The Light And Darkness All At Once

Hello dear friends!

It feels like it has been a small eternity since I posted here.

I guess my excuse is that I've been taking time to focus on this beautiful home of ours, and the land that surrounds it before we move to the interior of BC for the next 6 months.

Over the past week, we've been busy buying plastic totes and packing important things up from any rodents who might make themselves at home while we are away.

Those who know me know I love wool blankets and hats, antlers, bones, and basically any dead creature that needs a new loving home, so the majority of those are being packed away until the summer months when we return.

We've also been arranging our outdoor storage tent for the up-coming mud season, to ensure that nothing is ruined or drenched in the floods that spring brings here in the Cariboo.

It's been an incredibly refreshing experience going through all of our things and donating everything that we haven't used for the past year. At our dump, we have a little shelter called the Share Shed, where our community donates everything that they don't want, but could still be of use to someone else. I have found so many amazing finds there from a Cowichan dog sweater, to gumboots, to winter coats, and kitchen wear, and a pair of retro cross country skiing boots right after mine broke in two.It is just fantastic! Knowing that these donations we make are going right back into the community sure warms my heart.

And of course, we have been organizing our chickens and their belongings to move them up to our landlord's coop while we are away. We will surely miss them and their delicious eggs, but know they will be in the best hands!

After a long week of preparation, we woke up on New Years Eve to the pops, bangs, and cracks of trees falling behind our cabin. It was nothing I'd heard before. They sounded like rifles being fired off in the distant fields. The air smelled likeSpruce and Quaking Aspen that day.

The new year started with a huge dump of snow and a massive wind storm. The better part of our town lost power and our ranch also lost water for about two days.

Our modern life melted into the ice and knee-deep snow that surrounded us. We all focused on keeping the fires going, making sure our neighbors were well taken care of, melting snow and ice to use toflush the toilets and wash the dishes. We gathered and cooked around the open flames, we sat with headlamps reading our favorite books, plowed the driveways, and dug out the chicken coop.No technology, no distractions, just our community in the here and now.

It was a beautiful excuse to slow down when life started to feel a little out of control.

I felt I was able to sit down and reflect on this year that has passed.On the way moving to the country has softened my edges.On the beautiful moments I have experienced, the beautiful people I have met and the lessons I have learned.I've learned to appreciate the little things, the big things, the learning curves, and the growth through it all.I've learned to expect the unexpected, open my heart to new experiences,

and appreciate the light and darkness all at once.

Amen to that. Amen.

♥

Built to Last

Now Available in the shop

☾

Built to last and handmade by me from start to finish

♥

Feels Like Home

I've been tucked away in my studio for so long now, that I feel as though I'vecompletely missed the autumn here in the Cariboo.

The aspens changed to yellow and shed their leaves so quickly and now theyare left barren, the garden has pushed it's last of lasts, and the grass has hadits last mow.

We are now feeling the winter months rush in.

♥

Ruby and I have been waking up around sunrise most mornings.

We have a little morning ritual when Bryson is away at work.We'll snuggle in bed for a few minutes, stretch our bodies out, I'll put Ruby's collar onand open the front door, and then slip my bare feet into my frozen gumboots whichhave been sitting outside all night.

Sometimes mice store their seeds in our boots, and it's honestly such a beautifulreminder of all the life that surrounds us out here in the wild country.

The earth crunches beneath my feet now in these freezing temperatures, and all seems so still onthe ranch. The horses radiate heat from their shaggy coats, fog usually rests above the grassymeadow, and the sun fills the air with the most beautiful shades of peachy purples when it rises from behind the trees.

Ruby usually runs over to our neighbor's house first thing to wait for their dog to come outsideand play. It's really sweet how much they love each other.

When our front door creaks shut, our hens cluck at me to let them out of their coop fortheir breakfast. Their eggs are still warm.

This is the first winter they have ever experienced, and they know exactly what to do.Their feathers are getting puffier by the day, and we are getting less and less eggs from our girls as they beginsaving their energy for the freezing temperatures.

This is our second winter here. We have just about finished gathering and chopping all of the woodwe hoped to have for the rest of this year, and the year to come.

The beginning of next year is going to be different for us. Bryson has been acceptedto school in the Okanagan for continuing and advancing his paramedicine studies!

After lots of talking and brainstorming, we've decided to pick up our lives and move to the Okanagan for a good chunk of next year and see what new adventures come our way.

That being said, we will not be giving up our piece of paradise herein the Cariboo during our time away. We will just be shutting down our water and powerhere, and putting our sweet cabin into hybernation mode for a while.

