What I did on my summer holiday . ..

 For years the kids and I have talked about exploring. We talk of faraway places, if you could go anywhere where would you go? Leif has South American goals, Hannah loves the sun of Mexico and Hawaii and Ivy doesn't really care, as long as she can come with us.
Me? I want to check out Canada. I've never really travelled in my country. Yes I've visited relatives in Ontario, and did a school trip to Quebec once. But those were very specific trips, with mainly indoor, family visit sort of activities. And up until now, I've never really cared about Canada. So I steered our conversations towards getting to know where you are from. We've travelled more in Washington state than we have in BC, so we decided to plan a local trip this summer. We started with big visions like faraway Drumheller, but thankfully a friend pointed out that southern Alberta in August is not somewhere to put yourself on purpose. Then a friend suggested going to Barkerville. Then 15 friends agreed that it was a must.

So we did. And I don't think I've ever learned as much as I did on that trip.

*Check your tires before you go.
*When you do get a flat, tell the towing company about your 3 children under the age of 10 stranded on the side of the highway with huge motor homes racing by.

*When the tire company tells you they can't help you due the coming long weekend and your hard-to-find tire sizes, tell them about your 3 children under the age of 10, and their Barkerville dreams.

*When you do get everything sorted out, and 2 hours later you're back on the road, it's appropriate to break your 10-year ban on Tim Horton's, just this once, to cheer up those sad kids mentioned earlier. It's alright to remind them after they order that you're never bringing them there again. They'll hear you but be too excited by the prospect of real doughnuts to protest.

*The best way to amuse two siblings on a road trip is to put them in separate seats with a huge box of Lego between them.

*The best way to amuse a 4 year old is to give her a ball of wool, the digital camera and a pair of binoculars.

*Do not rely on any technology you bring with you, it will all fail, break, or run out of batteries. The time you spend trying to figure it all out is time you can never get back.

*When you run out of all the healthy food you brought, it's okay to cut the trip short when everyone is sick of scrambled eggs and Dairy Queen. Ugh!

*The best swimming holes are in fact those marked on the back roads map book as Parks Canada swimming holes. Those un-marked, off the beaten path places are buggy, rocky, dirty and cold. That's why no one goes there. Sorry kids.

*It's best sometimes to just do the fun touristy stuff. Fun is the goal right? And so in that vein, here's Barkerville.

We panned for gold.

We rode the old stage coach around town.

We found far-too-big-and-far-too-costly ice cream cones.

We took in a fantastic musical theatre production about life in Barkerville in 1860. Yes, I cried a bit. Their lives were hard, man.

And it was fun! And there was so much that we did not do, that we hope to do on our next trip up. Oh yes, we're definitely going back, and we're definitely bringing Kit with us next time.

Before we went, I learned about Barkerville, and talked about it with the kids. How prospectors travelled here from Europe, rode horses and wagons all the way up the river canyon, to this little town that sprung up because an Englishman (old Billy Barker himself) found gold there. Travellers opened up businesses to serve the prospectors, the gov't opened survey and testing offices, and a whole community of risk-takers and hard-workers was born. The entire thing burned to the ground one year, and the residents began re-building it right away.

While the kids took in the fun sights and eats, I just stared at the forest that surrounded the town. We were in a basin of trees, no sign of which direction you were facing. Out here you really were on your own, your only support for anything, companionship, food, comfort, were those people around you. Many prospectors came for 5-10 years, having spent every penny they had just to get there, unable to leave until they struck gold, and 19 out of 20 of them never did. They left families behind in England, hoping to strike it rich here and come home a success story. Many never made it home.

