I is for Insects #AtoZChallenge

On April 10, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, The Great Outdoors16 Comments

Along with the summer, comes the bugs…the insects. (The bugs of summer are one reason I prefer Fall for a lot of outdoor activities.)

Insects are so necessary for survival on our planet…I know, I know. We’d all soon be dead if there were no bugs.

However, in the summer insects can also be big pains in the ass, and some are downright assholes.

Mosquitoes for one. Deer flies for another. But in my mind, there is only one true contender for the Summer Asshole Insect crown (if ever there was such a thing): the wasp.

There I was, exiting my building and minding my own business one morning last August when a wasp came out of nowhere and dive-bombed into my arm and stung me. A couple of days later my arm starting swelling and turning red around the sting.

Asshole wasp sting that became infected. At the doctor’s office. An antibiotic cream was prescribed and took care of it. But, still! What an asshole.

On the other ~~arm~~ hand, I love seeing butterflies, damselflies, bumblebees and of course – DRAGONFLIES – in the summer.

And it wouldn’t be summer without hearing the ~~whine~~ song of the cicadas as the temperatures rise.

How do you feel about our buggy ~~assholes~~ friends? Any favourites? Any ones you just can’t stand?

Rock on,

The WB

Can you guess my theme for this year’s A-Z Challenge? All of my A-Z posts this month will be tied into my theme, which is represented by the title of a song that was popular when I was a child. Can you figure it out as the days (and posts) go by? Leave your guesses (one per day only, please) in the comments. At the end of the challenge, I will reveal the theme. Have fun!

SaveSave

H is for Hiking

On April 9, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, The Great Outdoors14 Comments

My “home” trail, in June – the Mill Pond Trail

I love to get out on the trail. It’s something that has helped me clear my mind and exercise my body since I was a small child.

I credit my dad mainly, for instilling this love of the outdoors in me. I talked about this in a previous A-Z challenge post, here.

In the summer, my hiking behaviour changes. I don’t do the heat well anymore. So my hikes are shorter, and in the very early morning or later in the evening. Or on heavily shaded trails. But I still get out there.

Cooling my toes in Point Pelee, on Canada Day – July

Elora Gorge in August – taking a break from Riverfest to stretch my legs

Kelowna, in September – I tried to stick to the lakeshore trails as much as I could while I walked back and forth to the hospital to visit with my sister.

Coming back from a hike along the riverbank on a late summer night, in the Village

Do you still get out and hike in the summer? Are your summer hikes different from your spring/fall/winter ones?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

G is for Growing Things #AtoZChallenge

On April 7, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Adventures in Food, Gardening13 Comments

Last summer was the first year I had a garden, here at Chez Badass – my rooftop garden. My very expensive rooftop garden, when you consider I had to invest a couple hundred dollars in containers and soil to grow less than $10 worth of plants and seeds. But no matter, the enjoyment I got from it was priceless.

The Badass Rooftop Garden produced pole beans and cherry tomatoes until an overnight frost hit mid-October. This photo was taken in September.

I decided that I will focus on growing things that are hard to get at farm markets or from directly from farmers. Hence pretty much the only thing I want to grow is pole beans. Which I cannot easily source, otherwise! Why is that, I wonder? They taste so much better than bush beans.

Soon I’ll be ordering my seeds from this place:

I love this catalogue. It’s the promise of summer in magazine form.

I zone in on this page, and this page only.

And here is my pick for this year:

Hunter boots not included with seed order. Damn.

I’ll be plunking down $2.25 for these babies, plus some peat pots to start them in. Looking so forward to harvesting fresh beans most nights for supper, all summer long. Already dreaming about how good these will taste alongside my corn and tomatoes on a hot summer evening, on my rooftop patio, accompanied by a cold beer.

Do you grow anything to eat in the summer? Have you ever had pole beans?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

F is for Farm Markets and Farmers’ Markets #AtoZChallenge

On April 6, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Adventures in Food13 Comments

I’m lucky enough to be in very close proximity to both a farm market and a farmers’ market.

In the summer, my local farm market is open 7 days a week, and I hit it often on the way home from work to see what new local food is in season.

Ditto with the Friday afternoon Farmers’ Market set up a few short paces from my home in the Village. It’s a great start to the weekend. I park my car and grab my marketing bag and my cash, and head down the street to see what’s new since last Friday.

I especially love visiting both places in August. For years now, I have secretly thought of August as “the month of good eatin’“. Fresh sweet corn, field tomatoes, and peaches. All ripe and ready in August. A perfect trifecta for a summer meal, the best of the bounty of the summer season, starts arriving in August ’round here.

