first snow and a trip to Ikea

Still doing the last bit of November catch-up, including this:

our first snow!

It's unusual for us to see snow here in November, our 5th in Nova Scotia.

Usually we're lucky to get it by New Year's.

Our little Harelson Apple tree is still wrapped in netting to keep the birds off the apples.

But the apples were all wormy this year, and discouraged, we left the netting up and the apples as groundfall.

The trees and shrubbery still provide great pleasure, with the empty field beyond.

This sugary beauty all disappeared within a day however. Ho hum.

The following weekend was our 2nd since Connie had been gone and we were itching for some fun so we hit the road south to Dartmouth, passing the white cliffs of Gypsum Mines just beyond Windsor.

This rough terrain with its sheer bluffs are just further down the highway as we climb Mt. Uniak.

A rainy day, I still felt it was worth keeping some blurry highway shots of the kind of mixed landscape we see in the space of an hour, from farmland to these great boulders and rock cuts.

I love the lighting on this little forest pond.

Here is another larger pond,

and one, larger still.

In the grand foyer of our destination, Ikea,

this crisp bedroom was done up so that one could walk all around it.

In fact, all Ikea's displays are done in the round and people are encouraged to sit on the merchandise.

Wally was quite taken with this display, wondering if we should put some more of the trendy brass into our décor. We already have a vintage lamp and some sculptures so that's probably enough for our little house.

That's the thing: our house is pretty full as it is though I love the eye candy of interior design.

There always seems to be an accessory here that we find to update the energy of our old house with its secondhand furniture.

I got that linen tea towel on a previous trip, but I do love the modern country style incorporating the black and white ticking for the duvet cover, and metal furniture.

Oh, I didn't do Wally justice taking our picture in this bathroom mirror. I probably saw him from a different angle, but it does show the teeny camera I've used all these years for the blog.

We spent a good little while inspecting this sophisticated "Besta" modular wall unit that we both liked for the living room as we, old fogies that we are, still have a LOT of videos that we'd like to store out of sight but handy. As it is, we keep them in the blanket box coffee table and baskets, scattered throughout the room, inconvenient to say the least. Since we didn't have a tape measure handy I asked Wally to "reach for the top" to help us estimate how this arrangement of modules would fit in our low-ceilinged room.

We couldn't stay late on a Sunday, not only because Wally had to work the next day, but also because the doors shut at 6pm. That was probably a good thing; otherwise we might have moved in.

Well, I think that finally winds up November.

Thank you for coming along while I play catch-up to this present moment in time...

as if that's possible on the internet!

Still, it's good to have you along to share these experiences.

thank you!

last days of september

It is a dark and gloomy day ...

but Boy! Is it welcome!

It's been quite the drought these many weeks. I don't remember the last time it rained. July?
The irony is not lost on me, considering the devastation that wind and rain have brought to so many this last month while we have waited longingly for a bit of that rain. Nature, for all her beauty, well, I have my reservations.

One can't help but admire her, keeping a huge amount of respect in reserve.

Here, one evening, we pass the Agricultural Centre on our way into town. This is where I saw a fox nosing around on the lawn a few weeks ago, oblivious to the cars; a rare sighting.

New Minas is a big box town, full of little plazas and a mall. 

Since this is one of the few pictures that turned out on this balmy evening after the heat of day, I thought I'd share it, especially as the moon and the sweet light lend a beauty to almost anything.

A grand Victorian that stood on the market for quite a while

is most wonderful when it is decked out for Christmas. The rest of the time it is a little spooky as some Victorian houses are wont to be.

Little houses like this one on the main drag get bought up for business,

this one by a discreet professional.

I've been promising myself to remember to bring my camera when we go out in the evening as we see the most amazing sunsets across the wide expanse of parking lots, this one at the mall.

The primordial roar of triumph!

After Wally assembled the first wall unit, we searched for months for the dowels, bolts and brackets for the second one til Wally finally searched the hardware stores for the missing pieces, even travelling to Berwick for them. In the meantime, he stripped wallpaper, patched plaster cracks, sanded, primed and painted the room, researched the best way to preserve our vintage linoleum floor and proceeded to clean it as well.

Imagine his chagrin when he realized that he had assembled the first unit with a top part on its bottom and now had 2 bottom parts with which to assemble the second unit. Patient, dear Wally replaced one of the "tops" with a bottom on that first unit and proceeded to assemble the second unit with a proper top and bottom. Hence his out-of-character rejoicing! He holds my father's mallet that came in handy for pummelling the dowels into place.

