Snow!

....that beautiful barn on Workman road taken with a fish-eye lens.....

.....and today when it started to snow...

wow! did it snow for awhile; the pier was busy

....the beach was stormy

a different view of 'the barn'

birdhouse finial in the garden

Knight's apple trees

's

playhouse door

had time to spin a little wool this week.....

I gave myself a pat on the back the day I finished the wool---I walked over 8 miles according to my pedometer!  Then I realized I had the pedometer on while spinning the wool...oh well, too bad I ate that extra muffin....

finished David's slouch hat....now I just need to finish the other 15 projects I have on needles

new year's traditions....

love the playhouse lit up at this time of year

heart-shaped stone finial on a birdhouse

Mom sent me home with my own bottle of home made advocaat...too bad I am the only one who likes it here! Whooooo!

Mom also sent us home with a bag of oliebollen....she only made 250 this year!

made some poffertjes for lunch with homemade jam

thought it was time to melt down the bee wax cappings....

we don't have a solar melter, so I simmered the cappings in water in a large pan.  The wax floated to the top,  I skimmed it off and put it in a smaller container.  Adam has a friend who works in encaustic painting, and I told her we would have WAY TOO MUCH WAX as it was in a 20 Litre pail when we started....

....little did I know the HUGE PAIL would melt down to a 4 litre tub, or not quite 3 3/4 lbs. of wax.  Here Adam is straining the last bit of wax through a nylon (I told him it would build character)

the finished product--smells great & looks good.  We'll be giving it to Sierra so that she can create something beautiful with Cobourg beeswax

Dorothy & Nigel bought this sweater for Archie for Christmas & today was a great day to wear it....

.......it was frigid on the beach this morning!

One of our greatest traditions--Brian throwing the Christmas tree out the front door.  This might be the first year without snow to throw it into in many years!

Christmas 'week'

Lola's Christmas gift--a fighter jet made of cardboard.....

It's been a busy week, but lots of fun...Mom recognized her skirt by the colour & fabric, even though she wore it over 50 years ago!  I'll share a few pics from the week....

Adam assembling the present with Archie helping/hindering the process

love this stamp from Anthropologie

satisfying the herbivore & carnivore in the family....

Christmas is exhausting--all these new toys to play with!

Thunder got a nice fat pear Christmas morning....

the only way we could even get Lola to check out the plane....we hid some cat treats underneath

I think she might be a bit too big to comfortably jump in the cockpit...oh dear! we might need to cut back on Temptations

chocolate pecan crackles

we had a nice mild boxing day--about 5 degrees, so I quickly thawed some peppermint grease patties for the bees and placed them in the hive

the bees poking their heads out just before it started raining

vanilla rice pudding

Brian's favourite cookies--Fairy Golf cookies with blackcurrant jam

dusting them with confectioner's sugar....

The Skirt

Ever since I was about 10 years old, I cut, sewed, chopped, deconstucted & reconstructed dresses & outfits from my mom's closet.  For my 13th birthday, I received a new electrified sewing machine (before that I used my grandmother's treadle machine).  My mom was very tolerant of my successful and unsuccessful crafting.  The only piece of clothing she was attached to was her Vogue Toronto ultramarine blue skirt from the 1950's which she wore a crinoline underneath.  Every few years she asked me "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TAFFETA SKIRT?????".  I didn't chop it, so it has remained intact. Lisa brought the skirt to Cathy of Sew Busy Alterations a couple of weeks ago, and she worked her magic.  Today, she'll wear it on Christmas Day, and we are going to see if Mom recognizes it with 1/2 of the material taken away.  My money is on Oma--Brian thinks she'll recognize it, David & Adam think she will, Lisa & Colin say no way.  Can't wait to see.....

the sights & smells of Christmas.....

berry puff pancake, lemon cake with blackberry curd, grinding nutmeg (which is stored in my 'kruiden' tin--what a great word!), amaryllis blooming on the windowsill, Lisa's fingerless gloves, making speculaas cookies (with the molds my Mom picked up for me in Germany & Adam found on Ebay), separating the dust-like seeds from a gorgeous peach primula bulleyana, roving in a cloche

our barn on a wet morning

I've taken at least a hundred photos of this barn on Workman Road in Cobourg....

a barn along county rd. #1 in Prince Edward County

beautiful dusk along Hwy. #33 in Prince Edward County

 photo taken with a fish-eye camera of Thunder and 2 of the ducks