Sunday evening, 11:24 pm

A few thoughts before slumber hits...or i head to the bathroom for some Advil to fight off the headache i've developed most likely due to the storm which is lurking around and about Hamilton.  It sure was a crazy show tonight with the lightning being so bright and the storm being so quick and fierce.  I'm thankful for a roof over my head and for company with whom to have braved the weather. 
This weekend was a full-on, packed out weekend... and my head's reeling a bit from it all.  Friday night Timothy came into town and we went out for dinner - in part because i didn't feel like cooking at all - but  mostly to celebrate six months of dating - hard to believe time has flown so quickly but we are very happy and it was nice to see each other again after a short work week.
Saturday morning, i enjoyed spending time with some people at church prepping for an afternoon wedding reception - i find it intriguing and fantastic to serve with other people - to see their gifts, talents and personalities coming out in ways that don't always seem to peek out from under starched Sunday collars and jackets... so neat to see everyone working together to get jobs done and to see the final end product ready for the masses to descend upon it and devour all our hard work.  I hope to do this more in the future.  Saturday afternoon/evening we spent at Mom and Dad's with the whole family joined together to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of our parents.  40 years is a monumental milestone and we were so happy to be together with all of us, in good health to share a meal and memories, to play games and make new memories to store up and cherish in our hearts and minds.  I'm so thankful to God for granting us this many years with my parents, for their wisdom, patience, guidance and love and for blessing them so richly as a couple.  It is amazing to think that God has been guiding them as a couple for so many years already and we pray that they will be granted many more years together, that we may stay close as a family and learn more deeply what it is to love each other.  I love you guys!
But for now, this has got to be it... my advil bottle is calling me as is my pillow... and i must answer the call!

As i sat driving...

As i was driving back from my hairdresser's place...i came across this canola field - shining away on a kinda gloomy day and looking oh so pretty.. thankfully there was no one right behind me as i screeched to a stop on the side of the road to take some pictures...lovely to see such a splash of colour!

And there was a tree...of course...had to take a pic of the tree...

And then some of it followed me home... looks real purty on a vase, but doesn't exactly tickle the olfactory nerves in a satisfying way to be sure...

Martha Stewart, move over... Danielle's coming through... well, maybe not exactly - my rhubarb was very enthusiastically growing away in the garden (trying to keep ahead of the fifty billion rose of sharon seedlings that are populating the garden at present!) and i thought i'd better do something with it... So rhubarb crisp and rhubarb sauce it was...yum yum!  It sure was tasty!

And this is what happens when the rhubarb grows too big!  Pretty flowers - i thought they were pretty neat so they're now occupying the coffee table...

Tuesday May 24

The weeping redbud was still looking so pretty that he got another shot taken of him...

I know, it's a BBQ, but what else do you notice?  No one else around...yep, just little old me...little old chicken me... but i managed to light the thing without blowing myself up - a major feat as you can ask Carina - i hated lighting the BBQ on Glover Road...

And here's supper... some antique hamburgers from the freezer - no expiry date on them made them suspicious but they still tasted okay -i thought it would be better to experiment on myself - and some spiced up veggies for good measure!

Toetally nailed it...

I have a week off this week - and i've not been able to get myself in gear to go away anywhere - my thought was Ireland but then the volcano decided to erupt again and play havoc with air travel so i've remained at home.... but i did have a little self-indulgent moment - i went and had a pedicure done - it's quite a relaxing feeling just sitting there in the massage chair while someone rubs your feet and trims your nails and ...finds all the garden dirt that you thought you had dug out from beside your nails (slightly embarassing - i do wash my feet once in a while!).  And choosing a colour - how does one do that?  "Susan" chose for me (i have a sneaking suspicion that that's not her real name but that's okay..) and i must admit i like her choice - though it does limit me to wearing coordinating with red colour clothing in the next weeks - no pink allowed - or maybe it's okay?  My puns are trying to come out but they are stuck on first gear and can't make it out onto the screen - words like sole and nail are floating through my brain aimlessly, not finding an outlet for their joy at all... i'm sorry - must be the weather - has me down and dreary...

