Rural

We had a visitor the other night. We get a revolving parade of animals some more welcome then others...this one was stealthy, while the other paraded down the street as if out for an afternoon stroll. One visitor made me smile with delight, the other...every so rudely ate the empty quail egg from my decorative bird's nest on my front porch.  And then it b umped into my heavy garden bench sitting by the front door and moved that a few feet, not my kind of visitor... I've got too many childhood encounters with bears to ever be comfortable with them this close. Camping, and living among their world has makes me observant, but cautious.  After eating the quail egg, the bear decided to try out the path to the front garden, and despite its size, not one blossom was bruised...I will give it that. The young buck was a visitor who waltzed down the street in front of our house. It's fuzzy two point antlers proudly held high, and it brought a smile to our faces...it was curious and bo...

Take a brush, and paint my world with Emeralds...all the tones of verdant green. Leave me with diamonds glittering among the twigs, newborn buds opening into treasures in my garden. Spring has arrived in the Okanagan, leaving us with glittering drops of dew, and caws from the crows who are annoyed at Bella our grey tabby wandering the backyard. Nature choose a regal tone of purple and the brilliance of yellow to welcome spring. The small iris in the garden deepest dark purple, and the Mahonia a glaring yellow, the sparkling blossoms of the wild cherry so white as they bounce in the breeze. So paint my world with colors that only nature can imagine. Jen @ Rural

ca·coph·o·ny /kəˈkäfənē/ Learn to pronounce noun a harsh discordant mixture of sounds. "a cacophony of deafening alarm bells" Spring is a clashing of momentous sounds, and sights...but none quite so remarkable right now as the melodious tones of the Cedar Waxwings in the trees, mixed with the honking and trumpeting of the geese, and swans along with the querulous quacking of the ducks. I was fortunate one evening to witness the beauty of natures pilots as they mingled, and soared into the evening sky. The beautiful bird song in the background is the Cedar Waxwings behind where I was standing.  It was cold enough to make me realize that spring is only a date on the calendar here as I burrowed my hands deeper into the pockets of my downfill jacket during my walk last night... ...I deeply regretted leaving my gloves behind. The fallow unused fields stretched out in front of me, white snow mingled with black m...

Albert Camus: In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. Mid Winter...the point where many people either flee the country for warmer climates or hunker down and try to get through the rotating snowstorms without expending too much effort wielding the snow shovel. We're neither fleeing or hunkering...yes it's been bitterly cold. There was a snap happening...not the crisp green garden pea plucked from a green tendril kind of snap. It was alternating blowing wind, multiple power outages, chilling temperatures, and masses of snow that seem to be flummoxing even the most hardened Okanaganer's resolve. That spell is over now...and here we are settling into the depths... Watching the snow fall off in mini avalanches of fluffy meringue from the dark trees standing tall outside the ice-covered windows. Looking out at the snow covered landscape, where for a few days hardly anyone ventured out in the intense cold. The snow co...

As winter drags it's ragged edges together to curtain the shortest day of the year... ...I'm sitting at the computer.  Reminiscing, thinking....warming up ...  Chai tea giving off a steady waft of heat, heavy with cream.  Steam from each sip fogging my glasses blurring the sight of the heavy wet snowflakes falling insistently outside our windows.  Bella's tucked up cozily in her basket. Warming up after returning from her escorted day trip outside into the cold.  Now curled up in a catlike semi-circle, grey polka dotted tummy hidden under a turquoise blanket. The glow from reflected snow lights up the inside of the house at this time of year, but it comes courtesy of the white carpet outside.  The unusual warmth accompanying this current snowfall is melting the icicles on the roofline. Our dreams of a short winter have allowed us to be fooled into momentarily thinking it might be February instead of December.  Wi...

The forest calls and the woods whisper...                                        ....they beckon come in,                                                                               spend some time. Sunlight glistens on tiny droplets turning them into diamonds before rushing over to streak between towering trees in a race to the ground. Mushrooms lie in wait under nursery logs, clinging like crowded crowns filled with fungi jewels on the edge of the slippery wood, hidden under dripping cedar fronds. It's magical and hushed in the woods, a delicate dance of light and shadows flitting across the path. Silence presses against the rugged bark of the fir tree, a fitting hiking c...

