Rustic Revivals

I am no where near ‘springing’. BUT… Spring is NEARLY here (lots and lots of snow and ice, still, but warmer days) and the recovery from my surgery is finally getting to the point where I can be sitting upright for longer periods AND utilizing my brain better (less pain meds) so…. SOON I may be writing regularly again, if not about my own farm activities (nil since end of October) then at least I…

Pell’s Hell’s Bells, Sin, and a Cardinal Christmas?

When Richard and I first lived together in ‘cardinal sin’  we called our little house “Cardinal’s Inn”. It was overflowing with his grown children and we never had much time or space to ourselves.  But now at Blue Belldon Farm we are lucky enough to have plenty of it… And in both places there was always at least one red cardinal who fluttered past our windows on a regular basis, (although I have…

Yes, I know some of you do not have snow, but we had our first big snow storm at the end of October and have had several more storms since then – and big winds as well!  So, there’s a lot to do outside as well as in! Richard IS very much enjoying his new ‘toy’, though:

He decided his hip couldn’t handle pushing our snow blower up and down the laneway again this year.  Personally, I’ve always thought that in winter our entire laneway and parking lot/barnyard doesn’t need to be plowed, – we could just park near the front of the house and leave the rest –   but R. still is a bit of a  suburban Yuppie in some of his thinking. He feels ALL areas should be cleared – and by cleared I mean RIGHT to the pavement (which of course only causes more potential for dangerous falls on ice in my opinion, but we have this argument several times every year and I never win).  Thus, we got the attachment to the John Deere this year and his brother once again came to the rescue with help in this big endeavor:

I can’t seem to get Richard to protect his head (and mustache) properly though, and he always comes in with icicles hanging from his eyebrows and upper lip.  I looked at getting him a plastic ‘tent’ for around the top of the mower as a Christmas gift but a) they are pretty expensive considering how much we already spent on this contraption, b) we try not to BUY gifts for our family, just make them and c)  you all know how I feel about adding ANY plastic – even a piece of Saran Wrap – to my carbon footprint, so I didn’t feel that was a good choice.  Of all the hats and toques Richard’s been given over the years JUST since moving here, including  a balaclava which would help the stache-icicle problem, and including the red one with the pom-pom which his mother bought specially for all of us to MATCH, in Christmas 2016 and which he REFUSES to wear…

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(The last hat is from the CBC show Still Standing – one of the producers gave it to me for doing some admin. for them getting the still photos they used, and getting waivers signed,  etc. and I passed it on to Richard last Christmas as it’s a lovely green!  If you still haven’t seen the episode in which we/New Denmark appear, the link is here:

https://watch.cbc.ca/media/still-standing/season-4/new-denmark-nb/38e815a-00f0c4c14f4  )

…the one he seems to now be preferring is one that isn’t MEANT to be his!  His brother gave him a slightly used winter coat for ‘good’ and inside the sleeve was tucked his BROTHER’S favourite toque.  Which Richard has now taken a Finders Keepers motto about and decided it was MEANT to be his own!

We thought it would be nice if we gave our old snowblower to neighbour Pierrette and her son Zeb who have helped us out so much since moving here, and who live like hermits WAY back off a tertiary road in the middle of the woods. So hubby just went past my window again making sure everything is working properly before we turn it over to  them. And yes, that IS his brother’s toque covering most of his noggin. Again. Plus he’s wearing the big black parka Mom gave him last year to  – ‘cover what little bum you have whilst snow-blowing!’

Another snow-job is to get food out to Chevy who, until he leaves to go to his wonderful new owner Dec. 13, has been allowed to have his summer pasture area still open to him.  When the snows get heavier this isn’t possible as they cover the electric fence, but for now he’s usually found WAY up at the top of the hill, and Richard likes to feed both him and Cammie up there sometimes as it keeps the stall and corral area cleaner.  So, out comes the toboggan and away goes the food:

Sometimes, though, when R. thinks he’ll have the luxury of dragging back an EMPTY toboggan, others have a different idea!

In the meantime I haven’t been out of the house in a month.  One month yesterday, to be exact (more on that in a moment).  I am most comfortable in bed, as it has the best view, is supportive in the right places, allows my legs to spread out away from each other so the knees don’t touch,  and has enough space to spread my various projects out around me. The couch offers none of these, but once in a while I go into the living room for a change of scenery and to have a fire in the fireplace.  If my poor over-worked hubby (don’t feel too sorry for him, he’s spending MOST of his days cuddled up reading or napping!) is willing to make us a cozy fire, that is, since I can’t go fetch in wood myself or even stoop down!  I am primarily involved in writing a stage musical, one that’s been hatching slowly on the back burner (talk about mixing metaphors!) for some years now.  And I needed to do some research first, so since I can’t go to the library these days (getting in and out of the house is painful, and even more so is getting in and out of the vehicles!) one of the things I LOVE about the province of N.B. is that you can mail-order your books!  A big black pouch arrives in your mailbox, and you just put the return label on and send them back when you’re ready – for FREE! So, without giving too much away about my musical, you can get a glimmer of some of the subject content from these:  (I know any cousins or extended family will know where I’m likely going with this subject matter…) :

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The next problem I faced, however, was that while most of the script (‘BOOK’, in correct musical theatre lingo ) and the lyrics to more than 20 songs have been written in the last month I could NOT sit at the piano to compose.  Sitting with my legs bent, as an upright piano necessitates is painful. So I asked for a melodica for Christmas and my mother very kindly arranged to get it here well in advance and allow me to have it right away. So, most of my days are spent like this:

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Which the cat just HATES because a) until the last 30 days,  he’s used to having the bed uninterrupted all day long with plenty of room to spread out and b) neither he nor Smitty can STAND the sound of the melodica. Smitty comes up to the bed and whines, and the cat tends to run down to the basement yowling in anger.  I also am having hot flashes again (thought I was done with those a year ago, so I can only guess it’s thanks to complete lack of exercise now) and I frequently have to throw the blankets off my legs- which in and of itself is cause for a hefty scowl:

As many of you will know, especially if you follow my FB pages, I come from a shortish line of theatrical as well as musical and literary personages. “Song’n’Dance” men as well as women! And by that I mean we can tell a good fictional tale as WELL as literally treading the boards. Grandma Johnson wrote many novel manuscripts which were never published because she only tried once, was told she needed more ‘boudoir’ scenes and never approached another publisher… I have a trunk still full of most of these manuscripts which I always promised her I would try to do something with one day – not that SHE cared, it was wholly my own idea to not let those years of writing be completely wasted (possibly, because I feel like all my own years of writing are being wasted in the same way!) “Like Grandmother, Like Granddaughter” in more ways than one, then.  This first pic was Grandma J (Ivanel) circa early 1930s, and the bottom, from one of my newspaper clippings, is me in similar pose (although you can’t see the red blinking lights on my nipples —- I was playing one of the prostitutes in “No Sex, Please – We’re British”. Which really should have been Grandma’s motto considering the reason she stopped approaching publishers! )

Since writing, music and drama have all been such an important part of my life (and in fact my degree was a combination of all 3, as Queen’s allowed for an Artist in Community Education B.Ed. if you had experience in at least 3 facets of artistic life and a previous degree in 2 of them!  Eek! ) I decided to also base my musical on an important-to-Canada family who have all 3 as an integral part of ITS life.  And who also, as I do daily, fought to keep the environment protected.  (AND who, incidentally, have several towns of Perth cropping up in their various lives, as I have had 4 of them be important to me!  There’s a LOT of Perths out there! )  I didn’t think this musical would ever actually get written until, on October 26th Assistant Perth-Andover Choir Director Sandi Tattersall and I did a ‘ditty’ (“What Baking Can Do” from the musical Waitress by Sarah Bareilles)  for a charity show:

At one point I was to go behind Sandi as she sang a lovely and upbeat solo verse (she’s got an amazing voice and has had proper singing lessons for years, so it would have been MORE fitting if I’d just stayed behind her through the whole thing!)  and duck from one side to the other of her.  As my ‘good’ knee had already gone fairly ‘bad’ at this point, this ducking/deeking was pretty much the end of it. CR-A-A-CK !

I tried one time after that (on Oct. 30) to make it to the choir rehearsals for our Christmas concerts and knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep going.  Richard, incidentally, IS still going and they had a very successful first concert  on Thursday night with a few more to go.  I missed the concert season in the spring from having that 5-week virus, and now I am missing this whole season as well. Very frustrating!  HOWEVER, as the love of the performing arts has CLEARLY been passed on to my 12-year-old nephew, who at this time last year was on European tour with the Atlantic Boychoir, I am NOT missing out on his first-ever singing solo. AND it’s in a professional cast of over 130 with his mother accompanying the show as part of the small band/orchestra they’ve hired.  This is a BIG deal!  Sydney is even mentioned in the Arts & Culture Centre’s flyer as a featured performer, which is pretty amazing for a kid, I think:

There are 5 performances (one’s a matinee) next week with sold-out crowds of over 1,000 people at each performance —- and Mom has already flown to St. John’s to help with all the extra craziness going on in a musicians’ household at the run-up to Christmas. Of course my sister always plays, as part of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, for the annual Nutcracker concert, the annual Messiah concert, and has numerous other gigs right now, as does Sydney with his school concerts, his ‘cello, his viol-de-gamba, his choral singing with the Boychoir and now soloing in the big Diva’s show.  That’s “big Diva’s show”, NOT ” Big Divas’ show “. Please note difference!  He’s singing the gorgeous melody from The Greatest Showman, called A Million Dreams. If you haven’t heard it, you MUST; it’s luscious.  Here’s the young lad , Ziv Zaifman, that sang it for the soundtrack. No doubt there will be no recording done of poor Sydney’s efforts, as seems the case with most of his performances, and of course we lowly family members (even those who have to province-hop and go doped up on painkillers and in a wheelchair!) can’t take recording devices into theatres, so this is the closest we’ll likely have:

I DID, however, do up a little ‘gif’ of my sister playing for the Divas show last year (they had an Irish/Celtic theme then) and of Sydney on CBC radio last month for the Boychoir.

As you’ll have noticed in the above, like me, my sister is very dramatic, facially – especially when playing.  Some of you may remember that she has always been this expressive since our early days playing as children.  However, as you can see by this video of a gorgeous piece by Franck, which SHE just did this year for a charity concert, her playing is unrecognizable compared to what it was when we were children!

Anyway, I leave for St. John’s on Friday, being pushed through the airports and to the theatre two nights in a row (thanks for the ticket gifts, Jennifer!) by the good folk at Air Canada, and my poor brother-in-law!  Wheelchairs courtesy of Air Canada and the Red Cross. Thanks very much!