What struck me most as we turned off the main hwy at Quesnel and headed East on the hwy to Barkerville, was how isolated it was. We'd already travelled 1000 km by car to get there, a trip that was originally taken on foot and horseback. As we got closer to Wells, the town outside Barkerville where the locals all live, it really became clear that this was it, end of the line. There are no roads going further East, or in any other direction for that matter. Here is where the forests destroyed by the pine beetle are. The chains of lakes and miles of logging roads. There is no cell service here, which was actually a lovely thing. They get between 18 and 24 feet of snow each winter, and even though it was the middle of the summer and the days were hot, it was cold at night, and night came much sooner than we were used to. And yet we were still in BC, and at that, only half-way up the province. We could still drive another 1000 KM and still be in our home province.

It made me want to go further.

The vegetation was different than what we were used to in the South. The roadside was covered in these bright red wildflowers that made every thing brighter, more vibrant.

One of our greatest memories of Barkerville was going to school. When I first told Hannah she'd have to go to school there, she burst into tears. Oops! This made her fearful of the entire process and I had to promise to stay with her during class.

We had to line up outside, in two lines (boys and girls) to greet our teacher, Mr. Mundell. Us girls were reprimanded for not wearing the necessary bonnets to hide our distracting tresses from the boys. He loaned us a basket of his extra bonnets, which we had to wear before we went in. Once inside we had quizzes, a spelling bee and practiced a song for the Queen. It was the most fun we had! Trying to stifle my giggles, remember to say "Yes Mr. Mundell" and help keep Ivy on task had a constant grin on my face. Leif loved the necessary courtesies "May I speak Mr. Mundell?" ("Yes Master Bright you may"). Hannah was afraid of messing up, but she soon  relaxed. Our teacher never broke character, and it was the most exciting 45 minutes of  'school' I ever had.

As the only driver and grown-up, I had limited opportunities to take pictures of all the gorgeous sights. I was a reckless driver going up the Fraser Canyon, as I craned my neck left and right to see it all, exclaiming at the mountains all around us, the long trains going by on either side of the river, and the extreme heights of the bridges we crossed. It was a landscape I had never experienced, and it was incredible.

We stayed in lovely B&B's, tiny lakeside cabins, towns with only a pub, towns with a pub and a McDonald's, and tiny towns with only a cafe and 8 or 9 trains that passed through in the night. We met such lovely innkeepers, and swam in clear blue lakes. We shopped in a Fields and drove way off our route to try to find wildlife. We explored the different historical displays in the tiny towns, and the kids climbed trees and ran amok amongst those displays. Yes, I did this trip as the solo parent, with a broken arm. It was my idea, and I knew we could succeed. They've always understood that we operate as a team, a tribe that works together for common goals.

We had a blast, and fell in love with a small part of our vast country. I can't wait to get out there again.

xoxo

C

Hallowe'en!

It was a few weeks ago, but the good times linger on. One of our new traditions is the homeschoolers Hallowe'en Dance. We started it last year and this year it was as good as before.

I was Tintin, and I'm feeling the firm plastic breasts of my friend Peg, the Lego minifigure, and the lovely punk-rock Elaine provided the music. The kids had fun too, I swear.


This year we tried something new and checked out the Enchanted Hallowe'en Village. It's an outdoor event put on by the Luminara Society, the cool folks who brought us the lantern festivals in the summer. It was amazing, we are so glad we went. It was held at the Saanich Historical Artifacts Society park, which is home to the Victoria model train association. They maintain a fabulous little miniature railway track that runs through the forest. You sit in top of mini train cars and there's a steam powered locomotive driven by one of the model train group's conductors. Throughout the forest there are lanterns, spooky dinner parties set up, ghosts in the trees, carved pumpkins, mirrors, and painted umbrellas. It was an incredible amount of work that resulted in a fabulous family event. A few pics before my camera batteries died.

Leif and his long-time friend Taro were Thompson and Thomson, the twin detectives from the Tintin comic strip. They were thrilled when a hipster Dad in the street knew they were T & T. Everyone else kept saying "Oh look, two Charlie Chaplins!". Grrr. Broaden your horizons people.

