Welcome Autumn! No - wait - don't go yet - wait! WAIT UP!

I don’t know if it’s a farmer thing, a country thing, or just one of his lovely little quirks, but around the first week of July, my husband looks out the window with a mournful sigh and says, “Well, Kimmy, summer’s almost over.”
We were zooming down a concession road the first time I heard my husband say this. It was a glorious sunny day; the wheat was yellow, the sky was blue, the trees were green. I looked at him suspiciously. “Are you nuts? Summer’s barely begun!”
Another big sigh from my man. “Look at that field over there.” I looked. The wheat rippled under the unseen hand of the wind. “When the wheat begins to turn gold, that’s how you know summer’s almost over.”

At the time, I thought my husband was pulling my city girl leg, so I rolled my eyes and ignored him. But after hearing this doleful mantra every July for the past five years, I’ve come to accept the fact that the seasons really do change a little differently up here in the country.

I looked out the window the other day and realized with some surprise that not only was it autumn, but that autumn was already making way for the bluster of winter. When the heck did that happen?

Our newest addition, six-week-old Dylan, has a penchant for 3am partying. This has taken a toll on my ability to notice the world around me, let alone what's going on in the next room. I haven't taken in my solar lamps, dug up my garden or planted my bulbs; in fact, there aren't any leaves left on most of the trees and I don't even recall seeing them fall off. I feel a bit disappointed, because watching the seasons change is one of my favourite parts of living in the country.
During the ten years that I lived there, autumn announced its arrival in Waterloo by turning the giant sugar maple in my backyard a ravishing shade of scarlet. City gardens, once resplendent with their displays of frilly annuals, started to wither, and elaborate leafy wreaths began appearing on doorsteps. Even if I’d missed all these signs, getting stuck behind big yellow school buses on my way home from work was a dead giveaway that the season was changing.

Of course, trees turn colour and school buses zip by in the country, too. But somehow, up here there seem to be even more poignant signals that autumn has arrived. The lake loses its serene turquoise hue and becomes a fitful sapphire blue. Robins gobble every last orange berry off my ash tree, leaving it stark naked. Poplar trees shiver and show the bright white backsides of their leaves when chilly breezes tickle them. Squirrels from over the hill risk suicide to scamper across the road and steal corn, black walnuts and chestnuts from our place. And ads for fall fairs and country bazaars start popping up in the newspapers and on grocery store bulletin boards.

The arrival of cooler weather is always a relief to me, no matter where I'm living. This year I’m even more thankful to finally notice autumn has descended upon the Bruce after the unbearably hot summer I suffered through, heavily pregnant and busy chasing an exuberant sixteen month old. And with the return of cooler weather, I've experienced a renewed urge to cook slow, hot meals: borscht, chicken chili, tuscan bean and bacon stew, carrot and potato soup. There's something so cosy about chopping vegetables and concocting something steamy while looking out the kitchen window on a stark fall landscape. And it's immensely satisfying to hear my husband, that lover of summer and barbecues and hot weather, say "Kimmy, you make the best soup I've ever tasted." (That's right people: even better than his mother's! There is no higher cooking compliment, in my book.)

My bulbs may not get planted this year, and my garden gnomes and lanterns will likely taste a hint of frost before I find the time to safely stow them away in the garage, but Jade and I managed to get our pumpkins and 'mums in place just in time for Hallowe'en. And we've got a few more weeks to breathe in the crisp, leaf-scented air on our walks before winter knocks on our door with a frosty hand.
Summer might be over more quickly in the country, but the advantage is that I feel as though autumn envelops me completely. At Someday, I’m surrounded by the season instead of simply observing it through my windows. Well, I’m sure I’ll feel that way again next year when life isn’t a happy blur of nursing and diapers.

The Sunday Afternoon Drive: MacGregor Point

If you grew up in Ontario, chances are you spent time at an arena learning to skate. You probably even tried out the nearest outdoor rink, usually a flooded and frozen basketball court in a nearby park. If you were really super lucky, your parents built you your VERY OWN rink in your VERY OWN backyard. I was one of those fortunate kids who had a persuasive mother and an obliging father and therefore, her very own outdoor rink.