While I’m plugging Atlantic Canada professional stage shows here, I should also mention that my singing partner from above, Sandi Tattersall, has an equally talented sibling and nephew, the former who is appearing in the professional cast of Beauty and the Beast in Moncton in a few months  (Curtis Sullivan is often seen in a lot of Drayton Productions in Ontario, and I’m sure many of the Ontarioites reading this blog will have seen him in those.  My theatre-loving compatriots from the Stratford teaching days will surely recognize him as the Drayton company has expanded so much recently, hasn’t it?)   Sadly, I don’t THINK my knees will be rehabbed enough to make it to the Moncton production, as I’d planned when it was originally announced, but if you’re in that area (which, in N.B. means – ANY OF THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES!)  here’s the link for tickets and a cast summary:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/th%C3%A9%C3%A2tre-capitol-theatre/beauty-and-the-beast-cast-announcement-annonce-de-la-distribution-des-r%C3%B4les/2400399146645048/ Sandi’s nephew is a phenom. in his own right, and I pray/hope/expect my own nephew may be following along these lines – for the purely selfish reason that I can have years of exciting and proud theatre to see!  His name is Jeremy Leo Curtis and he just finished a run in downtown Toronto as Joseph, in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Jeremy got stellar reviews, one of which – by the Gaisins for the Ontario Arts Review -says: “The title character is portrayed by Jeremy Leo Curtis and methinks this young man has a promising potential theatre career. He can sing up a storm; utilizes his face & posture to advantage; is obviously charismatic…and in addition – movie-star handsome.” 

MORE photos and reviews here: https://www.theatreunlimited.ca/joseph

So, Ontario theatre-goers of whom I know many are reading this blog (despite it supposedly being about how to live self-sufficiently on a homestead in the Maritimes!) – keep your eyes open for Curtis Sullivan and/or Jeremy Leo Sullivan!  Now THAT’S a musical theatre family! (but still not the ones I’m writing my own musical about. You’ll have to wait for another non-homesteading-themed blog posting to find out more about that!)

Also in Perth, and if you’re in the Maritimes you might have heard about this on CBC Radio Noon yesterday,   https://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/maritime-noon     our Choir Director (and esteemed mayor) suggested to her young and massively creative Baptist minister that they do what is apparently a ‘first’ – possibly in the world.  (Remember we sang as ‘angels’ last December for the same church’s drive-thru Nativity? if you don’t remember and want a peek, and yes – one of Richard wearing yet a DIFFERENT toque on his noggin,  see this blog posting:  https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/09/cast-of-thousands/    ) .  Marianne Bell and  the Rev. Michael Fredericks with another cast of ‘manymany; have filmed a series called ‘Online Advent’. Each day, starting today, they will have a little clip of their ‘show’ telling the Christmas story and yesterday on air Rick Mercer said, (even if it MAY have been tongue-in-cheek) that’d he’d consider being in their production another year as it ‘has all the production quality of Murdoch Mysteries’!

Here’s Jessica Theriault , and Sheila Cummings, who sings with us in choir and went to Moncton to Choralfest with 6 of us in October. This is taken from the ‘trailer’ to which I’ve also given the link below:

  Now, whilst musical theatre season (and in England also silly ‘panto’ season!) is very HOT in December, this blog posting isn’t particularly Christmassy OR Homesteady as yet – so as a build-up to your festive season, and to not get off track TOO much (too late!) re: living self-sufficiently, here is what to do when you have lots of fresh goat’s milk and eggs:

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HOMEMADE EGG NOG – take 3 or 4 day-old goat’s milk (want it to have sat in fridge for a few days for best thickness and richer taste), fill up half a blender, throw in up to 6 fresh eggs from your chickies, add 2 tsp. of vanilla, 1/2 a cup of sugar or Stevia, 1/2 cup of vanilla frozen yogurt (your own if you’ve some made up!) and some cinnamon and nutmeg.  Blend it up – if your eggs were very fresh it should be yellowish in colour, but not to worry if it isn’t — and when it’s finished put only a very SMALL amount of rum in, if you wish.  I find more than a dollop ruins the whole lovely beverage, though I know many who will disagree!

Cardinal card by our wonderful artist friend (and my former art teacher!) Jane Wright.  Richard has been inspired by Anne Schultz to suddenly enjoy cardinals again, as he once did… so I might make the next blog posting a Christmassy-red-snowy-Cardinal-based posting!

The mater of the upper suite of Blue Belldon is making shopping bags from old T-shirts we have around and others she’s buying for peanuts from 2nd hand shops. She looked online and, while she found many options, she chose the “No-Sew, Fringe-Bottom” .  She got a lot of red ones, and those will be used to ‘wrap’ Christmas gifts, and then serve AS the Christmas gift when recipients realize they can reuse them for their groceries, etc.

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Just as the now-famous Banksy artwork that got shredded as soon as it was sold last month, Mom is shredding the bottoms of shirts as quickly as she can get her hands on them, and also like Banksy, made her own artwork (sign) on the back of a split-in-half canvas bag she had lying around, and thus (like Banksy) plans to bring attention to her items in this fashion:

The link to make your own simple bags is here:   www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/no-sew-t-shirt-bag   and even if you aren’t as responsible for your part in  keeping our planet from dying, at least it saves you from buying plastic bags, which is what HOPEFULLY all grocery stores, at least, will soon be doing.  Remember, though – take your bags into EVERY shop, not just grocery stores.  If I ever forget and leave the bags in the vehicle, I both educate the check-out people of drug stores, gift shops, etc. and punish myself by saying “darn, I forgot my bags in the truck, but don’t give me any plastic please” and then I make myself carry everything out via my purse, pockets and hands.  Mom hopes to be going to some grocery stores and handing her great bags out for free, just to help educate, if nothing more.

We have GOT to stop polluting the earth (and yes, allowing plastic in your house IS polluting, because it still ends up in a land-fill and/or the ocean.)  If you’ve forgotten or missed earlier rants, see this:

Plastic bags don’t just bung up the works and disallow animal and plant growth, they also release toxins into the earth and water AND wildlife can get caught up in them, often killing them:

It also means the greedy oil companies continue more and more mining, fracking, pipelines and tree-chopping, because of course it takes petroleum to make plastic!

One of my favourite  modern composers, musicians (pianist phenom!), actors, comedians, satirists, humanitarians and environmentalists is Aussie/Brit Tim Minchin. That’s right, he’s in his early 40s and is ALL of those things! (Most recently composer of the lyrics and music for Broadway/West End smash hits Matilda and Groundhog Day, and soon opening in his first big-screen role as Friar Tuck in Robin Hood). Tim has a great little catchy tune entitled “Canvas Bags” – a bit more rock’n’roll than most of his songs, but he wanted people to sing it in their heads all the time, and it WORKS. (This is hardly indicative of most of his enormous body of work, and doesn’t show his incredible piano skills, so please google his name and look for other amazing stuff!)  But here’s Canvas Bags:

And if you can’t make out all his spoken words they go as follows:

Just think about the world And how the world would be fantastic If we could get rid of all the plastic We just need to get enthusiastic Organise a competition, gymnastic Or a bag-making comp at your school Fuck it, make it interscholastic Canvas is for everyone Whether you be rebellious and iconoclastic Or conservative or ecclesiastic I don't care if you're loud and bombastic Or quiet or virtually monastic Sober or on the floor spastic A yoga master or completely inelastic I'm not trying to be ironic or sarcastic Do something drastic To rid the world of plastic

Of course Canvas and Cotton (Mom’s upcycled T-shirts) are also natural fabrics, so this is even better than if you use something with Polyester or other man-made materials! See what you can do to “rid the world of plastic” . Every little bit helps!

The very last of the garden was processed last week, and yesterday the snow flew all day and looks like it’s here to stay. I brought the last of the onions in from the porch. They have to dry out in a shady but windy spot for a few weeks before you can rope them together:

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Then I finished the arduous task of finishing off our Dakota Black popcorn, of which we had a very successful long row in the garden all year. First,Richard and I scraped the corn off the cobs after it had already sat inside for a few weeks drying. That was about a month ago:

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Then I put all the kernels in the lids of my great-aunt’s cheeseboxes and set them on a high shelf in a closet to thoroughly dry:

After some weeks, it was ready to winnow, which I did a few days back.  This involves a fan and a lot of sifting through colanders, hands, etc. to get all the dried husky stuff to fly away.  (Richard then had to go do some sweeping and dusting to immediately clean up all those flying dried shell-bits, so maybe if we’d let them dry less time and done the winnowing outside it might have been better…)

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Once all the winnowing was complete (takes a long time!) we had a winter’s worth of snacks, and as popcorn is the only snack-food we allow ourselves (partly because it’s all we can grow to be self-sufficient, partly because it’s better for you than most snacks!) this made us happy!

I put it in our glass canister, and then we tried popping it a few nights ago.  Doesn’t it look fluffy? You just need to get used to the insides being black, which traditionally makes us thing it’s burned… but of course it isn’t in this case! And Richard does make great popcorn.  His one real ‘kitchen’ speciality (although he’s getting better at making toast!)

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And thus, that’s it for the garden-processing blogposts from this year, and if you aren’t on Facebook to see my postings there, this was Richard and Chevy about an hour ago – he’s reminding him how to drive in the snow, as we have a possible buyer coming to try him tomorrow. We’ll be sad to see him go, but between Richard’s hip and my knees, we can’t keep up… maybe after some surgeries and replacement body parts are made. So, this might be the last photo blog-readers see of dear Chev!        Cammie will be devastated!

I toyed with many titles for this one.  I first wanted to use the homophones “Pane” and “Pain”, thus the above quote. I liked that Joy was in this quote, and all 3 of us are suffering a certain amount of pain right now, at the end of a very long, if productive season outdoors and in kitchens! Not good enough.  Then there was the possibility of the old standby about People with Glasshouses, quoted more properly at the end of this posting. That was weak.  However, as I turned the article into something I didn’t expect in the latter quarter, I decided to settle once more for a title with my favourite Alliterative Rhymes!

There’s a pub in Japan that frequently gets shown on social media, especially the types of self-sustaining and eco-friendly pages to which we subscribe.  The front is made entirely of recycled windows that would have ended up in a landfill somewhere, and inside (see below) they recycle as much as possible also – the chandelier is made from old soda bottles!

