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Do your own a-maze-ing race

Corn stalksDazed and crazed in a maze. That’s how I spent yesterday, deciphering the corm maze at Wynn Farms and picking apples with the girls.

There’s something about getting lost in a maze that takes you back to your childhood. I remember my parents taking me to Centre Island in Toronto. Besides the petting zoo and the ferry ride , our favourite part was the maze. I think it was my parents’ favourite too since they could sit and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet while we raced through the paths, squealing every time we came to a dead end.

Here were just a few of the a-maze-ing facts we learned about farming in yesterdays’s maze.

  • The average farm feeds 120 families
  • One acre of soybeans can make 82,368 crayons (who knew?)
  • In a typical 10,000 item grocery store, a quarter, or 2,500 products contain corn!

This week’s #HappyAct is to do your own a-maze-ing race in a corn maze. Gaze at the fields ablaze with reds and golds and corn silk shining against the bright blue sky. Don’t get fazed. It’s the newest craze. Special note for those of you who love to Gaze at the Stars. This Thursday, October 2nd, Terence Dickinson the reknowned astronomer is putting on a free presentation open to the community at Prince Charles Public School in Verona from 7-9 p.m. Hope you can make it!

girls at a corn maze

Girl in a corn maze

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Roamin’ in the gloamin

Sun shimmering through trees
The gorgeous light of the gloamin

It’s fall, my favourite season. For me, the first days of fall are as bitter sweet as the orange-berried vine that grows in our fields this time of year. I am reluctant to bid summer adieu, but embrace the crisp days and cool nights and sweet smells of fresh apples and wood smoke in the air.

This is when I start counting down the days and hours before daylight savings time. I get home quite late, so I often only have an hour at home after work before it gets dark. This is my time to go roamin’ in the gloamin.

There is something very special about the light at this time of year in the evening–the way it shimmers and casts a soft glow over the landscape. It’s magical.

This week’s #Happy Act is to go roamin’ in the gloamin’. Having a lad or lassie by your side is optional (I usually just have my two big dopey dogs by my side).

About the song

I always thought Roamin’ in the Gloamin was an old Scottish folk song, but it was actually written in 1911 by Sir Harry Lauder. The song tells of a man and his sweetheart courting in the evening. Here are the words of the chorus:

“Roamin’ in the gloamin’ on the bonnie banks o’ Clyde.
Roamin’ in the gloamin’ wae my lassie by my side.
When the sun has gone to rest,
That’s the time we love the best.
O, it’s lovely roamin’ in the gloamin”

Dog in wooded path
Roamin’ in the gloamin with Murphy by my side

 

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Step right up and make a change

United Way volunteers
Co-workers Elaine Peterson, Jordan Grundy and Jessica Schonewille at the United Way breakfast

This week I attended the kick-off breakfast for the 2014 Kingston, Lennox, Frontenac and Addington United Way Campaign. The room was packed with more than 500 community leaders and volunteers who run campaigns in their workplace. This year, the goal for our region is $3,481,000.

Our company, Empire Life is a huge supporter of United Way and always runs a fantastic campaign. This year our theme is “Step right up and make a change”, and we’ll be planning lots of fun events based on a carnival theme to raise almost $300,000. That’s a lot of change.

Over the years, United Way has become a charity of choice for me. I’m personally invested for two main reasons. One, it is the one charity where my money goes directly back into my own community and is distributed across many agencies and areas of need to help my neighbours, my colleagues, my friends.

The other reason is I’ve seen first-hand the incredible work United Way agencies do. I’ve been on the Board of Kingston Literacy and Skills, volunteered with CNIB, have worked for the day at places like Kingston Interval House and Kingston Youth Shelter as part of the Day of Caring, and visited other agencies through the United Way Seeing is Believing tour.

