Our Winter Escapades...

 Every fall I lament the end of the garden.

Maybe for the first day or so, I actually celebrate it.

YAY!

A slight reprieve for my breaking back.

That celebratory feeling never lasts long...

Each fall I also think about the things I want to learn more about...

Ideally when I'm sitting by the fire, hiding from the cold for 4 months.

Somehow it never quite works out...all this free time I think I'll have each winter.

Perhaps it's because we still spend a fair amount of time outdoors.

Even in winter!

We make sure that we bundle up properly before heading out on any given day.

We check the forecasts to make sure we aren't putting ourselves at risk.

Me!  all bundled up...

 Our family has been watching the History Channel's program 

"Mountain Men".

It has really inspired 6 yr old Owen!

Me too actually...

One mild day (around 0 degrees Celsius) we ventured outside

to track the beasts of the wild!

Raccoon Tracks

Muskrat tracks

We found raccoon track right outside our front door...

you can tell its a raccoon because the print looks so similar to a cat paw...

but note the thumb on the side!

A short walk to our dock revealed a muskrat has been making tracks to get 

under cover from a nearby predator.

Muskrat tracks looks like small rodent prints with a line

made by its rat-like tail dragging in the snow.

Owen recently said he wants to start trapping muskrat...we'll see....

The above picture is a shot from the end of our dock into the swamp.

The nearby Lazy Acres Cottages are all boarded up for the end of the season.

A distant reminder of how much quieter it is now that resort/cottager season is over. 

The open area at my feet looks like a great spot for a small ice rink!

We'll be sure to check the ice depth before any major "construction" ensues.

Can you see the open creek?

Too fast moving to freeze over unless the cold becomes extreme.

Our beautiful backyard is blanketed in white.

Our fire pit in the backyard has its own woodpile.

 It too is aching for one of our winter time blazes!

The snow is so deep that each tree seems to have a hole. 

Even the frilly fungus persists...

On a fallen log at the swamp's edge.

As time passed, I realized I couldn't hear Owen.

As most parents know...the silence is more scary than the noise of children.

I look around to see that he was busying himself in the swap...

fashioning himself his very own Mountain Men Lean-to.

Some dry bark off a fallen tree and dead branches make a fantastic boy-sized teepee. 

Owen fancies himself the next character on Mountain Men

The work is never done (much like the frontier lifestyle).

With the extremely cold weather we've had...it became obvious we were 

running out of wood for our wood stove.

One mild day, a chainsaw and some standing deadwood becomes short work.

We make sure not to clear cut our property as we like the shade 

and windbreak that trees can provide.

Dusk brings a small wisp of sunlight...

And the allure of the outdoors makes us not want to go inside just yet.

We assemble a fire on top of where we think the firepit was before all the deep snow.

My favorite winter thing:

That time of day when the snow looks like its turned blue!

What have you been doing this winter?

All Natural Holiday Decorations

So this year the holiday spirit has hit me a little early.

Not sure if this condition is due to my interest in Pinterest...

Or my shock at the unbelievable balls on Michael's for their pricing.

Not only that, but everything I liked was for interior use only.

*****************

I live in the country.

I am surrounded by inspiration...and craft supplies!

We had a great day with little wind and the air was seasonably cool but comfortable.

I decided to get trimmers in hand and get crafting!!!

I have seen so many lovely pins on Pinterest.

Birch bark, pine cones, twine, twigs and tons of greenery.

It got me all inspired!

All I had to do was pull together the necessary pieces.

We salvaged some galvanized metal maple sap collecting buckets from my 

In Laws dump site years ago (we were lending a hand and cleaning it up)

We use plastic ones now for sap collecting...so the metal ones are for planting and decorating only.

I grabbed some red dogwood from the edges of the yard close to the swamp.

The front yard has a white pine tree with lower limbs hanging.

I helped them out by lessening their load.

The nearby spruce got a trim too.

Lastly I snagged some dead sumac branches and spray painted them gold.

(I had that leftover from Owen's Halloween costume) 

I planted a rock from the herb garden at the bottom 

of each bucket and then started stuffing it with

all of the gathered materials.

