Sweet Home Architecture: Winter

Showing posts with label Winter. Show all posts

So Many Firsts in One Weekend for My Airplane Friend

Some of you may recall that I sat beside a young fellow from Southern India on the plane coming back from India this summer. We stayed in touch and have had him over to visit several times. There is a chance he will be leaving in a month so we thought we should make his Canadian education complete by taking him to our family cottage. We also invited the friends I went to Bangladesh and India with and made an expedition of it.

Now a Canadian winter is about as opposite to Southern India as you can get, so Jacob had a weekend of firsts. He's been in Toronto since August so he has seen snow and ice (despite the fact that this has been a very warm and unsnowy winter), but he hadn't seen deep snow or icicles or frozen lakes! Imagine seeing all of this for the first time.

We couldn't have arranged for better winter weather if we had tried. It was clear and sunny on Saturday with a fresh deep layer of snow on all the trees and the temperatures were -10 on Saturday and -5 on Sunday which meant it was cold enough to make the snow pretty, but warm enough that we could enjoy the outdoors.

Doing things for the first time is one of the joys of traveling and living in new places. I will never forget riding on the rickshaws in Bangladesh for the first time and I'm sure Jacob will never forget his first time walking through snow that was up over his knees. I was counting all the firsts on the drive back to the city and came up with at least ten. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Keeping warm when it is -10 outside. Jacob had to buy himself a winter jacket, scarf, and gloves back in the fall when the temperatures started to drop so he had some, but not all of the proper clothing. You can get by without boots in the city, especially in a mild winter like this one. So we outfitted Jacob with my husband's winter boots, a pair of splash pants to keep the snow off his pants, and a thick pair of mittens. He learned to make sure the splash pants were fastened on the outside of the boots to keep the snow out. And he learned how painful it is to take photographs with bare hands in the winter - oh the things we do to get some great shots!

2. Walking through knee deep snow - which is very! very! very! tiring!

photo taken by Jacob

3. Seeing icicles - he was pretty excited to see even some little baby ones when we first got there, but was very excited when we went to see the ice flows on the rock cuts at the side of the road.

4. Seeing frost on the windows.

5. Eating new foods like porridge for breakfast and French Canadian Pea Soup for lunch and drinking a warm mug of hot chocolate when you come in from the cold - and melting snow to get water to cook with and to wash the dishes in.

photo taken by Jacob

6. Seeing a snow angel. Kim obliged and made him one - what are friends for if not to make a snow angel for you!

photo taken by Jacob

7. Going tobogganing. The conditions on the cottage road were perfect for tobogganing and we all took at least a few turns. Jacob loved it although he was a little nervous at first that he would kill himself. Fortunately he survived and had loads of fun.

8. Walking on a frozen lake and seeing fishing huts. The lake was frozen, but I wasn't sure how solid it was so we stuck to the shore.

9. Going on the roof to remove the snow. For some reason, William and Jacob took this job very seriously and spent a lot of time figuring out the best way to remove snow from the roof and trying out different techniques. There's nothing like a project that engages your brains and your brawn.

10. Sleeping under three heavy quilts to keep warm - ahh - nothing like it!

That's a lot of firsts for one weekend, don't you think?

Linked to A Good Life Wednesday at A Beach Cottage

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A Return To Loveliness

3:30 PM | Labels: A Return to Loveliness, color palate, decorating, Winter

Winter’s Palate

I have taken my inspiration for this post from my January 1991 and January 2000 issues of Victoria Magazine.

The quality of light in the wintertime has its own characteristics. This light affects the shades and moods in the rooms of a home. Outdoors, winter’s palate is a muted combination of whites, browns, greys, golds and greens.

Indoors, we complement these colors, which to me bring a sense of serenity and tranquility. There’s a sense of quiet outdoors in winter, save for the cheery, chirpy birds first thing in the morning.

In the 1991 issue, we read of the ‘precious quality of light’ and in the 2000 issue, we read of a home whose muted palate is taken from a piece of tapestry.

In my home, I have taken shades of white, amber, silver, gold, green, blue and brown to change over the décor from the festive Christmas décor to a winter décor.

In the kitchen, I shared with you my changes here.

In the dining room, I have returned a favorite centerpiece that combines textures and colors that appeal and greet visitors as a preview of the winter color scheme in the other rooms of my home.

In the living room I shared my inspirations with you here and here.

In the bedroom, I have taken the muted colors from a heavy, tapestry blanket to bring together the soothing colors of winter.

It has been fun to take a few things combined with others of certain hues and temperatures to create a soothing, serene ambiance in my home.

I appreciate your visit.