While we have been following others’ blogs and pages, and reading magazine articles about the many ways to make a greenhouse, this concept has always been what has intrigued us the most.  Down the road another family lives self-sufficiently and they have one of the metal-arced/covered-in-plastic greenhouses – and they eat fresh greens nearly all year long! (just not Dec. and Jan. and part of Feb.)  This convinced Richard that our seed boxes and lighting system in the basement just wasn’t enough, and he was determined to  “keep up with the Joneses” : 

HOWEVER, to all who know me, this is anathema to my soul!  Imagine me PURCHASING- NEW – well, anything! And on top of that, then having all that plastic on my carbon footprint, only lasting a few years and going right into the landfill after.  We live on a very windy mountaintop, so I can’t imagine that this plastic wouldn’t be ripped to shreds in under 5 years.  Besides, I LOVE the look of old windows, and Rustic Revivals uses lots of them for various projects, so why not have a bunch on hand?  Thus, all summer we collected them from various ads, and from people we heard just wanted to have us take them away. I think in total we spent about $40. for about 30 windows of varying sizes, and another $30. for an old sliding patio door.   Richard had to replace the windows in the Rustic Revivals shop/cabin anyway and I certainly didn’t want anything NEW in there! (before and after shots of that, if you haven’t read this blog for a while, though the windows weren’t yet put in, in the ‘after’ shot !) :

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  Richard being Richard we had to discuss this project at breakfast and lunch at our kitchen table for WEEKS before he was inspired to get started.  We had 3 different choices of where to actually PUT the greenhouse, taking into consideration not only the most south-facing spot for sun, but also how to access it in winter with massive snow drifts from snow-blowing and wind, and still keeping it very close to the garden for transplanting in June… Then he took measurements of each window and went on his computer for another week and made graphs, charts and diagrams.  Then I finally got cheesed off and said I’d have had the whole thing built by now if I’d just done it myself (which, if you know me, I WOULD have!  It might not have stood up through the winter, but I’d have had it standing, at least!)   This was late September, and I was still busy doing a lot of gardening and canning/freezing, etc., but I just started dragging windows out of the barn and that’s what finally got Richard to throw most of his paperwork aside and just deal hands-on with what he had to work with. Unfortunately, he didn’t stick to the HEIGHT we’d agreed on, and things got a little out of control…

Richard was trying to lift these heavy windows by himself out of the barn , and being a Reich, I knew there were bound to be too many breakages this way, incl. his own back.  I remembered that buried somewhere in the barn we had an industrial dolly… and things moved along a little better after that:

Thus, laying out the windows for each of the four sides took some puzzle-fitting and decision-making, but not nearly as long as all the ‘kafuffling’ around at the computer and the kitchen table!

    Once Richard knew the ‘footprint’, he had to start digging and rototilling, which of course the chickens ADORED as they were finding plenty of worms.  He was constantly tripping over them and swearing at them, but when I suggested he leave them in the coop until such time as he was finished, he wouldn’t hear of it! Richard spoils all the animals.  Here he is with a most-attentive Lucy the Layer:

The hens ALSO loved the pile of earth he put aside for spreading in holes all over our ‘lawn’ , so they would run back and forth between the greenhouse space and this ever-growing pile.

By the time Richard was digging the corner post holes, I was back spending a lot of time in the kitchen again, and not really paying much attention… I assumed these corner beams would be cut down to the height we’d discussed originally, about 6 ft. on the front side, and slanting down to just 5 ft. on the back(garden) wall, which is mostly northwest.  And yes, the wood DID have to be bought new, whereas if we were still in Ontario I would have sourced out enough reclaimed wood.  ( I also wouldn’t have used so much wood if I were building this myself! Richard always likes to go overboard on projects, in my opinion, but I’ll grant him that the thing WILL stand the test of time as he’s done it!) But here in N.B. there are no wonderful Habitat for Humanity RE-STORE type places, nor are there many old wooden barns or homes being taken down or restored.  The few there are are just burned, or left to rot… so sad – what a waste of material for something like our project!

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Richard installs the first window.  At this point, I was still assuming that this corner beam would be cut down to what we had discussed.  That’s what it LOOKS like, right?  By the way, in this next photo you can also see that just laying the windows on the ground to get the ‘puzzle’ figured out killed the grass over JUST ONE AFTERNOON!  So you know our little greenhouse is going to be a HOTHOUSE! Thus, Richard planned to keep a few of these windows (such as this first one installed) so that they can still be cranked open to let air in when needed.

Next came the studs. Far too many of them by my way of thinking. I had to keep reminding Richard that he wasn’t building an actual HOUSE:

Same with the roof, but he didn’t want the snow to cave it in, and I suppose he’s right.  It was at this time that I said “why the hell is this greenhouse so tall? I thought you were cutting the corner beams on the south/front down to 6 ft.?”  I never really got a satisfactory answer, either, just “the more sun that comes in the better” and “it’ll be nice and high, you can hang things from the top, and we can grow climbing vines a long way up!”

Then a good period of time elapsed where I kept forgetting to take photos of the progression (and also a lot of VERY bad weather, including 4 days of snow that stayed on the ground!)  But as Richard had gotten the framing done and MOST of the windows and roof up at this point, he was able to stay inside to work on keeping it waterproof .  The roof and the bits of sides that didn’t have total windows as their surface (mostly on the west and north sides)  we DID use recycled material for – the  tin/metal that Richard had ripped off the Rustic Revivals cabin earlier in June!  There are just two sections of roof that have (grit my teeth) corrugated plastic put on, to ensure that some sunlight comes in from above as well, and that some heat may escape (rather than just an all-tin roof!) I really wanted WINDOWS up on the roof, but Richard didn’t think he was up to the task of making that safe and sturdy.

Here, then, is the near-finished project (some holes and gaps still to be filled up) – taken today, before our 2nd snowstorm blows in tonight…  Keep in mind that pub in Japan – doesn’t it look like a mini-version?

The south side, or front:

The 2nd door, and more tin, on the side that faces north, and the shadow of our house:

The side that faces south-west, mostly west. Sadly, for poor Mom/Joy, those are her two living room windows on either side of the chimney, and she now has to look out at what some might consider a ‘monstrosity’.  Especially since it was built 14 ft. high instead of 6!

The south-west and west(back) of greenhouse:

I have always adored old painted doors, with their many textures, mouldings, colours, peelings and characters… Here’s another building made from just such old wooden doors in Seoul, Korea:

This door was purchased for $5.00 at a yard sale and was intended to be a display for Rustic Revivals’ items in the new shop, but when Richard didn’t seem to know whether to put tin siding or “some kind of door” on the north side, I suggested he TEMPORARILY fit it with this lovely:

Incidentally, the garden has been nearly all spread with the dark, lush ‘black gold’ manure and compost that the chickens have spent all summer and fall ‘turning over’ almost daily so it’s in perfect condition.  The other spots in the garden where you see old hay and woodchips are protected spots for over-wintering leeks, parsnips and a garlic patch Mom/Joy just planted last week:

  Wikipedia has an interesting history of greenhouses: “The first description of a heated greenhouse is from the Sanga Yoruk a treatise on husbandry compiled by a royal physician of the Joseon dynasty of Korea during the 1450s , in its chapter on cultivating vegetables during winter. The treatise contains detailed instructions on constructing a greenhouse that is capable of cultivating vegetables, forcing flowers, and ripening fruit”.  And other words for greenhouses that you may have run across, reading books from other countries, are “orangeries” (because the French botanists were trying to protect their orange trees in the 17oos) “hothouses, glasshouses, gardencastles” – like the Crystal Palace-, “conservatories, sunrooms and coldframes” (smaller versions on raised beds). The one I like the best, however, is a “pinerie” – because it’s not at all what you’d expect! These were for the wealthy landowners to grown PINEAPPLES in!

Next week’s blog posting will be about a new eco-project Mom/Joy has taken on for the winter and which will be an amazing eye-opener for many who don’t do their part to protect our environment, I believe. It will also include the full process we have just finished this week of getting our only snack food   – popcorn!- ready for a winter’s pleasurable treat that we have finally grown ourselves.  More work than you might think – but isn’t everything we’re doing?

And regular readers may have noticed I didn’t do my regular fun Hallowe’en post this year, allowing the crows and scarecrows from last week to take its place.  But is that enough?  I think with the use of all these old windows in our greenhouse, we should show a few ghostly faces peering out of the old panes:

This one’s from Birmingham, U.K. See the old lady?

A SPOOKY hooded figure was photographed in Queensland, Australia, in the window of a building where 18th century Catholic trainee priests tried to escape persecution.

  And  perhaps the most frightening – this chimp-boy calling out from the window of a psychiatric hospital in Brecon, Wales that had been closed for 16 years!

And, a house I have visited (near Salem, Mass., where else for spookiness?) and an author I’ve studied and taught, Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables to name a few works) has left his etchings on the window of his old manse, along with those of his young bride’s. With her diamond engagement ring, they wrote the following on the pane, still visible to this day:

Man’s accidents are God’s purposes. Sophia A. Hawthorne 1843 The smallest twig leans clear against the sky Composed by my wife and written with her diamond Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3 1843. In the Gold light.

Here’s the Old Manse and it’s many wonderful old multi-paned windows:

A ghostly book I love with some amazing fables, especially the Legend of Seven Gables is  Jenn Carpenters book entitled Haunted Lansing.  You can read this chapter online as a sample; it’s unbelievable how many ghosts have appeared in the old windows of the 7-gabled farmhouse – and ELSEWHERE there!

Lastly, it may interest a few of you to know that the house my grandparents built in the early 1950s, and in which I spent most of my childhood (either living there or being baby-sat there) was referred to by teasing/curious neighbours as “The Greenhouse”.  Designed by the same architect, Ian J. Davidson, who built the great houses of wealthy folk like Canada’s E.P.Taylor, our place was an odd assortment of higgledy-piggledy experiments, and the part most people saw from the highway was just a long series of windows that stretched all along the upstairs hallway, bathroom and what became my bedroom (facing due north, though, so hardly a ‘greenhouse’). The photo below is taken recently – when my grandparents built it, there were of course NO trees around it, so it just looked like a long line of windows stretched together under the roof.  The tree to the left is a catalpa, planted by Grandpa Johnson in the early 1950s, and to the right, a red cedar planted by Mom/Joy in the late 1970s.  The catalpa is hiding 3 more window panes that were the bedroom windows of a) my father as a boy, b) my grandfather in middle-age, and then by c)  me throughout all of my teens!  So you can imagine how stark and strange all those windows (and no trees!) must have seemed to passers-by for the first 20 or 30 years of that house’s life.  I remember getting teased about it at school as well; kids suggested we were growing a lot of ‘pot’ in there, which idea could ONLY have come from their parents as they drove by!  So yes, I grew up in a greenhouse and got a lot of teasing – but “whose house is of glass must not throw stones at another”… (George Herbert)

  NOTE: Trying a rhyme scheme I’ve never attempted: abaca.  Very odd!

