Jrock can be pretty obsessive sometimes.  This year, he was all upset because he can’t use his toxic weed killing potions anymore… (city bylaw came into effect) UNTIL I gave him his handy-dandy-lion killer!  It’s a neat but simple device that rips up the offending weeds by the roots.

Our backyard is well aerated now, because of all of his de-weeding… he comes home and then heads out to the yard after work to see if any new ones have reared their ugly heads!

I had to send him back inside, though, when I caught him in his tie and dress shirt the other day.  His tie was dangling in the dirt and he nearly missed stabbing it a few times.

Now there is enthusiasm for yardwork, and their is obsession. Thin line.  I think he had crossed over!

Spring is here and it’s a great time to play a guessing game with Mother Nature – so all you gardeners out there… why don’t you give a try?

I’ve posted pictures below of five of our trees’ blossoms… can you guess which is which? The photos were taken two days ago.  Just post a comment with your guesses… and in a couple of days I’ll post the answer.  The winner gets all the gardening glory

Click on the photos to enlarge if you want.

The spring wine festival starts at the end of the month – it’s the biggest event in the year in the Okanagan – aside, of course, from the fall wine festival.  We have noticed that we have been drinking more wie since we moved here… not too much! but we did go through three barrels since the fall. Two were merlot – one was cab franc.  You know we had to mix the CF with the one barrel of merlot (we used the patented two straw approach.)  It’s definitely too harsh on it’s own. 

And what to do with all these leftover barrels?  Luckily, it’s easier to plant tomatoes in them than in a glass magnum. (Now if wine came in plastic bottles – well, I have heard that you can plant tomatoes in them. But not glass.)

So Jrock cracked open the power tools yesterday and cut the three barrels in half.  Didn’t he do a nice job?  Now all we have to do is fill the suckers with dirt and plant some tomatoes.  I haven’t decided what else should go in them. 

Any suggestions? They’re on the east side of the house, but they don’t have any shade until late afternoon, so they’ll get pretty hot. Gardeners?  Ideas?

Oh – and I have to be able to eat it.  No flowers. Ba humbug.

And PS: Happy Earth Day tomorrow!  These barrels, my learning to weed, our increasingly huge garden, the new berry plot, our freshly insulated basement and cellulose-filled ceiling, cooking more lentils and actually making them tasty, etc. are all some steps that we’ve taken to be more sustainable this past year – that I think also really enhance our quality of life. 

What are you going to do this year? 

I bought another apple tree. For the other side of the yard.

Don’t tell Jrock.

__

PS: No, we didn’t drink it all.  A barrel holds 27 CASES of wine, silly. That would be 486 bottles each.

My sister has premiered our girls’ amazing, beautiful room on her artist blog:
Moss Campion Art Gallery.  Check it out!

I’ll have some more pictures here in a week or so.  In the meanwhile, click the picture below to take you there and see her shots.

My sister wants to premiere the room in all its glory on her artist blog first… but just to whet your whistle, have a look at the raccoon, fishing in the pond.

My sister is back in town finishing up the murals in the girls’ room. Today she finished up Summertime and is already moving to Spring, which I am looking forward too!

I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

Links to more pictures of the girls’ room

The murals start…
Our mural artist takes up her brush
Winter is all finished
Stinkers in the Fall
Summer Picnic with a Porcupine

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, www.mosscampion.ca , or contact her at mosscampionsae@gmail.com .

My mother-in-law gave me some cash for Christmas, and told me to go out and buy myself some art to hang on the wall. (I also saved my allowance too ) I just love art – We have quite a few original pieces around the house: paintings, hand-made prints, sculptures, etc. It’s almost all Canadian too… not through design especially but rather because of opportunity. 

Anyway, since December, I’ve been stalking the local galleries, and finally found the perfect piece.  It’s a Jerry Whitehead – he’s an amazing aboriginal artist with a very distinct set of styles.  My sister was shopping with me, and buy, did we have fun pawing through 15 of his paintings!  We decided on this drum, because it was one of my favorites – AND because I had the perfect place to put it in my house.  In the kitchen!  And it’s thematically linked to the Ethiopian goatshide painting below.  See?  Both on hide, both about families, both in traditional ceremonies… I like it, anyway.

Oh, and as I was paying for it, the girl told me that this is probably the only drum Jerry Whitehead has painted.  How cool is that?

So thanks very much to my mom-in-law for the present, and to my jealous-but-still-supportive sister for helping me to pick it out.

Winter is still upon us, and I needed a quiet evening hobby that didn’t involve the TV or the computer.  So I was out ‘window’ shopping for the girls the other day (ok, so, I bought stuff – but I intended to window shop) – and I thought “why not make them some clothes?”  By the time they get here, it will be summer, and almost all of their clothes are long-sleeved and jeans.  So I went to the fabric store and spend three hours picking out a couple of patterns and fabric. $90 later – I have a bunch of clothes to make and a whole bunch of non-computer downtime fun!

