Our Very Own Woods and Magical Stream

I'm a towny, always have been except for a few years living in a very small village as a young child. I'm used to being able to walk downtown whenever I need to for a shopping fix. I'm also now able to walk to a coffee shop, Wal-Mart and Home Depot due to the land being available at our end of town. It usually takes me twenty-five minutes to walk to the bridge over the river downtown and from there I can access my doctor's office, dentist's office and my optometrist all within another ten minutes or so. I have even ventured on occasion to walk all the way to our Zellars Store at the opposite end of town but it's a feat I don't tackle anymore. There are many hills in this town, some very steep and if I can avoid them I do.

This past weekend the temperature here has been minus 26 degrees with the wind chill making it feel like -37. Since I find that way too cold to go walking outside I have set up a jigsaw puzzle to challenge me. Actually I'm on my third one, they all involved flowers of some description. These flower puzzles made me think of spring and spring made me think of May, the month we hope to return to Prince Edward Island to start our renovating process on our over seventy year farmhouse.

Thinking of our farmhouse put me in mind of our wonderful property. To some it might look like just a bunch of fields bordered by trees. In the spring the fields will be planted in potatoes but to an old towny like me it looks like paradise. To think my husband and I own all those fields and the long, deep woods behind them is so exciting to me. Last year along with my sister-in-law and her husband we grabbed a pair of long handled loppers, a small axe and headed into the woods. Several of the first dozen trees had a yellow plastic ribbon tied around them so we figured that's the trail to follow. It was tough going after awhile. It was very dense with small trees trying to reach towards the light of the sun, dead trees, old logs plus branches reaching out to halt our progress.

But the charm of the woods was the lovely, deep moss covering the forest floor, hearing the birds sing and finding all sorts of different mushrooms, none of which we knew. One particular mushroom has the reddest top I've ever seen. It was so beautiful. Jim's brother placed it on a tree branch so we could get a good photo of it. We knew from the deeds of the property that there were several streams on the property. Plus the owner had told us as a small child she fell into one. We tramped through the dense woods for nearly two miles it seemed, ducking here, dodging there to escape a branch in the head. One small clearing made me exclaim with joy as there were stately maples growing there. Some small enough I hope to dig up and transplant later.

When we finally reached what we thought should be a stream it seemed to be dried up, no water was flowing but the moss was very spongy and wet. We trekked on, up hill and down dale and finally found the most magical little stream I've seen in a long time. I was beside myself with joy. Bouncing around with delight at this narrow little stream with clear, sparkling water flowing ever so bravely on. I suppose to some it wouldn't look like much, but I have a vision of fairies dancing there in the sunlight when no one is around. I envisioned cleaning up the stream, pulling out soggy logs and branches, clearing vegetation away near the edge and even putting little benches here and there to sit on someday.

There will be so little time to go exploring in the woods over the next few years as we renovate the house and barns but hopefully we can set aside one day each summer to go exploring. Even the fact I caught my right foot under a log and fell headfirst on the soft, cushiony moss, really hurting my foot and ankle won't deter me from searching out treasures in the woods again. I was limping for several weeks and lucky I didn't break my ankle so instead of looking UP next time I will try and look for twisting roots or old logs that want to trip me up.

I shall feel like Anne of Green Gables or the Girl of the Limberlost when entering my dear woods. Loving, admiring every tree and bush. Listening for the birds and marveling at Mother Nature's bounty and goodness to a towny part of the year and a bonafide "country girl" the few weeks we get to spend on the island until we retire there permanently.

One of Mother's Greatest Gifts To Me

My Mother was a very talented woman. She was a writer or author as she had many stories published during her "writing" years. I inherited a small bit of her writing talent as I'm now writing my Memoirs and leading a group at our town library who are writing theirs.

Edith, my mother was also in my opinion a very talented artist. Her medium of choice was watercolours. When she passed on, all of her five children inherited at least three or more of her framed or unframed paintings. Mine hold pride of place in my guest room, living-room and bedroom. I had also hoped to inherit some of her talent for doing watercolors, having purchased many books on the subject. I have taken lessons on occasion to learn better the technique but finding the time seems to allude me. I am not the best organizer of my time.