Victoria Day

 Monday, Monday... what a day... With the forecast looming over our heads as being gray, rainy, showers, thunderstorms, gray, rainy, showers, thunderstorms all holiday weekend, the hopes of getting in the garden were very small and squashed in my poor little world.  With such doom and gloom, what was one to do?  But as the sun kept poking its head out each day on the weekend and sharing its warmth and light with us and making our spirit happy, we could breathe a little sigh of relief and enjoy being outside.  It amazes me still that people who make so many errors at their job - telling the nation that there is to be rain, when not a drop appears, still manage to keep their job.  I'm pretty sure, nope, i'm positive, that if i kept making mistakes like that at work, i'd be sent packing so fast that my head would be spinning... just saying (a new family favorite expression apparently - i thought i'd insert it here for my family's benefit).  So I celebrated Victoria's birthday weekend with a few day shifts - what better way to honour that venerable old monarch than to work hard and care for the sick?!  But thankfully in the evenings, i was picked up from work and even treated to dinner both nights - how nice is that?  Thanks Timothy!  Monday was a day off for all of us and after a languid breakfast/lunch/coffee, we headed off to Mom and Dad's for ... more coffee - we're thoroughly addicted i think!  After our caffeine boost, it was on with the plans.  I've wanted for a while to change up my garden a little bit and add some interest... there's lots of straight lines and angles and for most of you who know me well, i'm like my mother in liking unevenness and curves in a garden.  My parents cut down their curly willow trees a while ago and the branches were waiting on the grass to be fashioned into something interesting - the possibilities are endless in my mother's fertile thought patterns.  So an arbour was to be the order of the day.  It took some thinking out (but no plans!!!) to estimate how many sticks we would need and how tall (just over Timothy's head was our exact measurement!) 
We loaded the van up and packed it all off to the Meadows...i'm sure we had the neighbours quite entertained for the afternoon as they speculated about what our eventual purpose would be.  It took a few hours of arranging and rearranging, drilling, tying, incorporating, digging and sizing up to come up with the final product but amazingly, with four adults of differing opinions, we managed quite handily and without major feuding to come up with the product pictured below.  We're not going into business and we're not opening a landscaping company, just in case you're asking... but you're welcome to come on over and have a coffee or tea in the shelter of the arbour - it makes the garden so much more cozy and i'm so happy with it!  Thanks all!!!

Ooops, this picture uploaded itself first so i guess he thinks he belongs at the top... this was inspired by an article in the Spec - my mom had cut it out and we were trying to figure out how to install this planter under one of my windows or even under an old window frame that i found at an old house, but Mom found my basement window frame and the planter fit underneath like a charm so here's the final product - not grown in or filled out yet but it will come!

Come on over and have a cuppa...the chairs are empty and waiting... i just have to push the button on the kettle or coffee maker...

Same area, late afternoon... nice and shady on a hot summer day

The property is looking like a million bucks - or maybe a couple of hundred anyways...Dad cut the grass for me when he was here and the grass was looking like a carpet of emerald - Mom and I finished up planting the last little bits here and there and i'm super happy with how things look...

This little planter wanted his picture taken too...i'm starting to find and incorporate little bits and pieces of odd stuff into my garden - I love my Mom's inspiration and encouragement to do this - it's great fun!

Culture clash...