It's only the second day of Autumn, and all puns aside.. I've Fall-en in love with this season all over again... The soft warming tones of russets, and golds, the way the colors on the trees have just barely started to glow. It's beautiful and favors us with a glow. It's as if the trees are teasing us by tossing their leaves secretly behind our backs...twinkling down so quietly. Autumn is a graceful ageing process, the reverse of spring when everything is reborn, now it's dying, falling, leaving us...and yet across the world, there is renewal. We're still in the honeymoon stage of this season, it's all new, and oh so beautiful. Remarkable, and remarked upon by nearly everyone. Chock full of a colorful texture that will stay for a while, until suddenly the landscape will reveal it's self as an empty house...bereft, forlorn, windows gaping open sadly. The branches will tighten up with the howling wind, and the once vibrant jewel...

Summer's departing moving forward into the next season... Days hot, nights too warm keep us sleepless...that feeling that there is no end until you look back and realize these were the last days. It feels as if you will always be this hot... forever...as if the golden-tinged morning light that tickles bare feet walking around the garden will last endlessly. The weather laughing at our strong Autumnal longing to wear sweaters and long pants...to throw the shorts into the back of the closet and forget them for a day...or more. Until one unexpected day...it's all over, and we realized looking back that yesterday, that last glorious sweaty hot night and deep stillness signified our summer for another year. For now, the leaves start to turn colors not seen since last Autumn, crisp edges shattering, colors on a spectrum that is as spectacular as only a land that is so hot and dry and then so cold and long of length in winter can present. During the warm days th...

Maybe you clicked on a pin and came over from my Pinterest board.. or you're a blogger who's dropping by, or you're curious about what Rural is. Rural is not just a place in the heart, it's for those who... ...have an innate love of the mountains, the outdoors, and the joys of gardening, it's all about our connection with nature.  Rural is the moment that the setting sun glides with a golden glow across the fading fields, while the birds sing from the branches, and the bugs buzz around your head. It's in that deep breath you just took. Rural is the bumps under the wheels of a bike travelling down the backcountry road, and the startle of a pheasant calling from the underbrush. It's in the marvelling of the intricate craftsmanship of a bird's nest, and the unfurling of a fern. Rural is in the crunch of hiking boots on gravelly rocks as we travel up the mountain path, breath measured, legs working hard. Rural...because you...

We hiked upward as the trail wove its way through the cedar and bushes in the moist areas and walked between giant moss covered boulders that must have been perched there for centuries, silent sentinels at the head of old logging trails. The ground levelling and then swelling like waves in the ocean... until a flotilla of nodding yellow petals with bright chunky green leaves glowed on an otherwise barren landscape plateau. Filling our gardener's post winter weary hearts to overflowing. Color, and masses of it, bright, cheerful, and exotic enough to make us pause for as long as we could. Glacier lilies...are a wildflower known to grow even under a coat of snow, these dainty yellow lilies are native to the Okanagan, and various other areas in the region. They're hardy, little plants surviving the cold temperatures we get here down to  -35 C or colder in our Canadian winters. They're even rportedly local bear's first meals after waking up from hibernation. ...

Our time spent in the forest feels endless and surreal. As soon as we step into the woods magical things happen, breathing slows down, feet follow a path that wanders slowly forward, heart rate evens out. There no stress in the forest, no worries, no real world, that's all left behind. The green scent of freshness and growing things will never be accurately captured in a can, and it mists around our bodies while moss springs back from underneath each step. Cedar branches languidly wave as we pass by, cones crunch underfoot, fronds quiver, and branches twinge, while mud sucks at our feet. The forest alternates between absolute breath holding stillness with a strong sense of danger and raucous celebratory bird song as soon as they determine we're no threat. The outside world feels far off, smothered sounds echoing around the large ragged trunks and the foliage canopy overhead funnels light into small glowing circles on the path. A male ring-necked...

Spring's the master of the reveal, unboxing the season, an expert at creating anticipation, and eagerness in our hearts. Inch by inch the spring thaw releases the grasp of the gritty snow, first from the roads, then the edges of the gardens. Unfurling beauty and forgotten treasures that have remained hidden during the winter season. "Every year one day comes, when, although there is no obvious change in the appearance of trees and hedges, the Earth seems to breathe and it is spring." Elizabeth Clarke It stops you in your tracks... makes you gaze skyward, and to run your eyes down the matted bark of a once bare tree to marvel that what was a slow turning and has now rushed headlong into the full season. Spring beginnings are painted with a muted color palette, the soft greys, and browns of faded frosted foliage, twisted barren branches stark in the sky, but the full throated songs of the birds as they sing in the early morning are not faded. Their tweets a...

