What Makes The Heart Sing

Last weekend, I participated for two days of The Artist's Garden hosted by Ash Creek Pottery in Callander, Ontario.  This was the 10th year of the event.  It's a awesome event.  It's great to meet new people, talk to old friends and see some works from talented artisans. 

It was a hot, humid weekend with thankfully only a sprinkling of rain during the day and night (sorry to the farmers but scrambling to save my product in a downpour is not fun.)  I had the best spot for a booth, with nice breeze and guaranteed shade in the afternoon.  Plus, it was the closest booth to the tea room, so I was able to convince the church ladies to deliver the pie and ice cream when the mood struck.

It's always a lot of work to pack up my shop and set it up somewhere else.  Coupled with the effort to produce the product in my booth, it's obvious that I will not be paying all my household bills from my farm-based yarn business any time soon.  I hear a lot of comments from people who don't 'get it'.  People who don't understand why I would want to do it.  ``So much work``, ``so hard to compete with the price of imports``...yada, yada, yada.  I get especially suspicious stares from people I knew from my former IT career, where "billable hours" rule the day. 

Why do I do it?

Simply - because it makes my heart sing.

Sitting outside at this lovely venue, I spin the most lovely brown alpaca through my fingertips for hours (which is like a day at the spa for me).  Having three little talkative girls of 3 and 4 years old stand and watch my wheel for most of an afternoon and ask me questions makes me feel connected.  Hearing strangers complimenting my yarns, so soft and colourful, makes me feel proud.  I showed my Canadian made spinning wheel to a visiting tourist from Wales who is also a spinner.  I shared my weekend with other wonderful artisans and their family members who I now know just a bit better.

I don't golf.

I don't 'get it'.

But this...I do.

Recent additions to our household include two 3 year old German Shepherd half-siblings, Junior (sable on the left) and Sadie (black on the right).

We are really enjoying them after being dog-less for 16 months or so.
They are very well-trained and very loving to their pack (that's us now!).
German Shepherds are very intelligent dogs.  It`s important that they are kept challenged.
These two came from a young family who spent a lot of time training them.
Puppies are adorable, but being able to find these really super dogs already trained is like winning a lottery. 
At 82 lbs and 62 lbs respectively - they do fill up the house!
And hopefully I won`t be finding bear poop in the back yard anymore.

Jimena the alpaca kept a good eye on the dogs from the barnyard, alarming to the others quite often for the first few days.  She's calmed down now.  We've started walking the dogs through the pasture on their leads after supper on our way to one of the large back pastures that we use for off-leash exercise.  The alpacas are curious and wary of the dogs, keeping their distance and a fenceline between them.  Our other dogs never went to the barnyard or pastures.  These dogs are more intent on keeping an eye on  the ball-thrower ('Chuck-it') that we are carrying to the back field - they know it means loads of fun.

The chickens, though, are living dangerously.  The other night, when we entered the alpaca pastures to walk through with the dogs, the chickens all decided they were going to follow us out to the fields and walked with us like a gang of minions within the danger zone of the dogs.  I'm not sure what was going through the dogs minds or the chickens...although I am reminded how small a chicken brain is and perhaps how well-behaved a dog can be.

On the gardening front, we have proved that despite our lack of ability, our inexperience, the lack of rain, the groundhogs, the potato bugs, our lack of weed control (this gathers lots of 'Tsk, tsk'ing from other gardeners)...we still get to eat!
Think about what we can produce when we get better at this!!!

Despite making oven-baked zucchini sticks, whole wheat zucchini load with blueberries and pecans, garlic and parmesan fried zucchini, freezing shredded zuchinni for winter use and adding zucchini to everything I cook...alas, we are swimming (almost drowning) in zucchini.
My daughter thought we had found our calling when she discovered how many zucchinis were hiding under those big leaves. 
I've written enticing sales ads for the zucchinis that I've given away at work.
The neighbours don't eat zucchini apparently (what!).

But my daughter is an optimist and future entreprenuer.

Zucchini's for sale!!!