There is a third reason, knowing some day that could be me. We are all one pink slip, one medical crisis away from our lives changing inexorably. Life is fragile. In a flash, everything you hold dear can change, as we heard firsthand at the breakfast when 15-year old Oscar Evans described how his life changed after a chemical accident at the age of 13 when he became blind. We may all need help some day. I, for one, am grateful the United Way is there when that day comes.

This week’s #HappyAct is to step up and make a change by giving to United Way. If you live in a community where you aren’t as aware of the incredible work United Way does, make it a point of finding out. Volunteer for an agency or ask about a Seeing is Believing tour in your community (there is one in Kingston on September 23, find more details here.) Special thanks to the Empire Life team who braved the miserable rain yesterday at our 6th annual Community Garage Sale for United Way. You guys are amazing!

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Cheer from the stands

roller derbyThere are times when standing on the sidelines is just as much fun as playing the game. Last night for Clare’s birthday, we took her and four of her friends to the Kingston Derby Girls end of season match. I’ve never been to the roller derby before. It was a riot.

They billed it as The Best. The Most. The GREATEST night of roller derby in Kingston–the fifth anniversary of Back to Cruel, when it all began.

It took us a bit to pick up the game and figure out the Jammers were the girls with the stars on their helmet and they got a point every time they passed members of the other team. It was a double header, the Kingston Disloyalists versus the London Timber Rollers followed by a hometown match of the Rogue Warriors versus The Skateful Dead. Our favourite skaters were Manic Breeze, Sewciopath and Banger Management.

I don’t know what was more fun, watching the crowd (which by the way included everyone from two-year olds with their parents, to a bunch of Queen’s students making beer statues on the sidelines to people in their sixties and seventies), or following the action on the rink, but it was rockin’.

This week’s Happy Act is to cheer from the stands. Get lost in the game, cheer loudly for your favourite team and have fun. Here are some more pictures of last night’s action. Become a fan—like the Kingston Derby Girls on Facebook.

roller derby

 

Kids watching roller derby
The little kids and one big kid taking in the action
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Let it go

You must have been living on an iceberg this past year if you don’t know the song Let it Go from the movie Frozen. I was paddling on the lake the other day and heard a chorus of young voices singing it at the top of their lungs. My kids sing it so often, I know most of the words even though I haven’t seen the movie.

It’s a catchy song, but also a philosophy I’ve learned to adopt to be happy in life. It’s easy to let things get to you. It’s incredibly hard to let them go.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to someone on the phone. The conversation took a turn into a contentious area and I realized I was starting to get upset and quickly steered the conversation to another topic. But as soon as I got off the phone, I knew the person had “gotten to me” and I started stewing over what they said.

As I walked out the door to head to the lake for a paddle with the girls, I knew I had to “let it go”. Easier said than done. My usual strategies are to take deep breaths, a brisk walk, or focus on something positive. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, is it really worth getting all worked up over this. And the answer is usually no, just let it go.

This week’s #HappyAct is to let it go. Maybe it’s something at work or home bothering you, or something someone said. Just remember. “One thought crystallizes like an icy blast, I’m never going back; the past is in the past…I’ll rise like the break of dawn. Let it go.”

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Spend time with someone older and wiser

Our family and Audrey
Celebrating with Audrey

Yesterday we celebrated the 85th birthday of someone who holds a special place in many hearts, Audrey Tarasick.

I first met Audrey in 1979 when her daughter Leslie and I became inseparable as teenagers. Audrey lived on a farm north of Kingston where she had moved on her own to set up an alternative school. Fiercely independent, with a zest for adventure and life, yet soft-spoken, patient and loving, Audrey quickly became a unique role model in my life.

She was one of the only women I knew who was an expert woodworker and who converted the entire front section of her house into a workshop to make dollhouses. She was the first to say, “go for it” on hot summer days when she would take us to Eagle Lake for a swim even though we didn’t have our bathing suits.

She has taught us the precise time to sugar off, when the syrup drips deliciously from the ladle to form a silver dollar at maple syrup time. She has steadfastly refused over the years to “babysit” her grandchildren, opting to spend time with them instead, and as a result has close relationships with the 15 grandchildren who love her dearly today. She has taught me about parenting, and has been there for Dave and me during some of the most difficult times in our life.

