Knitting Funky Hats

Hello my name is Lesley and I'm a knitting addict!!
Hats right now are my favourite, especially when I can play with decorative yarns and fun colours.
I've even sold a couple in our store and I have lots of interest in the one I wear around town. I haven't been knitting long but love the fact I can do it while in meetings, in the store while customers are browsing and in front of the TV. Now if I can just figure out how to read and knit my life will be complete!! I need some kind of a book holder... hmmm...I just might try and see if my cookbook holder will work.
This is a hat on the right I just finished. It's an xmas gift though it really looks cute on my daughter Leah and she loves it.


Here are two that are up for sale at our store, modelled by Leah and Quinn. I have a thing for checkerboard pattern so the blue and orange hat Quinn is wearing has the checkerboard using the eyelash in blue with regular orange yarn for the opposite square. It looks really cool with squares of eyelash sticking straight out with the flat orange yarn beside and above it. This picture doesn't show it so well. The tassle on the top is actually a 4" long braid with the pompom on the end. I made these large enough for me to wear so they are a smidge on the big side for the kids but they both what to keep the ones they have on.
Off to knit some finger puppets for Quinn at his request for his homemade Yule gift. So far I've created Spiderman and now I'm trying to find black yarn to make Venom but might have to just do Green Goblin tonight since I can only find the green yarn and not the black! I really have to stop stashing yarn all over the house, I can't find anything!!

October in Prince Edward County

I've been poking around on the computer, since it's Saturday night (and that means hockey on TV, bleck!) and found some great photos I took last month.
We moved here one year ago today so we missed the fall colours last year with all the rushing around to pack up our house in Toronto for the big move. Well we certainly had a great showing of colour this year to enjoy to make up for it last year.

It really is achingly beautiful here through all season but fall really puts quite a show on. Every morning for the month of October I brought along my camera on my early morning drive to work at Cressy Tool & Die. I live in a bit of a valley and as I climb up the rock cut to the main road the sun would inevitably greet me as I crested the hill. Rising up over the lake in glorious golden hues with the mists still swimming across all the fields. It was really breathtaking but I never managed to stop the van and get out and take a picture. It always seems that when you see something like that when you try and photograph it and contain in that space it never does it justice. I think it has to do with the fact that your standing in the middle of incredible view with golden light and mists enveloping you.

So I basically chickened out and never tried. Also there always seemed to be another vehicle behind me and I didn't want to pull a tourist of hoping out with my camera in hand. I am trying to look like a local after all!! Tim says my hats give me away every time. I do have a rather fun collection of hats that I love to wear and they all are a bit of statement makers, hee hee! Funny, I don't think I've ever lived anywhere where I have actually been a "real" local to the place! Weird!

Anyway here are a few shots I took of the river standing beside our barn with the sun setting.

I really should have taken some shots this morning. There was a dusting of snow on the ground already and then big thick clumps of snow started falling. After about a half an hour when I walked outside it was like everything had been powdered with icing sugar and it was all quiet with that funny sense of muffled sound that comes when it snows like that. The snow must absorb alot of sound so it seems so much more still and quiet.
This property has such a great feel here and energy, especially the barn. I sure love being out there in the store. It must have something to do with the age of the building or something. Of course it could be that I've filled it with stuff I really like and it's neat and tidy unlike my house!! I think this summer I might try and rig up a cot to sleep upstairs in there on those really hot nights!

New Kitten

Well it's all my fault, I admit it. I don't know why I can't resist another pet...sigh. Meet our newest family member Smudge. It took us a long time getting to this name and no one will even call him that most times. It's always "hey kitten" or "kitty" or "fuzz butt" or something along those lines.

We were visiting a neighbour's farm and meeting all the cows, chickens and kittens and this little grey fuzz ball of affection I couldn't leave behind. I even had to convince the kids that they wanted him but kept saying that their father was going to freak. This was just shortly before Halloween. Funny, that was the same time last year that we found our Baxter at the Toronto Humane Society and brought him home.

