Category Archives: Weather, Seasons, & Celebrations

The State Of The Estate

This morning HRH went out to pick up the free tree we’d reserved through the city a week and a half ago. He says it was wonderful; there were tonnes of people out for the Journée verte, and everyone was happy. The sun is shining, it’s a gorgeous, warm day, and it may actually be safe to say that it’s finally spring. I wish we’d had the money to pick up one of the discounted rain barrels on sale, but it wasn’t in the budget.

We chose a Red Splendor crabapple. The material included on the reservation website told us it was a 5m wide by 5m high max growth. The handout HRH got along with the tree said 7m each way. It would have been nice if the info was consistent so we could have planned a bit better, but eh. Apple trees like pruning, and we’re going to keep this one tidy. Yes, crabapples are messy in the fall, but you know what? Their glory in spring and their summer foliage are more than worth it.

So the boy has finally gotten his tree. We wanted to plant one when he was born, but we were renting at that point, and while our landlord was totally cool with whatever landscaping improvements we made to the value of the property, we didn’t want to plant a tree and then leave it any time soon. (Also, there was really nowhere we could have put it; most trees would have taken up the entire backyard at maturity.) We consulted with the boy and he confirmed that the crabapple was what he wanted.

It’s about two years old, and the trees were being stored in straw in a cool place to keep them dormant. But there are lots of bumps where leaf buds should start growing any day now that it’s out in the warm sun and we’ve given it plenty of water. It’s a great weekend to plant a tree.

Speaking of trees, our lilacs have wild numbers of leaves budding on them. I can’t wait till they flower.

We’ve got other tiny plants making themselves known round and about. There will be tulips sometime this week in the front and side backyard beds, and a few days ago some lovely little hyacinths appeared in the backyard. We have mid-purple ones in a couple of places, but the stand of whites are the prettiest.

HRH plans to turn most of the rest of the front yard into garden, as there’s a couple of strips of grass that are more annoying than anything else. The baby’s tree will go in front of my office window. We’d planned to double the size of the garden on the north side of the backyard and make it the vegetable garden, but that won’t happen this year because our focus has to be on the attic renovation. Instead, we’ll use the smaller garden on the south side and plant our usual lots of tomatoes and peas, some cucumbers, carrots, and herbs in it. It already has everbearing strawberries, mmm.

Easter Weekend and Baby Stuff

We had a lovely weekend visiting my parents. The drive was a challenge for me, as I usually need a day to recover from a long drive, but this time I had the extra physical challenges of pregnancy on top of my regular fibro issues to deal with. (It is truly astonishing how sore one’s core muscles get when one is pregnant and stuck in a car for seven hours, even with a lumbar pillow.) The weather was fabulous; warm, sunny, windy. My mother took the boy out for a movie, gelato, and some shopping on Saturday so HRH and I got to have some time out by ourselves, which was nice, too. Easter dinner was the usual tour de force everyone has come to expect from my mother’s kitchen (slow-cooked lamb!), complete with the best red wine I have ever tasted. She also taught the boy how to make chocolate ganache, which I think is an excellent skill for any almost-six-year-old to have.

One of the things HRH and I did on our day off was visit a children’s clothing store, which happened to be conveniently located next to the store HRH had to visit to buy new jeans. We realised that we had no idea what little girls’ clothing looked like, so we wanted to do a quick recon in order to steel ourselves. Amusingly, when we stepped into the store, we both turned left toward the boys’ section; we have to retrain ourselves. The girls’ clothes were mostly not bad with a lot of it being very acceptable and some of it downright sweet, although there was a small selection of the expected sequins and sparkles and ruffles and gaggingly cutesy sayings (note to people thinking of gifting us with any of these: please don’t, even if you think it would be funny). The cloying saturated pink seems to have been replaced by a paler version, thank goodness, and there was plenty of pale green and lavender and a nice chocolate brown on the racks, too.

