What was your favourite childhood toy?

Recently there was an email going around, sent from friend to friend, which listed all sorts of interesting questions that each person would fill in then pass on to the next person; things that you might not know about your friends - maybe things you shouldn't know about your friends. Questions in the list would be things like "What was your favourite tv show?", "What did you have for breakfast today?", "What did you want to be when you grew up?". The question that I had to really think about was, "What was your favourite childhood toy?". I remembered all the games I used to play...Monopoly (hated it), cards, checkers, barbies (omg, what do I wear today??), Planet of the Apes dolls (ok maybe I don't want my friends to know that one), but then I remembered some toys I played with that I loved so much I still have them...they were in the archives at grandma's house. I brought them home to the farm where they should be. The funny thing about these toys is I never gave them up, even when I got older.

Marvel the mustang - one of my first horsie loves after the grocery store pony and the merry-go-round. You could bounce up and down on him and he travelled along. Our driveway sloped downward toward the end so you got a really good ride. Unfortunately he was a bit small and I outgrew him quickly, so before his poor little legs got squashed right to the ground, I retired him to the backyard and fed him grass alot.

And a magical thing happened, all that grass must have worked because here he is today; we're both all grown up!

Fisher Price Pull Chicken has seen alot of mileage in his lifetime and still makes that great life-like chicken sound when you pull him along. His paint may be peeling and some of his joints are a bit loose, but hey, after 44 years, whose aren't?

Today there are five hens that live here and one suspiciously looks alot like old Fisher Price henny.

So besides the Barbie Corvette which I never got...not practical for lugging hay around and I think it was my spoiled little sister who had it anyway, there was one more toy which has a special place in my heart....Eeyore the donkey hand puppet. I love Eeyore mostly because he's adorable but we also share alot of personality traits. I've smuggled him here and he lives in our bedroom on a shelf near Tom's side of the bed (I don't think it's creeping him out, he hasn't mentioned it - maybe he hasn't noticed yet). Although I don't own a donkey yet, the people who run the local donkey rescue are having an open house...... Hey Tom, I know what we can do this weekend!

Greeting Cards

Here are some of my spring and summer greeting cards, perfect for birthdays, Mother's Day or any Special Occasion. I do custom invitations, or cards of your cottage, farm or beautiful home. These make great gifts for those hard-to-buy-for people. Please email me at jenniferzsolt@twooaks.ca for more information.



Dog Days of Summer

Through the Garden Gate

Easter Hen

Easter Chick



Hollyhocks/Mouse

Happy Birthday

 

Squirrel Wars

Valentine Heart

Valentine Dogs

Valentine Mice

Horse Friends

Summer Cottage

Teamwork

Purple Hills

No Place Like Home




Blue Hens

Summer Barn

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Field of Dreams

Hen Friends



Hen Mom

Mom and Lamb

Mom's Garden

Little Peeps

Pet Love

Old Schoolhouse

Robin

Best Friends



Chicks Rule



Sheep Pals





Bird Watching and the Colour Green

I used to think that birdwatching was a pastime enjoyed by...well....grannies and grampas; folks that just couldn't move fast enough to enjoy pursuits that involved any equipment sleeker and faster than say a comfy recliner and a pair of binoculars. I must have crossed that threshold into the blue-haired zone, because I can't tell you how much joy I get from the birds that come (have been lured) to my backyard. I have binoculars, bird books and even a wonderful book that plays each birdsong at the press of a button (from the allmighty Costco). All the feeders are strategically positioned so I can see the birds from any of the kitchen windows and the binos are on the window ledge or never more than a quick dash or rapid not-moving-too-fast-as-to-frighten-birds-away tiptoe across the room. While visiting friends with finch feeders, I was awed and immediately covetous of the dozens of beautiful little yellow and black finches that clustered on the long feeder tubes for seeds. They flitted down from trees in a the little bobbing way they have and landed perfectly, each one on its own perch at the feeder. I had to have one!