Well the kitten thinks, as most small animals do, that everyone must love me and constantly climbs into the paws of fluffy Belle who is anything but thrilled with the intrusion. I think the kitten thinks that Belle is nice and warm with all that fur especially around her tail and behind. The problem comes when the kitten starts to paw and claw and play with Belle's fur. Usually Belle stands up suddenly the kitten tumbles off and then it all begins again a few minutes later when Belle finds another place to lie down.

Smudge is a very mellow little guy and has taken to the habit of sleeping with me every night. Everyone else was sleep tested but Leah has too many toys to fit the kitten and Tim always picks him and chucks him to the end of the bed and Quinn's loft bed is too high, yet. Apparently my neck is nice and warm and the perfect spot. Lucky me! All the damn purring makes me nuts and then the occasional stretches that cause sharp claws poking me in the chest is not a great way to acquire sleep! Oh well, it's my fault we have the silly fur ball and I'm getting better at falling back to sleep after he wakes me up to settle in for the night. This is Smudge sleeping in Tim's baseball/work hat.

Now for the weather report; it was an icy rainy snowy day with no buses but the kids got dropped at school anyways. Quinn was there with 2 other girls and Leah was at her school with a total of 5 other girls. They both had a great time playing all day while Tim and I worked. Tim was the one with the worst luck being stuck outside all day in that nastiness fixing a falling down barn, yuck.

Also tomorrow marks the offical one year mark of us moving into our house here in the County and we are going to celebrate by going to the evening Santa Claus parade in Bloomfield and camping on my boss' front lawn to watch it. There are lots of lights and a marching band so it should be a fun time.

Memories

It's been ages since I've had time to write here and I miss doing that. I promise to try a bit harder now that we are moving into what appears like it may be a quieter season.

Well it's been almost one year to the day that we left downtown Toronto for Prince Edward County and wow, what a year! Our business the Galloping Goat Gallery had a very successful first year with hopefully more to come. We are even having a "Customer Appreciation Day on this Sunday (Nov. 25th) with some of our artists visiting and regular customers dropping. My mom is bringing another load of her fresh baked biscotti, which has been hugely popular!

It's funny looking back at some photos of last Christmas when we had only been here 4 weeks how odd the house looks in the photos. It still looks like someone else's home. The curtains weren't up and walls were still all a whitish colour. At least I've managed to put a bit of colour on the walls now and it's starting to look more like we live here. Of course I haven't managed to print any of the photos from last year or for the past few years come to think of it. If there was a fire I would have to grab the computer harddrive since all the photos from the last 4 years are in it! It's going to cost a small fortune to print them all, not to mention weeks of sifting through the files to see what's worth printing. Ugh! I'm kind of missing the days where you had to take the film in to see what you had photographed.

It's funny this picture because I have another one just like it with the same goofy paper hats from the crackers except it was some time in the 1970's and I was the same age as my daughter Leah in the picture with all my aunts, uncles and grandparents! Does everyone have one of these pictures??

At least then you had them printed out once and a while. Of course then they were put into boxes with the intention of putting them into an album. Or better yet the intention of making a beautiful scrapbook with all those fun embellishments and ribbons, stickers and what-have-yous.
I really like scrapbooking but I find it difficult to do, which my friends think is odd since I'm an artist and used to be an illustrator and a graphic designer. Weird huh? Maybe I just think it way too much. I have a large rubbermaid box of scrapbook stuff and now I end up letting the kids use it for school projects. What a hell of alot of money I must have spent on the stuff in that box!

Scarecrow Leah!

Here she is Scarecrow Leah! She wants to be the mascot for the day's event of the Scarecrow Festival. It would actually be pretty cute so I'll probably help her get herself ready so she can walk around and greet people during the day and direct traffic a bit.
Lots of work yet to be done but thanks to a wonderful group of ladies from the Regent's fundraising committee who have done tonnes of running around it should turn out to be a brilliant event that will hopefully happen every year.... it had better not bloody rain!!!!