Added some sparkly gold ribbon from my Mother in Law's stash,

 propped them up on an old step ladder we inherited...

and BAM!

Instant, free to me, almost all natural, outdoor, seasonally festive decorations!!!

I saved myself about $75.00

and screw you Michael's!!!

I could not be stopped...

I moved inside!

The above simple centerpiece was formed with

stuff I already had!

The glass Susan, the red plate and the white candle

were all somewhere in the house.

I placed some spruce twigs on the glass Susan.

(Keeps the mess off of the tablecloth too)

Then I balanced the candle and plate on the greenery.

Toss around some scented pine cones from my Mother In Law's bin.

BAM!  Centerpiece for virtually free!

The above swag was what started it all.

I gathered some spruce limbs and tied them with hemp yarn from a previous project.

I grabbed the glue gun and started situating

the pine cones and plastic poinsettias from the bin.

I added some sprigs of sparkly golden

ribbons for flare!

BAM!  Wall decor covered for free!!!

I already had the slender glass vessel full of dogwood year round.

All I had to do, in this case, was add sprigs of greenery from the yard and

a bouquet of plastic poinsettias and white flowers for the Mother In Law bin.

BAM!  Repurposed decoration for virtually nothing!!!

Stay tuned for more free, natural and virtually free decorations

for the festive and seasonal in your home!

What have you been making?

A day in the wild...

Let me start by saying that this post has nothing to do with cooking or gardening...so you'll just have to bear with me.

After 7 weeks away in Ottawa, I really had to come to terms with the amount of time I had just spent away from my family and my home.  One of the things I had no idea I was going to miss was just being in nature.  It was such a simple thing that I missed.

The ability to go somewhere without hearing man made noise.

Fortunately, I am able to drive less than 20 min from my home and find such a place.  Even more fortunate am I that I have wonderful family that invites me to share in this place.

I drive the long country road that takes me to this place on a grey day that was threatening rain.

I feel not just that I have escaped from the city, but that I may have been transported back into the times of the settlers.  This may have been my backyard as an early pioneer in these parts.

Paddling around a secluded lake on a day without work.

Its actually the backyard of the hunting camp that is a part of my husband's family.  This day trip was not about hunting though.  It was about reconnecting.  With family, friends and nature.

The hunting camp started with humble beginnings but now features such luxuries as indoor toilets and a tv.

I was excited to get out on the bikes.  I haven't been on an atv run in a long while.  Its a popular past time with my in-laws...so I get to visit with them while exploring a raw and rudged landscape that swings from bold and beautiful to other-worldy and alien.

The familiar trees were oak and sumac.  Amazing that these trees could grow on top of not much more than rock.  The ground cover plants started to take on alien life forms.

Down a pine-needle filled pathway we discovered the gateway

to Scanlon Lake (or as some maps say Sexton Lake). 

The lake was misty and quiet.  Like glass laid in front of the rocks at the shoreline.  I could picture native gatherers crossing this body of water in stealthy canoes.  

We took our lunch break and enjoyed the peaceful quiet.   I could image early settlers fishing in small boats or playing one of the first recorded games of hockey. 

This was a relative of mine back in the early 1900's (picture actually taken in the Tweed area I believe).

I could picture this as my home.  I could be a hunter/gatherer and live in this land.  My mind began to race with the possibilities.  Is there enough in this rocky area to survive?  Our tour pressed on and my eyes were trying to spot the possibilities...

I suddenly wished I had spent the last 7 weeks reading Steve Brill's book call "Identifying & Harvesting Edible & Medicinal Plants in Wild (and not so wild) Places"...as I have no idea what these berries were.  They had a kind of spike on their leaf...so I took the hint and moved on.  It was on the verge of rain all afternoon...so I was glad that I HADN'T brought the book with me.

Mushrooms are another thing I know virtually nothing about...I can spot a puffball and a morel with confidence, but that is where I draw the line.  These white suckers were enormous!  Probably could have made a meal out of each of them....but I was smart enough to take pictures now and do the research later.

