Portrait of a wood shed...

Here is a photo of some of the wood which will warm us and keep us cozy through the coming winter months. Tom spends hours and hours cutting wood during the spring and summer and many more hours sorting and stacking...I love having a wood stove and there is nothing quite like wood heat. On really cold, wet days, if I'm not in the studio, I will curl up for a while with a good book or a pile of gardening magazines near the stove, sip my tea and eat chocolate and thank goodness for the warmth. There is nothing like coming up the drive in the evening and seeing the long, wispy tail of smoke drifting out of the chimney and knowing how good it will feel to sit in the glow of that stove. I've heard of a festival in Alaska which includes a contest of all the single men and their wood piles and whoever has the biggest and best stacked wood pile wins! I'm not sure what they win but I think it has something to do with a date with a single woman...anyway Tom would be a great contender! He also reminds me of the Bower birds in the tropics who sort and pile all of their special things they've found to attract a mate...

the zen of eggs

Chickens are funny creatures...in many ways, not the brightest bulb, but in other ways very complex and interesting...for one thing they have amazing eyesight and can spot a tiny bug from 10 feet away. The politics of the flock is very precise and orderly...every chicken has its certain place on the roost at night and the que to lay eggs in particular nests is something only they understand...In the summer months, the daily collection of eggs is a pleasure and there is nothing prettier than a basket of freshly laid eggs...

But come the rainy season the chore of egg collecting also turns into the chore of egg washing. Thier feet become wet and muddy which they bring into the henhouse,( I haven't mastered the art of training them to wipe thier feet yet) and subsequently into the nest and all over the eggs. Its one of those chores that no one really likes to take on but once you get going its kind of meditating, like zoning out when doing any mundane job. Before you know it you have a lovely bunch of clean eggs in different shades of beige and brown...

Last year we had an awful situation in the henhouse where some mink got in and killed our whole flock of about 22 hens and a rooster...it was a horrible scene and for the first time in about 7 years we didn't have our own eggs to eat and had to buy some from the store until we could replace our hens. The difference between factory eggs and farm eggs is incredible! Aside from the gorgeous yolk colour, there is the taste and the knowledge that the eggs you're eating come from happy, healthy chickens...Cheers girls!

Armed and dangerous...

Roosters have 2 purposes in life: 1: to make more chickens and 2: to protect their flock. So far our rooster has done both jobs well except yesterday he took the protection part of his contract a little too serious.We usually let the chickens out of their hen yard a few times a day for the free range aspect and because they love to forage the property for bugs and worms and fresh greens (it makes their yolks golden orange). If even one hen has not gone back into the henyard when we herd them in, the rooster will not go in either which is a good thing. What is not a good thing is the fact that he feels threatned by the herder (yesterday it was me) until all the gals are accounted for. So there I am up in the backwoods, trying to get him to come in, since I don't see any other hens around. I am wearing Tom's boots which are 2 sizes too big and I do not have a stick with me, which is usually enough to fend him off should he get nasty. Well when he saw me coming, he went phsyco!! I am talking full on spur combat with the neck feathers all forward and I swear his eyes had little tiny images of Satan himself in them. The more I tried to get away, the more he came after me even when I hid behind a large tree, he came looking for me. I can't imagine what the closest neighbour must have thought hearing me shrieking like a scared schoolgirl and at the same time swearing like an angry sailor on leave. Fortuneatly there is enough bush between us and them so they can't see whats going on.

Giving me the evil eye...

I was finally able to pick up a chunk of a rotten log and threw it at him and he went running towards the hen yard. By this time I thought you F#*#*N so and so, I hope that hawk comes straight down and picks you off so you don't even know what hit you! He wasn't anywhere to be seen so he obviously found a hiding place away from me...I was so shook up and angry and until you've had a rooster come at you with the look of the devil in his eyes, you have no idea how freaky it really is...he must have come at me about 8 or 9 times before I escaped. After Griffin and I got back from our walk, we came up the driveway and look who's way down in the front field but one little hen, non chalantly picking her way through the new garden patch. I don't think she had a clue of the trouble she had caused.

So I got to thinking that I didn't want to get caught off gaurd again, and decided I needed some serious armour.

"hey rooster...look who's the tough one now!"

my new anti-rooster shield.

You better RUN!

By the way...I don't think he knows how ridiculous he looks without tail feathers...we got him as a young guy and he's never had any grow in properly...but we'll keep that our little secret. By the karate like kicks he was sending my way, I think I'll call him Bruce, after Bruce Lee (besides a few other unmentionables!).

site of the day...

So, you know how you log on to your computer to research lets say, a good soup recipe and you end up buying an antique couch from Regina? Yeah? Well that's why I limit my time to the www. Actually I haven't bought any couches lately but I think I'm going to start posting a favorite site of the day and maybe how I got there...this time I was looking at rural farm life blogs and ended up strolling through the digital collection of the New York Public Library. If you love images as I do then this one will keep you busy for hours...here's just a few of my favorites...

