Well fall is officially here, which I could have told you without even looking at the calendar. There’s a bite in the air, especially at night, and we know that even if it gets hot in the day, the sleeping will be cool and comfortable at night. The sumacs are electric red, if that's a colour. I think I have to bring in my peppers, pick the rest of my tomatoes, and plant my garlic this weekend.
We had a visitor yesterday – a rude houseguest who trampled the perennials in front of my deck, ate the apples off of my tree, took a big poop in front of my veggie garden, and then crushed my plume poppies on the way out of the yard. I think he had a rather large bottom, by the looks of things. Tonight we are going to go to Canadian Tire and buy one of these, because how many times have I thought that I wanted one over the last 7 years? Too many to count. I am looking forward to it; if we get good shots I will definitely share. Fun for home and cottage!
I was having this discussion with my sister-in-law today: it is fall and for some biological crazy reason, all I can think about is food. I am packing it on. I’m not alone in this so don’t get excited or anything, but fall is when the bear in me goes “get fat and hibernate.” Maybe if I kept my house warmer in winter, that urge would go away? I eat one thing and start thinking about the next. I feel like baking, even though I don’t specifically know what to make or how I’m going to eat it. I’ve started to crave stews and things with apples in them. She mentioned pumpkins and I went “oooh I haven’t even thought about pumpkins yet!” I want to buy some squash this weekend just for the sake of buying and having squash in my house. Is that ridiculous?
So this weekend, on top of cleaning the house and garden and preparing for more guests, I want to bake things with apples, buy a bunch of squash, buy organic garlic and plant it, pick the apples off of our trees to save them from the wildlife, and plan things to bake and experiment on with pumpkins this fall (pumpkin cinnamon buns? Pumpkin pasta? Pumpkin cookies?) Man I am hungry already. What time is lunch?
9/25/09
9/22/09
Things I Hate.
Things that I find really oppressive right now are the following:
Fruit flies I am at war with fruit flies. I surmise that they are coming in through the screens in the kitchen windows, because right outside the kitchen is our apple orchard (two trees). There is a lot of fallen and rotting fruit, and I believe this is where the flies originate. The compost pail has now moved outside to the deck, which is for the best because it’s a breeding ground for fruit flies, though hubby insists on bringing it inside from time to time and enraging me. There are flies in and around the sink, and flies around our heads while we eat dinner. I bought a trap from Lee Valley Tools but I don’t know how many have fallen for it. They are wiley, those fruit flies.
Threatening wildlife, fattening up for winter Apparently this is the time of year when I have to really worry about fishers, coyotes, etc etc. Cats are starting to go missing, and we all know how I feel about that. My little fatty Sasha sticks close to home most of the time, but she’s started staying out later and later at night, and it makes me nervous. We’ve started enlisting Rosie to go out (on a leash) and find her in the dark.
My slow garden I have tomatoes, they’re just not red yet. I have picked a bunch, and want to bring them inside to ripen, but am terrified of encouraging the abovementioned fruit flies. Any ideas are welcome. I am still waiting on some potatoes (I planted them really late) and am still getting zucchini, but everything else is a wash. I got garlic (whoop, that’s the easiest thing) and onions, and potatoes (which were all floury and terrible), and four carrots which were purple, so I suspect my sister-in-law threw them out when she found them in the fridge. They were meant to be purple but she didn’t know that. I got one plum. At least we will have a wonderful apple harvest. Everything is a giant mess, as it always is at this time of year.
