Still Here....

If I'm not careful the month of July will go with only one blog post (a first)....which can mean one of two things.  I'm either very busy doing nothing all day or there has been nothing worthy of the blog.  One might assume the sunny skies and long beach days have kept me from the blog.  One would be wrong!  I actually can't remember our last long lazy beach day!  The cloudy days have not exactly kept us inside reading but they have not drawn us out to sit on the beach either.  In true Canadian form, we have just decided to embrace the weather and move on.

This is the weather... trying to decide whether it is going to be sunny, cloudy or rainy.....

 This past weekend was our annual Amherst Shore Games.  Next year we will celebrate the 40th annual Games!  The Games are legendary around Amherst Shore.  People plan their vacations around the Games and have done so for as long as I can remember.  What once started as a softball game, a bridge game and a couple of other activities between two extended families at the shore has turned into a three day marathon of sporting events, board games and card games with over 100 participants.  The weekend is brought to a close with a talent show or with another entertaining and creative exhibition followed by everyone dancing the night away at the Barn Party.  We compete against each other for three days and then we party together...because we really do like each other!

This year our softball team wore highlighter yellow t-shirts that said, "Neon for Don".  We were commemorating our Uncle Don who passed away this year and used to bike and walk in a neon yellow shirt in his latter years.  It was an awesome tribute!

While the Games are fun to watch and participate in, they also can take a toll on vacation time.  "This is not a sprint, it's a marathon!"  It seems that every hour of every day is either spent watching, participating, setting up, tearing down, getting people to participate in the events, trying to find time to eat and finally sleeping.  Sleep usually loses out!  Every year we vow to rest on the Monday after the Games and every year we find ourselves at yet another activity on Monday with bleary eyes, sore muscles, tired feet....drinking a large mug of very strong coffee asking each other whose idea it was to do this!

Dancing the night away....so that's why my feet hurt so much the next day!

One day I keep saying I'll write a long piece about the Games.  I think it will have to be during the off season because there just is not enough time now to do them justice.  And believe, me they are worth it!  For now I will say, you have to see it to understand.

Maybe August will be a more reflective month.  July was just plain busy, much of it was beautiful, and most of it was enjoyable.  Life is good at the shore.

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!












.

Ditches

Today on my run/walk I noticed that the ditches along the road are spectacular!  Ditches are usually places for weeds, mud, runoff and wandering drunks heading home at night.  Not the nicest of places most of the time....until these few weeks in late June.  In these weeks the ditches are full of color!  A usually unsightly place takes on a new look for a few weeks a year.  If you walk or run on these roads, there is something to behold from close up.

They may be weeds, but they make me smile when I go get my mail every day!

This was what I saw at the halfway point this morning  :-)
in a ditch!

I am hoping that what feels like the ditch I am living in now (the farmhouse under attack) will soon bloom.  Right now it looks like a dirty, disorganized mess!

Mid-destruction....let the hundred year old dust start flying, achoo!

You thought I was exaggerating?  You can't even see the thin layer of dust covering everything!

I knew this process would be a messy one when we started.  I have been fortunate enough to miss out on most of the destruction and construction in the farmhouse.  I usually show up after the fact and just clean up and paint everything.  This week has been quite different.  The old floors were torn out revealing 100 years of dust and dirt!  Yipee!  Shopvac to the rescue!  I feel better already, knowing all that dirt has been cleaned up!  Out with the old and in with the new...plywood floors...for the next month.  The major change will have to wait until the hardwood arrives from parts unknown. It is currently "on the boat".  Could be here in a month, could be in 6 weeks.  I figure I have waited 5 years, what is 6 more weeks, right?  Argh!

I can't wait until my plywood floors turn into something as beautiful as this...

Ditch in full bloom!

In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy our blooming ditches and endure the dust and disruption.

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!

Start or Finish?

Are you one of those people who has several unfinished projects going at all times?  Do you come up with great ideas and start more than you can finish and leave a few abandoned?  OR Are you the person who has a couple projects going and won't begin another until they are finished?  A person who likes to see something through to the end, regardless of the outcome?  A multi-tasker or single minded?

