photo shoot antics

My friend Danielle is a budding photographer so for Christmas last year, she gave me a free photo shoot. It could be anything I wanted so I decided to capture the magic house. She was excited as she had never done an interior/architecture shoot before. We had a great time staging and trying different lighting techniques.

Here are shots of her in action:

All the photos below are compliments of Danielle.

 

 

The women

This post has nothing really to do with the magic house so please indulge me.

For the past couple of years, I have been thinking a lot about the women who came before me...the feminine heritage. So often family history is patriarchal and almost dismisses the women who played such an important role.

Whenever I am in Toronto, I have this uncanny feeling of walking with the women of my family. Not sure how to really describe it but I almost feel their presence. I often ask my Grandma for stories about her mother and grandmother but it is getting hard to gather them. I wish I thought to ask about the stories years ago. However, I was lucky enough to borrow a photo album with pictures of these women. I want to name them so the world knows they had value and contributed so much to those in their lives. In fact, who they were/are has influenced much of who I am today.

Mertie Chase - My great great grandmother

I love her name...it is so strong. I don't know much about her but what I do know about her is that she was kind and would care for my grandma and siblings when they were young. My grandma's family was not well off financially but Mertie would bring fruit and candy as a treat. She was beloved by my grandma. Mertie was born in the USA and I am not sure how she ended up settling in the Toronto area but I am assuming she had an adventurous spirit to move away from her family.


Ethel Chase Scadding - My great grandmother

I was once told by my grandma's former boyfriend that I reminded him of my great-grandmother. I took that as a compliment (I think I was about 10 at the time). Since then, I have learned about her compassionate heart. She took in numerous foster children throughout the years. She was also ingenious and often had to figure out how make do with very little. Her husband was ill for many years so she really held the family together. She loved to read as well.


Ethel Scadding Light - My grandmother

My dear grandmother...what can I say? I feel an affinity with her. She was a career girl and didn't get married until her 30's. Then she moved from Toronto to the middle of the Saskatchewan prairies. She had a tough time in her marriage but she faced her life with grace, humour and a love for reading and poetry. She held onto her faith during the hard times and raised four amazing children. After her husband died, she embraced life and continued to travel.


Marilyn Light Bateman - My mother

My dear mom means the world to me. She taught me that the definition of family is far bigger than those you are related to by blood. She led by example of loving people no matter what...even those that are not also easy to love. She always had extra food and chairs for Sunday dinner and that guests should be treated with the nice towels and a clean space to rest their head. Since retiring, she has traveled to Haiti and Guatemala to serve those who need her healing touch. She lives with great love and grace.

 These women opened their homes and hearts and hands to those they encountered in life. Perhaps the connection to my magic house is that I use it to provide a place of love for those I encounter. It is humbling to come from this lineage and my hope is that I live with the strength, grace and love they demonstrated in their lives.

The chair

My skill at procrastination is undeniable. More than two years ago, I bought a chair from a great antique shop in Nanton. However, the chair required some TLC. The chair sat with a blanket over it for quite a while. In September, I moved it downstairs to the studio to start the re-upholster project. But as you know, it is now November and I finally started the project.

Here is the step-by-step disassembling of the chair.

The Chair...faded and stained fabric...it must go

the first panel is removed

you can totally see the fading of the color.
The original was a deep emerald green

The first indication that the chair was stuffed with straw. Yes, I said straw!

The straw!

The nearly completed disassembly

My next steps for the reuphostering (which I hope to complete in the next decade) will be re-finishing the wood and make the frame a bit more stable. Then I will attempt to reupholster the chair. I have never done this before. It could get interesting.

I picked up a couple metres of dark brown material from IKEA recently. I hope it will work with the chair. I kept the fabric I pulled off the chair to use as a pattern. Let's cross our fingers and see if I can make some furniture magic happen. Stay tuned!

Ridiculous Inconsistency

Okay, #fail! Completely. I have not updated at all this summer. It isn't as though I haven't been busy but rather there is nothing really blog worthy.

My garden had a great summer and I am learning more each day. For example, the previous owners called it a natural garden with native plants but that seems to mean weeds. And not the good kind...the invasive and spread by deep roots kind. So for the last month, I have been turning the soil to eradicate some of the weeds so I can actually find out what perinnials are in the garden. In total, I pulled more than 18 bags of weeds. It was ridiculous but now I know what is in the garden and can plan for summer 2013 accordingly. I even measured my garden space...just call me Martha Stewart. Now all I need is a hot gardener to do the weeding next year so I can just enjoy the garden sipping wine in the sunshine.

