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.

The Joy of Small Accomplishments

Life will sometimes reach an occasional plateau. Periods of feverish activity are followed by doldrums where nothing much happens. Sometimes this is good, because it gives you time to recuperate and regroup. But sometimes those stretches of inactivity extend so long that the whole project is derailed.

We'd reached this point with the church renovations. Four years of frenetic work was followed by a year of nothing much being accomplished as we let the bank account (and our bodies) rest and recover. But lately we've discovered we've become used to the construction debris and had adapted to living around it. The same pile of damaged wood trim remained in the same spot, and we were merely living around it, as if it was a permanent fixture. There was the possibility that we'd grow so used to it, we'd stop seeing it. Recuperation was threatening to become inertia.

So...this week we decided to tackle just a couple of small, bite-sized projects, so that we could see some progress. We had kept a big, heavy cupboard that was left in the old laundry room. It's metal lined, with mesh shelves, and weighs a ton. It's been on its side, acting as both an island and a roadblock, for five years, but we've talked about turning it into a cheese-curing cupboard. This week we finally bought some wheels, reinforced the bottom, and got it standing upright and moveable (and out of the way). Relief! The whole room looks huge now.

We spent a day cutting out styrofoam to block the upstairs windows when we're away (heat block in summer, insulation in winter). It's an inelegant solution and won't be permanent, but it works for now.

We bought some trim to finish off the windowsills in the basement (not installed yet, but ready to tackle on our next trip up). 

We finally framed the Ikea print we bought four years ago, and now it's on the bedroom wall and looks amazing. Turns out the colours are perfect.

And last night we dragged out the damaged trim that goes in the front stairwell, set it in place, and spent half an hour debating how to restore it. Again, not completed, but in place and ready to tackle on another trip.  

It may not seem like much got accomplished, but the barrier has been breached and creativity is flowing again. Sometimes you just need to start, to spend that five minutes getting going again, to break through the inertia. When a project looks too big to tackle, pick one small piece of it to focus on. Tell yourself you're allowed to stop after that initial step. You may find you can keep going once the momentum kicks in, or you may allow yourself to stop after that step, and either one is okay. It's progress, and no one says you have to sprint to the finish line. And sometimes there may not be a finish line, because it's all about the journey, and that's okay too.

Finally, a Break in the Heat!

The heat wave of the past couple of weeks has finally broken, and I feel human again. The delicate air at sunrise, the drop in humidity---ahhh! Yesterday was spent mowing, and today will be spent weed whacking, but hoping Friday to go to Lake Huron for a stroll. I love to walk with no particular destination in mind, exploring as I go. The path along the lake in Bright's Grove is especially pleasant. There's something about looking out over that vast expanse of water, feeling the breeze on my face, that is delicious to me. Well, that and the corn dogs at the food truck that's always parked nearby...

Here are the photos of the new kitchen furnishings

Now all we need is a floor!