We are so grateful that my sister has offered to let us stay in her extra camperwhile Bryson is in school. This allows us to be close to family, and not worry aboutfinding a short-term rental that accepts large dogs, something which is getting less and less commonin cities.

I will do my best to continue to make jewelry for you, but I will also need to pickup another job while we are out there, so my schedule for now, is a little unknown.

I promise to keep you up to date with my decisions, and to always remain true.

I hate to leave this home of ours for months on end, but it is going to be so good tohug my sister, brother in law, nieces and nephew day after day.

I know leaving the property will be the hardest for our sweet hound. Because Bryson will be away at school most days, my goal is to be able to take Ruby to work with me every day to ensure that she is getting enough attention and exercise every day.

Our hens will not be coming with us unfortunately, but will most likely be staying on the property where they are the most comfortable.

♥

I have been finding so much creativity here on this land. I've been spending days working with my favourite stones and there are just so many beautiful things happening in my studio right now!

I have created eight new unique pieces for my shop and I will be dropping them off there laterthis week when it feels best.I promise to let you know when they arrive.

Each piece feels like home to me. I hope they feel like home to you too.

xo

By and By

The colours around us are changing, the temperature has surely dropped, and we are just crossing our fingers that our hens keep laying throughout the autumn.

♥

The past month has been busy to say the least.

My projects have been:

•Stripping the airstream paint off to caulk her, sand her, and prepare her for the winter. I've also been taking time to completely gut the inside to make room for the new.

•Finding any and every little hole between the logs of our cabin and filling them up with spray foam and steel wool.

•Trapping pack rats and mice daily as they try to hunker down in our crawl spaces. (I've come to despise rodents)

•Collecting wood with my love for the winter months

•Picking the last fruit and veg from our garden.

•And in the studio I have been working hard on commission pieces.

• ☾ •

Recently, I found myself with a bit of spare time in between my projects and was able to sit down at my desk and create these 5 new pieces for you.

It felt so good to put flame to silver again with total creative freedom.

Oh how I've missed it.

Now with the winter months coming around the corner, I will be spending a lot more time hunkered down in my studio creating for you.

I want to thank you all so much for your generous interest in my work and your constant support. I wouldn't be able to live this dreamy little life of mine without you.

You’ll be able to find these pieces in my shop tomorrow afternoon.

I hope to see you there!

May you be loved, Always.

♥

Slow and Steady

☽  It's this time of year where I experience a wild regrowth.  ☾

It's already late august and I can really feel how autumn is comingcloser with every day that goes by.

As I run my bare hand over bounties of carrots, parsley, and sage, I feel immediate gratitude forour gorgeous harvest.

The garden is feeding our family so beautifully this year.

Although we've grown more than enough for ourselves, earlier this week my neighbors andI went to our local summer festival. Boy do I genuinely love my farming community.

All of these hardworking artisans and farmers had booths so full of gorgeous goods.Garlic cloves wrapped in straw flowers, juicy pickling cucumbers, rose hip jams and unpasturized honeys in sweetly labelled glass jars, turmeric and sour cherry tonics, and all sorts of handmade goods, all at very reasonable prices.

Something about seeing your community come together for a yearly event like this is just so magical.

I'd like to have my own booth next year filled with jewelry, paintings, produce, our eggs, freshly cut flowers, and jars of homemade pickles.

Bryson and I have been spending many of our summer nights on the lake.

We take the canoe out and paddle to the deepest parts and watch as the sun sets over the cow pastures. Bryson has taught me how to fish this year and I am so happy to learn more and more about it everytime we take to the lake.

A few months ago Bryson set off to be away for half a year for some training for a new job in the middle of Canada. Part way through, he made the difficult decision to come back and continue pursuing paramedicine instead.

 6 months might not be a long time to be apart for many of you, but for me, the idea of being awayfrom each other for that long was hard.

I am so selfishly grateful he is home.

I think about our nights on the lake together. I think about the loons calling to us and the beaverstreamlining through the water and smacking his tail like a drum against the calm stillness. I thinkabout catching my first fish and watching the dragonflies dip into the water and create ripples around us.I think about how we almost didn't get to experience all of that together, and that thought hurts.

He still has to leave home for half of every week to work but he is so happy and I am happy too.

He is a fantastic paramedic.

We are coming up to our ten year anniversary and it is so good to know we get to spend it together.I like to grab him and kiss him whenever I like just because I can.

Maybe when he gets home later this week, we will paddle out to our spot and watch the world around us fall asleep.

And as the stars come out we will canoe back home, slow and steady.

♥