This narrow room once was our guest room. Then it was where Wally set up oil painting. It began to fill with more and more random supplies til it was a holy mess. I measured the units, each 6 feet long to run the length of the room, but it only exaggerated its narrowness and created a corridor where a planned table is to go. It is actually an "L" where it turns to the left by the half revealed window and opens into a closet that creates the ceiling of the stair landing below. How to keep it open and welcoming, functional and cheerful, that's been the question. I'll show you what we come up with as it progresses. I have a feeling I won't love it so much as I do when it's empty.

Now we move onto my boys. Babu looking most fetching.

Muji admiring my art,

then hunkering down for a nap

Babu on another day, licking his chops after breakfast

Try to get this boy when he's not moving.

oh-oh, two little monkeys squaring off. These little tiffs don't last long and often break up with a licking session or just plain obliviousness. You know, the cat kind where "it never really happened".

Muji was feeling particularly needy this day and needed lots of cuddles.

I forget just how small he really is until I see him in context like this.

I've been pulling out my watercolours lately. This one embellished with white details with the uni-ball Signo and outlined with a fine Pitt pen in black india ink. The busyness of the washi tape border gives me a Persian miniature vibe that I really like.

Then, as often happens after I use a lot of colour, I turned to the monochromatic palette of a mechanical pencil, but ended up adding some paint pen because I can't help myself. It was interesting going over the bright pink roses in her dress with more graphite to help them recede.

And now I must continue restoring the new studio. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to share of it by next week. Til then, be well, be centred, be present for everything you do, you see, you hear.

It is the gift.

garden of earthly delights

The end of another week, the last Friday of July, how quickly it all goes.
Today, like yesterday, is cool and overcast. We're expecting more rain. The ash tree that has been shedding all week will appreciate that more than any of the other plants that seem to be doing so well...

like the black hollyhocks amid the clematis

Of course the hollyhocks are not really black but a deep maroon

On the other side of the composter are various plants like Echinacea and lavender

The Echinacea always seem to have benign bumblebees in them

that don't seem to mind me getting up so close to them

while they busy themselves with the task at hand

There are also sweetpeas growing up the composter walls.

Wally's garden is coming along very well, especially the peas that are too heavy to climb very far up the green trellises Wally erected for them. Peas for lunch, peas for snacks, peas for supper.

The beans are just coming in on the lefthand trellis and to their right the zucchinis, then the beets, then carrots and in the back and throughout Dill and Cilantro.

There were so many bumblebees in the cilantro. You rarely see so many together.

The bumblebee got away in this shot, but I decided to take advantage of this exposure of Cilantro blossoms.

On the pea trellis this hornet appeared to be having a nap and let me get quite close to it.

On the far side of our yard I can peer into the neighbours' poppy garden

There is a mass of berries on the mystery tree that grows from their yard into ours.

I must do some homework on this.

The black currants ripen a few at a time, and don't grow like grapes the way I once imagined.

The hayfield has been filling in nicely since it was mowed on the first of the month,

and the goldenrod, harbingers of autumn, are coming into bloom. 

Looking over to my right, Wally has cut a swath out between the massive rose bush and the equally massive back of our hedge.

The little maple tree is not so little anymore. I swear it's grown 2 feet this summer.

Wally mows around it now that I've trimmed the honeysuckle to the left, barely unrecognizable with the grass and lupins growing around and through it.

This is the first time I've noticed that Honeysuckle have a fruit all their own

And who ever looks at the grainy seed head of grass?

I'm so happy with this camera for close-ups.

Another thing I'd never noticed is how the Lupin seed pods spiral open to drop their seed.

This is a vague memory for me- that cow vetch has a seed pod.

I don't think I've noticed this since I was a child.

This camera life, this blogging, has taught me so much.

Heading back up to the house (there is a definite slope to this part of the yard) I head toward the Hydrangea, still bowed from last night's rain

Wally wanted me to look for the bird's nest he saw there.

It has been abandoned, and now it is squished from the weight of the branches.

What I love about it is the animal hair lining the nest. I find this very touching somehow.

So beautiful.

In the middle garden, the succulents we call Hens and Chicks is blooming.

And the Hostas too

I hadn't realized until a few years ago that they are lilies.

Back in the house, someone needs attention

Three Sprites

pencil crayon and India Ink Pitt pen 

And today, because I've been so happily busy making pictures, a "two-for-one". 

I rarely have so much work back-logged. This little Dancer, also done in coloured pencils with Pitt pen has a little white Sharpie paint pen too, but what's really unusual is that the body and the hair are done in Winsor & Newton pigment markers which I believe are alcohol based and absorb a little too readily into this sketchbook paper. I believe marker paper is less absorbent allowing for more blendability. Because I've been storing the marker upright instead of horizontally, I sometimes get less saturation which helped keep the skin tones more subtle.

With that, I will carry on here. Always something calling me to get done. Who would we be without some external thing calling us, defining us, ethereal beings that we are?

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience." 

                                                                                                    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin