Isabel Designs

Lights at Upper Canada Village

My friend Lin was stringing lights on shrubs outside her front door when she lost her footing and instinctively used her hands to break the fall. She saved herself from a face plant and broke a wrist instead! You don’t hear these stories everyday and still I didn’t heed the call of caution when stringing my lights the next day. While running an extension cord through the trees and up the hill, I slipped on a bed of dry leaves and as my feet slid back, my hands lunged forward to cushion the landing. Not a break, but a sprained wrist – self diagnosis. Treatment: ice, ibuprofen, compression wrap, rest – repeat. The lights are still sitting beside the driveway, but I’m going to postpone their hanging for a few days and give my wrist time to recover.

In the meantime, I’m a little slower at the keyboard and other right-handed tasks – which is just about everything! So my friends, if you’re out there decking the halls and making your property look festive, please do it with care. Here are a few safety tips if you’re interested.

Have a safe and happy holiday.

What a treat to see these little ducks on the lake this fall. I know that ice will send them south soon enough, but for now, I’m still enjoying their antics on a daily basis. They’re really tiny and very fast, and if one catches a fish the others will chase it. I hope you enjoy this little video and the photos I took. If you want to learn more about the Hooded Merganser, click here.

Hooded Merganser - female

Hooded Merganser - male

“I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

“I love the changes that fall brings.” I never thought I’d ever say those words, especially on the day that we rolled the clocks back, but this year the season has left me feeling oddly hopeful. I spent the day raking leaves, folding up lawn chairs, and winterizing the yard. Perhaps all that fresh air and physical labour went to my head. Maybe the celebratory Octoberfest when the job was done skewed my judgement. Or it just may have been the honking of Canadian geese over head that reminded me there is a path and plan for everything. At the moment, I’m content to blend into this season rather than fade out of it.

“In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowing glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil. And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb colour effects as from August to November.” Rose G. KIngsley

Angus Woody MacDoodle

I was walking in the woods yesterday, as I often do, when I heard a faint but familiar sound. I turned to see a tiny orange tabby emerge from a pile of wood rubble, and without hesitation it came towards me. I hardly had time to bend down before he was at my heels. An adorable kitten, six to eight weeks old, obviously socialized, looking a little worse for wear and all alone. He had some trauma to his tail and a dirty face, but other than that, looked healthy. I picked him up and carried him out of the bush. Knocked on doors of surrounding homes, but couldn’t find an owner. 

It is appalling to me to think that people abandon pets, but it happens. This is not the first orphan kitten I’ve attended to. Families living in the country seem to be targets for unwanted cats and dogs, as if by some mysterious right it is our responsibility to care for discarded animals. I have certainly fed and cared for my share of strays over the years because of someone else’s neglect. It is not a burden I choose, yet I cannot disregard the living, breathing, hungry creature that wanders across my path. 

So I named him Angus Woody MacDoodle. Thankfully I had a can of tuna in the cupboard, and though it took a bit of coaxing, he ate up the small bowl that I put out for him. Then I wrapped him up in a shirt and brought him to the local veterinary clinic where they kept him overnight (a portion of his tail had to be amputated). Today he will be delivered to his new home. One phone call to a friend was all it took. Angus will have a family after all. 

At the end of the day, I’m feeling like a kitty hero – making the big resue, playing nursemate and adoption agent all at the same time. An act of compassion that took little effort but will yeild big results. I believe every moment we step outside of ourselves to serve another – animal or person, or even when we tend to the environment – we create goodness in the universe and expand the possibilities for love and respect in the world. 

How do you feel about this? Share you comments with us now.

As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers. As I watch the day unfold with sunshine, I am trying to put the list of things I need to do in some type of priority. Of course there are the regulars that always seem to eat up my weekend like house cleaning, groceries and errands. But on this day, I hear the song of my perennials singing, “Ready or not, here I come!” The daffodils are blooming, the bleeding hearts are budding, and there is a new little friend whose name I can’t remember, a gift from my sister in law, blossoming little white flowers above spotted green leaves. The leaves that I neglected to rake last fall are now compacted on the lawn, and the stalks I left for ‘winter interest’ are now just looking dead as the new green plants are emerging underneath them. It sounds like a lot of work, and there is a part of me that wishes I could wrinkle my nose like Samantha from Bewitched and make my gardens perfect. However, once I’m out there, the feeling of nurturing my plants always brings on a sense of peace and satisfaction. So, I think my regular chores can wait. Gathering up my wheelbarrow, shovel, gloves and rake will inevitably bring about more satisfaction as I focus on my connection with Mother Earth.

It’s a rare sight for most of us, so I’m considering myself very lucky to have an eagle in the neighbourhood. I can’t tell whether it’s male or female, but it’s very big, its presence ominous. I first spotted it hovering above the lake last fall, and wondered if this was simply a migration stop. Apparently, eagles love fish, and the little lake I live on has plenty of them, so even if there’s a little competition with the herons, it’s a good feeding place. At any rate, it came back this spring and I hope it’ll stick around. 

I don’t know very much about the bald eagle, but I do know it is the national symbol of the United States, and a sacred symbol to many native American and Canadian tribes. In some cultures, eagles are considered spiritual messengers between the gods and humans. “They send their prayers to Eagle, so as it rises above the chaos to meet the Creator…it will return with a vision for the people.” (Animal Totem)

I have always been interested in spiritual signs. I seek them, wait for them, and hope to recognize them when they are presented to me. I wonder if the eagle has a message for me? According to the Animal Totem website, an “eagle shows us that people with high ideals need to be able to spread their wings so they can reach for the stars. Eagle brings the gift of clarity of vision. As long as we follow our intuition we will be heading in the right direction.” 

Another website on totems says the eagle is a great reminder of our own ability to soar great heights even if it means getting ‘scorched’ in the process. Perhaps the message for me is to glide  and flap on the air current and let go of the emotional fear of falling – or failing; to be open to new experiences and possibilities, even if they make me uncomfortable. That’s a good message any day of the week.