Taking Time

Last week Cheryl commented on my face book page that I am motivated, ie "you get things done." But she was concerned that I don't take care of myself.

First: she is right. I do want to get things done. There is a never-ending list that will take me my lifetime to accomplish. I had been working a lot, often 6 days a week. This left me one day to get something, anything, done at home.

Rhubarb

Garlic

Second: I do try to take care of myself. I love the sky here and find myself looking up more than I ever have before. I have such a gorgeous piece of property and a dog that loves to walk, so we hike everyday. We see forests and paths, orchards, and grass, waterfalls and streams. I have rediscovered the joy of cooking now that I have more time. Every morning (after Dixie and my first walk) I do sit down with a coffee and a book. Over the past few years I have chosen light, fluffy romances, as my stressed or busy brain just wanted an escape. This week I have been to my book shelf and chose two books, one lighter fare, one much more in-depth and am enjoying those. I am loving watching the shoots come up as the weather warms, and have been taking the time to watch the sap drip! I often pause in the kitchen window and watch my girls do their thing. I even gave myself a pedicure tonight!

So in conclusion, I do work hard. I love my property, love my house, and I love to work on them both and feel a sense of accomplishment. But I do also have times when I am taking care of myself and I slow down, look around, feel peace, calm, joy, and happiness...I just don't write about that as often!

COVID-19

I debated not even mentioning this pandemic in my blog. I debated keeping the topic light and fluffy. I thought we are being inundated with scary and ever evolving updates so I should continue with my typical positive attitude and offer a "ray of sunshine" on these cloudy days. But when I look back on my life in snippets, this COVID-19  is pretty important to just fluff over.

I am, like the rest of you, adjusting to"the new world". For the first time ever in my life I am unintentionally unemployed. Like may others, I was laid off last week. So now the planning for the unknown begins. I will be making phone calls tomorrow to find out what my bank is doing to help their clientele with loans, I will be applying for EI and I will be assessing my cupboards.
I was very lucky to find toilet paper. Of course every shelf was as empty here in Nova Scotia as I was hearing they were in Ontario. Luckily, the little store upstairs from the YMCA still had a small supply when I was down to three rolls and starting to panic. I have created a homemade hand sanitizer, and will never go hungry with a steady supply of eggs!

While I feel I may get lonely, I do have a to-do list that is about a mile long! I am hoping that the never ending bedroom will be finished, as well I have many, many jobs that I have listed to tackle outside.  Dixie and the chickens are really loving that I am home and that I am offering lots of treats! I am loving all the phone calls from friends and family that have really increased over the past week. I am feeling very lucky that myself, my family and my friends so far, seem healthy and are coping with the boredom of social distancing (some better than others!)

I am starting to realize my schedule of upcoming visitors may not happen and that makes me sad but...

I love that the fish can be seen in the Canals of Venice, I love how bright the stars are at night, I love the decline in pollution.

Stay home, stay healthy and I will see you on the other side.

49

I turned 49 today, the real 49 not the Jack Benny 49 as Aunt Judy asked.

On this birthday I was finding a way to navigate a global pandemic, and came home to an empty house.

That is the day that some people would see.

But I have spent the past 18 months making a conscious choice to be happy. I try to see the bright side of things, to see the joy in everyday life and be a positive influence on those around me.

So on this birthday I was allowed to spend it in a place that I love being, with people I enjoy being with. I went to work. The Fundy YMCA was generous enough to stay open for this one last day before announcing their closure due to the COVID-19 virus so that I could be surrounded by friends and feel good endorphins.

I received a steady stream of messages and phone calls to remind me how much I was thought of and loved by friends and family.

I then was fortunate enough to come home to a dog who gifted me with her ideas for renovating the living room. (I guess I didn't quite move the potting soil far enough back on the shelf!)

And since I could eat whatever I wanted, I chose a selection of my favourite things and settled in for Brie, Chocolate Cupcakes and red wine!

I opened a gift my parents had sent for me. It is book compilation of all of my 2019 blog posts. On the days when I am a little down, or feel like I am not accomplishing much, I will be able to pull this book out and be so proud of how far I have come, see how much I have accomplished, hear how much I have learned, and laugh at how much fun I have had along the way.

I ended the day with a series of phone calls with my parents and my children.

So bring it on...I am ready to tackle this next year and face down 50.

