Radishes!

Mark's growing radishes this year, and right now they are just bursting from the soil, ready to be picked. Crisp, refreshing, with lots of zing! And very appropriate for Canada Day!

A change in plans...

Saturday did not go how I thought it would. It was not the Impressionist tableau of the day before... I had hoped to take my parents up to the Champlain lookout and for a nice hike in the woods, then to Wakefield for lunch, then another afternoon of reading and lounging under the trees in the backyard, then a delicious dinner of truffle oil risotto, lemon-baked fish, and salad with greens from our garden. But something about the best laid plans... We had just finished feasting on some delicious banana chocolate chip pancakes (and some "pancake hash" because I had used the wrong pan and everything stuck together. ugh...) and were about to set out for the day, when I happened to be in the basement just as someone upstairs flushed a toilet, and saw water come up around the floor drain, making a rather large puddle, which receded after a moment, but was a clear sign of trouble.

Trouble that quickly told us there would be no hike or lunch in Wakefield. After calling around for a plumber, we had someone show up, and they wanted 500 dollars to snake the drain! Yikes! So Mark rented a 50-ft auger from Home Depot for 35 bucks and decided to do it himself. Not exactly the activity I wanted my parents to have to deal with on their vacation weekend, but my dad was happy to help. So, for a few hours my mom and I avoided the stinky work and let them take care of it, and did they ever! Each snake hauled up a foul-smelling mass of fibrous roots, approximately 45 feet from the drain, clearly pinpointing the large maple at the end of our driveway. The drain was cleared two years ago in the same way, just before we moved into the house, so we will likely have to do this annually, but at 35 dollars a year, it's a worthwhile cost to keep things flowing. And we'll keep monitoring the drain to see if it will have to be dug up and replaced. 

I've always been conscious of the amount of water we use, but honestly I have completely taken for granted the lowly drain all these years, and how nice it is to be able to unplug the stopper and allow the water down rather than having to bail the water into buckets and take it to the backyard... 

But I couldn't help but wonder later that day, as I was bleaching the "spray zone" (major ewwww), what the Duchess was up to at that moment. Mopping up residual fecal matter, tree roots and other stanky drain matter? Unlikely.

After the auger was returned at 5pm, we began our regularly scheduled program and made our way up to the Champlain lookout as the late afternoon sun lent a dreamy haze to the vista, and made the green fields below look like velour. Then to Wakefield for dinner at Chez Eric's where we had a lovely meal in the garden under lights strung through the trees. I had the duck, which was served on a bed of beluga lentils, with roasted beets and goat cheese, and might honestly be the best thing I have ever eaten. Divine. So all's well that ends well?

Happy 144th, Canada!

My parents joined us this weekend to celebrate Canada Day in the nation's capital, and we gathered on the Hill with the throngs of adoring fans to see if we too, could catch a glimpse of the Duke and Duchess. Before my mom suggested it, I hadn't been planning to attend the midday festivities, but I'm really glad we did. It was a lot of fun, and no one does pomp and ceremony like the Monarchy, or, well, Canada too, when the Monarchy comes to visit.

When the cavalcade finally arrived, everyone was audibly disappointed when Harper stepped out of the car, rather than Will & Kate. But then the landau appeared, at precisely noon, and there they were (on the large screens anyway, there were so many people, and I am short, so I didn't see anyone until they were up on stage and I stood on tip-toe).

It was an absolutely perfect day for sitting on the lawn of Parliament. Sun, blue sky, a few clouds. It was definitely hot (uncomfortably so at times), but it could have been worse, and there was the occasional nice breeze. We stood for a while, then lounged on blankets to enjoy the various performers.

Then we went back to the house and napped and read on blankets and pillows under the shady trees in the backyard. Like an impressionist tableau. Perfectly relaxing. Then Mark made us all some scrumptious Canada-Day-themed pizza: pepperoni, tomatoes, chicken, smoked gouda, white cheddar and grana padana (with a bit of green: spinach).