 So Timothy and I had supper together the other night - he cooked up a delicious spaghetti and since we didn't have any meatballs, i rooted through my freezer to see what we could put with it.  There was something that looked like meatballs, had kinda the same ingredients as meatballs and might even do good substitute duty as a meatball.  What was it?  A croquette... Now i'm not sure if Italian and Dutch cooks would be shaking their heads in disgust at such a merging of cultures, but in my humble culinarily challenged opinion, it worked just fine. 
We had a little debate over supper.   I grew up with and enjoy spaghetti in a bowl - twisting the noodles on the fork using the spoon as leverage.  And i thought my meal looked the best - nice black bowl for contrast (you have to imagine three croquettes in there - i added another one shortly after this pic was taken - esthetically i know three is more pleasing than two!).  And Timothy prefers spaghetti on a nice white place using a fork and knife to tame those crazy noodles.  Plus he had three croquettes visible on his plate.  But we were wondering what others thought - it's reminiscent of the epic "dishes in or out of the dishpan" debate of several years ago... Which do YOU prefer - bowl or plate?  If you're having difficulty deciding, i guess we'll just have to have you over for dinner and you can decide for yourself!

Buon Appetito/Eet Smakelijk!

A wander through the week...

The tulips came up in odd places this spring - and had to grow long and lanky to get out from under the cedar bush - it's since been replaced since as you can see here it was suffering.  But i couldn't believe how tall the tulips got - i thought i was going to have to stake them up!

Last week was an exciting week - the maple tree was still budding and there were lots of interesting birds flying around the neighbourhood - this was an indigo bunting as far as i could tell from the bird guide that i "borrowed" from mom and dad... neato - i had never seen one of those around!

This was a thrush - as far as i could tell - a fat sorta fellow about the size of a robin - reminds me of The Hobbit - i believe Bilbo is trying to find his way into the Mountain where Smaug's lair is - and the thrush knocks on the rock to show him the way in...so here's to J.R.R. Tolkien...

This little fellow hidden in the branches is a black-throated blue warbler... neat!

And yes, it's spring - time to get the hands down and dirty - this particular episode was after a morning/afternoon of spreading the manure in the garden at mom and dad's - a whole load of good nutrient filled stuff to enrich our poor gardens!

My tulips did this after i put them on a vase - i had retrimmed the bottom and i'm not sure if that's why it decided to assume this unusual form - but whatever the reason, it was neat to see!

It was "Art Crawl" the second Friday of May - and while there was plenty of rain and moisture, there were also plenty of artists displaying their various talents and abilities to the public, of whom there were a lot.  This particular piece was a mask - and the artists took the mask to various places and had taken pictures of people wearing the mask while picking out library books, playing on children's play equipment and various other poses.. kinda funny but creepy too!

And finally, not least but definitely last, my weeping redbud has come into it's own this spring - the first time i get to see it in it's glory - and it is proving to be a beauty! 

Beauty in the broken..

Last week early on... in between the rain showers and mists that the weather was dominated with - i took the time to poke around an old barn that has always been a bit of a source of intrigue for me and my family - we passed it by often enough but never stopped - never really found out what was housed in that mysterious structure.  A few years ago part of the barn burnt down and nothing really much seemed to ever happen there again.  A few weeks ago i drove by and saw that most of the trees in the area had been uprooted and the land was being slowly cleared - i'd guess in anticipation of yet another new block of unnecessary houses.  So time was ticking away if we wanted to spook around a bit and see what interesting things might be lurking in the weeds and piles of junk.  Curiosity won out for me on the way home one night and i spent some time peering around - nothing monumentous was found but a few things now grace my garden - thanks to Dad who came back to the site with Mom and I a few days later and patiently helped us drag out pieces of rusty metal, wire, rocks and old fence posts... and so the garden grows...

 I think i might be turning out a bit like my mother after all... a good thing, to be sure!  Appreciating rusty metal in all its splendour!

 Even a burnt out barn can be neat!

 One of my favorite shots - i loved the red moss...

And of course a sun and branches picture... can't end a post without one!

Ooops, i did it again...

