Changing Seasons

Well, I actually spent some time working in the garden this afternoon and it's November the 30th!!

I pulled up the remaining beet plants and here is my pathetic little crop of red beets. They are about as wide as my fingers. I don't what I am doing wrong, but for some reason I just cannot grow beets. Any advice, anyone?

I also picked some nice fresh spinach and lettuce. Some of the spinach is already in the lasagna that we're having for dinner tonight.

And then... I finally did it! I pulled the still-flowering geraniums out of one of the barrels on our back patio - the one just outside the back door. I have been putting it off and off. But one of these days we are sure to get some heavy frost, and I wanted to get my winter barrel done before that happens. So now this is what the barrel on the one end of our patio looks like...

...and this is what the other one just outside the kitchen door looks like. I just snipped and cut some evergreen branches and dried flowers from around the yard, poked them into the soil in the now-empty barrel and ... ta-da! - a new wintery look for our barrel. It will look great when we get a little bit of snow on it!

I also forced myself to pull the hanging geranium and english ivy out of this hanging pot and replaced them with a few evergreen twigs and dried flowers. So now the garden is almost ready for winter.

First Sunday of Advent

"Ready my heart for the birth of Immanuel.
Ready my soul for the Prince of Peace."
- Lois Shuford

Grand Opening of TDCH Addition

This afternoon we attended the dedication and official opening of a new addition to Toronto District Christian High School. It was very exciting! Especially because when I served on the board of this school, at my very first meeting, they were talking about the fact that we might have to close the school. They were in debt, two of the feeder communities were talking about starting up their own high schools (which they did), and enrolment was way down. Now the school is thriving! It was very, very exciting to be there today!


This is the new atrium. At the far end to the right is the resource centre - library. It's all open concept. This new section houses "the enhanced science and media facilities" ie. new science labs, new english room, new library-resource centre and additions to the art room and environmental studies room ...I think that's it. It's amazing and beautiful!

There are computers everywhere! All up and down the hallways and in the classrooms.

More computers in the library. They've left everything in the ceilings exposed, including a see-through pipe that shows the rain water, that was collected on the roof, running down to be filtered for use in the toilets. They've built the addition as environmentally friendly as possible.

More computers in the old section, main hall, ground floor. They've put in double-decker lockers down one side and computers down the other.

The environmental studies room. They've opened up the back of the building with lots of windows that look out over the valley behind the school.

They've also installed windows in the some of the classrooms so that you can look in from the hallway. This is looking into the expanded art room. It gives a very open - anything is possible - kind of feeling. I was very impressed with all the changes! So exciting!

By Candlelight

Hi! I'm back! It's been a while since I posted anything. Everything's fine here. Just a busy week.

I love the look of this dripping wax!

Blending of the Seasons

On my way to and from work yesterday I saw reminders of every season. It made me feel a little disoriented...

Is it spring or fall?

Fall or winter?

Tada! There's Santa!

Winter or spring?

Spring or fall?

Fall or winter?

Winter or summer?

Happy Birthday to Alida (cont'd)

Yesterday it was "Happy Birthday" to Alida because Sydney, Australia is 16 hours ahead of us and it was already Nov. 18th there yesterday. Today it's her birthday in Canada because this is the day she was actually born here.

I love this picture! Doesn't she look just like a doll in this picture? My sister Tina gave it to me as a surprise birthday present 27 years ago. One evening, I had to go to a meeting, so I got Alida all ready for the night and tucked her into bed and then I left. My sister Tina was over getting some advice about car insurance, or something, from Gerard. Well, actually, as soon as I left the house she hauled Alida back out of bed, got her dressed up and took her to the photographer for this picture for my birthday. Surprise!

Happy Birthday, Alida!!

A Gift from My Mom

A gift from my mom when my parents came over to stay a few weekends ago.

Hanging the Christmas Lights

It was a beautiful sunny November day yesterday, so we decided to take advantage of the warmth by hanging up the Christmas lights. Fortunately Gerard is very meticulous about making sure the lights work before we hang them, and good thing too because when we plugged them in we remembered that at the end of last season half of two of the strings were not working, and that the season before they worked whenever they felt like it! So we packed away the ladder, the old lights, the extension cords, and decide to buy some new lights.

