FreshMD

Testing Flickr's 'Blog this' feature

Leif's scowls make me laugh every time because they require a concerted effort on his part. He carefully arranges his face and announces: "I'm MAD at you!" In this case it was time to head home after picking wild blueberries on Mt. Seymour in the evening.

Dandelion poetry

Thank you for all your kind comments and well wishes on the last post. As suggested, I plan to link to my Mothers in Medicine posts from here. There's a new one up today.

Island

On the way home as we round one of the final bends before our place, we pass Grey Rocks Island. It's privately owned with a house tucked into the stand of trees. I've never seen any comings or goings; it's always completely still. I imagine the inhabitants lying on the couch reading novels all day. 

As we swing by in the minivan, it almost makes me feel a bit gritty and common, having neighbours and a driveway and a mailbox and all. 

A walk to the village for Honey's donuts

Snowed in

Looking south from our place this morning. Neighbours staggered up the cliff to the right, Hamber Island to the far left, and SFU/Burnaby Mountain straight ahead, obscured by cloud.

The trails in the woods, over which I've struggled to push a stroller, made for a gentle, undulating toboggan ride to the village. Pete even pulled Ariana down a flight of stairs at one point.

The  south shore of the Cove.

Saskia resists heading out to the woods in the snow. She'd rather sit at home in front of the fire, as would I. I explained that it's good to get out every day, whether or not you feel like it, to avoid cabin fever.

"What's that?"

I defined it, and she remarked emphatically, "I'm glad no one in our family's ever caught that!"

Well, I'm relieved that those times I've been driven stir-crazy at home with the kids appear to have gone largely unnoticed.

A stop for Honey's doughnuts, that Deep Cove specialty that soaks the little brown bag with grease before you've even brought it to your table, and hot drinks.

Can't think of another place in which I'd rather be snowbound.

Golden morning at the beach

From the breakfast table on a sunny fall morning

 

That's Indian Arm under there. Sometimes we wake up to boats blasting their foghorns.

Wild blueberry picking on Mt. Seymour

It's grey and rainy out there, but berry season isn't over yet.

The wild blueberries on Mt. Seymour don't ripen until mid-September. We headed up the mountain last weekend with some friends to discover an excellent crop. It was overcast and my jeans got soaked from brushing by wet bushes, but the steady plunk, plunk of berries hitting the bottom of the yogurt containers and some quiet conversation made for a lovely Sunday afternoon.

Then we headed back to Deep Cove and had wild blueberry pancakes for dinner.

We've picked blueberries on Mt. Seymour every September for years, and for me, it's the gateway to fall.

The end of eating outside

What I'll miss most about summer is eating outside. With the exception of rainy days, we ate almost every meal on the deck for the past three months.

We ate breakfast in the early morning sun,

and afternoon snack in the shade.

 

At dinnertime, as we moved into dessert, a raven would often settle silently on the deck railing. When we brought the kids inside to put their pajamas on, it would hop down and clean up anything that had been spilled.

Last night we barbecued ribs and did up some fries outside, but it was cool enough that we had to put on socks and sweatshirts.

Time to move our meals back inside, I'm very sorry to say.

September afternoons at the beach

Since having kids, I've found the most difficult time of day to be between 3:30 and 5:30. Everyone's tired, including me, and a downward spiral of temperament and behaviour inevitably kicks in in those post-school, pre-dinner hours.

I'm loathe to turn on the television and don't want to venture out in rush-hour traffic. I've been looking for simple, restful activities and have recently discovered that a late afternoon visit to the beach can be just that. 

The beach has a different mood in September than in summer. The boisterous stretches of sand and water have become serene.

We don't pack a picnic basket or beach toys. There's a lot of gazing at the water, thumb-sucking and quiet play.

 

We're soaking up every last bit of summer while we can. It won't be long until the afternoons bring wet leaves and early nightfall, and I'll be on the lookout for other ways to occupy three little ones and their spent mother.

Black bear

The doorbell rang on Monday afternoon, and it was my next-door neighbour with his big shepherd dog on a short leash.

"A bear just passed through my yard," he said, gesturing toward the far side of his house. "It went between the houses there." Geoff is retired, and spends his days walking his dog and trimming the trees on his property. He was acting nonchalant, but I could tell this was the best thing to happen to him all summer. "Just wanted to let you know," he said. "I'll be off now to warn the other neighbours."

