Photo Essay on the Beginning of Fall

After I spent the day doing this....
















And my food storage room shelves were starting to look like this....













And the evening sky was looking like this between the trees in our back yard where the Linden tree's yellow leaves glowed in the gloaming....



















We gathered all the fallen wood around the yard and our sticks together and did this....












And sat in the firelight's glow and talked and sang "fire's burning, fire's burning, draw nearer..."













Happy Fall

A Successful Day

Well, I filled my fruit dryer with sliced up plums, made 16 pints of salsa and 6 1/2 pints of red plum jelly and had soup simmering in the slow cooker all day. And then I went out to watch Redfish play at Monashee's last night and managed to stay all 3 sets (although my ears were plugged for most of the last 2 sets - I do feel a bit conspicuous, sitting there with my ears plugged...hehe. I danced with my friend Monique. An almost perfect day.

But the red plum jelly didn't set so I am about to open all those bottles and pour them back into the pot and add some pectin (the recipe said that plums have enough of their own pectin... not these ones, I guess). This is my first attempt at making jelly... ever. And then I will move on to the peaches and apples. I have secured a promise from Dean to help me make applesauce today...

A Mountain of Fruit

Well, I don't know if anyone is reading my blog... (did you know that I LOVE comments?) In case you can't tell, I have been listening to a lot of CBC radio. I have been doing that while working in my kitchen. Working in the kitchen can be a rather meditative, thoughtful thing to do for me (if I do it at all). While doing those things that don't use up so much of my brain, I like to listen to thought provoking things like books on tape or CBC radio. And there has been a lot to do in the kitchen lately. Still trying to find things to do with zucchini. And starting to do things with apples. And finishing things with plums... I think I am going to learn how to make jelly. The boxes of empty jars in my food storage room are getting empty and the shelves are getting more and more full of beautifully coloured salsas and jams and tomatoes and peaches.

Here is my latest favourite zucchini recipe from Simply Recipes. It was a huge hit with everyone... except Rhiannon. I didn't peel or seed the tomatoes and I used organic chicken stock. I also didn't add the tobasco sauce. And I would concur with the comments (although I don't know Wolfgang Puck) that it is the best vegetable soup I have ever had!

Vegetable Soup with Sweet Basil Recipe

This recipe comes from Wolfgang Puck's mother. It's the best vegetable soup I've ever had.

Preparation time: 1 hour

2 small leeks, white part only
1 large potato, peeled
1 small onion
2 stalks celery
1 medium zucchini
12 green beans
2 medium carrots, peeled
6 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons water
2 quarts chicken stock (or 2 qts water, 4 bouillion cubes, a pinch of thyme, and 1/2 bay leaf OR you can use vegetable broth for a vegetarian option)
4 to 6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded
4 medium garlic cloves
30 fresh basil leaves, washed and dried
Salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
A few drops of Tabasco sauce

Cut the leeks, potato, onion, celery, zucchini, green beans, and carrots into 1/4 inch diced cubes.

In a 6-quart stockpot, combine 3 tablespoons of the olive oil with the water. Add the vegetables and sauté over medium-low heat until all the water evaporates. Do not brown the vegetables.

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Cook at a gentle boil for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, put the tomatoes, basil, garlic, and remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Pulse until pureed.

Stir the puree into the cooked soup. Do not let the soup return to a boil. Season, to taste, with salt, pepper, and a few dashes of Tabasco. Serve the soup hot or cold from a tureen or in individual bowls.

Serves 6.

Note from Wolfgang Puck: His mother only uses water, because her vegetables are peak-of-the-season, just-picked, and therefore full of flavor, but you can use stock if you like. Pistou, the puree of tomatoes, basil, garlic, and olive oil in this recipe, is a traditional French condiment that adds a burst of flavor just before serving.

If My Life Had a Soundtrack - the beginning

So, if my life had a soundtrack, the very first song after my 'musical awakening' at age 14 (1979) would be Billy Joel's 'My Life' from his 52nd St Album (in the days of albums - I bought it for my brother Doug for his 13th birthday and now I own it on CD). For me, the lyrics matter far more than the music. So here are the lyrics




My Life by Billy Joel

Got a call from an old friend
We used to be real close
Said he couldn't go on the American way
Closed the shop, sold the house
Bought a ticket to the West Coast
Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.