We're looking forward to the signs of spring, some subtle like the bulging of buds on bare branches that will burst into gorgeous fresh leaves one day soon, and the green spears of spring bulbs pushing the dark earth aside as they clamber to the light. Here in the Okanagan, BC we're still waiting for signs, the temperatures are supposed to rise, the snow's supposed to melt, but it's oh so hard to wait. If you find yourself comparing a new Spring's arrival to the previous one wouldn't it be great to have an easy way to record them? I've created the  Rural Spring Signs Mini Journal  just for you, to help record those first delicate signs of spring, something small that can be tucked away afterwards, pulled out for reference next year. So, how do you get yours? It's easy, sign up for Rural's seasonal email newsletter, sent out approximately four times a year and you'll not only be joining our amazing community of women who ...

Winter, the very sound of it is like frigid air blowing across a frozen lake. It's such a beautiful season, but so intense. And sometimes it feels as if it will last forever...we know it won't though... Here are a few more wintery words to warm us up to the thought of spring, and to keep us believing that Winter is nearly over. SHURL  when all the snow slides off a roof after it begins to thaw, that’s a shurl. Even the sound of it rushing off of your tongue sounds like the snow falling off of the roof. Brumous:   those grey skies and winter days filled with heavy clouds are brumous. Niveous resembling snow MOBLE    When you  moble you're wrapping up your head with a hood, think layering up to keep warm. And a word that will fill those of us with snowbound hearts with joy... Sareureuk a Korean word that describes the sound of snowflakes slowly melting in the warmer days or the sunshine. Looking forward to Spring... Jen @ Rur...

The empty parking is lot ringed by stark trees standing like solitary sentinels at the edge of the woods, while silent birds sit hidden among the frost covered branches, making us wonder who else is out there watching while we invade their territory. Slipping out of the truck, stiff from sitting, sending longing looks back at the heated seats... we move quickly, gathering what we need, it's too cold to stand still, to talk, so we're of one mind, get to the woods, where it will be a few degrees warmer. The cold is a challenge we're up for. The dog's strain, eager at the end of their leads, greeting each other with wagging tails, roughhousing in the snow. Fresh snow from the night before covers the ice but reveals the tracks of other four legged visitors passing through, this has been a busy place. We're the only ones out here now, whether because of stubbornness or enthusiasm we're not sure, but at -14 c this morning it's cold enough to freeze ...

It's just past mid-winter That heavy bleak "it's never going to end" feeling centred deep in your heart weighs down your very being....but there is hope. We may be thinking longingly of spring, wondering when that's going to happen while temperatures drop, winds rage and the snow blows. The white stuff building up even higher in the garden, but some wonderful winter words should help us get through this dark and gloomy season. So let's explore a few winter words to push those last days of the cold and dark well behind us. All things relating to winter could be referred to as: 1. Hiemal As in, it was a hiemal season the driveway needed to be plowed....again...... Or it feels very hiemal out there, so maybe I won't bother plowing but just sit here sipping my hot cocoa. I might even post it on Instagram, a steaming cup, snow covered windows all artistically arranged. 2. Subnivean  Situated or under the snow.... Let's use thi...

When you look outside... ...at the barren cold landscape do you see the beauty in Winter? Or do you strain to hear snatches of the blackbird calling from the months ahead to herald spring ? Do you see the diamond hard sparkle of winter light on bare branches crusted with ice Or do you only dream of the yellow song of the daffodil? Do you hear the sounds The branches make as they scrape past the trunks of the trees while showers of snow fall to earth? If you believe in the beauty of winter you will hear a tune that whistles between the sleeping trees of the forest, one that echoes past the mountains feet. Do you know that the creatures deep in the forest who sleep tucked under a blanket of winter snow snoozing until spring are missing out on all the spectacular sights while the crystals and ice line the streams. So stop for a moment and listen to the silence that slides over the snowy fields while flakes form skyward before coating t...