A Pleasant Morning Activity

I am well learned in the fine art of berry picking. My mother made sure of it. In the summers of my childhood my brothers and I were put to work picking strawberries, raspberries, saskatoons, and chokecherries. It wasn't always an enjoyable experience. Irmgard made sure we picked clean: no leaves or twigs or other junk in the pail, toss the overripe or bug eaten berries, take everything that was ripe, and don't complain in the hot hot sun. If we didn't pick everything we had to go back and do it again. Mom gave us ice cream pails and we'd string an ugly tie of Dad's through the handle and tie it around our waists. I was thinking about this today as I picked many black currants in the rain. It was a very gentle, steady rain, so I didn't mind. I've gotten so a lot of the tasks I wasn't enthusiastic about as a kid (berry picking, weeding) I don't dread so much now. I rather enjoy them, actually. (Unless a garden is really overgrown with weeds. I still hate that).

My very chic rain proof berry picking outfit.

The bush thick with black currants.

I also promised to let you know something exciting that I did on Saturday. It's not that exciting. We went to a market in Woodstock and had a stall. Leslie, Pam's sister had one too. And also a potter named Rachel Greenwood, a friend of Pam's. Her work is beautiful. It was a special market for the Dooryard* Arts Festival. That's right. Dooryard.

I really liked the market. It was a beautiful sunny day.  There was live music that wasn't my favourite and lots of interesting people. I quite enjoyed myself, until the end of the day. It was a long day. Very tiring.

You see that tent in the background- the one on the right? Yes, there I am, smiling like a fool. Don't I make you want to buy many bouquets or packages of teas or culinary blends?

See how good I am doing at posting these days? You're welcome.

Until next time.

*Dooryard: a word the locals use, synonymous to front yard. See http://www.dooryard.ca/index0.html.

Things That Look Strange

In the past I have posted about beautiful things. Now I will post about strange looking things.

This a sock and shoe combination that would make my mother squirm. I went out in public looking like that. I thought it was great.

These are globe thistles. They are quite bizarre looking. I think they are one of my favourites.

These are the cattails that Pam and I cut from the ditches and hung on the line to dry. She'll use them in the autumn for fall arrangements. They made me think of the black keys on pianos, hanging there on the line, bobbing in the wind.

This tree has a face on it.

And remember the Queen Anne's Lace?

This is what it's like when it goes to seed:

It's like a birds nest. Or a teacup.

And this isn't strange at all. Just beautiful.

It is the golden glow that grows by the granary. I'm told people used to plant this around their outhouses.

Tomorrow we're doing something very exciting which I will tell you about later. I hope you can bear the suspense.

Happy Friday night.

A letter to my readers

Dear Readers (ie: Mother, Aunty El, and a few wonderful friends (ie: Dustin and Zoe)),
It's been two weeks and you haven't heard a peep from me. Worry not- I am still alive and well, watching Coronation Street with Pam in the evening (We're a year behind, but it's quite exciting: there's a woman who is pretending to be pregnant so that her boyfriend will stay with her, and there's a man who's married to a woman who used to be a man, and right now some other woman is going into labour and she doesn't know who the father is. Everybody is in a whole big curfuffle).

Anyway- it's been two weeks. I'm terribly sorry for my lack of posts. The thing is, to be honest, I have gotten so used to it here. Everything is routine and it's hard to think of new and interesting things to write about.... and so to tide you over until I have something really good, I'll let you know what I've been up to these past two weeks (As I type, that one girl on Coronation Street is practically having the baby on the couch in the company of one of the possible fathers and his wife!).

We had a German boy named Jakob come and work for a week. And then while he was here, Pam had a German friend come over, who brought with her another German girl. Pam was quite pleased to have a weekend with "three Germans and a Mennonite." On that wonderful weekend, I had the opportunity to go for a walk with two Germans and pick wild raspberries and go swimming in the Becaquimec.

It's also rained a lot.

I promise that you'll hear from me again soon.

Yours cordially,
Amanda

July! July!