Something I did inherit from my mother was her love of puttering. A whole day can pass by with me wondering at the end of it what on earth I accomplished. I was in every room of the house and opened drawers and put things here and there but what the heck, I had fun.

If I had to mention the one gift that my mother passed on to me that I perhaps treasure above all others, besides the love of flowers, birds, quilts, photos, magazines, love of old movies etc., it would be the love of reading. It started because she read to me as a child when we lived in a huge, rambling yellow brick house in the village of Burgessville. A salesman came to the door one day who was selling children's books. Those books were called "Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories". Mother ended up buying the whole series I expect, the salesmen back then were very persistant. They were numerous too and often came to the door, something I'm not sorry to see has changed over the years. She was so overcome one day by a pushy salesman, I had to run down to the C0-0p building where which my father managed to tell him to come home quickly so he could tell this man to leave our premises. Which he promptly did.

Mother started reading to me story after story from these bedtime books. Having a vivid imagination even at a tender age I could place myself in these stories most of which had a moral. Did mother have a motive for reading certain stories to me? Perhaps. There were black and white pictures in those books which I would look upon for hours also. Our village was very small, there were two garages across from each other and two general stores. The one store though had a magic place upstairs at the back. We would walk along a narrow sidewalk and open a door and climb up many, many stairs. At the top was a long, narrow room but it was filled with treasure. It was a very small but exciting library. Imagine a person a small as me could borrow books, read them and then take them back for more! Life couldn't get any better.

Then as I grew older and got an allowance I discovered comic books. Not just any comic books but big, thick Historical comic books and then romantic ones or just plain funny ones. I had a friend who lived five miles away in Norwich and her and her brother had boxes of them out in their front porch under the couch. I had struck gold! I was allowed to take some home, then after reading them bring them back. The library in Norwich was also a treasure-trove where I met Lucy Maud Montgomery and fell in love with Anne of Green Gables. You wouldn't want to know how many of her books I have on my book shelves. Then I fell in love later on with an author I'm now rereading Gene Stratton-Porter who wrote Freckles, Laddie and my favorite book of all time "Girl of the Limberlost". (well actually I have hundreds of favorite books).

Often at the library there were books which became torn, faded and too old to keep on the shelves. It was our family's good fortune that mother just happened to be the librarian. One day she brought me my most treasured book, a faded old ragged copy of "Girl of the Limberlost". I was transported into another world, a world so filled with nature as I didn't want to leave it. I think my gardening gene must have been formed into a little bud that day, later to burst forth into an all out explosion of activity each spring and summer. If I were to admit to addictions, they would be reading and gardening.

I realized today I don't have all of Gene Stratton-Porter's books so the hunt will now be on to try and find those treasures written back in the 1900's if at all possible. I have written down all the titles I can find and who printed them. Now I will hunt in dusty little book stores whenever I find myself in towns where such a thing exists. Perhaps I'll email some of literary book hunters in the family to be on the look-out as they live in a bigger city where a treasure-trove of book stores must exist. I hope as I sit each morning enjoying my coffee inside in winter or outside on my back deck in the summer reading away for an hour before starting my puttering, that mother is looking down on me, smiling and reminiscing about all the glorious books she read, knowing my time is well spent.

I Have A Dream, A Five Year Dream

A one year dream does not seem like a long time to keep alive. Everyone knows how fast a year goes by, the older we get, the faster it goes by, like a blink of an eye. A five year dream on the other hand might sound like a very long time and I don't want to wish my life away. So the plans that I have for that dream to come true will be broken up into a year a time. Perhaps even a summer at a time. Our three weeks holidays each year.





My dream as does my husband's dream involves the property and buildings we purchased in Prince Edward Island this past November. In the photo above blissfully running through one of our fields are the two children of my husband's niece from Nova Scotia. Their mother is probably inside the farmhouse at the time, wandering from room to room making plans in her head as to what should go where..her children without a care in the world are having a delightful time running, jumping, falling down and getting back up again to do it all over again.





As I was fortunate enough to be in P.E.I. for three weeks in November I spent many hours at our new place, planning, dreaming, renovation by knocking down walls and later drawing diagram after diagram of room plans, trying to decided what would be best where. Not all of my time was concentrated however on the inside of the house but I also walked the perimeter of the front and back yard thinking where a good spot might be for the vegetable garden, where we will dig in our fish pond from here, planning my iris bed, where masses of daylilies would look good etc. My eye went to the very large field to the left of the house and in my mind's eye I saw a very large, grassed and treed park.





