February's Furry!

 February has been so cold & now it's snow, so much snow, two storms within days of one another!

The wind off the Miramichi Bay has been non-stop for several days now. I go to sleep with the sound of a train, the wind makes its own sound & to me, it sounds like a freight train going by.

Hard to believe that next month spring will be here!

Flights have been cancelled or delayed with the airlines making Bill & Nick both home for this storm, which makes Leslie & I happy! 

I feed the chickens this morning with knee-high boots to go through the drifts from the house to the chicken coop/run. The temp was -12C but the windchill was -24C and it was hard walking there & back without dreading this weather.

I started the FarmFresh Sampler from Art East Quilt Shop, the first of my 26-week quilt project!

Carrots & Pig block & this will be a two-colour quilt, KONA black & burlap textured cotton.

I just got the pattern for the next block of a chicken with turnips!

Block 5 of the Hundred Acre Woods is done too!

Kanga & Little Roo! The next block will be released on March 1st & that will be Eyeore, it will be so cute when finished! This is a 9-month quilt project.

Having these projects helps keep me happy in my 'Kyrotime' frame.

The weekend had quite the storms & we are still digging out from the huge snow drifts.

We had company on the weekend to watch the Dayton 500 NASCAR race & Stefani took these photos I want to share with you.

Remnants of Valentine's Day that I just have not brought in to dry & put away, the geese in their winter attire & hearts. These photos were taken before the storm!

Bridget wanted to see the blanket that Stefani was crocheting, it was looking warm & cozy!

Baxter took Bridgeet's gingerbread stuffie & she's staring him down!

She settled for her Ruldolp stuffie & Rexton the cat. lol

Baxter was watching our every move as we put our snack plates together. lol

Our son Mitch joined the volunteer fire department in Elnora AB 10 years ago, this was him back then, & has now been made lieutenant to his station. His dad & I are over the moon with all of his accomplishments & wish we didn't have so many miles between us to join in with special celebrations & occasions.  Congratulations Mitchell William!

Grandson Liam is now enjoying puree food, he's growing so fast & I can't wait to meet him in April!

Bill's been working in his woodshop on a project that he found in storage. Years back someone gave this to me but I can't remember when or who! The table was in bad shape but Bill has brought it back to life!

It is made of walnut & once he sanded the shellac off it & saw how beautiful the wood was, he was right, it was beautiful!

The bottom was painted with chalk paint & I love how it turned out!

The two circular sides turn down making a small rectangular table but we leave one down & one up between our chairs, it is such a lovely piece of craftsmanship that will live on for many years to come.

Thank you for stopping in for a visit. I hope you are doing well this winter & it has not got you down too much. Spring is Thursday, March 20th, just four weeks from today! And on the second Sunday in March, our clocks spring ahead one hour. So much to look forward to next month! 

And that's why our eyes are in the front of our heads, to look forward!

Wishing you health & happiness & some warm sunny days!

Hugs,

Cynthia

   

January Is Oh So Cold!

 Yes I know I live in Canada & the winters are cold but this week is oh so cold with temps dipping to -24C at night. I worry about the chickens & their first Canadian winter, this is my 67th winter & I am still not used to the freezing cold!

I picked up yarn for my evening entertainment with the firebox blazing its radiant heat & the thoughts of spring to make the porch goose a new spring outfit!

I joined the Porch Goose Club on Facebook & saw this pattern & purchased it! It was so sweet & made me laugh out loud.

I had some yellow Red Heart acrylic yarn left over from their bumble bee outfits some years back & the green was left over from the baby Yoda's I had made. Using up my craft stash, this outfit came together beautifully, right down to just 24 inches of yarn left!

The Bumble Bee Outfits

Looking at the red chair pads that they are standing on, I will make them green ones to compliment the green grass around their feet. A new idea from an old photo!

I'm so glad Bill is going to refresh them this summer with cement patching & new paint, a day at the spa is booked for them! lol

January was the Owl for The 100 Acre Wood quilt,  I am making for Liam's big bed.

Month four is done! There will be nine months of character blocks. I also signed up to do Art East Quilt SAL with The Farm Fresh Sampler & if that's not crazy enough I plan on doing Piecing the Past Quilts SAL of Sweet Little Baltimore. I'm planning to stay busy this winter with the piecing & creating of these quilts. 