The onset of fall We’re unprepared for fall this year. We don’t have our firewood, let alone have it split and stacked and put away. We haven’t had our chimney cleaned. I haven’t cleaned out the garden. The grass is half-mowed, because our mower died. The car needs repairs, and we need to sell the Saturn station wagon that lives in our driveway which will get us peanuts I’m sure. We sold the blue truck (sniff) and will keep it to the Vibe for the winter, I think. We may need new winter tires (cha-ching). We haven’t done anything regarding our siding this year, though Stuart, our handyman guy, said he’d do it in the fall sometime. However, I haven’t painted any boards for it, and don’t even know how many we’ve got. The trailer is woefully unprepared for the winter onslaught, as we don’t think it can handle 4 feet of snow on top of it, and it’s definitely not mouse-or-water-tight, I’ve learned. I feel like I just pulled the garlic out of the garden and I need to think about weeding it and planting next year’s. I need to buy an extra month somehow. I am anxious just writing this out, and could really use a glass of wine.
Junk I am tired of dealing with all the junk in our house. I keep trying to encourage a clean up day (!! to make it sound fun) but we never seem to get rid of a satisfactory amount of stuff. All the empty spaces fill right back up again. This is why we need a cottage. I keep things around (old kitchen sink, old bottles, etc) because I have plans to put them in a cottage someday, but in the meantime you can’t hardly walk through our basement. This weekend I have to do the ol’ twice-annual clothing switch (summer to winter, boo hoo) and I really want to get hubby to do a major sort in his closet. We need to make space, because it’s getting a bit oppressive, and winter only makes that feeling worse.
However, all of this being said, I am a person with a can-do attitude (ha!) and this list of things that I hate now turns into a list of things to deal with:
- put up sticky traps for fruit flies.
- pick tomatoes, remaining potatoes and onions. Ripen them in a fruit-fly-free locale.
- Buy organic garlic and plant it for next year.
- Rip all the weeds and old plants out of the veggie garden.
- Pick apples.
- Order firewood.
- Split and stack firewood.
- Have chimney cleaned.
- Repair car.
- Sell Saturn.
- Call Stuart.
- Check winter tires.
- Winterize the trailer.
- Clean closets.
- Switch clothes summer/winter.
- Put junk away or throw it out.
I should just keep this list as a template, an annual to-do list, because these tasks are the same from year to year. Fall sucks.
Fruit flies I am at war with fruit flies. I surmise that they are coming in through the screens in the kitchen windows, because right outside the kitchen is our apple orchard (two trees). There is a lot of fallen and rotting fruit, and I believe this is where the flies originate. The compost pail has now moved outside to the deck, which is for the best because it’s a breeding ground for fruit flies, though hubby insists on bringing it inside from time to time and enraging me. There are flies in and around the sink, and flies around our heads while we eat dinner. I bought a trap from Lee Valley Tools but I don’t know how many have fallen for it. They are wiley, those fruit flies.
Threatening wildlife, fattening up for winter Apparently this is the time of year when I have to really worry about fishers, coyotes, etc etc. Cats are starting to go missing, and we all know how I feel about that. My little fatty Sasha sticks close to home most of the time, but she’s started staying out later and later at night, and it makes me nervous. We’ve started enlisting Rosie to go out (on a leash) and find her in the dark.
My slow garden I have tomatoes, they’re just not red yet. I have picked a bunch, and want to bring them inside to ripen, but am terrified of encouraging the abovementioned fruit flies. Any ideas are welcome. I am still waiting on some potatoes (I planted them really late) and am still getting zucchini, but everything else is a wash. I got garlic (whoop, that’s the easiest thing) and onions, and potatoes (which were all floury and terrible), and four carrots which were purple, so I suspect my sister-in-law threw them out when she found them in the fridge. They were meant to be purple but she didn’t know that. I got one plum. At least we will have a wonderful apple harvest. Everything is a giant mess, as it always is at this time of year.
