kittycafe

M is for Min

I procrastinated two weeks before writing this post.

I wanted M is for Mosaic and my latest project (still unfinished) but this M could not be ignored any longer.

 Tiny Mighty Min we call her. The smallest, graceful cat with the will of iron.

 The little escape artist, who we never willingly let outside because she doesn't come in when called, never came in one night. It was much more fun to run to the door and run away again when it was opened to let her in. Why come in when you can chase fireflies?

I don't know if a coyote got her or she is in someone's barn somewhere. Lost.

She was incredibly fast and last seen going into the neighbour's vast acres of corn.

We put up notices and we did get a call that she was spotted in a backyard in a neighbouring estate subdivision on the other side of the corn field. 

But that is all.

This is not fair to Littlest, who lost her other sweet girl, at 2 years as well.

We miss Min.

 I have dreamt of her showing up at the door with her little paws rat-a-tatting as they did, like on an upright treadmill.

But sometimes life just is what it is, 

and there is not always a happy ending.

L is for Local

Or, The Idiot Gardener, Revisited

We were half way through eating dinner the other night when I realised the meal was almost entirely local, without conscious planning.

I had picked green beans earlier, after rejigging my homemade trellis which was leaning dangerously under the weight of the pole beans. I discovered actual beans on it quite by accident while fingers twisted twine, master gardener that I am... snort.  This veggie growing gig still amazes me.* I have been so intent on the box and soil and planting that the vegetables seem more like a happy bonus, than the actual purpose of the whole enterprise.

A roast was in the oven, natural grass fed beef from a local farm, with potatoes from my garden as well.**

Carrots were requested and the fridge bin came up empty so I went and pulled a few of those.

Littlest wanted Yorkshire pudding, the only part of a roast dinner she likes, with lots of gravy.

So fresh eggs, purchased roadside, were put to use and I buy organic flour from Hockley Valley (which has no website and I threw away the bag, dang it). Also in my neck of the woods.

And there you have it. I can say 'neck of the woods' now and really mean woods. Small things amuse... well, you know.

Also local and still a wonder that I have these things in my backyard, the heron (pictured above) has come to the pond several times this week, no doubt eyeing the rainbow trout that is stocked therein.

The Husband took this photo while lying on the grass from the other side of the pond with the telephoto lens, obviously.

I had a bigger treat later when I came out of the house to call the kids in. Unaware that the heron was perched on the roof of the house at the time, my shouting startled him into flight and the view of the massive wing span as he flew over my head was amazing. Much larger than you'd think.

* I do not feel so bad when things like this happen:

 A friend came to stay for the weekend and he was very keen on a garden tour. He was most impressed with the squash/pumpkin patch. He pointed to a small green orb on a stem. "What is this?" he asked.

"A pumpkin."

" Wow. I've never seen one so small!" He exclaimed.

"Well, they've got to start somewhere"  said the dh, with a chuckle.

** The potatoes were not planned as part of this growing experiment. 

But due to an unfortunate and mysterious problem with tomato plants and wildlife in that spot, I picked up some seed potatoes and nilly-willy, pushed them into the soil.

The potato plants were getting very large, very fast and I worried they were going to crowd out the other plants. And when are they ready? And how do you know, what with them hidden underground?

I consulted my one and only gardening book which stated that the early varieties could be harvested when the plants flowered and the later ones, well, much later, like September.

Well, crap on a stick, which kind did I buy?

The plants were flowering so I gave one the heave ho. They were mostly small, but a few were, you know, grocery store-size (go ahead, laugh) and they were delicious. So I still really don't know what kind I bought.

So you see, even those who don't know what the heck they are doing can manage to grow veg and eat well. 

Still can't quite get caught up on the ABC Along but I do have 'Z' planned.

Z is for Zucchini! Can someone save me from the zucchini?

I is for Ice

 

I

I apologise to all those who never truly recovered from last winter but I had saved some photos from a blustery day in Belfountain, at Forks of the Credit Provincial Park. From this view point, ice can be beautiful but when it's sliding down inside my boots as I walk along, it's not so great.

 And in early spring I had been watching the ice breaking up on a neighbour's pond, looking a bit like a large knife had divided it up, like slicing a cake.

In an entirely different season:

Littlest is a bit of an ice cream connaisseur and we managed to acquire an older style ice cream maker from Freecycle at one point. This was her first delicious attempt.. When we moved I said we would pass it on; it was large and I just plain didn't want to store it. 

After Christmas this year, I had a weak moment at Williams- Sonoma and bought her a newer model.

Now me, I rarely eat ice cream but given the choice, I'd take it over the other ice, in the top photo any day!

(And yes, one of my bowls, part of a set)

Happiness

I had been waiting impatiently for warmer weather.

I bought clay.

I moved work benches around.

I set up the wheel.

Last weekend I got everything ready but the temperatures were too cold to keep my hands in water for any length of time.  But in a few days everything changed and I could begin.

I  had waited all winter.

My pottery studio is still more than rustic, in an unheated barn but it's a beginning.

When I started making pottery 20 odd years ago I never thought I would have my own space. I was  living in a small apartment, then a small city house.

But just before we moved it all came together, like it was meant to be.

I found a listing on Craig's List for a free pottery wheel. The email contact told me the wheel was in his mother's basement in the Beach. First come, first gets it.

"I live in the Beach!" , I told him.

I asked what street. He named it.

"I live on that street!" I wrote back. In fact about 8 houses down.

I went to see it. Moving the heavy beast was arranged by the Husband and his friend.

Now this friend happened to mention that his neighbour was 'getting rid of' her kiln and should he ask her about it?

YES, please!

The neighbour in question was 80 years old and I assumed she was giving up her hobby. 

No, no, apparently she was getting a bigger kiln. You have to love that spirit!

