Yearly Archives: 2016

Coffee Crisp

I don’t like coffee – I don’t even care for the smell of it – but Coffee Crisp is OK, especially when it looks like this:

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Our heifer, Hershey, calved yesterday morning. I came into the barn just in time to witness the miracle of the calf’s arriving!

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This morning the weather promised to be sunny, however it broke its promise and there have been only cloudy skies all day. Notwithstanding we did a short photo session with Coffee Crisp anyway.

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I know this green stuff is good for something.

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Come here, Coffee Crisp!

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I’m coming! I’m coming!

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I’m cute!

Helping starts young!

We looked out our window one day and here is what we saw…

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Then, when the aunts and uncles came out to see, he volunteered to help with watering the garden. Great job, Caleb! You can never start helping too young!

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And praise the Lord for parents who are diligently training their children up in the ways of the Lord!

1,000 days

1,000 is a big number… and a small one.

1,000 days is a long time… and short one.

So much can happen and has happened in that time. There have been:

Joys & sorrows
Laughter & tears
New faces
New places
New priorities
Rejoicing in relationships
Grieving at losses
Developing deeper bonds
– with Christ
– with loved ones

To be more specific:

Sitting on the floor playing with baby toys
Driving for hours together
Talking over lists of names
Figuring out just what to make for supper
Scratching heads over riddles
Organising and reorganising rooms to make everything fit
Learning to hang things from the ceiling

All that and far more has taken place in that long, but short stretch of time. Can anyone guess what occurred 1,000 days ago? If you need a hint check this link.

Sugar on snow

Sugaring off is a traditional spring event here in Quebec. Since we just do it as a family, we go really small scale and boil a couple cans of maple syrup on our stovetop. It is a fun (and sticky!) time. David and Erica and their two girls joined us, increasing the enjoyment. Too little to get involved with the sticky stuff, Keziah just played peek-a-boo in her stroller.

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Elizabeth, however, got to join in and loved it!

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Yum!

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This is sticky!

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Some milk after so much sweet

Everyone enjoyed their day too!

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Daddy’s little girl – all cleaned up!

As we savoured the maple sugar, I thought of the verse in Psalm 119:103: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Yes, the Word is sweeter even than maple syrup!

Spring is in the air!

It seems as though winter never arrived this year. Sure, we got bits of snow all along, in fact we’re expecting a bit more tonight, but we received none of those get-you-stuck-in-your-driveway storms and the piles that usually mound up during snow removal season were only a few feet tall at most.

Yet despite winter’s non-arrival, spring is just around the corner! The birds are returning: Canada geese fly overhead regularly, mallard ducks were seen today, song birds in large numbers show up at the feeders.

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purple finch

chickadee

chickadee

pine siskin

pine siskin

song sparrow

song sparrow

The red-winged blackbirds and robins have not yet been caught by my camera, but they are around as are the less colourful starlings and grackles. The squirrels too have been feasting on the seed the birds drop. They are cute little creatures and quite friendly too!

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Everyone is enjoying the longer days and warm sunshine… including the cat!

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Saturday, several of us tuned up our bikes and went out for a short ride. It was a lovely day for it: bright sun and no wind!20160326_ELF_8656

Meanwhile, the guys were busy solving a computer issue… It looked complicated.

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And then yesterday, we had a special event to commemorate the coming of spring, but I’ll tell of that another time… 🙂

Ride’m Cowgirl!

Well, maybe not quite a cowgirl… but Elizabeth certainly had fun riding a friend’s pony last week!

20160311_ELF_8586Waving to Grandma T in the window! 🙂
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And as a side-note: there is usually still snow around in Quebec at the beginning of March! We have had an extraordinarily warm winter this year and spring is arriving early!