I am sharing this post with

Tabletop Tuesday
Be Inspired Tuesday

A Return to Loveliness

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Wishing you a most Delightsome week,

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Winter Wonderland

7:00 AM | Labels: Cottage, Photos, Winter

There were a few days left at the end of last week with no commitments, no appointments, and nothing fun planned either so William and I went to the cottage. Everyone else had to work or was otherwise busy so we had a very quiet few days.

It was lovely and relaxing and just what I needed after running around and entertaining over the holidays. While I love Christmas and having family and friends over, it is nice to have some time to make some plans, organize how I'm going to organize (do you do that too?), and generally sweep the proverbial cobwebs out of my head.

We had every kind of weather during those two days. When we first got to the cottage there was soft snow covering all the branches,

then it warmed up to above freezing and all the snow fell off the trees and the sun came out briefly,

and then, on the last day, there was a short snow squall.

I spent hours walking around outside taking pictures (I took 1144 photos in two days and yes I did sometimes take the camera off the automatic setting - yah me!).

I walked down the highway to the rock-cut and took some photos of the amazing icicles that develop there every winter. The cliff is about fifteen feet tall and the icicles tower over you in lovely thick undulating layers.

I also had my first photo challenge of 2012. I love setting myself a photo challenge. They aren't planned things, just something that pops into my head when I'm taking pictures and it is difficult to get the shot I want. I persist and persist at it, sometimes for hours, hoping to get that particular photo. This time it was trying to get a picture of the icicles dripping - and I got some!

There are probably a couple of hundred more photos on my computer's hard-drive of icicles with and without drips of water . Fun, I know! What can I say - I like to amuse myself.

I also amused myself by making a snowman when the weather warmed up just because someone had to take advantage of all that wonderful packing snow. The snowman was only about two feet tall and was as cute as a button (although I did have to eat his nose as soon as I took this photo - see our next challenge for details).

The other challenge William and I set ourselves was to eat every last scrap of food and drink every drop of water we brought with us since we have to pull everything in on a toboggan. We did it! Our lunch before we left was the last of the pea soup we cooked on the wood stove the first afternoon we got there, the last slices of spice cake, a glass of milk each, and a mug of hot chocolate using the last of the drinking water. Yum.

Although William and I went for lots of walks, some of us preferred to sit by the fire on a pile of cozy blankets.

As William and I were restocking the woodbox before we left, I spied some interesting pieces of wood and had to bring some home with me. Details coming soon about what I'm going to do with them. I really need to inspect my parent's wood pile more often - there were a couple of other treasures in there that I rescued. You can see the wood lined up to be chosen in the photo below.

I also started a photo project that I'll tell you about soon. It's all so exciting, I'm sure you can hardly contain yourself with anticipation.

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Cottage Notes

2:06 PM | Labels: garden, indoor gardening, Tovah Martin, Winter

Garden Dreaming

Our garden isn’t quite asleep this winter, with early blooming Narcissus, remnants of roses and sages here and there.

All the while, I have been dreaming and planning for the upcoming seasons.

I can dream walk through my garden and imagine the blossoms of spring and of summer, my memory filled with their beauty and fragrance.

I have been filling my imagination with ideas of ways to preserve their beauty and their fragrance. I have few places in my home with sufficient sunlight to carry off bringing too many plants indoors to prolong the sense of spring and of summer.

The light of the sun’s long, southern rays only stretch through a few rooms. I know this is a pursuit of gardening Kindred Spirits. I found that Tovah Martin too has experimented with bringing flowering, fragrant plants indoors in the wintertime. Tovah’s winters are longer than mine, so she is able to seek this pursuit early with amazing results.

One of Tovah’s observances that I took particular note to was that when seeking plants to bring indoors – search for lighter shades in flower – white, yellow and pinks – these are the more fragrant of the flowers from plants and bushes.

“Fragrant flowers are rarely large, showy or brightly colored. After all, a flower’s main purpose is to attract pollinators. And with fragrance as a ploy, other advertisements become superfluous”.

summer

winter

Fragrant, flowering plants on Tovah’s list included: sweet olive, citrus, freesias, tuberoses, angel’s trumpet, African gardenia, jasmines, geraniums, peace lily, passion flowers and several herbs.

I can just imagine these beauties being muses inspiring me all the more while searching for ideas and inspiration of flower combinations and color for my garden from my favorite garden books, magazines and catalogs.

Are you garden dreaming too. Do you bring indoors fragrant plants or forced bulbs to inspire you and console your heart white the winter months and days do their work outdoors?

If not, I hope if set a spark of ideas to your imagination – perhaps you’ll stop by a store or nursery to pick up a hyacinth, a tea olive, a fragrant geranium to set by a windowsill so that you might brush by it to be transported in your heart and mind to warmer places and times.