Archive for the ‘strategies for winter’ Category
making November warm #5
I can watch birds any time of year of course. But, to me, November seems made for bird watching. Just seeing those tiny birds gobble up the various types of seed, makes me realize how lucky I am to be sheltered and warm on the bitterest of days.
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I do not feed the birds until November. In part, this is to reduce the chance of spreading the various viruses that plague the wild birds. This year, I discarded all my old feeders and found feeders that did not feature sitting surfaces. I think it is better for the birds to land and leave. Flat platforms gather moisture and breed pathogens. The new sunflower feeder has narrow wire perches and no way to sit among the seeds. I also feed with nyjer seed and that feeder also has no perches, just small holes where the birds can pull fresh seeds from the tube.
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We have a variety of birds at our feeders. I love the chickadees. They are greedy feeders, preferring the sunflower seed. They seem timid, landing only long enough to grab and go. But they often squabble with their own and other species.
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I also like the little nuthatches. This year we have both red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches. They feed happily together. The red-breasted nuthatches will store seed in tree crevices. I have seen them poke seeds under the shingles of our house!
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We also have a small group of blue jays who love sunflower seeds and various types of finches who go after the nyjer seed. I do not see the diversity of birds I saw thirty years ago when we first fed the birds here. I think some of that is due to the large number of bird feeders in our area.
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The birds I would love to see at our feeders are the Canada jays. Forty years ago when I was working on the draft of my thesis up in our attic rooms, the grey jays, also called whiskey jacks, would come and say hello and eat scraps from my hand. The other bird I have never seen at our feeders (or anywhere) is the cardinal. My husband has seen them in our grey woods, but I have yet to add a cardinal to my Life List.
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All my best.
Stay warm!
Jane
making November warm #4
Warm inside – warm all over!
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Various times in my life I have attended conferences or eaten in hotels where they have a tea caddy. Opening it is like opening a treasure chest. Perhaps you will find Earl Grey, or Orange Pekoe, or Camomile or Red Zinger. Happiness and warmth in a tea-bag!
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When I designed my kitchen, it was one of the first things I made for myself – a wooden box that opened to a wide selection of teas.
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I love coffee, but as a rule, when I am at home, it is a cup of tea I crave. I like a tea that is mild, a little sweet, with a nutty flavour. I love the fragrance of tea as it steeps and that tea occupies at least 2 of the senses, taste and smell. I also love the feeling of warmth from the inside-out. Tea is the perfect drink for November.
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There are rituals for making the perfect cup of tea, but my approach is simple. I start with cold water from our well, bring it to a boil, pour it into one of my favourite cups and then add the tea bag. I let it steep for 2 minutes and then remove the bag and add milk. No sugar in my tea.
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I use a special cup for my tea, one of those given to me by a friend over the years. She may recognize the cups she has gifted me and know who she is.
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So, if I am chilly this November, a cup of tea will make me warm.
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All my best!
I hope you’ll join me in drinking a cup of tea!
Jane
making November warm #3
One way to keep warm is to expend energy.
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The cold days are perfect for housekeeping projects. I am a collector and my house is overflowing. I am trying to downsize, make my world a little easier to navigate. During November, I want to attend to my kitchen, to return it to the beautiful space it was meant to be.
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A few years ago, we decided to open the wall of a closet to make a throughway between our bedroom and bathroom. To do this, the closet had to be emptied and all of the closet contents ended up in the kitchen!
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Our kitchen is quite large, 14′ by 14′. It has white cupboards with green knobs, faux-granite countertops and a grey faux-stone floor. As I did with other rooms in the house, I decorated the kitchen according to a theme. Strawberries! A thin decorative border of strawberries, leaves and berries, runs around the room about a foot from the ceiling.
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The curtains are white with tiny red dots. I have a ceramic cookie jar shaped like a strawberry and a set of vintage cans with the same motif.
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On the wall is a strawberry cross-stitch started by my grandmother and finished by me.
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The wooden top to my dish-washing machine is painted with strawberries and my dishes are mostly (you guessed it) strawberry themed.
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Sounds nice, right? Not so much. There are so many things crammed into the kitchen, you would be hard-pressed to name the theme!
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So part of my ‘keeping warm’ in November is to empty my kitchen of non-kitchen things.
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My process is:
Make a plan for the next day: identify the item to be removed;
Dust and clean the item;
Decide if it is to be kept, discarded or given to a second-hand charity;
Move it to the appropriate place.
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So far, I have tackled a large Coleman cooler, my suitcase collection and a tote filled with swimming pool supplies. It is hard for me to let go of things. The Coleman cooler was easy to give away: we have another, newer cooler. The suitcases were harder; they included a set my husband gave me when I traveled so much in the 1980s. In the end, I decided to let them go; I have a smaller, newer suitcase. The pool supplies were harder. We don’t have a pool, but they include a beautiful inflatable palm tree. Every woman needs a beautiful inflatable palm tree. The tote remains in the corner of the kitchen.
