deep happiness

dear readers, i had not meant to be gone this long. life on the hill changed in one minute and my heart is so full. I am not able to explain just yet but i desperately want to share my happiness with you. It is the kind of happiness that comes with great risk, so everyday, many times a day i whisper little things to myself to keep me in the moment, not looking past today.

I leave for Europe in a couple of weeks, that did come so fast. Leaving the farm and all that it means is so very hard but now it seems unbearable but i also know that once i hot Italian soil, i will know how lucky i am to be in such a place.

I am thinking of you, i hope life allows me to share more of my happiness with you in a more open way, i hate keeping anything from you, so i will whisper it into the wind and you just might hear it.

awoken

i decided i want to remember it the way it was when we were in it,  not how our over thinking minds and rationalization made them out to be. i guess what i am saying is that i do not feel the same but i am okay with not saying, me too anymore. i am putting away the armor now and i will greet you or him or them without it with the risk of being broken but also the possibility of being woken:)

*shots taken with iphone

a warm sky and the rainbow

i started writing this on the train from ny too home while enjoying the sunset on hudson river. I thought about these images while walking the hot pavement in the city, i had a nice time and hope to go back very soon to do a few things i just could not do this time around. i will be able to show images from this
trip only in the fall.

 i thought about how it seems as if the night before i leave the hill  the sky is even lovelier than all the days before as if letting me know that this is where my heart resides and why i must come home.  the evening before i left,  I was sitting at the kitchen table with my mother after chores, when i looked up i saw the warmest tones line the sky, a quick rain shower before had formed a rainbow, as all this was happening the sun began to set. i stood on the grass with my bare feet, this is where i live, i function & breathe. within minutes behind me the sky was the colour of wild fire, while the front was a mix of soft tones with a rainbow of vibrant colors ( not captured well).  the air was a mix of cool and warmth like a swim in lake on hot summer night, the leaves moved against the window making the sound of pouring rain without a drop, birds and fire flies flew about and the air played at the back of my neck.  i stood, i paused, i stared and inhaled and now four days later, i finally exhale.

I watched my mum and k drive down the driveway heading to montreal this morning, strange that i am not with them, but  knowing that one and half days of solitude i have craved will help me press reset and prepare for the arrival of my niece & nephew for their summer on the hill. i will weed the garden , listen to music as i am right now and maybe lay in the hammock at some point looking up at the sky through the trees while it grounds me. this evening i will welcome the sunset from the table in the barn while eating dinner made solely from my garden.

hope you guys are doing well, but even better than well.

suddenly snow and galloping horses

i was organizing going through papers, cleaning cupboards when i heard the dogs barking a minute later i could feel the ground shake and the sound of galloping horses. i looked out the window and it was snowing. I grabbed my wool hat, put the battery in the camera and ran outside. seeing the horses at play is so beautiful.  they love the snow and the crisp air that comes with it. usually tolstoy and splash are slow heavy footed beast who spend there day eating hay and grazing( we have had no snow so they are still eating grass). to see them fly in the air, kick up their legs, roll and shake their heads is an experience you have to see for yourself, it is grand. My photographs are not the best i know but perhaps they give you a sense of what it is like.

Now i am back indoors, looking at gluten free recipes for this weekends house guest. a wonderful blogger who's book is the talk of the blogger sphere and her family, it is their first visit to the hill and i am a bit nervous but also excited and all this made better because it just might include snow!

wow it is really, really snowing now!

the afternoon sun and a whispering (UPDATE & a Question)

it was not the noise of the dogs barking that was loud but the eerie silence that had come
from outdoors. i stepped outside and walked to the forest line, i stood still trying to recognize
the unfamiliar. the afternoon sun gently highlighting the giant oaks, maples and pines that kept watch over the house, all this yet i felt a chill pass over me. he made his way quietly,  the sun cast a shadow on tree trunks showing his silhouette as he crept towards what he was after. still i stood silently, betrayed by what i thought was a secret understanding between me and them and now i think to myself how silly of me to have romanticized and believe a wish , a whisper and hope will always come true. the coyote made no pact with me i had only hoped that he would take my offering of a hundred acres for his hunt an exchange for not taking what  i care for. as i could sense him getting closer i disrupted the eerie silence with loud claps and shouts and i felt as if i also broke our pact, that is if he had ever contemplated  my offer....

* few picture taken yesterday and the rest when my sister claudine visited last fall.
* dear Sweet Life farm, i wondered if you had an email or blog i can visit and write you. I am so sorry for the  loss of your two companions.