All sorts of related rinky memories came rushing back to me this past weekend when D and I took Jady Lady skating at MacGregor Point national park. Before you freak out, let me clarify: my child is not a sporting genius and did not strap on pint-sized skates at 8 months old. D did the skating and pulled her around in her fancy new sled while all the other children watched in envy.

The park is huge and offers lots of funky winter activites, like winter hiking, skiing and snowshoe trails. Best of all, there's a fabulous outdoor 400m long "skating circle" nestled in the midst of the woods. I've been dying to go ever since I heard about it last year and D, in his husbandly wisdom, suggested the outing over supper on friday night. Sometimes that guy says exactly the right thing.

Skating on an outdoor rink requires a certain knack for navigating bumpy surfaces, stray branches and errant clumps of snow. Outdoor rinks usually aren't groomed, and this one was no exception. It was a jigsaw of cauliflower-esque lumps, gouges from enthusiastic skaters and deceivingly smooth patches. Seeing as how I'm learning to skate in brother-in-law C's old hockey skates - completely different from the figure skates I grew up using - I resembled a drunken ballerina. Wee children were passing me. Squirrels ran faster than I skated. D, on the other hand, was the epitome of effortless grace. I love watching him skate; years of hockey have given him speed, power and balance, things I covet even more than I covet his naturally curly hair.

Jady seems to enjoy the outdoors. At least she doesn't scream or whinge. Occasionally she smiles up at us from the comfort of her sled, but usually she just stares in wide, blue-eyed wonder at the snow, the trees, the clear winter sky, mummy's goofy helmet and daddy's long legs. I'm glad she doesn't hate winter and can tolerate the cold. I forsee many more afternoons outside with baby Jade, and I can't wait to strap teeny tiny little skates on her in a few years and glide (okay, flail) around together on our very own outdoor rink at Someday farm.

Merry merry!

One sister arrived from Australia last week, and the other arrived from the 'Cow a few days ago...so I've been a happy, busy little camper and blogville hasn't been on the tour as of late. Don't worry though - I'll be back moaning to you in bloggy form come January when they've both abandoned me again. (sigh)

Sissy and I decorated our tree on Sunday. We are woefully behind in all things Christmas-decorating related and D only cut down our tree on Saturday afternoon. It's amazing how different Christmas preparations become when you have a Jady Lady in your life! Last year, I had the decorations up, cookies baked, jam made, presents purchased and wrapped all well before the 25th. This year...well, I'm just thankful we have a tree at all!

This year, I used violet and green bulbs (yes, it's a not very subtle homage to Jade Violet), along with the antique Russian glass ornaments my sister in law got me last year. I thought it looked pretty. Kind of minimalist. Then I proceeded to wreck the entire effect by tinselating the darn thing. Sissy said the tree looked "naked" without tinsel. I never use the stuff, but found a mound of it in a bin and did what I thought was a bang-up tinselly job. D came in, took one look and informed me it looked as though a boy in a hurry had done the tinsel job. He kindly removed the offending gobs of shiny stuff and patiently showed me the proper way to hang it - one bloody strand at a time!? No wonder I never use the stuff.

So, here it is, the eve before Christmas eve. I've finished my wrapping, written my "to do" list for tomorrow, the fire is pleasantly warm and I'm dog-tired. Jady is going to waken up any second now for a feed, so I think I'll eat a few chocolate Turtles and head to bed. With any luck, D will join me and we'll have a good night's sleep before the festivities begin. Merry Christmas to all my friends in Bloggerland - have a wonderful holiday and try to be nicer than naughty.

