Jahrzeit thoughts for Nooveya

Today it is a year since the sparkle that was Nooveya so suddenly left her family. The time of her absence has lasted almost as long as her presence.

While we are in these three-dee bodies we cannot know why she came and went. All we can do is wonder at life's mystery, accept the gifts that our lost loves left for us, and muddle through as best we can. LOVE does not die.

Nooveya was so intensely alive while she was with us. Seeing her pictures on Facebook was always a treat. The very best was a short video of Nooveya cheering on her brother as he was practicing soccer. I must have watched it half a dozen times, and it never failed to make me giggle.

Her sudden death affected many people beyond her family. I only met her once. Yet for some reason I only have to come across her picture unexpectedly to feel tears well up. Good tears. The kind that signals we have a heart that is alive. My crazy theory is that she came to open people's hearts.

We have put the video on Youtube. Link below.

Nooveya cheering Evrrdy

If Nooveya touched you, please pass along this link so she can continue to make people grin. If you have never met her, some of her mother's many pictures are here on a memorial blog. We call it Nooveya's song.

May her spark continue to kindle many hearts.

This beautiful card, with a small crystal in the heart/womb, is made by local artist Alexandra Krajewski, based on an original painting.  It is used here with permission.

Be careful what you ask for.

Fresh snow is falling and it looks pretty outside. Yesterday's weather was meh, to match my very non-Christmaslike mood.

I usually prefer counting my blessings, which are many, to dwelling on lacks. In matters both emotional and material, some people have more than I do but many have less.
But yesterday I couldn't stop feeling sorry for myself. The positive mind could not override the sadness of the hungry heart. The rational inner adult was powerless over the sniffling inner child. I wanted my family, waah!

We had planned a minimalist Christmas here. No gift exchanges or decorations, just a nice dinner with guests. I enjoy setting the table and cooking my brains out once in a while. For reasons that don't matter here those plans fell through just a few days before. Plan B was to go to town and join the community pot luck. By the time we decided to do that all the tables were booked.

We could have joined Rosie's family, which would have been fun and mutually beneficial. Except for the driving. They live 30 km South of here. Old Dutch is not allowed to drive in the dark until he has cataract surgery, and I truly loathe doing it in winter.

So we were home alone. BAH HUMBUG indeed.

To my surprise I experienced a bad case of holiday blues. The kids called for nice long chats and I had a good phone visit with my dear Linda. By the time the calls were over it was past three. The roast I had planned to slow-cook was still partly frozen and I felt too tired and weepy to cook. This is NOT my normal self. Reminder to self: if you plan to ignore the season, be consistent and do not bake cookies. I can never eat just one or two. Sugar contributes to weird moods. 

We did have a nice bottle of wine, enjoyed with appies and Dr. Who at 6.  Apart from the fact that I love scifi, and Dr. Who is a truly amazing mix of wild imagination, humour and depth, it is a way to connect with the offspring who are devoted Whovians.

Thank Earth it is over for another year.

That sweet dark heart of the year, and BAH HUMBUG!

Tomorrow will be the winter Solstice, the midway point between Halloween and Ground Hog day, the darkest three months of the year. Garden Guru Elliot Coleman calls this the Persephone months, when nothing grows.

I appreciate it as a time for rest. I love the break from the outdoor work. This is a time for reading, blogging, and playing in the kitchen. While I sleep more and have less energy than in the lighter months I am most emphatically not depressed. I am contentedly hibernating. By February there will be seedlings under grow lights and the busy growing cycle starts all over again. Why should  this treasured quiet time be devoted to frenzied partying and endless social obligations? BAH, HUMBUG!

There are people who are good at this whole decorating and prepping thing. I admire them and wish them well. It is just not my thing. I am clumsy and lack the designer gene. Of course we did the works when the children were home. But these days I  give myself permission to ignore the festivities and enjoy the season in my own low-key way.

Apart from writing a few cards, attending the neighbourhood potluck Solstice and hosting a few friends on the 25th I have completely disengaged from Christmas. The children live a day away. It gives me joy to know they spend this time together. There are excellent reasons why we do not get together at Christmas time, and I am completely fine with that. Who needs the stress of renting a car at peak rates and driving a long distance over snowy roads? I just wish people would stop asking me if they are coming or if we are going there. NO. This does not mean we do not love each other.

