A "Soup" Kind of Day!

Yesterday was ALMOST warm ... warmer than last week - but not quite spring...

Terry was lying low with a cold...

A perfect day for making my favourite chunky vegetable bean soup! I like to make a large pot - so there's lots for another day.

Thinking About ... Family

Today is "Family Day" in Ontario. It's a relatively new holiday - that came into effect for a few weeks AFTER I retired!

I recently came across this picture of Terry's father as a child - in a family picture that includes Terry's grandfather, Donald, his grandmother, Olive Ruth, and Terry's uncle (his father's younger brother) also named Donald.

The only one in this group that I ever met was Terry's grandmother - who attended our wedding. For a while, we all lived in Montreal - so we would see each other regularly. Our children all met "Nan Hutchins" when they were very young.

It's a beautiful family photo, probably taken in the early 1930's.

That's a First!!

Have we had more snow than usual this year?!

City workers have kept busy clearing our roads. 

Our neighbour, Mary, filled us in on something Terry and I missed the other day...

You missed the excitement again.  We were coming up our street and noticed a truck appeared to be parked in the middle of the road at our end of the street.  

As we got closer we noticed that a dump truck was partially parked in our neighbour's driveway and there was a backhoe removing snow at the dead end part of the street.

In our forty years of living here, I have never seen them remove snow from our end of the street. 

Kim noted that she now won't have to climb a mountain to walk through the field to get to work.

That is a first! 

I remember one winter, when the college first purchased the elementary school property that had been next door to us and closed off the road with large boulders. Our street was no longer the point of entry into a school yard, so we lost our special status for early snow removal. 

But they forgot to put us on another snow removal roster - so our end of the street had NO snow removal at all until we complained to our counsellor!

That was frustrating! 

I wonder if this year the city was worried about losing access to the fire hydrant if snow got any higher. Or maybe they were concerned about spring flooding.

Whatever the reason, glad someone is looking out!

Follow Your Heart!

I thought my grandkids might enjoy these cute Valentines...

When I gave them to Jericho, he immediately started to assemble them. The creator's idea was to have each pair of paws hold a heart-shaped eraser, like the cat is doing on the right. Great idea!

But in Jericho's imagination, the sticky paws could do much more. The animals could dance! 

Give hugs! Toss each other up in the air! (Didn't get a picture of that one!)

Jericho's Valentines had much more life - "joie de vivre" -  without instructions! 

That's it! Follow your heart! Instructions are just suggestions! 

New Neighbours?!

After our last snow fall, I noticed a tiny path in the snow - between our neighbour's cedars and our wooden shed...

Do we have new neighbours? 

Mice? Rats? Chipmunks perhaps? 

Not an animal that hops. One that burrows, or so it seems to me. And the burrowing path stops at the base of our shed!

A skunk once lived under that shed. It would let off warning whiffs from time to time. After it left, Terry wired up all entry spaces... or so he thought!

But those tracks... Tracks in the snow don't tell a lie! I think we have new neighbours!

Craving Colour

These days, I'm craving colour...

Small tasks - like organizing my coloured pencils - give me great satisfaction.

And I'm inspired to work on a bright, bold, colourful quilt! Haven't started it though. Still gathering ideas!

Morning Entertainment

These snowy grey mornings...

I'm entertained by the antics of squirrels!