The onset of fall We’re unprepared for fall this year. We don’t have our firewood, let alone have it split and stacked and put away. We haven’t had our chimney cleaned. I haven’t cleaned out the garden. The grass is half-mowed, because our mower died. The car needs repairs, and we need to sell the Saturn station wagon that lives in our driveway which will get us peanuts I’m sure. We sold the blue truck (sniff) and will keep it to the Vibe for the winter, I think. We may need new winter tires (cha-ching). We haven’t done anything regarding our siding this year, though Stuart, our handyman guy, said he’d do it in the fall sometime. However, I haven’t painted any boards for it, and don’t even know how many we’ve got. The trailer is woefully unprepared for the winter onslaught, as we don’t think it can handle 4 feet of snow on top of it, and it’s definitely not mouse-or-water-tight, I’ve learned. I feel like I just pulled the garlic out of the garden and I need to think about weeding it and planting next year’s. I need to buy an extra month somehow. I am anxious just writing this out, and could really use a glass of wine.
Junk I am tired of dealing with all the junk in our house. I keep trying to encourage a clean up day (!! to make it sound fun) but we never seem to get rid of a satisfactory amount of stuff. All the empty spaces fill right back up again. This is why we need a cottage. I keep things around (old kitchen sink, old bottles, etc) because I have plans to put them in a cottage someday, but in the meantime you can’t hardly walk through our basement. This weekend I have to do the ol’ twice-annual clothing switch (summer to winter, boo hoo) and I really want to get hubby to do a major sort in his closet. We need to make space, because it’s getting a bit oppressive, and winter only makes that feeling worse.
However, all of this being said, I am a person with a can-do attitude (ha!) and this list of things that I hate now turns into a list of things to deal with:
- put up sticky traps for fruit flies.
- pick tomatoes, remaining potatoes and onions. Ripen them in a fruit-fly-free locale.
- Buy organic garlic and plant it for next year.
- Rip all the weeds and old plants out of the veggie garden.
- Pick apples.
- Order firewood.
- Split and stack firewood.
- Have chimney cleaned.
- Repair car.
- Sell Saturn.
- Call Stuart.
- Check winter tires.
- Winterize the trailer.
- Clean closets.
- Switch clothes summer/winter.
- Put junk away or throw it out.
I should just keep this list as a template, an annual to-do list, because these tasks are the same from year to year. Fall sucks.
9/18/09
Things I Love
These are the things that I presently am really into:
Reading Reading is a funny thing to me. Either I do it 100% or not at all. I can go months and months without reading anything and then all of a sudden the dam bursts and I read three books in a week and will read while doing everything; going to the bathroom, cooking dinner, watching t.v. even.
Free decorating magazines My fertility clinic has a lot of decorating magazines. My hubby and I worked out that this is very savvy on their part: not only does the demographic match (usually thirty-somethings, many females, and most of the people I see in that clinic are fairly upwardly-mobile), but it’s a comforting subject to boot. Fashion magazines might make people feel even worse about themselves than they already do – infertility is a real punch to the gut for body image – and decorating magazines appeal to the nesting instinct that is zinging around that waiting room. Anyway, I pay the damn clinic so much money that I feel justified stealing their magazines, and have come away with two good ones in the past week. I also feel justified because I have a major project (a cottage) coming up so this is like R+D.
Kitchenalia There is this terrific store in Ottawa called Kitchenalia, which stocks really nice high-end and esoteric kitchenwares, but also a lot of antiques. The Austrians bought their kitchen table there. The little old man who runs it is super-nice and knowledgeable and he stocks a really wacky and eclectic mix of antiques. I just love it. I am going there now. There’s an orange table I’ve got my eye on. Edited to note that the table is $325 so it seems I won’t be buying it.
Rosie Rosie came in second in the photo contest. We didn’t get enough votes to win the spa package, which is fine, because it was enough to get her picture in the paper. We got 104 votes in the end. Rosie was very pleased. She has become such a lovely dog, you have no idea. We just finished 8 weeks of obedience and agility training with her and while she wouldn’t win any contests in either (come on people, it’s only 8 weeks), she can do all of the tricks, and doesn’t even hesitate on the teeter-totter, the bridge, the high jumps or the tunnel, which is her favorite. She is so smart. Lately her entire diet is apple-based, so her breath is always sweet and kiss-ready. I just wish I could bring her everywhere with me. If I ran Kitchenalia, as is my dream, she would totally come to work with me. Bull in a china shop anyone?
