IKEA and the weekend

Elsie, being silly, and Tori in my sunlit kitchen. I only get direct sunlight in my kitchen for about 2 hours a day, so I love those hours with a passion. Everything about this picture is crooked. 

The dismantling of the Cornwall Bridge. Tori thinks the new bridge, at about a quarter the length, lacks interest, but the old bridge was ridiculously long for no reason. 

Taking down the girders. They have a jackhammer up there, 

And then, up 138 towards Ottawa. Farms as far as you can see across the flat St Lawrence Valley. 

A frosty tree 

A wind whipped pine

Every time we go to the bathroom at IKEA, we have to discuss how much this guy reminding us to wash our hands looks like our cousin Philip. 

This stuffed wolf was hilarious. There is a detachable grandmother that can be stuffed inside the wolf and then pulled out. We have been listening to Little Red Riding Hood ad nauseam so I was going to get it for the kids. Then I  thought of the rubbermaid full of stuffed animals packed away and the large, overflowing basket of stuffed animals they have out and decided better not.  

Tori said this room was her. If you wanted to know what Tori would look like as a room, this is it. 

Not sure what this was. I love that daybed though. 

Nifty little drawers

They had some awesome dress up stuff in the kids section. Note the snail/turban wig to the left there. 

This is what Saturdays are all about, jammies and music. We got a lap harp with a rewards card thing we got when we bought some things in November. Justin has been tuning it up, because it has to be tuned several times before it holds its tune. Lily loves it though and is doing quite well. 

Now this, was the "unedited" picture. I took this picture and realized how messy the floor was around the chair and thought of so and so who had pictures on facebook of her four kids in a perfectly neat and beautiful house, so I cleaned up around the chair and took the previous picture. Clearly Gilbert is more exuberant in messy surroundings. 

Instead of worrying what my pictures look like, I should clearly be cleaning my house more. 

We also did some of Lily's crystal growing kit experiments. This is a snowy tree with crystals. 

The entryway ceiling at Mom and Dad's lit by the sun shining on melting snow outside. 

The entryway steps. Some of the hardest working steps around. People go up and down these a thousand times a day. Well, it seems like that some days. 

And clearly I should have swept up after my kids running in and out before taking this picture. Let's just all agree I am not a stellar house keeper. 

Moving on. 

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The snow was melting like crazy. It was over 40 for about two solid days. A typical January thaw, but it seems odd when winter just started a week or two ago. 

This is a summer sky in January. Lots of people a bit south of us were seeing rainbows. 

But the sky wasn't all summer. 

(I should have cleaned up those burdocks before taking this picture.) 

That sky!

Wood. We have a lot of dead elm on the farm, due to Dutch Elm Disease. Elm trees grow like weeds, but for some reason, none of them are resistant, even though we have one of the largest resistant elms on our farm. Every time one of them grows longer than the others, I always hope they will be resistant, but within a few years, it is dead. I am not sure if this is elm or not, but it is diseased-ish looking. There is some wood in the basement that is absolutely beautiful. Whatever killed it made all these gorgeous sunbursts underneath the bark. If I were clever I would take it and make something marvelous for etsy. 

I just googled Dutch Elm and found this picture on wikipedia. Apparently the sunbursts are beetle feeding galleries. Still, they are sort of pretty aren't they?

Winter's warmth

Sky, crepuscular, and  flag

Crepuscular are those sun rays  you see. For the longest time, I have been going around calling them Comperculous. I like comperculous better. Crepuscular sounds too much like an anatomical term.