Despite it feeling like June-uary around here, we are getting more days than not that reach the double digits and quite often the rain, although intense, passes by and the skies return to blue. Oddly a little less so this year than in previous years, but definitely better than the monotony of grey that we left on the coast. Funny how that greyness didn’t bother me much when I was growing up and only as an adult did the weight of it start to get to me. A blue sky, some fresh air and a deep breath seem to right a whole lot of wrongs these days. Perhaps I was meant to live in the mountains. Poor Jeff. He loves the mountains too, but I think he is truly more of a coastal soul.
June means the end of school and some fluidity rejoins our schedule around the house. I LOVE it when the girls are all at home (except for the part where our house turns into a one giant debris field). I’m sure that’s mostly because we aren’t following a crack-of-nothing wake-up call for everyone, and trying to fit all things into what seems like too few hours in the day, or maybe its just that the end of school is accompanied by long, light, warm days…at least for a few weeks. Either way, I’ll take it.
We had a straight out of Hitchcock moment one morning recently. With the nicer mornings (and by nicer I mean not snowing) I have started walking the girls to the bus stop with Max. This kills two birds as far as I am concerned…actually more than two, but anyway. I get a walk, Max gets a good walk rather than his constitutional out the back door or down the driveway, and the girls and I get to spend a few minutes chatting about stuff and nonsense. On this morning, Jeff had volunteered to take the girls to school on his way to work, so I was left to walk Max on my own. It had been cold lately, but on this morning the sun was shining and it felt much more like summer was on its way. Max and I set out down the driveway and I could see something in the roadway at the end – it was big, but low to the ground and wide. Weird. Keeping Max on his leash, expecting that it was going to be something that would make Max lose his biscuits, we kept walking towards anyway, expecting that it would move on and I would be able to continue our walk down the dirt road as usual. I first saw a few extra large birds in the road. Wings spread. Cool. After a few minutes, I realized there were more than a few…the few on the ground were accompanied by many on the fence line. They all started to open their wings. The turkey vultures were having a gathering, and sunning themselves.
Needless to say, we stood and watched for a good long while. Quietly. Max was decidedly reserved, sitting beside me, and surprisingly NOT losing his biscuits. We didn’t get our long walk in since the vultures were not going anywhere and I didn’t want to leave the driveway and disturb their sunning, but its was just fine. This was worth it and Max did not seem to mind. Max and I eventually turned around and started back towards the house, and I looked back a few times to see if they were still there. They were, until a single deer ran straight through the middle of it all (that was brave!) and the ones on the road scattered. The rest stayed on their perches, completely undisturbed by the invasion.
Right around the time that Lizzie was wrapping up her indoor volleyball season, Mary was getting her soccer season going. Soccer is soooo short here. I think it lasts 7 weeks from start to finish. Not exactly a lot of time to gain any skill, but I think Mary has been secretly training since she seems better this year than last year and, much to her opponents dismay, towers a full head or more above the other players. Hmmmm.
The drawback of having skill and being tall in a small town is that her age group is now not exactly the right fit for her. I am trying to convince her to try out for one of the Keysa teams in Cranbrook. There’s a nice indoor dome to practice in, a much longer season and opportunities to train and play with other East Kootenay teams, and better matched players in her age group. So far, no joy there. Mary’s not found her brave gene yet and this seems like a stretch goal for her. She likes what she knows.
She signed up for a Jamboree in Sparwood a couple of weeks ago, expecting to play some small format games with 5-7 players. It didn’t really work out that way and most of the registrants were quite young. They did manage to get a couple of older teams put together, but only had room for short pitches and the nets were small so it felt like 8 year old soccer. She had fun hanging with her friends though and tried out being a keeper again, which she seems to be good at and really enjoys. When she was on the field she was formidable though, inspiring some of opponents to groan when she got the ball. Still fun to watch from the sideline, although again, pretty brisk weather around here and I am not hardened off yet for sitting on the side of a soccer pitch.
