Time Zips By!

It's hard to believe it's been a month since I last posted. Sorry about that! Life has a way of catching up with you and yanking you in directions you hadn't intended. I'm here, just a bit distracted.

We're approaching the end of the year, a time when people start thinking about goals and accomplishments. I try to avoid this in general. I'm not a big believer in setting goals, especially new year ones. To me, goal-setting is all about planning to be the person you want to be, whereas I prefer to just start being that person. For example, if you want to be a more patient person, just start being patient. Right now, in this moment. And then in the next moment, and the next. If you mess up, you start again and just be patient in that moment. You can start over as many times as you need to. No one is keeping count. All the little "now" moments add up to change. But if you sit back and set a goal and post it on your fridge and talk about it a lot, you may end up (to paraphrase Tagore) spending your days tuning your guitar but never actually singing the song you came to sing.

Winter, to me, is a time for reflection and quiet cocooning. People ask me what project we're going to do next on the church, and the only thing that comes to mind right now is: I'll be doing a lot of puzzles. Baking pumpkin bread. Curling up with a fuzzy blanket and a Jenny Colgan novel. Turning on the music and dancing in the sanctuary, maybe with a friend or two. Sipping peppermint tea while the steam fogs my glasses. Watching the snow bend the cedar branches. Being in the moment. And yes, playing my guitar. 

Redick Professional Tree Care

A shout-out and big thank you to Redick for doing a great job trimming our big old cedar trees. The trees had grown into the powerline and were hanging over the neighbouring townhouse complex, so pruning was needed. They were careful around our septic system and cleaned up everything afterward. I highly recommend their service.

Cedar is such a pretty colour, isn't it? We saved one piece to make something with. 

Annual phenomenon

I'm always fascinated by the fact that, every year, these two trees, which are the same species and age and planted about twenty feet apart, turn colours and drop their leaves about a month or more apart.

Thanks to my neighbour Brenda for the picture!

Exploring

Took a much-needed break from yardwork today and spent a great morning at Ipperwash Beach with a friend and her children. Brio came along and found lots to sniff and explore. He chased a few seagulls and even got all four feet in the lake, which is a big deal for my water-hating dog. I hadn't been to Ipperwash before, and I loved the rolling breakers and "ocean" breeze. I could quite contentedly spend the rest of my life watching the waves. If I lived with that view, I would get very little else done.

Afterward, we stopped to check out Kettle Point on the way home. Such interesting rock formations and paper-thin layers of shale. Beautiful autumn colours. Perfect temperature. A lovely day!

It always seems to come down to gravel

Once again, I'm solving a problem with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. We had a back step (concrete slab) that had sunk so that rain water would flow toward the foundation instead of away from it. It was too big and heavy to lift to angle it away from the building. So a kind neighbour pushed it out of the way with his handy little tractor thingy (okay, I'm a city girl and don't know the names of equipment, okay?). That left us with a big drop from the back door.

We priced having pre-fab concrete steps brought in. We thought about having a big rock brought in to serve as a step. But the septic pipe runs right below that door, and we didn't want to put anything in place that would be impossible to move later if access were needed to the pipe. Also didn't want to damage the pipe by putting a lot of weight on it.

So this weekend my clever husband built a sturdy 10" tall wooden box and ordered in 6000 lbs of limestone screening. Yes. We filled the box, tamped it down well, and put four 18" pavers on it, and voila! A step.

Hubby has to return home today, but the hard lifting is done. I'm now using the rest of the screening to raise the ground level around the whole foundation of the church, just to help combat the sinking that occurred after all the waterproofing we've had done around the foundations. I have a few days to do it before I go back to the city, but it shouldn't be a problem. I'm becoming quite adept at using a wheelbarrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers!

Books

So...I've hosted three used book sales over the past while, and there really hasn't been much response. I expected at least the local conservation area campers would be interested, but no one showed, not even when I advertised FREE books. So I've hauled ten boxes of books to the thrift store in Sarnia, and I'm turning the room into my own personal library. I've got all the books I've stored away here at the church on two sets of shelves, and I'll get one more set to hold the books I'll bring up from the city. There's a comfy chair that I tried out this morning, snuggling down to read before dawn. Very satisfactory!

Applesauce!

Ordered a bushel of Ginger Gold apples from Warwick Orchards. I tried them for the first time last year, and while they're a bit soft and mealy for dehydrating, they're perfect for applesauce. No sugar or anything required. They turn a lovely pinkish colour when you process them. I leave mine a little chunky instead of totally smooth, and minus the cost of the lids, they're just over half the cost of store-bought pints of applesauce.

A friend is going to come over so we can do apples together. She is leaning toward jelly and apple butter, and I conveniently own a steam juicer that makes jelly much easier.

I love this time of year. Huge tractors thundering down the road like some kind of Transformers. The golden fields. The V of geese against the silver sky. Tucking in, storing up, squirreling away. Making the switch from cucumber salads to potato soups. This year instead of storing zucchini in the freezer, I'm making it into bread first and freezing that, so it's ready to eat. I also make the same recipe with pumpkin or butternut squash. With a handful of hickory nuts thrown in, there's nothing better.

Here's to autumn! My favourite season.