5 Things I love about...

To commemmorate having achieved my 1000th comment (THANKS my bloggy friends! You rock!), I think I'll start a new series. Every month, I'm going to list some stuff I love. Don't get me wrong: I'm not becoming Pollyanna or Anne Shirley or (shudder) Oprah. Wenching, whinging and venting are highly necessary in many cases and will still occur on a regular basis in this blog. Consider these love-ins small antidotes to the grouchies.

Today, I present: Things I love about my house. You know, I really loved my old yellow brick house in Waterloo, but you could fit about 3 of them in our place here at Someday. There was hardly any closet space at 139 Moore and the neighbours were so close you could reach out the window and patty cake them if they did the same thing. Living here makes me feel like a woman instead of a girl, and that is a good thing. Why? Here are 5 reasons:

1) The heated floor in the bathroom

I was prepared to live with a run-down, beat up bathroom, avocado-green tiles and all, since we were spending so much on insulation and windows. And then the contractor showed me the mould behind the tiles. And under the floor. And behind the walls. And voila! A great reason to re-do the bathroom. Although I never pictured myself as someone who would have heated ceramic tile. That was what rich, retired, older folks had, not young-ish, working, poor-ish people. But now that we have heated floors, I'm afraid I can never have anything else in my bathroom again. Ever. It's so luxurious I want to lay on it naked after every shower. Oops - did I type that out loud?

2) The balcony
It's off our bedroom and it's the sweetest little white balcony I've ever seen. I feel like a less hormonal Juliet when I stand on it. It's fun to catch glimpses of the sunset or the lake through the tree line, and I could even see fireworks in Point Clarke on Canada Day if I leaned just the right way. D got trapped up there this winter while dismantling my balcony Christmas tree (don't ask). Last year I painted it while in my bikini; it was fun getting honks from passing cars (although likely they were all from D's cousins).

3) The fact that I can see a tree from each and every window
Blue spruce, mountain ash, maple, pine, lilac and crabapple. 'Nuff said.

4) Our ridiculously big bedroom
When I begged D to please knock out the wall between the balcony room and the master bedroom, he gave me that look I have come to know as the "Geez Kim, you're crazy" look. I grew up with a big, airy bedroom of my own. He grew up sharing a small room with two brothers. So in his mind, the enormous bedroom I had envisioned was impractical, over-the-top and slightly insane. To me, it was a necessity. But I wore him down with pleading and my favourite line, "I hardly ever ask you for anything...can't I just have this?" And you know what? He loves our big, balconied bedroom just as much as I do.

5) The bookshelves

On the east wall of our living room are two built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. This is a far cry from their previous makeshift cinder block and nasty Ikea homes. I adore my books; they're like old pals and I often re-read certain ones. They are good company, and it's very satisfying to finally give them a classy place to rest.

I could go on and on about the many lovable qualities of our home. Sure, sometimes we get frustrated with the fact that it's old, the water smells like bad egg salad and it will always need a bit of work to keep it from looking unkempt. But it's pretty much everything I've ever dreamed of. Add an awesome husband and a sweet baby girl to the mix and honestly, what's not to love?

I'll have a blue Christmas...

Christmas can be a strange and beautiful time. On one hand, feelings of love and warmth and goodwill flood the heart. It's a time for generosity, family, food, drink and laughter. But there's always that brief but poignant stab of longing for people who are no longer present, for old times and old traditions no longer practised.

I have been missing Rose and Nana quite a bit; the first Christmas "under the sod" is always the hardest. It's hard to watch my husband's neice enjoy her first Christmas without wanting to stand up and shout, "Rose should be here too!" She'd be eight months old. I stood in front of our tree yesterday and I swear I could see her, reaching for the ornaments, crinkling tissue paper in her tiny fists, grinning over her first present. We probably would have stuffed her in some ridiculous Christmas outfit like most parents are wont to do and taken pictures. There are still times when this house feels miserably empty without her.

I always think of my mother at this time of year as well - the queen of all things Christmas. Her supper table was a masterpiece of red and gold and white each year, heaped with delicacies like her cream-cheese-dilled-mashed potatoes and mashed turnip so delicious I would eat it cold the next day for breakfast. I tried to honour her memory a little bit by decorating the dining table lavishly and making crepes on Christmas morning for D and his family. Mom always did like to make a splash on the 25th.

