Category Archives: The Homestead

  • So often when I have lots to say, I say nothing.

    So much to talk about lately, yet I sit here day after day saying nothing. I don’t know why that is? Too much on my mind perhaps to make sense of any of it?

    Not sure.

    Regardless, I don’t like being silent, so I figured it was about time I say at least something on the blog. So, you’ll have to forgive me if my writing seems random lately.

    It’s October 6th. My husband left on July 31st. It’s been a long time since I, or my children, have had a hug from “Daddy”. I’m trying not to let it drive me insane.

    Some days that’s harder then others.

    I’ve been working lately on bettering myself as a parent, as a mother. Without my husband here, I figure now is as good a time as any to concentrate on my relationships with my children. The main area I’ve been working on is ‘anger’ (grumpiness).

    I’ve often read that what is in the heart comes out of the mouth. I’ve been thinking on this a lot lately. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t walk around angry all the time, BUT, I do struggle at times with anger and I have to ask myself WHY? What is in my heart, that is causing my mouth to speak ‘angrily’? At all? Ever?!

    The times I struggle with anger most is when I am at my weakest. When I am over tired, or during pms (this is the ABSOLUTE worst time), etc. When I am weak, it is difficult to fight feelings of anger. To fight off the ‘grumpies’. I know getting grumpy is ‘normal’ but I don’t like it, and I’m not one to settle for ‘normal’ anyways.

    So, I’m working on myself, towards the goal of being a better mother. So the grumpiness has GOT TO GO! I can honestly say I’m fairly happy with myself as a person, as a mother, but I hate raising my voice. HATE it. My children hate it too. I raise my voice is when I’m feeling angry/grumpy.

    I’m going to practice speaking nicely. I’m TRYING to make a point of speaking as kindly, warmly, and gently as I would speak to anyone else. Isn’t it awful that so often we’ll speak less kindly to our own family members, those who are MOST important to us, then we will to strangers on the street? Or is that just me? Just our family? Is everyone else out there speaking kindly and gently to their children & spouses? Some how, I don’t think we’re the only family who struggles in this area.

    As a mother, one of my main goals in my mothering has been to never expect more from my children, then I expect from myself.

    In other words, I strive not to be a hypocrite:

    hyp·o·crite
    1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs,
    principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess,
    especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
    2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude,
    especially one whose private life, opinions,
    or statements belie his or her public statements.

    So… this means I can NOT tell my children to speak kindly to one another, yet not practice the same thing myself! It’s a good thing to work on while hubby and I are apart. My children deserve the best mother I can possibly give them!

  • Teagan’s toy

    Since the beginning, Teagan has had a favorite toy.

    A red, knitted, wool, ‘monster’.

    He takes this toy EVERY WHERE.

    The other day he wanted to take it along to the studio.

    So I let him.

    Along the way he decided to do what he always does with this toy.

    Play fetch, ‘solo’.

    He throws the toy as far as he can.

    And then pounces.

    And then he starts all over again.

    And off to work we go.

  • Anniversary flowers

    These flowers were a gift from our eldest daughter, Alesia, for our 21st Wedding Anniversay on the 22nd. She knew I was feeling down about her dad and I being apart for so long, so she brought me flowers.

    She brings me flowers quite often. She knows that even though the flowers themselves won’t last forever, because I love snapping photos, they will still be captured forever in time.

    When I saw how pretty they were looking in my kitchen window, I decided to snap photos of them right where they were.

    I love how the sunlight was shining on them.

    Flowers, I love them all. My daughter knows this well.

    Thank you Alesia for thinking of me. You are indeed a blessing. Don’t ever forget that!

  • All creatures great and small.

    I was going through some photos on my camera card and came across these photos of some moths the girls had found on our front deck.

    They knew I love to snap photos of interesting things, so they called me to come take a look, and to bring my camera.


    *as you can see, they’ve developed my love of awesomeness too. hee hee.