I looked from every window, but the bear was nowhere in sight. I settled back at my laptop. It was a gorgeous September afternoon. The sun was golden warm, a breeze wafted in from the water, and the neighbourhood was quiet. The idea of a bear ambling through our neck of the woods, snacking on berries, seemed perfectly natural.

Then I heard a siren. A police car sped up the road, letting out an urgent Whoop! Whoop! in front of each home. It disappeared over the crest of the hill in a cloud of testosterone.

But the bear lay low, and it's still roaming the area. It's inspired a sense of camaraderie among the neighbours. Everyone's exchanging stories: someone stumbled upon the bear in their garage, rooting around in the garbage; it's been peeping in windows; outdoor recess was canceled at the local high school when the bear ran across the playground; it's made several visits to a yard with a loaded apple tree. 

My favourite is the one Geoff told me the next day. He called his other neighbour and left a message regarding the bear passing between their houses. She was busy getting a chicken out of the oven, and sent her son out to the car with the bird while she checked her voicemail. Geoff looked out his window and was horrified to see little Ollie, a roast chicken in his arms, traversing the very path that the bear had used moments before.

But everyone's kept safe, including the bear, and I hope it stays that way.          

Blackberries

Every day the kids ask to pick blackberries. The streets in our neighbourhood are lined with the wild prickly bushes. 

Even when we drive on the freeway, Leif points them out and asks if we can stop to pick them. Not sure why you'd want to pick at the side of the highway with cars whizzing by when we can pick in our own quiet neighbourhood with cliff faces on one side of the road and a drop-off to Indian Arm on the other.

I have great memories of picking blackberries growing up in Burnaby. When I see the branches snagging my kids' shirts, their fingers stained purple and their feet soaked from tramping in wet bushes, it reminds me of being eight in August and riding my bike down the alley with an ice cream bucket on the handlebars.

We made two blackberry pies on Monday, and a day later we were already finishing the second one off. But the minute I need more berries, there will be six little hands eager to pick them.

  

Deep Cove gardener

There's an elderly man in my neighbourhood who keeps the most beautiful gardens. They're not manicured; everything's grown in great wild swathes.

He has a grey pencil moustache and when I've passed by with the kids, he's snipped a large bloom and handed it to Leif. They both know flowers aren't just for girls.

His lot is extra deep, in a spectacular location, with a small old house on it, and he'd make out like a bandit if he sold it. But I suspect that doesn't interest him in the least.

Sometimes he cuts fresh flowers and scatters them next to the sidewalk for the neighbourhood children to find. He's not just deadheading spent blossoms - he picks them when they're at their most glorious.

I don't know his name, but from what little I do know of him, I like him immensely.

Boating

The idea of an extended camping trip with a six-, three- and two-year-old didn't appeal to Pete or me this summer, and I thought Pete's suggestion that we postpone tenting until all the kids are out of diapers brilliant.

We decided instead to get a boat and spend the summer evenings and weekends exploring the waters that are a literal stone's throw from our deck. My requisites were: holds all five of us, cheap, runs. We gave ourselves a day to find one on Craigslist, and twenty-four hours later were pulling an old turquoise beauty home through Vancouver rush-hour traffic. We stopped at Leif's preschool on the way and he just about burst with pride.

We schedule our boat trips to coincide with the least busy times at the launch, so as not to embarrass ourselves. The learning curve has been steep.

We figured out what happens when you (it was Pete) launch a boat without putting the plug in the drain hole. Also, what happens when you somehow detach the line running gas to the engine while roaring up Indian Arm. Also, that the large amount of water that pools in the stern bottom of the boat when you pick up speed can be accumulated rainwater from the bilge, not necessarily salt water pouring through a break in the hull. No need to frighten the kids by bailing madly while screaming at your husband to head for shore.

Aside from those alarming moments, it's been quite wonderful. It's beautiful, of course - placid waters with green-blue mountains mounding up on either side, islands ringed with multi-coloured tide lines, waterfront homes with Adirondack chairs at the end of the dock, kayaks and canoes sliding by.

 

When we launched the boat this morning, a group of old German tourists watched us from the wharf as we puttered away in a small cloud of blue smoke. They gazed after us silently, at Pete manning the wheel with Saskia beside him, me sitting in the back with Ariana asleep in my arms, and Leif bunched into his life jacket. I could almost hear them thinking, 'So this is how the locals live,' and that made me happy.