Can I have a Mohawk? Please??

Look at that face, how can I saw no to those big brown eyes??
"Please mommy, please I want a mohawk!"

"Why?" I ask.

"Cause it will look cool! I'll look like a rock star!" Quinn says as he dances and leaps around the room, climbing anything that he comes in contact with. He appears so into being a rock star he starts doing his version I think of what he thinks is air guitar. It might work on a base cello those moves but I doubt any normal electric guitar would! I start wondering where exactly he has seen these moves he is miming.

"Well OK if your sure that's what you want." I say dreading the task of trying to pull this particular haircut off myself. I did do a sort of longish mohawk a couple of months ago with not bad results except with Quinn's silky locks they don't stand up straight or long enough to suit him.
So I pull out the phonebook and look up a professional for the job that won't cost me a small fortune for this whim of his. Though I admit he has been pretty focused on getting a mohawk for about half a year.
I found a local lady that cuts hair in her home and the wait for the 2 days until the appointment were excruciating for poor Quinn. We made it though with time to spare which annoyed Quinn that he couldn't leap into the chair and get on with the buzzing!
When the other lady customer finally vacated the seat she mistook Quinn for a girl which he says he is really tired of so that is reason #3 why he wants this mohawk since girls don't get them. I'll have to show him some pictures of me from the 80's. Little does he know that his mother had a mohawk long before they were common and mine altered weekly from brilliant fuscia pink to a very intense purple colour. I even played around with bleaching the shortest part out and then painting checkerboard pattern with the purple permanent dye or stripes once the checkers faded away.
I can't figure out why people mistake him for a girl. Seriously am I missing something? He always dresses like a boy, or in superhero costumes. His hair isn't that long. Is it those huge brown eyes and long eyelashes? The senior citizens we run into in town are forever calling him a girl and he gets so annoyed so I imagine this haircut will help out with that.
SO here it is the new Quinn, Mohawk and all!

Scarecrow Festival

We, as in the Galloping Goat Gallery, are hosting a Scarecrow festival Saturday September 29th 10 am to 4pm (raindate Sunday the 30th, we are praying for no rain that day!) here on this lawn as a fundraising event for Picton's Regent Theatre. I came up with the idea and took it to the Regent's Board of Directors with big plans and ideas and they jumped right into it! Now we have Picton's Main Street businesses offering support by dressing their windows and making scarecrows that they will auction off with all proceeds going to the Regent.

Along with that we have County Cider donating (alcohol-free) cider and the County Farm Depot donating hotdogs and (hopefully one of out other local businesses will offer condiments and buns!) we'll have drinks available for sale. We are going to also have a "Make Your Own Scarecrow" area that people will come and purchase what amounts to a kit and with the help of some volunteers they will create an original scarecrow for their garden or porch. Thanks to Evans Lumber who has already offered to make and donate all the wood crosses for the scarecrows. I know that someone is donating the pumpkins so we just need some clothes, a few bales of straw and a large ball of twine to tie sleeves and legs closed. Hopefully the other fundraising committee volunteers will find those items for us. If someone is reading this that can offer us some help or items email me!!

I've also been on the phone asking local businesses to make a scarecrow that we can have at the Galloping Goat that day to sell to people that don't want to do the "make your own" version. So far I have only got a few people agreeing to make them but I'm hoping that will get better. It's always tough the first year trying to do these kinds of things. We have big plans to make it an annual event. Wouldn't it be great if it became a really big thing where each fall the entire County has all it's residents sticking fun and funky scarecrows on their lawns! Then the County would be this place to visit in the fall to see the fall colours, buy harvested veggies, do some wine tasting and do a drive to see all the scarecrows! Sort of like those drives I used to go on when I was a kid to see all the Christmas lights at people's houses. Kids love that kind of thing so it will hopefully draw families here after it's too chilly to go to the Sandbanks.