The Easter Bunny stopped by Nana and Grandad’s house, and the boy found all seventeen of his hidden Easter eggs (or so we were told when he woke us up; apparently he found one and decided there must be more, and undertook his own egg hunt before anyone else got up). There was a basket of presents at the breakfast table, too, and the boy cheerfully opened the Owlet’s gifts as well as his own, being absolutely delighted by the tiny girl onesies, sleepers, and dresses. The Owlet now has a decent selection of clothing, what with the new stuff in the Easter basket, the sleepers Ceri’s mom brought up (thank you, Carmel!), and the box of family stuff from my cousin’s two little girls.

This seems as good a time as any to say that while we appreciate the slew of offers of baby clothing and general baby stuff, we did have a baby ourselves six years ago, and so we’re pretty set. We know there will be token gifts of new things, and every baby should have something new, but as much as we appreciate everyone’s generosity we really don’t need boxes of baby clothes. We’re set for equipment as well (and this is where I give a wholly deserved shout-out to Leah, who passed along equipment to replace some of ours that we initially borrowed, that we lent and wore out after seven kids, or came back broken). Of course, if there are one or two special pieces of clothing you want to offer us because you think they’re adorable and deserve to be worn by someone else again, that’s fine and we would be touched, but general bags and boxes of stuff really aren’t necessary.

In other clothing news, I finished one of the knitted origami baby shoes, and am an inch away from finishing the squares for the second one:

We have hit the third trimester and the Owlet is doing just fine. My last ultrasound, scheduled specifically to investigate for high-risk issues, discovered that I am actually less close to preterm labour than I was a month ago, so my doctor is very pleased indeed with my treatment. People keep telling me somewhat dismissively that I’m not very big at all, which I’m sure is a compliment in their view, but I’m just about the size I was when the boy was born so I’m actually a month ahead of where I was last time. I’m so petite that the bump may not seem big to them in comparison to other women who are larger than I am to start with (which is, let’s be honest, 99% of the female population), but taken within context of my body size and shape it’s big. The baby is right on schedule for her gestational age, too. I’ve grown out of two or three pairs of my go-to maternity pants… no, not grown out of, actually; it’s more that my shape has shifted and so the cut no longer sits comfortably, so they have to be cycled to the bottom of the box of maternity clothes, woe! The weather is finally warming up, so I dipped into the box of summer stuff to get a break from the same old clothes I’d been wearing for the last four months. I’m glad it’s just about warm enough to leave jackets open, too, because my polar fleece is about ten days away from no longer zipping up at all.

It’s hard to believe that at this point last time, I was five weeks away from a baby. At least this time the book gets handed in three months ahead of our due date, instead of a month. (And yes, I am knocking away on my wooden desk as I type that.) Funny story: We got new music last week at orchestra, among it Die Fledermaus overture. We sightread it and I frowned, asking our principal if we’d played this before, and she confirmed that we had. The sheet music looked like it had a note or two on it in my handwriting, in fact, but while it was familiar, I couldn’t remember ever having performed it. Upon consultation with the rest of the section after the rehearsal, it turns out that this piece was part of the mostly-Tchaikovsky programme we presented six years ago for Canada Day, a programme that was personally awful for me because of key signatures and rhythms, and, coincidentally, I ended up missing because I delivered a premature baby two and a half weeks before the concert. We found this very amusing, since it’s been programmed again when I’m pregnant. If anything happens, I will personally blame Johann Strauss Jr.

Weekend Roundup Etc

I was disappointed in the debate last night. I was hoping for actual adult discussion of policy and platform. What we got was people pointing fingers at one another. Snarking about it on Twitter with Canadian friends helped me get through it. All I really got out of it was an odd dream that I was an environmentalist active in avian preservation, and Stephen Harper personally promised me that he’d build a new habitat for penguins at the Biodome if I’d vote for him. I think the bird book is getting to me.

