Little Hearth & Large Room: April 2011

Monday, April 25, 2011

Weekly Rhythm - Down at the Pond

As part of our weekly rhythm, we've been making regular trips down to Rackham's Pond since the weather warmed up. It's a pleasant little walk over the hill and into the river valley. Today was gloriously warm and sunny, which made the trek even better. Signs of life were springing up all around or flying through the air. The clover is greening up the ground, and there are buds on the apple tree. We saw quite a lot of living creatures, including:

6 Canada Geese in the pond (4 adults and 2 little goslings)
1 black barn cat
1 osprey guarding its nest
1 robin
lots of blackbirds and sparrows
1 wriggly brown earthworm

If you look closely you can see all 6 geese.

The osprey flying from its nest to the nearest pine tree.

Arden kept pulling off her shoes and dropping one or the other as I carried her along the riverbank, and a couple times we had to go back and find a lost shoe, because I was too busy looking at the birds to notice when she dropped it! She played in the grass too, tasting some dried leaves and grass and grabbing at the clover. When I showed her the earthworm she was most excited at this new culinary prospect, but thankfully I'm still too quick for her!

There it is!

Mmm, dirt!

Looks good to eat, don't you think?

On the way back home we ate cheerios and stopped to chat with our neighbours, and thus ended the walk in a most satisfactory way.

Ok, these taste pretty good.

~lg

Easter Weekend

Hello friends and family! I thought you might like to see some pictures of Arden taken over the Easter weekend. It was a full weekend with worship at the Good Friday morning service, 2 presentations of By His Stripes (Friday night and Sunday morning), cleaning and shopping on Saturday, and worship Easter Sunday evening. Arden did well to sit through all the practices and services, getting passed around to various people while we were on stage, and generally staying in good spirits. Everyone comments on what a good baby she is, and I have to agree. :)

Here's Arden at East Side Mario's, where we had Easter Sunday dinner with the Bakers :) Arden had fresh bread and cheese cappelletti!

Arden in her Easter dress, found at the Children's Exchange. She's playing with her new wooden xylophone. She loves making music!

And some more pictures from Sunday afternoon playing with her bunnies and lamb.

Arden loves to play with her friend Davis at church! These were taken Sunday night during worship practice. They're learning to share toys.

$10 chair

On Saturday we took a trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and came back with this chair for only $10! The seat is cracked and it needs a little tightening up in the joints, but overall it's quite sturdy and in good shape. Isn't it nice? This is one step toward my dream of a big pine dining table surrounded by mismatched old chairs :)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

I'm joining in with the ladies over at Like Mother Like Daughter for this weekly feature, in which we post pictures that capture the contentment of every day life.

{pretty}

No flowers out yet in PEI! But this little bird is one of my pretty spring
decorations that I got while living in Georgetown, ON.

{happy}

A cup of tea in the morning does wonders for the spirits! Not quite as
good as coffee, but since I've given that up for Lent, tea will just have to do...

{funny}

Arden and I were both laughing as I tried to take a picture of her
while she was chasing me down!

{real}

Spring cleaning around the yard - and it doesn't feel like spring today!
We got a couple centimetres of snow last night. I found this old bottle the
other day among many other pieces of garbage around our property.
I think there's about 10 years' worth of bottles, plastic bags,
old batteries, random metal parts, and yes, even a kitchen sink that
needs to be cleaned up in our hedgerows!