Party Like a Scotia Woman!

How to party like a Scotia woman:  Have a garden party and invite all your favorite Scotia women.  It was not your typical garden party, it was a more literal garden party. Each person got to choose a vegetable or fruit from our garden and then made a dish using her vegetable for a pot luck dinner.  We also decided to wear trendy second hand clothes we purchased from Frenchy's (a place every self respecting Scotia woman knows!).

Your host.....the garden

The ladies on the beach embraced the garden party idea!  Everyone made something interesting with their fruits and vegetables.  The garden provided peas, green beans, leeks, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, artichokes, broccoli, Swiss chard, zucchini, strawberries and celery.  The women turned all of this produce into a fun feast!  Chocolate Zucchini cake...  Strawberry Pina Coladas...Onion Casserole... Broccoli Salad! Delicious!  Creative!  Resourceful!

These ladies know how to turn produce into a party!

Every summer around this time the garden hits it's stride and produces enough food to feed a village.   Unfortunately, the bounty also coincides with the time of summer when people start heading home so there are fewer people with whom to share the harvest.  Most people are in that winding down mode, when you have to start cleaning out the pantry and the fridge and try to figure out what to make with peanut butter, a lemon, ketchup, tuna fish, and some raisin bread.  Rather than leave all of that food on the vine or in the ground I decided to share. My other option was to spend my remaining days making tomatoes into tomato sauce and strawberries into jam.... a party sounded so much better.

There were 5 sets of sisters at the garden party!  

The garden party may just have to become an annual event!  Judging by the 14 empty wine bottles left on the kitchen counter, I would say the party was a success!  I never said Scotia women were teetotalers!

Being Gigi

My summer started ages ago with the long road trip north in May and if I look at pictures it has been a pretty darn good summer.  The central figures of my summer have been these guys...

Daniel

Christopher

and John!

The trip began with the birth of John and getting to spend 11 days with their family while Mom, Dad, and the boys welcomed John.  I was there to cook, clean, help Mom, play with the boys and of course the most important job...rock-a-bye John.  A mere five weeks later they came to the shore for the summer!

When the boys got here they had to figure out shore life.  It is a different life than "real" life.  Anyone who reads this blog knows that the rules at the shore a a bit different than those at home and I'm not just talking trash sorting.  There is more freedom here, the leash is a little longer.  It is a place for kids to be kids and run around with sticks and play Star Wars, pretend, swim all day, stay up past their bedtimes and get dirtier than they ever get in "real" life.  In my mind, it has been a place for kids to learn some important life skills and lessons.  Yes, playing Star Wars with sticks instead of video games and getting dirty are life skills in my book!  Running around with a pack of cousins and friends of all ages, year after year, gives a person roots.

Star Wars Land

When Daniel and Christopher arrived they were fresh off welcoming their new baby brother.  Their lives had changed.  John was a little six week old baby and Mommy was still a bit tired.  When they left they were all still a little tired, this place does that to you, but they were tan and relaxed too.  John went from a newborn to a precious chattering baby whose smile can melt your heart.  The boys made friends that they will have forever... as long as they come back to the shore.

the first week...clean bathing suits and no tan lines

John's first week, not quite the smiling cooing little baby who left here five weeks later.

They all had a great summer and took to shore life like many of us have generation after generation.  This place gets into your blood!  Maybe it is all that red dirt....  Rachel was able to see the shore in a different light.  She came early in the summer and got to experience the calm and relatively quiet times.  She got to feel the pace begin to pick up and the craziness of the games.  Then she welcomed the return to the calmer days.  She also got to see a glimpse of what my life as a mother of four was like (survival mode) when Daddy was home working for three or four weeks and and what it felt like when Daddy finally rejoined the family (relief!).   I would not have traded a minute of it either!  I hope she feels the same way.

I am blessed to have been able to spend such a long time with my grandsons and my daughter.  I know there are families who live in the same town and get to spend a lot of time together but we live very far apart and I miss out on a lot of grandson moments.  This summer was my special time to get to know my grandsons.  I wasn't Gigi who shows up every few months and it is a frenzy of activity because we are together!  I was Gigi who they saw every day for five weeks, no frenzy needed.  It's a different thing if you know what I mean.