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Next I need to remove several items under the kitchen table. They include: the above-mentioned strawberry canister set; a tote of items collected for use at our camp; a set of plastic fruit that once belonged to my Mom. Any guesses which of these may be kept, discarded or given away????
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Cleaning the kitchen will work in two ways to warm November:
1. the activity will be warming as I expend energy
2. making the decisions about keeping, discarding or giving away will take so much thought,
I will forget all about being cold.
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All my best!
Stay warm!
Jane
working on a poetry manuscript
This week, I am assembling a new poetry book in the ‘a glimpse of…’ series. The first two books, a glimpse of water fall and a glimpse of dragon gave readers a peek at some of the beautiful waterfalls in New Brunswick and the bits of magic in all our lives. A glimpse of sickle moon will explore the seasons in New Brunswick. The manuscript won Third Place in the 2020 New Brunswick Writers’ Federation Competition for the Alfred G. Bailey Prize.
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The poetry book presents fifteen years of seasons, each presented as four poems about spring, summer, winter and fall. The poems about spring talk about floodwaters, under-story flowers and waking from hibernation. Summer poems tell about hurricanes, picking raspberries and sheep in the morning meadows. Fall poems explore first frost, wasp nests, fading flowers and ripening blackberries. And in winter–ice caves, snow drifts, walks in the falling snow and feeding birds.
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I have struggled with how to present these poems. I thought of making each suite of four represent a year in my own life and entitling the section 1978, 1980, 1996, 2012 and so on. I thought about titling each section as a special year–‘The Year of the Path,’ ‘The Year of the Groundhog,’ and so on. I have finally settled on a title drawn from a common theme in the four poems presented–‘paths through tangled woods,’ ‘where shadows meet,’ and ‘a sliver from full.’
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For the cover, I will create a painting of the crescent moon, seen through the branches of birch trees. The image below is a facsimile.
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All my best as you work on your own project.
Jane
Counting the days
I have a special Advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas. Each day during Advent, I hang one ‘ornament.’ The ornaments are made from plain cardstock, ribbon and various bits of decor — buttons, tiny baskets, brooches, earrings. We count down the days from the first Sunday in Advent (this year, November 28, 2021).
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To make these, I selected a shape I liked from the internet, used a fancy font to add the number of days (written out, but you could also use a number), printed and cut out the shape. Then, with a glue gun, I attached a bit of decor and used a hole punch to add ribbon for hanging.
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The ornaments can be hung from a small tree or branch, or from a dowel suspended from the ceiling. I hang our ornaments from an old fashioned clothes dryer I have attached to the wall.
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Enjoy the days leading up to Christmas. They can be hectic, but take the time to sit and think about the good things in your life.
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Take care in this time of pandemic.
Jane
a storm of birds
We are expecting major snowfall/freezing rain in the next couple of days. I think the birds must sense this because there is a veritable storm of birds at the feeders this morning.
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We have evening grosbeaks, a downy woodpecker, chickadees, nuthatches and mourning doves. By far the largest numbers are the redpolls and goldfinches. We also have red and grey squirrels, but they didn’t show up this morning.
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The birds fly in from our surrounding trees and feed for a while, coming and going. Then a dog barks or a car goes by and the whole flock leaves at once. Only a few brave grosbeaks cling to the feeder. Eventually, all the birds return and begin to feed.
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We keep the feeders full during the cold weather and feed with nyjer (thistle) seed and black-oil sunflower seeds.
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Watching the birds is lots of fun. Each species seems to have its own feeding-personality:
- the chickadees land, grab and leave as quickly as possible;
- the woodpeckers cling to the feeder and only leave when they’ve had their fill;
- the finches (redpolls and goldfinches) arrive as a flock and stay, to feed mostly on the fallen seed under the feeders;
- the grosbeaks, much bigger than the finches, mingle with them and hang on to the feeders even after other birds have been frightened away.
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Bird watching is a great way to spend time during these days of pandemic lockdown. Still haven’t seen my first cardinal! And this year I haven’t yet seen a purple finch, so common in previous years.
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All my best,
Jane
Coming Soon: New Title in the Kaye Eliot Mystery Series
Every afternoon, I spend some time working on reviewing/revising the proof of my new mystery in the Kaye Eliot Series. I have a cozy spot to work, in my big reading chair in front of the fireplace. Not hard to take a fanciful flight to Nova Scotia where the mystery unfolds.
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The new book focuses on stones of various types and the part they play in our history: gemstones, millstones, standing stones, building stones. It may take a while for readers to understand the title of the book: Land Between the Furrows.
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In each book, I include three illustrations. Here is one of the three: an old grist mill and its grind stones figure in the mystery. This drawing will be the basis for the painting featured on the book’s cover.
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In this book, Kaye finds a stack of very old postcards that tell the story of a missing stone. Kaye welcomes the chance to solve a puzzle with her kids but some of the visitors to the community make their sleuthing a little dangerous. Then the family discovers the ruin of an old stone house on an unexplored part of their property and finding the missing stone may be only part of their venture into history.
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Land Between the Furrows is planned for release on March 15, 2021. A perfect cozy mystery to enjoy during these long winter afternoons.
