One Project Finished - Finally!

Before and after, pictures can be so encouraging when you are looking at a to-do list that seems endless even before you add the next project to it. So the outside of our house is done and it looks great. We are so pleased with our choice of color for the siding. So many people go with a light blue color if they even choose blue, but we decided to just go for the gusto and we love it. The white trim just pops against the dark blue. Now I really can't wait til spring so that I can get busy with doing the landscaping. It will look wonderful. I was thinking too of a couple of Adirondack style lawn chairs for the entry porch, painted bright yellow and a rich red. Maybe something painted a little decoratively but I suppose that when the chairs are here in front of me it will be easier to decide. Especially if the sun is shining and it is warm and the grass is green. I'll feel more in the right mood then.

Last night was minus 10, but this morning it is warm, don't know how warm, but warm enough to just quickly throw on a single jacket, slip into my boots and run out with the camera. Last night when I went to the barn at about 11:00, I had on at least four layers, and a hat. The moon was full and sky clear, so it was a surreal landscape. The horses walking over to where I was throwing down some hay made a hollow sound on the frozen earth. Very cool! (in more ways than one).

So today the sun is shining, and we've got things to do, so have a lovely day and I will be back.

This Retirement is Gonna Kill Us!

People go through life with a dream in their hearts....to leave the rat-race, to slow down, sit on the porch in the sunshine, or watching their fishing rod on some sunny river bank, or a million other utopia's in mind. I remember way back when we had those kind of fantasies. So far, the only part that has come true is that we no longer live in downtown Langley and I don't have to drive to where my horses are. But the slowing down part or the riverbank on a sunny day, well, hasn't happened yet. But we're not complaining. In fact, every morning I get up and I literally marvel at having had another sound nights sleep where I haven't wound up watching tv in the wee hours of the morning because one more time, I was awake at 3:00 AM. I used to do that at least five nights a week for several years. Don would go to bed with me and wake up by himself. But here I sleep, all the way through from 11:00 to 7:00. Don sleeps as well too. I think that we had begun to accept the fact that for the rest of our lives, until we die, we would never again feel rested. So this is literally quite an amazing change to us.

And what could possibly be keeping us so busy you might be wondering. Well, let me think....hmmm, maybe it is all the changes that we decided to do on our house, most of which are not done yet (except David did just finish the siding yesterday), or maybe it is the landscaping that we started when I went crazy just after moving here and finding that the nursery had a 50% off sale on all their plant stock (I was like a kid in a candy store that day!), or maybe it is the old run-down house that we bought that needs a complete overhaul, or maybeeeee, it is the duplex that we bought that had one tenant move out the day before the deal closed and so we figured we might do a bunch of things to it while it was empty. And not to forget the horse shelter that not only did I have to build once, but yahoo, as if I am not busy enough, I had to build again because the remains of the hurricane decided to bless us with a "Welcome to Nova Scotia" blast and re-position it On Its Roof! So yes, we are busy, but we're happy and we're enjoying ourselves even though some parts of the dream are a little different than we had initially envisioned, but in our old age we are learning to be flexible - well maybe not physically, cause there are definitely moments when we feel anything but flexible which is why Ibuprofen is becoming more like a food group lately, but at least mentally.

Personally, I think that it's all good. I spent a year and a half in an apartment, and I felt myself age there. The years laid themselves upon me, and without this move, next stop could only be a box in a hole and the time til then would only be one tedious day after another. But yesterday, as I sat there on the roof of the horse shelter, and I took a moment between roofing screws, I looked around me and one more time I marvelled at the peace and quiet and the loveliness of the dark blue sky and the setting sun as it lit up the white trunks of the birch's in the forest around us and the red fields of blueberries off towards
the east and I was overcome with the sense of contentment that we have settled into here. Yes indeed, it is definitely all good!

Old Friends...

The warm water ran across her little furry back, plastering the hair against her skin and exposing the truth of her aging frame. Where once she had weighed in at a respectable 4.5 pounds, the evidence of her current 2.5 pounds was obvious. Her little backbone stuck out, each vertebrae visible. Little Lucy, how many years have we loved you, how many years are left? I think that to count the years would be foolish, more likely only months.

