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.

♥

Sunday Summer Snippets

As I write this, I find my eyes drifting out the window to the meadow across from our home.

♥

I feel the pull of the big blue sky, I hear the tall blades of grass sway andscrape at each other like windchimes, the horses are snorting and pulling upclover, and as the sun sets, the insects, frogs, and birds fill the air like a twilightsymphony.

Our place isn't huge, but it's hard-working.

Our chickens are busy laying and scratching at the earth, Ruby is patrollingthe grounds, and our garden is drinking up water and sunshine. I'm absolutelyamazed at how much our garden grows overnight.

While my mom was visiting in May, she bought me a flat of pansies with aunknown brassica seedling hanging on the tray for dear life.

We planted it with the strawberries and I eventually transplanted it into ourlarger garden bed once the frosts had passed. Within two months ourvolunteer seedling had grown into a whopping 8 pound head of cabbage!

We are beyond thrilled with how many meals we can make from this deeply layeredbeauty.

Our other plants are also flourishing in our mixture of top soil and three-year-old horse manure.

Our landlord calls this mixture "Cariboo Gumbo."

We have 10 cauliflower plants, 3 tomatoes, 3 zucchini plants, 3 differenttypes of squash, the most ridiculous amount of lettuce I have ever seen, potatoes, strawberries,cucumbers, 2 pepper plants, garlic, dill, parsley, and sage up the wazoo!

It's brings me so much joy to step out every morning with a cup of tea in handto survey our little cultivation.

There is nothing better than eating what you grow. Add some organicallyraised laying hens to the mix, and you're set for the summer.

Everyday is Eden here.

We spend our days swimming in the lake, picking wild strawberries at our feet, andgoing to our local farmer and artisan markets. It is all just too heavenly.

On another note, I wanted to apologize for being MIA recently.

I've been focusing on creating commissions for the past few months and have alsobeen spending a lot of time with family.

Recently I had an urge to take some timeto step away from posting on etsy, and all my social platforms to map out some intentions andgoals of mine.

For now, these are some I feel comfortable sharing:

1) I've decided to completely strip the airstream. we are talking down to the bones.I want to free little red of old insulation, clean up any possible mouse droppings in the base of the camper,seal all the leaks, strip the red paint down to the aluminum, re-paint her (little blue? Little sage green?), and create a versatile open-concept space I am proud of.

2) I'm going to really focus on posting more etsy shop listings.This is going to include both silver and other pieces of my art. It is time to get rid of theselimitations I have put on myself and share my creations. There are so many beautiful things happening in my studio!

3) I am going to begin following a passion of mine I have had for a while in the coming year!I'm not quite ready to share exactly what this passion is, but I promise I'll let you knowonce it is all coming to fruition. I hope that is ok with you. My intentions are pure in all of this.

I honestly have so many dreams beyond these goals of mine. I better get cracking!

Thank you for your amazing support and constant love on this platform.I'll be listing some new pieces on my shop very soon!

I hope you pop by!

Until then, thank you for being in my world and as always, May You Be Loved.

xo

♥

Birth Day

I write this post as I turn 27 years old. I have been brought breakfast in bed by my love, and later today I will saddle up and head into the trails of the property with our friends on horseback.

Rain or shine.

I hope Ruby will find us another skull.

♥

Springtime is truly a dreamy season.

It's that time of year where the creamy greens and muted yellows pop up in the tallgrass that sits in the field across from our cabin.

That time of year where I listen to the grouse pound their drums deep in the forest grove.

Where I watch the snow melt and reminisce on the freedom that winter always brings us.

It's that time of year where farmers are busy pulling lambs, kids, and calves from theirmothers, to watch them moments later roam their lands by their mother's feet.

We were recently invited to Bryson's coworker's farm to be a part of theirgoat's laboring and birthing.

I'm lucky to have witnessed birth two times now.I watched my sister bring my nephew earthside last year on April 5th, and this year amother goat and her farmer bring a buckling earthside on the very same day.

The complexity and purity of birth is something I believe everyone shouldhave the opportunity to be a part of.

It is so simple. It is so beautiful. And that is how it should be.

Spring is the time of year that reminds me to trust in what is.To watch everything grow and develop as it should, and trust that the same is happening to me.To allow and accept the natural things coming my way, and to be earnestly and honestlyexactly who I am called to be.

Find that trust within yourself, hold it. If it feels right to you, it is.

I trust that my 27th year will bring about big changes in my life, and allow me to seek outwhat I want most.

Do you know what I want?

I want to put on my favorite jeans, belt, and hat, saddle up my horse and ride her throughthe tall grass into miles and miles of untouched lands.

I want to watch the sunset over the hills and valleys of sagebrush like a cascade of fire.

I want to drink up that light.

I want to collect eggs from the henhouse every morning with a cup of tea in hand,and name all of my chickens after the freshly grown herbs in my garden.

I want to cook our catch of the day over an outdoor fire and spend all of my time with my dogand my love.

I want to be thankful for all the things that matter, and brush off all the things that don't.

I just want to live my life and live it well.Live it, as who I am called to be.

It's ok to want what you want and be unapologetic about it.It is truly ok.

I trust that you know this, deep down in the marrow of your soul, let that feeling beam brightacross your face and truly feel it.

I love you. I believe in you.Now go forth in all you do.

xx

Chloe