For those that are wondering why the Regent needs money basically it's this gorgeous old original theatre from the 1800's that is run largely by volunteers. There is a crushing debt against the place and the community banded together to save it and keep it open and running and trying to find ways to dig out of the debt and have it support itself from the revenue it brings in. It's been struggling along for years but needs a boost to keep it going. The new general manager that has been hired, Sharon, will be a great infuser of energy and vitality into the Regent. I've met her at the Board meeting and she is full of energy and ideas and best of all, experience in theatre. I think the Regent should make some real head way with Sharon at the wheel.

If you ever visit Picton Ontario you have to make a point of stopping in to see it. All the architectual details are original and the old marquee lights on the front set up a gorgeous view in the evenings. It has been classed as a historical building so it is well worth visiting. The Regent hosts todays movies at very reasonable prices along with live theatre on the stage.

Tim and I went to see the production of Elizabeth Rex and we were both completely enthralled with the play and felt it certainly was up to Stratford festival standards with the costumes, sets and acting skills of the players. There are also live music events and a constant stream of talent through those old doors.

Don't miss the opportunity of visitign the Regent Theatre on you visit to "The County" as it is fondly called (otherwise know as Prince Edward County) and buy a ticket to a show and help support our community's historical icon. Come and see us at the Scarecrow Festival September 29th at 906 County Road 13, right across from the Black River Cheese Factory, just follow the road signs to the cheese and you'll also find the Galloping Goat!

First Harvest

I woke early, as usual these days and decided to get creative
and shoot some pictures as the sun was trying to pull itself up in the sky.
This basket of veggies was from Tim's trip into our garden after dinner last night. You really have to keep an eye on those zucchinis for they explode into mammoth things!

It's amazing how much food we are managing to make for ourselves in our garden! We seem to be doing very well sticking to that 100 mile diet (or as Tim says 160 kms) that everyone is yakking about. It wasn't planned or intentional to do it but it's relatively easy living here.

I went to the big gift and tableware show on Wednesday and that was quite amazing. It was pretty easy to speed past booths that I know won't work for us and our barn. Food, fabrics, smelly soaps and bath bombs are just the thing for the mice to enjoy which we are trying to keep out of the barn. Also all that high end glass, china, chrystal and ceramics don't work in our rustic venue. I did find a couple of new wholesalers which have some fab stuff that I love so hopefully customers will too. A couple of them are Canadian couples building things to sell which is perfect for what we are trying to accomplish. I found 2 different sources for those great birdhouses and outdoor items that use old recycled tin ceiling tiles and barn board and other found objects to make cool things. I ordered from the one place so hopefully I'll be receiving the items by Sept. 1st or at least that was the date they told me they are hoping to have it out to me. My Christmas items that we currently have had in the store for 3 weeks are flying out the doors and my other shipments of the big load of Christmas should be arriving any day! I wish that they would hurry up I can't wait to see what I bought! I know I had some really different things I found and I bought from another vendor at the show a few more Christmas bits that I couldn't resist! They had some really different metal outdoor xmas garden stakes of Santa or Trees, Snowman and an angel. They were metal with paint and some cute sayings and a few cut out stars with sparkle on it. Can't resist a bit of bling!
All this Christmas ornament shopping has got me completely obsessed with figuring out presents for the kids and trying to plan out some kind of budget. This year is going to have to be a bit more crafty and homemade than our usual Christmas. At least with the kids not having any TV channels to watch they have no commercials buzzing in their heads telling them they "Have to have it". I hadn't realized how completely TV jams down the kids throats all this stuff they need, need NEED! After 9 months of no TV but just DVD movies and videos they have no idea what stuff they are missing in their lives! Of course when they get back to school that will probably change rapidly.

I'm not in any rush to hook up a satellite dish or fix the TV aerial and no money for it either so Tim and I tend to watch either one of the 3 stations we do get in somewhat clear or watch a DVD or thanks to my mom, pop in a VHS with some TV program she has taped for us. It's shocking to see how clear our TV can be when you watch a movie after the fuzz of our normal stations!