I have learned so much from this incredible woman. But the thing I appreciate most about Audrey is her different viewpoint on life. Whether it’s global warming, parenting, politics or rural living, Audrey always has a unique and insightful perspective. There’s been many a time in the family kitchen during a heated discussion, I find myself wondering, “I wonder what Audrey is going to say.”

This week’s #HappyAct is to spend time with someone older and wiser than you. Listen to what pearls of wisdom they may share. Here was my favourite from yesterday. Audrey was shooting hoops in the basketball competition, and I teased her that she was grunting like the tennis pros. She said to me, “As you get older, everything is easier if you grunt”. Happy birthday, Audrey. Thanks for being such a wonderful friend and role model.

Audrey shooting a bow and arrow
Audrey trying her hand in the archery competition

 

Women having tea in a team room
Special girls outing to Spindletree gardens earlier this summer, three generations of two families celebrating together
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Ride a rollercoaster

Father and daughter riding rollercoaster
Dave and Clare riding the Wildcat at Hershey Park. We got sucked into buying the picture because we loved the expression on their faces

There’s only two weeks left of this infernal imposter summer. Make the most of it by doing something that gets your adrenaline pumping. Ride a rollercoaster.

I had forgotten what a rush it is to hurl down a clickety clack track at 50 mph but the fear and exhilaration came racing back to me recently when we attacked the 12 rollercoasters at Hershey Park, Pennsylvania. I only rode about four of them before my stomach gave out, but thrillseekers Dave and Clare squeezed in as many as possible before the park closed.

Boredom and routine can cast a shadow over the joys of everyday life. It’s a rare day when we do something so exhilarating it gets our adrenaline pumping and we lose all inhibition. That’s what’s so great about rollercoasters. You don’t worry about what your hair looks like, or about that deadline at work. All you can think about is what’s around the next bend. I don’t think at all. I literally scream the entire way around the track at the top of my lungs. I can’t think of a greater stress buster in the world.

This week’s #HappyAct is to ride a rollercoaster. Let every inhibition hurl out of you and feel the thrill of the rush. The Canadian National Exhibition is on in Toronto. Relive your youth, spend the day at the Ex, and scream til your lungs hurt. Leave a comment—what’s your favourite rollercoaster?

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Listen to live music

band on stage
Celtic band Irish Roots playing at the Verona Cattail Festival

This weekend is a big deal in my small town. It’s the weekend of the annual Verona Cattail Festival. It kicks off with a parade that lasts about 10 minutes and has more people in it than watching it, features a Red Green Cardboard Duct Tape Boat Race where entrants make a boat out of cardboard and duct tape and everybody cheers as the boats sink, a pancake breakfast, fish fry and antique car show (on today if you’re looking for something to do and like antique cars).

For me, the highlight of our little festival is the music on the main stage. The organizers do a great job attracting talent from all genres. Last night the best act was a group called the Bon Evans Band—a guy who looked and sounded like Cat Stevens who played all originals, but the celtic group and Rockabilly Allstars were fun too.

The reality today is, most of us listen to music through some sort of device. It’s great that music is now universally accessible thanks to iTunes and iPods, but we’ve lost that experience of seeing the musicians on stage, hearing the music live and watching the performers interact with the audience. Many artists now have to charge exorbitant amounts for their concerts since it is their primary source of income.

At one point last night, I was watching the band. The sun was setting over the fields. Beside the stage were two Canadian flags gently billowing in the wind. Beside the stage Clare was dancing with friends and an older couple were dancing. It was a one of those blissful moments when you realize there is no place you’d rather be and no better place in the world to live than in Canada.

This week’s #HappyAct is to listen to some live music. The more intimate the venue, the better. Tap your toes, get up and dance, let the music take you away. A plug: if you’re out on a Saturday night in Kingston, my co-worker Tim Aylesworth and his buddy Craig Jones are always playing at Tir Nan Og Irish Pub on Ontario Street on the patio–he’s a great singer songwriter.