I, as the Oz-man said, I am the one With straw in my head I, the unusual, Not the autumn leaf dead. So many scarecrows I've made The couple with flowers There in the shade Of the autumn leaf dying Though memories shan't fade:

This year at Blue Belldon, see- The Skinny Scarecrow And partner made three (the third on the porch) As students jump the melee!

And though they aren't crows But rather are starlings The blackbirds in rows Along in our garden Don't seem in much fearful throes.

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And for Thanksgiving week-end The primitive crows Made by a rustic shop friend Filled out the basket And fit in to the blend Of autumnal decor Of a long season done Of harvest now o'er When family has joined And request always "More"?

Not "Nevermore" as says the raven But just one word: 'more?', As 'tis our food they're cravin' ! (And for a week, Mom and I In the kitchens were slavin' ! ) That weekend was bright And ever so mild There were lads to play-fight And scamp through the trees- A heart-warming sight!

And back in on the hutch More primitive stuff Some pumpkins and such With white poppies in bloom -Oh the bounty was much!

  And from garden's top In the pumpkin patch We chose all the crop Placed on display Like a proper farm shop.

  Except for just two That were lovely and ripe. Mom made crust new And the pie-fill from scratch Organically true~

  And any pumpkins past prime (Or the bits dug out) The hens got, in time When the guests had all left, And the rest of the rhyme...

...is instead about pumps With no suffix of 'kin' Because the sunset humps O'er the mountains like fire Then the auburn light jumps:

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And a rainbow finds gold As sure as the luck Will ne'er run old As sure as the season Was ne'er seen so bold.

For though Richard eats pie Til there's no pumpkin left To cast All Hallow's die And the autumn is done... "Give Thanks!", we reply!

For though the bright is in fade And there's bleak days ahead We find that in trade Is a time of sweet rest "Give Thanks!" is re-played. The garden is bare, The leaves have all fallen- But we mustn't show care As the harvest had bounty! "Brave Winter" we dare!

    So, with just one more glance At the bright orange sea With no photo-enhance Farewell we all wave ---NOW bring on Winter's TRANCE!

DECOR 

As early as mid-2017, Carriann and Matthieu, from 3 hours south of us in Saint John, approached us about a farm wedding. They wanted a beautiful vista, just as her Aunt Kim had had at her wedding in Quebec the year prior.  Carriann, ever tactful, posed the question something like this:  “We were wondering if you guys know of any place up your way that has some gorgeous views where we might get married in 2018? ”  So, of course, we offered to help in any way we could and offered the farm as a base if they wanted it.  We agreed, wisely I believe, that having tents and the reception here as well would have been too much, so the reception was up the road at the New Denmark Rec. Centre (which has been pictured for you in other blog postings – a real country venue with original stage and hardwood floors, with a gorgeous vista of its own!)

Since Rustic Revivals and Rural Revivals (my two artistic and consulting businesses) have done a number of farm weddings, I offered, as far back as March 2018, to begin making Carriann and Matt’s (heretofore referred to as C and M) choices of items mostly made with their colours: lilac to dark purple and lime green.  (a note: while the couple would have preferred to have had the wedding in June, when our lilacs would have been out in matching splendor as well as the white apple blossoms on the trees under which we walked, we knew the blackflies would have been just too horrendous in that month to have had people sitting out in the orchard (the worst spot on the farm for them). So a year ago it was decided that the wedding should take place in July, near the end, when all the planting would be done and to have given flowers a chance to be blooming. Sadly, as it turned out, it was such a hot, dry summer that not much HAD bloomed (and didn’t until Sept! See last post, Purple Haze!)  And the only day in 3 months that it DID threaten to rain (90 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms all day!) WAS the day of the wedding, but due to a lot of praying and pleading, it was a lovely temperate day with just the right amount of breeze blowing across the valley to keep the insects and heat to a minimum and yet not to topple anything precarious…  Click on any photo to enlarge and read caption:

signage I painted in Carriann’s “Tolkien” calligraphy

had to put a chemical toilet in the cabin ‘just in case’

set out some decor in the birch grove to catch people’s attention from the road

the head table had Tolkien-themed candle holders

detail of the Tolkien candleholders – a little hobbit hole

Richard’s brother Jean-Marc and Richard and I designed this hobbit hole door (and matching window) for the grassy knoll at the bottom of our lower meadow

I organize some bridesmaids to pick flowers and put in testtubes around the wedding area, as so little had grown and bloomed due to the dry summer. Bride’s father Jean-Marc’s job was to spend hours designing and putting up a purple and green shield so the wedding party could come and go along our porch and into our living room for changing without being seen by the guests (also covered up the ugly red brick which clashed with purple and green!)

All recycled – the ring-bearer’s pillow and candleholders

another detail of the head-table candleholders

part of the front of the driveway ‘gate entrance with colour-coordinated flowers and snacks

the gatewayentrance with colour coordinated snacks and flowers

under the birchgrove we had some games set up for guests as they waited for the ceremony or for photos to take place

Richard’s brother Jean-Marc made this chalkboard at Carriann’s request, to act as partially a program of the service and (on the backside) to give directions to the rec centre.

the old arched stick we found in the woods in early May got fancied up for an initial arch under which everyone could walk toward the arches of the apple tree! Too bad those purple morning glories hadn’t been out in full bloom though!

we had to do up 4 barrels with signs to help stop traffic and ATVs on our road and adjoining field tracks so that the service could be as quiet as possible

Some who have followed the renovations here at Blue Belldon may remember this wicker arch (which normally has shelves!) which is in our bedroom and which I picked up by the side of the road in Ontario because someone was just sick of it! We have certainly had a great deal of use from this freebie as it was once in our Rural Creators’ Collective shop in Carlisle ON too!

a colour-coordinated collage I did up for the front entrance to the rec centre

The gift table – old bag, old coffee can, engagement photo I DID take in front of the lilac bush here, and a recycled hula-hoop wrapped in burlap which Carriann’s step-mom Patti-Lynn made for her

all recycled fabrics and the hay bales ready and awaiting guests

Matthieu’s sister did up the mason jars and picked all the flowers and weeds from our farm – I crackled the candle holders to make them look old and shabby-chic and added some fun wedding and triva facts and game-cards, etc. to the tables

the finished side porch that Jean-Marc designed and was mostly responsible for erecting, though everyone put the finishing touches on it – lots of help from parents of the couple and the entire bridal party!

the finished side porch that Jean-Marc designed and was mostly responsible for erecting, though everyone put the finishing touches on it – lots of help from parents of the couple and the entire bridal party!

Let’s never forget the all-important privy in my Rustic Revivals cabin that Carriann and I spent a half-day decorating to match! (In the end, we think only two people went in and used it! – sigh!)

Tiffany took some much better photos of some of the decor around the farm. Comments regarding each are underneath:

At the last minute, I threw some lime green paint on this old frame I had as part of my Rustic Revivals’ hoard. So glad I did, as I LOVE this photo!

  You have followed in an earlier blog the many long hours Richard put in, in hot sun, tearing off the metal from the cabin that will soon become my shop. I varnished the trim and painted some purple and green accessories on just for the wedding, as well as planting the flower boxes with some overhanging purple thyme and white baby’s breath from the garden. We knew it would make a great feature for the professional shots and Tiffany used it brilliantly!

the Hobbit Holee door and window fit so well into the grassy knoll, and this tilted brilliance on Tiffany’s part really made it seem more surreal and magical. The shot below is just an impulsive one of the 4 of us.

While Mom wasn’t at this wedding, having gone to Ontario to give up her upstairs suite for the wedding visitors who were with us for nearly a week to help get the farm looking ship-shape, her presence was felt in the flowers she’d bought and helped plant and water and weed, and in, for example, this purple woven mat of hers that we used to cover the chair

My great-grandmother Lipsit’s tablecloths were on a number of accessory tables for this wedding, but I had some other paperweights laid aside for use on the outdoor tables. Not until Tiffany’s photos came out ten days ago did I realize that Richard had grabbed a crowbar when Pastor Ralph asked for a weight!

Carriann’s brother, Richard’s nephew, Chris has been physically and mentally challenged his whole life, but is an accomplished musician and now can add being Lord of the Rings (ringbearer) to his sister’s slightly Tolkien-themed wedding!

as seen in earlier blogs, we set up a water fountain with some wild animal representation to add some more purple in case all the purple flowers weren’t yet in bloom (which they weren’t). It was meant to collect some loose change for the couple, with people making wishes for them, but as so many of the guests were French I don’t think anyone bothered to read my signs! Still, the purple accents helped with the colour!

Love this photo of Tiffany’s, just showing a close-up glimpse of the couple’s colour choices. Richard actually picked this floral arrangement himself, based on the lime green leaves in the centre. We had to keep it carefully watered for over a month to keep it looking like that in the dry heat! Those are bed sheets on barrels for snacks in the background. ALWAYS upcycling!

another shot I personally appreciate from Tiffany, since I planned hard to offer healthy farm-type snacks but still keep them in the colour theme! Love the wagon wheel in the background, too – Tiff has such a great eye!

Some more of the purple and green recycled, upcycled, homemade or all-natural decor – remember to click on any photo you want to read the caption/make the photo bigger!

at the entrance to the rec centre, I decorated with some of the items C and M had chosen from the Rustic Revivals collection, as well as some surprised that were of a Tolkien or farm-based theme

the special Tolkien-themed candle holders for the head table looked lovely among the flowers that Matt’s sister Linda and the rest of the bridesmaids picked from our gardens that morning

the head table and C and M’s special table above on the stage

Jean-Marc’s homemade wine on some of the guest tables, with Linda’s mason jars and my candle holders as well as the purple and green mints I’d made earlier in July for a bowl for each table

some of the cards I put on the tables to entertain guests as they awaited the bridal party to arrive

more of the entrance to the farm, with snack tables – a close up of the dark purple juice I made for guests

close up of the entrance to the farm, with lace curtain and great view

a colour-coordinated collage I did up for the front entrance to the rec centre

Fruit Juice, Anyone?

a few close-ups of the bows and flowers we tried to make in purples and lime-greens, with Jean-Marc’s side porch in the background

the ‘aisle’, ready and waiting!

REHEARSAL, and REICH DINNER — FRIDAY -CANDID SHOTS:

remember to click on any photo you want to read the caption/make the photo bigger!

Tiffany and Pastor Ralph get Carriann organized at the reheasal on Friday, the day before

Tiffany plans where she’ll stand for special shots as the father and bride practice walking down the aisle

C and M pose with groom’s Mom Yvonne and bride’s Dad Jean-Marc (also, like me, awaiting knee surgery – and we’re two days apart in age! hmmmmm….)

Richard sits with Vince and Yvonne, the groom’s parents. It had been a long week (and day!) of exhausting and hot work and everyone was tired

David Halpine, our self-sufficient neighbour and musical genius, brought his 3 boys to play throughout the service. At this rehearsal, we planted a mic in the flowers I’d placed in front of them, to try and pick up the best sound on the speakers

Pastor Ralph at rehearsal, looking dapper!

Richard, his mother Helene, and his brother Jean-Marc in action at the rented farmhouse at which they stayed and gave a rehearsal dinner Friday night for the Reich side of the family

Carriann, at left, with her Grandmere (Richard and J-M’s mother), her step-Oma Betty, Richard’s Dad, Carriann’s Opa (Hans)

Chris, the Lord of the Rings, waves as he is whisked by at rehearsal

the entire bridal party, and a worried Vincent (father of the groom) wondering how to get everyone organized

some tired-out folk! l-r Jean-Marc, his brother-in-law PatLinus, Richard and the groom’s parents Vince and Yvonne

Erik (front), the hard-working groomsman, and the rest of Matt’s friends who came long distances to stand up with him for his special day

The Halpines practicing with the specially-hidden mic in the flowers

Saturday Morning -The Big Day – Thunderstorms in the Forecast, but …

the decorating and tidying work continues! ALL the bridal party and parents pitching in…remember to click on any photo you want to read the caption/make the photo bigger!

I put nails in the beams of our living room so the dresses could be hung high – make a great photo!

The bridesmaids and Tia, the flower girl, spent a good part of the morning picking flowers for both the rec centre tables and vases, and to stick in Carriann’s test tubes to push in the ground on either side of the aisle to add more purple and greens to the black-eyed susans

the men-folk got to work putting out the haybales and the planks with cardboard and white sheets they’d spent several days preparing

the apple tree branches hang over in a natural arch ready for the bridal party and the seats are ready for the guests

groom Matt tries to keep Smitty under control whilst I order the bridesmaids about in my usual directorial fashion. You don’t HAVE to go to uni to learn how to organize in this way, but I did anyway!

Here, I am asking flower girl Tia for some floral arranging help whilst keeping an eye on Jean-Marc as he balances precariously. I spend half my life trying to keep the two clumsy Reich boys from falling off purchases on to which they have “perched precariously”. It gets tiring! (Just this weekend Richard TWICE fell of the stepladder, once nearly landing on my tiny mother!)

Love this photo of Tia the flower girl kneeling on Mom’s braided rug!

lots of arranging of test-tubes filled with water and a stem or two of purple and lime green flowers being ‘planted’ since the dry summer meant a lot of our flowers didn’t bloom in time

AND FINALLY – THE WEDDING ITSELF 

These are now mostly Tiffany Christensen’s gorgeous photos, which I’ll let mostly speak for themselves. A few others (not marked with Tiff’s fun logo in the left corner) were taken by the two aunts -either myself or Carriann’s mother’s sister, her Aunt Kim, whose dress she was also wearing – so even more along the upcycle/recycle theme I always love here at Blue Belldon!!   Most of these have captions to explain, and are primarily in the order in which they took place:

Step-Mom Patti-Lynne at work on hair and make-up for the bride

a final touch-up

Father of the Bride, Jean-Marc (Richard’s brother) ties the rings to Chris’s recycled pillow

professional photographer Tiffany Christensen prepares for the work ahead with a quiet chat with bride Carriann on our side porch

for those that know our orchard, this is the arm of the white bench overlooking the rock garden and the lovely view (between the two apple trees) where Tiffany wisely thought to place the rings for a neat shot

Carriann’s Aunt Kim, who took many of these shots not marked with Tiff’s logo, helps her niece with her shoes

bridesmaids get ready, in front of our big bedroom mirror put in front of the fireplace

bridesmaids ready!

Pastor Ralph is ready – trying to calm the wind?

The groom had his own special walk down the aisle – to a Lord of the Rings orchestral piece, of course!

Carriann’s brother, Richard’s nephew, Chris has been physically and mentally challenged his whole life, but is an accomplished musician and now can add being Lord of the Rings (ringbearer) to his sister’s slightly Tolkien-themed wedding!

The groomsmen make their decent through the two natural arches of the apple tree

adore this shot of Tiffany’s – very artsy!

Tia the flower girl begins to throw the rose petals

Father and Daughter begin their journey

This is a shot by Aunt Kim – love how you can see the natural arch that the bride and father are just about to go through

da-da-da-dum~~

C and M wanted the scenery, the birch arch, the rose petals strewn and the bubbles being blown behind – here are all 4 desires shown together!

Carriann, with Richard’s Mom (her Grandmere) Helene

this is Richard’s favourite photo – he is in the background talking to his two sons, whilst his brother looks like he’d rather be talking about cars back with them!

the whole gang

Richard’s father, Hans, and his wife Betty with the happy couple

with the parents, Vince, Yvonne, and their son Matthieu, Carriann and her father Jean-Marc and her step-mom Patti-Lynn (also the official make-up artist, and videographer!

the couple with Richard’s two very-much Torontonian sons!

Tiffany tries to organize the shot she took prior to this one!

The photo below needs some explanation – the groomsmen, the happy couple and myself all jumped on our truck for Richard to drive us down to the grassy knoll for photos of the Hobbit Hole.  As I was on the tail gate, Richard seemed to forget that I had had 3 back surgeries and was on the waiting list for knee surgery and thought it very funny to drive like a maniac all over our field and track. So I had to lean back to try and keep balance. Tiffany, who was behind me, thought this very amusing, apparently!

And a few from the reception at the New Denmark Rec Centre: (photo credits to all and sundry, but the really exceptional ones are by Kim Mageau and Patti-Lynne Reich)

    Richard’s son Erich and his girlfriend Fran, from Toronto on left, Carriann’s other grandmere from Quebec in centre, and Richard’s son Nigel, with girlfriend Deeanna on right

Richard’s dad Hans, brother (father-of-the-bride) Jean Marc, Richard, his step-mom Betty (she and Hans drove from Kingston, ON!) and mom Helene (also from Saint John)

Richard dancing with his Mom in an almost empty hall – the two tables behind them weren’t used as SOMEONE miscounted the number of guests on the groom’s side… either that or my big scary Tolkien giant hanging from the door scared everyone away!)  But the dancing got sillier and much more popular later. I won’t post any of those!

the head table and C and M’s special table above on the stage

Some who have followed the renovations here at Blue Belldon may remember this wicker arch (which normally has shelves!) which is in our bedroom and which I picked up by the side of the road in Ontario because someone was just sick of it! We have certainly had a great deal of use from this freebie as it was once in our Rural Creators’ Collective shop in Carlisle ON too!

Nigel and Deanna – though they have NO PLANS to marry, Nigel caught the garter and Deanna caught the bouquet. Hmmm.

The gents lining up to catch the flying garter

Richard, Carriann trying to get her cousin Erich to dance

  A close up of the lime-green mint jelly of which I put ONE  on each table for sampling with the meal, along with the entertaining cards about old-fashioned marriages (just happened to be purple and green cards, so why not?) Jean-Marc and Patti-Lynne followed the eco-friendly theme of the farm and had organic seeds done up as table favours – highly suggest to all!

Love this shot of Richard and his nephew Chris (Lord of the Rings!)  in deep conversation

Photo of Dad and Daughter – lovely shot!

And now, as promised – or in case you didn’t want to look at the beautiful photos of the wedding previously, here’s some seasonal and autumnal shots from lens-master Tiffany, to get you back in a fall mood…

The red tree to right is the only non-birch tree in our birch grove on Blue Belldon. This is our view every day – aren’t we lucky?

Going down the steep Lucy’s Gulch, with the Saint John River below and Grand Falls, and Limestone Maine beyond in distance

Tiffany took this of our farm from the top of Blue Bell Mountain, across the valley. That’s us right in the middle!

a New Denmark tractor preparing the harvest of potatoes and other crops

the lush colours of New Denmark

Tiffany grabbed this one night of our two churches on the hill – I think she needs to enter it in a contest or have it made into a poster for some religious event, don’t you?

The two churches from closer to our farm

  See you next time, for “Crows and Scarecrows”…

Most people think of autumn in terms of oranges and yellows, but before that, and just after summer has dipped away, there is a time in September that is just ‘purple’. Now, of course purple has been very much at the forefront for much of this spring and summer as it was the primary colour chosen by Richard’s niece for her wedding, so we were planting and painting in a lot of those shades.  But…

In this particular posting, you’ll find the goings on ‘down home on the farm’ OTHER than the busy time with the Straights (chronicled above)  since the beginning of August.  Such as Smitty gets to spend a lot more time off his chain because he mostly sticks around now AND doesn’t bite the first people that might drive in the driveway (like the carload of Jehovah’s Witnesses that rolled in today) AND he doesn’t chase the other animals anymore.  Thus he has become something of a Pied Piper!

For most of the latter part of this summer, since the first rains came at the end of July and our garden became a veritable JUNGLE, my kitchen has looked like this and worse most days: baking out, some form of dairy being made from Cammie’s milk (2 quarts a day now!) The below is my Chevre cheese which is quick and I’m getting better at it now – it’s much less crumbly and stays in a mold now than when this was taken. PLUS at least 3 or 4 types of vegetables sitting about waiting for “processing” of some stage or other.

  Though we’re always exhausted this time of year, it IS so rewarding to partake in meals or snacks (if we ever find the time to sit down for one!) that are completely and totally from our own garden or animals. The following photo shows me drinking my made-from-scratch iced tea with mint and borage, and eating my homemade bread slathered with Cammie’s butter and chevre (made with herbs from my herb garden like fennel which we are LOVING this year!) , and homemade raspberry jam (we picked these as last year down in the valley on a logging road neighbour Pierrette discovered. I wish we had time to pick more than we do, but we’re just so crazy busy getting the garden in and processed! )

  One of the young hens (still not laying!) we got in June came to my kitchen window, looked in and crowed loudly at me – so back HE went to the chicken farm and instead Richard brought home “Lucy the Layer”, who IS giving us an egg a day at least. Hopefully those other 3 will get the idea from her soon!

Lucy:

And while I’ve been making chevre cheese and yogurt – even frozen yogurt once – regularly from all Cammie’s delicious thick milk, I’ve been slowly collecting the tiny bit of fat that rises to the top of the jars if you let them sit a few days.  Then I freeze it. So after more than a month, we took the jar out and thawed it, then shook the jar for 10 minutes and voila – Cammie-butter too! Now to find some Rennet tablets to make other kinds of cheeses – but not until the garden is all in, methinks!

Mom helped so much early on with keeping the weeds down, but she won’t always partake of enough of the ‘fruits of our labours’, so I try to make her some dishes to enjoy before I freeze things like the soups and stews.  Have a great parsnip and fennel soup with the whey from the cheese and yogurt-making that I invented myself – delish!  Every single thing on this tray incl. the herbs and spices comes from Blue Belldon Farm!