At one point up the Arm we spotted a bald eagle struggling in the water. It was almost submerged, flailing its wings, and we circled around to see what was going on. It began to do a sort of sloppy breast stroke, awkwardly pulling its wings through the water in unison, and headed for shore, a hundred metres away.

The occupants of a sailboat, an older man and woman with their tea towels pegged up on the railing drying in the sun, informed us that the eagle had attacked a seagull and was dragging it to land. We all sat there silently, watching the bedraggled creature push for shore, his mate waiting up in a spruce tree. He finally got up on the beach, shook out his wings a few times, and dragged the seagull carcass into the underbrush.

At home, eating burgers and corn on the cob for lunch, the kids remarked that the sight of the eagle swimming was the best part of the day, and I'd have to agree. Although the sight of the plug safely in the drain hole where it belonged was pretty sweet, too.

Salmonberries

The passage of our Deep Cove summers is marked by the wild berry seasons. We're at the tail end of salmonberries and getting into huckleberries. Then August brings blackberries.

 
The good thing about walking through the woods these days is that the kids are completely preoccupied by the berries. The potentially frustrating thing is that what is a twelve-minute adult walk to the village, and should be a half-hour walk with children, can stretch out to an hour or two.

So I try to surrender any semblance of a schedule, and enjoy the peace of the forest. I'll admit it's sometimes spoiled by Saskia and Leif shouting, "Hey! This is my salmonberry bush! I got here first! Find your own!" (I actually witnessed similar behaviour among adults at Krause Berry Farms.) And if I'm shouldering Ariana in the pack, she yells for berries and I have to position myself so her little fingers can pluck them off the bush. Still, working our way through the woods while the kids hunt and gather berries is idyllic.

All these berries grow in our own yard, but it's so wild Saskia needs to wear a red coat and carry a whistle when she ventures down there.

To humour the kids, I've made salmonberry pancakes, muffins and milkshakes. The berries are bland and full of pips, but the kids proclaim them absolutely delicious.

Parking, Deep Cove style

This vehicle is parked like this almost every time I walk by. Deep Cove often feels like a giant campground.

Timmy

When Saskia got home from school the other day, she was so eager to play in the pup tent I had set up that she dropped her backpack outside the front door and ran down into the yard. An hour later when she returned, the bag had disappeared.

Our kids' missing things tend to turn up shortly in the most unlikely places, so we didn't do more than a cursory search. But by the next morning we still hadn't found it, and we began to hunt for it in earnest. 

Someone must have taken it, but the list of possible culprits was improbable. A passerby, in our remote area of Deep Cove? The paperboy? The neighbour's dog? A raven? Bear? Raccoon? Pete scoured the yard while I surveyed the treetops from the upstairs windows.

"Maybe the raccoon took it under the house," I suggested. Our neighbourhood rests on solid rock, and the homes are built off the ground. You can crawl under most of our house. We have a resident raccoon that I've seen saunter beneath one area of the house on a few occasions.

When I joked once that the kids might want to follow him in there, Saskia was duly apprehensive, but I had to hold Leif back. "What if he bit you?" I asked. "Then I'd whack him with this badminton racket," Leif replied matter-of-factly. Leif named the raccoon Timmy.

Pete thought it unlikely that the raccoon had taken the pack, but as we couldn't think of a better alternative, he finally crouched down and peered under the house. Sure enough, he could see a purple strap dangling over the rocks. He gingerly removed the knapsack, dirty and scraped, with a garden rake.

The kids were delighted at this turn of events. The fact that the bag had been unzipped, and the contents undisturbed save a missing lunchpack, pleased them no end. For the next few days, I was constantly asked to speculate on Timmy's current activities.

"Mommy, tell me what Timmy's doing right now," asked Leif in the van that morning.

"Ummm . . . shaking the lunch bag upside down to see if he can get a few more crumbs of Daddy's chocolate chip cookies out."

"What's Timmy doing now?" at dinner time.

"He can smell our fish and chips and he's crossing his little fingers hoping Mommy forgets the garbage out on the deck again tonight."

"What did Timmy do today?" as I tuck Leif into bed.

"He sat on a rock at the beach and threw pebbles in the water."

"And he splashed himself!" supplemented Leif happily.