We had a whirlwind trip out to Rowan Tree Farm on Saturday for our annual spring equinox ritual (affectionately referred to as OsTaras) with t! and Jan, which was very enjoyable, and the next day we did a late equinox/early Easter brunch and egg-decorating session with the Preston-LeBlancs:

The bulbs HRH and the boy planted all over the place last fall are coming up, and we have discovered naturalized crocuses (crocii?) in the back garden, to our delight:

(Hello, lovely macro setting on my camera. You make crocuses look very, very nice indeed.)

I did a preliminary dye test to tint the Falkland warp fibre green to better match the Manos weft yarn. The green dye really turned the fibre an emerald, Astroturf-y green despite me using a half-saturated solution, gack. So I hauled out the hackle and blended the emerald fibre with undyed fibre in two different proportions, spindle-spun both samples and plied them, et voila; a pretty decent match, I’d say. The left photo shows the Manos at the back, a sample skein of a 2 white:1 green yarn in the middle, a sample of 1 white:1 green yarn on the right, and on the far left is the emerald dyed fibre, just for kicks. The photo on the right shows the two sample skeins laid over the skein of Manos, showing just how close my two hand-blended yarns got.

There’s so much variation in the kettle-dyed Manos that either of these blends would work, I think. Or rather, I could be a bit less precise about how much of each colour I’m blending in as I go, and it will still look lovely. Now I know that I can blend it, I could dye up about 4 ounces of green at this solution and trundle down to Ariadne Knits with it and another 4-6 ounces of undyed fibre to crank out 8 to 10 ounces of batts on the drum carder there… or I could further experiment with a much, much weaker solution of emerald green on a larger amount of fibre. Which I may still have to card with undyed fibre; who knows? It’s academic at this point, though, because I need my order of undyed Falkland to arrive at the shop first.

The bird book proceeds apace; deadline is in two and a half weeks, five days of which I am away for Easter. We had a bit of a setback last week when we discovered some of the art wasn’t available, which led to a three-level list of birds to be cut, and unfortunately I’d already written over half of them. It was somewhat demoralizing so close to the finish line, especially because I immediately assumed I’d have to find about twenty replacement birds from among the available art, but it turns out I won’t, so I’m still on track. I do mourn the loss of the research and time spent writing those entries I’ve already completed, though, especially since a couple of them were extensive. I am very tired, and I am aware that this manuscript will not be the shiny, polished thing I prefer to hand in. It’s somewhat uneven in that some birds just have a pile of folklore and superstition attached to them, and others don’t. Generally, birds that are found both in the Old World and the New World have more; New World-only birds have a lot less. It’s simply a question of the amount of time that the lore has had to accumulate. The proposed cover for the book is just wonderful, and I’ve been signed to write the intro to the accompanying birdwatching journal as well.

The book has been wringing me out, so I’ve been restless without a lot of mental focus to apply anywhere. I’ve been spinning a bit, and because I can’t seem to gather enough energy to select music I actually want to listen to I decided to try downloading free audiobook recordings. I’m working through the Librivox Sense & Sensibility right now, and I’m of two minds about it. Librivox switches narrators every two or three chapters, which is fair, but also jarring. I’m lucky in that there’s only one narrator I’ve really disliked so far whose reading isn’t very good at all (her recording level is low, in mono, and her enunciation isn’t great so a lot of the time it’s mostly a murmur). On the other hand, it’s kind of neat to have different interpretations; the change in narrator really wakes you up and makes you listen a bit more closely. I do about five chapters in a session and get through almost a half-ounce of fibre in that time. I wish my library had a decent audiobook selection.

Spring Arrives

In our house, we know that seasons don’t come according to the schedule carefully calculated and given to us by astronomers and scientists (in essence, the spring equinox occurs when the sun crosses the celestial equator that parallels the earth’s equator, and we have equal hours of day and night). HRH has been known to announce a season a month ahead of time, and then there are the seasons that dawdle. But there’s a feeling that sweeps through, a change in energy, and that’s what we mark as the beginning of whatever season is coming up. Sure, there are the exceptional days that promise the upcoming season, but one spring-like day does not make spring in a late Canadian winter.

