Off The Beaten Path

There has been progress this week. I got the carrots canned up early Sat morning. It isn’t a lot, but 3 bottles is 3 more than I had before We got the beginnings of the vineyard in. 2 concord and another red grape I can’t remember, for now. Later there will be more, but it’s…

A great deal of North America and the world at large has been on fire this summer. Many areas have suffered terrible air quality as a result. Sheltered as we are by land and sea, we have had pretty good conditions – until this week. The smokey smog has finally found us. And my lungs…

A year ago today, people were looking dismayed at their properties, seeing what damage the storm had wrought. Even here, where the damage was minimal, we had a bunch of trees come down across the driveway. Today, we are splitting and stacking the last of that wood for winter use. We already have probably 4…

We have been here 1 year today. Exactly one year ago, this was our home: Now we are here: We’ve come a long way.

Today was sunny. Ish. It was supposed to be clouds and sun, but we had a few sulky little rain squalls, just to keep us soggy. Mom was out, so together we got several more things planted into the orchard. 2 apple trees, 4 cherry shrubs, 3 clumps of hyssop , 1 elderberry, 1 red…

This last weekend, Hurricane Lee made landfall just south of Nova Scotia as a tropical storm. Given Fiona last year was a post-tropical storm, and did immense damage, we had no idea what the outcome would be. We all have some fairly severe PTSD on the subject. I hate wind. I always have. It makes…

Okay, so let’s review My stress level is VERY high. After the devastation of Hurricane Fiona at this time last year, I am not able to just shrug and say “what will be will be”. Just like last year, the ground is super-saturated and soft. The trees are in full leaf. The power infrastructure and…

It’s raining. How’s that for shocking news? It’s supposed to rain most of the week. Yesterday was both rainy and hot, so the sweaty humidity was very unpleasant. Today is cooler, so far. I’m not sure if it was the humidity or stress level, or what, but I had an almighty asthma attack last evening.…

Some weeks, nothing much happens that is worth writing about. We do school We buy groceries We go to the library It rains a lot This was one such week. We got some firewood stacked. That’s about it, excitement-wise.

I don’t have a lot of counter space in my current kitchen, so vast amounts of food prep are a complicated matter. I don’t have much in that line often, but this is of course canning season. My garden this year is a seed-only garden, so I wont have that produce to can. I did,…