Time to Tap

It's Maple Syrup time!!!! I follow a group through facebook called Maritime Maple Syrup. Seeing as I am new to the maple syrup gig I thought I would read along and get some pointers. Apparently popular opinion varies quite widely on when to tap, but this weekend seemed like one of the more popular times. So Friday I got out my gear, tapped two trees and settled in for the -16 degree day! Just my luck!! For those of you who do not know, the ideal temperatures are minus over night and plus temperatures during the day, so the -16 day was not a promising start. Today was better and I was happy to see some sap flowing.

I also realized that I made a rookie mistake last year. After the sap was all boiled down to syrup there remained an "off" taste. The best I could describe it as was "woodsy". I had asked around and no one could help pin point where I went wrong. Well....I think I figured it out. Apparently for maple syrup to taste like maple syrup you need to tap a maple tree. (Insert hand hitting forehead here). As I was scouting out my trees on Thursday trying to decide if any other maples were big enough to tap this year, I thought one of the maples I tapped last year look a little different than the others, so I googled "what type of maple has camouflage looking bark". That would apparently be an American Sycamore type of NON maple!!! In my defence it does have maple shaped leaves which were what I used to identify it, but apparently you need more than just the leaf to confirm it is a maple. I feel so stupid, but at least I didn't poison anyone with what I brewed last year!!

I am pretty sure I have two MAPLE trees tapped this time, so we will see if it produces a tastier syrup.

Today was birthday weekend. I want to wish Aunt Judy a great big happy birthday filled with lots of love and hugs...miss you so much!! Today also would have been my grandfathers birthday. I think of him often as I walk the property here. Not that anyone wants to be remembered because of a disease, but he was the first one to tell me about black knot fungus that grows on stone fruit trees. When I had moved into my house in Fonthill, I asked Poppy what that black stuff was on my plum tree. At the time, he had quite advanced macular degeneration (a loss of central vision, and his peripheral vision was like trying to look through swiss cheese). He asked me to leave the clippers and go away. He came to find me an hour later after having pruned the two plum trees to rid them of the disease. They very happily produced plums every year after that. After the rose briar, black knot fungus keeps me the most busy trying to remove it from my property. While it is another fast spreading, hard to get rid of issue, I love the memories it invokes.

Big Ball of Energy

I had the most awesome Saturday.

You know those days where you just find energy?? I so rarely have them that at 8:45am when I realized I had already walked the dog, off leash run the dog, brought firewood from behind the garage into the garage then also filled up my indoor wood bin, fed and watered the chickens, taken a load of shaving out of the chicken coop and spread fresh shavings and cleared some roses, I realized wow!!!! if I can accomplish that in an hour and a half...what else can I do.

A lot is the answer. I hung curtains, painted a door, repaired, sanded and stained drawers to a dresser, cleared two blackberry patches (with the help of the chickens), cleared roses from around the apple tree that fell in the hurricane and cut what I could then reach, took the dog on two hikes and had another off leash game of fetch, gathered all the information I had for my children to do their taxes, tried the first idea of how to manage all the potatoes I have. I blanched and froze three cookie trays of french fries (great idea...I cooked up some today to sample and make sure that process works. Yep, they were delicious!!) I had a lovely long conversation with Zoe. I miss that girl but she is doing really well! When I finally stopped for the day and looked up, it was 11:30pm.

I sure was tired and sore today, but still managed to accomplish a fair bit including peeling and cutting 5 dozen potatoes, boiling and mashing them. I made 5 shepherd's pies and froze the rest in mashed potato rounds.  During the week I hope to make and freeze potato pancakes, dishes of scalloped potatoes, and par boil chunked potatoes that I can use for hash browns or put in soups. I can't thank everyone enough for all the suggestions.


I think that Mother Earth was feeding from the same energy pool that I was yesterday. In order to clear one of the blackberry patches, I needed to remove a birch tree which had fallen over the blackberries. I had started the process last week and had cut a third of the tree up. I brought the chainsaw out, cut some side branches then cut two 16" chunks off the end. Cut more branches, cut another chunk. Now here is the really fun, unbelievable, gravity defying part of the story. I cut a small, insignificant side branch off of this birch tree and stared in awe as the righted itself standing all remaining 10 feet upright. Dropping its roots and raised ground back into the hole it came from. What kind of magic is this??? I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture to the right, but the top of the tree is white and freshly cut looking and 10 feet off the ground (nothing anywhere near what I can reach!)

And tomorrow its back to work lol!!