I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

I never said you had to offer me a second chance
I never said I was a victim of circumstance
I still belong, don't get me wrong
And you can speak your mind
But not on my time

They will tell you, you can't sleep alone in a strange place
Then they'll tell you, you can't sleep with somebody else
Ah, but sooner or later you sleep in your own space
Either way it's okay, you wake up with yourself

I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

I never said you had to offer me a second chance
I never said I was a victim of circumstance
I still belong, don't get me wrong
And you can speak your mind
But not on my time

I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone

****************************************************************
I am sure this was an anthem for many angry teenagers at the time. I know my best friend in grade 9 left her 45 playing over and over on her stereo for her parents to find when she ran away. But I was not an especially angry teen and I never ran away (although I did think of it). But the description of a drive to live ones own life resonated with me then and they still do (only I'm not angry about it anymore). It is one of the things that has compelled me - driven me - in my life - the need to live my own life on my own terms. I have belted this song out on the 'top of my lungs' many times (but its been awhile now). I think I'll put that CD on right now while I do the dishes...

Hope

Another political post, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to stop listening to CBC... Yesterday morning I was so moved by an interview on the Current of Michael Ignatieff . He is currently the elected Liberal MP from the Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding in Ontario and is running for the leadership of the Liberal Party. I urge you to listen to the interview. I have never been so filled with hope for Canadian politics. I was close to tears to think that we could have a man like this lead our country.

I have not had very much hope for Canada with Stephen Harper in power in Ottawa and Gordon Campbell in power here in BC. Red-necked, compassion-less, bottom-line driven policies are the story of the day as I see what I love about this country further eroded away. Michael Ignatieff is the son of a politician who was a colleague and close friend of Lester Peason. He has a great vision for peace and believes that military action is always the wrong action. He has been around the world and has an intelligent and informed view of world politics and what amazing things are possible.

Most of all it was refreshing to hear someone speak who had not obviously been briefed by his polsters. A man with a vision and firm, well-informed opinions. He was compassionate, wise AND fiscally responsible. He even talked about the Quebec problem and our 'unfinished' constitution in the most reasonable way I have ever heard anyone speak. He pointed out that we need to face the fact that Quebec is different than the rest of Canada. It is a nation within a nation and we need to recognize that - and that recognizing that already existing fact will not tear Canada apart but make us stronger. He talked about how when Quebec celebrates St Jean Baptiste Day, as their national day and that they think of themselves in other ways as a nation. He also talked about the environment in really sensible ways - actually dealing with the issues that face us and looking for real solutions - for factories for the cars we drive... He talked about the growing divide between urban and rural and the need for real solutions that make choices more equal no matter where you live. He talked about the need to have a unified policy on healthcare...

I don't do his eloquence justice here. I hope you will check him out for yourself - you can read his blog here. I have never been one to put political signs on my lawn or to campaign for any politician but I would for him. I think he is exactly what we need right now to take us into this new era in the world and to take a leadership role in the environment and for peace.

International Peace Day

Yesterday as I was driving Andrew up to a mentor's house of his to help him bring in his firewood, I listened to a most inspired broadcast on CBC in preparation for International Peace Day, September 21. It was Michael Enright's Sunday Edition. He was interviewing Paul Rogers who teaches Peace Studies at Bradford University in Bradford England. I was so impressed with the views and opinions of Paul Rogers. I found them refreshing, real, honest and fair.

He talked about if we are ever to achieve real peace in the world, we will have to look past the tactics and dogma of our enemies and listen to their real concerns. For example in the middle east: We won't get anywhere until we look past the hype and see what the real concerns of the average person are - which are about western occupation of their countries and western control of their oil. He said that when we do that, the extreme positions of some of the leaders right now will no longer matter because the average person will not follow. He said the extreme element is actually a minority but the people go along with their agenda because they have a point about standing up for their sovereignity. And actually it seems to me that if we spent as much money researching how to live with out fossil fuels (which are doomed to run out eventually anyways) as we have spent on war in the Middle East that we would surely no longer be dependant on their oil supply anyways.

Force simply doesn't work. Why is it that we sanction the use of methods in other countries that we would never tolerate here in Canada or in the US? But it is okay for us to strip others in other places of their freedom, their dignity and their so-called 'inalienable rights' like the right to self-government, surely. Why are we still figuring this out in 2006? Why do we think that there are some situations that are an exception? There are no exceptions. Force in a very short term solution with long time negative effects. Or haven't we figured that out yet? There will never be a WAR to end all wars. War only begets more war. If we believe that force is the ultimate answer to solve our problems then we will end up with a world like ones described by Aldus Huxley or Margaret Atwood and others where our freedoms have been given up in the name of progress or security.