Bears We have bears in our neighborhood. It used to be an orchard, years and years ago, so there are apple trees everywhere. We find bear turds all over the roads, and bear prints in the mud, but they are so funny because they’re really well-fed in our area, and are therefore relatively non-threatening. All of the turds are like big piles of apple-pie filling. Rosie eats those too. We haven’t actually seen one in our parts yet but we go out looking every night, and one was huffing at my husband in the front yard (from a distance) around midnight a couple of weeks ago. That is a bit scary, but it adds an element of suspense to our days that keeps things lively. My new job as the car passenger is ‘bear-spotter’. So far I have seen only one.
Cottages I am all about cottages these days. I doodle floor plans, I research dock designs and materials, and I mostly just dream. It keeps me going, and will keep me going through the winter.
Reading Reading is a funny thing to me. Either I do it 100% or not at all. I can go months and months without reading anything and then all of a sudden the dam bursts and I read three books in a week and will read while doing everything; going to the bathroom, cooking dinner, watching t.v. even.
Free decorating magazines My fertility clinic has a lot of decorating magazines. My hubby and I worked out that this is very savvy on their part: not only does the demographic match (usually thirty-somethings, many females, and most of the people I see in that clinic are fairly upwardly-mobile), but it’s a comforting subject to boot. Fashion magazines might make people feel even worse about themselves than they already do – infertility is a real punch to the gut for body image – and decorating magazines appeal to the nesting instinct that is zinging around that waiting room. Anyway, I pay the damn clinic so much money that I feel justified stealing their magazines, and have come away with two good ones in the past week. I also feel justified because I have a major project (a cottage) coming up so this is like R+D.
Kitchenalia There is this terrific store in Ottawa called Kitchenalia, which stocks really nice high-end and esoteric kitchenwares, but also a lot of antiques. The Austrians bought their kitchen table there. The little old man who runs it is super-nice and knowledgeable and he stocks a really wacky and eclectic mix of antiques. I just love it. I am going there now. There’s an orange table I’ve got my eye on. Edited to note that the table is $325 so it seems I won’t be buying it.
Rosie Rosie came in second in the photo contest. We didn’t get enough votes to win the spa package, which is fine, because it was enough to get her picture in the paper. We got 104 votes in the end. Rosie was very pleased. She has become such a lovely dog, you have no idea. We just finished 8 weeks of obedience and agility training with her and while she wouldn’t win any contests in either (come on people, it’s only 8 weeks), she can do all of the tricks, and doesn’t even hesitate on the teeter-totter, the bridge, the high jumps or the tunnel, which is her favorite. She is so smart. Lately her entire diet is apple-based, so her breath is always sweet and kiss-ready. I just wish I could bring her everywhere with me. If I ran Kitchenalia, as is my dream, she would totally come to work with me. Bull in a china shop anyone?
Bears We have bears in our neighborhood. It used to be an orchard, years and years ago, so there are apple trees everywhere. We find bear turds all over the roads, and bear prints in the mud, but they are so funny because they’re really well-fed in our area, and are therefore relatively non-threatening. All of the turds are like big piles of apple-pie filling. Rosie eats those too. We haven’t actually seen one in our parts yet but we go out looking every night, and one was huffing at my husband in the front yard (from a distance) around midnight a couple of weeks ago. That is a bit scary, but it adds an element of suspense to our days that keeps things lively. My new job as the car passenger is ‘bear-spotter’. So far I have seen only one.
Cottages I am all about cottages these days. I doodle floor plans, I research dock designs and materials, and I mostly just dream. It keeps me going, and will keep me going through the winter.
9/16/09
Family Time
Gosh I don’t even remember the last time I wrote you. So much has happened in the meantime – all of August has passed us by, and nearly half of September – that I don’t think I can recount it in these pages.
