1/2 June

Aiden turns 13! A houseful of teens we have now...
We almost didn't get to have his planned birthday (lake swim, campfire supper, and hide and seek in the dark) because of weather, but we squeaked it in before the rain, and it was quite satisfactory - even the homemade caramel ice cream cake that ... mostly worked...

 So, it took us a whole month, but Imma and Mom built a garden/chicken coop fenced area! We cannibalized falling down paddock fencing, scavenged nails and screws, pooled our tools, pieced together what fencing mesh we could source, and still spent around $300!! But we're proud of what we've managed to create, and it really ought to be secure for chickens in this wild place.

School is mostly still happening, though in a different summerish form. We've started having most days at home and only getting together to do the fun stuff: science experiments, art projects, and film classes. The end is in sight though! Today we got a bonus of seeing a nesting turtle in plain sight:

 

May

 

We are discovering to our delight that whoever planted the flower beds around our house really knew what they were doing! We're getting wave after wave of new blooms as we move through the spring: crocuses, then daffodils, and now tulips and bleeding heart (surrounded by an amazing carpet of forget me nots!), with more discoveries on the way - underneath apple blossoms and others we don't yet recognize. The beds have gone rather wild, but still are presenting beautiful riots of color. What an amazing place!

We've had some unfortunate close encounters with birds (apart from the neighbor flicker pair that still like to hunt their meals in our gutters occasionally). First the kids found a barn swallow stunned to death in the horse barn, then a northern parula hit our living room window and didn't recover...

We finally have our own dog in the house (sort of). We boarded Sailor, a yellow lab 5 month old puppy, for 10 days as part of his training regimen. We are now official puppy finishers with the CNIB program - raising puppies training to be guide dogs for the visually impaired! And shortly after Sailor, we welcomed Freda, his sister, who will stay with us for up to 6 months until she goes to guide dog "college." Here she is meeting our fish family - which has grown significantly as we successfully are raising 6 more fry!

Mom has been slowly working towards putting in the garden. Braving clouds of blackflies and the expectation of ticks, she has managed to get a small patch of ground turned over and ready along with about 1/2 the fencing wood required salvaged and chicken wire to surround it. Now for enough time without rain and with energy to put it all together! Needs to be soon as the plants we started indoors are more than ready for their outdoor planting.

Another project she's been scraping away at is preparing a chicken coop! Imma has 12 extra chicks this spring, so we are going to take some. Although we had big plans to fix up the garden shed as a coop and build a run, that has proven to be too big a project to tackle in time to welcome the chicks. So a combined birthday present became a readymade mobile coop that will be housing chicks as soon as next weekend... so we just have to find the time to put it together this week! Perhaps a coop afternoon project :)

Imma rescued a somewhat frazzled mom by bringing in a birthday party Sunday night. So mom had a party like she hasn't had in years - lots of family people, some worship songs, and LOTS of cheesecake (3 people brought some :) ) Mom felt very loved...

 

 And then, on birthday day, Jasmin had her first book talk for Uprooted Homekin at the monthly homeschool youth meeting. She also led a workshop for the kids. It was fun to see her confidently speaking of her book and sharing lots of hard-won knowledge with the group.

19 for Grace

  Grace ended up with two Saturdays worth of birthday celebration!

In order to accommodate a friend, we went from a week to prepare for a party day to 2 days...

But it was a grand successfully celebratory evening of board games: Wingspan, Catan, Quirkle), cousins, friends, and neighbours, and an eclectic mix of Asian snacks: curry puffs that Mom made from scratch (minus the deep frying), spring rolls, want-want crackers, pineapple cookies, and ais kacang (or halo-halo, or bing-su, or kakigori, or bao bing, or... a shaved ice with various toppings dessert popular all over Asia - and beyond!)

And as usual, we were too busy having fun for much picture taking :)

And then, today, Grace, Jasmin, and Aiden took themselves rock climbing for the day. They took a break in the middle at ate lunch with Imma at a Yemeni restaurant - Grace was curious! - courtesy of NiNi's birthday money. They came home quite satisfied and tired :)

20 Years

Last week we celebrated our 20th with a few amazing things:

We managed to mark the anniversary on the correct day! So many of our celebrations have been bumped days - even weeks - off the mark by anything from sickness to moving across the world.

We managed to celebrate as planned with no last minute changes or improvisations around a disruption.

We got to walk out some history - all too often we are in a new place with new or transposed traditions.

Rather than opt for fancy and fabulous, we decided to aim for nostalgic... Walking has been our lot since we first met:

At COPE camp, where we first met

In Timberlea, hashing out all the pre-marriage details

In England, on our sort of honeymoon/know the relatives visit

From Spryfield, walking out early marriage

And in many Asian countries, still a date of choice - and a mode of transport!

So, in another lovely first, we went back to where we started and hiked the first loop of the Bluff Wilderness Trail. 

At that time as a rural girl very much at home in the woods eager to share this love with her new love, and, without a doubt, as a long suffering city boy simply willing to accommodate his new love's strange ideas of fun: hiking in all seasons for the sole purpose of building a fire to awkwardly cook some kind of hodge-podge meal.

 

And now, a much more in sync couple who actually both enjoy the experience!

Although this time we didn't stop to build a fire or cook a meal. Mostly because we didn't have the time - we barely made it back to the car before dark - but also not wanting to sort through the much more stringent rules for fires that are in place since the big forest fires. We did stop for snacks and views though!

Blisters and next day hobbles aside, it was a delightful way to commemorate 20 years!