Michael Enright even brought up Hitler. And I loved what Paul Rogers had to say. He said that before you look at Hitler, you had to look at the economic situation in Europe and how Germany had been treated - this context (for which the whole world is responsible) is what allowed Hitler to rise. I can hardly do justice to Paul Rogers. His eloquence and his intelligence and his loving and accepting way of looking at the world - at the big picture beyond his own nationality and ethnicity - was inspiring. You can read some of his articles here. He writes an column for Open Democracy - a great magazine if you want a fresh perspective on world issues.

There is no 'axis of evil' except the axis of evil inside each of us. I pray in these days coming up to International Peace day that we will be able to find what is good in eachother (what is god in eachother) and what brings us together and begin to construct a world that will have real and lasting peace.

If My Life Had a Soundtrack

I am going to do a series about the soundtrack of my life. Music is very important to me even if the closest I will come to being a musician is sleeping with one.... I remember my musical awakening at 14 when my older cousin, Becky, introduced me to Billy Joel's newly released Glass Houses. I have been a Billy Joel fan ever since (I can still sing along with every song on the album). In fact, I have every CD of his except for the best of one and the Songs in the Attic. When I love music, I love it for a long time - a lifetime. I am not one who seeks after new sounds but I love the music that I own and listen to it over and over at different times.

So if my life had a soundtrack, the songs that I am most drawn to - that resonates with me - are songs about searching and about journeys of the soul. This is the one I am listening to (and crying to) and dancing to this week.

Dixie Chicks
The Long Way Around

My friends from high school
Married their high school boyfriends
Moved into houses in the same ZIP codes
Where their parents live

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

I hit the highway in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling
Lived like a gypsy
Six strong hands on the steering wheel

I've been a long time gone now
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
But I've always found my way somehow

By taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around

I met the queen of whatever
Drank with the Irish and smoked with the hippies
Moved with the shakers
Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to

No I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

It's been two long years now
Since the top of the world came crashing down
And I'm getting' it back on the road now

But I'm taking the long way
Taking the long way around
I'm taking the long way
Taking the long way around
The long
The long way around

Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found

Taking the long way
Taking the long way around
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around

From the Album: Taking The Long Way

What would be song in your soundtrack?

Them

So with a daughter in College in downtown Montreal, you can be sure I have been following the situation. The shootings that happened yesterday afternoon were actually at a College only a block away from LaSalle College that Erin is attending. She called me while it was happening so I would not be freaked out when I heard about it. Considerate girl. I would probably been on the next flight and dragged her home with me... Not that scary things can't happen here. Vernon was afterall home to the Gakhal family masacre in 1996.

Which brings me to my point. When something like this happens, we point to the evil-doer who perpetuated the crime and wonder what went wrong with him? He must have always been different from us, right? He's one of 'them'. One of 'them' whose personalities are somehow deffective from birth and isn't it evident now that we look back. We are in no way responsible. It has nothing to do with us.

Or does it? It is like looking back on history and seeing Hitler and his anti-semitism in a vacuum. Hitler was so evil. Often he is used to embody evil. We think of him in a vacuum. Hitler was not in a vacuum. He was a member of society and a part of the culture at the time. Anti--semitism was rampant around the world. Hitler was only acting out a part of the society. Why do you think the world took so long to respond. For heaven's sake 6,000,000 Jews died before he was stopped!

I believe we are all one. Kimveer Gil is a part of our culture. In a culture that glorifies violence or thinks that watching violence or playing violent games are entertainment, he is not alone. There is no them and us. There is only US. All of us. Our violent thoughts or our violent communication all contribute to the violence in the world. What went wrong with Kimveer Gil? I don't believe as has been suggested on the news that he came 'defective from the factory'. Once he was a perfect baby boy. Somewhere things went wrong for him. We failed him somehow.

I am sad for the families of the students at Dawson College for their horrendous experience. I am sad for Kimveer Gil and his family and I am sad for all of us. How sad that he thought this was what he had to contribute. Lets not waste his contribution. May it serve as a wake up call to all of us. Accept yourself. Love yourself. Reach out. Love those in your life. Ultimately I believe that technique is secondary. It is love that matters.

I Am Amazing!

I am amazing. I am wonderful. I am incredible and beautiful and intelligent and insightful and generous and thoughtful. I am perfect right now in this perfect, beautiful moment.

So what happens when you read this opinion I have of myself? What is your reaction? Do you agree? Do you think I am joking? Are you glad I am embracing my wonderful-ness? Are you disgusted? Disappointed? Do you think I am deluded? Vain? 'Over' confident? What is your reaction?

Because your reaction has nothing to do with me and the veracity of my claims about myself. But it will show you what you believe about yourself and your own wonderful-ness. Because I am no more wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, incredible or amazing than you. And it illustrates the point that what we believe of others is only a reflection of what we believe about ourselves. "Take nothing personally" is the second agreement of 'The Four Agreements' by Miguel Ruiz. I'm listening to the tapes (which are overdue from the library...) for the 3rd or 4th time. Which not only means that what others think of us and say to us is not really about us but about them but it also means that what we think about others and say to them is not really about them but is about us.

I am struggling even writing this post. The truth is that as soon as I write those words about myself - about my wonderful-ness - that it sets off a series of negative volleys of criticism. I am afraid no one will like me if I like myself. Afraid that if everyone knew how much I secretly love myself, that would be the clincher and they would be disgusted with me. Or they could see my faults and shortcomings so clearly that they would feel sad of my delusions.

This self-criticism is lovable, too. What a wonderful part of myself who DOES know of my true worth and seeks only to protect me from harm! What a gift to have had such a protector when I really needed one! And now I loving release this loving protector. It is amazing how the self-talk inside myself calms down and I can breathe and my heart calms down when I acknowledge the once-helpfulness of my self-criticism and the intention of my self critic. I don't believe that our inner critic is really out to destroy us or to keep us down. In a certain situation at a certain time - usually when we were vulnerable children, that voice protected us from hurt. Mine protected me. Love is the only answer - even when it means loving those parts of myself that have held me back.

New Year

Happy New Year! In Canada, the beginning of September is really the beginning of a new year. Refreshed and re-energized from all of our summer fun (hopefully) we are ready to re-commit ourselves to the year ahead. It is the time that decisions are made about our schedule for the next 10 months. Classes, courses, lessons... Everything starts afresh. After my initial greiving for the loss of long, hot, spontaneous days and time spent as a family together just being, I love this time of year. I feel recharged and ready to try different things, think different thoughts and learn something new. I have been living in my kitchen these last several days, making plum jam and salsa, trying new zucchini recipes and continually cleaning up after myself. My house has been full of the smells of canning. I even invented a new recipe of my own. I made some plum jam out of the little red plums in the orchard and it was so good and vaguely reminded me of red pepper jelly. So I made some plum jam with peppers and garlic in it. Still tastes kind of plummy but I think it will go well on crackers in the winter... I even think I might be ready to make some jelly myself. I have always dismissed it as too much work but I'm thinking that it has to be an easier way to process all these little red plums which have more pit than anything else. My plum jam has truly been a several hour long labour of plum love (because I think it is bad karma to waste what the earth gives me in such generous abundance...)

Its also a time of self reflection. A time to recommit myself to myself. A time to let some bad habits go and start some good ones. I ahve been pondering myself deeply and what I want in this new year. How I want my life to be, my family to be and how to go about getting it that way. Spring this year was just WAY too hectic. Too much stuff to do, places to go. I ended up not really doing anything really well. I don't want to get in the position again. Rhiannon will forgo ball this year and sign up for soccer instead (one day a week vs two and on a different day than K's ball). Arranging for music lessons to end earlier in the spring. Arranging my time at the Inner World School to be more concentrated on a couple of days rather than an hour every day.

Well, time to go and get dressed... its noon, after all...

Encropesis

So, Rhiannon has given herself encropresis. You can read about it here or see what the Mayo clinic has to say about it here. I have written about it before and I thought we were getting a handle on it but it has been persisting and getting worse. Of course I haven't been to a Dr yet. But I will in the next couple of weeks. In the end she was holding her 'stool' for almost 2 weeks and leaking into her panties several times a day. Eventually children who do this lose the normal urges to poop and this had deffinitely happened. I followed the treatment from the Mayo clinic and bought some suppositories and fed her a steady diet of laxative tea. She has started having the urge to poop in the last couple of days. We are down to one cup of laxitive tea and no suppositories.