So when I saw this from the living room window yesterday, it was nothing short of a dream come true for the kids:

Timmy was lying on his back in the crown of the tree, licking his privates while Saskia, Leif and Ariana watched reverently from the window seat. I averted my lens until he was decent. He humoured us for about ten minutes, and then made his way back into the undergrowth.

As I put a large box out for recycling at dinner time, I suggested, "Hey! Tomorrow let's put a chicken drumstick in here and set a trap for Timmy!" There was unanimous agreement that this was a brilliant idea, even when I amended the plan to exclude food scraps as bait. Then I acted out a tussle with the caged raccoon, which was very well received.

I can see that Timmy could occupy a few little minds and hands for a good week or two, and I'm going to milk that for all its worth.

Ma Ingalls makes suet

I think most at-home mothers have Ma Ingalls moments, when they quite like the idea of airing the quilt from the trundle bed, churning butter and sewing calico dresses by firelight in the evening while Pa cleans his rifle.

I consider myself a modern-day Caroline when I make salmonberry muffins for the kids, or plan how to fill our cellar. Or when I make suet, as I did today.

Red-breasted nuthatch - February/08

Discarding bacon or hamburger fat has always struck me as wasteful. I'm not quite willing to do as my Oma did, and spread bacon grease on toast or saute vegetables in it, delicious though that was to an eight-year-old. But I couldn't think of any other use for it until we ran out of store-bought bird suet recently.

"We're not bird people," I reassured a house guest this past weekend. "I find birders a bit odd. I went birding once and it was painfully boring."

Throughout the afternoon, our conversation was interrupted by Pete and I commenting, "Check out the one out that side window," and "Hey, is that a goldfinch? Wait, no - it's too big. Where's the book?"

Our friend finally asked, "So, you're only birders from the comfort of your own home?"

"We're 'Don't call us, we'll call you' birders," affirmed Pete.

Hairy woodpecker - March/08

We have a suet feeder hanging in front of the living room window, and while at times it does strike me as strange that we would choose to have a brick of fat interrupting our view of Indian Arm, I do love the constant stream of visiting birds. And I like the challenge of trying to photograph every species that drops by.

So the Ma Ingalls in me wanted to whip up my own suet, and an Internet search (like Ma would have done) yielded several recipes. I've been saving every spare ounce of fat in a container in the freezer for a few weeks now.

This morning I melted down two cups of the salvaged grease in a pan, and stirred in a cup of peanut butter, a cup of flour, a handful of oats, some stale hazelnuts and some crumbs from the bottom of a bag of tortilla chips. I only sampled the mixture once. Pete was not nearly as excited about this whole process as I was. If only I got this much pleasure from cooking for my family.

I poured the concoction into an 8 x 8 baking pan and put it in the freezer to set. Two hours later I carved it into four squares of suet, perfectly sized for a standard feeder. Pete was quick to point out that when suet is a dollar or two at Canadian Tire, this exercise is not exactly cost-saving. That didn't deter me for a moment.

It's pouring out, and the birds are nowhere in sight, but I'm sitting on the couch knitting and drinking tea and waiting for the first visitors, feeling very satisfied with myself. Tomorrow's project on the homestead: headcheese.

Wickenden Park owls

When Pete got home from work yesterday, he took one look at me and sent me into the woods to unwind. We live a stone's throw from Wickenden Park, and there's nothing like spending a half hour alone in the forest surrounded by massive cedars, wet huckleberry bushes and bird calls to calm oneself.

There's a family of owls that have been living in the park for years, and everyone I've met in Deep Cove knows about them. I headed out with my camera, followed the sound of the screeching, and found them in their usual spot near the bridge.

Pete's been chased by them as he runs along the trail. My fear of having those talons aimed at me kept in check the extremes to which I was willing to go to get a good shot. 

We've seen the three owls working together to corner a squirrel. Once one flew over the trail clutching a rat.

Another evening one was perched on a low branch in a tree just outside the park. All the neighbours were milling about, coffees in hand, admiring it. The owl never took its eyes off a cat that was lounging at the side of the road.

I believe these are barred owls. The fluffiness makes me wonder if this one is a juvenile, but I'm no ornithologist.

Somehow seeing these creatures in the forest puts everything in perspective, and I trotted out of the woods refreshed, having only overstayed my allotted time by twenty minutes. 

Unwinding

The kids are in bed by 7:00. At 7:05 I'm sitting on the deck stairs looking at this: