FreshMD

Nordic skiing

We took the kids nordic skiing for the first time on Saturday afternoon.

Realizing that  - especially for kids - the anticipation and memory of an event can be every bit as pleasurable as the activity itself, we began to whip them into a frenzy already as we ate our breakfast fruit souffle. They promptly donned boots, snowsuits and mittens and spent the rest of the morning with their over-padded selves wedged into their chairs at the kitchen table, trying to cut out paper Valentines with puffy mitts on.

Pete and I didn't have any lofty goals for the trip to Cypress Mountain, seeing it as more of a reconnaissance mission. We planned to check out the children's rental options, introduce the kids to locomoting on two extra appendages and perhaps, if we dared to dream, have hot chocolate at the lodge.

And success! Leif glided around like a true Norwegian. He did fall over a hundred times, maybe two, but he laughed every time. At one point I caught him scrambling out of the track, trying to breach a snowbank to ski into the woods in pursuit of bobcats, he explained.

Saskia sailed down hills with her braids flagging behind her, arms outstretched, pink snowsuit-clad legs wobbling.

We were happy that the kids were so game. I think gameness is an undervalued trait, and I hope they maintain it into adulthood.

Ariana was too small for even the tiniest boots, so Pete pulled her in a pulk. Truth be told, I'm not sure we could have handled a third one on skis.

We made it to the lodge. We had hot chocolate and poutine on a scarred wooden table in a dark room that smelled of wet clothes drying.

Happy and tired in the van at the end of the day, we snaked down the mountain with the lights of Vancouver and beyond sparkling orange against a dark blue-gray evening. Mission accomplished, and then some.

 PS The Sony has been hospitalized with a seizure disorder NYD and so I am back to a compact camera (Canon Powershot SD880) for the time being.

Chestnuts on 17th Street

I thought we were done picking things for the year after the wild blueberry session on Mt. Seymour a few weeks ago. But last Sunday afternoon we found ourselves heading out to West Vancouver to collect chestnuts.

The Boy Scouts planted horse chestnut trees along 17th Street in 1934 to commemorate the visit of Lord Baden-Powell. The trees are beautiful and, happily for the kids, productive. There were thousands of chestnuts littering the ground. Some were still in their spiny green shells, sometimes two to a pod. 

Leif filled the pockets of his hoodie, Saskia hunted for the tiniest baby chestnut ever, and Ariana packed her bag to the point where she struggled to cart it back to the car.

We took sacks of chestnuts home, where another benefit quickly became clear: they're the cleanest, tidiest bits of the outdoors my kids have ever brought into the house. No stains, no smell, no detritus. Just smooth brown nuggets scattered everywhere.

(Flickr photo set here.)

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.

Whistler

We made a spontaneous three-day trip to Whistler last week with the kids. We rode the gondola up the mountain, drove the stunning Duffy Lake Road, spotted four bears and splashed in the hotel pool. I didn't want to come home.

More pictures on Flickr.

U-pick

I took the kids raspberry picking yesterday.

I'd never gone before, but if I'd attempted this three years ago my approach would have looked like this:

Research all local u-pick options. Go to farm in the cool of the morning and pick efficiently towards predetermined poundage goal. Pick raspberries and strawberries, and purchase week's groceries at farm bakery and market. Leave u-pick in time to visit another local attraction, such as the Greater Vancouver Zoo. Return home and make preserves.

My current method looks more like this:

Pick u-pick based on a two-minute Google search. Leave home for Krause Berry Farms when convenient, close to mid-day. Have as goal only that kids enjoy themselves. Pick raspberries until children tire. Bypass all other attractions at farm. Return home. Put berries in fridge.

The secret to happy motherhood: lower your expectations.

We had a wonderful time. It was sunny and warm and quiet as we picked the fat pink berries at our respective heights. The only sounds were the breeze blowing in the massive fir trees surrounding the farm, and the occasional murmur of conversation drifting over the rows. It was peaceful.

At one point I sat down between the rows, and Leif lay his head on my leg and napped. A few pickers passed us, pulling wagons, carrying ice cream buckets with the plastic handles bending dangerously, and even filling Ziploc freezer bags directly from the bushes.