    As I was looking through these photos, especially the ones that show the details of the moth,

    I found myself pondering whether I felt the moth was pretty,

    or ugly?

    In either case, I definitely find it fascinating.

    As I do pretty much all creatures.

    That is, until I got to the next photos. These were the very next photos on my card.

    This is one creature I consider pure ugly.

    Not at all fascinating, just ugly.

    A vulture.

    We see them periodically around here. One time, a few years back, we had three of them on the property. Each one sat on a different fence post at the horse pasture. One on each post, 1, 2, 3, ugly creatures. They all sat just like this one, wings spread out wide.

    I have to admit, THAT was slightly fascinating.

    But this single vulture on this day sitting in a dead tree overlooking our pasture?
    Fascinating? No. Ugly, and even disgusting? Yep.

    And when he finally flew away, I was glad to see him go!

  • I have a love/hate relationship with tv

    I have always had a real love/hate relationship with tv.

    In some ways I love it, I enjoy some of the shows I’ve seen, some of the movies I’ve watched, I’ve learned some things from tv.

    On the other hand, I really hate it. I hate the time suck that it is. I can’t stand it when the kids don’t hear me, because they are glued to it, and not paying attention to what’s going on around them. TV can be so memorizing to the viewer.

    Growing up, I didn’t watch much tv, that I can remember anyways. And I’m glad. I have no real heart-strings to the tv and I know this isn’t the case for a lot of people, including, unfortunately, even some of my own children.

    I like that I can take it, or leave it. Most days I watch tv when I go to bed now that my husband is gone. Sometimes I might watch an episode of Storage Wars with the kids in the evening. But during the day I don’t watch it at all. At night, I hate silence when I’m in bed alone, so I put the tv on and find I fall asleep much easier if I watch something fairly mindless like Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, or even *gasp* sometimes I go for REAL mindless tv like Real Housewives (but I can only stomach so much drama, the shows should actually be called Real Drama Housewives… Sorry to those who love the shows!) I also like Project Runway (I think anyone with a love for fabric does! lol)

    My absolute favorite show to fall asleep to though, is America’s Funniest Home Videos. No better way to fall asleep then to fall asleep laughing.

    All this to say, I have a love/hate relationship with tv. I found a story in a little flyer/paper recently. I can’t find any copywrite info, and there’s no indication of an author, so I hope it’s ok for me to share the story here. I just thought it was good! I’ve shortened it a little as it was quite long.

    A group of children were asked to write an essay about what they would like God to do for them. One child’s essay went like this:

    ‘Oh God, today I ask you something very special; Make me into a Television. I want to take it’s place and live like the TV in my house. Have my own special place, and have my family around me. I want to be taken seriously when I talk. I want to be the centre of attention and be heard without interruptions or questions. I want to receive the same special care that the TV receives even when it’s not working. Have the company of my dad when he arrives home from work, even when he is tired. And I want my mom to want me when she is sad and upset, instead of ignoring me. And… I want my brothers to fight to be with me… I want to feel that family just leaves everything aside, every now and then, just to spend same time with me. And last but not least, ensure that I can make them all happy and entertain them. Lord I don’t ask for much. I just want to live like a TV.’

    And the story pretty much sums up my love/hate relationship with tv. I think the story is a good reminder to keep tv in it’s place. The same can be said for the computer as well *guilty sigh*.

    People need one another. Real communication.

    Tv & computers can be great, we can learn from them, use them as part of our daily lives, but it’s up to us to keep them in their place. I’m going to make more of an effort to do just that in our home. Life’s too short to do otherwise!

  • A few photos of the potential future Homestead.

    As I shared on facebook, we’ve put an offer in on a ‘farm’ in Saskatchewan where my husband has been for the past 8 weeks at his new job.

    So far, whenever he gets out to the ‘farm’ he’s been sending me photos via his phone, which I fully appreciate but I asked him if he could PRETTY PLEASE send me some “real” photos when he’d be over there during the house inspection this week because I NEEDED to see some REAL photos.