And just because, here are seasonal posts from years past.

http://freegreenliving.blogspot.ca/2007/12/rant-against-rudolf-red-nosed-reindeer.html

http://freegreenliving.blogspot.ca/2007/11/a-holiday-proposal.html

http://freegreenliving.blogspot.ca/2007/12/merry-christmas-from-taoist-pagan.html

http://freegreenliving.blogspot.ca/2011/12/how-our-dutch-family-got-into-english.html

Our daily muffin

By popular request, here is the recipe of my muffins. They are probably high calorie, one usually does me for breakfast. 
They are packed with good nutrition, delicious, and they keep well. They are also quite forgiving, I am not a strict measure kind of cook. This is my current favourite version.

They evolved as a way to use the pulp that is a by product of the daily juice. So if you use freshly grated carrots, squeeze out some moisture. 

Dry stuff: 
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour (I grind oatmeal in a coffee grinder)
2 tablespoons  flax seeds, freshly ground
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon or apple pie spices
1 teaspoon salt
a handful of raisins
a handful of sunflower seeds or chopped nuts, lightly dry-roasted.

Mix it all well. Have ready but don't add till just before you add the wet stuff: 1 1/2 cup apple in small pieces.

Wet stuff:
1 1/2 cup carrot pulp
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup yoghurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil. I use grape seed oil.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix all the dry stuff well, mix all the wet stuff well. Add apple to dry stuff, combine dry and wet, put in buttered muffin tins, bake at 350 or 375. check after 20 minutes. 

Makes 12.
Variations: use lemon zest instead of cinnamon, try frozen blueberries, red currants, raspberries or chopped rhubarb instead of apple and raisin. 

Update:
These days I mix a large batch of dry stuff minus the flax seeds and cinnamon and keep it handy in the fridge. I am more likely to make a batch that way. 

What to be when you grow up?

Some mid-thirty-something people dear to my heart have been struggling with that question lately. This post is for them.

I am no role model when it comes to making a career. On the contrary, I am more a warning example. On the other hand, I am one of the most contented people I know, which might give me some right to spout off in a more or less advisory tone.

I have no practical advice for anyone who has to make his/her way in this time. I feel lucky to be old enough to get a pension. But for whatever it is worth, here are my two cents on the topic of life and work.

In my 70 years on the planet (heehee, I love saying that) I never figured out what to be when I grew up. I have been educated, and I have earned a (frugal) living, but there was a total disconnect between the two. It has been a good life anyway.

Here is the funny thing: when a geology job for the husband took us to the Kootenays I got dragged here kicking and screaming. What was I going to do in the boondocks? Moving to deep country is honestly the best thing that has ever happened to me. I would never have chosen it, at least not at age 26. If we had gone later we would not have been able to buy land.

Moral of the story: the notion of deliberate life planning is overrated. As John Lennon so brilliantly put it: "Life is what happens while you are making other plans." Granted, zooming in on a goal like a straight arrow works for some people. 
But for many of us it does not. The reasons can be personal or linked to forces beyond our control, or a combination. 

The cliche from the time when people could afford midlife crises was this. They had climbed the career ladder only to find it was leaning against the wrong building. After which discovery they ran off to Big Sur to frolic in hot pools with other free spirits, cheered on by the gurus of the day, and never mind the mortgage or the kids. Blogs on the topic of duty are brewing.

To stretch the metaphor: These days it is just as likely that one is halfway up the ladder when the building collapses, or the entire ladder is yanked away. After which the survivors are being told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Yeah, right.

This is a time of potential collapse and certain transition. Yesterday's certainties are gone. It is not easy to figure out for which part of your fate you are personally responsible, and what is just the luck of the collective draw. 

Work is important, of course. Apart from the need to survive, humans don't do well with idleness. But as a core around which to organize a life, paid work is only one factor. Family or other relationships, an artistic talent, a place, social activism, all these can be the centre around which the rest falls into place, with work just being the thing that makes the rest possible. 

If your problem is of the ladder against the wrong building kind, think of life as a novel. Most writers will talk about books that took years of effort and never saw the light of day. Nevertheless, the process of writing them was essential to the birth of the book that made it. Past investment in training is never entirely wasted. You know what you know. 
Your past has made you into who you are now. Regret nothing and move on.