  May, June and July were serious drought months, but since the wedding July 28th we’ve had some regular storms and other types of crazy weather.  Very photo-worthy:

    And of course all this rain has turned our garden into such mass-producing veg – and flowers and herbs too, for us and for the bees! – that we actually had to give some cucumbers to the local Food Bank this week – Mom and I have both made varying sorts of pickles ’til we can’t stand it anymore, plus I’ve pureed and frozen so much cucumber soup (delightful with Cammie-yogurt when served cold!) not to mention all the peas, beans, tomatoes, zucchini and squash we have in abundance right now!  Let’s not even talk about the carrots, edamame, parsnips and corn that I’m hoping will wait for me to catch up …

  My oven can handle 6 spaghetti squash (split in two) for cooking, then I drag all the ‘noodles’ out and freeze so that whenever we don’t want some heavy pasta dish, but do feel like something like it – we pull those containers out, thaw and melt some cheese or pour butter/salt or a sauce over.

    If you haven’t tried spaghetti squash, do so! It’s delicious, not fattening like noodles and actually quite fun to handle and “play” with!

Now, also in August, SOME of the wedding photos from official photographer Tiffany Christensen have been ‘released’ as a teaser. So Richard’s niece Carriann gave me permission to share some of these, and there will likely be more forthcoming later on. Here’s the lovely bride and her father, Richard’s younger brother Jean-Marc (John), coming off our side porch and through our temporary arch (from a piece of wood Richard and I found in the woods in early spring and set up and painted white for just this purpose.  It looked much better all decorated than it does on a day-to-day basis!)

Groom Matthieu and Bride Carriann exchange vows in front of the beautiful vista of which they had long envisioned and dreamed…

Tiffany was good enough to use as a backdrop for several shots, my Rustic Revivals’ cabin which Richard worked so hard on all through June and early July. I had purposely added some purple accents just for this big moment!

Tiffany has a great sense of humour with her photos, and was happy to have “crime boss” Matt and his mob do some godfather-esque poses:

One of the surprises we’d wanted to offer Carriann and Matt was using our knoll in the bottom pasture as a “Hobbit Hole”. The couple are Tolkien fans in a big way, and if they could have afforded it, they’d have been off to New Zealand for their honeymoon to visit a lot of the Lord of the Ring sites, etc. But I painted a door and window and Richard artistically arranged them, then Tiffany REALLY went creative-crazy and got a really neat angle:

We haven’t seen TOO many of the service yet, but Tiffany did share one of the Halpines – 3 boys and their Dad, who played some lovely classical and pop music throughout the ceremony. They also live self-sufficiently on a farm down the road from us, but are doing it in a much bigger way – besides their 5 young children, they have several goats to milk, a number of cows and pigs, ponies, donkeys, horses, many fowl and a fish pond!

Thought this was a nice shot of Tiffany and Carriann together discussing some shots to take just after the service ended, back on our side porch.

And here’s one of the entire guest-list. Richard and I are the 2nd couple from the left; I’m just raising my cowboy hat in the air.

Though they didn’t want to actually touch the animals and get their clothes smelly and dirty before their reception, Carriann DID want some of the animals in their shots.  Tiffany is amazing at photo-shopping, too, apparently – because Richard was actually HOLDING Robin on a rope in this one, hiding behind Carriann’s skirt as best he could – and Tiff managed to make it all look free and natural!

Speaking of dear Robin, we had some sad partings with the twins in the beginning of August as well. Kids should be weaned at about two months, and as we had found good homes for both, it was time to let them go, and get on with serious milking twice a day for our own larder (since this was the whole purpose of having to breed Cammie in the first place!) As Robin was the most friendly and out-going because of the early-on bonding with me (remember, he’s the twin who nearly died in the first few hours when I was alone with them and had to syringe some milk into him because he wouldn’t take to the teat right away) he was the first to go, and thus had a little photo journal taken of him as he learned to be weaned and to explore and eat various things on his own. As the wedding was over, I even let him experiment with nibbling flowers – anything to get him off milk!

He was so cute as he had to learn to drink water, too – he tried the chicken’s shallow water pan outside…

  He followed Richard around when water was being carried to the other animals:

And finally he took some tentative sips from the ‘big-boy’ pail!

  But he took to leaf-eating VERY easily and loved trying all new things and even standing on his hind legs to eat the apple tree leaves like his Mom!

Such a personable little guy, so unlike his twin “Mo” ! Robin was always following us around, fairly unperturbed that his brother and mother were shut up in the barn calling to him!

We were a bit sad to see him go, but “Grace” is the type of gal that brings all her animals into her house for play-time, so we knew he’d be well-loved. (Mo took a lot longer to wean, and was with us for a very trying and noisy 10 more days before we could give him to the fellow who lives just 2 houses down the valley from us. But Mo is happy now too, with some other fowl and goat pals, and Richard says he’s even had some climbing apparatus and an upper level bunk to climb into at night!)

And Grace sends us regular photos of Robin with her goat Rammi and matching pony, so we know he’s also very content and having lots of fun!

But, Robin – you were very DEERE to us:

And “Owl” Always Remember You!!!!

But if you wonder why we’ve been so busy (never mind the milking, the garden, the canning/preserving) see Part One of the special post elsewhere on this blog and keep tuned because in a few days some farm-life and wedding-time photos will be up as well!    https://bluebellmountainblog.wordpress.com/straight-from-the-horses-mouth/

In the meantime, how do you keep cool in a record-breaking summer in New Brunswick, with humidity the likes of which this province has never seen?  (Thanks, climate change and all our centuries of fooling with Mother Nature. She is NOT happy!)  Most people here, rurally at least, do NOT have nor wish to have air-conditioning.  btw, that’s the same in England and many European countries. We are the greedy ones who keep taking and taking and by doing so, actually making the environmental changes WORSE YET.  World-wide, this has been an eye-opener for some this summer (not everyone of course, or even the ones who matter, who can DO something about it!)

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6859588/deadly-wildfires-and-killer-heatwaves-are-ripping-through-the-planet-from-athens-and-sweden-to-los-angles-and-japan/

One way of keeping cool is making lemonade or iced tea – from scratch as I do for beverages – into frozen pops in the freezer.  I also do this on the rare occasions we buy blueberry or cranberry juice.  When I’m just making up a pitcher of the beverage, I always stick a few leaves of mint in and put it in the fridge for a few hours. Then I put the glasses in the freezer, and ALWAYS serve with ice cubes!  I now make all the iced tea or lemonade with Stevia which, while crazily expensive, is helping the bees a bit as this has been a difficult season for them and honey thus far!

Another favourite way of keeping cool is sucking back my grandmother’s “Florida Ice”. Admittedly, while this is a homemade sherbet-type dessert, it is hardly a ”living self-sufficiently” recipe as it calls for a banana and orange juice and lemons.  I can barely manage a full-size cucumber in N.B. Pretty sure I won’t be growing any citrus fruits!  We DID however use Cammie’s goat milk the last time we made it, though, and that was delicious and made it feel a bit more ‘our own’.  I wonder what Grandma would have thought fifty years ago if she knew I was yanking on a goat’s teat in order to determinedly produce her special treat.

Here’s Grandma J.’s recipe. My sister and I have been eating this since we were toddlers, so start your own tradition of it in YOUR family!

I usually collect and freeze old mushy bananas and instead of making banana bread or muffins in the summer, this is what I make with them.  Richard eats a banana every morning but refuses to touch it if it has more than 3.5 black spots on it. Here we are measuring Cammie’s milk – it’s exciting now that she’s FINALLY giving a bit more for us (not without a big fuss on the part of both her and the twins, mind you!).

Here I’m adding the sugar and putting it in the freezer to get semi-solid.  Grandma always used a bread pan, so that’s what we all do as well.  Keeps it deep, easier to cut, but hey – you find your own bowl or pan or container!

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After an hour or so, I break in bits of the banana, do the lemon and orange juice and once in a while I’ve tried pineapple chunks too. A bit of coconut flavouring might really add to that!

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Then I mush it all up (no big chunks!), freeze it solid for a few more hours, and, as Grandma did, cut it in slices which can then be cut up prior to serving, or just serve a ‘slab’ and let your happy taster break it up. Yum!

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On the topic of Cammie and her milk, I have had successful attempts at making quick goat cheese with lemon juice. (see last blog post)  It was with great pleasure that I served this up for dinner last week:  Everything you see on the plate was from Blue Belldon but for the pasta, and I’ve no plans to start making THAT!

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My attempt at yogurt – which I used to make in my early 20s in the oven overnight, did NOT work, but I’m sure it’s because my slow-cooker crock pot is too high, even on ‘LOW’. (We of course purchased the thing 2nd hand).  Thus tomorrow, I try it on the stove-top and see if THAT way works!  However, the crock-pot method, IF you want to make yogurt – esp. healthy goat’s milk  (if you have your own goat or can purchase it locally) is simple:

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Use slightly older milk that’s been in the fridge for a few days (I’m also experimenting with making butter – you just take the cream from each jar and drizzle it into another one you’re freezing. Then, when you’ve enough, do the ‘shake-the-jar’ thing for ages, and apparently you’ll have made butter.  More on this when I’ve tried it!)

Warm it for several hours, add the ‘good bacteria’, usually from another batch of yoghurt.  Let it cool down VERY slowly – wrapped in blankets, etc. About 8 hours is necessary for this!  Then refrigerate and presto!  Only it wasn’t ‘presto’ for me because of it heating up too quickly.  There are lots of slow-cooker recipes online for this so find the one that works best for you. If you have a proper crock pot that works on LOW, this seems very easy and is also another way of keeping your Kitchen COOL in hot weather, as you’re using neither the stove-top nor the oven…

On a hotter note, we had sooooo much trouble getting the neighbours who cut and baled our hay for us last year to commit.  They wouldn’t just say ‘no’, but they also stopped answering our calls or returning messages left.  With the wedding coming up and a bit of rain in the forecast (finally!) we HAD to get it off the fields, so we begged another neighbour who really didn’t want to take the time, but he finally did bless him.  He baled it better than last year’s as well and Richard, Zeb and I brought it all into the barn on the Saturday exactly one week before the big day!

I love these shots – Richard surveying his land, with a chicken snoozing in the shade from the heavy heat even at 6:40 p.m.