Oops, i guess i did it again - let a whole week and a half slip by without a single solitary post... oh dear.  Well, can i atone?  Can i attempt to make up for my misdoings and somehow make up for my wrongs?  I think so... i mean, everyone feels happy and generous with forgiveness on a day like today right?  I think today was a real present.. a true gift to a grumbling southern Ontario who were mired in muck, mist and much precipitation - apparently much more than we usually get according to the paper at my folks this morning.  I must admit, not having a paper does put me a bit out of the loop in general, but other than the comics, the crossword, the gardening advice and the occasional interesting article, i can say that my life isn't too sad without it.  But I digress... updates are in order.  And so i'll do my best.  I sit here on my front porch, outside, listening to the competition of the neighbours about whose lawn mower can possibly make the most noise.  I am wearing capris, and short sleeves and all the windows are open in the house.  The sun is shining, the sky is (mostly) blue - a few clouds lurk to make sure that we don't fully expect this weather to last, but we can hope.  A lot of complaining has been done the last weeks about the weather and i'll fully admit to doing my share and probably more.  However, dear people around me seek to ground me, make me see reality and realize that there are a lot worse things than 14 days of rain (hard to say without biting my tongue or grimacing).  But there are many people dealing with flooded homes, farms and livelihoods or burnt out towns and completely disrupted lives and so all things are relative - that is what i am learning this week - that we need to remember those who are going through difficult times and always give thanks - and yes, there was beauty in the mist - my dear mother took some beautiful shots of water droplets this week - and i will say that they were beautiful... however... just to put my two grumpy cents in there - if any of you has read Harry Potter, you would know that in the latter books, when things are getting dire and evil, there is a heavy mist that lurks over the whole city....

The Wailin' Jennys

At the last minute, my friend Helen and I headed to Toronto on Tuesday last, to watch the Wailin' Jennys!  We had a great time and watched a fabulous show.  Those girls really know how to sing and and play and it was great to be there... i've had the music on all week and it's wonderful music to pick you up on grey days like we've been having... Highly recommend their music if you need something new and fresh to listen to!
www.thewailinjennys.com/

All things green, and yellow and red and purple...

 It's spring, though we might not yet believe it based on temperature readings.  But the gardens are growing - the tulips are stretching their pretty heads up to the sky and straining to reach the sunshine anyway they can.  This is the first year that i see the weeping redbud flowering and i'm pretty impressed - it's very showy and pretty!

 And then there was the battle of the maple saplings.  My military advisors sought to give me advice on how best to eradicate them from my territory... mow them down, they cried, mow them down!  But alas, they were resilient and hardy enemies and despite being mown down by the awful lawn mower blades, they shook off their newly shorn heads, marshalled their strength and put it all into growing like crazy in order to beat out the next round of death and destruction dealt by the old mower.  But i had the last word in the conflict... armed with a weed-poker-outer tool and a bucket, i systematically made my way across the field of battle and slowly but surely rooted everyone of those little invaders out.  I wouldn't say it was a total victory because there are small pockets of armed resistants but i will keep the ground forces mobilized and ready to wreak out more havoc upon their defiant heads... death to maple keys!

Two weeks ago at the Meadows...

 A random smattering of photos from the Meadows two weeks ago - like i said, i don't know how time gets away from me so fast...But on this completely rainy, miserable, cold morning, it seemed a good time to update things.  The gentleman above is my neighbour.  The reason he "made" the blog is that he is a good neighbour, much to my shame.  He encourages me to help people more.  Every Friday after the garbage truck, recycling and green waste trucks have made their rounds, either he or the lady across the road from me get on out there and bring everyone's bins and boxes up close to the house.  This in itself is a nice thing, but it is slightly shaming on my part since they are quite senior to me and shouldn't be hauling these things around... Next week...

 Last week Monday also i finished my puzzle.  I love puzzling!  I find it extremely relaxing and systematic.  It fits in well in my psyche i think - i like things to be organized (not that you'd tell from my sink after a week of eating meals!)  but something about the pattern and the shape of puzzle pieces and seeing  the whole picture come together in front of me is fulfilling.  Yet, at the same time, it's probably kinda inane since you just put it together, break it up again and put it together... no real end product or gain to be had other than a relaxed mind...Maybe i should take up pottery???

 This was the state of my maple tree early last week - just starting with a green haze on it - now this week, it's pretty much covered in leaves and is providing some privacy again - i love summer!  Don't need the blinds down all the time!