And now some cute grandson pictures from their summer....

Painting birdhouses in the basement.

Tummy time with John.

Tractor show!

Wearing neon for Don!

Exploring on the beach

watching the softball game

Mommy and Michelle with John and Ross, future friends for life!



Heading to the beach!

Bye guys!  It was a fun summer!  I love being your Gigi!

What Is A Cottage?

This is a cottage!

This cottage doesn't know it but it was the inspiration for this post. I was walking along the lane the other day and was inspired (I've been waiting...).  I have walked past this cottage so many times in my life I can't even count them!  I am always struck by it's beauty, it is still on the shore side of the lane and with it's weathered shingles and window boxes filled with red geraniums it strikes a lovely profile against the beach.  It was built in 1906 and has survived the test of time.

Absolutely perfect!

There are many cottages along our lanes that have a rich history.  If those walls could talk....they would tell stories of friends and families through generations.  Like this cottage.....

The cottage of my childhood...and my father's childhood!

This cottage belonged to my grandparents and remains in our family.  This is where my Dad and his siblings spent their summers and later the place they stayed with their children (all 19 of us...but only once!).  There have been 5 generations to sit on that deck!  My grandparents, their children (my Dad and his siblings),  the 19 Dixon cousins and many of our spouses, all of our children and now our grandchildren.  That is a lot of talking about the weather, current events and the neighbors!  I have many fond memories of sleeping in the attic with my cousins and fighting over who got to sleep 3 wide in the "goosh gosh" bed and which of us had to sleep in the middle.  I remember sleeping in an actual bedroom downstairs, a right of passage, with my new husband during his first summer here.  Then there was the summer TJ and I slept in the attic with our two little girls and every time TJ had to get up in the night with the baby he banged his head on the rafters.  That head banging lead to us purchasing our own cottage... it was probably about time anyway!

We bravely purchased this beauty in 1983... sight unseen!

We spent five happy summers in this cute little (500 sq. ft.) cottage until #4 came along and we had to build an addition.  We enjoyed the new square footage as the kids grew up.  We picked the cottage up one year and turned it around to enjoy a better view and better breezes.  Over the last two years we have given the cottage a much needed face lift.  We have owned our little cottage for 30 years and yes, there are many stories to be told about the good times we have had inside those four walls.

She looks pretty good even if her roof sags a bit....we all sag a bit as we get older.

Another interesting cottage along our beach is actually a double cottage.  The story goes...and this is just my version....I'm sure there are at least two other versions....there were two women and they were best friends "way back when" and their husbands wanted them to come out and spend the summer at the shore.  The smart (if you ask me) women said there was one condition...they would only spend the summer at the shore if their best friend spent the summer near them "out there".  The result was this cottage which has gone through 5 or more generations!  Oh the stories those walls could tell....

Those are two front doors in the center.  One cottage, two separate spaces...early duplex?

Some cottages have names.

This cottage kept it's original name through it's recent tear down and rebuild.

The new and improved Pioneer

The view from the deck isn't bad either!  Just one of the cottages with beautiful gardens!

There are a few old outhouses along our lane.  I remember babysitting at one of the cottages for kids whom I now sit and drink wine with on the deck of their cottage....damn...I'm getting old!  Anyway, when I first babysat at their cottage the bathroom was this outhouse.  This outhouse also served as our bathroom during my second summer here with TJ when we stayed in a trailer parked on the property, if my memory serves me correctly.

All I can say is "love is blind" and I loved the shore and my husband... so the outhouse it was....

 I played dress-up in this cottage as a child, babysat in it as a teenager,
 played games and have eaten some delicious dinners in it as an adult.

The oldest cottage in our family has to be this next cottage.  It still stands high on the hill as a beacon to our family.  We look at that red roof with affection every summer.  We can see it from the beach as we sit on the sandbars.  It was built in 1902 and I am sure was magnificent in it's heyday.  When I was young it seemed HUGE!  A lot of things are so much bigger when you are small.  I remember my charming aunt who lived there and having hot tea with milk and sugar in a china teacup in the living room.  Maybe that is why I'm still hooked on tea with milk! The fireplace in the living room has a stone at the top etched with the year 1902.

