Summer Fun & Festivities

[No, we still haven't replaced our digital camera - this photo's from last year, but Joe and Noah still look exactly the same!]

This week has been a busy one!

On Sunday, we attended It's Your Festival at Gage Park - the oldest and biggest Canada Day festival in the country! We hung out at the park's splash pad and playground for a while, then had a relaxed picnic dinner while we enjoyed live performances by The Spoons and April Wine.

[Cool fact: the Spoons' keyboardist, Scott MacDonald, happens to be my across-the-street neighbour's brother, and was visiting from China, where he's lived for a few years now. Scott's son was playing in my backyard the afternoon of the show!!]

Tuesday was Canada Day, and therefore two traditional activities were required: strawberry picking (at Lindley's Farm in Ancaster), and fireworks (at Bayfront Park). Joe and I managed to squeeze in solo bike rides as well - I rode 25 km and Joe squeezed out 45!

The Canada Day weather was perfect; sunny and mid-twenties (that's Celsius!) with very little humidity (nearly a miracle in July in southern Ontario). We picked 18 quarts of strawberries in about an hour. The kids got bored of picking after a while, so Noah started investigating the environment a bit more closely and noticed the irrigation pipes. He asked what they were, and we ended up having a rather interesting discussion on farm irrigation systems (we pointed out the farm's irrigation pond on the way back out). Nathan entertained us by making up a story of King Berry and his plot to take over the world (yep, the kid's watched a lot of Pinky and the Brain, LOL!)

We all rode our bikes along the Waterfront Trail to the fireworks display. I was in the lead keeping up with Nathan the speedster. Joe and Noah were quite a distance behind us, and were lucky enough to see one of our local beavers swimming in the Desjardins Canal!

Much of the rest of this week has been spent either wrestling with strawberries or loafing at the community pool (a mere 5 minute walk from our house). I now have 1 1/2 dozen jars of strawberry jam - with any luck these will last us until next year; I only had to buy 1 jar of storebought this year to get us through to the new season! I still have 6 quarts left to hull and freeze, which I should probably be doing right now instead of blogging....

This afternoon, the whole family went for a ride down to Pier 4 Park - we brought a couple of the boys' friends along for the ride, too! We were lucky enough to catch the end of the Dragon Boat Races as we'd been meaning to attend but the event had slipped my mind. The boys played at the splash pad and playground while Joe and I took a stroll around to soak up the Harbourfront atmosphere and relaxed on a bench by the water with our books.

And now, I believe it is time for me to go deal with those strawberries!

Simple Pleasures of City Living

While much has been written about the simple pleasures of living in the country, I'm not sure enough has been written about the simply joys of city living! We haven't done anything "big and exciting" lately, we've just been sharing lots of those small but enjoyable moments that make life so worthwhile.

I never expected to end up living in a city of a half a million people, but I've been here over 15 years now and love it. While we live in the city proper (not a suburb), the neighbourhood we live in (about 16,000 people) has a really small-town feel to it, despite the fact that it's only a five minute drive or 30 minute walk to the downtown.

Our neighbourhood was one of the first "planned communities" in Canada, which means it's extremely walkable. I do most of my day-to-day errands on foot, which means I often end up stopping to chat with a neighbour or two, or even one of the library staff, who know all the members of my family on a first name basis!

Nathan has started soccer for the season, and the soccer field's a 10 minute walk from our house, at the large community park. Along the way are all manner of flowering shrubs and trees (they planted over 150 new trees in the park last year alone!) and it's just such a beautiful community space I feel blessed to live so close by.

And then there's our front porch, which we lovingly refer to as our "summer living room". I can (and do!) spend hours out there, reading, knitting, drinking coffee (iced, if the temperature climbs too high), playing backgammon and Uno with the kids, and generally whiling away a hot summer afternoon. It's also the place we sit and eat ice cream when we get back from our daily afternoon swim (another great bonus - our community pool's a five minute walk from our house!)

The street we live on is located adjacent to two major bike routes (one of which is the Waterfront Trail, which is also popular with walkers, runners and Rollerbladers) so a lot of that "traffic" ends up going down our street. It's all part of the fun of porch-sitting to watch the community roll right by our doorstep (and often, someone we know will be going by and stop for a chat!)

I also spend a lot of my porch-time just watching the kids play - there are about 20 kids on the block, and they are out on the street playing until after dark every night now that it's nearly summer. Sometimes scooters and bikes go flying down the sidewalk, often there's a street-wide game of hide-and-seek going on, or there could be some sidewalk-chalk street art being created.