On the home front, we had a short but lovely visit with Roy and Mary. They swept in for a few days of frivolity and chatter and then they were off again. The weather wasn’t spectacular (again) so we didn’t get up to very much that is noteworthy. Hot on the heels of their visit, Jeff and I both celebrated our birthdays. Nothing extreme on the books, but some time spent with the girls and homemade cakes. Lizzie made me an angel food cake that turned out beautifully and I made Jeff a mock black forest cake that we all agreed, was better than real black forest. We tried to take some time out to enjoy ourselves for each of the days, but as always there is life and building and schedules. All good though and days well spent.
A few weeks back Mary acquired her chickens. The plan originally was to find some full grown chickens to re-home and start with something we didn’t have to rear first. Something got lost in translation, however, and we received a box of cheeping fluff instead. So we added a heat lamp to our chicken gear, and set up a station inside the house to get them over the hump of the first few weeks of life.
They have since outgrown their inside space, moved out, and set up camp on the lawn beside the house. This of course, is also temporary, and they will soon be moved down below to the barn so we don’t ruin the grass. They do grow fast and have gone from fluff, to ugly duckling, to nearly independent chickens in record speed. I think we have a week or two to go and they can free range a little more – at least inside the chicken fence. It was delivered without the most important part and we are still awaiting the solar charger and means to electrify it. At least until that arrives, we will be keeping a very close eye on them and they will spend their unsupervised time in the safety of their coop. It has outdoor space though, so Mary opens their door and sets them free each morning so they can spend some time on the grass below the coop.
The garden is coming along and we continue to learn what does well and what does not in our soil. There’s still much work to do there and we are test-driving horse-radish and garlic, along with some raspberry canes. So far the horse radish and garlic are doing well, but we’ve not been terribly successful transplanting the raspberries. Not sure what went wrong there, probably left the canes too long out of the ground before planting them, but we have only one survivor from the 10 canes. I’ll have to nurture that one rather fiercely to make sure we can add more bushes for next year. Other notables – the rhubarb is finding its feet, the potatoes are thriving, and the regular radishes are doing well too. The chard and beets are all up, as are the carrots, but slow starts again – I am hopeful we get something before we’re back to the cold. Frost will reappear in September so time is short! We have about 10 brussels sprouts in the ground that are growing well, but don’t appear to be gaining any height which is troubling and the beans look like they’re being eaten by something. The onions are alive, but really don’t want to grow. My tomato experiment worked and I have tomato plants sprouting – I don’t think we’ll get very far with this cold wet spring, but next year we might have some hoops or a greenhouse to help us along with the things that need warmer weather early.
With some of the utilities work being completed on the house, we have our first hydrant in place! Strategically located in the front of the house near-ish the garden. Jeff has hooked up a couple of sprinklers now that water the whole space and we can start adding timers. Thank goodness for that. When summer finally hits, it will be hard to get there to do regular watering, or at least at the frequency we will need to get any kind of yield. I’m excited to see what comes of the garlic and horse radish though, both fall crops. Those are the ones that we can potentially sell, and maybe the rhubarb if we stop disturbing it long enough for it to grow!
Mom is doing well. We took a trip into Cranbrook for her to look for a replacement for her aging recliner one afternoon and came back with a rather sleek version of her recliner (a little less like a man chair and more stylish but still able to recline for her to sleep). She’s had a bit of trouble with pain of late, but it appears her doctor has solved that problem and she is returning to normal. A bit unsteady on her feet and making use of her cane more now, but otherwise fine.
In preparation for a move into the new house in a few months, we are starting the purge of all things unnecessary, again. Funny how many times you can go through that exercise and still feel like you have too much stuff! This purge, however, will require some deep thought about where furniture will go in the new house and what we will need to say good bye to. I won’t have trouble parting with some albatross-like furniture items, but there are some lovely antiques that simply will have no home. I’ll be happy not to move them, but sad to see them go. The first load of Salvation Army donations left the house this week but there will be many more to come.