Again, I have no advice on how to cope in today's economic waste land. But I do know this: answers to the question: "And what do you do?" should not be limited to one's profession. 

If you can get paid for doing what you love, great. If you have to separate the two, so what. This economic system is not sane. It is stark raving bonkers and able to kill our Earth. Your ability or lack thereof to function in it should not determine your sense of who you are.

You have passions and talents that can make a contribution to the world. In between looking for paid work, get out there and use them. Stay open. Work with others. Good luck and godspeed.

A brief getaway in Flat Cloud season. Into fog and out and in again.

We were overdue for a little excursion. Alas, the days of long trips with our beloved motor home are over. We had wonderful times with it, but it is enjoying its retirement as guest cabin. 

Why wait till the days are short? My bad. When the days were long I was so busy and happy in the gardens I didn't feel like going anywhere. Old Dutch kindly indulged my obsession.
With the gardens mainly done and the forecast promising another week of sunshine I finally felt the itch.

Sunshine my foot. I should have known better. The weather has been stagnating, which means low cloud and fog at this time of year. Click on link for illustration. As usual, Nakusp gets it first and worst. We had some beautiful days last week, with the birches turning and the bracken gold on the land.

Friday it took the valley cloud to mid afternoon to lift. Saturday the sun valiantly tried to break through around 3, but failed to make it. That was it for sun in and around Nakusp until the weather changes.

We left Sunday morning in thick fog. It has hung on till now, Friday. Knowing it might be better elsewhere we left anyway. Sure enough, the mountain tops were visible on the East-West road between New Denver and Kaslo. 

We took the ferry across Kootenay Lake, always a treat. It was sunny there, where the lake is widest. Later there was some cloud, but with a beautiful silvery light. We stopped at a viewpoint to take pictures. 

Below, the same place facing South.

The most logical stop for the night was Creston. We waved a nostalgic greeting to the pull-out that was our first overnight stop on several motor home trips. It is just past the gas station, before you get to Creston, overlooking the valley. 
We had time to kill and drove some dirt roads through the plain. In geological terms this place just stopped being a lake yesterday. It is as flat as Holland, but surrounded by mountains.

 This part of the valley is vital to locavores: it is the only major grain producing area in the Kootenays. 

We lucked onto a nice cheap motel at the edge of downtown. Dinner was a Chinese smorg a block away. Even mediocre Chinese is redeemed by a choice of crisp vegetable dishes. 
To top the day, we had noticed a movie theater featuring "Gravity". We had no idea what it was about, but the kids had been making a fuss of it, so in we went. It was worth it for the many views of Earth from space, so different on a big screen! All in all a good day.

The plan from here was a loop East to Cranbrook, then on to Radium Hot Springs, North to Golden and back home. Not an epic journey, just a brief getaway. We pass the turnoff to Radium so often on our trips to Calgary. It is a beautiful wide valley and we had not traveled it for years.
We expected the day to start in low cloud or fog, and so it was.

 We also expected to see clearing as we approached Cranbrook, and so it was. See the cloud against the mountain in the background.
We had not counted on returning low cloud. Boring!

 The Moyie river, cause of the fog, was barely visible at times.

I lost track of when we finally emerged into sunshine, but never mind that. Chris had noticed an interesting side road between Skookumchuk and Canal Flats. You just have to love those names. Driving this road, to White Swan provincial park, was the highlight of the outing. We climbed up into a world of blue sky, golden trees and wide mountain views.

The trees were peaking, that stage where you expect to see them glow in the dark.

 One more for good measure. It was glorious! Most of the road is a well maintained gravel road. 

The main map makes no mention of it, but the special map on geological features showed Lusier Hot Springs. It consists of a series of shallow natural rock pools right next to the river.  Access is free. There is a parking place and an easy walkway down to it, but no change facilities.To our surprise it was quite busy!

We had brought our hot springs gear down, but chickened out at the prospect of the cold, barefoot trip over the rocks into the pools.  On to civilized Fairmont we went, after a quick peek at the campground by Alces lake.