You never know what might happen next around here - a few nights ago I poked my head out the front door to see what the boys were up to, and found them talking to a cockatiel named Gonzo!! His owner lives around the corner from us and had brought the bird out to enjoy the gorgeous early-evening weather.

I can't imagine not being a part of this thriving, friendly, family-loving, diverse community and all the daily blessings, large and small, that go along with it.

Teeth, Tegus and Tasty Treats

View from the upper level of the Hamilton Farmer's Market

Yesterday was a busy day! I was far too worn out to write a blog post until now :)

We started our day MUCH earlier than usual. I was up at 6:30 a.m. to ensure that the boys and I were ready to leave the house by 7:30. We were aiming to catch a 7:39 bus since we were due downtown at 8 a.m. for an appointment at the Canadian Institute of Dental Hygiene. The graduating students are required to do a certain number of teeth cleanings independently (I think it's 20) and they do the cleanings for free (with a *very* small annual fee). Since we don't have dental coverage right now, we decided to check it out. The appointment was very long (4 hrs!) but the students were excellent with the boys. The examinations were incredibly thorough, and we all learned a lot more about Noah and Nathan's mouths than we ever had before at a regular dental appointment. I was surprised that Noah still had several baby teeth left (they showed me where they all were). I thought he had maybe one or two left. Nathan had fun taking rides in the dental chair and answering math problems (one of the student hygienists was working overtime to keep him entertained!)

Despite the great care we received, we were all pretty relieved when it was time to go (4 hours is a really long time!!) After a quick snack, our next stop was the Reptile Store just a few blocks down the street. They have many different kinds of reptiles there, including some very large critters that are "show animals" (used for their reptile shows) and not for sale. We visit fairly often, since we need to buy food and supplies for Spark (our Bearded Dragon). Most of these animals (including a gigantic Tegu) feel like old friends to us now! They had some month-old Beardie babies this time and it was fascinating to see how small they were as we're used to the size of our full-grown lizard.

From the reptile store we hopped on a bus down to Jackson Square to hit the Farmer's Market for some lunch. We feasted on chicken-and-vegetable samosas and jalaybee (also spelled jalebi), as well as M&M chocolate chip cookies. It was the first time the boys tried jalaybee; Noah didn't like it but Nathan enjoyed his first taste enough to ask for more. I find it extremely sweet, although that's not necessarily a bad thing after a spicy samosa!

After all that activity, we were ready to head home and relax for the rest of the afternoon - I needed a nap after getting up that early and the boys chilled out with the Ratchet and Clank game a friend lent them.

A-Hikin' and A-Fishin' We Go!

Nathan in his natural habitat

Hunting for frogs

We found one! There were many other smaller frogs hopping into the water as we walked along the bank of the stream.

We have spent a lot of this week outdoors, enjoying the glorious, unseasonably warm weather! On Tuesday we spent the afternoon hiking in the woods (the dog enjoyed himself at least as much as anyone else!) We did one of our typical hikes in Cootes Paradise, along the Ravine Road and Caleb's Walk trails. Along with the frogs, we spotted two garter snakes.

Time for a dip in the creek? Maybe not...

Noah about to take a flying leap off a giant log!

Reclining at leisure in the log chairs! Marley's waiting for Noah to throw that stick :)

Noah does his tightrope act

Wednesday afternoon we went fishing off the Waterfront Trail with our unschooling friends. We didn't catch anything, but I did take a dramatic tumble off an unstable log into the shallow water! Since we were already nearby, we took the opportunity to watch them lift fish out of the Fishway. The staff there are pretty cool about letting us get a good look at the various species of fish they release back into the marsh (Cootes Paradise). I tried really hard to remember all the different fish; we saw channel catfish, white suckers, carp, largemouth bass, a brown bullhead, shad, and a brown trout. There were probably a couple of others that I forgot as well.

We are so blessed to have so many fun things to do outdoors, right in our own neighbourhood!

Our Indoor Rock Climbing Adventure

Yesterday we went to Gravity Climbing Gym with a group of local homeschoolers. This was the first time I had tried out a climbing wall - the boys had a little experience from trying it out at a local festival last year. I was excited before we left, but once I got there and saw how high the walls were I started to have second thoughts!

After watching the boys both climb up right to the top of one of the beginner walls, I decided to give it a shot. I was pretty nervous, but part way up I started to enjoy it and got all the way to the top. Once I got that first climb over with, I was feeling much more enthusiastic and ready for more! The boys both really took to it. Noah surprised me by climbing all the way to the top of one of the walls I had found pretty challenging. He said "I was really sweating up there mom, but I decided I could do it, and I did!" YAY Noah!