And no Christmas thoughts are complete without dear old Nana. I'm thankful we spent at least one last Christmas together last year before she died. Her birthday is Dec 24th and this year I coaxed D to get Chinese take out, as Nana used to like doing that around the holidays. My shopping list felt strangely short - for the first time since I was little, I wasn't racking my brains trying to think of the perfect gifts for a 96 year old lady who had everything. And boy, did I miss it.

My beloved sisters (and nephew) are spending the holidays together in Australia this year and I miss them too - even when they call long distance in 35 degree weather to inform me they're heading to a resort for an afternoon of cocktails by the pool. Humph! (I hope the mosquitoes got you - hee hee)

Snuggling with D on the couch on Christmas afternoon, watching some old home movies of his family from the 60's the 70's, chopping down and decorating our tree, taking Neko for her traditional Christmas evening walk - these are all good things that I cherish. Yet it's funny how a few unhappy memories seem to skitter across one's brain at this time of year, unwanted and uninvited. For example, I was wrapping gifts the other night when an image of worst Christmas of all time (2004) interrupted my moment of Santa serenity: after a miserable holiday feast at my then-husband's family's house, where he'd seemed ill at ease with everyone and me in particular, he confessed that he didn't love me anymore. Ho ho ho indeed!

I'll never forget the awful gifts he gave me that year either, which made sense after his yuletide confession. They were absolutely devoid of any sentiment or affection: a set of measuring spoons, a hideous huge apron that didn't fit, and a purple laundry basket. Sure, I was just starting up my preserves business, and yes, my favourite colour at the time was purple, but I mean, REALLY - Merry Christmas wife of almost 10 years - here's a bunch of utentsils & a laundry basket?? I should have skewered him with the sharp end of a broken tree ornament. To top it off, he stuffed a can of Pepsi in my stocking, knowing full well that I loathe Pepsi and adore Coke. No one deserved a lump of coal thrown at his head more than my ex that year.

Thankfully, memories like these, although still slightly prickly, no longer have the sting they once had. It's next to impossible to linger on nasty bits of my past now that I am blessed with the love of a good man and his family. So I paused in my wrapping (purple paper, which must have triggered the laundry basket incident) just long enough for a head shake, an eye roll and a rueful giggle.

I truly am blessed these days, and it's good to remind myself of this daily, but the holidays do give one time to pause and consider the past, savour the present and turn hopefully toward the future.

Muir Woods: the silent forest

My boss told me that she'd taken her son to Muir Woods because it was the place where Return of the Jedi had been filmed. I groaned inwardly, thinking, oh great - a forest full of majestic redwoods, desecrated by Ewoky marketing crap. But we went anyway. We needed some respite from the craziness of SF.

D and I braved an hour of hairpin, butt-clenching mountain roads to get there. I stepped out of the car in the parking lot and was amazed to see a puff of my breath cloud the air. The temperature in SF had hovered around 18 degrees; in Muir Woods, it was 9! On went a pair of pants under my new dress; on went the touristy San Francisco wind breaker D bought me at Fisherman's Wharf; on went my pink socks and running shoes. Only Ewoks would see me, right?

I'm happy to report that Muir woods remains blissfully Lucas-free. The only advertisement I saw was a sign strictly forbidding the feeding of baby chimpmunks ("We know they're cute, but please don't feed them.") There are dozens of trails you can take, most of which meander through the never-ending cathedral of towering redwoods or past trickling streams.

The air was crisp and pure. I felt as though I was drinking in gallons of oxygen - my city-starved lungs seemed to stretch open to twice their size.