I have been pondering this thought for the last week.  I think, or like to think, that I am more of a finisher.  Some may argue.  Maybe more accurately, I am a finisher compared to the Starter I live with.  If you think about this then maybe we are the perfect match, he starts things and I finish them.  He comes up with about 100 brilliant ideas every week and starts one after another until the next brilliant idea lures him away and then I go behind and finish the ones I feel are worthy.  This should be a great symbiotic relationship.  But....I have a question.

Does it bother the Starter that many of the projects are unfinished?  Does it bother the Starter that someone else finishes the project... not the way they would have?  On the other hand, does it bother the Finisher that they don't have much going on because they just can't move on until they see the current project finished?   As for you over achievers out there who start and finish MANY projects simultaneously, what's that like?

This year is year 5...or 6 of the great farmhouse renovation.  That is a long time for something to go unfinished in my book. Unless you consider the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, which has been under construction for over 130 years.  This isn't a cathedral....I am ready for it to be done!  Of course, once it is done what will I do with myself up here?  There have been enough starts and finishes over the past 5 years to satisfy both of us.  We have little victories every year.  This year I am hoping for some big victories.  Maybe I'm setting myself up for disappointment.  

Looking forward to arriving one year and not being able to write in the dust that covers everything!
Of course the dust is a sign of progress, of the work that was done over the winter so I should not complain, right?

This year I am taking things into my own hands and trying to get as many projects "finished" as we can.  All we need is time and money, right?  That money thing always puts a glitch in things.  I still want to get on one of those HGTV shows where they come in and rescue the poor exhausted homeowner and work miracles on the mess the owners have created.  We are so close but still so far from having that dream home.  I just hope we finish before my patience gives out...and I'm a pretty patient person.

This year... floors!  That is the numero uno job.  It may take all the patience and money we have but by golly, we will have floors and whatever else we decide to start or finish.

Maybe the floor won't look like this in another month!
Stay tuned!

Busy Being Busy

I knew once we got back from our trip to Spain, life would blast past us and everything we have been looking forward to, for many months, would be here before we had time to blink...or pack.  I was right.  Although, I did have just enough time to pack....see?

I even remembered to bring the dog!

We left Houston on May 23 and after a brief stop for a wedding in Kansas City, MO we headed to Madison, WI to anticipate the birth of another grand baby. I must say KC was way nicer than I expected, you should visit.  Little did we know when we planned this trip that the actual birth would occur a mere 12 hours after we arrived!  John Francis Lee has perfect timing!

John Francis Lee
May 27, 2013
7lbs. 15 oz.  20.5 in.
Man with perfect timing!

Grampy and I took care of Daniel and Christopher while Mommy and Daddy took care of John.  Grampy could only stay for a couple days, but I got to stay for 11 days!  I feel younger and very much older at the same time.  Two busy boys and a precious baby will do that to you. I mostly did the cooking and played with the boys and Mommy and Daddy took care of John. Except between 8 and 10 pm when I got to hold John and blissfully look at him while he rested in my arms or sucked on my finger until it was time for him and Mommy to call it a night.  So sweet!  Even sweeter since I knew I would not be the one waking up at 1 a.m. to feed him.  I got to sleep all the way until 6:30 a.m. when the older boys woke up for their day.  Until this morning when Christopher climbed into bed with me and said, "I was going down the stairs... and I kept going to the basement... so I could snuggle with you."  Only problem with this preciousness was that it was 5:42a.m. on the day of my departure....right before my 7 hour drive....man of not so perfect timing.  I did enjoy the snuggling though.  How cute is that? The entire time was filled with episodes just like this.

I thought I would be able to share all the Daniel and Christopher " isms" but the fact is that I have forgotten most of them, sigh.  So many cute things come out of their mouths that it was hard to keep track of them.  One I do remember is that Daniel was fascinated by John's umbilical cord in the hospital and the little clip they put on it and asked about it.  Well, for the next few days he kept trying to say umbilical cord and it always came out "invisible cord" which kind of makes sense too!
The other memorable "ism" was at the dinner table when we were eating lasagna and one of the boys said "Lasagna in the highest" with his hand held out like a cantor at church!  The entire family chanted "Lasagna in the highest" several times, always with one or both of the boys raising their arm like a cantor for the congregation to join in song!  Good times!

Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Wiener.....

The week was full of fun and excitement, some scolding and a little crying and lots of love.  That's what family life is all about.  I thought about when I brought my third child home from the hospital.  Don't really remember much about it but I know there were two little girls who were excited and curious about this little boy who had entered their lives.  There was a Mom who was exhausted and a Dad who was very proud and probably exhausted as well.  I don't think this homecoming was much different...except the two little girls were boys in this case.

Now that's one proud Grampy!

and an excited brother

baking Gigi's birthday cupcakes and cake, can you tell it is early in the morning?  
The boys are energetic and happy and I'm just trying to keep my eyes open!  So not a morning person!

One adventure after another!  Spain was amazing!  The first half of our annual migration was extra special with the birth of John and hanging out with Daniel and Christopher.  We are now on our final leg(s) of the trip to the shore.  Sadie the Wonder Dog knows there is a prize at the end of this journey, she can smell it in the air already! And I am starting to get excited about all the work/fun to be had at the shore this year.  Stay tuned, it should be another summer to remember.

Some Drives To Remember

Renting a car in a foreign country and driving around that country can be a good thing or a bad thing, or both.  Just ask Roberto, our friend who did all the driving.  We had a love/hate relationship with the car on our trip.  We loved being able to drive around and see the country of Spain.  We could go wherever and whenever we wanted.  We did not love our car when it came to driving around small towns with very narrow, crowded streets that seemed unnavigable.  We also did not love the car when it came to paying the very high tolls, which as it turns out are well worth not having to drive among hundreds of trucks and people who drive like they have no respect for life!

We left Barcelona and headed out to Zaragoza.  I knew nothing about Zaragoza, never even heard of it until we started planning this trip.  Most people asked us "Why Zaragoza?" , except for the one person who said it was her home town and asked if she could stow away in my luggage.  The reason for Zaragoza is that it was the largest town near the Rioja wine region and our friends knew someone who said it was a lovely city.  Why not?  Turns out, it was a lovely stop.  BUT before we made it to Zaragoza we had to eat lunch....somewhere.

A common sight while driving in Spain...

Our adventurous sides lead us to a little walled city named Montblanc.  Had it not been for the restaurant outside the city being closed, we may never have found this hidden treasure.  When you look up charming and ancient in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Montblanc.

Forboding exterior

So inviting inside

Another noteworthy drive took us to a part of The Way of St. James or Camino Santiago.  TJ had researched this path and as we all got to pick a place we wanted to visit every now and then he chose this little town.  So after we tasted wine at Marqueses de Riscal and had lunch in Logrono, both note worthy but I have very little time to note.....we followed our Zara Gosa (our GPS) to this crossroads.

Along the road...

There is always a church to welcome you in every town.

Our driver, Roberto, crossing Ponte de Santiago

One huge reason I will never do the Camino Santiago, this is the communal clothesline  where all the hikers hang their stinky clothes after they wash them...probably while they were wearing them in the shower!  

It was finally time to say goodbye to Zaragoza and head south to Valencia.  We stopped along the way, of course, for some sight seeing, picture taking and just a bit of eating and drinking.  Our lunch stop was in Teruel.  Just one more cute town in Spain! 

 Note the shade seekers and the sun worshiper!

The view from our table!  I could sit and look at this all day!

Even the bottoms of the balconies were decorated with tile mosaics!

My other favorite drive brought us through Tarragona, you know...the place I have decided to  live!  Another TJ pick, which turned out to be an amazing stop!  The tour book said it was a mix of ancient Roman ruins mixed with cafes, friendly people and an active social scene.  Oh, and perennially sunny!  SOLD!   As we dusted the dirt of Valencia off our feet and headed north in the overcast sky it was as if the clouds parted right over Tarragona!  As we got closer and closer, the sun became brighter and brighter and the sky and the water ended up looking like this.....

ahhhh

We're so happy that we can't stop smiling!!!!