Here is the only picture we have of all the darlings in their costumes. I'm so glad Grandpa thought to grab his camera, mine were still dead. Hannah is TRON  (she glows in the dark!) and Ivy is a cheeky mummy.

When all was said and done, we bid a bittersweet farewell to yet another wonderful seasonal event.

Luckily, they're already looking forward to Christmas. You know what they want? Snow. Buckets of the stuff. Fingers crossed.

43 days to go . . .

xoxo

C

A walking we will go.

We have some traditions we engage in in the fall. One is a mushroom walk. This year we tried out a new trail, out in Metchosin near a friend's house. We hoped to find a big variety of mushrooms and gather some caps to make spore prints. We scored on both points.

That last one won the butt-ugly award, there were a bunch all together, so we know it wasn't just one straggly, worn-out shroom.

We grabbed some delicate samples, put them gill-side down on some paper and covered them with a bowl overnight. The colour of their spores helped to ID them. Some left white spores so didn't show up on the paper. Check out the purple spore print left by the yellow shroom caps!





That was last week, and now the ground is blanketed in fallen leaves, which are alternately dry and crunchy or wet and soggy. Perfect for more shroomies to grow. We might just head on another walk soon.

xoxo
C

A battle as old as time is being waged in our house.

Good vs. Evil, light vs. dark, honesty vs. trickery . .

 . . all I worry about is that they'll break the toys!

Our Star Wars collection generally stays safe up on a shelf, and comes down once in awhile to settle the score, to re-balance the universe. I love it when they all play together.

Can I just take a minute this morning to share?

I LOVE daylight savings in the fall!!!!! Love it! Life seems to swing back to what is right. When the kids finally wake up, it will still be early. When they go to bed tonight it will still be early. When my alarm goes off in the morning it is not pitch black outside, and it becomes so much easier to drag my butt out of bed. (The prospect of tasty mugs of tea and the fire I set last night help too).

On the activity list today is going to a meeting at a local park about food security. I won't get into it here, too depressing, but I have had a growing anxiety these past few months about the future. Every sci-fi movie ever made about the future is of an awful future, and things back here in present-day aren't making it look too good either. I know that in my lifetime I will see things take a very bad turn for the worse. Environmental damage, poor health, cheap oil, corrupt North American gov't, higher costs, contaminated food. All of this will get worse. This is something I struggle with as a parent. Do I see things through positive, hopeful glasses because I have kids? I don't, actually, but I mean rather that I must, because I have kids. Were I childless I think I'd be far more outwardly negative and politically active about this. But I have my precious children, who will be living in this future, and I need to be hopeful about how we can exist in it, how we can change it where we can. I see this as a good thing, that they force me to be pro-active and hopeful, but I also find it very challenging to be this way. Again, this is a good thing, to be challenged, but I struggle with it. It is hard to be the naysayer in a culture of don't-analyse-don't-ask-just-keep-shopping-and-hope-your-gov't-eventually-gives-a-crap-about-the-real-issues society. Nobody wants to think about it, nobody wants to admit that changes must be made. Thankfully I have found a community that sees what is coming and is working to face that reality. Transitional Communities are coming together to train each other, to share skills and to ask the hard questions about how we can survive in this new world.

What does that mean today? That means we are off to meet with the local edible nuts group to learn how to collect and make-edible the local nuts that grow in the island. Acorns are not edible when you first collect them, but through a process we'll learn about today you can make them fit for consumption. And in a pinch, that's a skill I'd like to have.

To end on a happy note, here's an oldie but a goodie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J06BU6Fj6Qs

Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

xoxo
C

Birth as Art?

I read recently about performance artist Marni Kotak who plans to give birth in a New York art gallery. If I understand correctly, she feels that life is full of art, and too often artists try too hard to show meaning, to force it out in their work, to overdo it to show the meaning of life in their work, when it is present all around us, we just need to see it.

Now, I hate the type of person who lives to rain on other people's parades, who has a been-there-done-that attitude to everyone else's joys and struggles. It's not a role I like to play often, and certainly not one I strive to play more often.

