It’s a chilly day here on the farmette - funny how -10C feels so much colder when you’ve been pampered with temps hovering around the 0C mark. I swear, the wind was slicing a hole through my forehead as I went out to do my morning chores. Certainly woke me up fairly smartly.
I realized that it’s time for my six-month picture round-up. July to December. Always nice to do a little reflection, so here we go.
July started off with a bang and a fantastic visit from dear friends Jane and Claire. We got to show off some of the finer landscapes of Grey and Bruce County - that’s Lake Huron at Southampton behind Rob, myself and Jane. We also indulged in a lovely local lunch on a sun-dappled patio. Hard to believe it was actually a pretty sweltering day, especially since right now, I’m looking out on a frigid foot and a half of snow.
August was full-on harvesting time at the farmette, and we got our first crop of garlic. Big, juicy cloves that truly had a zing. We had to halve the amounts in our regular recipes, since the homegrown stuff was so powerful. The tomato crop was excellent, too and we canned 30+ pints of sauce that we’re still munching through.
September came, and it was a pretty eventful month, with both nieces moving on to post-secondary education. Rachel (left) has decided to go into accounting at Georgian College because she found that she loves crunching numbers. Can hardly wait for her to graduate so she can help her math-backward aunt. Erin is working through an extremely tough science-based program at the University of Guelph. She says it’s been a bit of a slog, but she’s hanging in there. So proud of these two.
October brought in the colours, and the farmette was looking particularly fetching in the reds and golds that the maples decided to display.
We were also fortunate to be able to show off our little corner of the world to friends Peter and Yoko from Toronto. We went for a lovely nature walk along the Saugeen river, topped off by a visit to the Garafraxa Cafe for special coffees and treats. Yum.
In November, Sandy and the girls and I took a road trip to St. Thomas to check in with the family down there. Here we are at the Elgin Manor, where Dad now lives. The staff were so good about setting us up in a nice room so we could have lunch and be as noisy and boisterous as we wanted to be. And we were. While Dad isn’t in the greatest of health, I think this visit really lifted his spirits.
Finally, we had multiple Christmas celebrations in December. Sandy did her usual outstanding job as the hostess with the mostest. The 2016 edition was a true corker. The furry girls Marlie (left) and Maya (right) seemed to agree. They were, as we all were, happy to have everyone home for the holidays.