The field is presently planted in winter rye and will be planted with potatoes in the spring, by a farmer down the road we are allowing to use all our fields for potoates. After all we need to keep the fields plowed so the spruce trees wouldn't take over. We have lots of woods and trees on our 35 acres so we really don't need more spruce. Our land is bordered on three sides by trees, blueberry bushes, wild roses, the odd apple tree and it will be my delight to walk around our land in the spring and discover even more species of trees. Being thrilled by the fact different varities of birds will make their homes in them especially after I put up many bird houses that my brother will make for me.





As I looked at the field I could see new trees growing there, red maple, sugar maples, plus many of the types of trees I'd love to plant here in Muskoka but have no room for in our smaller yard. Considering our yard is small I do have forsythia, varigated dogwood, a dwarf lilac, three boxwood, nesting spruce, a red maple and sugar maple plus a mountain ash, several bayberry bushes and an old crabapple tree that was here when we moved here. So you can imagine how many varities I will want to plant where I have lots and lots of room to play with.





My brother-in-law who has lived on the island for at least ten years now and has more acreage than we have likes to keep telling me how long it will take to cut the lawn on such a large portion of land. But I tend not to get discouraged, as I dream big and bold. An important part of that dream is finding a big old tractor with lots of miles left on it to cut the grass around all those many wonderous trees, dappling the grass in the sunshine.





Those delightful children running through that field that sunny but cool day cemented in my mind that I was on the right track. They ran from one side of the field to the other, where they were stopped by our border of trees. They laughed, giggled and played so carefree and happy. Would that I could give that joy to many more children, let them roam and run, resting on little benches my husband will make nestled under the shade of a growing, handsome tree. Under the watchful eyes of parents who might be resting on our porch or deck, whatever we decide to build on that side of the house, or perhaps walking with ease across the dappled lawns themselves. Even better perhaps running along with their children or chasing them here and there among the trees. This is the vision I see with clarity on these cold winter days here in Muskoka. Hoping against hope five years with be just enough time to watch this dream turn into a reality.

Starving for Color and Other Stuff

It's such early days of winter to be tired of snow already or at least the whiteness of it everywhere. I know underneath all the snow blanketing our yard are tiny shoots and roots that will weave their way up through the wet, dark soil in the spring but I need to see some colour now. So I viewed some of my photos of spring and summer flowers. It was a much needed lift.

The house inside is full of colour and sparkle this time of year but as gardening and especially planting flowers is such a pleasure of mine it's hard to wait until the frozen earth let's go it's chilly, frigid fingers so we gardeners can get our hands dirty again. This is a good time of year to read up on all the new gardening books that I don't have time to read in the summer however so I'll be sorting through those.

I do have a lot of house plants which need my tender care but the violets aren't blooming right now, just the red leafed shamrock is giving me some blooms. I love my jade plant but alas it doesn't flower either. My deep rose Christmas cactus went bust this year but my new white one from last year is blooming away and I'd love another pink one but where to put it? There just isn't enough room for all the plants I'd like to keep inside.

As the snow falls outside again today and the wind howls around the trees in the evenings I try and keep busy by knitting or doing some crochet work. Trouble is I have more than one project on the go. So I'm making a vow to myself that I will finish up all "unfinished" work before tackling yet another project. On the go I have an afghan I'm crocheting for our couch, a lovely cotton throw I'm knitting and knitting those cotton dishcloths for Christmas gifts. I learned to crochet when I was twelve, my Nana taught me so I'm better at that than knitting. I want to learn to be a better knitter so have a friend who is willing to help me over the tough spots. But she nearly gave up last night. (wait until I ask her to teach me to knit socks!).