But this situation kind of begs for it, no?

Seriously. I've given birth the old-fashioned way. Three times sister, each kid only a smidgen smaller than the one who pummeled their way out beforehand. It was never pretty, or loving, or wonderful. It was a disaster from start to finish, me on my hands and knees for so much of it, alternating between yelling or grunting, telling people off and making a mess of every towel in my house.

If my births were a performance art piece they would go something like this:

Scene 1: "Oh shit"

Scene 2: "What the fuck have I done? How in the hell do I get out of this? Maybe if I hit my head hard enough on the bath tub I'll slip into a coma and they can just cut this thing out of me".

Scene 3: Main character realises she is nothing like those yoga-doing, my-vagina-is-a-lotus-flower-opening-with-love-rama-lama-ding-dongs she's been watching in hippy birth videos all these months. "This is not 'waves of energy' this is a goddamn locomotive surging through my insides. Who is this mellow midwife offering me essential oils? Where is the person with the drugs? If only my husband weren't so damn shy I'd send him door-to-door to see who is hoarding the percocet and T3's."

Scene 4: (to midwife) "Listen lady, I don't care what happens or who gets hurt, on this next contraction I promise to push as hard as I can if, if, you promise to pull on that head as hard as you can and get this thing out of me, you got it?"

Scene 5: She didn't get it.

Scene 6: "I don't care what gender it is or how big it is, just somebody take it for a few minutes so I can get my shit back together. That was the worst experience of my life."

And curtain.

The last thing I can imagine doing with my births is inviting other strangers into it. Thank god we erased the first birth video and never made any of the rest of them. The only people present for these raw moments of horrible primal reality are those sworn by their profession to secrecy.

As for Marni's plans to document every day of her new baby's life online for the next 18 years (every day?) I've got news for her, it's called a blog, there are thousands of them created by mothers all over the world, many great, even more not so much. This is not your trailblazing moment. But keep brainstorming sweets, something will come to you.

I know, I know, too bitchy. But ooohhhh it felt good.

C

Future goals . . .

 . . . Boy do I have a long list. But the item that I think deserves top priority is this one. I know I can do it if I just try hard enough..

The rest of that list will get up here eventually. Me? I'm off to join the softly snoring kids in my bedroom.

C

I (heart) fall

Over the years I've learned to enjoy all of the seasons. I see the short, sort of hot summers for the great things they can bring. Tasty berries, sun-kissed skin, long days knitting at the beach while the kids explore the rocky coast or weedy shoreline. As a kid I found summers just too hot (I know, I know) and longed for the months when I could once more hide in cozy sweaters and go inward. and I can see the beauty in the long dark days of winter, how February can stretch on forever, and any excuse to decorate and celebrate is latched onto with great zeal. Chinese new year and valentine's have grown to matter around here.

But I cannot say I've learned to love any season more than fall. I just love it. The crunchy leaves, the crisp air. Suddenly the rare hot sunny day is to be celebrated and cherished, soaking it up as much as possible before sunset. Then the chill sets in. Celebrating the harvest, my birthday and hallowe'en just set the tone for the season, and then we tumble into winter.

So many pumpkins . .  how to choose?

I celebrated my birthday with a great gaggle of women. We held a clothing exchange at my house, and everyone tried on various things, smiled at our changing bodies, ate tasty snacks and shared great laughs. A friend remarked later that it was a night when everyone gathered not because of work, or because they're in a book club or gym together, but because they love me. That if you can fill a room with people who enjoy your company that's pretty great. I agree, and feel so blessed and lucky to have such great friends. I have sweet reminders of this throughout the house.

Ivy has been toiling away at her new skill . .

I never put Leif or Hannah in any lessons at this young age. Seeing her all suited up on skates is beyond words of cuteness! All three of us sit on the benches and watch her fall and get back up and then fall again.