She was so beautiful in her puppy years, bright eyes looking at us with love and excitement. Now she looks at us but does not see our faces, or our hands as they approach to stroke her soft fur. Our touch is always a surprise to her, so we talk and let her know that we are coming, that she might be spared the fright of the unexpected. Her little feet seem to hardly touch the ground so lightly does she tread but her balance often fails and she drifts to this side or that, catching herself before she falls.

She lies at my side as I write, rolled in a soft towel to stop her shivering. The bath was much needed, but even using the hairdryer does not dry her enough to prevent her shaking uncontrollably afterwards.

Maple Syrup!!!

Pancakes (which I despise by the way), absolutely demand maple syrup. Am I right or am I right? Waffles also demand syrup. But did you know that stir fry is also very good with maple syrup, as is fennel slaw and salad dressing. It is a most convenient flavoring. When I make the stir fry for example, I will mix the syrup with some soy sauce, a little olive oil and occasionally with a bit of mustard and I like to also saute some finally chopped ginger root with the vegetables.. If you shake this mixture up in a little bottle just before you are going to serve your stir fry, and mix it thoroughly to warm it, it tastes just lovely.
And when you use it to flavor salad dressings, you omit the soya sauce and instead use a raspberry vinegar or for a slaw you would use lemon juice.

And while I am thinking of it, did you also know that a table spoon of finally shredded coconut added to your egg mixture can make your french toast taste marvelous, particularly when you top it with- - - you guessed it, Maple Syrup!

And one more hint that I just have to mention for all of you who are reading this because it is too good a secret to not share. I think that everyone has had a pair of shoes that drive you crazy with the squeaking. Do you remember the feeling that everyone was watching you as you squeaked your way through the store and how disgruntled you felt when you thought about the money that you had spent on those new shoes that you probably wouldn't wear again. Well here it is, the cure for squeaky shoes. Take a dryer sheet (the kind that you soften your clothes with) and rub it all over the sole of the offending shoes. It worked for a pair of runners that I had just bought that were so bad that they made noises even on carpet.

So there you are, the wisdom of the ages. I love sharing the things that are happening and the things that I have the privilege of learning as we go through life, with all of you. Even more important than maple syrup and dryer sheets, I am learning to not only appreciate the wonder of life, but also to look always for the good. Sometimes I still blow it and dwell on the sad facts, but hopefully as time passes, that will happen less and less.

One step forward....and how many back?

We've gotten a lot done since July 31st and I have to keep reminding myself of that periodically. It's probably good too that I used to watch that tv show called Real Reno's and saw the homeowners repeatedly lamenting on how long it was taking to finish their job, and then to see the end of the show where they were beaming and thrilled with the changes. I'm only bringing this up because as I am sitting here, I can hear the horses stomping around on the wooden floor in the barn and over in the corner behind me (yes, in the family room), I can hear the periodic drip of water kerplunking into the slowly filling saucepan. If we could just get a single room DONE, I would feel so good but.....

Hurricane Noel is responsible for Ambra and Sierra being stuck in the barn until the shelter is re-finished. Right now and overnight, the weather has been miserable. Last night, the wind howled and then brought snow and today it is raining bigtime, and they've been in the barn since 5:00 yesterday. So they need to get out. Later, when I go out to clean stalls, I'll put them out in the riding ring. Then they'll thank me when I come to put them back in the barn. As far as the shelter is concerned, we got the walls back up and poles set in the ground. Now I have to take the roof apart so that we can rebuild it. But we ran out of light and then the weather was bad the next day so....the horses are stuck in the barn!

As for the drip, the previous owners had a leak a few years ago, got the roof re-done, and I am thinking that the hurricane somehow affected the the flashings or ? Anyway, I went up in the attic and found the spot where the water is getting in, but it will be at least a few days I would think before we'll be able to get someone here to remedy the problem. At least we know where the water is coming in right. Unfortunately, we have bulges in several places where the drip has come through behind the paint so now we will be fixing walls and paint jobs and then replacing the insulation that we had blown into the attic. As I said, one step forward....

On a brighter note, the photo is one that Don took of Sierra a couple years ago. Isn't she gorgeous!!!! I love this photo because he caught her spirit completely.