Well my tea is getting cold and my tummy's rumbling so I better go and grab a quick quiet moment at the river before the monkeys get up and have some meditation time while I can.
Life is good.

The 10 year Adventure

Well it was 10 years ago yesterday that Tim and I were married in a very fun outdoor, medievial, paganish wedding not far from where we now live. It was a really fun day and will definitely be one of my best days ever and I know Tim has said the same thing.
So tomorrow we are having friend and family coming over to BBQ and hangout and roast marshmallows and tent to celebrate. I'm looking forward to a fun Saturday!
This is where Tim spends alot of his time now on his wee tractor cutting grass. Doesn't he look like a good farm boy with his rubber boots, plaid farm jacket and that ridiculous bucket hat!! Gotta love him!

Last night I went with Leah to a Summer Solstice celebration with a group of local ladies. We all met at one ladies house not far from here and had the most fantastic evening together. My mom also came along with her crone sister Linda. The ceremony was beautiful and the sky was incredible with huge thunder heads rolling just by rumbling away just north of us. We even got a light sprinkle of rain with the sun shining and an incredible rainbow showed up. A very magical evening and we conjured up some really good energy and as always the feast afterwards was fabulous! These witches really can cook!! It is so amazing listening to these facinating women talk about the journeys they are on in their lives and all the incredible wisdom they have to offer. I always leave these events feeling so relaxed and enlightened. It's a good thing to be surrounded by wise women that I can learn by and if Leah is listening to even half of it she will be gaining some amazing insight that we should all be so lucky to hear.

Ode to the Veggie Patch

Wow, has it really been only six months since we moved here? The time has flown by and yet it feels like we've been living this life for years instead of months.

We still get awestruck by the landscape around us and fasinated by the wildlife. The big bull frogs I'm learning to fall asleep to the rumbling croaks of them through out the night. The horse pasture has disappeared behind a wall of foliage and I've discovered terribly neglected gardens in little spots on the property. Tim and I have been tearing up the grass around the choked perennials in hopes of coaxing them into the sunshine and a healthy life.

We also had fun for Queen Victoria's birthday with some sparklers and an long open shot with the camera.

I finally managed to get Tim to let me drive the ride-on lawn mower and it was pretty fun! Tim got stuck with the push mower, tee hee. Tim even mowed the path of the labryinth that had disappeared in the long grass. Of course it did rain all day today so you know that we will be out mowing in 2 days tops to keep up with it all.

At least the Canadian Goose family are enjoying the many dandilion seeds that are on the lawn! I guess that's one way to get rid of them!

Crazy busy!!

Well it's just too busy around here to write much but Tim my wonderful hubby has been very dedicated to his blog and telling the story of the creation of Galloping Goat Gallery. Wander on over to his blog to check out great pictures and all the news. Tim's blog

Some day soon when I'm not driving to Toronto once a week to teach and trying to inventory all the merchandise that has been arriving daily and trying to help in the fix up I might actually have time to blog again. Maybe even relax and read some other's blogs too! It's good to dream.

The Before Shots of the Galloping Goat Gallery

Here we have a first look at Galloping Goat Gallery, a soon to be up-and-coming destination location of a wonderful garden art boutique extraordinaire! In a mere 40 days you will see the transformation into a quaint and charming little retail shop.

This little gallery will be offering all those hard to find unique items to make your garden and landscaping something truly spectacular. There will also be an eclectic sampling of home decor and original art works by a number of local Canadian artists. Hope to see you soon!

(Opening day is tentatively set for May 5th 2007.)










The entrance way has a quaint rustic feel with a "watch your head" and "duck!" before you enter beam to welcome you.










Inside you will find the "whoops!" "don't trip on that loose board" flooring. That shows well the patinas of the barn's history. Notice the array of notalgic furnishings and odds and ends lying about. Gives you a real warm comfortable feeling doesn't it?







The use of colour in the upstairs room is quite a surprise but the view of the river from the windows makes up for the shock of the green walls. Make sure you give the walls a good knock before you spend too much time is this room. The resident squirrel hasn't accepted that notice of eviction yet.

