Game of risk and garden planning

I had the pleasure of my Grandson's (Aidan and Jude) company Saturday Sunday and Monday.Was a PD day in Guelph for the schools. I might add that my Grandson Jude wanted to come visit so badly that he offered to miss a friends birthday party, a karate party I might add...how is that for Grandma love?
I must admit he was probably more excited to see the cats...but one can dream.

I insisted he attend the party and we would just leave after he got home ..Karate party was attended and he was wonderfully happy and tired for the drive to Dutton.
The boys love it here and they are fascinated by our project. Jude has fun helping me load the furnace and the wood stove.He worked hard and brought wood in for the stove and happily collected eggs. They watered the chickens and explored everything to make sure it was the same as they left it ... Jude  entertained us with his piano skills  after dinner on Sunday . We also played risk on Sunday starting in the afternoon and ending just before bed in the evening , We played in the dining room which has a beautiful large window and although it was dull outside it was still good light until dusk. We lit every candle we could find to continue our game. Apparently the light was just fine , and the reason I could not tell the green guys from the blue guys is because I am old...not because the light was bad......learn something every day.
The boys also talked about gardens when they were here with me and have requested that they have their own garden this year,naming off an impressive list of hoped for plants. So it has gotten me motivated to start gathering and planting early start seeds in hopes of spring. We are planning massive gardens this year . It is wonderful that these children know the importance of food , real food and where it comes from. Jude loves to tell me how his friends don't know where food comes from , and at 6 years old loves to still talk about digging potatoes and eating the tomatoes and peas right off the vines...these are the memories that will stick I am sure.
Well I had better go for now , see you soon and thank you for visiting us...
Margaret

A Sick Day in the Victorian Year

Greetings all, Ken here. I've been sick the last couple of days and normally this isn't such a big deal. Unless you're self employed, most of us do have a limited number of sick days we can use for this. In Victorian times however, this wasn't the case. It hit home to me because I was supposed to load in a weeks worth of wood for the furnace and the cookstove and was unable to because I was sick. This would mean one of two things in 1865, either I would load the wood in whilst I was sick (and risk making myself worse) or my wife would have to do this on top of all the other things she does in a day.

Margaret didn't have to load in wood yesterday because we had enough to last through till today. I'm feeling better so I have loaded in wood and kept the fires going so the house stays warm for when my love gets home tonight.

My sickness of the last few days got me thinking about how much closer to the edge folks lived in 1865. By this I mean the resources a farm family had to draw on were mainly those contained within the family itself with outside help in times of dire need. I imagine entire families perished in the dead of winter because of influenza or some other contagious illness. I also imagine that their absence wouldn't be taken amiss until the first thaw or maybe even spring. A gloomy thought indeed.

I have always wondered why folks either died young or lived to a ripe old age, and I suspect this may be one of the reasons. Illnesses we don't think twice about would be a serious concern, especially in a farmstead where the immediate resources were limited and the outside resources might be an two hours away (based on a 1 hour trip into town by horse).

Food for thought, and a renewed appreciation of our modern health care system.

Thanks, Ken.

Apologies to Shelly

We apologise to Shelly...we put the wrong address up for you to look at her wonderful art and site. So sorry.
http://www.shelleymcvittie.com/twilightindex.htm is the correct site information...have a look at this wonderful work .
Margaret..

Candles,wax and cold weather

Greetings everyone ..
We took a drive to Cambridge yesterday to have our official Christmas/New Years visit with Ken's sister Sarah and her Husband Dave.
Our christmas gifts from the were candles ,candles ,candles. Oh and wax to make more candles...do they know us or what?
So the wax pot will be doing double time to get more dipped candles made.
On our way to Cambridge we sort of took the scenic route.... highway number 3, we managed to stop by and see Shelley at Cobblestone Galeries. Shelley is one our newest followers and if you like art, her work is incredible and her use of colour is simply amazing. Visit cobblestonegalleries.com for more info. Thanks to our visit with Shelley, we discovered a whole "route" that led us to antiques, apples, bees, honey and a myriad other things here in Elgin County. Things dealing with Victoriana and skilled crafts which are all local to Elgin County. The route is on her web page.

We have a question for you, pretend there is a real Victorian mercantile, specializing in everything Victorian. What would you like to see in this mercantile? Victorian hardware ie. hinges, door knobs, window hardware, candle sconces and the like? What about period patterns for clothing? Period fabrics? Perhaps period furniture. Kitchen wares?
Please let us know.
Thank youhave finished our supper now and the pots of water on the cook stove are hot and ready for our bath.
Our 7 course sunday dinner consisted of potatoes mashed with a yogurt, peas with butter,turnip with apple and onion, stuffed pork tenderloin with a bacon crust, served with an apple jelly,creamed cheese herb stuffed chicken , dinner rolls and to finish a chocolate cake...
To everyone who has written to us regarding our spring dinner , we have decided a tenative date of March 24th...please let us know if that will suit you .
Again this is a strictly period dinner where everyone will present themselves in proper period garb and will have read up on corrent events of the time and date , we will all be 1st person for the entire visit ...I have received wonderful letters written with quill  from a few people and it is cool that you have done this...
Talk to you soon
M&K Cook

We

Feels like early spring

Wow , you couldn't make the chickens happier than they have been lately. Outside everyday , chasing the cats around the yard..They are laying eggs like crazy which is unusual at this time of the year. Chickens generally slow down in the winter months . So we have an abundance of lovely eggs. And our young chickens are starting to lay , we are getting small beautiful eggs , some in blue ,some in green and some white.Got more wood brought in today,especially for the kitchen stove. Other than that just using the day light to clean and get some sewing done. I try to take advantage of the day light for sewing because it is very hard on my eyes to do sewing by candle light.I can do it but my eyes get tired quickly.
Talk to you soon and thank you for visiting.
M

January thaw???

Well this is some weather we are having isn't it?
We took advantage of the day to bring in some wood & do some necessary things outside. Inside I washed the walls in the kitchen.They get very dusty with the kitchen stove going all of the time. So if I do not keep it up they look dusty. I remember the mention that the Victorians used old tea leaves to sprinkle on the floors . They sprinkled them then swept the whole mess up. I am assuming this is to dampen the dust. Something I have noticed is the dust level is high especially during the winter months. So I am assuming this is why they did this. Anyone have any ideas on this or comments??
I have noticed that this is the time of year that grand pieces of pork appear in the grocery stores,  especially in Guelph. Sausage making time again. Sure enough I ran into a friends Mother who happily announced "we are making sausage". Now we also want to make sausage and had every intention to do so .My concern is the lack of freezing outside. With no freezer we cannot keep the sausages. Also we haven't had sufficient snow fall to use snow during this January thaw. Normally we would have our meat or whatever outside and it would freeze , during a thaw period we would just pack snow around the container to keep it frozen , this we cannot do without the snow. Our warmer weather surely would have caused a real problem 150 years ago. So that is all I have to say this evening .Speaking of we have longer light during the days now so I can get a few more things done before I am lighting the candles ...which is wonderful. I really miss longer days.
See you soon