Today, spring is sweeping through.

It’s pretty close to the vernal equinox, actually, and one of the few seasons I can remember coming just about in agreement with the scheduled time. There is sun with occasional cloud and brief showers; there is wind (warm wind, even); and the snow is falling in on itself with graceful submission, little diamond drops sparkling in geode-like caverns in the surface of snowbanks. It felt wrong to dress the boy in a snowsuit on a day that was 10 degrees C at eight in the morning, but I know how hard he plays in (what is left of) the snow, and it’s just not quite time for splash pants and a raincoat yet.

I can feel the change in my own energy, too. This winter has been hard on the fibro. The damp, the bitter cold, and the energy required to handle thick, quilted, down coats and heavy boots, and wrangle someone else into a full snowsuit and boots and accessories, plus battling brushing off and driving the car in all sorts of weather… it has been dreadful. I wonder if it might have been easier if I’d stayed on the medication, although I couldn’t for other health reasons. Blade suggested the other day that we install full-spectrum light in the attic office, which is a lovely idea, but it’s not seasonal affective disorder that runs me down (especially not since I increased my vitamin D at the suggestion of my doctor last fall, bless her); it’s the lack of energy to deal with physically draining stuff in a fibro-based body that undercuts me. Sunny days psychologically lift my mood and make me a more cheerful person, but don’t affect my energy level.

But it is spring, and I am feeling a bit more like myself, for which I am deeply thankful.

In other unrelated news, the boy marched up to me this morning at seven-thirty and said, “Mama, it is time to do cello.” Doing this practice in the morning thing is working very, very well indeed.

Spring Concert Announcement!

Huzzah, it is spring! Or so the potholes in the decrepit Montreal roads are telling us…

This means that yes, the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra’s spring concert is on the near horizon! This concert’s theme is German Masters.

Circle Saturday the 2nd of April on your calendars, gentle readers. At 19h30 in the Valois United Church in Pointe-Claire (70 Belmont Ave., between King and Queen), the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will present the following works:

    Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni
    Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1 in G minor (op. 26)
    Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony

What? You think that looks like a short programme? Ha! The list may be short, but there’s meat aplenty at this musical buffet both in terms of quality and quantity, trust me. Apart from the historical and musical weight of the material being performed, we are honoured to have a local professional violin soloist, Judy Hung, performing the romantic and breathtaking Bruch with us.

Admission is $10 per person; admission is free for those under 18 years of age. The concerts usually last approximately two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all. And it bears repeating that children of all ages, including babes in arms, are very welcome indeed. There’s a large cloakroom at the back of the church that spans the width of the building so you can walk your baby or nurse in a quieter environment.

We’d love to see you there!

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before

I’m tired and swamped with work, and stressed by that raft of family health issues. I figure saying “I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do” is kind of boring to read and so rather than just write that, I don’t write anything at all. It’s only fair to check in at least once a week, though.

The weather has made a marked improvement in the last week. It’s been beautiful the past couple of days, and the snow is disappearing rapidly. We are watching for robins. The sun does wonders for my mood and the generally warmer temperatures do likewise for my general fibro malaise. The time change had a surprisingly positive effect as well, although I’d already been having trouble gauging when to make dinner because it had been staying lighter longer and now it’s worse.

Cello practice with the boy got difficult. He already had an after-school routine, so trying to introduce cello into it was a challenge once the novelty wore off. We’ve switched to mornings before school instead, which seems to be working so far. He’s resisting working with the bow, and I fully understand that it’s hard to get it to do what you want it to do; I worked pizzicato for a couple of months before starting with the bow myself, and I was twenty-three. My teacher keeps reminding me that it’s process not progress at this point, and I have to keep telling myself that it’s impressive that I get him to sit down for fifteen minutes every day at all. The other issue was getting him to want to do the exercises that had been set for him instead of making things up. Part of the point of music lessons was to cultivate focus and commitment to working on an extended project, so in that respect we’re doing just fine.