I made Liam a Piglet to go with his quilt. I had remnants of fabric left over from making Gordo's pig costume & there were just enough larger scrap pieces left to make Piglet.

Gordo in his Halloween costume two years ago now, sweetest Bulldog I have ever known. RIP Gordo.

His costume was made from a thrifted child's costume of a unicorn that Don brought home & I remade it into a pig costume for Gordo, then with the scraps into a Piglet for Liam. I love making something from nothing! All were done as a labour of love, that is my sewing for others.

The price of the fabric is atrocious in this country & if the tax tariffs go on the imports from the USA, a lot of people, myself included, will not be ordering again. 

Hence, I am using my stash this year & using my creativity to do so.

Bill & I had fun doing puzzles this year!

A Christmas gift from our Chatham kids Nick & Leslie, a 1000-piece tartan puzzle & it was a challenging puzzle!

It was one that I thought to be easy but boy, was I wrong!

It sure was satisfying to finally complete this beautiful puzzle!

And also gave Bill an idea for the next one, since this was so much fun!

Two summers ago, my girlfriend Sandy came for a visit & gifted me this 1000-piece puzzle, it finally got taken out of the box and bag! I was ready to look at a glimpse of summer if only through the pieces coming together.

Our Chatham kids had this gizmo for putting their puzzles together & Bill ordered it for us to do ours.

There are four pullouts, and removable drawers & the tabletop itself rotates like a lazy Susan!

There is also a rubber mat the size of the tabletop to place on top when not in use, it's really needed if you have a playful cat.

We placed it on Fran's old breakfast table, Fran was my next-door neighbour in London ON & she moved away, selling/gifting many of her items, so we added two of the dining chairs to it & voila, a puzzle center was made. We do this in the great room & have the firebox on to keep us cozy & busy in our evening hours.

It's also done next to the sunporch plants adding to the feel of warmth & life on these dark cold days of winter. The days are getting longer but winter is now upon us & the Miramichi Bay is frozen over & busy with the smelt fishermen once more.

Thank you Sandy for such a beautiful puzzle, I'm going to have this one framed & place it in the potting shed to admire all the goodness of having bees!

It was a fun puzzle to put together & we named the flowering bushes & bulbs that we will see this spring & summer in the coming seasons.

With the cold outside, my thoughts are of the chickens' first winter so I made them lined drapes for the vintage windows that were installed & did not have storm windows.

Inside their coop above the nesting boxes, the first pair were installed, this window faced the outside.

Then in their run area, the second pair were installed. I hope this helps keep them warm through the cold bitter days of winter, I think I'm more fretful than them but it's so cold.

Sorry for not posting sooner but we had a death in the family, Bill's 88-year-old father, Ernie passed away on January 3rd, and he was hospitalized for the second & last time on December 24th.

RPI Ernest William Richardson 1937-2025.

Several years ago Ernie gave Bill his Harley Davidson bike, they did do a bike ride together when Bill was much younger, before he met me in 1985. That was their only father-and-son outing together maybe that's why Ernie wanted Bill to have his bike, memories for Bill now.

He did live long enough to know that a new baby Richardson has joined the family tree, wee Liam, born September 5th, two days after his 88th birthday on September 3rd, and two days before my 67th birthday on September 7th. September was a special month, a joyous month!

As the beautiful Rankin Family song goes... Rise Again.

Liam is four months old now & has started rolling over, he is such a joy to see in photos. I can't wait to meet him in April, he is so familiar to me. I see his mom & dad when I look at him, so precious, so loved.

Thank you for visiting today, I am trying to stay busy & positive through these cold frigid days with the saying that goes with everything...this too will pass. This is not one of my favourite seasons but it too holds a silent beauty that no other season has, making living in the country of Canada wonderful!

Thank you again for reading to the end. 

Have a wonderful week!

Wishing you health & happiness in this New Year of 2025!

Cynthia xXx

Winter Solstice 2024

 It is the Winter Solstice, the shortest daylight day of the year in northeast New Brunswick!

The sun will rise at 8:04am and set tonight at 4:34pm and that's when you know it's done with the shorter days. Each day starting tomorrow will gain our time back until the longest day of the year on June 21st, 2025. These six months go by so quickly now!

The good news is that since Bill installed UV lighting in the Chicken Chalet, we get three eggs daily!