So I thought we would do the Master Cleanse. Kaetlyn said she wanted to do it, too. So the three of us girls set out to cleanse our bowels... We had our cup of tea last night and this morning but Rhiannon is struggling with drinking instead of eating. She hasn't drank enough and she is feeling hungry. I don't think she is going to make it. And Kaetlyn says that she doesn't think she will be able to keep going. So that leaves me... I wasn't really in a cleanse mood. And I always feel hungry when I do it and I don't feel energized, either. I feel like I am fasting... But I could probably use a cleanse and now I have all this stuff - for 3 people to do it. That was expensive... What to do...

A Case of Mistaken Identity

Or maybe it is just 'gender confusion'. Here is Delila eating her first mouse. I hope it was the one that was pooping in the drawer under the stove and in the cupboard under the sink... It was a huge mouse - must have been a field mouse. She ate the entire thing except for some part of the digestive system. The gall bladder? I'm not sure. It was the shape (although not the size) of a human pancreas.

We just got home from our little shopping holiday in Calgary. We did the outlet thing and Kaetlyn and I did pretty good. But when we got home and were petting our quickly growing kittens who seemed to have grown so much while we were gone for just 5 days..., we noticed something strange about Delila.

'She' has a certain part of anantomy that should be lacking in a female cat... See those furry little protusions just below her anus? They are testicles... Hey, even the farm guy said 'she' was a girl. But... Yes, Delila is a he. Now there is the issue of the name. Delila is such a femine name, there is not chance of keeping it... Dean is favouring Dell - that corny name from the '50's. I'm favouring just calling her (um, I mean him) Dilly which has been our nickname for her/him thus far. Drew is undecided...

But I do maintain that cat testicles are the cutest testicles. Aren't those furry little balls cute? Tigger's were orange and even cuter. I'm sure I'm demented, but still, c'mon, admit it. Cat balls are cute. Admire them while he has them, they won't be there for long...

I Lost Track of the Date...

Darn! I had this post planned for a loooong time! And then I lost track of the date and had some stuff to deal with with Kaetlyn and Drew's dad and wasn't in the mood. But 34 years ago, a most amazing thing happened to me.

As I have already talked about my fate of having 3 brothers are regular intervals right after me. By age 7, my mom was pregnant and I was surrounded by slobbery, farting brothers. (You do know that the now-dignified Doug and John used to have farting contests and would eat things on purpose to have the most and the stinkiest farts - and they would do this while we were travelling in an enclosed vehicle. Yes, it is true!) I had been praying for years for a sister. Two years earlier I had got my third brother instead of my hoped-for-sister.

But on August 22, 1972 while I was staying at my friend, Lin Huber's house and sleeping in their tent trailer, my dad called to wake me up at 2 in the morning or so and tell me that I finally got my baby sister.

In those days, hospitals didn't allow siblings to visit but my dad got me home a day early from my friend's and brought me with him to pick up my mom from the hospital. I remember the Sunday morning and waiting outside the church in PG for my dad who was in priesthood meeting (back in the day that priesthood meeting was before church on Sundays). I remember catching a grasshopper and letting it jump through my hands in the warm morning light. I remember getting to hold her for the first time and my awe and excitement to have my little sister. We went to lunch at the Red Lion in PG. My parents making an exception for a Sunday to celebrate their second daughter. So much of those days is so clear in my memory because it was so significant to me. And look at her! Isn't she cute?


Katherine Louise - called Katie-Lou and now just Katie. Her first steps were running after our mom. I can remember that day, too - in our house on Fir St in PG. And she was like that. So detirmined with a strong will. It was really difficult to get her to do anything that she didn't want to do. And you should have seen those curls shake when she was mad! We shared a room for several years and she used to wake me, calling "Aya, Aya, Up!" Until I got up at 6am and lifted her out of her crib. I remember her jumping to me from the stairs in our 910 Gillette house.

And she grew up to be such a smart and amazing and incredibly beautiful woman. She is the kind of woman who trains for marathons and runs them. When she makes up her mind to accomplish something, you can be sure that it will happen! I am so proud of my little sister. And still so grateful that I got to have the priviledge of being her sister. And she was deffinitely worth waiting 7 years and 3 brothers for! Kaetlyn is named for her. So, Happy Birthday, Katie! Sorry it's late!

