New Brunswick Day 2024

Shane and I went up alone to harvest the beleaguered garlic bed at the rural property two ferries away. The first ferry is about 6 kilometers from our house (and can be seen from our third floor loft room) and runs two ferries at a time so the wait is usually not that long for the short crossing to the peninsula. Today we were able to drive right on to the ferry on our side as the last car without any wait at all.  Then it's about a 15 minute drive to the next ferry across a wider river that only has one ferry. We waited for only about 4 minutes with a motorcycle crew and plenty of other vehicles with various greetings passing between drivers coming and going. The local farmstand and ice cream shop was busy with kayakers and locals on this summer holiday.

As we started the long crossing, the anchored boats on both sides of the river bobbed up in down in the bay water. As we approached the other side, I strained to look over at a friend's anchored sailboat seeing a figure in swimming trunks moving about on its deck. While I was trying to decide who the figure was, we were ready to disembark and as we drove off the ferry, who is waiting in line to get on, but the very friend whose sailboat looked occupied. Shane and I waved hello through our open vehicle windows and the cheerful greeting was passed back immediately.
How fun to see friends just like a local.  It made me realize how much living here again has felt like coming home even though I wasn't born and raised here. I don't know who we saw on his sailboat but with a large, grown family living nearby chances are it was a relative of his. I've been on that boat two years ago and it was my first time sailing. He let all of us take a turn steering up and down the bay and it was definitely my Swallows & Amazons moment!

After I cleared out the garlic bed and the plastic chicken wire protecting it, Shane cleaned up the overgrown grasses and wildflowers in and around the fence posts and garden bed.  I picked a couple of the wild blackberries that Shane pointed out were growing after I had lamented that there were no wild raspberry bushes on the property. I had no ill-effects from the berries so we must have identified them correctly as edible. Phew!
The large oak trees have started dropping their green acorns so autumn feels close at hand.

Covered notebooks for narration

I took over teaching Sunday School at our small church plant this past October. It consisted of one class with children aging from four to nine and the curriculum was based on catechism questions teaching the formation of God's covenant people throughout the Bible. It did not come with the usual student projects of crafts or coloring pages which was fine since I wanted to create a more open style for the children's work.

I made up these individual notebooks for them to decorate and use for the entire year of lessons. I have done this before for various other class projects in our former churches and for other purposes. I used basic kraft paper found everywhere and a regular glue stick. Once you cut the paper for a generous folding around the edges, the only trick is to cut the small triangular cuts at the top and bottom of the binding so you can easily fold the paper and glue it inside the front and back covers. Then you can glue the corners down to create a squared off finish. Running your hands smoothly across the cover helps pull the kraft paper tightly as you close the book up to let it dry. It really is very easy and probably reminiscent of covering school books with paper grocery bags for the year if you're of a certain vintage like me. Yikes!
The children worked on filling in the pages with various projects that I often created throughout the year and I took them home each Sunday and brought them back for the next class. It helped to be able to look back at previous lessons when reviewing and introducing the next lesson. Also when we started the lesson part of the class, looking at last week's lesson helped with group narration work. The children could retell what they remembered of the previous lesson and even explain what their own drawing or writing represented from the lesson when they had opportunity to complete their own work. Several of the students struggled with a blank page to fill with their own ideas so I tried to limit that frustration by providing more concrete items for them to work with. Some examples are included at the end of this post. 
We did have an Open House in January so the work they had completed so far could be shown to parents and grandparents. But they did not get to take their notebooks home for good until we finished the school year at the end of June and they all seemed excited and proud to look through it. One of the children told me that she has since added some of her own Bible journaling notes to the leftover pages. I treasure the time I was able to spend with them this past year and am looking forward to continuing on this fall. 

summer sewing project

Laura needed some different curtains for her bedroom and when a local fabric store was closing, we found a roll of this drapery fabric heavily discounted. I've never sewed lined curtain panels and was nervous about getting started and cutting the fabrics. But like most things that feel unnerving to me, just starting with laying the fabric on the floor and pinning the hemlines was enough to build confidence. 
They are very basic, but Laura is happy with them. I used the the same curtain tiebacks that I've used for this house and our last house.