We are picky about hot springs. Fairmont has one large pool that was too cold when we first came in. I thought it was meant for swimming, like the large pool at the lower level of Halcyon Hot Springs that is only open in summer. It is on the left below. It warmed up later. The pool on the right had a nice temperature for soaking, a bit warmer than the large pool in Nakusp. It was shallow, like our hot one that I never go into. I felt like,"where's the water?"

Later the larger pool warmed up, it turned out to be the main pool. The shallow one was what passed for hot locally. 

I am not dissing this resort, it has beautiful grounds and great views.

But I still like the temperatures in our own Nakusp Hot Springs best of all.

A few km up the mountain is Fairmont Lodge and ski resort.

 The lodge looks like a pleasant intimate place to stay. 

We were hoping for views of the Columbia valley on the way down, but they were both rare and too hazy. This one was near the ski resort.

This one was on the way down from Fairmont Hot Springs. 

That's our own Columbia down there, here interspersed with smallish lakes and swamps.

We spent the night in the Best Western hotel in Invermere, with beer and home-made pizza in the bar. A decent hot breakfast in a pleasant coffee shop was included the next day.

We had expected low cloud the next morning, but not this much for this long. 

We had been looking forward to the stretch from Radium to Golden, but it was a total foggy loss. Next, a chilly stroll through downtown Golden. It will be a nice place to visit on future breaks on the way to or from Calgary, so much better than that horrid fast-food strip along the highway.

Above, path and foot bridge over the Kicking Horse river. Below, mural at the aboriginal cultural center.

After lunch it was still foggy, disgusting. It must have been close to an hour past Golden before we finally broke into blue sky and the usual mountain splendor. 

It didn't last long. Well before the descent into Revelstoke we saw the first sign of impending gloom creeping towards us.

The road took us underneath it and that was it. Goodbye sun, goodbye sky, only the weather gods know when we will be allowed a glimpse again.

Above: Almost home, the road South of the ferry.

It has been like this for days. We are either inside the valley cloud or just below it. I am getting cranky. Honest rain is one thing, stagnant spoiled good weather always makes me feel cheated. I used to think I might eventually leave Nakusp for this reason alone, but the place is too much home now. Maybe I should investigate a SAD lamp. 

A Marxist morning

It is a Marxist morning.
No, I am not about to storm a mansion or give away my own beloved acreage.
I am merely trying to live up to an ideal stated by good old Karl. It holds such common sense that many USA citizens believe it to be part of their constitution.

"To each according to her needs, from each according to her ability."

Since my old age is funded entirely by the public purse, I feel obliged to make such contributions as I can. I lack the martyr gene, so this happens within the boundaries of a pleasant relaxed life.  
Any community has people who need more care than 'the system' can provide. Quite frankly, my own appetite for direct care giving is limited to two afternoons a week. I like being home.
But without stress I can offer some heroic care givers free reflexology and/or Reiki sessions. One of each coming up this morning. It just might be sunny this afternoon, and we will be free to play in the gardens.
Tomorrow, some volunteering in the afternoon and a paying client in the evening.

It is a good balanced life. 

A tribute to my brother, on his birthday.

My oldest brother had a birthday today. It is a Sunday, and over there it was a beautiful blue day, just like it was the day he was born. We have another brother and had a sister, but they were 8 years younger. Jaap, three years my junior, was the companion of my childhood, the one with who I share both the most memories and a gentle sibling rivalry. I always resented it when a fuss was made over him being a Sunday child, as if the accident of birth was a merit.

By the way, the haircut illustrates nicely why I get a light perm every few months. But, as I say so often, that is another topic. One of these days I have to do a blog on hair. 

Jacobus Johan van der Hout was named after his paternal grandfather. He weighed in at over 9 pounds, and was by all accounts a happy baby who did not cry much but made contented noises in his pretty cradle. More sibling rivalry: the smug mention of this always irked his older sister who was reported to have screamed a lot. Easy for him, born in peace time to a mother who was not a nervous war time wreck! Three weeks after my birth the house we lived in had been confiscated for billeting German soldiers. 

I started writing about our common childhood, but it was too much about me, not Jaap. We'll keep those memories for another time. 

Jaap had much more intitiative than I did. As a little boy, around age 6,  he and a buddy used to ignore parental warnings and play on a wharf in the Westland gracht, a canal a few blocks away from home. The city ended there in those days. This picture came from the Facebook page Nostalgisch Amsterdam.

