Mon chevalier

This year, one of my son's social studies units included medieval history. He was assigned two projects to complete related to this topic. First he was to build a castle with all major parts labeled en francais. (He attends french school and yes, I'm jealous.)



We were fortunate to visit a thousand year old chateau in Portugal, last summer. We looked at all of our photographs of the castle for inspiration.

My son (in red) and his granddad. That's
right; three stories up and not a railing in sight.

Then with some guidance from his granddad who introduced us to the castle in the first place, he made his masterpiece. Voila!!




His second task was to dress up as person from medieval times. My son is...well, he's a boy whose drawn to anything with swords, swords or swords so I bet you can guess what he chose? That's right! He decided to be a knight. I know the times of knights and castles predates the old farm house a few hundred years or so, give or take a year or two, but every farm could use a knight to protect the crops, the animals and the noble inhabitants, wouldn't you agree? Especially a knight as handsome as this...

Mon chevalier noir

I tried to get him to smile but was informed that smiling is not a skill knights learn when they attend knight school as a page.


However, with minimal coaxing, oh all right, no coaxing at all, my chevalier was able to loosen up a little.


Vraiment...really...he doesn't take after me. I may be a Rooster but I would never ham it up like that. Fortunately, I have him!

Note: for any of you with knights in training in your own home, this knight helmet was made using one of the Colonel's buckets! Originally spray painted bronze several years ago, we spruced it up with some black spray paint. Maybe, that's why he's smiling?!

Wordless Wednesday: Ciboulette

Metamorphosis

As I drove home from my job in the city last week, I reflected on how each day as I commute home, I change from my city slicker demeanor to that of a relaxed country girl. As I leave work, my foot is heavy on the gas pedal, windows up, and air conditioning on full tilt, both are used to drown out the noise of traffic that I despise or worse some boom box music from the car behind me vibrates my rib cage. Long stretches of pavement dotted with metal carriages lie in front of me and I am counting the minutes until I am home.

Truth be, I am home long before I pull in my drive. When I exit the highway, a little voice inside me breathes a huge sigh of relief. I turn off the A/C, let the windows down and shed the stale air. The sunroof opens, my foot lightens; I am no longer in a hurry. I delight in the rush of air caressing my arms as the breeze travels through my car. My long hair tickles my face gently before swirling into a vortex over my head and is sucked up through the sunroof. I slow down to look at my favourite old farm houses and their inspiring gardens. I pass through the small town near my old farm and I hear birds singing, lawn mowers running, dogs barking, children laughing and screaming in delight as they play and I hear the ding of the bell, announcing a new customer at the gas station. I pass tractors traveling to the next farm. I see migrant farm workers, ready to escape the heat after a long day in the fields. I see mothers and children strolling down the sidewalk, a dog or two in tow, while families relax and catch up on their day with loved ones on front porches. I feel peace and serenity and am reminded of why I wanted to live in the country and am ever so thankful for the opportunity to be here.

Centre Piece

Our Sunday centre piece, as picked and arranged by my daughter during an afternoon walk today in the country, around the old farm property. Where else? A beautiful addition to our favourite meal of the week together. What a delightful find as I entered the kitchen to begin preparing dinner. Since we've moved to the country our Sunday dinners, no matter what we have made, have always turned out wonderful. I think our country kitchen is blessed by previous farm wives.

Wordless Wednesday: Lupine

Fire Works

A few weekends back, we celebrated yet another Victoria Day weekend. When we lived in the city, we would walk down to the local park and watch the annual firework display. This year we decided to forgo the fusees and replace them with the chance to host our own 'fire works' throughout the summer. We built a fire pit. We created the foyer on the edge of the patio, overlooking the pond. We found lots of reclaimed brick this spring that had been previously dumped at the back of our pond, and decided they could be put to much better use.

My daughter and I laid out all of the bricks like puzzle pieces; some were still stacked two or three high with the mortar attached from their previous life. Meanwhile, my husband removed the few bricks that outlined the concrete pad we had appointed as our fire pit location. The bricks were precariously stacked on top of each other, I daresay it was the previous owners makeshift attempt at building; thankfully it appears that their building endeavours stopped there.

As we sorted out the bricks, I stumbled across several that seemed quite older than the rest. We did some rubbings of the old bricks, and discovered some were stamped TPBC. We're assuming the BC stands for Brick Company. Another brick had the name Hamilton stamped on it. Since we live in some proximity to the Hamilton area, we weren't too surprised by this find. The mason who rebricked our kitchen fireplace, last fall, told us that the brick work was a good quality brick from the now defunct Hamilton Brick Company. I've tried to dig up some historical facts of the company on the web but have been unsuccessful thus far. My husband always has been the better Internet sleuth!

With only one extra trip required to the hardware store to purchase a second bag of mortar, we completed our masterpiece in less then a day. We're quite pleased with the end result. While it is fairly square, the bricks aren't level, but I think it just adds to the charm of the old farm. I daresay, it looks rustic. So much so that my husband is certain that he'll be able to convince the next unsuspecting visitor that it predates the old farm house. He is amazingly talented at the skill of pulling a fast one on anyone, no matter how wet behind the ears they may or may not be; I won't be putting my money against him.

This weekend our son celebrated his tenth birthday with his classmates and they christened the newest addition to the old farm. They kept themselves occupied playing hide and seek in the trees and having contests with toy airplanes and all did seem successful until my husband attempted to start the fire. A fairly simple task unless you have ten boys who want to help start the fire and are all basically standing IN the fire pit. With an hour remaining before their parents would be around to collect them, I was starting to breathe a sigh of relief. We were almost done for another year! Once the fire was underway and the bag of marshmallows disappeared in less than five minutes, I began looking at my watch more frequently, especially as they tried to throw just about any plant material they could find into the fire. Before long, panic began to sink in as they started removing the ends of long logs from the fire that were glowing like red hot pokers; I didn't think I could yell that loud. However, having a group of ten year old boys marching and chanting around the fire had my husband and I both looking at each other with more than a little trepidation as we both flash backed to scenes from 'Lord of the Flies'. There was ten of them and only two of us...I quickly hid my eyeglasses.

Wordless Wednesday: Columbin