lac pink

One day last week the three of us (S, O and I) were feeling a little cagey, so decided to head out to do a baby-friendly hike in nearby Gatineau Park. What we discovered when we go there is that Lac Pink is a very unusual lake in that the bottom of it is completely devoid of oxygen - due to a type of bacteria that live at a depth of 15 feet that exist in such great numbers that they block all light and use all the oxygen so nothing below it can grow or live. This captured my imagination because all I can think about is all the cool fossils and unseen bits of history that must be down there! The algae that growns in the lake also make it a really beautiful shade of green, as you'll see below.

O and I taking in all the fresh air and greenery. Sigh.

the charm of everyday things

While we're in the final, waiting stage of my pregnancy, everyday objects in the house take on a new interest and significance......all the new objects coming into the house seem to be yellow:

getting away from it all

This weekend we went to some friends' cottage in rural Ontario. It was relaxation personified! We BBQ'd some delish-kabobs...
...BBQ'd some corn in the husks - they look inedible here, but when you take the husks off their smokey flavour in unparalleled.
Lots of knitting and reading was done, as well as some boating:

A local rock face 500 feet tall had some really neet petroglyphs make by Iroquois people hundreds of years ago.
Even though I normally prefer to be self-propelled, the speed boat was AWESOME!

and now...some pictures of wild roses

new perspectives

Today I tried to see differently; I shrank myself down to a new size and just looked at everything from this new perspective. I forgot how much I love to just be in my garden, hear the wind blow through the trees, and just watch everything being alive. Arugula and garlic, lamium and grass, daffodil and sweet cecily...all growing like crazy right now.

26 kilometers of pure joy

The sights, smells and sounds of our 26 km bike ride today left us breathless. It's April 4th, and we're already on our bikes and in our shorts! What happened to spring?

down east

We just got back from visiting the East Coast, and we're full of sweet memories of our time there. It had been 20 months since we were home and we were so curious to know what it would be like to go back: What would be the same? What would be different? And especially we wondered how much we'd changed living in Quebec all this time. We saw beautiful places, watched the winter shift into spring, and spent some quality time with our closest loved ones, having little aha! moments all the while. We have changed. So has our hometown, and so have the people we love...but the ties that bind us there are as strong as ever.

winter's last gasp

Sitting in front of the tv just chilling and knitting on a late February night, we looked out the window to see it was SNOWING.

Big, juicy, fluffy, white snowflakes all lit up by the streetlights just begged us to go outside and play.

Walking through the park we saw what was left of the outdoor rink, which was somehow more perfect after the snow.

We (almost) felt like the city was far, far away.

antiquing for canadians

antiquing for canadians


brings quiet time in the bright sunshiny cold


some really great grates


some heads light our way though the junk to the real finds


to frozen smiles on unlikely faces


and the most beautiful decay.

plant a bulb and let it grow

We planted 4 narcissus bulbs Dec 1st and watched them grow until Christmas - here's the Bulbs' Progress. It's my pleasure to give full copyright and props to Sufjan Stevens for his soundtrack Jingle Bells, from the album Songs for Christmas Vol. V - Peace, recorded in 2006.

First Garden - a year in pictures

With full props and copyrights to The Beach Boys for their soundtrack "Wouldn't It Be Nice" from Pet Sounds (1966), here's a visual journey through a year of my first garden. A lot of work, but SO worth the effort, lemme tell ya!

mid-winter diptychs