These expeditions might take place on Sunday morning while he was supposed to be at Sunday school. Smart boy. The pull of the water turned into a life-long love affair with boats. These days Drascombe longboat "Danser" is moored across from the house. Below, Danser in the canal on the way to open water and being enjoyed by a visiting friend.

How little does success in school predict success later in life! Jaap was a dreamer who struggled a bit. To make things worse we had the same teachers, who made remarks about him not being as smart as his big sister. Great psychology, teachers. I had been 'good in school', thanks to the way school back then was structured. I loved learning and had a good memory. Take in and regurgitate, easy peasy and no measure for the ability to make one's way in the world. 

When it came time to pick post-elementary schools Jaap was sent to the easiest possible academic type, where he failed. The best part of this school was the location: close to Amsterdam's famous Stedelijk Museum, a Mecca of modern art. He used to visit it during his lunch hour. The doormen knew him as a frequent visitor. How many 12 year old boys do we know doing that? 

Next stop: vocational school, where he was completely out of place among the rough boys destined for life in a factory or work place. Salvation came from a math teacher who took him under his wing. Jaap went from one technical type school to the next, and ended up first as a draftsman, then as a professional architect and city planner. Not bad for a kid who had trouble learning!

Jaap's work is characterized by a brilliant talent for playfully harmonizing the new and modern with the old and traditional, always with an eye on creating livable space for people. 

Above, part of a project in Zaandam. This city head-hunted him to help revitalize the downtown core. 

On July 7 1972 Jaap married the love of his life, Marielle Beck. They celebrated 4o last year with a smashing party.

They are a fantastic couple. Marielle is the oldest of a tight-knit clan that ended up in the same town. They remained childless, but as godparents, aunt/uncle and honorary grandparents they have enriched the lives of many children and continue to do so. 

They are also the loving rock whenever anyone in the extended family needs care.

The year 2012 was supposed to be the start of retirement bliss. Instead they looked after one sister who was dying of lung cancer, while one on the other side was being treated with a bone marrow transplant. Ever creative, the couple transformed themselves into the CliniClowns for visits to Marielle's sister.

Not only did my kid brother become a successful professional and all-around good human being, he is also a gourmet cook, an active member of community organizations, and plays around in the arts. 

And did I mention that they have friends all over the world, thanks to the years they were part of  folk dance group Het Duivelspaard, and are amazing hosts? 

Bro, it is an honour to be your sister. Good luck and godspeed in your 68th turn around the sun.

Pictures for this blog were partly pilfered from Jaap's FB page.

Saving pictures: safety in redundancy!

I am guilty of photo mismanagement. Old pictures are precious, especially the ones of people. 

When the children were small, in pre-digital days, I used to send the nicest pictures to the relatives in the Netherlands right away, and did not always get around to have them duplicated. Remember the frustration of peering at negatives to select the best ones for reprinting? I thought my well organized mother would keep the memories safe. I had not taken senility into account. As for the albums we did have, and the negatives, they were partly stored in the attic in the old log house and ignored for years. Many fell victim to moisture and mice.

Come the digital age. Once upon a time, there was the Multiply Auto-uploader. Every photo in this computer was automatically stored in the Cloud. As any good atheist will tell you, do not put your faith in Heaven.

Multiply folded, taking its albums with it. They did give us plenty of notice. I had always duplicated my blogs to Blogger in a half-hearted way. Why? Oh yes, I wanted to have some separate blogs with commercial content. Time was spent making sure everything was in Blogspot, but with some mistakes: when Multiply finally closed its doors for good, some images in old blogs disappeared as well. 

A memory stick with all pictures on it got damaged and is no longer readable. Some time in 2011 I cleared out the computer. Photos in the gallery go back no further than early 2011. Where, oh where did the pictures of our wonderful RV trip to Oregon in 2009 go? Thank goodness: during the cleanup I had created a DVD with everything. Now to upload those contents to Facebook AND Picassa AND a mobile hard drive, all this before we move to the new computer. It is a sleek beauty and an ergonomic joy, but lacks an optical drive.

Meanwhile I stayed up till midnight last night fixing the blogged records of the Oregon trip. It was our best RV trip, almost the last, sniffle. Both the vehicle and the driver are getting too old, though the driver would protest this statement. The Thing gave us 7 years of great pleasure and we still enjoy it as extra living space.