Hurricane Noel

There is so much going on in our lives right now. I feel like we have been racing the calender to get a bunch of things done before the winter winds and snow came and stopped us in our tracks at least as far as outdoor stuff was concerned. I worked feverishly on my horse fence and then my sawdust bin and finally the windbreak/shelter and was so pleased when those things were done. And then along came Hurricane Noel. The fence was fine, the bin is still full of sawdust, but my shelter is no more! There must have been a few good gusts that just came along and picked it right up, pulled the posts clean out of the ground and deposited it a few feet away and upside down.

The morning after the wind, I walked over to the window and opened up the curtains, and as my gaze rested upon the shelter, at first it just didn't register. It was a moment or two before I realized that it looked so odd because it was upside down, and another moment before I totally comprehended what had happened. All my work and effort to get it done, gone in a moment. As I stood there, with the sound of the tv on beside me, I could here the weather channel on and of course, they were talking about the hurricanes after-effects and they were talking about 500,000 people in Mexico not having homes anymore, and suddenly, my shelter seemed inconsequential by comparison. I was standing inside my house with my hot coffee cup in hand and in so many places people were wading through flood waters or standing in front of a pile of rubble that used to be their little house. We are so blessed and it would be a sad commentary on me, I think, if I were to waste energy whining about this event.

Well, today, we went out with the tractor, and made an effort to flip it back over. Unfortunately, what the wind could do in a moment, we were not able to undo. We did manage to get the first move without to much damage to the structure, but the second move was not so good largely because the one end is relatively unsupported as it is a two sided windbreak. At this point, we have decided to begin dismantling it systematically and then rebuild it in a new, less windy location. Don has promised to help me put it back up so it will go a lot faster this time, and especially as I have already done it once and everything is cut already. So there you go, another Nova Scotia experience. And life goes on, and there is still a smile on our faces, and one more thing for us to remember in years to come.

On Writing.

Words, music, --- music, words. Emotions, feelings, thoughts and ideas. These I think are the things that have moved the course of time in the world of men. Even in the natural world, there is a soundless river of music that wends its way through the forest glen, across the mountain top, along the banks of the river. To listen to a piece of music whether it be a young persons rap, an old persons rock, or the quiet plaintive strains of a a sweetly played violin in a classical piece, is cause to move a persons heart and activate their soul just as deeply as looking out over the beautiful valley or gazing up at the majesty of the rugged mountain peak. They each conspire to elicit that moment of awe, that "aha" sigh that comes when we sink into the sounds that swirl around the listener or lay eyes upon the worlds beauty.

And when words are put on paper, they have incredible power too. In the arena of politics, they shape societies, build up or all too often destroy lives. The words inside a card, quickly written, convey a sense of togetherness from one person to another. Or they can paint a picture fraught with beauty and delicacy, powerful in its ability to move the reader and inspire to greater acts of heroism than they had ever dreamed possible, or simply to revel in a new emotion. I have at times thought I would like to be a writer. To be the person who touches the hearts of others, brings to life new worlds, new experiences. When I was young I escaped into my books, reading voraciously, everything that I could get my hands on. I can remember walking to school, with my newest treasure balanced on the top of the pile, reading and only aware of the traffic around as was necessary to avoid being hit by a car as I crossed the streets.

But then my children came, and out of necessity, I put down my other worlds, my books. A novel needs to be savoured and experienced and these things are hard to do when the act of sitting down is a signal to small children to climb up on mommy and use her for a jungle gym to relieve their boredom. So the books were laid aside and little hands were clasped instead.

But now the children are grown and living lives of their own and perhaps in these new, quieter years of my life, I will pick up where I left off. Life is just a series of cycles and phases, taken up and put away. All I need is to find my reading glasses and maybe the next phase will indeed be a continuation of the first. As for writing, well, I don't think that is something that will happen save for the occasional letter to someone I love but I find that more often these days, the words that came to mind so easily, are getting stopped at the border as it were, and try as I might, they can't cross over and I am forced to settle for another, possibly with less impact than the one that is just there at the tip of my brain. So writing, probably not, reading quite likely.