I lost count of how many walls the boys climbed through the course of the afternoon. I went up three fairly easy walls, and two that were tough enough that I wasn't sure I was going to make it all the way to the top once I was part way up (but I DID IT!) I also tried out two other more challenging walls that I knew I wasn't going to get to the top of, but I wanted to see how far I could go. The staff were really helpful and coached me on the way up. At one point I slipped right off the wall about 25 or 30 feet up - that was a bit scary the first time it happened but it's actually kind of fun hanging from the harness! I gave that wall a couple more tries but kept getting stuck at the same spot.

We will definitely be going back for another climbing adventure, which is a good thing since I forgot my camera (yes, again!) This time it was a case of group camnesia as every single one of us parents had forgotten our camera (and my cell phone, which has a camera, had dead batteries!)

The best I can do right now is a shot of what my left knee looks like the day after:

Note the bruises, scratches, scrapes and general beat up look :) While my knee shows the only visible effects of yesterday's adventure, I'm surprised at how much my entire body aches! I am pretty active (cycling, yoga, strength training, walking, hiking, and assorted other random physical pursuits) but climbing seems to use just about every muscle in your entire body. My hands, wrists, forearms, shoulders, triceps, hamstrings, quads, glutes, lats, and core muscles are all feeling abused today (I kind of feel like I went tumbling off the side of a cliff, lol!) The kids aren't feeling it at all, of course! Despite the discomfort, I definitely want to give those tricky walls another shot, and I know the kids are game for more.

We Know How to Rock in the Hammer!

One of the biggest shows ever hit our city Monday night - none other than Bruce Springsteen! We were fortunate enough to get tickets and man, were they worth every penny. This was our first time seeing The Boss, and I sure hope it wasn't our last!

Judging from the reviews of the show, this was one of his absolute best, rating right up there with the legendary Boston '99 show: "Badlands" has become the standard song before the encore break. Except the crowd wouldn't allow the break, even though the band was lined up taking bows. The hypnotic rolling roar of "whoa-whoa-whoa" continued, louder and louder, until Bruce started his guitar going again and motioned everyone back to their instruments. This so-called "Boston ending" coda, which began as Bruce's way to thank the legendary 1999 Boston crowds' vocal calisthenics, was earned this night by a crowd that would not have been out of place in Boston (still the gold standard for North American audiences) then or now." Springsteen decided to slip another song (Dancing in the Dark) into the encore set list to reward our enthusiasm. Another reviewer reports, "this was "possibly the best audience in North America for the Magic tour -- including Boston shows," one regular concertgoer reports. The sold-out 19,000 seater still had an intimate atmosphere, and in a chillingly perfect moment, Bruce stepped back as the whole place became a choir on the second line of 'The River.'"

All I know is that was one of the most incredible shows I've ever seen. Rock on!

Circus School!

Yesterday I took the boys to Zacada Circus School for the afternoon. This was a group outing with a bunch of other local homeschoolers. I had no idea this place existed before the trip was posted to our local homeschooling list. We were so excited to go check it out!

The boys had a blast! They got to walk a tightrope, swing on a trapeze, jump on a big trampoline, and do some cool stuff with these large fabric "ribbons" they had hanging from the ceiling. I really wanted to try it out myself (they do have adult and family classes, so we may be back!)

Unfortunately, my camera batteries died so no pics :( I think I would have had trouble getting good shots of my guys in that setting anyway, but it's a bit of a bummer that I wasn't able to at least give it a shot. If we go back I will definitely check the camera batteries well in advance!

The Santa Claus Parade

Today was the Santa Claus Parade here in the Hammer. Every year I think it's far too early to think about Christmas in mid-November, but by the end of the parade I've totally got the "holiday spirit". This year the temperature dropped several degrees during the course of the parade, and the snow started to fall - our first real snow of the season! Very festive.

Drinking hot chocolate while waiting for the parade to start!

One of several local dance troupes

Spiderman! Very important when you have 3 boys age 10 and under in tow :)
Lots of marching bands....

A Chinese Dragon (I just love those things!)

Clydesdales - very important! It's not a parade without some decent horses :)

Finally - the Big Guy himself!

By the time Santa made his appearance, my hands and feet were pretty well numb. Thankfully, my backside did not suffer the same fate as we are now smart enough to bring our Therm-a-rests along whenever we're going to be sitting on cold, hard ground. They work like a charm! A big thermos full of hot chocolate also helps to stave off the cold (well, provided you get some before the kids drink it all...)