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Here’s some more shots of flowers (prepping for the wedding, and we FINALLY splurged and bought a proper fountain!) birds wanting in for a respite from the heat and Richard out for an evening hack or spending time with the livestock at dusk…

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Mom/Joy and I are the ones weeding. Mom does about 2 hours per day on the veg garden and it’s looking pretty great right now – something showing in all 52 rows!  I do about 20 min. weeding per day in the veg garden and 30 minutes every 3rd day or so on the flowers for the wedding.  In addition, I water for an hour and a half every 2nd or 3rd day when there is no rain called for. But still, it’s mostly thanks to Mom that the vegetables are coming along (Ontario and the u.k. won’t think this is ‘coming along’ in the first week of July, but considering the dry and cold spring and the HEAT WAVE of the last week, we think this isn’t too bad).

Since Richard has been working hard on the Rustic Revivals cabin/shop, expecting it will be used as a backdrop for some wedding photos, I’ve been mostly trying to keep the animals organized all day and into the long evenings.  They are spoiled, because we cater to them – it started last year when Cammie and Chevy both came to us very ill and it took most of last summer for Chevy at least to fully recover.  Thus we are always letting them out, letting them in, changing their pastures, giving them fresh water and soaked beet pulp, scattering scratch or compost for the chickens despite them being ‘free range’,

and in last week’s heat wave, giving Chevy several hose-pipe baths. We even bought them a fan for the long afternoons when they are standing around inside because the type of barn we unfortunately have (quonset) is not at all like the old bank barns I’m used to having, where half of it is under a hill and there’s always a hay loft above for insulating, thus keeping the animals cool in summer. So the chickens stay outside all day, finding shade where they can, and even recently learning to fly a bit and to land in unexpected places. Mom just saw this one ‘experimenting’ in the orchard:

Meanwhile, the kids spend the nights and the early morning hours with their mother, and then we separate them for the rest of the day so I can milk Cammie in the evenings:

The twins are getting big and very curious, happily leaving their frantic mother for long periods of time, which drives her nuts. (We have had to tie her again because she was caught eating wedding flowers earlier this week and I was furious. The floral situation isn’t doing as well as I’d hoped in the first place, but I certainly didn’t need a big stubborn goat to come along an top the blossoms off 11 plants in one foul swoop!)  We’ve also had a number of neighbours come to visit the animals.  Greta, (age93) just up the hill from us, was wheeled down just a few days out of hospital to spend some time with the cuddliest:

When the weather is very hot, Chevy leads the livestock parade back to the barn where he likes to lie down in the stall (he does this more in summer than he did all winter!) Meanwhile Cammie takes the twins on a tour of other places she isn’t allowed!

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The milking hasn’t been going terribly well. First Cammie kicked and hollered and carried on, so we read up on different methods of preventing or at least decreasing this (ie: more food, soft-hobbling, letting one kid out in view, etc).  She’s finally stopped the ‘freaking out’ and putting her foot into my sterile bucket of milk, but she only allows us to have so much milk and then she ‘closes up’ and ‘keeps back’ the rest for her twins for later.  The milking in the morning was stopped because no one (incl. Chevy and the chickens) were getting any rest in the night hours of separation. But the evening milking means they aren’t ‘off her’ for as long, so the milk situation is minimal at the moment. I did, however, manage to make cheese one morning this week.  Here are the various stages of “Quick Goat’s Milk Cheese” – just bring to 180 degrees, add lemon juice to make it curdle, strain in cheese cloth for an hour and VOILA!  Delicious, but it only lasted the one meal on our spinach salad (from our garden. Sad to say, though – even those eggs aren’t from our own chickens yet!) Click to enlarge if desired:

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I also tried to make mint jelly again this week, as we have such a large mint patch. Two years ago when I made it it turned out beautifully, but for some reason – perhaps the heat wave? Perhaps my Certo was too old? – it hasn’t set properly.  I was experimenting with little jars which, as ‘lime green’ is one of the two colours for Carriann and Matt’s wedding, might end up on the reception tables for people to help themselves to little spoonfuls of, on the side of their meatballs (delicious!)  (To make it less bright green, I just added some yellow food colouring to the regular green). I bought new Certo and will try this all again on a cooler day:

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Also these last few weeks, besides the regular bread and cookie-baking, iced-tea and lemonade-making (and just regular meal-making which I’m getting sick of doing – why can’t I just be a genie and blink my eyes and have those done?),  I did more dog biscuits and some purple and green mints for the wedding. I’ve mentioned how to do the homemade dog biscuits before – just put a lot of meat and egg-based leftovers on a big tray with some oil and lots of flour sprinkled over it and bake the heck out of it until it’s crisp!  (If you’re really interested in how I do this because you want to make your own and save a LOT of money, just contact me and I’ll give you my step-by-step ‘recipe’).

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The buttercream mints turned out quite well, I think – I made enough for the wedding guests to have about 10 each, if they so wish!  There are lots of recipes and Youtube directions on these online, so no need for me to say more other than:

Something else I have to ‘brew up’ quite regularly is bug spray – both for we mammals, and for the veg plants in the garden.  The latter one is Dawn dishsoap ( a spoonful) with vinegar and baking soda and has seemed to work fairly well. I use my own homemade apple cider vinegar – what’s left from last year, anyway (And believe me, I HATE all this plastic, but at least all the jugs are recycled from something else – or WILL be recycled into something else!)

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Our bug spray for us and Chevy (and Cammie when she’s willing, which isn’t often. Besides, I don’t want her milk to taste like vinegar!) is veg oil, Dawn and the ACV. So, the same as for the garden but without the baking soda. It and our masks/facenets keep the blackflies at bay a little better, but Chevy is eaten alive by horseflies and deerflies also, so I had to break down this week and buy some chemically-enhanced equine spray which has helped him not come in with great bloody sores, poor guy! So much for being purely organic around here, then!  (Also, I’m going to have to ‘dust’ the broccoli, I’m afraid! And there’s some weird bugs on one of our crabapple trees…grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….)

Richard was hard at work on the cabin at the back of the barn these past weeks, but he also finally got a garden gate on the chicken wire fence we erected around the vegetables. Nice and rustic, this:

But most rustic and lovely of all is the fabulous work he’s done re-siding the Rustic Revivals new shop (opening – ? maybe in the autumn! The inside needs a lot of work done on it still…) We used the strapping that was under the metal siding to make trim, which I protected with urethane yesterday so it will hopefully stay the contrasting colour. Here’s the ‘before’:

And here are the lovely ‘afters’.  Sooooo in love with this, and there’s lots more trim and decorating I’ll be playing with on the front, you can bet! The door is so wonderfully ‘shabby chic’ with chippy-paint that I’m leaving it as is for now. I just need to get some really white birch sticks for in the barrels, rather than the less-white poplar that are in there at the moment, and it will tie the white from the door in so much more!

The two sides had lovely cedar shakes under the metal, so we didn’t even have to do much to them. Look carefully and EWE may even see I’m not ‘kidding’ around!

Your Five Minute Morning

This posting is more about the photos than the writing- or the update of the last 10 days (although there are additional photos and updates below the ‘prize’ photos.) These special shots were all taken over the course of about 5 minutes just this morning, walking around our farm on a lovely sunny, breezy June day. First day of summer, too!  It is a special time to celebrate, not only because of…

Here’s a photo-story of the many many satisfying accomplishments we’ve managed thus far:

Despite the blackflies, Richard’s managed to drive Chevy up to our neighbours fields (just the other side of our woods, on the right) to drag out many logs that have been felled either naturally or because they needed to be taken down due to channeling a new ditch so that our entire forest wouldn’t be swamp.  We’re of course using these logs for firewood eventually – but some of them are also doubling as cross-country jumps and as decor for Carriann and Matt’s (Richard’s niece and her fiance) wedding on July 28th:

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Although I missed all 3 of our concerts with the choir (which I’d been rehearsing for, incl. a descant and a piano accompaniment, for 3 months!) a small version — incl. Richard in green far right, and me FINALLY out of bed to perform, in yellow, far left — of our choir was asked to perform at a talent showcase in Perth/Andover – we just did one song, The Rain Song.  The below shows us doing some of the body percussion which is meant to replicate the rain as we sing:

Because the snow didn’t want to let go until mid-April, just before I got too sick to do anything, I tidied a corner of our barn and Richard helped me put up our old gazebo so we now have a comfy tack room – both for us and any students in for training. We’ve even achieved a ‘viewing area’ where tea can be sipped whilst watching the dressage ring lessons!

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Richard has rototilled and harrowed (with Chevy) the garden several times and composted it thoroughly, as well as moving half the manure pile from the winter way up to a back corner of the farm to let it dry out and decay up there. Then Mom has stepped in and been wedding and rock-picking thoroughly so that now that I AM better, we’re planting both seeds and my seedlings from the basement ‘grow-op’ – even though we shouldn’t be as several nights are dangerously close to 0 degrees!  We also finally managed to get up a chicken-wire fence all the way around the garden because any day now we’re expecting Cammie’s kids to be born, and we don’t want them exploring out there and also….

today we finally got our laying hens – only they won’t be laying for another month or so, it would appear !  And they all look so alike, I don’t know that we can name them. They are Buff Orpingtons – a British breed, so – not exactly what we’d planned on, but we’ll give it a try in this climate – here’s Richard unloading them into their newly built chicken coop which he worked hard on, attached to Cammie’s goat pen, and with the ability to insulate fully with bales when winter is upon us again. Because of the blackflies, both Cammie and Chevy are in during the day, so they were much interested in these new additions:

We’ve also done a lot of planting of seeds and wild ferns and bedding plants all around the house and down at the wedding site for this summer to be especially beautiful for the nuptials. But of course you can’t really take a photo of barren earth, so another blog posting in early August will have to show you the fruits of all THESE labours.

Cammie is very fat.  As in ready-to-explode fat. She is also highly temperamental and hormonal.

Richard built her a lovely milking platform (using, you’ll notice, all salvaged wood – some from the kitchen cupboards I tore out two summers ago when I arrived!) but it took her 4 days before she’d even plant all 4 feet on it – she was just stubborn as all get-out. I owned a donkey once that wasn’t NEARLY as stubborn as this little goat.   However, she’s finally happy to go running up to it and even to stick her head into the stanchion (fashioned from the tie-ends of an old hammock that’s given up the ghost – thus all the holes).  Here we are “pretend-milking”.   (Yes, the lime-green milk can is painted for the wedding colours of purple and lime.  We’ve also done a great deal of painting around the farm in the last 3 weeks too, including the massive job Richard’s done on painting the huge roll-up barn/garage door! But again, you’ll see all those beautiful results when the wedding photos come in. For now, this milk can works beautifully to hold Cammie’s bowl of food!)

