An Artist's Wife

This weekend was our first snow fall in our Madoc home. My entire life I have spent winters in Toronto. In Toronto winter is cold, damp and there is a lot of slush, not a lot of snow. In fact we rarely get snow, and if we do it never lasts long. It is any wonder no one likes winter. This past weekend my experience with winter was so much different, I have never experienced a quiet like that before. It was perfect snow, crunchy when you walked on it, delicious when you caught it on your tongue, and it made a perfect snow ball. This is the winter of dreams and postcards. Cooper Road was like out of a postcard everywhere we looked, there was one breathe taking view after another. I am jealous of the residents as we drive by, I want to stay there in the country, I want Terri to stop the car so I can photograph it all. But it is Monday and we are driving back to Toronto to begin the week. I know that I am writing this on the first snow fall of the year, and come February I will be longing f...

Funny that she only joined our family a few months ago, it feels like she has been a part of us for a long time. It was only a couple of months ago that we saw the sign "free kittens". I never thought I would have a cat again after Tigger, who I had for 20 years, but living in the country changes things. While renovating the bathroom, we saw a mouse in the exposed wall, and with Fall coming there was sure to be more of them coming inside. A cat was a practical choice, we decided after some discussion. So, we went and knocked on the door of Organic Ellie's place. I will write about Ellie again, she has become one of "The Players" in our life in Cooper. Ellie's farm was everything I ever dreamed a farm should be. There was her chicken coop, I want a chicken coop, her roosters walking around like they owned the place. She says to me, take a rooster with you I have two and one is so mean I hate him. I would love a chicken cop and my own rooster even a mean one. ...

It has been a long time, so much has happened. We do not have Internet at either home at the present time, only our blackberries. That makes writing a blog difficult. I regret not keeping the blog, over the past few months the transition from living in one of the biggest cities in the world into rural Ontario each weekend has been an education. Because it has been so long since I came here I thought about what I would speak about first, learning the hard way about septic tanks? Perhaps talking about how I was warned about black flies and mosquitoes but never once did anyone ever tell me about something called a cluster fly. I have been waging a personal war against them for the past month. I learned that hard water, means my kitchen sink will never look really clean, that I should only invest in cheap coffee makers, and that come the last week of October first week of November, I better look good in orange. We woke yesterday to a pickup of men with their dogs and hunting rifles walking...

Never heard of it, no need to worry every few have. We now call it home. To be precise we live in the Hamlet of Cooper. I love that we live in a Hamlet. For the last two months we have not had access to the internet so it is difficult to document the journey, but I am sneaking in a few minutes today over my lunch to post a few photos of our new home. I hope to be back soon, there is so much to talk about. Sometimes I think it is unfair to be this happy and in love.

OK he is not a Great Dane, in fact he a 19 lbs daschund. I know … we never saw that coming either! Well he is actually 3/4 daschund, and 1/3 either jack Russell terrier or miniature pincher we are not sure. The kid we got him off says he is 100% daschund, but he isn't. The vet confirmed that for us too, his legs are too long, his snout too short. But what he is unbelievably cute! He is soooo cute OMG, and fun. But he is very shy around strangers, which is not a quality that his breed should have, daschund's are strong stubborn dogs that were used to hunt and kill badgers fear and shyness is not something they are known for. So I have a feeling his first 7 months as a puppy were not with very stable training. Saturday morning we decided to go to the Toronto Humane Society to get a dog, we had decided to go see about a little mutt until we moved and got the Dane, and to make a long story short we were there a very long time and were growing impatient. Then in came this young guy ...

That is the third time this week you have said that Clancy laughs. I am excited these days, so excited I could puke actually, with how well all the ducks are lining up. The time is close for us to move out of Toronto and to the country. We have been working towards this dream for a few years now. I did not think we would have it for at least two more years. But it seems the time is much closer, it started innocently enough. Clancy finally gave in and told me I can have a dog. I have always had dogs, he never has had one of his own, and he feels ready now. So I wanted to make sure this was a good experience for him. We gave it a great deal of thought and have done a lot of research the last couple of months. (Cesar Millan is our new hero). After all this research we have decided that a Great Dane is the perfect dog for us. I did not want to start him with a puppy so; we talked and decided to register with Danes in Distress. We are now on their list to be adoptees. A Dane’s traits suit u...

Most of Clancy's drawings are done with him using a black Paper Mate pen, but sometimes he picks up a pencil. I loved this drawing, I asked him to make me a painting. Some of the details changed along the way. He did not like this painting much initially, but in the end this is one of our favourites.