I bought three, filled them and waited, and waited ....and waited. No finches came. The feeders swung in the breeze, full of seed, devoid of finches...(play that weird ghost town sound clip from 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' here'). Days went by and then suddenly there was a flash of yellow out at the feeder. "Yippee..they're coming...they're here", I cried. Both children in full eye-rolling mode realize mother has finally lost it. In the days that followed, so many finches came that not only was I in fear of running out of money to keep the bloody feeders full of food, I was afraid there were so many finches that they could easily pick up my home and carry it off for ransom. Truly, they are a joy for me. They zip around the house from tree to tree playing and chasing each other and have overtaken the swallows for title of birds that have the most fun. The swallows must be in full nesting mode now as I'm not in so much danger of being thwacked in the side of the head by a dive-bomber every time I walk out to open the barn door. Other birds come too; robins and jays, cardinals, chickadees, sparrows, woodpeckers and to my great excitement, the elusive ruby throated grosbeak.

I admitted to my neighbour the other day, this fact that I am enjoying the birds far too much for someone of my age and she said "Next thing you'll be loving the colour green. Old people love the colour green you know". "Really", I replied, feeling a little sad, "on your way out, I'll show you the new throw cushions, candles and tea towels I got last week"...........all green!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who have that wonderful but thankless job of parenting. I have a teen and a tween, and the tsunami-esque hormones that flood through our house on any given day often leave me grasping for the nearest life preserver; usually my husband or a bottle of wine. He was armed and ready today with roses and a bottle of red in case there were any ruffled feathers to smooth or any unintentional snubs to soothe. My stormy tween bought me a lovely gift which brought me to tears, only to revoke it two days later at our next head butting session, which brought me to even more tears. My teen now has a girlfriend and I know that she was mostly responsible for the very first store-bought mother’s day gift I received today; bless her heart!

All in all it was a great day, waking up to snow on the fields and on the roof, the horses unexpectedly put in the barn last night were extra eager to get out to their grass this morning. Tom made breakfast biscuits that Martha Stewart would be proud of and we drove through the beautiful rolling countryside talking and pointing out which beautiful estates we would gladly accept and which ones we would turn down; which lovely porches we would like to add to our house (mostly Tom), and which barns and indoor riding arenas we would like to have out back (definitely all me). Tom, being a photographer, likes to hang out the car window while driving on narrow hilly roads and snap pictures left and right while I cling to the passenger door narrowly scraping past those roadside country mailboxes, until he sees something he really likes then stops smack in the middle of the road and lines up a really good shot. Usually at this point we are directly in front of some very beautiful old farmhouse whose occupants I’m sure are standing in their kitchen with their morning cups of coffee wondering why there is a red Toyota parked on the road out front and paparazzi-like lens pointing in as if on some Brangelina sighting. Now I’m generally scrunched down so far on the front seat with embarrassment in order to give the impression that such a loony stalker is working alone and in no way would have a nice respectable wife riding with him. We arrived back home without incident or buckshot in the trunk, and some very nice pics from which to do a few paintings.

Tom made a fantastic roast and it was great to have us all at the table for a wonderful dinner. It couldn’t have been a nicer day, and yes Tom, you are the goodest husband that ever lived.

April Showers

We haven’t had too many of these this month, but everything is starting to come up in the garden; the grass is green and the tulips are blooming. Hands on hips, taking a thoughtful survey of things to be tidied up, pruned, clipped, moved and divided, I’m always amazed how from one spring to the next I seem to forget which plants I planted where and which new flowers were added in the last season. I know I’m supposed to make a map, but this way it’s a lovely surprise every spring...”oh yes, I forgot I had planted that beautiful new iris, and that creeping phlox; strange, I thought I put it in just a little more in that direction, over there to the left. Now where is that new brilliant blue perennial geranium? Vanished! Into thin air.....the garden fairies have been at work again shifting things around. Garden fairies my sweet patootie! This can only be the work of the fastest claws in the west, able to scratch up an entire bed in a single afternoon – the Chicken Gang.

