For years, I have wanted to have a Canadian flag flying at my house on July 1. This year, I finally do.
Happy Canada Day everyone.
Category Archives: Country life
That time again II
Our local strawberry farm opened last week, and you better believe I was there during the opening hour on opening day. I picked two baskets before heading in to work, and the next morning went back to pick some more.
So far, we’ve been eating strawberries for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Still on the menu for this week: waffles with strawberry maple syrup.
I love this time of year.
Have you had many strawberries yet this year? How do you like to eat them? Does anyone else have a bowl of whip cream in the fridge? Who else has gone picking? Are you growing your own berries?
That time again
The first day of summer meant the first harvest of the year on the farm.
The field behind the driveshed had been mowed earlier in the week, and by the time I came home on Friday, the hay was dry and had been mounded into long rows ready for baling.
As soon as I got out of the car, I could hear the clanking of machinery in the big field. Matt and I walked out to see what the commotion was.
Two big tractors were baling the hay. Unlike last year’s first cut when we had big round bales, this year we had massive rectangle bales. Allow Matt–all six feet of him–to illustrate the scale.
As best I could tell, each of these huge hay blocks is made up of about 21 smaller size rectangle bales. For those not familiar with hay, it’s not any one plant. Each hay bale is made up of a variety of grasses, clover, flowers and other plants. Last weekend, when I walked out to the back field, I snapped some shots of the most frequently occurring grasses.
I’m not knowledgeable enough about haying to tell you what any of these grasses are. According to the farmer who manages our fields, we have a good crop of hay for this first cut thanks to a good amount of rain this spring and some doses of fertilizer earlier in the season.
Just like people have to mow the grass on their lawn weekly, the hay will grow back, and we should be able to have a second cut–or maybe even a third–in one year. Something I learned last year that surprised me was that the second cut is usually better–as in more nutritious–than the first.
So this scene may repeat yet this year.
How did you mark the first day of summer?
Lakeside Living Home Tour
Not far from the farm is a decently sized lake. One day each year, various residents on the lake open their homes for tours. I missed last year’s, but I knew I wanted to go this year, so Saturday morning I slathered on my sunscreen, grabbed my camera and headed out.
The tour is run by volunteers and funds raised support the lake’s restoration. People from all over the lake take part, shuttling visitors from house to house on pontoon boats.
At each stop, more volunteers greeted and directed us, including these two pint-sized safety-conscious tour guides.
I was very impressed by how the whole community came together for this event. A few of the houses even had artists set up outside painting.
The houses we toured ranged from rustic cottages…
To slightly grander new builds.
Many of the homes were quite personal and had some unique features. Like a sink made out of petrified wood.
A screened porch with a built-in barbecue, vent hood, tap, flat screen TV, stainless steel counters, stamped concrete floor and large wood-topped bar.
Unusual light fixtures.
Built-ins constructed by the homeowner from reclaimed wood.
A hammered sink from Mexico set in an antique dresser.
I wish I had a better picture of this vanity, because the dresser was amazing. In fact the whole bathroom was pretty unique with murals painted on the wall and the tub clad in wood that matched the dresser. Unfortunately, I couldn’t zoom out enough to get the whole room, and I thought climbing into the shower to get a wider angle might be too a bit to invasive.
While I don’t think a petrified wood sink is totally my style, the tour did give me a couple of inspiring ideas for our place. I think pretty much everyone on the tour was inspired by this closet.
On a slightly simpler scale, I love this twig and branch archway. I think something like this would be great at one end of the vegetable garden.
Seeing some unique homes, supporting my local community and floating around a calm lake on a bright sunny morning. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.
What did you do with your weekend? Anyone else get away to the lake? Have you ever gone on a home tour? Or have you had your home featured in a home tour? Who wants a wooden sink?
Oz
We’re definitely not in the emerald city, but last night somewhere over the emerald fields and out beyond the verdant green forest, we had a beautiful rainbow.
It has been a very rainy week—a rainy spring, in fact—so I’m hoping this rainbow is a sign that the weather is taking a turn for the better.
Fortunately, the farm is not plagued by any flying monkeys. However, we do have enough mosquitoes to carry off a small dog or a full grown woman, so heading out into the hay fields to take pictures of rainbows is hazardous.
Raindrops, mosquitoes, even flying monkeys, bring it on.
There is absolutely no place like home.
Battling the litter bugs
Our property is situated so that we have three road frontages. What this means is that we have about 2 kilometres of ditches that to passing drivers apparently look like one large trash can. A recent notice in the mailbox for a community clean up was the motivation I needed to pick up after all of these litter bugs.
The saddest thing about this photo is that I didn’t stage it. I simply set the notice down amongst the trash.
Outfitted with my rubber boots, work gloves and multiple garbage bags, I headed out. I had two bags on the go at a time, one for recycling (mainly cans and bottles) and one for garbage. I could have probably separated the garbage a bit more, but two bags was about all I could wrangle. The most common finds were takeout coffee cups, plastic water bottles and cigarette packs.
There was lots and lots of plastic.
We have a creek that runs along the front of the property, and while it is set farther away from the road, it was still full of trash as well.
These particular pieces of plastic turned out to be a very big sheet of bubble wrap and a large jug which had formed a dam.
Some of the more unique finds included a shoe, two gloves (not a pair) and the remains of a wine glass.
Sometimes, I wasn’t sure what things were right away. As when I first spotted this item a few feet back in the reeds along the west side of the property.