*update yesterday afternoon after having run to the market to gather things for a friend that was dropping by. after putting  the banana bread in the oven and preparing a cheese plate, while concentrating to hard on a letter i was writing i heard the chicken & ducks go crazy.  i ran to the window and saw a coyote with a grey cochin in his mouth, i tapped on the window like mad enough to put my hand right through the glass( yes the same arm)( corine they are coming to fix it ) then i ran outside and chased it, it dropped the cochin. i gathered all the birds and put them in the fenced area and did the count 1,2 3, 4.... 27...39, 39 39 wait i need the number forty i ran to look for the chicken that was missing with big tears and my cut hand. my thought at the time was there must have been the red coyote there as well and it took one. i cried , no i bawled but my gut said she was not dead, so i grabbed my Newfoundland  grace who can sniff anything out and there we found the hen healthy in tacked under the wood pile.  dear farm friends who read this blog- have you had coyote problems what do you do- i do not have a gun, i choose not to physical harm any animal but perhaps you know away i can make the coyote believe that i could.

thin layer of envy

 

a  light dusting of snow fell yesterday. as i sat sipping tea and staring out at gentle flakes

i started to think about my last post, more precisely your comments- thank you for them of course

but there was something that worried me, you see if i was going to be totally honest i would tell you that the last few month while visiting certain blogs a seed of envy or jealousy or comparison started forming, never did these things happen to me before. I would not want anyone to feel that way visiting my blog. i feel as if i do a good job and balancing the good and bad here on the blog. my last post made it seem as i got out of the gate of 2012 with a bang and that is not true, in fact i think for the first time ever in my life i wore my pjs for a whole day ( it is true k. the whole day) a slow start you see. yes of course some good things are coming and some good things i will work had in making happen but my life is far from total bliss but full of bliss just the same. yesterday after spending most of the day on the computer talking about the upcoming announcement( that is not all mine) i went outside to feed the horses, as i poured grain into their buckets, my feet in muck boots that for three years i could not afford but needed and finally gifted to me by my mother,  i stood on a thin layer of snow under the starry night sky singing to splash while he gave me big kisses, i felt like the luckiest girl in the world- it is these tiny moments that make everything sound like bliss here on la porte rouge. you see it is the accumulation of small moments but pure ones that make my life what it is.

these are the things that i need to hold unto while being a spectator to all the big things that are happening to others.

sunrise on fallen snow

the other night i went to bed knowing that i would wake to snow. eagerly i woke early morning

i got dressed ran outside and realized the sun had not even come out yet. i opened the door to the coop, filled water buckets and tossed hay to the horses who unbeknown to me  had gotten startled during the night perhaps ( a bear) or breaking tree limbs from heavy snow and pulled their fence down and were running wildly ( and beautifully across the fresh fallen snow).  when i looked out i could see that the sun was beginning to rise. to tell you that it was the prettiest sun rise to date would be an understatement. I took so many pictures more of one subject than i had ever before, i am sure hidden in a folder are better photographs than these but my eyes have become a blur to look through them.

i stayed out there for hours, partially because i had a horse fence to fix and Splash to chase who too  seem to love the sunrise. here is a part of what i wrote in my journal that morning.

watched the sunrise outside, pinks and peaches reached clouds and spread unto hill tops like kind wild fires. i am in awe, gosh it is powerful. what seemed like hours must have only taken minutes but it's 

effects on me will last my life time.

I would like do dedicate this post to my maman who will celebrate her birthday tomorrow, i wish i could be by her side in montreal. my mum would be outside by my side staring out at the sun rise if she was on the hill. she stared out her bedroom window at the magical fire flies on hot summer nights, we would stand out at sunset in the fall. bonne fete maman avec tout mon coeur

the snow and my dear sophie.

for some of you this might not be a welcomed post and in away i felt like that about the snow too. it came to early, twice within days. we are home and finally we are breathing, a few nights ago i was hoping i would stop, that i would not take another breath. My dear sophie (my big white dog) got instantly ill and i had to rush her to er were she had to have life or death surgery. i  cried so many tears my eyes ran dry, my head pretty near exploding. i was not going to loose one more anything, i am not good at these things, i am not made of the materials needed to cope.  yet i know now i know my animals and the most subtle change in behaviour a motherly instinct kicks in. sophie is on the mend, and home, the road ahead not easy, yet already better. i think the snow came to calm us down, even in away a vital component to saving sophies life.  I will like to thank my neighbour debbie for being there to drive sophie and i to ny, staying with me till wee hours of the morning, k for coming as soon as he possibly could, the vets all of them for saving her.

 it is a beautiful sunny sunday, white snow everywhere. standing outside under the warm sun feels like a friend's arm around my shoulder. the house feels so different in the snow, a warm bright light comes in and lifts all our spirits.