Just to create one more layer of redundancy: one of these days I want to turn our travel blogs into a printed book. 
The Oregon trip starts here: http://freegreenliving.blogspot.ca/2010/11/trip-to-washington-and-oregon-october.html

Computers and jaguars

The little Acer Extensa 4630Z that I am typing this on is starting to fail, after more than 4 years of faithful service, many hours a day. It got serviced once, when the cursor froze and stayed frozen. It has done the same thing again and more frequently, but a restart gets things moving again. However, it has now stopped acknowledging its USB ports. That's it, time for a replacement. NOW. 

OMG! The choices! The dilemmas! Back in 2009 it was easy: get the cheapest and be done. Right now I still have a bit of money in the bank, so if I really want to I could get a higher end model. 
I love computers, even though my own use of them is quite basic. Email, social media, the odd youtube, blog, organize photos, listen to podcasts. 

No designing, no office work, no gaming, no downloading movies, rarely downloading music. The Extensa has been perfectly adequate.  

I am considering a $369 machine that has twice the RAM and hard drive of my present one, which I got for $450 in 2009. The price of bread keeps going up, but the circus is getting cheaper. Why not just get it? It is all I need.

It just occurs to me: I love computers the way some people love cars. A Honda civic may get them through life just fine, that doesn't stop them from drooling over a Jaguar.
I drool over my son's Macbook Air. I go "aaaww..." at the sight of tiny netbooks. 

Is that enough reason to splurge on an ultra book, instead of a regular laptop? I'll get back to researching and agonizing.
___________________________________________
A day later. Thinking out loud here. This is for personal use, boring, don't bother reading. 

I am nowhere near a final choice, but I decided on a medium splurge. This is something I use daily, especially in the cool seasons. If an extra $300/400 makes me smile every time I pick it up over the next 3 or 4 years, that's a lot of pleasure for $ 2 a week. We are not talking top of the line, just middle instead of lowest.

I am getting a lot of help from this buyer guide. 

When reading reviews, know what is important to you.

I type with 4 fingers, so who cares if the reviewer gets 52 words per minute instead of 63? However, the quality of the touch pad is super important. I don't do mice. Some Asus machines were nixed because that was their weak spot. I might get a touch screen or not, though the thought of swiping a vertical surface does not appeal. But with Windows 8 becoming the new normal  the quality of the touch pad becomes even more vital. 

Display: I waste enough time on the net without gaming, regular is good enough. There are no roommates on the couch wanting to share, so viewing angles also don't matter.

Weight: The laptop will be exactly that. It will be moved from room to room, but will not be carried in a backpack to office or campus. The Extensa has a 14 inch screen. I really like that size, though I am not wedded to it.

Battery life: since we stay at home anyway, it doesn't matter much. This faithful beastie has no battery life at all. 

Design. While colour will certainly not be the defining factor I love Gerda's remark below about the car that was the wrong colour.  Brushed aluminum makes me smile.

Optical drives are getting hard to find. We have pictures on CD/DVD that never got uploaded to the net yet. 
On the other hand, I can use the old machine to do that.

I can't believe how much time I have wasted on the search for the perfect compromise. Apart from cooking a good lunch, being an ear for a friend on the phone and vacuuming the living room this is all I have done all day. Time to end the agony.

I ended up ordering a silver 14 inch touch screen HP sleekbook for $599.

P.S. This whole episode has been a perfect illustration of the Paradox of Choice. 

July, where did you go? Emerging from life in the construction zone.

I have not blogged lately, or visited friends' blogs. life has been too chaotic. Things are settling down now, and I even found the camera. 
Apart from it being garden and visitor season, we are just emerging from life in a construction zone. 

Home on our ten acres of paradise is a mobile home AKA trailer, built AD 1976, bought by us in excellent shape in 1987. It is 14 foot wide and has an equally wide addition consisting of a  third bedroom and a covered deck. I like the lay-out, with a bright living room at one end and bedrooms and bathroom to the other side of the kitchen.  Some trailers have the living room in the middle, where it becomes more like a corridor than a room. I hate those. 