I was trying to tackle for the first time knitting on an extra stitch each row making the dish cloths. For some reason my brain wouldn't compute doing it after watching my friend. I tore it out time after time, she finally laughed, walked away and said she just couldn't watch anymore! One thing about me, I'm stubborn. I don't like to fail. I ripped it out again after she left for home and voila, it worked! I have one nearly finished. I find it so much nicer while watching tv to have something in my hands to do. It gives me something to look at when someone is getting murdered or falling off a cliff or something. I usuually just ask my husband what happens after the screaming subsides. Even better is trying not to watch those kind of shows at bedtime. Thankfully there are lots of Christmas shows and movies this time of year if I can find one I haven't seen a hundred times.

Most winters I get out for walks three or four times a week but this year when I open the door and the cold draft hits me, I tend to shut the door again and hibernate inside. It's not like I don't have a lot to keep me busy..I'm also tackling making the curtains for our bedroom I promised my husband a few ....... I won't say how long ago I promised but he had a look of amazement on his face when I said I was doing that next. I also have a crocheted tea cosy that only needs the flowers sewn on to be finished and a scarf I knit which needs the pockets I also knit sewn on..Perhaps I'll feel much better after I finish all these odds and ends before tackling yet another new project like crocheting some rag rugs. Now where did I put that material?

Our 13th Anniversary on December 13th, 2010

Today is our 13th Anniversary and it falls on Monday, December the 13th. I'm at home alone while my husband is at work. We had snow all day yesterday, that wet, heavy snow that bends the branches down and makes driving so dangerous, slipping and sliding along the hiways and biways. So today is a good day to stay inside and bake.

My husband's favorite dessert is chocolate cake. Many evenings after he compliments me on the supper I prepared he will mention that what would make it perfect would be the chocolate cake waiting in the kitchen. Of course there is no chocolate cake waiting in the kitchen but tonight there will be. As we both don't need to eat a lot of cake or any other dessert for that matter I usually divide the batter into two pans and freeze one. Having a dessert hidden away in the freezer comes in so handy at times.

This coming Wednesday, we head up to Parry Sound so my husband can have an operation on his left knee. The surgeon is going to scrape the inside of his knee (the meniscus) and hopefully the pain my husband endures will be no more. If this operation doesn't work then he will probably face a knee replacement down the road. We are certainly putting our hopes into Wednesday's procedure. Many days I've seen him limp along, not giving up from anything he wants to do but suffering in the process.

From the night we met at a single's dance at the Legion here in town he has done all in his power to look after me. To do the hard slugging for all my gardening projects, to make me wonderful benches or blanket boxes or bathroom cabinets in his workshop. He seems to have the knack of anticipating my needs before they are spoken of. I do not drive so he has to drive me to appointments when he can or else I walk. He takes me shopping and we've devised a way to make it less painful for him as he hates shopping. He drops me off and comes back in an hour or two or three, however long I deem to need that day.

As I think back on our relationship that involves a blended family, my two adult children and his two adult children who were teenagers when we met, it has not always been easy. There have been some royal battles but the end result was that we solved them and came out on the other side. Sometimes blasting away at each other in anger, we just couldn't resolve much, so we would resort to writing notes or in my case "letters" (I'm long winded). We could read calmly what the other was feeling and trying to say which really helped. Sometimes it's a long and winding road to get to a better place in a relationship and I think we have achieved that.

I have a girlfriend that I met when we were three years old. We go back a LONG way. She once told me: "I've heard you laugh before, but I've never heard you laugh like you do since you met Jim". My laughter is full of joy, the kind that bubbles up and spills over. I'm happy to say we can still make each other laugh. Sometimes the teasing I can do without, but he gets such a kick out of it and his laughter seems endless. Love is so much about anticipating each other's needs, trying to meet those needs, trying to make each other happy. Love is an action.

For thirteen years as often as we could we have kept Friday night as date night. The one night of the week that is set aside for us, when we try and give each other our full attention and I still feel special that night having my husband all to myself. Sometimes we are joined by other couples and we go dancing. There is no place I'd rather be than dancing with my honey as that is how we met. Dancing even while there was no music to dance to, just the music we heard in our own heads. Life can be like a dance, sometimes all jumpy and jarring, sometimes slow and graceful, sometimes just standing in one spot holding each other and moving silently to the beat of our own hearts.

Nana

A Poem I Wrote In Memory of My Nana, My Mother's Mother Who Half Raised Me.

"And Sometimes You Hold on to the Memory of Love"

Love is not a tangible thing you grasp, like an apple on a tree.

Love is illusive, like vapor, twists and turns,

Caressing our cheek, perchance causing a tear to fall,

Like dew drops on a summer morning.

I don't remember her uttering words of love

It was her actions of unconditional caring.

I absorbed her love like osmosis,

Letting the tendrils of her affection wrap me.

Her hands were worn, wrinkled, but strong.

Her silvery grey hair was always curled.

Her dresses were homemade, a pattern she created.

Her wealth was her unlimited love.

My memories of her weave in and out of my life.

Warming my heart with the richness of remembered devotion.

Death cannot sever the threads of our attachment,

At birth our blood melded us together, never to be severed.

The Before Picture

I received a request for a "before" picture of the farmhouse after getting a lovely compliment on the new "cranberry" colored metal roof. I stood beside the apple trees to take this view and I'm rather fond of it. I'm so homesick for the old place even though the downstairs rooms bear no resemblance to how it looked upon purchase. Tearing down inside walls makes it feel more like a log cabin inside now.

We change the photo on our computer screen every couple of days and you can be sure we have lots to choose from. I came home with 500 new photos on my camera. May can't come soon enough so we can go back and do more renovations. Our spirits are so willing and we are thinking of even more ways to cut corners so the money in the "Cranberry Cottage" jar will increase. So far we've giving up the movie channels for the winter, a savings of forty dollars a month. I'm a real movie buff so that hasn't been easy but now I'm watching shows I probably would never have watched before, one of which I enjoy a lot, Nate Berkus. Can never get enough decorating ideas.

Also watching that reality show about turning your home into a restaurant for a night. They must have nerves of steel. Just making a meal for three or four extra people puts me into a tail spin. I like to entertain, it's just the food part that sets my nerves on edge. Will it be good enough, will there BE enough and why did those darn butter tarts burn? Meals I've prepared for hubby and I over and over can suddenly turn into a disaster when a girlfriend who drives three hours to visit us appears. Where's the logic in that?

Okay I diverse, back to saving money. As you can see my thoughts ramble a lot these days, you should see me in action around the house, I give "puttering" a whole new dimension. I digress, another way I've come up with to save money is "give up beer". Not that I drink a lot, my hubby buys me a twelve pack and it lasts me two weeks or more. I like a single bottle of beer in the summer when it's so hot, it's so refreshing but in the winter, cold drinks don't do it for me. I'm already shivering inside thinking of going outside into the white, wild north. Here in Muskoka, we are in the North Country. Perhaps it's not going to be a huge savings but it's what I came up with yesterday.

To make myself get out for walks in the winter to keep the momentum going for a bit of exercise I bribe myself with a hot cup of Earl Grey tea when I get home. There is something so comforting about coming home, divesting oneself of scarf, hat, boots, coat and heavy mitts to head into the kitchen and plug in the kettle. I'm not a huge cookie fan, although I do have some favorites one being a gingerbread cookie that only comes to stores this time of year, all sprinked with red crunchy sugar. Any cookie that is good for dipping in tea, gets bonus points.

I have stopped buying new or gently used clothes and am making some Christmas gifts. My two adult children always get a cheque as venturing into the dangerous territory of trying to figure out what they might want is too risky. Buying clothes for them has been out of the question for years now. If I ask them what they want and they say they need a new toaster or kettle, that I can manage. Hubby and I will not exchange this year, after all a new place in P.E.I. is quite a gift. Although, he has worn the toe out of his mocassins. I will relent there.

As hubby read the weather report on the computer today he told me of snow warnings for our area and it had started already. So the snowblower might have to come out of hibernation tonight. Perhaps that will help put me in the Christmas mode but it will take a lot this year. I'm thinking of not decorating the downstairs or putting a tree up down there like usual. I saw a great idea in a magazine I might try for upstairs, decorating my 22" Rosemary plant with white paper doves I make myself. I have one foot in Muskoka and one foot back on the island.

Must run now, want to clip some dried, dead looking hydrangea blooms for decorating my front window box. They look rather nice up against the pine boughs I placed there. Drat, that means dragging out boots, winter coat, mitts etc. Well I guess I'd better get used to it. When I first moved here I told people: "it isn't the North Pole, but you can see it from here!"