The adjoining room still has that old world charm left untouched. The cathedral style ceiling with the leaky tin roof adds extra ambiance to the building.








Here is a view of the charming stairs or ladder, depending on your view point. Even this poor pooch looks on with trepidation. The twisting and uneven staircase very much resembles the historically acurate look of something that comes close to a ladder to a hay loft. Isn't it charming and rustic?

Here of course is our hardworking owner Farmer Tim. Do you see the knot hole on the wall of the barn above and to the right of Tim? That is where the highly popular mummified squirrel is peeking his petrified head out from. The childern always love to visit this little guy when they come to the barn!

Come visit us soon!!

SHOPPING, SHOPping, shopping... whew...zzz

Well we had our first wholesaler rep come to our house to show us his line of products. He had alot of lines that he represented. He came with his wife at 10am. The first book I looked at didn't have much that got me excited then about catalogue #4 I started seeing more of what I wanted and got EXCITED!.

Wahoo! I was going to finally blow some $$ for merchandise that so far I have been only allowed to drool over.

5 hours later!! and a few thousand dollars that will be soon hitting the old credit card I am whipped! Thankfully they were helpful in remembering what I had purchased so far. Gaetan's wife was great with suggestions on what I had purchased to keep in mind for display, as in colours and themes.

It will feel like Christmas I'm sure when all the merchandise finally shows up and I get to open all those boxes. I'm sure there will be lots of surprises of what I have purchased and completely forgot about.

It did get completely terrifying in the last 2 hrs when I had no longer any idea what I had agreed to buy or how much I had spent so far. I mean seriously how the hell do I know what people are going to buy!! I hope I didn't completely bury myself with stuff no one will be interested in.

I did buy all the stuff I like at least so worst case senario I will have beautiful garden stuff for my garden!

There really was some gorgeous stuff that I got and great colours, yummy bright colours and you all know how I do love colour!!!

Quizzes are Fun!

Your Dominant Thinking Style: Exploring

You thrive on the unknown and unpredictable. Novelty is your middle name.You are a challenger. You tend to challenge common assumptions and beliefs. An expert inventor and problem solver, you approach everything from new angles.You show people how to question their models of the world.

What's" Your Thinking Style?

Spring, Bring it ON!!!

Is it Spring yet?? It feels like spring, it's sunny and getting warmer. The time change is tomorrow night, which is a bit weird. I usually start that transistion way before the actual time change but it's not happening yet for me so I think this could be painful. At least it's March Break and we don't have to get up so early. It should make it a bit easier on us.

So I need some spring so hear are some pics from my old tiny city garden.

I made my front lawn into a garden since I hated hauling the electric lawnmower out to cut the sad bit of grass. It was only about 17 feet by 12 feet so it wasn't like it was doing much. In 3 years it looked great! I had tonnes of compliments if I was out puttering in it by neighbours. I even had a lady drag back a big box of perennials when she saw me putting in my first plants and there was all this empty space still left. That was the great thing about city gardening, everyone was running out of room and they were always glad to give plants away when they had to thin their perennials out.

We even gorrilla gardened in a few areas around the school on grass boulevards belonging to the city. I always figured if the city expects me to mow their grass then they can't complain if I decide to make it into a garden instead!

Here is the real reason I want spring to come!! Vroom, vroom!!! I still can't believe Tim talked me into buying this little baby! But man! it is so much fun to drive!! Tee Hee!! Not to mention it turns quite a few heads because it's a 1971 Honda 350. I haven't ridden it yet without some guy asking what year this bike is. The guys seem to love this bike because it's what most of them started out riding way back in the day.

Gotta love springtime, playing in the dirt and ripping around the roads! VROOM VROOM!

Cob Building (no it's not made of corn cobs!)

Tim and I have big plans to turn our falling down firepit area into a cob structure where we can have fires to cook on and hang out at in the evening by the river.

