This Wednesday! First beach club of the season! Emily is coming with hers and I'm bringing the girl! Starting at 1:00 but I'm aiming for 12:30 in the library. I'm Hoping for some snow even though our sled was stolen last year!

Well, I finally finished the gardening for the year.  A bit sad really, to pull up all the tomato plants, even though the slugs enjoyed most of the tomatos.  Even the cucumber plant that had yeilded so much this year had to go.  It didn't dissappoint.. there was one last cuc for us to enjoy.

We dug it all up and I heaved a sigh of relief and got a little excited about next years crop.  I learned so much in my first year with my very own garden, without my mom tell me this or that.  I made tonnes of mistakes that I hope not to repeat and maybe next year I won't lose so much of my harvest to the raccoons, squirrels and slugs.

But after clearing it all out, adding the coffee grounds and tilling the soil, it is nice too look at that little plot of land behind my house and dream about the possibilities for next year.  All my gardening mistakes are gone.  Only an emply plot, soon to be covered with snow.  And in the spring I can start afresh and with hope.  I like that about spring.

But for now, I'll enjoy winter.  No more weeding for a few months.  Just plotting and planning and ordering seeds.  What do you plan to plant next spring?

Last Sunday I promised my daughter we'd go skating.  There was laundry to do, bathrooms and a kitchen clean and vacuuming to be done.  I was exhausted after doing everything that needed to be done and I asked her if we could maybe go another day.  Her answer was "you promised".  Fair enough. So we got ourselves ready to go just as the big hockey game was starting.

My husband is the big hockey fan in the family.  I'd watched quite a bit of the Olympics and well, I wasn't broken up about missing the game.  Off we went to the rink.

The streets were empty but we could hear some cheers from the houses as we walked past them. The ice rink was empty.  We skated around a few times. The sun was still high at 4:30 and it was warm.  The lake was lovely. A monumental game was being played but there we were enjoying our own monumental mother daughter moment - which are fewer and farther between since the baby was born.

Then the most wonderful thing happened.  The rink was flooded with kids.  It was a birthday party and about 20 kids turned up with a few parents supervising.  Then a couple turned up.  A few other parents and their kids showed up and the rink was bustling.  It was fabulous.  One of the moms at the birthday party was getting updates about the game from her husband and was telling everyone on the rink what was happening.

When the Americans tied up the game with only 24 seconds left in the third period the entire rink screamed "NO".  Strangers talked like long time friends. We all chatted about the game and about the records we would break as a nation if we won, about the devastation we would feel if we lost.  I felt connected to my fellow skaters.

The party goers had to go home. The rink was closing and we all parted ways while the game was in overtime.  The woman who was giving out the updates had gone and I was excited to get home and find out if we won or lost.  A game, I had only a passing interest in,  all of a sudden became very important to me.

My daughter, however, wanted to climb on the climbing tree and build a snowman.  So she climbed and we built a snow man with crazy stick hair and a snow dog and then we dawdled home.

Then we heard it.  The 'whoop whoop'ing and the horn blowing from Queen street.  I had no idea how much I cared about this game until I heard those cheers.  The entire walk home people were smiling.  Strangers were cheering "Go Canada Go" at each other.  My daughter kept asking me "mommy do you know those people?"

"No honey, I don't"

"Then why are you talking to them?"

"Because honey, we are all Canadian and today we are very proud."

Beach Club Halloween tomorrow 1-3 meeting at the gazebo at Kew! (annual spooky ravine walk couldn't happen this year because of the construction to the ravine) Dress up if you wish - I think we'll dress up as a crew of fishermen since it may be wet! I'll be sure to sing the scary classics! 
http://www.activekidsclub.com/halloween/halloween/songs.html

For more Halloween fun Kari is having her Spooky Halloween Walk on Monday October 31st - see the link for details!
http://www.activekidsclub.com/akc-network/outdoor-playgroups/upper-beach-nature-play/viewevent.html?eventid=16

Beach Club Halloween tomorrow 1-3 meeting at the gazebo at Kew! (annual spooky ravine walk couldn't happen this year because of the construction to the ravine) Dress up if you wish - I think we'll dress up as a crew of fishermen since it may be wet! I'll be sure to sing the scary classics! 
http://www.activekidsclub.com/halloween/halloween/songs.html

For more Halloween fun Kari is having her Spooky Halloween Walk on Monday October 31st - see the link for details!
http://www.activekidsclub.com/akc-network/outdoor-playgroups/upper-beach-nature-play/viewevent.html?eventid=16

Thanks to Kari for her great post last week about the Fairy Cupcakes - sugared flowers.  They were so beautiful and I had no idea that pansies were edible!  Here is a picture of how mine turned out!  My pansies were a slightly different colour, but grown at my house with no pesticides and high off the ground in a container so little chance of other contaminates.  I had no idea how easy this was.  Now I used my own lemon cupcake recipe (the yellow bits on top are lemon zest) but the sugared flowers were the hit of the day.  My daughter had a special playdate and they picked the flowers and had a faerie tea party with the cakes once decorated.  It really made the day special.

Now Kari said that there are recipes that use rose petals... I have access to home grown pesticide free rose petals!  I'm so excited to make something else!

Hello all Beach Club members,

This is just a quick announcement to say that summer hours are now in effect!  It is just too hot to be out from 12:30 to 2:00.  So summer hours are that we start at 10:00.  I'd still like to meet at the Gazebo if that's okay with everyone, until school lets out.  Then we can go to our usual summer hang out down by the water. (just south of the tennis courts just west of the off leash dog area on the beach).

It is summer and we are all outside all the time anyway!

Cheers

Debra

Hey all.

Don't forget to get your eggs coloured and decorated today.  Tomorrow is our easter egg hunt.  (we can do another one next wed too if you all want to do it twice its so much fun).  I'll bring a dozen coloured eggs to find (but not eat - I'm not using natural dyes this year).

Bring your picnic for 11:30 if you want.  And then at 12:30 we'll try to get the egg hunt underway.   See you all tomorrow.

Deb.

April Showers don't just bring May flowers, they bring April flowers too.  At least here in Toronto they do.

Last fall we planted crocuses, irises, daffodils and tulips in our front yard and we had no idea what order they would come up.  So we've been watching the ground with anticipation.

It was the beginning of March when we first noticed green things sprouting up in the yards around our neighbourhood.  There were even a few little patches of delicate white and yellow flowers.  I think they were snowdrops.  We eagerly looked in our yard but still nothing green had sprouted.

It wasn't until the beginning of April that the rains brought us our first green sprout in our yard.  We've been watching every new flower that comes up after each rain.  First the crocuses and irises blossomed.  At the moment they are still the only ones that have bloomed.  For some reason purple crocuses come up before yellow ones, unscientifically speaking of course.  There are many leaves up but no flowers.  We are guessing they are tulip leaves but don't know which ones are the daffodils leaves.  I guess we'll find out in a few more rains.

What flowers have already sprung up in your neck of the woods?

There is something about an icy cold day in the middle of spring to bring people together.  We were planning to go to the beach, planning a different day.  The weather had other plans.  It snowed.  Not just snow, but hard icy snow that hurt your face when it hit you and the wind made sure it hit you in the face.  It was a nasty day to be out.

But there we were, the beach club, the old members we've not seen in a while, the regular members and a brand new member.  There is something about sledding down the hill to the beach in the cold, 4 days after the official 'first day of spring' the brings a group of people together.

To all of you - cheers!