Everywhere you see bare dirt in the above pictures was once covered in weeds. Unbelievable! I am slowly "taming" the jungle that is my garden.

In addition to the crazy weeding adventure, my hollyhocks developed a rust fungus and my raspberries also appear to be fighting something...perhaps a fungus (online wasn't much help - but fungus is as close as it gets). As much as I want to have organic/natural garden, there really wasn't an organic option that would truly rid the plants of this fungi. So I battled it with a fungus spray.

I am pleased to report that the rust fungus is almost gone on the hollyhocks but the raspberries are still suffering.

In other news, my apple tree is still battling on despite the fireblight and I was able to harvest a bucket of apples. They are quite good and I just made a pie today out of them.

My raised vegetable garden also produced some great food. Beets, carrots, potatoes and lots of greens. The peas and beans were mediocre and the onions/leeks are still growing. My zucchini was a failure producing only two zucchini in total. I thought zucchini was like a weed here...I guess not. My herbs also grew well.

 

Now my tomatoes are having a stellar year. The cherry ones are turning red and I am harvesting a handful each week. My roma ones are nice and big and GREEN still. I will have to harvest them this week due to frost potential.

Well, summer is officially over as per the date on the calendar but it is still getting to mid-20's during the day so hopefully it will continue for a while long. As pretty as the autumn colors are, I just love summer most of all and am always a wee bit sad when the season changes. Enjoy the remaining warm days while you can.

i made this

Feeling really proud of myself right now. Considering I have never used a power saw before in my life, I managed to make a raised vegetable garden bed out of the copious amounts of scrap wood hanging out in my garage/treasure bin.
Yes, I made this...watch out world, this could be the beginning of something amazing.

a lovely week off

I think I may have been more excited about this upcoming week off than my trip to Paris in April...and I was pretty thrilled about that break. Sometimes it is just nice to take a stay-cation where you can mark a bunch of things of the to-do list or just revel in the fact there is no big rush to be anywhere. During this week, I hope to complete a number of the garden to-do's, take in an afternoon at the spa (hello hot stone massage therapy), clean the front porch, finish up some sewing projects and read a couple of books (Half Blood Blues and Imagine).

But realizing that I haven't updated my blog since April...it is time to give a bit of a quick update.

I have decided to try my hand at square foot gardening this year. It requires some great soil, a raised bed and planning. I downloaded a great app that helps you plan. The app is from Mother Earth News and provides all sorts of great gardening advice with your growing zone in mind. I hope to have everything planted by the end of the week.

Above is a screen shot of my garden plan in the works...I am still moving things around and it will probably change depending on how well my plants acclimatize and adjust to the new veg garden...the seeds are popping up quite nicely in the sun room but real life in the Calgary weather is the true test.

some of my seedlings...

The other sign of summer is the arrival of local tomatoes at the Farmers Market. I particularly enjoy the tomatoes from Gull Valley greenhouses in central Alberta. Yum and no pesticides! And with those lovely tomatoes, I make my (er, Jamie Oliver's) Mothership Tomato Salad. I think I blog about this recipe every summer but it is so good and simple and delicious and fabulous. It may be my all time favorite food...but the trick is to have the farmers market tomatoes that have great flavour.

Step 1: enjoy how pretty the tomatoes are

Step 2: cut up, salt and let it sit

 

Step 3: Add oil, vinegar, seasoning

Step 4: Enjoy

Now for a present day shot of the gardening...I will share what it will look like at the end of this week after some to-do's are done. During the summer, I will post progress pics so you can see how the jungle garden grows. 

Long view of the garden.

Will add these patio lights to above my deck and patio...can't wait. I hope it looks as good in real life as it does in my mind

a new path? testing it out

Some annuals (and some new perennials) I bought for the garden

 Now for the reveal of the other side of the studio/guest room. I finally finished the floor and organized my studio. It is now a space I want to spend time in. The guest room greeted its first official guest this past week. I am thrilled with the look although there are still some major things I will eventually do like walls, ceilings, etc...but who needs those right now!

Looking into the studio from the guest bed area

Looking back to the guest room from the studio

Another wider shot of the studio

 Okay, I gotta run. My rhubarb raspberry blueberry crisp is almost done. Just trying to clear out the freezer of last year's fruit to make space for the upcoming harvest. My rhubarb is almost ready for picking. Yummo! Enjoy the Victoria Day long weekend! Hope it is relaxing.