    Photos I can look at LARGE, photos I can put on my desktop, LARGE, and not have them get all blurry and distorted. lol

    I NEED photos. I’m a visual person that way.

    I also NEED something to look forward to, we all do. It’s been EIGHT weeks since he left.

    So he finally got out his point and shoot camera, and sent me some photos. He has v.e.r.y. slow internet, so uploading the photos isn’t so easy, but it was well worth it.

    Now I finally have REAL photos.

    My favorite photo.

    The barn, and the ‘slough’. I didn’t know what a ‘slough’ was, so I looked it up:

    slough, slew, slue. Northern U.S. and Canadian . a marshy orreedy pool, pond, inlet, backwater, or the like.

    This ‘slough, slew, slue, is huge. It’s large enough to put in a small dock, a canoe or a rowboat, or both. ha ha.

    It’s also definitely large enough for ice skating.

    And, it’s not the only slough on the property. If we fence off pastures for the horses to graze, we can most likely have a slough in each one. A few of our horses LOVE playing in water. I honestly get giddy just thinking of them having all that land to ‘play’ in.

    Then we have fields, all those fields behind that slough are all part of the property.

    And more fields. All that land, it’s all part of the farm. As far as you can see.

    Lots of yard space.

    And the house.

    As my husband says, a blank canvas…

    The inspections, water tests, etc. have all gone very well and basically the only thing we await now is the sale of our home. Hopefully sooner, rather then later. I believe our ‘contract’ on this house is up on Oct. 7th. As long as well sell by then, we’re good to go.

    We try not to “worry”. We want to be excited. I get a little excited, I just don’t dare let myself dream of being there… yet.

  • A photo

    I had to share a photo.

    My husband was at the house/farm we’ve got our offer in on, for the inspection yesterday.

    During the inspection, they found this:

    cookstove

    I’ve drooled over these for over TWENTY years.

    It would look absolutely beautiful restored, along with my hosier cabinet which has sadly been stored in our workshop the past few years while having the house on the market.

    I love antiques.

    When this photo suddenly appeared on my phone from my husband, during the time I knew he was at the farm for the inspection, I almost cried.

    Fine, fine, I admit it. I did cry. I’m not one to shed tears easily, so it’s rather embarrassing…

    So many things are uncertain in our lives right now.

    Yet another potential buyer found fault with our property this week and put an offer in elsewhere. We’ve all been feeling very disheartened since that news, again. It’s so overwhelmingly difficult at times to keep our hopes up. This has been going on for a few years now. That’s a long time.

    Yet, as things feel like they keep falling apart here in BC, over a 1000 miles away in Sask where my husband is, everything continues to seemingly be falling perfectly into place. The above surprise, was the only surprise during the inspection. So yet another item crossed off our list as we try to get ourselves moved over there.

    So, we continue to hope that all is not lost.

    We have a couple of weeks left to sell our property here before it begins to get too late.

    Too late for the offer we put in, and too late to move ourselves, and our animals (mainly the horses), through the rockies. Winter is coming once again.

    We have a couple of weeks before we really ‘need’ to worry.

    Worry. Something I keep trying my very very best NOT to do.

    So when I saw that photo, the old cookstove, the EXACT style I’ve alwasy admired, in such WONDERFUL condition, and even working, I had to fight tears, and I couldn’t help but think…
    maybe, just maybe, this was yet another little piece falling into place?

  • Our ducklings.

    Time to finally post about our ducklings.

    As you may remember, quite a few weeks ago (I’m thinking 6?) a raccoon had gotten into our chicken/duck yard and killed one half of our mating duck couple. Cocoa, our female.

    This left Shivers, our male, without a mate. As is typical with male animals, he became lonely and decided to remedy the situation, and mate with one of our two Muscovy female ducks instead.