Sorry. I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and it’s affecting my writing style. I’m going all Jane Austen on your asses. I haven’t read the original, but this one’s much more exciting. I enjoy a Victorian comedy of manners so much more when it’s laden with gut-wrenching zombie-killing violence. It’s the love child of Jane Austen and Quentin Tarantino.
In early August, back in what I like to call ‘the rainy season’, I hosted a BBQ party for my mother’s side of the family. It was a hoot, from what I remember. There was dancing. There was drinking. People fished and golfed and swam and one of our number even went zip-lining in the quarry. We had big plans to go on the aerial adventure at the Cavernes Lafleche aerial park but those sizeist bastards wouldn’t take anyone with hips larger than 42 inches. For those of you who are familiar with my family, there are very few among them with hips smaller than 42 inches. Thankfully this is balanced out – many of them (females, mostly) are six-footers. I am a shorty at 5’7 ½ (barefoot). What can those cave-people expect?
After that, we began preparations for the arrival of the Austrians. During this time, we didn’t really visit the land much, so when we finally went up with the Austrians we were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely first-floor and three walls standing where there once was only bush. I must admit to feeling a sense of accomplishment. While the majority of the actual work has been done by my brother, by builders and various other service-people (septic installation, laneway backhoe, etc), I feel like as a unit we’ve moved the project in its entirety along at a great pace in just a few months. It also just so happened that the arrival of the Austrians was timed perfectly so that they could watch their cottage being built.
Their visit was a bunch of fun. We went to the land. We swam, we boated, we kayaked (we bought kayaks!), we slept in the trailer, we drank beer from the bottom of the lake (warm beer!), we fished, I watched Rosie redundantly chase a loon, before she decided she was outmatched and gave up. I kayaked WITH Rosie, which was adorable even though nobody else even saw it. We went bowling. We went shopping, and I forced them to buy stuff for their cottage so progress could be made on things like bathroom and kitchen fixtures, when the time comes. My brother came over a lot, which was nice, and many decisions were made about construction details. I got a really great sense of what goes into building a cottage, so that I now feel better prepared to tackle our own when the time comes.
They stayed for two weeks. It was great fun and we all got along and Rosie behaved herself, but I was exhausted at the end of it, and I’m still (four days later) setting the house to rights. I really look forward to the day when we will have side-by-side cottages, so we can play together, we can eat together if we want, we can visit for coffee, campfires, games, and then have quiet alone time when we want as well. My idea since the beginning that we should remain in seperate cottages was reinforced during this visit, so I feel better about the decision, even though it may seem frivolous from the outside. While we have many of the same tastes and interests, several factors would make it difficult to share: they have a lot more disposable income than us, so their standard for household things is higher. The budget for building their cottage is higher than ours will ever be. We will beg, borrow and steal whatever materials we can use, where they are thinking about buying fixtures in Italy and filling a shipping container to get them here. They were actually contemplating commissioning someone to build them a wooden bathtub, where I want a used tin farm tank as a shower stall. They are discussing having the visible steel i-beams in their living room be pierced with plasma-cut ovals where we would be happy with rough pine. They bought an antique dining table for $800, where I hope to use the table my Opa built. They don’t love kitsch as much as we do. They don’t like colour as much as we do. They don’t like spicy food as much as we do. We let our dog onto the furniture and they don’t. They don’t wear as many clothes as we do. I would hate to have my sister-in-law’s quality bed linens muddied by my dog’s filthy paws, or have anything petty like that become an issue between us. I think we have such a lovely relationship, the five of us, that this set-up will be absolutely perfect. If you feel like curry tonight, feel free to come over. Otherwise we will meet afterwards at the campfire, or for games and dessert. Quality, enjoyable, family time.
My mom thought that this project would slake my desire to build right away, but it’s done the opposite – I can’t wait to start. I think we’ll get a move on next spring, start by plotting it out, and putting in a septic. I am jealous.