As promised with your last visit I will tour you through the finished decorating of this Christmas. Enjoy your visit with me. xXx

I love this little fellow, thank you, Carrie & Mike!

The front of the Chicken Chalet is decorated and as I'm putting this post together from yesterday's photos we are on winter red alert with blowing snow all day long! What a difference a day makes!

The chickens are enjoying the daylight whilst it's here and the warmth of the sun.

The entrance to the woods has some evergreens & poinsettias on the bridge railings.

I made another garland to hang above the window on the outside of the Chicken Chalet and placed red bells in the center. I added a grapevine orb with a poinsettia in the center.

I just love the green garlands and will add those to my winter traditions of decorating!

The other gargoyle is festive & greets you driving in with his red Santa hat, the outer woods from the chicken's outdoor run have large bulbs on them too! Since we go to the chickens several times a day, the decorating has me sing Christmas songs as I approach them.

The front of the house has the wreaths that have been on our windows since the 90s and get refreshed with bulbs & ribbons each year when needed. The front door wreath is made from fresh evergreens, it has an oval shape to it, making it fit into the glass door insert, the oval was not intentional but a happy ending!

The geese are dressed for the festive season too! This spring they will both have a new coat of paint put on them. They too are from the '90s and have always been with us, one is from Ontario and the other lived in Florida for a few years, now both are together & in New Brunswick!

Another grapevine wreath I made this summer is on the front porch, I love the nature around me that I can make into decor!

The wee tree was up but I was feeling that something was still missing...the mice!!

So I brought in a miniature ladder & had some fun with them!

I made these mice so many years ago as Richardon Mice and added the tartan to them and found musical instruments for them in my world travels.

There is only one female mouse & she is grandly dressed in her satin tartan dress with a velvet bodice.

There are two other mice in velvet vests and two squirrels in crocheted accessory tartaned colours.

The squirrels were made years later from The Primitive Gatherings magazine, he is carefully helping with the mercury glass beads!

And the other squirrel is on the bottom of the ladder, they add a whimsical feel to the tree now!

Oh the sound of a saxophone playing, this gives him his own personality!

This Christmas-decorated area is next to the dining room table & I enjoy my time there for coffee, meals, & working, here is where I'm typing this post!

I took this photo yesterday & the day got by me...so it is 4 SLEEPS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!

The green feather tree that I made last year sits on the vintage chicken egg crate.

After having the Tannenbaum quilted I didn't want to cut it down to place it in the frame, so I had Bill hang it over the frame for Christmas. It was a full 12 days getting this done!

I had a huge humbling experience at the end of this year.

Aunt Alice our writer in the family, she writes for the National Post newspaper each month with her perspective and experiences of life as a 90-year-old. And this December's article was called Women Of Courage and she wrote about three women in her life with courage I was one of those three women!

Aunt Alice came into my life when I married Bill as she's related to Namama, Bill's late grandma. We would begin writing back in forth, this was before emails & snail mail were used to communicate. 

I still have the letter she wrote me in the 80s telling me that her mother was the oldest living relative in our family & the birth of Mitchell made him the youngest living relative.

As you know reading my posts Mitchell & Nicole have Liam, the newest member of our family and now Aunt Alice is the oldest member of our family. Those two have been connected since his birth.

Aunt Alice has always been involved in our lives and I have admired her through the years as she would travel and then share her experiences in writing for numerous newspapers & magazines, always sending me a postcard! She has been a steady anchor to our family through the years sharing with us many holiday memories and get-togethers as well as a wonderful glamorous winter cruise with Mitchell & Nicholas when they were younger. So many wonderful memories & now to see me through her eyes is so humbling. I love Alice! xXx

But the humbling experience came when she wrote about me and how I reinvent myself, I call it evolving as I age and I'm now a senior also.

If you would like to read the article that Aunt Alice wrote, you can Google  National Post Senior Living Celebrating Women With Courage by Alice Lukcas.

Thank you Aunt Alice for this humbling wonderful article and yes, I am living the dream with the decisions I have made to make my life out east. It's a wonderful life!

Well, thank you for visiting and staying with me until the end of this visit.

I wish you the very best in the Christmas season and the very, very best in the New Year 2025!

Health & Happiness Always!

Merry Christmas!

Cynthia xXx