The war begins each spring. I erect my small wire fence around the perimeter of the garden, leaving no openings, and once the garden really explodes into bloom, there is no room for the chickens to get in and root around. Until that happens, they are finding some way in most days and the garden currently has large dirt craters where they like to sand bathe. I think the biggest fattest hen just stomps down on the wire with a big scaly claw and holds it while the others hop in and get to work. Mostly it’s my fault because I can’t bear to keep them in their coop on such beautiful days as we’ve been having this spring. Yes, this means hunting for eggs outside and only getting maybe three out of five hens’ eggs, and dealing with the torn up garden, but there must be a balance somewhere. When they are shut in their coop, I can hear their angry calls from my studio upstairs in the house and while I’m trying to be creative it’s most distressing to hear the tin cup clanging across the bars out there.

I was sitting in the sun this morning on my chair outside the barn door waiting for senior horse to finish his breakfast, when little red hen came back to the coop after some early morning bug hunting. I was guessing by the way she seemed almost frantically searching for something, that she was looking for a nice spot to lay her egg. Into the tack room she went, scratched around in there a bit and came out again. Passing me in my chair she let out a squawk , went into the coop and jumped up into the laying box on the far left, missed and landed in a pile of hay below. She was really pissed off now by the sound of things (I knew she wouldn’t go for me scooping her up into it). She went for the next box and made it but the shifting around, facing first this way then that, then settling down , then shifting around again made me wonder if she would ever get around to business (finally I would see which egg little red hen was going to lay). By this time senior horse was finished and junior horse came in hoping that I would let him snuffle up any leftover crumbs. I let them out, went back to the house for more coffee and forgot all about red hen’s egg until later when by some miracle there were four different ones in the same nest. I still don’t know which one is cheating me!

Wanted: Miniature Horse (must be very very short)

I fell off my horse this week. I knew my days were numbered; there were just too many close calls in the last nearly two years to make me think I could escape the inevitable much longer, but I'd managed to cling on thus far during the bucking fits and sideways spooks if only out of sheer terror of dropping the stomach-churning twenty feet to the ground from his back.

Willie is a big horse, part Clydesdale, part mountain, and this spring I've been using my western saddle during those early haven't-been-ridden-all-winter-and-might-spook-at-just-about-anything outings, thinking that extra handle at the front would save me. When I hoist that thing onto his back, do up the cinch, strap on all my protective gear, and clamber up from my largest upturned bucket, I feel as though I'm sitting on top of the world's largest circus elephant in one of those little tassle trimmed booths the Rajas use. Looking down, the last thing I want to see is the earth coming up to meet me at great speed.

At least my husband was out walking the fields with me that day, taking photos of us with his long lens...there we are cantering lovely circles on the hill..snap...oh, there's Willie deciding he's had enough of me making him go on the correct lead..tail swish..snap..Willie's ears going back...snap, and the wild west show begins...snap snap. After that, he thought he'd better put down the camera and make haste to where I was laid out on the ground. I don't even think I made nine seconds, but like a good cowgirl, I tried.

Later in emerg. the doctor was wonderful and kind, and I explained I had suffered a bit of amnesia directly afterwards, not remembering catching the horse and going back to the barn, untacking, etc. I mentioned the "Natasha Richardson" debacle and immediately sensed an internal eye-roll on his part, but he patiently explained to me why he was pretty sure I wasn't going to end up like she did. I was pretty sure too, since my burning left butt cheek told me where the point of impact had been (I should go back and look for the crater). I'm not really speaking to Willie at the moment; I wonder if horses understand the cold shoulder, but I'm not afraid to get back up there and keep working - Hi Ho Silver...Away!!

Has anyone seen a very large horse hiding behind a very small tree....

No treats for you today buddy boy