    While this wasn’t ideal, I did some research and found out the two breeds are ‘ok’ to intermix. Our only other option was to get rid of Shivers, and seeing as he is Shaylah’s pet, that wasn’t really an option.

    When our Muscovy became EXTREMELY broody, the kids became very excited. At first I was hesitant to leave her eggs, but then I agreed we’d allow her to keep four. We had never hatched eggs ourselves, and the kids were SO excited to be a part of the process.

    I mean SO excited. If you doubt HOW excited, you can watch/listen, but before I give you the link, I’m warning you. TURN DOWN YOUR SOUND! Squeals of all sorts will be heard. My girls are NOT quiet when excited. Ha!

    http://youtu.be/lQU8VCytPc4

    If you didn’t turn down your sound, don’t you wish now, that you had?

    First to be hatched was this little one, who the girls have named BamBam
    (although I’m hoping BamBam is actually a GIRL, we can’t have more boys!)

    Then came Pebbles, who we were concerned wasn’t going to make it.

    She didn’t seem as strong as BamBam at birth, but within a day, she showed us she was going to be fine.

    If Pebbles ends up being a boy, I will be very surprised. She’s just like Cocoa when she was a duckling!

    The other two eggs turned out to be duds. When candled, you couldn’t see any heart beat/pulsation. We got rid of them so Daphne (mom) would concentrate on caring for her now hatched ducklings.

    I think the girls like their new ducks.

    Would you agree?

  • It’s been awfully quiet here on the blog

    I’ve posted before that when I don’f feel like talking much, it’s usually because my mood isn’t exactly the greatest. It’s not that my mood has been ‘bad’… just ‘off’. Not my usual ‘upbeat’ self.

    Yesterday marked 7 weeks since my husband left. I guess that means today marks FIFTY days.

    I fully understand it’s quite boring to read/hear about our hopes and dreams and all of it taking so long to come to fruition. I fully understand some think we’re just plain old nuts, or even… stupid not very smart, for continuing to even try to make these dreams a reality when it’s already been SO LONG.
    So…
    Often I just choose to be quiet for a while rather then constantly repeating my whining process.

    But, the fact is, my husband has been gone for 7 weeks, and neither I, nor our children, have seen him in much too long a time. It may not be so bad if we actually had any inkling at all as to how long this is all going to take before we actually DO see him again, but we don’t know, we have no clue, so we simply wait, and wait, and hope, and… continue to wait.

    And waiting seems to have become my new hobby.

    So I’m trying to learn patience. Obviously something I haven’t mastered yet.

    I suppose it may have something to do with the fact that we’re celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary this week, and we’ll be celebrating apart. It was bad enough that we had to celebrate our eldest daughters 20th birthday last month, apart. Now an anniversary too?

    Ahhh…. life. Ain’t it grand some times?

    But then I remind myself, that it’s still life, and I am thankful for life, so I must stop thinking and feeling negatively, but some days that’s harder then others.

    I’ll try and keep my chin up though.

    I haven’t even shared about our ducklings on the blog yet! I’ll need to upload some photos soon but I’ve been so busy with trying to get all our custom orders finished and out the door (just in case we sell soon, you know, it could happen… I’d hate to have custom orders lingering over my head while packing…) and trying to keep everything spotless for house showings, and driving kids to work. And of course keeping the younger three busy with school and non-mess-making activities (which is proving to be IMPOSSIBLE, you don’t want to see my dinningroom/living room right now. It looks like a barbie bus and legoland exploded in there…) 

    But life goes on, and overall, life is good, and today, I’ll choose to dwell on that!

    And in the meantime, here’s a peek at BamBam & Pepples.

  • My abundant harvest…

    or… maybe not?

    So far, not so good, but we do have one happy cherry tomato!

    Actually, we have 58 tomatoes, on just two plants, one cherry tomato plant, another larger variety. It’s not that bad really!

    Now we just have to hope the rest will ripen before too long!