property. This year, the picture is all about progress, though you might have to walk around the side of the house to find it.
Last week work on our new patio started (note the yellow excavator in the background on the left), and I am thrilled.
Since finishing the garage and mudroom, the exterior of the south side of the house has been unfinished. This meant no stairs to the living room patio door. No step into the mudroom (aside from a rock I dragged there). And gravel, just gravel, everywhere.
The patio project is about defining this side of the house. We will have steps and a delineated space that’s separate from the driveway.
I decided to shrink the garden around the well slightly. This will give us two small sections of patio alongside the two entrances. I’m thinking one will be for eating and the other will be for lounging. Both are small, but I think we’ll have just enough room. They could also work for a barbecue or a potting bench.
My goal has always been to make the patio look like it fits with the farm. When I first met our contractor (RS Landscape & Construction for any locals), he said, “Can we pull rocks from the fields?” Out loud I said, “Absolutely.” In my head I was fist pumping and happy dancing. He got my vision right away and worked with me on the budget to make it happen.
We chose beautiful natural stone–huge slabs for steps and random flagstone for the patio (selected from a stone yard during an ice storm in December). For the gardens we took the machines on a literal field trip and found large boulders for the edging.
I’ve taken advantage of having the machines here to tackle a few additional jobs. The crew removed the old chicken coop foundation and regraded that corner of the barn. They also trenched a new outflow for our sump pump. They have been super accommodating, friendly, helpful and conscientious. I’m so impressed with their work.
The extra work means that the patio itself got off to a slow start. We also had a miscommunication about the width of the steps leading up to the patio door. I want them wider, which means we need more stone slabs, which were a bit hard to find. A new shipment arrived at the stone yard on Friday afternoon, so we should be back on track soon.
We ended last week with the old coop finally completely gone, the sump trench backfilled, the start of steps into the living room and a beautiful row of boulders (aka new stepping stones) around the well garden and under the dining room window.
Looking at the front of the house, I am amazed at what a difference the boulders make. They give the front so much more presence (and even make me dislike the angel stone a little bit less). The patio project builds on 11 years of slow transformation. I’m excited to see it all come together.
Do you have a patio at your house? Are you into dining or lounging outside? Are you undertaking any big projects at your house this year? Who else loves seeing heavy equipment at work?
Home on 129 Acres 