Living Simply Isn’t Simple

August 31, 2010 //

Living simply isn’t simple. How did I ever think living simply was going to be simple??!! What world was I living in? Oh, right… Now I remember, I was living in the city-come-country world, where everything must be better and sweeter in the country! (Well, everything is better and sweeter in the country–that part is true. But everything is also a little more complicated in the country!)

Now that we’re here, we realize that living simply isn’t simple. It’s getting up early and working late. It’s clearing snow and then clearing it again and again. We are constantly taken aback at the number of tasks to be done around here. (And that’s with no animals or children, and with the modern conveniences of power tools and technology.)

Take our snowblower attachment for the tractor, for example. At the end of last Winter–a mere four months ago–we parked it in our yard somewhere.

Now the snowblower attachment is ensconced and entangled in four months worth of greenery and growth:

In case you can’t make sense of the above, here’s my artist’s bisection of what the tractor attachment looks like underneath the greenery after just four months.

But maybe “simple” living is over-rated, because the harder we work the sweeter the rewards. That much I know to be true.

Swirl Means Love

August 25, 2010 //

I forget the specifics, but a few days ago Cameron used the word “swirl” to describe love. He may have said something along the lines of, “You make my heart swirl.” (Or something to that effect.) And ever since then I can’t get the word swirl out of my head; whenever I think of him or love or happiness the word swirl pops into my head.

For example, when I see this picture of Cameron I think swirl. Swirl just encapsulates everything. Swirl is love and laughter and connection and caring and history and future and unity between two people and eye gazing and hand holding and everything else love can and is and will be.

Sometimes I wonder about what it means to be together in a relationship for a long time. But I have come to appreciate the history in relationships, all those remember whens and can you believe we used tos and the that reminds me of the time whens. Reminiscing about the past can be great for a laugh, but that can’t be all that keeps you together.

You’ve got to have plans for the future. There’s got to be next year lets’ and maybe someday we cans. And, of course, you’ve got to have that ever important piece of the puzzle: swirl.

PEI Gardening Tips (from a Novice)

August 16, 2010 //

Cameron seems to think it’s my duty to tell you what’s going on in our garden. Therefore I share my PEI gardening tips from yours truly, a novice in the vegetable garden.

Already we’ve learned a lot for next year when it comes to growing vegetables.Here are my PEI gardening tips from an idiot. Please feel free to correct me.

1. The growing season on PEI is relatively short, so you may want to start seeds indoors or in a greenhouse, which we didn’t this year because of our distastrous results last year.

2. Get your plants in sooner rather than later. I thought we should wait for June 1st-ish, but I have come to learn that many people seem to plant quite a few seeds and seedlings outdoors here on Easter weekend.

3. Potato bugs are evil and they eat your potato plants! If you have a lot of space plant your potatoes far away from the rest of your veggie patch because those potato bugs are scary. Be sure to harvest your potatoes before the bugs get ‘em.

4. Weeds are a problem. What the…?? How does one deal with the weeds?? To be determined.

5. What is with broccoli and cauliflower?? They won’t grow heads?? They are just all…leaves?

6. Kale is a fast grower. Lettuce is a slow grower.

7. Resist the temptation to pull up your carrots before they’re big. You’ll regret it if you don’t! (Can you just put them back in the dirt? I doubt it, but it’s worth asking, ok. I said I was a newbie!)

8. Beans are delicious and easy to grow! Pick and sprinkle with herbs = healthy chips.

9. Get your seeds from Vesey ’s Seeds. And order them from the catologue because it’s more much fun that way. Preferably take your seed catalogue with you to public places and circle your preferred varietals with a big juicy Sharpie marker. Onlookers will think you’re a hippie.

10. Your corn will grow more slowly than the corn fields that surround your neighbourhood. Try to curtail your jealousy when passing others’ fields. Take deep breaths and repeat, “They are professionals. They are professionals.”

11. Weeding your garden is a perfectly pleasant way to spend a Friday evening (well, the first Friday evening was pleasant.. But the novelty has worn off, I must admit!)

There you have it, my incredibly random PEI gardening tips from my heart to yours.

Prince Edward Island blogs

August 11, 2010 //

Prince Edward Islanders and a few special friends (blogs in random order):

Life Begins at Retirement

Canoe Corner

Whimfield

Top of the Meadow

Sometimes Here, Sometimes There

Country is a State of Mind, USA

Red Belle, NS

Melissa’s Musings

Maritime Penny Pinchers

Hidden Island Paradise

Picking Our Wild Blueberries (Finally)

August 8, 2010 //

Picking wild blueberries is a new delight that we appreciated on our property for the first time this year. When we first moved here we didn’t know what wild blueberry plants looked liked. Of course, they’re easy to spot when they’re dripping with blueberries, but most of the time they just look like green ground cover–pretty indistinguishable from the rest of the plant-life to the untrained eye.

Two years ago, as we became more accustomed to our property and the PEI landscape, we recognized some blueberry plants. However, come blueberry-picking-time there was almost nary a blueberry to be picked.

Cameron did some reading on blueberry plants, and he realized that–if we trimmed the plants down as low as possible–two years later we should have an abundance of blueberries.

So two years ago Cameron forced encouraged us to spend the day together trimming a small area (the size of a small swimming pool) right down to the ground. Cameron used an industrial-strength weedwacker and chopped down blueberry plants, small thin poplar trees, and tons of tall weeds. Blueberries like to have as much sunlight as possible, and a commercial blueberry field looks like this in Autumn; you’ll notice that there are no other plants competing for light.