 The newest member of the household at the Meadows.  Meet....Flash.  Hmmm, i know, the name doesn't fit in with my usual bevy of Latin names such as Prometheus, Zeus and such.  But Laura's kids thought it would be a good name for him - they had a friend whose fish had been named Flash and he has now gone on to bluer waters so this is officially Flash 2.  Or Reflash.  Or Backflash... Nah, keep it simple... just Flash...Welcome and hope you stick around for a while!

Hopefully Flash doesn't get too many bad vibes from his neighbour the plant.  The plant doesn't have a name because unfortunately, the silly master lost the tag and on the tag also would have been the watering instructions.  Apparently, i'm not doing something right since it is not looking very happy and i'm not sure if i'm going to be able to keep him alive.  I do my level best but we have not come to equilibrium yet in this matter...

Long time gone...

There's a Dixie Chicks song with a line "long time gone..." which sticks in my head and came out in reference to this sadly neglected blog.  Why can't i manage to keep something like "picture of the day" up?  It's not as if it's a hard, monumentous thing to take a picture each day but somehow, it just doesn't seem to be happening.  True, that half the time i go to take pictures, my camera batteries, much to my chagrin, are languishing in nearly deadness... i can never seem to keep them charged up properly - i should probably have my dad come by, assess them all with his little volt meter thingy that we as kids were super interested by, and get rid of the ones that really don't work.  That would be efficient.  But sadly, i'm not really very efficient - i had to laugh when on Friday i cleaned the house.  I started in one room, then you find something that belongs in another room so you pick it up, haul it over there, see another job that needs doing, do that for a bit until something else leads you forward... i think someday that i should take a ball of yarn with me when i do cleaning, and see how twisted of a web i can weave with it.  But in the end, the jobs do get done, rather in strange order, but done nonetheless.  I just came off a busy weekend... but it was great.  Friday night, i spent some time at the art crawl with Timothy - seeing the many creative (and often times, very "interesting") things that people come up with... infinite possibilities for art.  I wish so often that i was artsy, so much so that a few weeks ago, i decided to buy myself drawing pencils and a notebook - but alas, they are lurking around in my desk drawer begging to come out, eagerly expecting saving from the drawer's blackness each time, but i shove them back, saying, not now... One day i'll have to smarten up and just try it out - i'm such a chicken!!! 

Saturday saw the pancake breakfast, a lot of rain, watching a movie and heading out to Elora for a BBQ. Sunday saw an impromptu family reunion at Mom and Dad's - they seem to be inundated with family on the weekends - i thought it would just be Mom and Dad and the two boys, Peter and Aaron and Timothy and I for lunch - but happily, Lauren and Tom decided to join us for "coffee" which turned into lunch and coffee and such... and then Rach and Mike came too so it was full house... so nice and special to have those times together!  I cherish it with all my heart!  I have truly been blessed with a great family! 
And Sunday evening was Bible study at Eric and Ang's... also, a great time - we had a very far ranging discussion on judgementalism and sins of the tongue - boy, i have some work to do - so often those little sarcastic comments slip out and are not upbuilding - the old tongue needs a better bridle to be sure!  But it was a really great discussion and i learned a lot... how also to build others up with our speech and how important that is!
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

So, now it's Monday and it's raining (again) and it's cold, oh so cold, and i'm so happy i didn't get all gungho on Friday when it was so warm and start planting things as their poor little roots would be freezing out there - my inside thermometer in the house read 13.5 degrees this morning - and silly me, i was wondering why i woke up with a frozen nose!?  So now, the heater has been called back into service and we will hold out for some warmer weather to come our way hopefully soon!!!  Keep warm!

Happy Mother's Day

 Happy Mother's Day to my dear, great, wonderful Mom...Just wanting to say that I love you muchly and I hope you have a wonderful day surrounded by your family!

Monday May 2...

This little beauty was hiding out in the garden and was only found the other day when i went to haul my fiets out of the shed to spruce it up and get it ready for a new season of employment to convey my personage to work.   I think maybe it's an Easter flower but i'm not really sure - any ideas?