A sad tale of a baby bird

So on Monday Kaetlyn walked down to Kal highschool to get her report card and her information about her next years classes (which didn't get here in the mail because of our move...). On her way back as she walked past all the heavy construction where they are putting in sewer lines on Kal Lake Rd., she happened upon a baby bird by the side of the road too young to fly. So she picked it up and brought it home. We did a fair amount of research and made some phone calls and discovered that it was a Cedar Waxwing. A friend of mine sent me a link to this website which is a really cool and informative site! Look how beautiful Cedar Waxwings are! It already had the distinctive bright yellowy-orange stripe on its tail feathers And it had a beautiful little song.



We loved it! We discovered that it was a fruit and berry eater and that Waxwings are amongst the latest birds to sit a nest which is why there is a baby bird at the end of the summer... We fed it chunks of plums and berries from our Mountain Ash and water by a dropper. It was very fun. Kaetlyn arranged for a friend of hers to nurse it while we are gone to Calgary this week end.










It was very interesting to watch Delila and Coppellia. At first they paid the baby bird no mind at all and didn't even seem to notice it. Then, suddenly, yesterday morning it was like a switch flipped and Delila first realized through some deep genetic memory that this was her prey and she tried to leap up and pounce on the bird. Even though I was watching her and trying to stop her, her drive for the bird obliterated me. Soon after Coppellia also realized that this was a possible food source for her... I put them outside and they climbed a tree and came in an upstairs window. Of course, I saved the bird and then we went into the kitchen and closed all the doors. They prowled around the kitchen door and crouched in the 'pounce ready' position. Here they are at the kitchen door.



And here is Delila coming through the door, taking advantage of me taking pictures of them... We managed to save the wee bird from the cats but it died anyways. It lasted about 24 hours. I don't know what it was. Too much food? Not mushed up enough? Not enough food? (it ate ALOT). Was it ill and so the mother bird pushed it out of the nest in the first place? I suspect, we didn't keep it warm enough. When I discovered it near death, it was very chilled and although I warmed it up, it died in my hands. I was in awe of what mysterious things mother birds do for their young that keep them alive. I was in awe of the fragility of life and how one moment it is there and one moment it is not. We learned a lot about that bird. Because it had few feathers, the kids could clearly see the bird's digestive system - the berries and fruit gather in the gullet.



So thank you, baby Cedar Waxwing for coming to us for such a short time. I wish we could have done better for you...

Last Days of Summer

Thank you, Beth for the beautiful new skin. I love it! Aren't I lucky to have such a talented sister (she's beautiful, too - she's got it all!) And I even managed to get the comments working myself. Yay!

Well, these are the last days of summer and despite the voiciferous protest that I am sure will be launched by Bean and Pea, I love summer and I always feel sad as it starts to fade. I have a hard time enjoying fall because I know winter is coming and I just don't like winter. I am sure it all stems from my childhood in Northern BC where winter lasts from October to May and sometimes September to June.... I love summer, the warm, soft air, the fragences that waft on the evening breezes, swimming in the lake, summer clothes - not having to put on layers before you go outside, fresh produce, fruit....I could go on and on. Anyways, the last days of summer are precious to me! We made the most of it yesterday by spending the day at Ellison. Here we are:

Kaetlyn and Meg (who's visiting for the week) jump off the rocks into the water while I watch from the tube.











My beautiful daugter, Kaetlyn, trying to get up the courage to jump off the cliffs... Will she do it?


































I love this picture - Dean mid air - jumping off the cliffs.


We had fun. We swam, we jumped, we laid on the warm rocks, I snorkled around and marvelled at the huge schools of baby salmon, we roasted hot dogs for dinner, ate chips and blueberries, laughed and played together. I love summer....

Good for you

I am having a hard time blogging as I hate my skin now. I wrecked it by fiddling with the html and now 1/2 of Bethany's great design is gone and what is left is somehow magnified and it is all weird with frames... I wish I knew enough to fix it or had 4 hours to sit at the computer and learn enough to make my own skin. And the comments still aren't working right... Thank you to all of you who left comments anyways!

Other than that, I am having a great day. I have been industrious in the kitchen inspired by my friend, I have made soup from every vegetable growing in my garden. Okay, so it is a little heavy on zucchini. Did I mention that I love zucchini? My soup is not quite as pure as hers, I added some beef stock... And it does have half an onion and one potatoe that did not come from my garden. Other than that, the beets, the carrots, the basil, the dill, the peppers (and did I mention the zucchini...) all came from my garden. It is simmering now, ready for lunch. Kaetlyn is making biscuits right now to go with it. Yum!