Of course I also love everything else grown around here – the asparagus, the berries, the peas, the beans, radishes, lettuces, cucumbers, plums, pears and squashes…oh those Kabocha squashes!!!!

But there’s something about August, when the corn, tomatoes and peaches are all available together, that is very special to me.

What do you look most forward to, at the farm market?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

E is for Exuberance #AtoZChallenge

On April 5, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Hmmm?16 Comments

The last time I met a new work colleague, she made a point of telling me she was struck by my “joie de vivre“, as she called it. (I must have been having a pretty good day at work…hehehe!)

No one has ever told me that before but I really do enjoy life – now more than ever – so I am not disputing the label.

I have a hard time being down and staying down, generally.

My ex knew if he just stayed out of the line of fire long enough when he did something to hurt or anger me I would forget I was mad at him, and slowly equilibrate back to my cherub-like demeanour (to steal from the late great John Pinette).

It only took him 17 years to finally wear down my love of life so much that I felt I had to leave him, to save my own soul. But I digress…

This “loving life” feeling and attitude peaks for me in the summer months.

Especially on warm summer nights. You know, the ones where the temperature is just right so that you are completely comfortable? And there is a soft, warm breeze blowing across your exposed skin. If not for the breeze, you wouldn’t know where you ended and the summer air began.

Nights like those I feel so damn alive and grateful to be alive, I just want to leap and dance around for joy. And I do, whenever I can. I’ve had these exuberant moments since I was a child. I feel full of what I have come to call the wildness of life. I don’t know how else to explain it.

Wheeee! Life is AMAZING! I’m like this horse. Or a dog with the “zoomies”. Or a bunny in the midst of a “binky”:

I tried to explain these feelings to both of my husbands, in turn, to see if they ever felt that way too. Both times this was a mistake. Each of them reacted in the same way – they seemed to be both threatened by, and disapproving of, what I was telling them. And no, they definitely did not cop to ever feeling this way.

Once again, I felt like there was something wrong with me. That I was some kind of freak. (Nothing new here, folks – I’ve felt this way around others since I was a small child.)

Is anybody out there with me on this?

Have you ever felt your exuberant, wild heart making itself known to you?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

D is for Dairy Queen #AtoZChallenge

On April 4, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Adventures in Food23 Comments

This post not sponsored by Dairy Queen, unfortunately.

I love Dairy Queen.

I come by my love of DQ soft-serve honestly. When my mother was pregnant with me, she craved Dairy Queen like nothing else on earth.

My dad tried hard to honour her cravings. She wanted DQ All. The. Time. Finally my exasperated father took a large cooking pot to the local Dairy Queen and asked the counterman to “fill ‘er up”. Can’t understand why I was only 6 lbs. when I was born near the end of July.

When I was a teenager, most warm summer nights would find me and my friends at some point sitting on the cement wall next to that same local DQ, sucking back shakes (always me, always vanilla) or Mr. Misty Slushes.

My son was born in August of the same year that the DQ Blizzard was ~~born~~ launched. (If that wasn’t a sign from the universe, I don’t know what is.) My lovely baby sister would bring me a Skor Blizzard every day that I was in the maternity ward. That was back in the days when you were expected to stay in hospital for a number of days after giving birth. I was there for 5 days. Do the math.

When I gave birth to my daughter my sister wasn’t around to bring me Blizzards. But a family friend worked in the hospital kitchen, and she added an ice cream sandwich to my tray for every meal. Which was super nice of her, but it was no Dairy Queen.

When they were much younger, I loved the infrequent opportunities to take my kids to DQ. On a scorching summer evening (when their ~~buzzkill~~ dad was not around to suck the joy outta life disapprove) I would drive us to DQ, where we would have Peanut Buster Parfaits instead of dinner, as a special treat. Because the peanuts make it worthy of meal status. Somehow. Work with me, people.

Nowadays I no longer prefer my DQ with a lot of add-ins and sugared-up, syrupy fanciness. My current favourite of All Things Dairy Queen is the humble chocolate dipped cone, size small. And DQ “season” (for me, anyways) is coming up soon.

Yeah, I know there is one in the mall, and it’s open year-round. But that’s not where I’ll go for my soft-serve when the temperatures rise.

This summer I’ll be heading back to that local, seasonally-run DQ that has been an ongoing part of my life, starting in-utero. It just reopened, for 2018. Exciting!!!

Do you DQ? What is your favourite DQ treat?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

C is for Corn on the Cob #AtoZChallenge

On April 3, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Adventures in Food21 Comments

I grew up in a Dutch Canadian household, with my grandparents living in the other half of the big rambling farmhouse on the edge of town. My family brought with them a lot of Dutch traditions and ideas about food and cooking, one of which was that corn is for farm animals, ONLY.