From a five year old

So, apparently i didn't clean well enough today... i thought i did a good job but Molly Maid, aka Anna, wiped her little hand over one of my doodads in the window and came away with a dusty hand...
"you sure have a lot of spider webs in your house eh, Aunt Danielle?"
Head hanging....dust cloth flying...Heehee

Fort George, some sailboats and a great day...

 So last Saturday, Timothy and I spent the day together - having chosen a wonderful, beautiful day for a dagje uit...our goal was Fort George in Niagara on the Lake... neither of us had ever been there and since we both like history, it was a good fit! 

First we had a history lesson from an officer and a gentleman... he was an excellent historian (all the docents were) and told his tale very eloquently with funny little memorable bits in between the facts.  It was an excellent nutshell War of 1812 historical review and i must say i didn't remember much of this from school.  The fellows sitting beside me were from across the river and i wondered what they were thinking listening to his tales...

This smartly dressed fellow gave us a musket demonstration - having read a lot of the Bernard Cornwell books about Richard Sharpe,  it was neat to see the whole process done step by step in front of us, albeit without live ammunition - i wonder, where do they get musket balls nowadays?  Does anyone still make them?  Can't be much call for them with modern warfare being all technology, automatic weapons and ICBMs and stuff like that... people don't seem to like standing in lines about 200 feet apart and firing at each other pointblank and hoping that the other guys musket would either misfire due to damp black powder, blowing winds or just plain failure of the flint to spark and light the powder...Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?  So much for the glory of war...  This nice fellow let us hold the musket afterwards and it sure was heavy - probably about 10 pounds - can you imagine marching across rugged countryside, having to carry that thing, plus your ammunition, food and equipment while dressed in an itchy uniform?  I certainly can't - i think i might have deserted pretty quickly...

It might have been sunny, but it was definitely not super warm... the interpreter lady was dressed warmly!  I would have liked to have stolen her gloves!

The good old Union Jack waving proudly in the breeze.. i do like this flag!

Take that, you menace across the river! 

It's spring at Fort George.. pretty yellow flowers nestled in the shelter of the barricades.

The inner part of the fort - it was hard to get a good shot of the whole place but the whole place was basically destroyed during the war, not much left except the powder magazine (which was super neat - totally well thought out as far as safety goes - you needed to wear special clothes to work in there, there was high-tech ventilation and storage for all the different types of blackpowder and thick walls and doors to insulate it against the shock of cannonballs falling).  This fort was totally rebuilt and set up like there was a regiment of soldiers staying there - with advanced kitchen facilities,bunk houses and officer's quarters.  Quite a different life than what we're used to.

The buildings were constructed using old building techniques - i loved the look of the crossbeams..

We were attacked by a troop of mini-red coats who came charging over the field.  I'm not sure if they were something like a scout group or a huge birthday party or some other education group but it was kinda funny to see all these mini-soldiers!  They were even trying to march later on "left, right, left, right, left"

Checking out the enemy across the river at Fort Niagara!

We witnessed the amazing and totally crazy aftermath of the wind storm last week.  We could not believe how many trees were ripped from the ground like matchsticks and snapped in half, huge root balls torn up and almost every other property with one, two, sometimes three huge trees down.  We wondered a lot why certain trees went and others didn't... why one was taken and the other left - isn't there a Bible verse about that?  Some of the trees were likely diseased and weak already and maybe other kinds of trees just don't have deep roots like evergreens.  We were duly impressed to be sure and realized that Hamilton got the light end of the deal to be sure!

Fort Niagara looming across the river - just waiting to pounce on its unsuspecting Canadian neighbours!  It certainly isn't far away and i entertained visions of smuggling goods across the river with a highly advanced plan, however, my plans were promptly evaluated and found lacking by program evaluators and i was forced to abandon my nefarious money-making schemes!   Good thing one of us is level-headed!

A selfie... not too bad for a first go at it!