Now, I’m pretty proud of how my first garments turned out – I haven’t sewn anything since I was 15 and decided the MC Hammer pants I was putting together were fading into un-fashiondom. I have sewn a lot since – but not clothes. 

So I’m really proud of myself! I managed to follow the pattern for some basic red T-shirt jersey shorts, and then I modified them into cute bloomers- they now have wide soft elastic on the legs, and a draw-string waist – which is perfect for growing girls.  They’ll probably last a couple years, actually.

My mom is also sewing them a few things – but the joy of sewing is that there is no way they will end up the same.

The realy funny thing is that all the stuff I picked out is for matching, or same style / different fabric outfits.  This is really wierd, since I’m not a twin-matching kind of gal. BUT, it’s way easier to make two of everything, let me tell you!  So matching outfits, here we come!

Anyway… stayed tuned for more custom creations!

It’s not what you think – better read the post

So my dear husband had a birthday yesterday and we celebrated his firm planting into his thirties.  In the morning before work, he opened his presents at breakfast.  In the afternoon, we went for a long stroll with a friend along the boardwalk while her daughter got her hair cut and cornrowed.  Then after supper and some birthday cupcakes, we headed off to a hockeygame.

The birthday was not remarkable in itself – except for one thing. 

At breakfast, Jrock announced that he was going caffeine-free. 

I was SHOCKED.

For those of you that don’t know – my husband lives on Coke Zero.  He drinks one for breakfast, one for lunch – and then manages to have one in the afternoon as well. 

There are two problems with this: 1. when he DOESN’T have his cola on time, he turns into a ravenous grumpy monster.  So on the weekends, if there isn’t cola in the house, at aprox. 10:30am he turns from Jrock into JBear. The other problem is that it’s hard on his stomach.

I have been trying for years to get him to cut down or stop – and out of the blue, he decides to go cold turkey!

So today, his first day without caffeine in YEARS, was, er… um… interesting.  After a long walk on he beach with the dogs, he’s managed to sleep most of the rest of the day.

But he’s soldiering along and I am so proud of him. 

On the internet, it says that the symptoms (headache, drowsiness, difficulty concentrating, grumpiness,) will get worse up to 48 hours, and then lessen and disappear by 2-9 days.  Let’s hope it’s a quick detox!

Silena had two extra sous-artists today:

Since it’s the weekend, I got to help a bit today with block colours, sponging and even doing a *little! bit of painting. I thought you would like to see how a porcupine grows quills – it’s pretty cool how it all comes from her head onto the wall.

This is her last day painting – and there are a few days left. So unless the highways close again (which they HAVE been doing all week) Silena is off back home and will have to finish up when she visits at the end of January. Usually rooms don’t take so long – but this is so realistic and special – well, I can’t wait to show you when she is done!

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, mosscampion.ca , or contact her at silena-ann@shaw.ca .

In the fall portion of the room, there are two little skunks playing hide and seek. There isn’t much to this wall, since the big headboards are on each side of the big window. Silena still is working on the fall leaves / tree.

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, mosscampion.ca , or contact her at silena-ann@shaw.ca .

Speaking of little stinkers, ~tee hee~, we took a morning off to run some errands and visit my friend T and her daughter Z across the lake. 

It was so nice – T gave me this Ethiopian cooking book she had ordered from a cookstore in Toronto – how cool is that?!? I can’t wait to try out the recipes.

Her daughter Z kept us all amused, as usual!  T must have so much patience, cause Z is just boundless energy.  She’s a real charmer – I have a soft spot for her, for sure

Silena finished the winter wall today -

Now, I can’t spoil the finished product for you, so I will just give you little glimpses and hints – tee hee:  a little badger, a little martin, and the family of bunnies.

The colouring is bad because I took the pictures at night when I came home (someone’s got to earn the money to pay this starving artist! lol) but you’ll get the idea.

Click the pictures to see them closer…

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, mosscampion.ca , or contact her at silena-ann@shaw.ca .

Silena decided that each of the four walls of the room would be a season.  Today she started working on winter – the badger and martin making a snowbear, with a family of bunnies looking on… you can see the autumn skunk playing hide and seek in the corner of the pics below.

Of course, she has a lot of help.  The four seasons were mostly Laughlin’s idea.

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, mosscampion.ca , or contact her at silena-ann@shaw.ca .

So my sister Silena started on the murals for the kids’ room … the first task was all the drawing.

She drew the background freehand, but she already had the characters drawn and planned out – so I got to help my tracing her pre-drawn characters on the wall.

Click here for her original sketches.  Click here and click here to see some other kids room murals she has done.

If you are interested in having murals done in your kid’s room, Silena will travel! to to locations near Calgary, the Okanagan, Vancouver and the Kootenays. Check out her website, mosscampion.ca , or contact her at silena-ann@shaw.ca .

And to all a good night!

From the Rowan Family