Thank you and Happy Mother's Day

I want to thank everyone for your kind and thoughtful comments and emails on Audrey's passing.
Believe me, your words were very comforting.
It has been a very hard nine months; a road to hell, really. After fighting so hard to improve her health it was evident in the last few weeks that Audrey had a brain tumor. I also knew that the hard decision to let her go was out of my hands. With the help of our wonderful vet she went home very peacefully.

Audrey has been laid to rest here on my grandmother's land. I feel fortunate to be able to keep her close.

Just like myself, Annie needs some time to adjust. She is very quiet and needy right now but I believe in my heart that she knows Audrey left us. She stayed very close to her on her last day. Annie is a very sensitive cat and has been through the loss of five cats and a dog in the last six years. We will be each other's rock.

I want to wish all the wonderful MOM'S a Happy Mother's Day tomorrow.
I will be surrounded by my three children, their spouses and my five grandittles. Oh, and of course, Cooper my grand-kitty.

Enjoy your day MOMS. xo

                                                                     My girl
                                                                       2015

My beautiful Audrey

                                  Audrey - God's Masterpiece
                             "I could not have loved you more."
                                       Rest well, my little one.
                                 I will love and miss you forever.
                                       Sept.13/11 - May 9/18

Just checking in

It seems that I have a big job ahead fixing photos. From what I understand, for some reason or other the Postimage hosting service that I use for my pictures has suffered some kind of attack on their .org domain address and it is being blocked. Their backup server domain (.cc) still works but it appears that I would need to change all the .org picture urls to .cc

Not being real technical on these matters, I don't know how to make this change on a global basis in my blog, and it's too much work to go back and edit each post, so at this time, my pictures just won't show up until the folks at Postimage get around to figuring out why their .org domain is being blocked. ( If anyone really wants to see any of the old pics in my blog for some reason, just copy the url for the image and edit the .org to .cc ).

I'm so busy with other more important things right now, this annoying little glitch will just have to wait. Why do these stupid things happen at the busiest times?

However, there may be some good news!  While playing about in Blogger, I discovered that there is now an option to upload my images directly to my blog... no hosting service required it seems. So at least for now, my new blog posts should work (we'll see when I publish this one). I have no idea how long this will work but we'll give it a go.

Spring has really arrived and this time I think it will stay. We have had warmer temperatures and above freezing at night. It was warm enough to be out raking and cleaning up the property all last week. And around here that includes a bit of an audience.  Even Simon and his friends were out and about.

Our neighbours' cat David is here every day.

 I'm out no more than a few minutes when I hear  "Yeow" behind me. Then he flops to the ground and does his infamous roll in the dirt. He's getting older and today I noticed that while walking behind him I startled him when I touched his back. I don't think his hearing is what it used to be. I know the resident critters will rejoice.

I'll make this a short post just to see if it works.

Have a great night everyone!

Deb

No pics?

I am having some issues with my site where photos are not showing up, I have been through this before. :(
If you are on Instagram drop over to Life at Fox Grove for some up-to-date photos.

I'll be back.
Be kind,
Deb

Easter fun.

 Our Annual Easter Egg Hunt for the grandittles was a much darker day than last year but at least the rain stopped early that morning. 

Off to the wood-lot...

 

 It was fun, as I never doubted it would be, and all one hundred eggs were filled by the Easter Bunny with delicious surprises. 

The adults always get right into it, too. My daughter scored an old $5 bill that she found under the leaves. lol

Pizza, fruit and cupcakes were gobbled up for lunch

 and then it was a free-for-all as they ran around the property playing and eating chocolate eggs. 

                                                                  Two of my kiddos

                                                     Easter in Canada's North  

Easter is my favorite time of year but this year Spring is playing tricks on us. She's very fickle, indeed, but as I look out the window the birds fly over-head with beaks filled with twigs and grass and that's enough for me. 

We had an unfortunate incident at the mouse-house this morning involving a European Starling. One hit the window and was stunned on the ground. 

We brought it inside the garage to keep warm and then discovered the wing was damaged.

 Off to the Wild Bird Center we went. I'm always so thankful for these wonderful volunteers that greet you with a smile even on a long holiday weekend.

                                      Wild Bird Sanctuary
We left the starling there for a complete examination and hope that it is without further internal damage. I'm to call in a few days and, if I wish to, I can bring it back to our property to return it to the flock. I will do that since many more seem to be staying.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter.

                                                  Annie
                               Audrey was hiding on the kids.
It's time now to think Spring (cheeky thing that she is) and start planning.

Be kind,
Deb

As Easter draws near

I want to say our snow is over with but I know better. Here in Ontario it's nothing to get a big storm in April so we will just stay quiet, cross our fingers and hope we have seen the tail end of it.

It's been cold but sunny this last week and we still have a pile of snow to get rid of before Easter. Last year we started the Easter Egg Hunt in the Wood-lot tradition and it was a beautiful, sunny, warm day then. This year might be a wee bit different. I have visions of poor old Peter Rabbit hopping around with his collar pulled up around his neck, unlaced snow-boots just a flyin' leaving his tracks behind for the kids to follow. He'll probably wear a toque and woolly mittens. And hiding all those eggs in the snow might be tricky. "Good luck, Peter."

But no matter what we will have fun. :) There are five grandittles just waiting to start the hunt.

There's lots of baking going on at the mouse-house.

 

Cupcakes are on the to-do list. They'll be fun to decorate. 

The girls are waiting on the sun-puddles.

What's happening at the feeders?

The birds are busy gathering nesting materials and making decisions just where to place it. I hope we have all seven of our houses filled with babies this spring. Wow...that would be fabulous!

Our red-winged blackbirds have returned along with the robins. Downies, Mourning Doves and Chickadees are plentiful. The bluejays and crows are flying over our house regularly with filled beaks and our Pileated Woodpecker is a regular here now. 

I'm filling feeders at the wood-lot and staying out of their way so they can feel safe here. We have some very shy birds here. :)

You can see how much snow we still have. Today they call for rain and that's exactly what we need to get rid of it.  

I hope your Easter preparations are going well. 

Be kind,
 Deb 

SNOW - add it to the four letter words around here.

 

Annie thinks..."UGH! more snow."

We've had more than our share this winter. It just keeps coming.

Oh well, we just shovel it and go have a party.

These two sweeties celebrated birthdays on the weekend.

Our son, John (34) and grandittle G (2).

We all had a great time.

 

Two cuties.

There is no way to make plumbing look pretty but I think it's beautiful. :)

 

This is the loft bathroom at the top of the stairs.

 

I'll get in tomorrow and take a few pics on the main floor.

The snow has kept the roofers away until this week.

We finally have the steel going on. :)

That's the kitchen window to the right. It will face the garden. Bathroom windows both main floor and loft.

We had another dumping of snow on day two of the roof going on so this ended up taking over a week to finish. My photo taking is sporadic to say the least but I'll show you a photo of it completed from the front next post.

Are you having fun preparing for Easter? We need lots of sun to melt away our winter. I think the Easter Bunny would much rather hide eggs in the grass than in the snow.
 Four more days 'til spring. :)

Audrey says "Howdy."

She's just waiting for a moth to fly in. Doofus.

'Til next time...
hugs, Deb