Sorry. I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and it’s affecting my writing style. I’m going all Jane Austen on your asses. I haven’t read the original, but this one’s much more exciting. I enjoy a Victorian comedy of manners so much more when it’s laden with gut-wrenching zombie-killing violence. It’s the love child of Jane Austen and Quentin Tarantino.
In early August, back in what I like to call ‘the rainy season’, I hosted a BBQ party for my mother’s side of the family. It was a hoot, from what I remember. There was dancing. There was drinking. People fished and golfed and swam and one of our number even went zip-lining in the quarry. We had big plans to go on the aerial adventure at the Cavernes Lafleche aerial park but those sizeist bastards wouldn’t take anyone with hips larger than 42 inches. For those of you who are familiar with my family, there are very few among them with hips smaller than 42 inches. Thankfully this is balanced out – many of them (females, mostly) are six-footers. I am a shorty at 5’7 ½ (barefoot). What can those cave-people expect?
After that, we began preparations for the arrival of the Austrians. During this time, we didn’t really visit the land much, so when we finally went up with the Austrians we were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely first-floor and three walls standing where there once was only bush. I must admit to feeling a sense of accomplishment. While the majority of the actual work has been done by my brother, by builders and various other service-people (septic installation, laneway backhoe, etc), I feel like as a unit we’ve moved the project in its entirety along at a great pace in just a few months. It also just so happened that the arrival of the Austrians was timed perfectly so that they could watch their cottage being built.
Their visit was a bunch of fun. We went to the land. We swam, we boated, we kayaked (we bought kayaks!), we slept in the trailer, we drank beer from the bottom of the lake (warm beer!), we fished, I watched Rosie redundantly chase a loon, before she decided she was outmatched and gave up. I kayaked WITH Rosie, which was adorable even though nobody else even saw it. We went bowling. We went shopping, and I forced them to buy stuff for their cottage so progress could be made on things like bathroom and kitchen fixtures, when the time comes. My brother came over a lot, which was nice, and many decisions were made about construction details. I got a really great sense of what goes into building a cottage, so that I now feel better prepared to tackle our own when the time comes.
They stayed for two weeks. It was great fun and we all got along and Rosie behaved herself, but I was exhausted at the end of it, and I’m still (four days later) setting the house to rights. I really look forward to the day when we will have side-by-side cottages, so we can play together, we can eat together if we want, we can visit for coffee, campfires, games, and then have quiet alone time when we want as well. My idea since the beginning that we should remain in seperate cottages was reinforced during this visit, so I feel better about the decision, even though it may seem frivolous from the outside. While we have many of the same tastes and interests, several factors would make it difficult to share: they have a lot more disposable income than us, so their standard for household things is higher. The budget for building their cottage is higher than ours will ever be. We will beg, borrow and steal whatever materials we can use, where they are thinking about buying fixtures in Italy and filling a shipping container to get them here. They were actually contemplating commissioning someone to build them a wooden bathtub, where I want a used tin farm tank as a shower stall. They are discussing having the visible steel i-beams in their living room be pierced with plasma-cut ovals where we would be happy with rough pine. They bought an antique dining table for $800, where I hope to use the table my Opa built. They don’t love kitsch as much as we do. They don’t like colour as much as we do. They don’t like spicy food as much as we do. We let our dog onto the furniture and they don’t. They don’t wear as many clothes as we do. I would hate to have my sister-in-law’s quality bed linens muddied by my dog’s filthy paws, or have anything petty like that become an issue between us. I think we have such a lovely relationship, the five of us, that this set-up will be absolutely perfect. If you feel like curry tonight, feel free to come over. Otherwise we will meet afterwards at the campfire, or for games and dessert. Quality, enjoyable, family time.
My mom thought that this project would slake my desire to build right away, but it’s done the opposite – I can’t wait to start. I think we’ll get a move on next spring, start by plotting it out, and putting in a septic. I am jealous.
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