The dwelling is entirely sufficient for our needs and I quite like it. There are reasons we ended up in it instead of in the owner-built log home, but never mind those now. I have to guard against what we might call Leda's Egg Syndrome*, wanting to fill in too much back story.

Any building needs maintenance, including old trailers. The key to make trailers last in snow country is a sound free-standing roof over the whole thing. We finally got one of those in 2008. Much trouble and expense could have been saved by doing it twenty years sooner.

We had a few half-baked repairs to shore up the place in the past, but we knew there were serious problems. We crossed our fingers hoping for the best. Trailers are not built to last centuries, but neither are we.

To make a long story short, thanks to the legacy of my dear frugal sister we finally had a thorough job done by professionals who specialize in restoring old trailers. It took a large chunk of the windfall, but we now have a structurally sound dwelling, supposedly good  for another twenty years. Which is most likely longer than we are good for. This new ceiling will not come crashing down around our ears.

The whole process, including inevitable delays and complications, took a full month. During that time the deck was full of tools and supplies. Even when the crew was away it did not feel inviting. So much for my summer living room.

The yard was littered with piles of refuse and building materials, and our stuff was piled in the reflexology room while the bedrooms got done. The crew was a great combination of youth and experience, and respectful of working around our living space.

The pile above was on the side. The stuff on the lawn prevented a badly needed mow to add to the general sense of grubbiness.

Most of that time our cat went in hiding during the day. During a rare visit she fell in love with a micro fiber dish cloth. She treated it like catnip. Go figure.

For good measure the grandson is here half the week for the summer, and would you believe this was the time my dear friend Linda could finally visit for a week? She has had a standing invitation since February. 

Linda is the only person I could imagine hosting in those conditions. "I'll just fold myself into a corner" said she, as she came bearing gifts of cake and a giant lasagna.

Linda's daughter Chandra took this picture of us on the way back from an impromptu visit to the old house that Linda and her first partner John built back in the seventies.  This is the house featured in this memory  of the old off-grid times.

The present inhabitant was kind enough to let us in and show us around. The place has been lovingly restored and even improved upon. The old core is rock solid and still there. As Linda remarked: "I carried every one of those logs!" It was a bittersweet moment. Sad that she lost it, but pleased to know that the house she built is still there and is loved. To us, it will always be John and Linda's house, haunted by good memories of neighbourhood parties lit by oil lamps, with our slumbering toddlers tucked away in corners while the adults hung out.

Neighbour/Friend Beverley, who was our rock last summer, gave a party at her house on July 21, the day I turned 70. It was wonderful, and what a contrast with last year! In 2012 this was the first day post-colon surgery. 

The next evening a new friend organized a full moon paddle on the lake in a borrowed canoe that was pure magic.

The summer is flying by too fast. The weather was glorious all month, with 2 good rains in between endless sunshine. I got all dressed in red and white for Canada Day. Somehow I felt slimmer and prettier than this picture shows.

In a way I feel as if that wonderful sunny July was wasted. There were no days when we had neither builders nor grandson. In the past the kid and I would go to the beach, but a self-conscious teen has other desires. While I can relate, I missed my beach time and my pleasant yard. Not complaining, just stating. The construction work benefited from the good weather, and I certainly got more summer joy than the average cubicle dweller or than my house-bound friend Rosie. The overall feeling has been gratitude, but still.

The builders left for the last time Friday August 2, just in time for the planned visit from our nephew and family from Alberta the next day. I love those people. We so enjoy having family in the country apart from the ones I gave birth to! Linda's lasagna in the freezer came in handy to feed the crowd. The girls are now 9 and 10 and had a great time torturing their 15-year old second cousin. Tim took this picture of our Catan game on the last morning. Keevan even got up for it, at the for him ungodly hour of 9 AM.

 Things quieted down after that. The weather has changed from clear dry heat to muggy, with a constant threat/promise of thunder showers. We had one much-needed rain but need more. I am still reorganizing all the displaced stuff. The kids are coming over for a few days at the end of this week. I am looking forward to the visit, and to devoting undivided energy to the gardens afterwards. We have garlic. Life is good.

*Homer was praised for not starting the Iliad with the egg from which Helen of Troy had emerged. In case you're wondering, the egg resulted from the rape of Leda by Zeus in the guise of a swan. See what I mean?