 

Thirteen dollars for one of the best excursions the kids have had this summer, and more raspberries than will fit in my little freezer. We'll be back for blueberry season.

Langley farm

We visited friends in Langley on the weekend, who have three kids the same ages as ours. Their eighteen acres, spread with freshly cut hay and dotted with outbuildings, was a dream come true for the kids.

Used to scrambling over boulders and ferns on a mountainside in Deep Cove, a huge flat expanse in which to run was a novelty for them. As was the permission to make as much noise as they wanted without warnings of disturbing retired neighbours.

This is Gideon, our friends' son, the cutest almost-two-year-old boy I know. He kicks up his heels when he walks.

Once introduced to the chickens and rabbits in the barn, Leif refused to respond to anything other than 'Farmer Leif.' Ariana was a little more hesitant.

 

Gideon strutted around collecting eggs.

He deliberately punched his fingers into one, and Ariana was duly impressed.

We watched the kids run through fields of cut hay in the evening sun, and it was every bit as idyllic as it sounds.

 

That's the closest I could get to Saskia and Isabelle for most of our visit. They ran wild and free. I took it as the highest compliment when my friend Mirjam commented that for "city people" we were awfully relaxed about the kids getting dirty. 

I don't think we ever leave Langley without a conversation on the car ride home about moving there. And the farm next door to this one is for sale . . .

Vancouver Heritage House Tour

Hands down, my favourite local annual event is the Vancouver Heritage House Tour. Every year, on a Sunday in June, ten houses selected by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation are opened to the public from 10 to 5. They're usually grouped in three or four clusters across the city. You simply drive, bus or bike to any house on the list, present your ticket at the door, and then wander around to your heart's content. You're provided with a booklet with descriptions of the homes' histories and architectural details.

Some of the houses have been virtually untouched since they were built in the early 1900's, others have been beautifully restored and some have been completely modernized within the original frame. There are tiny workers' cottages in Strathcona, grand mansions in Shaughnessy and row houses in Kitsilano.

People actually live in these homes - they're not museums - and part of the fun is seeing baskets of toys in the corner of the living room and photographs on the fridge.
 
The first house we bought in Vancouver was a small 1912 home with most of the character features long since renovated away. The next one was a three-story 1910 Edwardian with original toggle light switches, pocket doors, fir flooring and ornate heat register covers. At that time, the Heritage House Tour was particularly enjoyable for us, for the education and inspiration.

Eventually Pete tired of our house's outdated features. The creaky floors, drafty windows, lack of closets and single bathroom on the top floor wore him down. Last year, I went on the Heritage House Tour alone. "I'm done with heritage," Pete told me. "Give me modern." I came home to tell him that Koo's Corner, an old Strathcona garage that had been converted to six ultramodern townhouses, had been the best stop on the tour. He's regained some interest.

This year's tour is on Sunday, June 1. Tickets are $35 and can be ordered online. If you see a girl exclaiming over the tiled fireplaces and pantries, trying to convince her somewhat bored-looking husband that they must move back to Vancouver, into a pink heritage house with a veranda on a tree-lined street, that will be me. Say hello!

(The photo is mine, and of a house in Hastings-Sunrise, Vancouver. It is not and has not been featured on the Tour.)

The Ornate Mirror of Infidelity

I usually don't give thrift store window displays a second look. The costume jewelry, 1980's wedding dresses and sagging futons typically don't catch my eye. But after the sign on the mannequin grabbed my attention, I spent a full ten minutes in front of the Main Street YWCA Thrift Shop the other day, reading every one of the labels in the window display.

YWCA Thrift Shop
4399 Main Street at 28th Avenue

Kitsilano cherry blossoms

In several of her short stories, Alice Munro describes Vancouver cherry blossoms as clusters of pink popcorn. I think it's apt that one of my favourite writers should describe so perfectly one of my favourites scenes in the city.

Afternoon at Harrison Hot Springs

It always feels a bit ridiculous to make a day trip somewhere, when we live in Deep Cove. Why leave Mt. Seymour and Indian Arm to go admire other mountains and bodies of water? But sometimes I just need to get away, and so this past weekend we made the trek out to Harrison Hot Springs for an afternoon.