Cherry tree...Japan around 1840

Indian dancer

Sunprint...seaweed

Scottish immigrants

Sioux camp

here's the link

Inside...

Its nice and cozy in the studio and I thought I would post a  simple and REALLY inexpensive craft project...my main window faces south and sometimes the sun is glaring in on me, (yes we do get the occaisional sunny day on the wet coast!) I didn't want to block out the light or the view so I dug back into my childhood when we used to put pressed leaves between wax paper and run a hot iron gently and quickly over them....

I used to make pressed botanicals under glass and frame them, so I still have an abundance of flowers and leaves in phone books...these are Queen Anne's Lace flowers...it is a really soft look and they kind of look like snowflakes..

Then I started messing around with some smaller ones for an opening night at the market/deli/cafe that I work part time in (funny enough its called Farmers Daughter!)....

 

These ones are just to put over a small jar with a tea light in them. They're actually an inspiration from my friend Irma Beltgens who makes gorgeous lamps although not with wax paper but a very refined lamination process...

 

Click here for a link where you can see more of her work on her etsy shop...

Anyway so there's a rainy day project for you...

Back to the farm

Well now that my trip to Ireland has finally been documented in its entirety, I will get back to life on the farm..
This was the sky this morning which seems to be staying darker a lot later...

It doesn't take long before the sun starts to peak through the clouds and the world is once again awake and goats and chickens want to be fed..This is Tramp, by the way...he is one of our 2 remaining goats that we rescued from the petting zoo in Victoria..we originally had 6 but the other 4 have gone to that big meadow in the sky...

The chickens LOVE to get out of the hen yard a few times a day but only under supervision since the hawks and ravens like to eat them for lunch..they spend hours scratching around looking for bugs and nibbling on grass...I'm always amazed at how good their eyesight is! They can pick out the tiniest black bug from a patch of black soil...

The Oh so Merry Ploughboy!

Well, as I said, I had left my extra battery and charger in Dingle and wouldn't see it again until back in Canada so our last few days in Dublin are luckily burned in my memory...Stayed a night in Cork at a lovely b&b on the river Lee. It got me to thinking how a lot of these towns are built on waterways and how life revolved around them for centuries before highways and cars came into being....It would be cool to time travel and see how life was 300 years ago in some of these places...We strolled around Cork with its modern Grand Mall and twisted old streets. We found a sleek modern bistro and decided to have some dinner there...really yummy pasta and a few good glasses of wine for me and Guinness for the Da. Luckily the b&b had a big  bathtub for me to soak in after all that driving from Dingle!Took the rental car back safe and sound the next morning and hopped the train for Dublin.Did I mention how much we loved the train travel? So relaxing and a great place to people watch...sat with these really crazy, dreadhead hippies from Poland with their beautiful daughter who was practicing her Irish language skills by reading all the signs aloud.
It was good to be back in Dublin and to see Aja and Robert and spent a few days in the city centre one last time to do some shopping with Aja...our second to last night there they decided to take us out for a farewell dinner up in the hills of Balleycullen at one of Irelands oldest pubs, The Merry Ploughboy.
When I say up in the hills I mean really up there...our taxi took about 20 minutes through twisting, winding, rock walled lined narrow roads to what seemed like the end of the road. And there it was...this pretty old pub/ eatery with the walls and shelves filled with antiques, old posters of the IRA, photos and general old stuff everywhere...We ordered up our pints and food and soon were served up with incredible plates of Wicklow lamb, salmon and fresh local veggies heaped on plates. We sat enjoying our dinner, then dessert then more pints and more pints kept coming...upstairs there was a private show going on for a bus tour where a traditional Irish band was playing so we had a peak in on that and came back down for another pint...before we realized it, the restaraunt had closed and we were the only patrons left...the band had come down to sit at the bar and brought a guitar with them and began to sing a few songs...Aja and I got brave enough to go up and request a song...well the pints kept flowing and Robert and Dad joined in and what can I say except it was the perfect end to the perfect trip....the next morning....Not so Merry...spent the day nursing a BIG Guinness hangover and laughing at the crumpled up bill from OUR share of the night...17 pints...and that was an hour before we left! Anyway much fun was had by all....As for the 29 hour trip home...what can I say..aside from almost missing our connection in Amsterdam, it went pretty smooth with views of Greenland gracing our windows.

It was a lifetime dream come true and it wouldn't have been a fraction of the fun and amazement if it weren't for my most excellent travel companion, my Dad. We were able to see so much and experience so much more than I could have imagined..to be able to dig up our roots and to meet the people who shadow our family history...to hear the beautiful voices of the most friendly people I've met will be imprinted on us forever...