Fortunately today was another gorgeous, sunny, warm day so again a good day for hanging the lights. Even though they were brand new - straight out of the package - Gerard tested the lights to make sure they all worked - and they did!

Under a clear blue sky it was so-o-o-o warm up on the ladder! I could have worn shorts - on November the 14th!! It's been a day of strange contradictions - Warm enough to dry the laundry outside, and eat lunch on the front porch, in short sleeves on November the 14th!! At the same time I was baking bread and apple crisp and preparing a pot of chili - all comfort foods for a nasty cold, wet November day. We'll gladly enjoy these wonderful warm days for as long as they last.

View from the top of the ladder...

I got a new perspective (from outside and up above) on my geranium-growing experiment. I heard that you can take little cuttings of geraniums and put them in sand and/or vermiculite until they grow roots and then transplant them into soil. So far nine out of ten cuttings have survived. We'll see how they do. I thought by taking cuttings, instead of the whole plants inside, I could keep my geranium plants outside as long as possible. By covering them a few nights when we had light frost, I've been able to keep them until now and they are still in full bloom - outside! on November the 14th!

Update on Sweet Potato Growing Experiment

I love sweet potatoes! So when I read about the possibility of growing my own, I jumped at the opportunity to try it. I had visions of digging bunches of sweet potatoes out of the garden in the fall and then feasting on them.

The instructions said to cut sweet potatoes in half, put them in a container on a damp paper towel, cover them with a paper towel, and to keep them in a warm place. So that's what I did.

After a few weeks they started sending out some tiny sprouts, but they also started getting mouldy. The growing instructions hadn't mentioned anything about that, so I washed them off and rinsed them with some kind of a solution that's supposed to prevent mould in transplants. I figured keeping them in the damp paper towels would only encourage more mould, so I planted them outside in the garden. It took quite a few weeks, but then one day I started seeing some growth! I read that you shouldn't water sweet potatoes too much, because then they'll be less flavourful. Since we had quite a lot of rain this summer, I didn't water them at all. Once the plants reached about the size shown in the picture below, they kind of stayed that size for the rest of the summer.

I just left them, thinking all the energy was going into growing lots and lots of sweet potatoes under ground. Finally in late October the leaves started turning yellow, which is when the book said it was time to dig up the plants, carefully with a pitch fork, so as not to damage the potatoes.

And this is the grand total of what I found after digging up all seven plants! Rather disappointing, but at least we got to taste our very own home-grown sweet potatoes.

Since then I've done some more research on the Internet and found out that you're really not supposed to plant the whole sections of potatoes. You're supposed to start much earlier in the season, maybe early March, either the same way I did last spring, or by planting the half potatoes in soil. Wait until they send out shoots, or "slips" as they call them. Then break off and plant those slips. I'm game to try it again, following the instructions more closely. Looking forward to a bumper crop next year!

Your Cheque Book

Here's a thought provoking quote I heard on Saturday evening at a fundraising dinner we attended:

A cheque book is a theological document. It tells you who and what you worship. - Billy Graham

Another Gorgeous Day!

Another gorgeous day! The sun is shining and it's already around 17 degrees celsius! It almost feels like summer. Most of the leaves have come down. Some flowers are still hanging on.

Yesterday we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the summer-like weather - walking to and from church twice (8 km total), having lunch, reading, and enjoying an ice cream cone - my favourite kind - vanilla with chocolate crackle. It was a perfect day for it! And ice cream does seem to taste so much better in a cone!

Pumpkin Feast

This morning I noticed that this pumpkin was starting to spoil, but it still looked nice so I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Should I cook it? Throw it on the compost heap? Enjoy it for a little while longer? So I put it on our back porch, on a little table just outside our kitchen window. It wasn't long before this squirrel made the decision for me. He hopped on the table, ripped the top off the pumpkin, dove right in, and feasted on the seeds. It was great fun to watch!

The leftovers...