Of course, the kids were so busy scrambling after goodies being tossed by parade participants that they barely had time to feel cold. Thank goodness I had an extra shopping bag on me! We dragged home 21 mini candy canes, 7 (full size) packs of gum, a couple of full-size chocolate bars, 1 bag of chips, 7 lollipops, 1 orange, 2 toothbrushes, 3 pieces of sidewalk chalk, a pencil, a CFL lightbulb, 2 balloons, and a coupon for 1 free admission to the local drive-in movies. That's not even counting all the stuff they tucked away during the parade!

It was a lot of fun, but I was definitely happy to come home and thaw out. Good thing I'm in a festive mood now, we're doing Christmas shopping tomorrow...

An Afternoon at the Farm

The Community Shared Agriculture farm we belong to (Plan B Organic Farm) has an annual "Farm Day" near the end of the season every year. Today was the day!! We had fabulous, warm sunny weather and enjoyed a menu of local organic foods: Sausages or burgers, salads (from farm produce of course!) and organic ice cream to die for (seriously, the best ice cream I've ever eaten - Mapleton's Organic).

The only bummer was that I forgot my camera. Waahh!! I missed some seriously good photo ops. The kids (and there were a lot of them!) piled bales of hay into various configurations - a fort, an "igloo", and eventually a tallish tower-like structure. This led to jumping off said tower into a loose pile of hay below. The kids were all just in heaven - literally radiating joy from their pores as they soared through the air into the hay pile below. The parents were all being totally cool and relaxed and just letting the kids revel in the whole farm experience.

We also got to take a tour of the farm, meet all the farm dogs (there were several - and yes, Noah was in his glory!), chase chickens and roosters, play with the farm cat, and pick a pumpkin to bring home. It's really amazing to have such a close connection with the people who are growing your food. I was walking by a field of salad greens, and realized I would be eating some of those very greens in a couple of weeks.

All in all, the perfect way to spend a fall afternoon.

Fall Fun, Featuring Noah the Horse-Headed Boy!

We went on another jaunt to a local apple farm yesterday and I snapped this hilarious pic - the horse put his head right in front of Noah just as I snapped it! We were laughing so hard at the resulting photo that another family asked to take a look at our camera to see what was so funny.

Okay, so we are easily amused but this has all the makings of a classic McLaughlin family photo.





Joe also got a good photo of both boys (with their own heads!) hanging out with the bunnies at the farm. As you can see, Noah's already getting geared up for Halloween (Halloween runs a very close second to Christmas in holiday importance around here).









And oh, yes, I remembered to get a pic of this sign that I missed out on last time as we were sans camera.

Love it! I think I should make one to hang outside my house.

Community Connections

Yesterday was one of those days where you could just feel the forces of "abundance" at work.

First, we decided to hold a "freecycle" day to pass on all the stuff we no longer need. We got up early and hauled out boxes of toys, housewares, videotapes (our VCR finally died and won't be replaced since we have a DVD player), clothes, furniture, and lots of other good stuff. We put out a couple of big signs indicating that everything was FREE but we still got a lot of people coming up and asking us if we were sure we didn't want money for anything, or *why* the stuff was free. We've gotten a lot of good stuff from our local freecycle group (including a washing machine when ours kicked the bucket) so we were more than happy to "pay it forward" and pass on our unneeded items. Most of the stuff cleared out by noon, and the remainder was posted to our local list.

By mid-afternoon, we were up at a local farm (Myer's Apple Farm) picking - yes- apples! I was a bit disappointed that my favourites (empires) weren't quite ready for picking yet, but we came home with a large bag of Cortlands which are pretty tasty too. We forgot to bring the camera, which I was already bummed about, but I was really annoyed with myself when we got to the farm and saw this great sign: "Drive Carefully - Children Being Children". Hopefully we'll go back and pick some empires, and I'll make sure to get a pic then!

From our apple picking excursion, we continued on to our CSA (Plan B Organic Farms) for their end-of-season barbecue (we'll continue to receive shares until the week after Thanksgiving - that's Canadian Thanksgiving by the way). We got to take a tour of the farm, which has been expanding every year. There are now 400 shares per season; just a couple of years ago it was closer to 250. Plan B has made great efforts to develop relationships with other local farmers so we get the most variety possible in our food boxes - fruits and some vegetables that they don't grow themselves. They also offer a "local fruit box" option - although they don't grow any of the fruit themselves, it is all from local farmers.