My teacher agreed to do our lessons back to back on Saturdays, so that solves my problem of losing most of a work day to my cello lesson on Tuesdays. I have so much work to do that I’ve been having to slip work in on the weekends to cover for cello and doctor’s appointments and hospital visits for tests lately. Right now I’m checking the proofs of the repurposing project I handled last fall, which means the bird book is on hold for a couple of days yet again; I had paused on it while waiting for feedback from the publisher’s review of the almost-half and then again for a copyediting project, which proved to be lucrative but time-consuming.

HRH has been working on the what-will-be-the-stairs-to-the-attic, tacking the stringers up, taking plasterboard down and measuring to see where beams and joists are. He bought all the stairs on sale a couple of weeks ago, so now we just need the risers so he can actually start putting them in one by one. He hung an unused door in the doorway too, which helps the general augh-there’s-a-hole-in-my-hallway issue I was having.

The boy has discovered Mo Willem’s Pigeon books, and thinks they’re hilarious. They’re also really easy for him to read. We read The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog aloud together, and he does the duckling in a hilarious high-pitched cute voice that makes its masterful manipulation of the pigeon with anger management issues side-splittingly funny. We have all four main books (thank you, Scholastic Book Club) plus a bonus board book called The Pigeon has Feelings Too, sent to us as a freebie to apologize for temporarily being out of stock of the four-book set.

I finished my first sweater ever, a child’s cardigan in garter stitch. I used KnitPicks Comfy cotton in a worsted weight, merrily adapting a pattern I’d never used before that called for doubled yarn to make a bigger size to use thinner yarn and make a smaller cardigan, and it turned out okay. I even found nice little wooden buttons for it. I haven’t sewn them on, so no pictures yet. I am rather chuffed, because I’ve never actually knitted an article of clothing other than a scarf before, so I am rather proud of it, twisted stitches and weird increases and all.

No spinning this week. I’m waiting for a shipment of Wensleydale to spin a special yarn. This was originally supposed to be done in the wool-bamboo blend, then I realised that I’d have to dye it twice to get a solid colour, one round of acid dye for the wool, one round of fibre reactive dye for the bamboo, so I’m going a different route for the special yarn instead. This means I will have a pound and a half of wool-bamboo blend all for myself. I am dizzy with the potential. Last night I pulled out some organic Merino to sample for a two-ply yarn to use as warp for a new baby blanket (the weft will be a lovely Manos Clasica thick-and-thin in a discontinued pale green colour, so pretty!). I tried the second-to-last fast ratio on the flyer pulley plus the faster bobbin pulley on the new wheel, and I made a thin, thin thread like magic. Wow. Also, the organic Merino is like a soft fluffy cloud that drafts like a dream. I just need to decide if I want a really thin warp yarn to create a weft-faced blanket, or something akin to the Manos weight for a balanced weave. I’m leaving the Merino in its natural off-white state. This may call for a sample of both a really thin yarn and a loftier yarn, and a tiny sample woven on a card or something to get a better sense of my options.

That’s enough for now.

Welcome, Rowan!

It’s a miserable day out there today. The weather is schizophrenic, part fluffy snow, part ice pellets, part freezing rain, and part plain old rain.

But there is something wonderful that makes up for the misery outside my window.

Hail and welcome to Rowan Mark James St-Martin, newly born son of our dear and long-time friends Kristie and Rob, born only minutes into this day! May your life be full and blessed; may you know joy, weep only happy tears, and taste the entirety of what life offers you with enthusiasm, wisdom, and grace.

Newborn babies are wonderful things. Ours or not, we have the opportunity to celebrate the renewal of life, and the confirmation that new beginnings come again and again to lift us up and inspire us when things seem mundane. We are all blessed by sharing in the joy surrounding a birth.