Reflections at the farmette

It's winter solstice, and it feels like it. Shortest day and longest night of the year. On the bright side, the days will be getting longer from here on out.

Since it's so close to the end of the year, I thought I'd do a wee retrospective of the last six months. When I went through the pictures, I realized we really packed in the fun in 2025. Yay.

On Canada Day, Rob and I decided we'd celebrate at the Durham community centre, where the Lion's Club had set up a rock and roll band, good food, drinks and locally made ice cream, which, as you can tell, Rob enjoyed immensely.

The farmette flowers performed beautifully all summer long. My peach-coloured cannas were stellar in their production for a good three months.

Sister Sandy and I participated in a lot of events while the sun shone. Here we are lunching in Southampton part way through a garden tour in Bruce County.

We also got out in the Miata for our annual joint birthday celebration in August. This time, we went to Stratford to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Such a great day, with a wonderful production, scrumptious lunch and, of course, lots of laughs.

September fair season came and we were in our first parade over in Feversham. Riding in style in this vintage 1956 Pontiac owned by Sandy's neighbour Barb.

Harvest season came and, while it wasn't exactly abundant like other years because of the dry weather, we did manage to can some produce from the farmette garden. Here's our pickled beets. Some jars of the goodies we 'did down' have already made it to far flung friends and family for Christmas.

In November, I was lucky to catch up with friends and colleagues, some of whom I hadn't seen for years. So great to be able to visit with these smart, sassy, amazing ladies. We chatted like we'd seen one another the day before. Sweet.

The Markdale women's curling group held our annual invitational Ruby Jubilee bonspiel in the same month. A great day marked by a special treat when the Wiarton team piped in the contestants. Fine.

The girls' trip was a corker this year with a visit to Niagara on the Lake at the beginning of this month. We had a riot, going to see the Shaw Festival production of A Christmas Carol, eating fabulous food and trying on cool hats. As you can see.

This is a much longer post than usual. I had a hard time choosing among the tonnes of stuff we did in the past six months. Believe it or not, I left a lot out.

So incredibly grateful for the times we have with friends and family. Merry Christmas everyone. May your holidays be filled with warmth, good company and lots of laughs.

Gratuitous cat photo courtesy of Wilma, who sends her best, too.