The Back Porch, below, is a small farm with a restored Victorian house, a circa 1919 coffee roaster, antiques scattered across the yard and in various outbuildings, a pottery studio, and chickens and goats.

When Leif started heaving pieces of lumber into the chicken pen, we took our leave and headed for the beach.

On the way home we stopped at The Farm House in Agassiz and Pete ran in to buy some cheese. When he returned to the van he told me, "A husband and wife run this place. He manages the goats and she makes the cheese." We sat for a few minutes, sampling the gouda, and tried to think how we could manoeuvre ourselves into a life of farming in the Valley.

That's what I love about time away. It's energizing, considering new possibilities.

Pieter Hugo Exhibit

Pete and I were driving down Georgia Street in Vancouver yesterday afternoon, with the unusual luxury of a half hour for coffee before picking up the kids, when a large image of a black man with a hyena flashed by to my right. I glanced over to see that the Buschlen Mowatt Gallery had an exhibit by  Pieter Hugo, the South African photographer I wrote about here. I could not believe our good fortune.

Moments later we found ourselves alone in the gallery, gazing at portraits from Hugo's The Hyena and other Men series. The subjects of the photographs are Nigerian men  with hyenas and baboons. I've heard Hugo's work described as "a visual slap across the face", and the unusual subject matter, composition and colouring are certainly compelling. I had seen these images previously online, but standing in front of the massive (70" x 70") photographs was another experience altogether.

Pete and I were debating where we would hang one of these portraits. It would dwarf our living room, prove a bit imposing for the front entrance, and likely not put patients at ease over an exam table. But at 15,000 to 25,000 USD apiece, where to put the art is not really our first concern.

If you're interested in seeing the show, here is the contact information for the Vancouver Buschlen Mowatt Gallery.

Sunday Walk at Hastings-Sunrise

I've posted previously about our tradition of going for a Sunday afternoon walk or drive. Since today was sunny, we opted for a late afternoon walk.

Pete's proposals for destinations usually involve a natural setting, such as Mount Seymour or Ambleside. My suggestions almost always involve cityscapes. I love neighbourhoods, houses, gardens, sidewalks, sheds and back alleys. Today I won.

We headed to Vancouver's Hastings-Sunrise area, south of McGill and east of Nanaimo. There are some lovely residential streets in there, lined with massive trees. Saskia and Leif brought bags to fill with chestnuts, damp leaves and acorns. As they gathered their treasures, I had my own gems to admire: rows of circa 1910 heritage homes.

Beards

I was browsing at a Vancouver thrift store last week when I overheard an old Sikh man, with a long grey beard and turban, trying to ask a question of an employee. He held up a small electronics item and asked with a thick accent, "What? For what?"

The employee, an older Jewish man with a white beard, black yarmulke, and standard Value Village red vest, inspected the gadget. "It's a shaver," he explained. "To cut hair on the face." He clapped a friendly hand onto the customer's shoulder. "But people of our faiths," he said cheerfully, "we don't need these!"

Garden

I've discovered a secret garden, and it's an exquisitely beautiful mess.

Walking through Mt. Pleasant neighbourhoods on my way to work today, in the slanting morning light, I came across a community garden. It was fenced but the gate was ajar.

It was full, full of purple stalks of swiss chard, painted birdhouses, compost, rotting lettuce, rusted tomato cages, sparrows, lengths of rope, fat purple globes of allium, wind chimes, smashed bricks, yellow asters, discarded metal gates, and branches snagging my briefcase.

It was in gorgeous disarray, and there was no one admiring it but me.

Green Girl

I'm always on the lookout for original, affordable children's wall decor that I can appreciate as much as my six-year-old does. This precludes this.

My latest discovery is Lori Joy Smith, a Vancouver artist from whom I recently ordered a custom piece. I ran over to her apartment building in the rain on my lunch break last week and we did the handover in the lobby. Green Girl then came with me to a Main Street coffee shop where I had tea and repeatedly peeked into the bag to admire her.

When I introduced her to my daughter, Saskia studied her for a while. "How come she's not smiling?" she finally asked.

"She's shy. She was nervous about having her portrait done," I offered.

Satisfied, she pointed to the yellow heart floating above Green Girl's head. "Hey! Her barrette fell out!"