Yard Work

It's been a busy spring so far, with lots of activity going on outside.  We had planned on going camping this weekend but at the last minute decided we needed a weekend at home to rest.  Ha ha.  Instead we found ourselves digging, moving rocks, caulking, finishing, painting and gardening - coming in bone tired at the end of the night and soaking our bones in a hot bath before collapsing into bed!  It feels really good to be getting this all done, I really can't wait to see it when we're finished (does that day every come???!)  Before coming in last night I decided to stand out in the yard and take a series of photos of the yard, to remember what it was like 'before'!

Here I standing on the south side of the house, where the future solarium will be.  I'm looking to the east, (towards the long fence our neighbours are building, for those familiar with the yard)  As you can see, Jamie has started painting the house - jet black, which he is hoping will work a bit like a chalkboard when we're done!  

A bit to the right, you can see some of the MASSIVE pine trees that we had cut down in the fall (I think 5 all together - and at the time it made sense to save money by just having them cut it and leave it where it fell.  Now we're debating that wisdom.....)  You can also see the smoke from our bonfire pit, which we've had a fire in every day as we try to deal with many of the branches and dead wood around the house - half of it we're piling up along the side of the fore-mentioned fence, to turn into soil, and half of it we're burning - slow but steady!

Further to the right, you can see the beginnings of our garden appearing (and so many more trees we need to chop down - once we've dealt with the other trees on the ground!)  On the left side you can see the red handle on our outdoor water tap - something we put in in the fall, and we're LOVING having such easy access to water right there!!!  (next to our fire pit AND our garden!)

Here's a close-up of another one of the pine trees, Jamie spent half a day cutting it into 'manageable' pieces, and we're ever-so-slowly putting the pieces one at a time in a wheelbarrow to take it to our chopping pile (where we'll have to get a splitter - no way we're chopping these by hand!)  These were BIG trees:-)

Further right, you can see where our garden is coming together, and also the chicken coop that is almost finished (I'll share photos of that soon - need to take a few more - and hopefully we'll have actual chickens in there one of these days, and not just a piece of art called 'the chicken coop'!)

Further right

And yet further right.  It's funny, I know that we've taken so many trees down around our house and in our garden, but seeing these photos shows me just how many more we really do need to take down!!!!!!!

Now we're facing fully south.  You can see where we've moved both of our white tents (which used to be where our garden is now) and that is where our garage will be built.  One day - one year.  Definitely not this year!!!!!  I've also been building up a couple more garden spaces here, as we've noticed this spot gets a lot of summer sun and so I want to put my tomatoes there.

And then our septic field/wood cutting area.  You can see blue and white tarps in the back, and that's covering the massive pile of top soil we had delivered, which we are slowly, one wheelbarrow full at a time, moving up into the garden (and we got horse manure from our neighbours, which we're also spreading on top)

Here's a close up of the two beds I'm creating.  The one thing that Lanark County is well known for is ROCKS and I tell you, we have a LOT of them.  Both of these beds are surrounded by large boulders, all of which were unearthed during the digging of the bed!!!!  You can't put your shovel in the ground without hitting one or two rocks, so it's very slow-going creating garden beds.  BUT satisfying when you get done!!!!!  

And here's another part of our garden, that you couldn't see as well in the other shots - I really wish I could just walk you all around, it's so much easier to do this in person!  But I hope this gives you an idea of what we've been up to - and for myself I'm sure it'll be neat to see how much it changes over the years.  I've already forgotten what so much of it looked like last year or the year before - so much work has gone into this little plot of land!  And we can't even look beyond the garden area - the north side is a disaster of fallen trees and brush!  Perhaps we'll tackle that next year.......

And a couple more shots of of the house as Jamie putters away at painting whenever he gets a chance.  It's amazing how much the wood pops out with the black, can't wait to see it all finished! 

I'll be sure to take more photos at the end of summer, I'll be curious to see how many of our plans we manage to follow through on!  I need an army of Jamie's here for a month - I can't even imagine how much we'd accomplish with that kind of energy!!!  But until then, we'll just chip away here and there, and stand back every once in a while to marvel at how it's all coming together:-)

Tiegs

I've just really noticed how much Ms. Tiegan has been coming into her own lately.....

And what a joy to see her blossom in front of us, pretty much all of her own accord!  I often joke that Tiegan was born into the wrong family, and by that I just mean she came out needing routine and schedule and predictability, and well, she definitely didn't get a set of parents who could easily provide her with any of that!  However, I do believe now that we were put together to challenge each other, figure out a middle path together and ultimately all become much better people because we have each other in our lives.  And these days, not only does life feel so much easier and more settled with Tiegan, I often find myself chuckling at how she 'deals' with us!!!!  A few recent examples:

- I am habitually late.  Even if it's often just a few minutes (which is the same as being on time, right?!) I'm more late than not.  Tiegan gets really stressed out by this, especially when she has to get a late slip to go into her class, and she sometimes misses some of her computer time because she's late.  I usually try really hard to get out on time, and sometimes I can't help that Ry is having a meltdown because he can't find the right shoes and I spill my tea down my pants so have to change them and then I can't find my keys - so it's not really my fault:-)  Instead of freaking out, though, or even nagging me, Tiegan has taken to asking me at 7:50 each morning - "mom, do you think you'll be able to get me to school on time?  Because I still have 10 minutes to catch the bus and I'd rather do that if you think you'll be running late at all!"  And then she gets herself ready to go up to the bus!!!!

- She decided she wanted to take piano lessons, but she's already doing a bunch of stuff and our evenings are already busy enough so I said not right now.  She found out that a woman offers lessons DURING SCHOOL HOURS, so excitedly came home with that option.  I said we'd think about it.  She then came home and told me she'd asked her teacher for the contact info and here it was.  And the next day, asked if I'd managed to call the woman, and if not she'd even gotten an email address for the woman - how can I not follow through after all that initiative?!!!!  (she's on a waiting list for next Sept)

- She decided she wanted to get her hair cut, and nagged me about this for a couple of weeks.  It just never seemed like a good time in our busy schedule, and it didn't strike me as a huge priority.  However it was obviously becoming more of a priority to Tiegan so finally she sat down with my calendar and said to me, "Mom, I've looked through the next week on your calendar and I don't see anything written down on this day and that day, do you think we could sit down and figure out a time that would work for me to get my hair cut?"!!!!  

I mean, who can resist this stuff?????!!!!  I think this girl is destined to go far in life at this rate - or at the very least, she'll be whipping us into shape before we know it!!!!!!!

A Day in the Life - May 2013 (part two!)

From the NAC we went to the park next door where we'd agreed to meet up with Jamie.

It was WAY too hot, so the kids changed into short sleeves and we tried to find bits of shade to hang out in.

And after an hour, with the kids starting to really whine, we decided that Jamie was held up longer than he thought he would be so we walked back to the market to get some popsicles the kids had been eyeing up earlier in the day.  (reason number 622 that I need to get a cell phone one of these days!!!  Poor Jamie showed up 5 minutes after we left and spent the next 45 minutes trying to figure out where we were.....)

Then back to the NAC (where we met up with Jamie, yeah!) for the second show - a play of raven stories put on by Nunavut and Greenland artists - amazing!)

Then back to the car.......

As we were heading down to the parkade, mere moments after this photo, Kea tripped over her feet (she seems to have inherited my clumsy genes), landed on her knees, her backpack came up and smacked her foreground on the ground - very dramatic.  I was kind enough to not take photos of the whole ordeal, and she was a bit upset by the bump on her head but more by the new holes in her jeans :-(

As we drove towards Kanata, everyone was starving so I pulled out the snacks Jamie had in the car.....hard boiled eggs, cheese and crackers, veggie sticks.

Tiegan had an appointment to get her hair cut (after MUCH begging on her part!) so Jamie dropped Tiegan, Ryland and I off at Goobers, then drove Kea to sewing lessons.

I caught up on my Canadian fashion while I waited:-)

You can see why this is the place that Tiegan begs to come to every time she gets a haircut!

Ta-da - perfect hair for this warmer weather!

The haircut took so little time that we slipped over to a Starbucks to have a snack, get used to Tiegan's new look and write a bit of a letter to my grandparents.....one that I'll hopefully finish soon!

Then Jamie arrived

and took us off to a his mom's rummage sale at a nearby church, as she had a cabinet she wanted us to check out.

We didn't end up getting the cabinet, but we did find a few things......

I was sorely tempted to get this rug hooking for Anja's birthday:-)

Back in the car - feeling tired from such a busy day!

We've been straying away from CBC on the radio, as the kids insist on 89.9 or 105.3.  I've been rocking out to a lot of Pink lately, and I'm happy to hear Serena Ryder getting a lot of air time, along with Tegan and Sara - and then a lot of stuff I'd never choose to listen to otherwise!

My hero with a pile of sushi, happy days:-)

And we're heading back to Almonte - this is the series of signs that greets you as you exit the Queensway onto March Road and towards Almonte (to the left - Carp to the right)

We picked up Ms Kea after her sewing

And then headed towards the swimming pool in Carleton Place for their weekly lessons.  Lots of beautiful farms on the way - 

Sushi in the park, on a beautiful sunny evening - thank goodness we found a pure wool blanket at the sale earlier, so we had something to sit on!

Kea happened to wear the perfect socks for this meal:-)

Since we had some extra time, Ryland and I worked on his new-to-him puzzle while Kea grabbed the camera to take a bunch of photos.

And then the last stop for the day - the swimming pool.

Ry has lessons from 6:30-7, and then the girls are from 7-7:45....

Awwwwww, Kea's poor knee :-(

Pool-side entertainment - 

Waiting for his sisters to finish changing - 

And FINALLY, on our way home.......

Past different farms

down Harding Road

and into our driveway!

Nightly medicine (elder berry syrup, vitamin C and cod liver oil)

and bedtime snacks of applesauce.

And then at 8:30 Kea all of a sudden remembers that she has to write a speech to present the next day on Martin Luther King Jr......oy!!!!

The other two brush their teeth

and Jamie changes the water in our tadpole tank  (7 are living so far!!!!)

Book reading time with some books from school - Ry's reading is definitely coming along these days with sounding our and memorizing 'popcorn words', fun to see!!!!

Bed

bath for me (with 1/2 a cup of sea salt and 1/2 a cup of baking soda)

and a little Sherlock Holmes for Jamie!

G'night for another month!