Digging Potatoes

Here we are harvesting our first crop of potatoes. We are not farmers. We have no idea what we are doing and planted them WAY too late. I think we may have just tripled what we actually planted. Not a wildly successful harvest. But we learned a lot and got our hands dirty and promise to do better next time. Arlo wanted to pick potatoes in her pj's because they have farm animals on them and she thinks she is a farmer like grandpa K.

Grandpa K (who is a certified organic farmer) hooked us up with some seed catalogues. Apparently we're meant to plan our yard just after we clear up from the chaos of Christmas, not in spring, who knew? Not I.

Next years garden will be as many purple and pink veggies as we can cram in to our wee plot. The princess veggies rein supreme around here, obviously.

***Editors note: I crassly forgot to mention that the stunning hat I am wearing in this photo was made for me by the lovely Postmodern Hausfrau. A thousand appologies. It is knitted and, while I didn't ask, I wouldn't put it past her to have invented the pattern for it as well. Delightful as always.

Wedding Shoes

Boss Hog and I eloped. We were both in school and living in different provinces and had only enough money to fly to be in one place to be married, not enough for dresses and flowers and wedding-y stuff. I often plan my virtual wedding in my head and think one day we might act on it and renew our vows with the girls. I feel like that one photo album is missing from the history of our little family.

How great is it then that my little brother and his sweet lady have decided to tie the knot in a proper, grown-up person, wedding. I have by no means become rich, but I did go out and buy some new shoes to wear to the blessed event. I have no idea what I had on my feet when I got married. I suspect I wasn't even wearing shoes. But these babies are making up for all that now. I love these shoes. I'm considering marrying them myself.

The Sea & me

Here's a picture of Boss Hog and I on the ferry up the sunshine coast of BC to visit Grandpa N. We have so many pictures of us doing the very same thing over the years, we had to take one more.
Nearly my whole life I spent right next to the sea. I can remember spending whole days jumping off a dock working on my perfect dive. I went back and forth on the ferry so many times from the mainland to the islands during the summers that it never occurred to me that I would live anywhere else.

Now I live 6 hours drive from the sea and I didn't really know how much I missed it until this last visit home. We took the girls down to the beach the first night we were in town and it was perfect. The tide had just come in and the water was warm. The dinner hour had just passed so most of the people had just left. I dived in and swam in the buoyant salty sea and when I popped my head out I realised that my kids thought the sea was gross. Arlo could not bear to be touched by seaweed and Eden just wanted to collect shells. This is the ocean, I thought, dive in and love it for heaven's sake!!

But there it is. My kids will grow up with lakes and rivers and will no doubt harbour deep suspicions of the things lurking in the deep waters of the ocean. It's a bit sad to me that neither of my girls seems to be a fish like their mom. I guess that's how BadBabs must have felt when I turned out to be a fish rather than an ice dancer. I'll just have to wait and see what it is the girls choose.

I'm Dying (ha ha I'm so punny)

I know, really, does it get any funnier. I just had to post and get it over with. No more puns, at least not in this post, I promise.

We are back from a wild August of super fun. We went camping with two other couples and all our kids in Rock Creek. We came home for 12 hours and drove to Vancouver to renovate my parents guest bathroom. From there we went to stay in a hotel for four days while Boss Hog was at a conference. Then on to Sechelt to visit Grandpa N and back to my parents for one more night before coming home and getting back in the regular school year groove.

Whew. It is tiring just to type all that. It was actually a lot of fun and we did see so many people that we don't get to spend regular time with anymore that the craziness was worth it. But man am I glad to have my bed back.

Since we've been home I have dyed, and felted and sewn and am currently working on some new posters for our Friends of the Library Society. I haven't even stopped to photograph anything. I think it's because when we were packing up for our marathon vacation I made sure I packed a clear tote full of little traveling projects to work on when the kids napped and in the evenings. I checked and re-checked to be sure I had a bit of everything for any crafting whim that swept me up.

And then I forgot the box. Seriously. Even Boss Hog looked a little worried that I might rip the curtains down at the hotel and sew them into a dress with dental floss. I made it through nearly a whole four weeks without making anything. I think it was good for me to be a bit more still, but I have been in a bit of a making frenzy since we got back.

This wool I dyed with CIBA acid dye to make felted chair pads for our new kitchen chairs. I love the colour but have only made one chair pad so far and think that it kind of sucks design wise. I am waiting to get a bit farther back into the making groove so that the rest of the chair pads are more interesting. Wish me luck.