I hope when I am 80 I am still upgrading.

So for a nominal $50 a kiln was suddenly mine.

And that's how it happened.

Below are some photos taken at the Potter's Market at Goldie Mill in Guelph this last weekend.

For some inspiration. 

As if I needed any.

H is for happiness.

   

G is For Green

Is white the new green?
It certainly looks that way to me.
The landscape is still awfully white in this neverending winter but I have been dreaming about green. There are evergreens of course, I've been looking at those all winter. Today I woke up and they were covered in new snow! In April.
I want to see grass green, leaf green, even pond scum green would do!
So I made it myself.
Years ago (over 20!) my new husband and I went on a road trip. One of the places we visited was L' Ile de L'Orleans in Quebec. There was a heat wave, I remember that clearly, but on this little island there was a breeze. We spent the day driving down rural roads circumnavigating the island and stopped to buy blueberries from the road side stand and purchase cold drinks in our barely adequate French. And to snap pictures. I was getting quite a collection of churches and barn photos. This was one of them.
A couple of decades later I sit in my own rural home and look out the window of my studio and see the evergreens and a lot of snow that does not promise spring as it should. And I take that hot summer day in my mind and make my own green.

E and F, F, F -ing along

E is for Equestrian
I sometimes feel there are more horses than people around here.

A photo of chocolate Easter Eggs was supposed to go here.
They seem to have gone missing....

F is for Found
There were a number of things we found in this house when we moved in. Some we found right away and others we came across gradually.
In the storage loft, an old typewriter. Here in all it's dusty glory. I think this was just too heavy to move. It has found a new home temporarily, keeping a crawl space door closed in the Lad's bedroom. Very useful.

On the wood stove, this welcoming trivet.


Hanging from a nail on the kitchen beam, this little guy. My new kitchen witch/warlock?

And in the dryer, along with a tea towel and a denim shirt, the piece de resistance, a quilt.

No need to mention the denture cleaner under the bathroom sink, really.

D is for...

But wait, can't I do S is for Snow?

Okay, D is for Duvet.

Dear readers,
I didn't mean to disappear but this is where I was.
Littlest got home from her school trip, a week in Quebec and promptly came down with the flu. And she took us with her. Three out of four of us were down for the count for the entire week, most of it spent under my nice toasty duvet. At one point in the week, we were snowed in, being to weak to shovel. Luckily, neighbours we haven't officially met yet came by with their plow and cleared our driveway.
The second part of the storm, the one that tried very hard to break the record for the most snowfall in one year, last seen in 1939? It came on Friday. It looked like this:

D is also for Drift.
You knew I was going to get the snow in there somewhere, right?

Please excuse the dirty window (cat paws)

That was once part of the driveway. This was once a picnic table spot. Yes, that bit of driftwood there. Now completely hidden.

I still can't get out of this door to feed the birds. It's hard to see perspective-wise, but that drift is waist deep.

So, yes, what were you all saying about spring?
Uh, huh.
I'll be back soon. I actually have photos that are not snow.
In fact there is a rumour, they may be of knitting.

Substitute C

I really can't believe I am behind on the ABC's at C.
Well, yes, I guess I can at the moment.
I am putting pieces together (paintings) for a local studio tour. You know the kind? You drive around to artist's studios, to see the artist in person and their working environment and hopefully buy some of their work.
This one is not until autumn but I have only a week left to get some work together for the submission.
I have wanted to do this for forever, and now that we have our rural home and the opportunity, I'm a bit nervous.
And then there are the two craft projects I have on the go. That's the problem with more than one in progress at a time ( I just typed poorgress, which is only too appropriate) nothing is completed and there is nothing to show. And then how does one feed the blog, I ask you?
This is a roundabout way of saying one of these projects was my letter C.
And the other one I would dearly like to be wearing right now.

So I was stewing about the last piece for the art submission this morning and I thought I would take a little walk in the woods to clear my head. I set off in the opposite direction from our biggest patch of woods and went instead towards our neighbours. When we met the neighbour in December (by snowmobile, from across his farm field) he mentioned that he had built a log cabin in the woods. (His woods, although there are no fences or borders to clarify where one wood ends and the other property starts. There is just a heck of a lot of trees.) So I walked in the sometimes knee deep snow, quite a workout, until I found it.

So C is for Cabin.
I had limited vantage points for photos unless I wanted to stand on a rather substantial frozen pond, which I was not willing to risk. I'm pretty sure it was completely frozen, unlike ours which is spring-fed and therefore never completely freezes. But 'pretty sure' can also lead to hypothermia.
The footings for the porch appear to be right at the water's edge.
I am entirely smitten with this cabin in the woods, an at-pond's edge-summer-house idea and I ran back to give The Husband plans for a summer project (and to take the bread out of the oven)
Even the little wood shed is divine.

B is for Bench

This bench was left by the previous owner. It faces the pond and behind it is the path into the woods. I am sure when the snow melts we will find other objects of abandonment.
This picture was taken during our last meltdown.
I always have a surplus of B's around me,
while other letters prove much more elusive.

I Can't Believe She Signed Up Again

Eternally optimistic?
Remember how I tanked out on the ABC's last year? And I started with such good intentions as they all say. Well last year was a stressful train wreck of a year all around. I was meaning to finish it up the list on my own and then Vicki came up with this simple photo version and I jumped in.

And here we are all fresh and hopeful at A.

A is for Asparagus

Once upon a time my erstwhile pottery guild was having their annual show. I can't remember the name of the show but the theme was Days Gone By or some such thing and this is the piece I made for the judged part of the exhibition. I did win first prize but that said, it was a dismal year for entries.
I thought I should show it here as a porcelain version of asparagus, which after all are out of season, and as a testiment to the wonder that the Movers From Hell did not break it.