After a restful afternoon, it was back downtown for the fireworks. We found a nice spot between the bike path and the river, overlooking the show on Major's Hill with a view of the National Gallery and Notre-Dame. There were some new and fantastic pyrotechnic advancements this year—one that exploded, then briefly disappeared before reappearing again. Very impressive. And the bus back was not nearly as time-consuming as I thought it would be—I thought we would have to wait in a line for a bus, but we managed to squeeze onto the first one, and though there was some gridlock leaving downtown, taking the bus was a much better option than driving.

A great day, celebrating our awesome country!

First harvest

Look at that haul! Right from our very own strawberry patch! Mark managed to keep the squirrels at bay with some netting, leaving these beauties untouched. Perfection. The sweetest strawberries I've ever tasted.

Owlets for the kidlets

I made a bunch of these scrappy owlets for all the wee (and not-so-wee!) kids at this weekend's family reunion. I wasn't sure if the kids would like them, but they seemed to be a big hit!

Crafting can be a very consumptive activity, requiring many new materials whose life cycles—as materials and then products—are not exactly environmentally friendly. Yet crafting—by nature—is very clever and creative, so I'm very interested in trying to avoid introducing new materials into the product cycle, and using what already exists.

The most perfect art supplies are those which are found: salvaged from nature (you can't get friendlier than blueberry ink, painted with a twig on birch bark peelings!), or from the street, and saved from landfill. (Added bonus: free!) Now I should clarify that I'm no saint, and love a nice, glossy oil painting with a thick epoxy finish on a pristine cradle board, but this is just something that I've been thinking about, and would like to be more mindful about when starting a new project. 

For these owls, I used mostly upcycled materials, with some new fabric (scraps) that I had from previous projects. Old felted sweaters, corduroy pants, and previously unfashionable shirts mixed with some cute cotton prints. Individually they didn't take too long to make, but the full dozen did take a few sessions spread out over a couple of weeks. I assembly-lined what I could, to minimize having to change thread colours back and forth. 

No real pattern to speak of; just sort of wung (?) it, basing the look on the many owl stuffies around the interwebs. (Seems like we're in a bit of an awesome owl craze right now!) I used a spool of thread to trace the shape of the pupils, and searched around my house for another circle that was a little bit bigger (could have just gotten the compass and traced out a template, but, you know) and found that the cap on my pepper grinder was the perfect size. 

I wanted them to be a bit rough and scrappy, so I layered zig-zag stitches with straight stitches to make them look patchy. Fun and adorable

Innertube waterpolo

A splashing good time (left). And (on the right) me in the process of being dunked. Plug your nose! Here comes the chlorine!

I signed up to play innertube waterpolo without much thought as to how little I actually knew of the sport. But my friend had asked if I wanted to play, and I just said yes without must hesitation. We showed up to our first game, jumped in the pool and said "ok, so how do we play this?" about two minutes before the game began. So with a quick crash course of the rules and meeting our fellow players, it was time to begin.

The first game was a bit of a shock. Primarily because I didn't realize that it was legal to flip someone off of their tube to gain possession of the ball, so needless to say, I spent much of that first game under water, and then struggling to get back on the tube (surprisingly very tough!). And when I was above water, I had many facefuls of chlorinated water. Good times. 

But! Once I knew all of these things, it was game ON. Though flipping an opponent's tube is not the easiest task. It requires a delicate balance of force—enough to cause them to lose their balance, without destabilizing yourself. I was not always successful, and most of the time was quite ineffective, neither flipping, nor preventing them from passing, but it sure was fun to try. 

We were pretty lax on the rules, which made it that much more fun. Our teammates were all laid back and super nice, and though some opponents seemed pretty serious about things, most people would smile at least, as they flipped you off your tube. How serious can you be about a game you play on an innertube? 

Now that I've got a season under my belt, I can honestly say that innertube waterpolo was the most fun sport I've played, probably ever. I have never laughed so much while playing a sport before! The Sprummer season was short, and unfortunately the Summer season conflicts with Ultimate Frisbee, but I will most definitely be signing up again in the Fall.

Peony Party

Vivacious, bold, dramatic, there is nothing quiet or understated about the peony. From their unburst globes urged open under trodding ant feet, through their spectacular pom-pom days, to the final throws of their explosive deaths, they are anything but subtle. They droop heavily under the weight of their massive blooms, and make the other flowers look so meek. Festive and lively and frivolous, just because they can.