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Top 7 gardens to visit

Garden walkway
One of the many beautiful paths at Spindletree gardens

For some people, the thought of spending time in a garden would be a yawnfest.

Even if you don’t like gardening, spending time in a garden can be cathartic. I’ve always found gardens to be peaceful, inspirational places where the wonders and beauty of nature unfold and transform from season to season.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit two spectacular gardens this year: numbers 1 and 7 on the list. For those of you in Eastern Ontario, I’d highly recommend you visit Spindletree Gardens in Tamworth—it is truly a treasure in our own backyard and one of my all-time favourite gardens. They also serve a great lunch.

Here is my top list of favourite gardens to visit and spend time in:

  1. Longwood Gardens, in Pennsylvania: we visited this garden in July. I loved the fountain show and the conservatory, which had one of the largest pipe organs I’ve ever seen
  2. Larkwhistle, the home of garden authors Patrick Lima and John Scanlan’s on the Bruce Peninsula—simply stunning but you may be too late—when we visited it last summer we heard it may be the last season they open to the public
  3. The Rideau canal in Ottawa in May during the Canadian tulip festival
  4. The gardens at Chatsworth Hall, in Bakewell, England: 105 acres of formal traditional gardens and where they filmed my favourite version of Pride and Prejudice
  5. Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens—beautiful in the spring when the cherry and apple trees are in full bloom
  6. The garden atrium and conversatory at the Opryland hotel in Nashville–nine acres of inside oasis
  7. Spindletree gardens and tea room in Tamworth: a gem in our own backyard

This week’s #HappyAct is to spend time in a garden. Find a quiet bench to sit on then look around you. You never know what you may find and where your thoughts will take you.

Flowers in a conservatory
The conservatory at Longwood
Flowers in bloom
My garden
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Watch a baby grow–read about our loons

Loon family
Our loon family

I was kayaking in our back lake last Sunday. It was a bit of a challenge to even get into the lake because the beavers had dammed up the channel, but I made it in, and was rewarded to discover our two loons with a brand new baby.

We had given up hope there would be a baby this year. I had taken pictures of the mother on her nest and the egg about a month ago, but when no baby appeared, we assumed the egg had been eaten by a snapping turtle or pike.

Each day this past week has brought a new wonder as we’ve watched “Wheezy” (short for Louise) grow. She started out staying very close to her mother, often riding on her back , then learning how to dive.

The other day she was in the middle of the lake by herself. The mama and papa loon were closer to our dock. You could tell they were worried and trying to find her. She’d give a little hoot, and they’d answer with a full call, dipping their heads under water to try to hear her better and locate her. The parents started swimming quickly toward her and the family was reunited. Last night, I watched as the dad fished and fed the baby his catch.

There is nothing more life affirming than witnessing the miracle of life. It represents everything that is good in this world–innocence, trust, love, optimism, and endless possibility. We experienced this same feeling a few weeks ago on vacation when we watched a newborn foal find his legs during our week-long visit.

Fast forward to two nights ago. I was walking across the soccer field. My two girls were walking and talking in front of me. I was suddenly struck by what beautiful, spirited people they had become. In that moment I was so proud. It has been both a pleasure and a privilege to watch them grow. I look forward to the next ten years to see the young women they become.

This week’s #HappyAct is to watch a baby grow. Witness the miracle of life and be thankful that each day is a gift. I have two more births to look forward to. Our neighbours are expecting a baby this fall and we are looking forward to welcoming their little one into the world and watch him grow. And Dave’s almost finished building the chicken coop—time to get baby chicks!

Adult loon ruffling its feathers
The papa loon warns us we are getting too close
Baby loon on her mother's back
Wheezy getting a ride on her mother’s back
Loon egg
The egg is a mottled brown, about the size of a grapefruit