Actually, it is almost August... the perfect time for July's last hurrah. There are many things I like about July. I like that it is hot and sunny and the days are long. I like that I'm here and not in Winnipeg in my third floor apartment, which I hear is no pleasant place to be in, what with that heat wave they had out there. There are a lot of other things that I like about July, which I shall communicate in photo format.

I like that we can have fresh cut broccoli. This photo documents the first time we cut broccoli. It is pictured alongside "Grandmere's" meat pie (this piece came from a pie nestled in the freezer  that Pam was saving for the visit of her youngest son... but he was kind enough to let us eat half. It was delicious) and new potatoes. And the last turnip from last season.

I like that what was once asparagus is now a forest of wild looking ferns.

We were up very early one morning, cutting wheatgrass, and the dew was looking misty in the first light in the aspargus ferns. It was beautiful.

I like that the zuchinni are ready to be picked... and eaten, of course.

And I really like that the tomatoes are turning red. This is the most exciting thing. I can barely wait for fresh tomatoes.

We are also upon a different season for wildflowers. The time for lupins has passed. Now the road are lined with Queen Anne's Lace...

... and wild chicory.

I like Queen Anne's Lace because it lookes like a doily, and doilies make me think of grandmothers, and I love grandmothers, both my own and many others. And I like wild chicory because it is a lovely periwinkle hue. When I was a young thing in elementary school, I went through a phase where my favourite Crayola crayon was "periwinkle." It is no longer my most favourite crayon, but I still like it, and it gives me fond memories of colouring pictures in grade two. Also, wild chicory is edible.

Amid all of the changes in my botannical sorroundings there are some things that don't change:

Baby Kitty's peculiar mannerisms are as constant as the rising sun in the morning. She sure is strange.

May your gardens look as nice as Pams, and may you enjoy the last days of July. Until next time.

Flower Girl

When I was six I was a flower girl. I got to wear a simple white dress with a red sash around my waist, and those lacy socks with the ruffle on the top with my white sandals, and my hair was done up all fancy and had babies breath in it. I held one rose and I was so excited that I snapped it in two and had to hold it together so it looked whole while I walked down the aisle. That was unfortunate...
Speaking of weddings... and flowers... Pam and I went to a wedding yesterday that Pam did the flowers for. On Friday all we did was cut flowers, clean flowers... we were up at 6:30 and Pam was making flower arrangements until 3:00 am. I couldn't really help her with that, but stayed up with her for moral support. It was a long day. It had the same feeling as staying up late finishing a major essay.
Anyway. The house was full of flowers. It was quite beautiful, but it made me sneeze.



Happy Potato Festival

A few days ago Hartland celebrated it's annual Potato festival. What's even more exciting is that Brandon's visit overlapped with this joyous occasion. We went to the parade. I took pictures of my favourite parts.

I thought that this was funny:

And the lady on stilts was pretty good too:

Oh- we also got a bit of candy.

A lollipop and a freezie! Holy Smokes!

As thirlling as the Potato Festival was, I also made sure Brandon saw some of the trails that I haunt.
The sun was bright.

And the river was calm.

Pam and I made Brandon work a bit too. Now he has left and we are very busy cutting flowers and worrying about the weather for the wedding Pam is doing on the weekend. Yikes! Let's hope it doesn't rain all day tomorrow like it did today.

Babies

I am (how did this happen?) at the halfway point at my time here and baby fruits of all sorts are starting to pop up everywhere.

Baby grapes.

Baby peppers.

Baby broccoli

Baby tomatoes

I love babies.

I also love Baby Kitty, whose latest antics had Buster in a puzzle.

She was clearly doing this for attention of some sort.

So Buster brought his bowl.

Yet she continued to act like an idiot.

At this point, buster gave up and lay down. Moments later Baby Kitty left for some sort of expedition in the great outdoors.

On Sunday my friends Dale and Joseph came for a visit. We drove around listening to Beethoven very loudly (the people stared) and went over the covered bridge twice. They loved it more than I. Yesterday I got a package in the mail from my mother full of candy. And today my "beau" (Pam's word, not mine) comes to visit. It's been an exciting week.