One of the great things about this property is the personal history.  There is a monument built to my mother-in-law's parents Chester and Sarah.  It represents a spectacular view of the property and a connection to nature that is being passed down through the generations.  Owen is the next family member in our wee family that has yet to see the monument. 

On the plaque is the phrase "Some people go their whole lives, without seeing anything like this".  A pause to reflect how true that statement really is.

At what felt like the peak of a mountain, the landscape started to feel alien.  The groundcover plants looked like they should have been grown in an aquarium.  The textures of these plants were spectacular!  Spikey stars with bright orange mushrooms erupting from them. 

Like coral but on the surface of a rock! 

Wild strawberries and their runners in action.

Moss that looks like shag carpeting...

Juniper berries by the bucketload...but not quite ripe enough.

Moss that appears to form little higways aross the rocks...

I could imagine pioneer beaver trappers traversing through land like this to make their wages.

The rocks suddenly changed the colour of the landscape!

We could see the rain coming in the distance and decided to head on back to the camp. 

I had one last commune with the landscape before it was time to head back to my home in cottage country.  My mind was filled with thoughts of early settler life, getting back to basics and reading that encyclopedia by Steve Brill.  I vow to know more edible plants the next time I get invited back to the hunting camp.

What do you do to escape the urban sprawl and get back in touch with our natural selves?

On the hunt for Sugar Maples...the beginning of a series...

We spent a magical afternoon in the woods this past weekend.  The weather was pretty crappy out, but after a couple of days inside, I really need to get in touch with nature again.  Fall weather is great, but you get some patches of wet, damp weather that make you want to watch movies all day.

I was determined not to let the wind and rain get the better of us.

The trees were very welcoming.  They provided shelter from the wind and rain.  It's like they wanted us to be there that day.  We came armed with snacks, hot chocolate in a thermos and a book called "The Backyard Homestead" edited by Carleen Madigan.  We borrowed this book from a friend and it has yet to make its way home to its owner.  Its a fantastic book about all the things you can grow and provide for your family on as little as a 1/4 of an acre of land!  There is a chapter in this book about how to tap your own maple syrup.  While we have never done this in the past (or even known anyone who has done it), we thought "why not us?".

Last spring we aided my Hubbie's parents in cleaning up a former dump on their property.  People had just pitched all sorts of lovelies into the woods behind their home.  We took the whole family on clean up day and actually had a blast.  It was like a treasure hunt, a rummage pile, a garbage dump and a historical lesson all wrapped up into one day.  We found everything from a car, appliances, old hub caps and MAPLE SYRUP TAPPING BUCKETS! 

We went hunting for sugar maple trees in these woods this past weekend.  Hubbie and I have talked for years about getting into his parent's woods and marking which trees we could tap.   Since we've never done this before, we were glad to have the book with us as a sort of guide.  It was almost as if the forest wanted us to find the right trees...  

They were already marked!

We marked them again anyhow...just to make sure which ones WE were going to tap.  Over a dozen potential tapping treese were marked that day.

The kids had a blast in the woods.  They too were having some much needed outside time (and it was a lot safer since we'd cleared out a lot of the hazards last year).

The colours on the forest floor were amazing.  The book told us all about the right colour of leaf to look for...so you didn't tap the wrong kind of maple tree.  Pink to orange and then yellow, those were the leaf colours we needed to find for sugar maple trees.  Small leaves in the shape of our Canadian flag leaf...not the jagged edges of the red maple nor the giant leaves of the Norway maple.

Hubbie went up on a hill to mark some more maples.

The boys were very much at home here in the woods. 

They looked like they could have stayed outside all day. 

A look up into the tree tops.  It was beautiful even though it was cloudy.

It was great to let the kids go on their own adventures in the woods.

Even if it was only for a short while before they came running back to Mum.

We'll see how our little experiement turns out this spring.  Stay tuned for follow up posts about this!  This is our first year and we just might not get this right.  Fingers crossed it all works out...but thats what this blog is all about.   Testing those things that books write about.  Passing or failing...but at least trying.  Gaining a better appreciation for things that come all too easily these days.

Doing it together as a family.