Thankfully my parents were not so set in their ways as my grandparents, and opened their minds – and the cooking pot – to delicious Ontario sweet corn on the cob, dripping with butter and salt.

My mom and dad even became a bit of “corn gourmets” in their later years…only deigning to eat corn that was freshly picked. We’re talking less than an hour from the stalk…when they moved out to the countryside proper (and down the road from what became a favourite corn stand). In fact, the farmer they bought the corn from wouldn’t sell them corn that was more than 15 minutes off the stalk.

That corn never made it to the fridge. It was shucked and cooked immediately. In and out of the pot of boiling water in 3 minutes.

Is it any wonder then, that I’ve absorbed my late parents’ sweet corn snobbery?

The best fresh sweet corn is the stuff I can buy from the farmer on the way home from work – starting in late July – and have on the table within a half hour.

When I go to other peoples’ homes and they tell me they’re boiling the corn we’re having with our meal for 20+ minutes I want to weep. When I see that the corn they are serving came from the grocery store in a little styrofoam tray, and originated in the US, I want to scream. (But, being a good guest I do neither.)

I’ve met the couple in this video and they ARE sweet corn fanatics. They know to the hour when their corn is ready to be picked. In fact, their favourite variety has only an 18 hour picking window, according to Channing Strom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM38sojpG-E

Ignore the bit about 4 minutes. That is one minute too long, in my humble, corn-snobbish opinion.

How do you like your sweet corn?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

B is for Beach Days #AtoZChallenge

On April 2, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Good Times13 Comments

It should be no surprise to anyone that reads this blog or knows me IRL, that I love being by the water. So much so, that I have assembled what I call my Beach Day Kit. Here it is, set up on the sand at Bayfield:

Sun shelter, chair, towel, book, Contigo mug filled with tea, mallet for pounding in stakes to secure shelter, cooler bag with snacks

Most of my Beach Day Kit lives in the back of my car from June to September, so I am always to ready for action should I wake up on a weekend morning and find that the beach is calling my name. I can be on the road in 15 minutes and at the beach before most people wake up. Even though my favourite “local” beach is a 1.5 hour drive from my house.

I can’t resist the call of the sand or the shore, no matter where I am in the world.

Wiggling my toes in the sand while waiting for the beachside Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros concert to begin. At Bloemendaal, in the Netherlands, in 2016.

I have to make at least one visit to the beach at Zandvoort every time I go to the Netherlands.

A reproduction of an old tourism poster adorns my bathroom door at home. Yes, I always heed the call of the mermaid beckoning me to the beach!

And should I even mention my now-annual winter vacation, which is nothing BUT beach days, Barbados style?

Barbados is behind me for this year (*sniffle*). Time to look forward to another summer of beach days, right here at home.

Will you heed the call of the beach this summer?

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

A is for Art in the Outdoors

On April 1, 2018 By Widow BadassIn A2Z Challenge Post, Artistic Endeavours16 Comments

One of the things I am looking forward to when the weather gets better is doing AND seeing art outside. Also, taking photographs that I can later translate into a sketch or painting back in my laundry room/studio.

Last September (when summer weather actually, finally arrived here in Ontario), I came across this neat piece behind the Alton Mill Art Centre:

And I came across these wonderful pieces on a walk around Crawford Lake:

Temporary installation of art by an Indigenous artist. I thought I had taken a snap of the information regarding this artist but couldn’t find it on my phone.

Last summer I took many photos that I hoped to someday turn into paintings. Here is one I took last August, when I was visiting my sister in Kelowna:

Smoky sunset over Lake Okanagan, due to ongoing forest fires close by

This photo was the basis for a painting that I discussed in this post.

I am looking forward to more outdoor art adventures in the warm days to come!

Rock on,

The WB

SaveSave

Changing Seasons for March 2018 #TheChangingSeasons

On March 30, 2018March 30, 2018 By Widow BadassIn Bruce Trail Adventure, See the Beauty, The Great Outdoors11 Comments

Spring is slow to come to my part of the world this year. But I’m not complaining as the winter was not as dire as predicted, and there is almost no snow left.

Most of March has been grey and cloudy, with either snow flurries (that disappeared almost as soon as they hit the ground) or cold rain coming down from the skies.

But last Sunday was a gloriously sunny, cloudless – albeit at times bitterly windy – day. Blaze and I had planned to hike Mount Nemo that day so we were happy with the forecast. Mizz J had to write a paper for school so she couldn’t join us, but her boyfriend Kevin asked to come along and we were happy to have his company.