Wasted Week

Well I have been poorly the last week. I had Tonsillitis which by itself has been painful and difficult to swallow. But I had a really high temperature, chills and headaches to go with them, thankfully I am well on the road to recovery now. At the beginning of the week it felt like we slipped back into Winter. We had a fair amt of snow on Tuesday and I had to call out the Cavalry to come take Lewie to school. I am really grateful having such supports around when I need them, others are not so lucky. I have had one of those weeks where everything I usually do in a day off has taken all week, because I have had low energy. So imagine my surprise on Friday when I checked on the seeds I sowed. Quick side note. I planted a few seeds a couple of weeks back to try and give them a head start. They are the ones that always are so small and seem to take a long time to grow. Lobelia, Candy Tuft, Stocks, some dried flowers. The package always makes me chuckle as it says sow in early March when ground is warm. There is no way these seeds are talking about where we live. We still have snow, lots of it and the ground is frozen. The seeds are growing. I think they are doing better because I have ignored them rather then pay attention to them. Not sure exactly what that says about my gardening skills!!!

Early Signs of Spring

Well as everyone know we put our clocks forward 3 weeks earlier then normal. I am not sure if it has made much of a difference and saved us any money. The First day of spring was a few days ago. I don't know what it is like where you are but it really doesn't feel like Spring here. It has been cold and we've had several snow showers. Not at all my idea of Spring growing up in Southern England. So... I went outside into our garden and put up a new bird feeder. I know you are asking yourselves what is the connection. Well I thought to myself if it is now spring and the birds are returning from down South they should have something to return home for! There are a few juncos feeding at it most days now. Hopefully they will stick around and use the nesting box we have in the tree. The return of the birds makes me think that spring is really just around the corner. While out in the garden putting up this new feeder I discovered poking out of the ground(Well der well else would they be poking out of) some Crocuses and Tulip that we planted last Autumn. It amazes me that they can survive the Winter. It helps me think that shopping for and sowing seeds when there is so much snow around is not nuts after all and that warmer days are truly just around the corner.

Project Torture

It has been a while since I was last blogging. It got kind of busy there the last few weeks. Tom went away to Northern Quebec for work, so I am a single Parent for a bit. I really admire how single Mum's do it all the time. Lewie had his 2nd report card and various school projects. The School projects have been all consuming the last few weeks. Side note. He did really well in his report card A's in all subjects. Only negative ish comment was that he needs to become more organised in his work and desk. OK back on topic. Lewie has to do a Heritage project about something historical to do with Newfoundland and the theme this year was "Where they Once stood" . He decided to do a Project on Fort Townsend. Fortunately his Uncle Had A LOT of info on it. But....... As you know there is always a BUT. We were not sure how much of the info we were "officially" allowed to use. So we went to the CNS at MUN and got a lot of the same info from there. Lewie decided he wanted to do a model of the fort, a poster, and a topographic map of the area where the fort once was. Sounds good easy really. We started the project early but.... Like I said before there is always a BUT. Tom (the Creative, Handy one) went away and most of the project was left for Lewie to do with some help. An awful lot of work later the project is nearly finished. It is due on Wednesday so a few finishing touches and it should be ready. Thank Goodness, I really don't remember doing anything so elaborate when I was in Grade 5..........

Another Snow Day

Where's the Driveway? We woke up this morning to find that there was a lot of snow in the Driveway this morning. I say a lot. It is more like 8ft of snow at the end of the Driveway. Here is a picture of Tom tunnelling his way to the end of the Driveway. You can see how high the snow is on Tom who is 6ft.


Where's the Car? You can see the wind mirrors of the car poking out of the snow. A Hyundai Elantra.


Here is Lewie for scale. You can see the snow in the background is up to his head. It was a lot of snow in one storm. 40 cm accumulation in total. But the winds were high at 90 km/hr so the snow really drifted in places. All business, schools and offices were closed this morning. The Main highway was closed in sections because of drifting snow. It brightened up in the afternoon and turned into a nice day off from work.



A Good Job finally completed. It took us both, well I say both, Tom mostly with a little bit of help from Lewis and I all day to shovel out. We took it slowly and took some breaks but it took a good 4 /5 hours. You can only just see the tracks on the road from the cars, mostly snow mobiles.



Well Tom was supposed to be heading off today to Corner Brook. He is supposed to be doing a quick job out there. He couldn't go obviously but is hopeful to head out tomorrow.
I am just Hopeful that we don't get any more snow like this lot!!!

North Pond Loader's 5 mins of Fame.

We have all had a busy couple of weeks. I started some training for Public Health which means I have been working full time hours this last week. It is really great but also means that other things get left on the back burners for a while. The training is really interesting and involves a lot of new information for me. I will be working with a completely different population from which I am used too. Exciting stuff! I found out that I am gonna be an Auntie which is fabulous news. The Best News really. We are planning a trip home for Christmas to see the new arrival to the family. At the end of this week we were asked by a friend to be interviewed by the local TV channel to promote there gym and talk about Physical Fitness. Initially I thought we weren't the best choice really because come on I am not exactly the ideal image of physical fitness but we agreed. There theme was families who are physically active together. I guess we fit that image. We were interviewed on Thursday at the gym and she took a lot of footage of us climbing together. It was very nerve racking being interviewed as we were not sure what to say but I think we came off OK. Hope so it is due to air on Living Nfld on CBC next Tuesday. Here is the link http://www.cbc.ca/livingnl/

Snow Day

The One day all Kids and some Adults alike in Northern climate in the Winter look forward too. This morning was a Snow day. The weather had not been too bad overnight with only 6cm of snow having fallen, but deteriorated rapidly. We had a blizzard with blowing snow and near white out conditions. The wind was high so the snow drifted everywhere. Lewis laid in bed this morning with baited breath listening to the radio, for the announcements of school closures. A delighted Whoaaa Hoooo rang out from his bedroom when they announced that all schools in the Metro region were closed. The List went on and on as Business, Doctor's Surgeries, Government Buildings and University all announced that they were not opening this morning. The sound of snow mobiles and snow blowers rings out throughout the neighbourhood as people get to have an unanticipated day off. Lewis looks forward to getting outside and building a snow fort, snowman and having snowball fights with his friends. Something that he can do in this place where we live. I think mostly he looks forward to coming back indoors and having a mug of hot chocolate, as is his tradition. I stop for a moment and am grateful to all those people that despite the weather still have to go to work......

Patchwork Quilt

Update from Last Blog.
I had managed to go through all my clothes and decided that some were pretty old and falling apart in desperate need of throwing away. They were certainly taking up too much space in my room. I had them bagged up and the bag sat in my dining room all week. Wednesday night I asked my Husband to put out the Rubbish for me as the Rubbish Collectors come on Thursday. It was too cold outside (-16c) and I really didn't want to go outside. He unfortunately spotted the fat heavy green bag, that had been sitting in the dining room all week and asked how come there was so much rubbish. I told him how I was throwing away some clothes!. He looked at me with those sad eyes and asked if he could go through the bag to see if there was any clothes that could be made into rags. I should have known what would follow!!!!
We now have the makings of a patchwork quilt on the floor in our living room.
Stay tuned for the results.