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All my best!
Jane
harvesting herbs
The colder nights have arrived and I have decided it is time to harvest my herbs.
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I have a lot of parsley in my deck garden. All summer, I have snacked every day on the leaves, loving the taste, the fresh air feeling that is the result.
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I enjoyed the harvest as well. With scissors, I cut the parsley leaves just below the branching of stems.
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I checked each set of leaves for bugs but the parsley is remarkably bug-free.
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I harvested into my colander, washed the leaves and set them to air-dry. Once the leaves are dry, I will load them into my drier, a Salton VitaPro. In a drying time of about three hours, I will have enough parsley for winter cooking.
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I have followed a similar process with my basil. Everything around me smells really good!!
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Hope you are enjoying your own produce if you are lucky enough to have a garden.
Enjoy your day.
Stay safe.
Do. Not. Get. Covid. Fatigue!
All my best,
Jane
creating my niche
create: 1: to bring into existence;
2a: to invest with a new form, office or rank;
2b: to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior;
3: cause or occasion;
4a: to produce through imaginative skill;
4b: design.
– Webster’s Dictionary
I am very interested in creative endeavors and I like being creative. I am happiest when I am writing, painting, drawing, sewing, weaving, knitting, and so on.
Although I best like to write, I find creative activities substitute for one another. For example, when I am not writing for an extended period of time, I am often embedded in some other activity, such as painting.
Weaving exemplifies the lure of my various creative undertakings. The producing requires knowledge and skill, and builds confidence. The process is enjoyable and time is made available for thought and concentration. The threads and fabrics are luxurious to the touch and the colors are bright and joyful. When I am finished a project, I am so proud of the resulting textile, I want to show the world.
My loom is a simple floor loom, 24 inch wide. I bought it at a country auction, about 20 years ago. My sister and I were among the stragglers at the auction, trying to outlast a heavy rain. In the corner we saw a bundle of varnished wood and some metal parts. “I think that’s a loom”, whispered my savvy sister. When the item came up for auction, there were few bidders remaining, and no one know just what ‘it’ was. At $25, it was a huge bargain.
My loom and I have not been steady company. It takes forever to install the warp threads, and sometimes weaving is hard on my back. But the fabrics we make together, my loom and I, are beautiful and comfortable and good for the soul.
What creative endeavors shape your niche space? What materials do you use and what do you love about them?
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yellow line
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the road is fabric
weave of asphalt
ditch and yellow line
warp of guard rail
fence and heddle
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trees in plantations
lines on the hayfield
shadows on road
hip and curve of the earth
weft as she turns in her sleep
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shuttle piloted
through landscape
and watershed
textile in folds
texture the yearn of the loom
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faults in the granite
potholes in pavement
rifts in the fabric
where weavers might falter
revisit work of earlier times
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learning the lesson
taught by the loom
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choose your weft wisely
balance color and texture
maintain your tension
fix mistakes as you go
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rest when your back hurts
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listen
to the whisper
of weave
of yellow line
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All my best,
staying at home, staying safe,
Jane Tims
the yellow line
a quilting story: lemons and lemonade
I am going to share the long, twisty story of my poppy quilt.
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First, I am not a great quilter, but I have made many quilts. To illustrate, a friend once asked if I was ‘basting’ the quilt together first. I was not; I just quilt with long, uneven stitches.
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The story begins last Christmas when I ordered, on-line, a draft-stopper made from a row of stuffed sheep. It was adorable, well-constructed and perfect.
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So this Christmas I decided a cute lap-quilt with a sheep motif would be nice for the easy chair near the draft-stopper. So I looked on-line and ordered this cute little quilt.
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Something went wrong with the order (I think I ordered from a knock-off site) and when the quilt arrived I was beyond disappointed. Someone had taken a photo of the above quilt or one like it, had it printed on rayon fabric and sewed the ‘quilt’ together with a machine stitch.
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Meanwhile, I was planning to make a small quilt for our bedroom which is decorated with a poppy motif. I had some of the fabric, left over from other projects. I looked on- line and found the perfect fabric, in ready-to-quilt 5″ by 5″ squares. 42 squares, just enough for my quilt. Disappointment number 2. The fabric, when it arrived was beautiful. But, only 8 of the 42 squares were in the poppy motif! Grrrrr.
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So I said, dang the price and sent for another 42 (that is 8) squares. Now I still had to purchase a padding for the quilt. Hmmm. I have that ugly sheep quilt.
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So I used the sheep quilt for the backing, sewing individual poppy squares over the sheep in rows. Very pretty although the colours are probably the result of my flower-child years.
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Once I had the top completed, I sent for some fabric to do the underside. The first order was cancelled because the fabric did not print correctly, but, frustration aside, the final fabric is soft and beautiful. You can see my ‘basting’ stitches if you look closely!
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Now I will do a wide band for the edges, this time in a bright California poppy fabric. My quilt will be colourful and warm, and, somewhere within the layers of fabric, sleep 25 ugly sheep!
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All my best and may your quilting projects be without frustration!
Jane
nichepoetryandprose 