1902

There are other cottages along our lane that mean just as much to some of my friends.  These are the cottages their grandparents owned and they formed their childhood memories.  Many of us have new cottages that will be the "old" cottages our children and grandchildren formed memories.

Oh Canada!

Beauty in simplicity

The cottages also inspire us to garden.  I think part of what makes some of the cottages around here look so great are their gardens.  Some lovely garden inspirations brought to you from Amherst Shore!

I love the creativity of these gardeners!

There is a lot of history in these cottages.  There is also history being made every day in these cottages.  Families come back every summer and there are strong friendships that are formed and solidified through the years.  Where else can you go and have four generations within a mile of each other?  If these walls could talk there would be laughter, tears, meals cooked and shared, games played, songs sung, dancing, thousands of books read, friendships formed, loves won and lost, hours passed in peace and quiet, sunny days and stormy ones, and a great sense of belonging to something bigger than we realize.  That's what a cottage is!












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If I Had A Million Dollars....

I'd be rich!  At least according toThe Barenaked Ladies.  And the cottage and farmhouse would both be  finished the way I see them in my dreams.  But alas, we are not millionaires, so my dreams have not come true just yet.

 One of our favorite past times is dreaming of all the things we are going to do to the farmhouse to finally finish the place.   One of my concerns way back when we purchased the farmhouse was that the cottage would become the neglected child...an afterthought.  I feared it would crumble into disrepair and always come in second place when it came to putting money towards repairs or improvements.  Given that we are not millionaires... we have had to make choices.

I have had to really try to get the cottage a little respect.  Last year it got a few long overdue upgrades.  This year the job is almost finished.  Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty that could/should be done, but we are on a positive trend here!  The farmhouse had to take a backseat last year to the cottage, "Take that farmhouse!".

I love the cottage!  This week I have been cleaning out at least 25 years of crap and I keep finding more and more memories and find myself falling in love with the cottage all over again.  For such a small place with relatively sparse storage space, we sure did ferret away a lot of crap over the years!  This was the year for me to do the big clean out!  Throw away memories with reckless abandon!  Clean slate!  Get rid of the clutter!  Well, kinda...let's not go crazy here, I'm not quite ready to get rid of that orange, yellow and black sunset hooked rug yet and the baseball hat collection is still intact...except for the ones that disintegrated!

The cottage 2009....where my children learned to love this place.

The cottage 2013...with her new foundation, siding and new decks, she might just live for another generation to fall in love with this place!

While I was cleaning and throwing things away I came across something that has been hanging in the cottage for many years.  It goes mostly unnoticed.  I stopped my cleaning and read this ode to the shore.  When I received this work I thought it was nice but it did not mean the same thing to me then that it does now.  I can really relate to it now.  She capture this place perfectly!  I thought I'd share it here and maybe you can appreciate it too. 

Down Home

What is my Maritime home besides family and friends?

It's the sea, sand and smell of the salt air on the Northumberland Strait.

It's the quiet stillness before a summer storm or the sound of flags flapping in the wind.

It's a sea breeze whistling through the spruce boughs or driving down a road overgrown with alders.

It's seeing fields of clover, boarded by goldenrods, 

with a sprinkling of Queen Ann's Lace, Fireweed and Blue Flags.

It's a cloud of dragonflies in late August and multi sea birds

 gathering in flocks to feast as the flies pass by on their one day

 exodus each summer.

It's cranes standing on stilt like legs, waiting patiently at low ebb,

In the shallow pools for fish and small crustaceans.

It's crabs, clams, razor fish, starfish, quahogs and mussels

 and of course lobster too.

It's deep purple jelly fish with threads of silk like stingers

swimming gently with the tide.

A snorkel and a mask, exploring a sea world,

finding bubbles of silver that look like a mermaids broken necklace.

Above in the deep blue it's white clouds splattered

with different character forms.

It's the cottage, the shore in summer,

the drive out the Tyndal Woods Road

with memories of childhood days around each bend.

The robins looking for that last worm for their young

before a spectacular sunset turns day into night.

PEACE,TRANQUILITY, HOME, land of my roots.

Sharon Ann Hire-White

Yup, she captured many of the things we love about this place and none of them cost a million dollars, so what am I worried about anyway?  Especially on a day like this......

Our first walk on the sandbars....priceless!