I don’t exactly remember what I did on that day two years ago when we trimmed the blueberry plants down to almost nothing and cleared room for them, but I do remember being pooped and covered in bug bites at the end of the day. I also remember thinking, “What are we doing? Cam is a slave-driver. We’ll never get blueberries, and, even if we do, two years is a danged long time to wait to nibble on some fresh-picked berries!”

Well, that was two years ago…

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of carrying buckets and bug spray and trooping back to our blueberry “field.” I don’t need to tell you that Cam was all grins when we crouched down and saw little blue berries dotting the landscape.

Two years is a long time to wait for blueberries. And at the end of our day picking blueberries we were still pooped and covered in bug bites, but this time we had the pleasure of ambling home in the early evening shoving handfuls of hard-grown and hard-picked berries into our anticipatory mouths.

In North America low-bush blueberries (wild blueberries) are tiny little blueberries, and they are usually used as ingredients rather than served as fresh blueberries. The fresh blueberries that are generally sold in grocery stores are called high-bush blueberries, and they are not generally grown in Atlantic Canada. Both types are delicious, but there is no tastier berry than one you’ve helped grow, waited for and picked yourself.

Make Time for Fun – The Rest Falls Into Place

August 7, 2010 //

I am busier than I’ve ever been in my entire life, I think. But this Summer I’ve still been making a lot of time for the good, fun stuff: like beach days and nibbling peas from our garden before the sun rises.

I credit a new trick for my productivity. I’ve started using a Steve Pavlina anti-procrastination strategy: plan all your fun stuff regardless of what else is going on in your life. And by “plan” I mean schedule it. Make the fun stuff happen, regardless of how busy you are.

Because when you plan the good stuff in advance it forces you to buckle down and get to work on the bad stuff. For example, if you know that you’re going to spend Saturday at the beach (good stuff) then you’d better make good use of Friday night and accomplish the things that you usually put off (bad stuff).

See? Simple, yet effective–for me anyway. I need to trick myself. And even though I realize I am tricking myself, it still works. That’s the beauty of it.

Signing off. This weekend should involve another beach day, a walk to our blueberry patch, and other good stuff. Slotted in along the way will be the bad stuff. But that’s okay.

Fake letter from Cam

July 29, 2010 //

Here is what I think Cam thinks of me. I (Laura-Jane) wrote this, of course.

“Dear Laura-Jane,

You are a very special person. You play the cello and you like to write stories about your life. But sometimes you are a little too extreme. You have a tendency to overdose on things, like music and movies and food groups. Then you sever yourself from them, never wanting to touch them again.

And you have three moods: (1) hyperactive and gloriously happy (2) neutral and silent (3) really grumpy with squinty eyes that glare.

I met you when you were 16. You’re 28 now.

You’ve been nice lately. I like that. Let’s cuddle.

Love,
Cameron”

I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. (It’s deep. Think about it. Try it.)

Window Treatments

July 29, 2010 //

Did you know that when you live in the country you don’t need curtains or blinds on your windows?

Outside it’s just the birds and the trees. And why would you need blinders from that?

Hydrangea Snowball Bush

July 22, 2010 //

I’ve written at length about the craziness of the seasons and how strange it is to think that the bleakness of winter turns into luscious green foliage.

Case in point… Our hydrangea bush.

In winter, you might not even notice it. No, you might mistake our hydrangea bush for some upright sticks protruding through the snow up toward the sky.

But in Summer when you bumble up our country driveway and approach the house, you can’t help but notice the sprawling hydrangea bush, which gets bigger every year.

So please take care of the sticks in your life because you never know what a little sunlight and warmth could reveal.

Whimfield veggie garden 2010

July 15, 2010 //

Rome wasn’t built in a day. And let me tell you something straight up–how it really is.

When you move across the country and start a thousand projects you cannot do everything that you want to do. And it drives you mad and bonkers.

And people might ask you if you’ve been to the farmers’ market or have you planted a big veggie garden or where are your farm animals or do you have kids your answer is NO NO NO because we can’t do it all.

This is our third Summer here on Prince Edward Island and it has taken us this long to have a real vegetable garden. Our veggie garden is a mess and we don’t know what we’re doing, but we’ve got a big garden none the less.

When I think back to my parents and where they were in life when I was born I realize how far they’d come by the time I came around. Between them they had a Master’s Degree and a PhD, a small acreage, careers, two other children, two cats and an orchard.

We are all born with nothing. And we grow and learn and become part of an existing family. We choose (or fall into) careers. We move out and make a home for ourselves. And eventually we have a family of our own, be it a spouse, children, support system or animals.

So today I am proud of my garden. Proud that we’ve gotten this far in our journey.

I can see myself on this trajectory of life now. Enjoying every step of the way for what it is, but also seeing my life as a whole. Thinking about the big picture.

Speaking of the BIG PICTURE, here’s an exercise for a rainy day. (I got the idea from a book. It’ll only take seven minutes so just do it, okay?)

Draw a big squiggly snail. Plot decades on it. Write “the end” in the centre. Plot everything that’s already happened, like this:

Next comes the fun part. Plot your future. Your ideal future. Not a ridiculously ideal future, just a future that could become true if you work hard and have a little luck. Go ahead. Write it in. (It’s not as easy as it looks. Believe me.)

Write your future. I will if you do.

(But I can’t show you my future because my dreams are mine own.)(But my garden is yours.)