Kelly Waterhouse

He tore out the advertisement  from last week’s newspaper and put it on the kitchen table where I couldn’t help but see it. He’s subtle like that. 

She handed me a stone like she was handing me a bar of gold and something about the gesture felt as if that’s exactly what it was: gold. 

The Carpenter and I have entered year two of an NFL pool and this year, I’ve deflated my water-wings to dive in with an enthusiasm he wasn’t quite prepared for. Yep, this football season, I’m making waves. 

She dangled from the eavestrough of the barn, upside down and balled up, completely content in a matrix of invisible thread. She was about the size of a toonie. 

We’re back at it: the routine that September brings. Full calendars. Coordinated schedules. Structured time. Registration fees. The never-ending saga of the question that has no easy answer: “what do you want for dinner?”

Corn on the cob is about as genuine an end-of-summer tradition as any end-of-summer tradition gets and I am here for it. But it’s not because of the corn so much as it is the butter. It’s all about the butter. 

Well now, that was a weekend. 

I have two words for you: chicken yoga. Wait, hear me out. Chickens are lovely creatures. They need to investigate everything. Skittish, but not anxious. They are fluffy and poised, able to meander about with effortless confidence that borders on arrogant and indifferent. Good qualities.

I meant to pack the anti-nausea medicine. Motion sickness and vertigo are inherited traits. I cannot read in a moving car or sit backwards on a train. Roller coasters? Forget about it. Those glory days are behind me. 

So long July, you most beautiful of months, you. Thanks for a great birthday, for introducing me to amazing people, for unexpected adventures and for the reminder that I have an amazing community around me. It’s been fun.

I stepped out of the shower onto the soft, luxurious mat and immediately felt the pain of something sharp pierce the ball of my foot. Ouch. 

Well-meaning friends and colleagues have told me throughout my life that I need to stop worrying and learn to let things go, like water rolling off a duck’s back. Let the opinions and actions of others roll right off my back. 

On the ninth day of the seventh month of a year where Simon and Garfunkel topped the charts singing about bridges over troubled water, I entered the world with a smile on my face and a wink at the doctor (because I was boy crazy right out of the gate).

A recent trend caught my attention in a way that made me laugh, yet also made me uncomfortable.

In the barn, where our farm glamping guests gather for morning coffee, we have a metal cutout of the silhouette of Gord Downie, the late frontman for Canada’s rock band, The Tragically Hip. I bought it from an artist in Harriston.