Currently it's a cement pad with a light pole in the corner and a dangerously tilting fireplace of bricks with a iron oven on oneside. Behind that is a 3 foot cinder block wall that the top 2 rows are dissintegrating. It looks horrible.

Here is kind of what we want it to look like.

This is a cob structure that was built in 2006 in Dufferin Grove park which we lived near. The whole community pitched in with working the cob material. Cob is made up of clay, straw and mud I believe and you have to stamp on it with bare feet to work in the straw to the clay.

THey also did a gorgeous job laying in mosaics of glas, china and mirror and then grouting it all around to the outside of the cob. Anyone was allowed to come and do mosaic on it. There are some amazing designs on the structure.

I don't know when we'll do it or if it's even possible. We've been looking for a book with decent instructions besides telling us to take a weekend workshop.

Sculpting Tantilizers

OK I got permission from Tim to post some of his sculptures. So far these are only created in clay and then we will cast from these and make molds and master casts. I hope I got all that lingo correct!

These are the fairy ladies carrying off a honey pot. I guess it would have been helpful if I had thought to turn the bloody thing so you were looking at it from the right angle!! Oops, sorry!

Here is the Oak tree man or Fall guy or something like that. Tim's working on doing a plaque for each of the seasons.



This is a fingermaze that is the same pattern we used in our larger walking labyrinth. It's kind of fun to run your finger around on it.

Tim's been sculpting lots more since these photos were taken but we want to keep some of it secret until we open our doors of the gallery!

Winter Fun

It seems like it's been a long time since we've had a winter resembling normal in this country. We have been having great fun with all this pretty snow everywhere. I guess after living in the city for so many years it seems very gorgeous. In the city the snow is only ever fresh and clean looking for about a day or so. Then the dirt and and plows and salt turn it all nasty and brown.

Here it still looks fresh and white and still untouched in areas with only an occasion path of tracks from some critter running along.

We, sorry correction, Tim cleared a big area of snow off of the river and has been skating everyday since and the kids have been out there too. The hockey games have been feverish between them. I managed to get out there yesterday after school and played until the tummies were growling on everyone.

Tim also got ambitious and tracked a labyrinth in the snow and then traced all the edges with sticks so that in the spring we'll be able to add to it and make it more permanent. It's wonderful to walk under the pines and listen to the wind run through all the needles and it's actually the river at the back of the picture which is covered in snow. It should be a nice spot at anytime of year.

County Life is Great!!

6am First snowfall and a full moon. It was gorgeous!

Well I'm back in the library. We come to the library about once a week or so. Apparently the news on getting wireless is more dismal than before. The technician that works on the tower here in the County fell off his roof over the holidays and broke his leg! Sooooo... he obviously won't be climbing that silo in Waupoos anytime soon to add the extra length needed to get the signal to us. sigh...

Dialup is crazy slow. Our modem can only run at half speed because apparently the copper wire in the county is kinda lousy so the signal can't run any faster!

I do love it here, even without TV (besides the 2 channels we do get!) and cell phones and internet. The kids have their moments of wanting to go back to the city. Mostly this is because they miss their friends. Being able to see so far out on the horizon is amazing after never being able to see past the wall of houses across the street in Toronto. Even lousy weather is wonderful to look out the window at!

There was big excitement yesterday! It was officially a snow day! NO BUSES! The kids were thrilled with the icy weather keeping them home for the day. This morning though it was back to business and they got outside early enough to slide down the little hills on their crazy carpet sleds before the bus came.

Tim and I decided to give the sleds a try at the back of the house from the hill and both of us would have ended up in the river if we hadn't managed to get our feet out quickly to stop the slide. Obviously our weight carried us alot further than the kids and all the crusty ice on the surface of the lawn made from some speedy sledding. The river isn't exactly frozen solid yet so it would have been a nasty ending. Tim went first and couldn't stop for quite a distance so he was a bit paniced by the end of the trip!

Fun to be had in the simplest of ways around here!!