Snowshoe Ramble

I received a pair of snowshoes for Christmas so I tried them out in the back 400. This shot is looking back at the house before I enter our trail.

I love the way the snow envelopes the trees. This picture looks as if I’m entering a secret “snow garden”.

This trail meanders around a few ponds and opens into a wetland, started by a beaver dam. Here it is now...

And how it looked the previous spring...hard to believe!

Holiday Wishes

I confess that up until a few days ago I found it difficult to get into the "Christmas spirit". Between work and trying to navigate family challenges, I didn't have a lot of energy left over to do shopping and decorating, especially on a tighter budget.


However, there is something magical about this time of year that seems to lighten one’s spirit and watching our home transform with Christmas lights, gifts under the tree and a cheerful fire in the woodstove helped to create the mood.



































With these cards I designed I hope to capture those same feelings.

















The best thing to giving is the giving of ourselves and I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and all the best in the coming year.

Moving On

After being snowed in for a few days we finally ventured out to town. I forgot to bring my camera but took some shots with my cell phone as we drove through Bracebridge.















I couldn't believe the size of the banks alongside the main streets. There are still many side streets not yet plowed.

Buried Day Two

This morning we climbed onto the car port roof and started shovelling. The highway was still closed in both directions and I lost phone service for a number of hours. When I climbed onto the roof I could barely move! There was more than three feet of snow to clear.

This was my view of the roof. We were on opposite sides of each other, I'm facing the Muskoka Room.

Later we heard on the news that the Bracebridge, Huntsville area received 60-100 cm of snow in two days!

Briefly the sun came out and we enjoyed patches of blue sky, creating a winter wonderland.

Snow Day

The Muskoka region has been hit hard with snow these past few days. Huntsville received almost 70 cm of the “fluffy stuff” overnight. Our area has received at least 50 cm of snow and we’re supposed to receive another 30 cm today! I got up early and took a few pictures. This is looking out from under the car port.

A few hours later, from the same vantage point. This is after I had my driveway cleared.

Across the street my neighbour is blowing out his driveway, and you can barely see his house.

For two days I drove in white-out conditions to and from work. Thankfully today I am off but my heart goes out to those who still have to travel in treacherous conditions, especially those who need to get to the hospital for treatment.

As I write this, I've just heard that the highway is closed in both directions, so we are snowed in for sure!

Halfway Lake

Near where we live is a small lake that flows into another larger body of water. For many years I have skied it in the winter and canoed it in the summer. This fall, we enjoyed an unseasonably warm day as we spent a wonderful afternoon exploring Halfway Lake.

As we paddled across Stoneleigh Lake into Halfway Lake we came across clusters of the aquatic herb Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata). These elegant plants are edible; the young leaf stalks can be cooked as greens and the seeds eaten as nuts.

There were also the elegant fragrant water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) which I enjoyed capturing in my sketches and on camera. Without a doubt they are one of my favourite aquatic plants.

Below are some sketches I did while we canoed and then another watercolour sketch I completed at home.

Characters from the Past

I came across a poem I had composed and was pleasantly surprised with its whimsical quality. As children my sister and I spent countless hours inventing comics which consisted of a large cast of complex animalistic characters. Looking back I believe we were quite sophisticated in our humour although it may have been somewhat naive. As I speak, my sister is on tour in Nunavut and the surrounding area, doing school presentations as part of the TD Children’s Book Week and promoting her new children’s book “The Pirate and the Penguin”.
I am rather amazed at her tenacity and panache to be able to promote herself. She has worked hard to get where she is today. You can check out her blog at http://storms.typepad.com/booklust/. She is everything I would say I’m not, opinionated, vivacious and unafraid. I have always been rather introverted. Even though I believed with my heart and soul that I would work and make a living with my art, (and I did start out that way), I went back to school as a mature student and acquired my degree in nursing. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I worked very hard to get where I am today but it wasn’t the life course or path that I had planned for my personal journey. Just goes to show you, one can never tell the course that life is going to take them. Anyway, here is the poem and drawing.





Lion, skunk and panther
Bound in friendship three
Had one thing most in common,
They loved crumpets for their tea.

Every noon you’d find them
Bound in friendship three
Seated ‘round the table,
Sharing crumpets pleasantly.

Till one fateful afternoon,
Twas sadly meant to be,
Lion, skunk and panther
Quarrelled over tea.

It seems that Lion -
Snarling terribly
Ate up all the crumpets
And drank up all the tea.
Now to this day you’ll find them,
Bound in friendship three
Lion, skunk and panther,
Guard their crumpets carefully.