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This shows the stanchion a little better, with the hammock ‘sticks’, as Cammie quietly leaves the area that a week ago she had to be DRAGGED to:

Chevy is still having fun being used a few times a week. Whether it’s having a good grooming, having his feet picked out, or being driven up into the fields to get more logs from ‘the other side’, he’s been worked more in the last month or so than in the entire year we’ve had him, and he enjoys it thoroughly (though sometimes likes to hurry home because of Cammie’s lonely bleating. We expect this co-dependent dynamic will change considerably once the kids are born!)

Despite all this planting, pulling, ploughing, picking, painting, pandering (to the animals – that would be Richard!) and ‘pane-polishing’ (Mom washing windows yesterday on the entire ground floor!) we’ve even had a tiny bit of time for some ‘playing’. Cousin Ange and the Reverend Das showed up for an overnight this week and we had a chance to play a rousing game of my Book-Lovers Scrabble.  Only to discover from dear, demure Das that – er – we haven’t been ending the game of Scrabble properly. Ever.  Why haven’t all those people we’ve played with prior to this week pointed this out?  But it’s there in the rules… if one cares to interpret it that way…  And that meant Das won! Not Richard, for once!

Richard also did some ‘playing’ two weekends ago when he had yet another chaotic-filled fishing trip with the canoe, culminating in him ending up on a private lake and getting shot at!  I’ve been waiting for him to write up that entire day for the Pippi’s Fishin’ Hole Fables and Facts category of this blog, but we’re so tired from all the goings-on that when we ARE inside the house, we’re mostly dozing off in our chairs.

Anyway, a lot done in a short time, and as long as all my seeds don’t remain dormant in the cold earth, we’re well-satisfied for the time being with how the farm looks.  Next up – Cammie’s Kids, I expect!

Before we bought Blue Belldon, the room was ‘just another bedroom’:

Without a bed in it, it seems so much bigger, despite the large loom at the window, where Mom/Joy has the best view of any window in the house:

She liked the ‘original’ (1980s?) wallpaper in there, so we left it, and she put one of her more intricately-patterned rugs there on the floor, to match the navy on the walls.    While this would have been better suited as a blog posting whilst there was still lots of snow on the ground (ie: 5 weeks ago!) and prior to many, many new things being built and done outside, as I’ve been down with that bug for the better part of a month, I’m just going along with this as my next post, as promised.  Mom worked hard through the winter and early spring months to weave a rug for a friend of mine who contributed to the film I’m involved in making, as well as three new gold and grey rugs for our bathroom, to match the barnboard and claw-foot tub. Our store-bought gold ones were already pretty worn after just two years here.  In fact – two years ago exactly this weekend, for me!

Annette’s ‘slipper mat’ for beside her new guest room bed is in her cream, grey and green colours, and Mom/Joy was good enough to whip that up for her in some thick and cozy-to-the feet off-white wool.  Here she is at work on this first project for 2018:

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Then, since she still had a fair bit of ‘warp’ on the loom, she asked if I needed anything downstairs and I noticed she had lots of greys and some gold as well – we don’t buy new wool, of course – just use what we have! Re-use, Re-cycle (she originally bought it all at garage sales anyway!) and UPCYCLE!   So here’s the lovelies she completed to cozy up our bathroom (The one at the base of the sink is just for guests, she’s made us another for everyday ‘farm’ footwear – ’cause Richard runs in there in his boots to wash his hands, mostly!) (as always, click on smaller photos to enlarge – providing you’re here in the proper WORDPRESS domain and not reading this from your email notices! 😉  )

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Mom managed to find old wool that exactly matched our bathroom colour scheme, so we are thrilled to have these!  And it’s always great to have her woven AND braided rugs in our part of the house – they are not only of great sentimental value to me, but are farmhouse-cozy AND she can exactly match any colours of a room.  This one’s in my kitchen – but again, just for ‘good’, as it gets too filthy if I keep it down all the time.  I love the pattern in this one, it’s one of her more common ones now:

Of course, our kitchen colours are blue and burgundy, with a ‘pop’ of yellow here and there, so where else could you ever find a rug so perfect in size AND colours?

Over the years Mom has woven a lot of rugs, placemats and table-runners as well as blankets/shawls for family, friends and even a few custom orders from strangers.  She has an over-stuffed scrapbook of every item, but here are a few of my favourites. (The bottom one is a common-design as she weaves from strips of blue jean material!  Both my sister and I have had several of these latter, because they do tend to wear out quickly due to over-use!)

Of course, she has also made a copious amount of lap blankets which can also be used as shawls.  She has several of these upstairs, and both my sister and I have a few of these in various rooms, too.  Below is Mom/Joy with our friend Jane at my pioneer show in Ontario a few years ago. Jane is modelling one of Mom’s handmade works:

You’ve seen photos of last year’s amazing projects – two BRAIDED rugs, one each for my sister and me.  These were in the shapes and colours we each requested as well, and made from 2nd-hand scraps.  On the lounge (which I keep on top of my own braided rug to prevent excess wear and tear from dirty socked feet!) you will see another of Mom’s woven blankets and a cushion her aunt (who taught her to spin and weave!) dyed, spun and wove many years ago:

Another friend, Anne, may also notice her heirloom bedspread which I also use to cozy-up with on cold nights when I need ALL of me covered up!  Nothing is unused or wasted in this household! Here’s Mom (NOT intentionally dressed to match the rug!) with my sister Jennifer’s custom braided one for their summer house – an old farmhouse that’s been in her hubby’s family for several generations, on the west coast of Newfoundland. It will look well there, and help to brighten the place up, as these pieces made from scraps have been doing for centuries! Mom is so talented – and PATIENT!

Mom’s favourite spinning wheel is called the ‘Wee Peggy’. She modeled as a pioneer for publicity for my pioneer arts and crafts show in Ontario with that little wheel. Note the ‘cotton’-like fuzz in her lap, which she is spinning into wool (manned by the pedal her foot is on).

The hardest part about spinning is trying to get a consistent thickness throughout. It’s tricky, because it tends to be thick and ‘open’ in places, and tight and thinner in others. I know, because (also for publicity for my show, which had up to 40 completely different environmental/all-natural and/or pioneer-based artisans and ran 3 different years in Ontario) I’ve TRIED!  It’s very tricky:

The parts of the more common type of spinning wheel are below. This is where you’ll see the amusing “mother of all” part!

Mom hasn’t ever actually spun on her big wheel, below, which Richard and I gave her a few Christmases ago, though it IS the more traditional type.  We didn’t really expect her to, as she prefers her Wee Peggy and doesn’t do that much spinning any more. However, it is a lovely antique that many who appreciate our history just enjoy having as a show piece.  And in Mom’s Loom Room, it certainly is THAT!

Mom also posed for the pioneer show with her big loom, and did great demonstrations most of both days each year explaining the entire process from sheep (or alpaca, dog, etc!) to finished product. Hanging from the front of her loom (below) is one of my favourite pieces – a wall-hung ‘pocket’ with my name threaded in, used for sticking all manner of items you want handy, but hidden!

Here are the parts of a loom like Mom/Joy’s, just to show you how involved the process of weaving actually is!

Thus is the end of the winter blog postings, and definitely late, I admit!  But prepare to be inundated with all manner of outdoor topics now, starting hopefully next week, and hopefully on a more regular basis (shooting for at least every two weeks this year!)   Cammie’s kids are due soon, Richard’s using Chevy more in the woods now because the winter was just too hard even for the ‘pros’ to get their horses in and out, our basement grow-op did much better this year compared to last so I’ll be sharing some tips I discovered on that, AND the new composting system we’re working on as Richard went and took a course!  We have  some visitors coming mid-June who’ll be helping ’round the farm, the chickens are over-due, but Richard’s finished the coop and they should be coming soon, and we’ve done a lot of work on both the cross-country course for me to offer schooling sessions to eventers and the wedding site for Richard’s niece Carriann to marry her “Beast” Matt at the end of July – Rural Revivals bridal decor I’ve been updating with a lick of paint and a touch of new colour!

But to end the spinning/weaving theme about Mom/Joy, enjoy the following poem I wrote about her for a magazine article about Fibre Artists in New Brunswick. Though they said poetry was accepted, I’ve yet to SEE a poem in their hard copy of the mag, and whilst the editor told me my work would appear in the online version (with a variety of photos of Mom at work on her lovely pieces) it has been over a year, and no online versions have appeared, so I’m goin’ public with this now.  Sorry about the formatting, it was obviously done for submission.

The Joyful Spinster

A fibre artist who learned all

From an aunt whom she admired

(And it was from this aunt

That her talents were acquired,

  For she always modestly proclaims

She really has no skill or art

Certainly none “come naturally”;

Though she’s dedicated in her heart!)

  While many say to sell her work,

This artist, Joy, gives it away

Though she’s a widow in north N.B.

A  “Joyful Spinster”s  what we say

  When we describe her fibre work

From wool her aunt helped dye

From natural things like nuts and veg

Right from the sheep, they’d try!

      She’s often game to play dress-up

For shows, in full costume

And demonstrates her craft

Both on her wheel  and on her loom.

  And though her aunt has passed on now,

Joy keeps her practice going

And especially likes to get involved

When New Brunswick skies are snowing!

  Because she’s moved here just this year,

From Ontario, green and milder

The winters offer time for art

(And pursuits a wee bit wilder!)

      From giving time to Africans

Where some orphans she has taught,

Joy now weaves for refugees.

Much warmth those Syrians sought!

  She made them shawls and blankets

Weaving daily on her loom

Despite having just had surgery

She toiled in her “Loom Room”

      She wove them many blankets

Like the two that you see here

She hopes they’ll keep them cozy

All throughout the seasons’ year.

      She also weaves so many rugs

But just for fam-i-ly and friends

Some are patterned out of wool

The others – blue jean ends!

        When asked at some occasional shows,

Joy HAS done custom work

But never charges near enough

For her, it’s just a perk

  When someone well-appreciates

The time a weaver spends

Making such lovely items

For her fam-i-ly and friends!

Joy’s loom has been to many shows-

But she’s just there to ‘demonstrate’

“I don’t like to sell my work;

I’m not good enough!” she’ll state.

  But whether she’s inside a tent

Or as a pioneer in village halls

The Joyful Spinster weaves away

Wherever her heart calls.

  She makes displays for children

To show them ‘the old ways’

And brightens up her loom

With signs ‘bout  ‘olden days’.

  With dedication foremost,

Joy will even weave in LOFTS

Because, she says, her ancestors

Came from lowly Scottish crofts:

  And now, the Joyful Spinster

Tries her hand at rugs of braid

To recycle scraps and remnants

From clothing others made!

  To pass those long cold winters

In New Brunswick’s mountain range

Joy’s adapting well to this,

As she adjusts to ‘winds of change’.

  For here, at Blue Bell Corner

With views that go for miles

Whatever crafting Joy will do

Will be met with happy smiles!