It turned out to be a small photocopier. Yup. Someone went to the effort to carry a photocopier out of their office, put it into their car, drive it to our property, pick it up out of the car, carry it across the ditch and heave it into the marsh. They didn’t even just open the car door and push it out. They put work and planning into this–I know, because I climbed into the marsh and dragged it out and it was heavy and awkward.
Fortunately, I was able to leave the photocopier, other large items and even the full bags of garbage on the shoulder and our amazing garbage men took them away on our regular pick up day. The recycling I carried home and dumped into our bins.
The final tally on the clean up was
- 5 1/2 hours (over three days)
- 7 1/2 bags of garbage
- 5 bins of recycling
- One awful sun burn
- Multiple scratches
- Numerous ant bites
- One ruined pair of gloves
- A general feeling of disgust towards my fellow humans
Some people were encouraging–one driver honked and gave me a thumbs up as he drove by and another pulled over to say how great it was that I was cleaning up. However, I probably was not as gracious as I could have been to them as I spent most of the clean up being royally ticked off. Who finishes their coffee and decides the correct action is to roll down the window and pitch the cup into the ditch?
My irritation went to another level when Matt and I went out and passing by two of the garbage bags I’d left on the side of the road I saw that someone had pitched a Blizzard cup and two plastic spoons onto the shoulder–and they’d obviously aimed to get them right beside my bags. Who is that rude?
Fortunately, our garbage men are incredibly considerate, because not only did they pick up all of the trash bags and larger items I’d left on the side of the road, they also picked up the cup and spoons.
Out of the whole clean up, I only found one item worth keeping.
You better believe I tucked that 5 cents into my pocket and brought it home with me. I need some new work gloves!
Medium rare with a side of blue air
The result of writing a post showing your barbecue bursting into flames is that your in-laws send flyers full of barbecue sales home with your husband. As a result of those flyers, you arrive home later that week to find a very large box sitting in your foyer.
That very large box leads to a very big mess all over your living room as your husband assembles the new barbecue. It also results with you being kicked out of the house so that your husband can curse in private.
Readmission to the house is conditional on your participation in carrying the new barbecue outside, which results shortly thereafter in dinner–cooked by your husband.
So he took care of the shopping, the swearing, the constructing and the cooking. I’d say I got the better end of this deal.
“I could be Thor!”
Pop quiz:
You’re walking in the forest and you see this tree.
What do you do?
- Marvel over the crack and continue on with the hike. Nature will take care of itself.
- Marvel over the crack and make a note to invite your father-in-law over with his chainsaw.
- Marvel over the crack and decide that it’s too dangerous to leave and go find a saw to deal with it yourself.
- Marvel over the crack. Poke sticks in the crack to try and lever the tree off the stump. Fail. Decide that this tree must come down right this minute. Decide that the best tool will be a sledge hammer. Saw, pshaw.
So my answer would probably be ‘B,’ but of course my resident lumberjack saw an opportunity to advance from his most recent experience felling a tree with an ax to be even more manly. The words “I could be Thor!” did in fact come out of his mouth.
A couple of hard whacks popped the tree off its stump–all while I watched and photographed from a safe distance. However, the tree is still standing more vertical than horizontal, branches tangled in his closest neighbour.
We are now moving on to plan B.
What would you do? Any idea what made the tree crack like that? We had a big ice storm the other week, so it could have been the weight of the ice, but other trees that came down didn’t crack horizontally across the trunk. Anyone else living with someone who fancies himself a god?
Having a blast
I suspect that the universe is trying to tell me that it’s not yet barbecue season. When I fired up the grill for the first time this year, I had a bit more fire than I expected.
Further investigation revealed additional flames around the pipe fittings on the underside.
Fortunately, the combustion was confined to fire and nothing actually exploded. Unfortunately, barbecue was not to be on the menu, and we had to rely on indoor appliances to salvage dinner.
Our barbecue is an old hand-me-down, so it may be time to replace it. However, I don’t like to give in that easily. Do you think it can be fixed? Tightening the fittings or maybe adding some teflon tape is a lot easier and cheaper than buying a new barbecue. Has anyone else had a problem like this? I’m open to advice for repairing barbecues or for grilling steaks. Any suggestions?
Frozen out
Winter isn’t going down easy this year. Spring had made some gains over the last week with four days straight of rain and above zero temperatures. However, today, winter struck back, driving the temperature back down below freezing and turning the rain to ice.
Fortunately, Matt and I made it home before the roads got too slippery. Unfortunately, that wasn’t soon enough for our gate, whose padlock was frozen solid. My poor little car was locked out.
Matt and I each keep a bottle of lock de-icer in our cars specifically for this situation. However, smashing the ice that had frozen the chain to the post, chipping at the ice around the lock with my car key and squirting most of my bottle into the keyhole had little effect on the lock.
Abandoning my car, I headed off on the long, cold, windy, wet walk to the house. Did I mention it was cold? Fortunately, I’ve learned some things since moving to the country and was already wearing my rubber boots–with my nice suit trousers attractively tucked into the top.
I was able to get into the house much more easily than I was able to get into the property. I changed into warmer clothes, ate some Easter chocolates and contemplated my life while I waited for the kettle to boil.
This new country life I lead sees me outside with the wind blowing the freezing rain nearly horizontal, trotting down the driveway carrying a steaming kettle.
It took just a few splashes of hot water to release the lock.
Soon enough I was inside, warm and dry. The lock also got to spend some time in the house warming up and drying out.
Hopefully the padlock recovers and there’s no issue getting into the property tomorrow night–I don’t want any delay in starting my weekend!
Home on 129 Acres 