Before I got to the soup I made muffins - my taste-great-and-good-for-you muffins. I have modified the original recipe so much, that I think it is fair to say that this is my own recipe. It varies everytime but this is what I made this morning:

Andrea's Good-For-You Muffins (no sugar and low fat)

-preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease muffin tins (paper liners don't work well because there is very low fat content and the paper becomes one with the muffin...). This recipe makes 24 muffins. Because of the high organic content, I recommend freezing and then thawing muffins as you want to eat them. My kids don't like them (too healthy) so I take out 2 or 3 a day for myself.

1/3 cup water
2 T olive oil
2 farm fresh, free range eggs
5 med bananas
2 cups of grated zucchini (did I mention that I have lots of zucchini?)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

- mix all above ingredients with mixer until well mixed and fluffy

-add following ingredients and then mix with wooden spoon until wet - don't over mix
2 cups whole grain spelt flour
1 cup organic corn meal
1/2 cup organic ground flax seed
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2 teaspoons organic baking powder
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup dried cranberries

- add more water if it doesn't look wet enough (banana's have varying amounts of water in them and it depends on whether they were frozen or not...) Spoon into muffin tins, bake at 400 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes. Check to make sure they are cooked through.

Our Camping Trip

Please make sure you read the previous post...

So we had a wonderful camping trip. We camped in Silverton and went to the Suzuki Valhalla Institute in New Denver. Kaetlyn, Drew, Rhiannon and I loaded up and headed out on Sunday. Dean was with Redfish playing in Pincher Creek, Alberta. I picked him up on Monday after the first day of classes at the Galena Bay ferry, about an hour and a half from where we were camping.
















Its actually the first time that we have camped all together as a family (without Erin of course). We borrowed a friend's large tent and Dean, Rhiannon and I slept in that one and Kaetlyn and Drew slept in our little tent. We had a great time cooking together, hanging out without phone, computer or xbox. We were in the 'Creekside Overflow' campground - a small campground.

Everyone in the campsite was also attending the 'institute' and we were there with 3 other families from Vernon. The kids quickly made friends and ran around playing together. Kaetlyn and Drew switched back and forth between hanging out with the adults and the kids. (seen here in Dave's motorcycle and sidecar - a very popular attraction that we all got rides in...) We brought Jodi with us and she behaved very well and was also very popular with the kids who walked her for hours around the campsite and tried to get her to howl.


















We had sunshine until Wednesday evening when we got some of the most dramatic thunder storms that I have ever been in. We kept snug and dry inside our tents although I got a little wet cooking spaghetti in the pouring rain... Drew had positioned the tarp entirely over their little tent and the cooking/eating area was not covered at all.... It took 3 days for my hoodie sleeves to dry that were sticking out of the gargage bag I was wearing... Thursday night it also poured but it was our night to go out to dinner with our friends. So we sat snug and warm (if not a little grubby) in the Silverton Country Inn eating warm food while it poured outside.

The lake was incredibly beautiful. Both Silverton and New Denver (which are only 5 km's apart) are on Slocan Lake - a long, very deep lake bordered by steep, majestic mountains. The water is clear and cool. There were no showers at our campground so I bathed in the lake every other morning. Even on the cool mornings after the rain. I loved it. The lake gets deep very quickly which probably made it easier to bathe in - you didn't have to wade way out there to do it, getting colder by the minute - it was just a few steps and you were up to your neck. Dean, Drew and Kaetlyn went for a couple of midnight swims in the moonlight.
















What really captured my imagination for the week was the fact that New Denver was my grandfather's first teaching position after he got his teaching certificate and they (my mother's family) lived there from 1951 - 1955. These are pictues of the house that they lived in and the view they had from the front of their house. I imagined my young mother walking along the dusty roads. They moved there when she was 8 and left when she was 12. The school where the institute was held is built on the same grounds as the school my grandfather taught and and my mother attended (he taught in the highschool which was situated right beside the elementary school). There was a very old backstop and I wondered if that was the spot where she got her tooth knocked out playing back catcher during PE.