Hannah is trying something new this fall as well.

Every week she goes to a lovely stable and spends time with this horse, Nevada. The stable is full of rescued horses, who need gentle words and loving hands. Hannah is learning the art of natural horsemanship, connecting with this sweet animal, and getting her feel for being in the saddle as she trots around the ring. I have a feeling this will be with us for awhile.

This month my time is taken up with getting ready. Ready for fall, ready for the end of summer, ready for whatever might come my way. As well as growing tomatoes this summer, I also threw some zucchini plants in the ground, and they produced some giant fruits. And my wonderful bees are doing great, having extra honey for us to share this winter.

I made sure to capture every drop I could from the frames I removed. It is this deep golden brown because of the huge blackberry patch in our alley.

Then I went to work putting the ladies to bed for the winter. I check for bugs and that they had enough food, and tucked them away to huddle together through the coldest months. (Ivy snapped this one while I tended the hive. I know you love my top.)

One of the gifts fall gives us every year is apples. We picked 4 heaping recycling bins full of our own apples this year. Those I usually turn into applesauce and apple crumble. Then my neighbour across the street brought me another recycling bin full of her tasty, tiny Macintosh's. Suffice it to say I am now feeling overrun with apples that need processing and a dire lack of time in which to do so.

Now my early cup of tea mornings are split between peeling these babys or sewing Hallowe'en costumes. Stay tuned for the reveal on those.

(As I typed this up I grooved to some classic Tegan and Sarah hits)

C

Homemade

Before I make it a whole year without writing, let's jump in at random and I'll tell you what we're up to.

Making things, that's what we're doing. We made our own corn tacos this week. Our family has gone through a big dietary change, as the girls and I have had to stop eating gluten and dairy. Thankfully we all LOVE mexican food Hernande'z style (a great local eatery) and they sell masa corn flour for us to try our hand at homemade tortillas. The results?

Yummy!


This summer I have had a lot of yearnings for rural farm property, for growing some of our food and keeping some animals. Don't worry, we still live in the city, and are constantly debating the pros and cons of both locations and lifestyles. In the meantime Kit started a bunch of roma tomato seeds in June, and I planted them all in July, too close together, without much knowledge of what they needed. This fall I ended up with this:

I actually harvested twice as much, those pics are of the green ones that have yet to ripen. I had to pick all of them green, then lay them out in the windows to ripen in the sun. I didn't think they would,  was googling green ketchup recipes, not sure how I'd use 50 pounds of green romas. But half of them ripened, and the other half are well on their way. So I checked my fave food blogs and found a simple ketchup recipe. I don't feel ready to make pasta sauce or salsa, because we all like different flavours for each, and I don't need jars of food I have to force on my family. Ketchup felt easy, we can always eat more oven fries right? I have zero canning experience, but I have experienced friends, so I jumped in.

Trying to fit the canning process around my busy schedule was a challenge, and I ended up starting the final stage last night after 9pm, and stayed up into the wee hours. But oh was it worth it!

I can't wait for lunchtime today when we WILL be having oven fries with this tasty ketchup. I feel so amazed and proud, having succeeded at canning anything, and also having canned something I grew on our tiny city property. Woohoo!

This week we met with our weekly group and learned to light fires. We went to a beach in the rural part of town (there's that longing again) and we talked about the various ways you can build a fire, what fires need and fire safety in the outdoors. Then we let them loose with all the supplies they'd need, to see if they could get a fire going.

They built a bunch of different fires, trying their own ideas or trying some of the standard styles we had talked about. There was a lot to learn, and the day couldn't have been better, dry after a rainy night, windy and overcast, but not dark or dreary. Fires blew out, matches broke, paper burned up and blew away, the wood left untouched. After some time, success! And then more and more, their fires lit and burned away the cold air. Then they ran off to dam up a nearby creek that ran across the beach. A great fall day on the coast.

Hope you're enjoying the chill of fall.

kisses
C