Crumbly Acres: embrace winter

They are delightful to watch. They surround the house in the morning.

I noticed they were after my rhododendrons! 

My mistake was leaving the pumpkins in the middle of the garden. 

 

They were eyeing the bird feeder.

Their fur coats are amazing!`

The poor rhodos... I think they ate the one bud, and most of the leaves. I am not confident about spring blooms!  

 

I wrapped them up for protection. December was a bit of a shock, as well as November. I wasn't ready!

🥶 Monday morning, -17 ℃. and I drove the garbage the 100m to the highway pickup. Bbbbrrrrrr!

🛷  🏂  ⛷️  🛷  🏂  ⛷️ 🛷  🏂  ⛷️ 

It is good to be able to embrace winter. Our Ottawa kids went tobogganing, after a ski afternoon last week. Jordan is back at university. Aster back to gr. 10 and exams this month! 

Our Vancouver family are embracing winter after their big move to a new house and a run in their panto theatre.

Cluny:

Bryony racing:

Cluny watching Bryony race!

Meanwhile, I did the driveway once. Joe did the sidewalk. Twice. it's good he can do it. He has had a rotator cuff injury since March, 2020. 

I looked like Frosty snowman when I was done. 

It's not so bad doing it in the sunshine, after the snowfall. That did not happen Monday.

Snowshoe and skiing adventures

 It was a cold – but sunny day. The blue sky makes such a difference, even in the wetland.

I went down to the point, where I spotted snowshoe hare tracks.

I've gotten snowshoe hares on trailcams, this in 2015. I once spotted one snowshoeing on the wetland, but they are so fast, I didn't have time for a photo!

The quiet meadow! Summer and winter...

See her ↷?

A deer bed on lot #2. This is our lot beside the highway. You can see a passing car in the background.

We've lots of old trees... the white pine is finally done.

Frog pond... summer, spring, winter

More fun from the kids out west. Cluny and Bryony are getting bigger! They have so much fun. They will be 5 and 8 this year.

Jesse is part of the ski club at Whistler Olympic Park, and volunteer teaches some littles once a week in British Columbia. The girls also have lessons. It is a great program. 

Jess wrote:

"Hollyburn Cross Country Ski Club and the Payak Loppet. Cluny is nearing the end of her second year in the club and just yesterday did her 2nd Mini Payak at 5 km. Hollyburn is such a great program and the Payak is a great challenge for young legs."

 And while you can laud the little kids skiing, here is Jess taking cell phone videos alongside Bryony, Feb. 12! He's a tad slow to upload his many images!

Cluny skiing from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Garbage is out, birds fed, the week begins anew.

Catching up with the kids!

😷We've booked our flu shots, and that will be great to get. Some locals are antivax, anti-lockdown, conspiracy theorists, but not us! My birth mother had polio, and had a limp that affected her all her life. I only met her the once. It was a good message for me. 

We continue to work on preventing the rezoning for this possible gun club. The phone calls and the emails have slowed down as our township council finish off with school board trustee elections. It has been three weeks on a steep learning curve! Soon we should know the dates of the next steps. 

This is what we have figured out so far. I did this in the new Inspiration 10 app. I love new tools, although I used Inspiration 9 until I upgraded my OS and it wasn't compatible. This is a new one. 

 We talked to Jesse on Saturday. He's been incredibly busy out in Vancouver. They had a great cross country run, Jess worked from home that morning, and watched as Cluny came 30th in 135 gr. 2 kids in the afternoon. She and Josephine, her cousin, had a chat, since Jos (gr. 10) is doing cross country running, as well. All 4 cousins bonded in July during their visit. These are our four granddaughters. All fair-haired and blue-eyed!  

Vancouver and B.C., are great places for culture. Our DIL is doing something I'd never heard of. She is working with Vocal Eye. A trained actor, she has been taking training to watch a live play, and create a monologue and script, to interpret the action on stage for visually impaired people in real time. She wears a special headset and microphone, so as not to disturb people around her, and helps paint a picture of the scene. 

It's been an eventful week here. I asked Caitlin to come over for some daughter ➣ mother mothering! It's great being in the bosom of your family. I really needed it.

We had a very busy day. My SIL helped me install a new system for critter watching. It took awhile, but it is plugged into a socket, no batteries! I'm still fooling around with the app settings, but my M.Ed. is in Curriculum and Technology so I ought to be able to do it now JL installed it.

We vented and ranted and they listened.  It was wonderful. We had ham, roast veggies, and a pie Caitlin had made. Isn't it amazing?

JL helped me with a second project and finished off using the pressure washer on the middle deck for me. I borrowed it from them and I didn't quite do the job. We had so much rain, I wanted to get the algae off the cement. I've had to rake it twice, to get the leaves off, but that is another story! 

The cupboard was my parents, and it has seen better days, but it stores some pots, gardening, and bird feeder supplies nicely.

Isabelle did some homework. Josephine worked on Wordle, Flagle (flags) and the map one, and however many other puzzles her quick mind solves. She went down and fetched the trailcam memory cards for me. (Video of me mulching below!) Isabelle listened to music in the pine tree. Just like the old days. She said she felt so good just getting into the forest. 

Caitlin and I play Scrabble online. It's been a hoot. She's had two BINGOs, and it was 180 / 382. For her! I looked over at her on the couch, and joked about the score. She sheepishly had to tell me she'd just played! I can't find the concede button! What a hoot it all is. We play all the time, and it is a nice connection during busy work weeks.

They went out on the back deck last night to watch and photograph Jupiter. It's all very exciting. 

I konked out first. It's great they can blow up the bed, and make it on their own. I went downstairs to say good night. I was too tired to even read! We were all pretty tired. 

mulching leaves from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Back to school!

And with that, the school year begins. For me it began at 4 a.m. Tuesday, despite being retired since 2006, since Cinnamon was out all night and refused to come in. By 4:30 I could see him on the bottom step. He had half a vole. 

 Shaking the food bowl – in he came. I could not get back to sleep. It had been a worrisome night with JB checking to see if he would come in or not. I'd captured a young fisher on the trailcam the day before and I was trying not to be worried. 

fisher from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Of course, I found Cinnamon on the same trailcam at midnight. He was so proud of himself. He lobbied all day Tuesday, once he'd had a nap, to go out again. As if! He was grounded.

Cinnamon from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

He was out all night, little twerp. A large moth visited.

 🏫 I always loved the first week of school. The kids were nervous, and on their best behaviour. There were lots of hopes and dreams. The anticipation was wonderful. Ah, the good old days!

Our younger grandies had the last ice cream of the summer – at home in Vancouver! 

🎒Back to school prep done, our older grandies had haircuts this week, did some clothes shopping, some at thrift shops. Backpacks were packed with binders, duotangs, paper and locks, although loose leaf paper was in short supply at the store. Isabelle had to practice with her new lock. A rite of passage. 

I spoke to Josephine (gr. 10) and Isabelle (gr. 7) who are now in the same school building this year. It houses both the middle school and the high school kids, although they are separate programs. They will walk together to school, the better able to chat. Isabelle has to meet her peers on the football field, she tells me, where they will be divided up into classes and escorted to home room. Great excitement. What is fun is that Caitlin and her two brothers all went to the same high school. 

I texted both girls. Isabelle had a great first day and called her day awesome. She made a new friend. Jos had a great day and had a lot of fun. Caitlin posted a photo and said both had lots of stories and successes.