My lasting impressions:
- how incredibly much Rhiannon learned. I am really impressed witht he Suzuki method! Their immersion theory is based on how we acquire language and it is truly amazing just how much Rhiannon learned simply by being exposed and immersed in violin music for the week.
-the wonderful, relaxed feeling of camping together as a family
-the breathless and indescribable beauty of the West Kootenays, Slocan Lake
-the sleepy, stopped-in-time, everyone-knows-everyone feeling of a tiny community of only 609 people

Some housekeeping

Well, I have deleted my tagboard due to problems people were having with viruses from it. I was sad to see all those wonderful comments go.... :(. I have spent hours trying to get my blog to do comments. I finally have it semi-functioning. You can post a comment and you can read other comments while you are posting but you can't view the comments otherwise. I don't know why. I have fiddled a lot with the html and I don't really know what I am doing. Beth, if you are able to read this, and have time on a computer, please help me... So please comment, I love comments...

Off on her adventure

This is Erin in front of our first house in Winnipeg on her way to her first day at kindergarten. I cried then, too. And then got in my car and raced to the school to be there as she got off the bus...

When I was in Toronto for surgery on my knee, it occurred to me, as I got on the gurney to be wheeled to the operating room where they were going to cut my leg in half, how unnatural it was to go willingly. To do something like that, they should have to chase you down and tie you up...

I felt the same way last night as we said good bye to Erin. I shouldn't have had to get in my van and drive away. Someone should have had to tear us apart. I wept in the alley behind her apartment as I watched her swing her baby sister around. I know what it is like to leave young siblings. You miss so much as they grow up. I wept as she and Kaetlyn clung to each other and cried as they hugged each other. In those moments all the false fighting and petty jealousies washed away and their love for each other shone through. And then I bawled my fool head off (as Dean would say - only he uses it to refer to the dog: as in barked her fool head off) as I clutched her in that alley behind her apartment. I am so proud of her and I lover her so much. I am going to miss her terribly. And it is not so much a missing of her presence in Vernon. It is more a missing of her childhood - of her still growing up - of her look of glee as she goes to kindergarten for the first time - or her grin as her first tooth fell out - of her dependence on me - of that absolute interdependence and meshing of our lives. I'm not ready for it to be done. There are still so many things I want to give her for her childhood but I can't now. It's done. This is perhaps, a big part of why I weep. I know she will always need me emotionally but in a different way. I guess her leaving for Montreal to me signals a more final door closing on her childhood. The inevitable door. Like the door she went through on her way to kindergarten...

Lots

Well, so much to write about! We had Erin's goodbye party for her on Sarah's birthday (August 3).

I have the most awesome friends! I really wanted to make Erin a blanket out of our sheep's wool that I had made into quilting batting. But there was so much going on all the time, I just didn't get it together. With 2 days to go until the party (and we're leaving camping tomorrow), two of my friends made sure I got it accomplished. True, I was up until 3am the night (morning?) before the party but I got it done. I made her a duna (that is a duvet that has wool inside instead of feathers) so that she can change the covers for it to suit whatever she is into at the time. I made the cover olive green on one side and cream on the other.

At the party, I had many of my closest friends and their young daughters here. I did a little ceremony in the living room with all of us (only girls). I had so many things planned out in my head to say that were so meaningful but most of it went right out of my head. I am going to write it out for her, though, so she will have it. I gave her 2 ribbons - a red one that symbolizes the blood that binds us - my blood that made her - the umbilical cord that was cut at birth. And I gave her a green ribbon to symbolize our hearts that bind us that can never be cut. I told her that what I want more than anything is for her to know me and for me to know her - truly. There were so many other things that I wanted to say - how I know I made many mistakes in our life together and how each one that hurt her is written in my soul. How proud I am of her. Even, now as I write all of this here, emotion overwhelms me and I forget. Bit by bit I will get it written. Maybe it is because the only thing that really matters is how much I love her! I cried and my friends cried. I wish I could be more eloquent when my emotions run so high...

But do you know what the most surprising thing for me was? Dean was leaving the next morning at 4am for Pincher Creek. Yet in the middle of the night, he wakes me up and asks if this is the last time he will see Erin before she goes and then he gets up and writes her a letter. I don't think he slept at all. I wept to read the letter the next morning. So beautiful and I am so grateful that he loves her like that and that he recognizes how important his fatherly love is to her. It was an answer to so many, many prayers I prayed on her behalf.

We are going camping tomorrow for a week to the Kootnays. We are going to be in New Denver and Silverton - where grandpa got his first teaching job. I've never been there and I'm looking forward to it. But we got a lot to do today...