I wish I could describe the silence of those woods to you. We felt we had to whisper most of the time. D tried speaking loudly, but the woods swallowed up his voice as though he'd spoken in a vaccum. I half expected to see something mythical coming towards me through the waist-deep ferns - a unicorn or one of those elves from LOTR. Instead, we met an assortment of hikers and tourists, all of whom greeted us in their native language. Muir woods was the only place we visited on our vacation where that happened. I don't know all redwood forests lend themselves to a sense of community and friendliness among strangers. If they do, we should all spend a couple of hours there at least once a week.

Next: oranges and avodados and cotton, oh my!

Merry (drunken) Christmas!

I'm so lazy, I didn't even post a Christmassy blog. Naughty.

I won't go into boring detail about the amount of food I consumed, the presents I received or all the bloody relaxing I did. I would, however, like to document for the sake of my grandchildren the night we decorated the Christmas tree.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my bro-in-law C brought home a lovely soft-needled fir tree for me, about 9 feet tall. It gets set up in the living room, under the apex of the 12 foot A-frame ceiling. I decreed Thursday evening (20th December) to be the eve of decoration and was informed laconically by C and D that I'd be doing it myself. Huh.

Well, that would be no different than other years. Ever since I've lived under my own roof, I've always decorated the tree myself. Usually I indulge in a snort of some fancy liqueur (Alize is my holiday favourite), flip through the channels until I find a suitably stop-action animated Christmas special and do my business, untrammeled by any outside opinions. Since my recent "with child" status nixed the joys of alcohol, I made do with a wine glass full of taboo Coca Cola.

C begrudingly hauled out several giant boxes of decorations from the depths of his closet. The sheer volume of ornaments might seem weird for a single guy, except I know his mother probably showed up with them on his first Christmas living in Blair's Grove. (She is the unofficial and underappreciated supplier of all necessities here) The decorations are mostly red and gold and gaudy. I had purchased a few tubes of green, silver and gold balls, fondly believing I'd be able to hang them on the tree at Someday farm this Christmas; I decided they'd look just as nice on the Blair's Grove tree.

No sooner had I begun to sip my Coke and contemplate the look of green on green than D and C plunked themselves down in the living room, staring at my handiwork. Oh, I thought, an audience! How nice.

My warm fuzzies disappeared the moment C declared, "Something's missing," went to the stereo and cranked Anne Murray at full power. Gentle reader, I hate Anne Murray. I hate her velvety voice, I hate the way it sounds like she's always smiling when she sings. I don't care if she's Canada's most beloved songstress. I hate her. Don't really know why - I only know that I do. And D and C LOVE her. I mean, REALLY love her. And they have a double CD of Anne Murray Christmas music. Which I had to listen to as I decorated.

It was when Anne was belting out "Christmas in Killarney" that C began to critique my ornament hanging skills.
"That one should go a little further to the left, there, Kimmy."
I moved it to the left.
"I wouldn't just put that there green one so close to the other green one. You gotta mix 'em up a little."
I mixed them up a little.
"Well, how come you're not usin' these silvery ones? See, they go like this, against the light so it shines through."

At this point I tossed my Coke in his face, set fire to the tree and frisbeed Anne Murray into the snow. Okay, I didn't do that, but only because I was arrested by the sight of D. He had disappeared to the basement during C's critiqing session, and now reappeared wearing his younger brother P's childhood hockey helmet and clutching a bottle of homemade hard apple cider. The boys' cider deserves a blog of its own; suffice it to say that it makes women want to fling off their panties and men act 20 years their junior. Which explains the helmet.

"I gotta wear it for protection if I'm gonna help you decorate this tree," he explained as he mounted a rickety chair to help hang tinsel at the top of the tree, uncorked cider bottle in his free hand. Huh. Right.

Well, with C and D's "help," despite the Anne compliation of death soundtrack and liver numbing swigs of cider, we got the tree decorated. And it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. The finishing touch? C's electric toy train set, which is ceremonially placed around the circumference of the trunk and played with during the Christmas season, usually when I'm watching my programmes on TV. Yes, it makes a whilstling train noise. But at least it drowns out the Anne Murray.