After the tour we had a fantastic meal at Plan B - organic meat, a variety of salads from Plan B's harvest, watermelon and organic ice cream (Mapleton's - totally divine). There were about 200 people there (about 50 of them were kids!) and it was just a great community-feeling experience. We got to chat with a few friends we hadn't seen in a while, and make some new friends too! The kids all had a blast running around and playing with the assortment of friendly farm dogs. Again, really too bad we forgot our camera!

When we came home from the farm, the rest of the stuff we had left out on the curb with a "free" sign was gone, and my neighbour had left a bag of clothes on the porch for the boys (full of pants with intact knees, which my guys desperately need!) I had also received an offer from another freecycler of some books I was looking for - very cool.

The theme for the day was definitely Sharing Always Creates More - more friends, more fun, and more abundant living.

Life is Good

This weekend was one of those truly wonderful (and not-common-enough) ones of which summer memories are made.

Nothing spectacular happened. Just full of those simple, small but contented moments that, strung together into a couple of warm, sunny days, are exactly what we all long for when we're pining for summer in the middle of January. The kids ran up and down the street all day playing with their friends, and I got some time to do a few things on my own (in between intermittent supervision of the swirling mass of children).

I went for a glorious bike ride full of hills, puttered around the garden, strolled over to the library, and just basically did what I felt like for most of Saturday (is there anything better on a warm Saturday afternoon than sitting on your front porch, sipping a coffee, and knitting, while watching the world go by? No, I didn't think so.)

Saturday night we all went to see Ice Age 2 at Dundas Valley Conservation Area. This is a really cool thing - all summer long they do a "Films in the Forest" program, where you get to see movies outdoors on a giant, inflatable movie screen. And, if you have a Conservation Area membership, like we do, it's only $2.50 for the whole family to get in! What a great deal, and a whole lot of fun.

Sunday morning we got up late, strolled down to the park (with Marley of course) then came back to hang out on the porch when it got too hot. We did a bit of errand running in the afternoon, but as boring as that sounds, it was highly satisfying since we actually got everything we were looking for (how rare!) - and I snagged two new knitting magazines at Chapters.

Most importantly, the raspberries are here!


To my great delight, the canes I planted this year have yielded a (very small) but luscious little crop of raspberries. Not enough to do more than nibble off the bush this year - I don't know how long till I have enough to make jam, but I'll surely enjoy whatever we get. Did I mention raspberries are my absolutely, positively favouritest fruit of all?







The rest of the veggie garden is shaping up nicely for the most part too (although there are some scruffy areas in the main bed as I had to pull a bunch of bush beans which were succumbing to something or other, and all my broccoli bolted right off the bat without producing anything edible ::sigh::)

In this photo you can see a zucchini plant in the middle (it's enclosed in a mesh "cage" to keep it from taking over the entire bed, that's why it looks so tall) Potato plants (also in cages) are to the left, with bush beans, peppers, and assorted herbs somewhere in the mix too. In the hanging bucket is one of our "upside down" tomato plants, which seem to be doing all right so far - they are starting to flower and a couple of itty bitty tomatoes have formed. If all continues to go well, we should be up to our armpits in summer squash, beans, peppers, and tomatoes in no time.

Ahhh, summer!

Neighbourhood Movie Night (and a Potential New Dog)

Yesterday was one of those rather pleasant types of Saturdays with nothing much formal on the agenda, and a lot of puttering around. What started out as a low key day ended up with a fair bit of excitement, though. We took a drive over to meet our potential new dog! Yes, dog. A colleague of Joe's has a client who's moving to Mexico and needs to part with her lab-shepherd cross, and of course Joe was all over that :) I was initially skeptical, but after going to meet him, I've warmed up to the idea. His name is Marley, he's 9 yrs old, and seems really laid back and friendly. He'll make a great walking buddy for me! We're going to take him for a "test drive" when we get back from our camping trip. We'll take him for a weekend and see how he fits in to our household. I'm most concerned about how he'll get along with our 2 cats (although I suspect the cats will be the ones giving Marley a hard time, and not vice-versa!) I'm not going to post a picture until he's officially "ours" - just in case things don't work out.

Not long after we got back from meeting Marley, the boys ran in the house all excited with the news that our neighbours were having a movie theatre in the back yard that night (complete with tickets and all!) The dad is a teacher and had borrowed one of those nifty media projectors from work. Most of the neighbourhood kids and a lot of the parents gathered to watch The Two Towers projected onto a bedsheet in the yard. It was a lot of fun (even if a few of the dads snuck into the house to watch the hockey game!) I love our neighbourhood!!