Fencing Classes

Last night Mary and Peter completed class #6 for their 10 lesson introduction to fencing.  They are both doing well.  Peter has wanted to take classes since visiting his sister Liz's team practice at University of St. Thomas.  Mary was iffy until last night's class.  She came out exclaiming, "That was the best ever!"

                              

They are learning to fence epee, but using foils.  Okay, that's as far as my knowledge goes.  But, they are thoroughly enjoying this sport.  The club that is sponsoring the classes has members from about 10 to 75!  They come in to begin their practice as this class is winding down.  We are finding that this might be a wonderful sport to pursue well beyond our homeschool years.  I may even take it up next time around for the introductory classes.

First comes stretching, then practice on form, and finally practicing on each other.

Maple Syrup Sugar Bush Adventure

We've just returned from breakfast at the Fort Rose Maple Company.  This seemed rather appropriate for Meghan's and Kate's quick visit during their Spring Break.   These pictures are from a visit Mary, Peter, Tom and I made to the Fanshaw Kinsmen's Sugar Bush about 2 weeks ago. The first one shows the older method of boiling down the sap into syrup.  To the left side is one of the two Belgian's pulling the haywagon that took us out to the sugar house.  It was plenty cold then and the sap was running free and easy!   While we've seen plenty of tree buckets with taps along our drives, the lines you see at the Kinsmen's Bush are more modern, and quick.  This series of lines is a collecting point for all the trees across the road from the sugar house.  Fanshaw Kinsmen Bush utilizes a low pressure pump to pull it to a line high enough to allow the horse drawn wagon to go freely to and from their entrance.  The biggest threat to the lines are the deer running through, ripping them away from the spigots.  

We learned that the window for gathering maple sap is short, as narrow as the ideal temperature range for optimum production.  Sap begins to run when the temperature run in the narrow window of 5C high and -5C low. Higher than that, or lower the production isn't as abundant or swift.  After tapping the sap, the long tanks boil out the water, and requiring at least 70 to 1 for the final maple syrup product.  We all agree ... maple syrup is by far preferred to the usual high fructose corn syrup product marketed as pancake syrup.  

Niagara Falls

Kate flew in on Saturday from Houston, and Sunday we drove over to see Niagara Falls.  Here are some pictures of the five of us on our quick tour, starting with the view from our room.  

      

This is definitely a place we want to return to.  Given that this is the first weekend of the Ontario schools March break, hectic is insufficient to describe the mob at the hotel.

    

Houston Shopping with the Bride

Here are Liz's future mother-in-law, Carrie, and my daughters Katherine, Elizabeth and Meghan.  We are at Kraftsman's cafe for a quick breakfast before the Houston Bridal Fair on Saturday morning.  My visit was certainly short, but I was able to touch base and visit with a few friends.  Friday Liz tried on several dresses and found "the one!"  Looked so pretty on her.  I remember that same feeling all those years ago when I tried on the wedding dress I chose.

Late on Friday afternoon the three girls and I drove up to our old neighborhood in Copperfield.  We enjoyed the first fish fry at Christ the Redeemer.  Another opportunity to enjoy the Knight's fantastic fare and visit with several of our old parish friends.  We were also given the grace to have a personal tour of the new church building with Debbie Maglicco, the liturgy director.  Beautiful, beautiful church.   We are looking forward to returning in May for Peter's Confirmation, and again in August for Liz and John Paul's wedding!

Later on Friday evening my good friend Rebecca Hill and I attended the UST play, "Charlie's Aunt."  It is such a fun farce!  Kate was stage manager, and Meghan was house manager.   Saturday was the bridal fair followed by the vigil mass at St. Basil Chapel on the UST campus.  Early Sunday I was dropped off at the airport, and made it back to Tom, Mary and Peter by early evening.   Quite a long day of quiet following three days of intense activity.  God is good!

As always, never enough hours in the day.  But, we accomplished all that I needed to, and had plenty of time to just enjoy each others' company.  So, in the end, we had plenty of time.  

March Miracle

Well, Tom's fellow office mate who assured us that March 1 the melt begins in London was right!  What we have now are swiftly diminishing dirty snow drifts that look like ice stagmites.  All the grass is emerging, matted down from all the snow.  The wind, though, is still quite icy and bites right to the bone.  

                                                      

Our predicted high today is 15 C (~59F).  Quite a nice, pleasant surprise after what seemed like unending snow storms and growing drifts.   I am certain Peter looks forward not having any more driveway shoveling duty.  No snow means plenty of mud, though.

This Friday we will be joining with other area Catholic homeschool families for First Friday!  This time around we will have the joy of dry roads, as opposed to the icy ones in February.  

Take care.  I hope your own winters are winding down as spring is close at hand.

We're Having a Heatwave!

I'm sharing some pictures taken on Monday.   A heatwave?  Well, we will be seeing above freezing weather the next few days around here, and rain beginning tomorrow.  At least, that is the current forecast.  Monday  our cooperative classes were cancelled because of a predicted snowsquall.  Fortunately, that didn't happen, so instead we spent our morning doing physical education by shoveling off the driveway!  This picture shows that our snow piles out front are indeed shrinking, though the back deck photo shows what happens when no sunshine shines on the snow!  It is on the north side of the house, and while it gets no sunshine right now, we are hoping it means for cooler summer dining al fresco!  

So many exclamation points!  The reason, I suspect is that I am excited about tomorrow.   I will be boarding a jet in Detroit and landing in Houston at 5 pm to visit with our Houston based daughters.  Definitely a heat wave for me!   So much fun, and yet, sad, too.  Just wish we could all go down together.  

Mary and Peter stay home with Tom.  He gets to take them to their fencing classes.   Fencing as in learning the fine art of swinging an epee at an opponent, as opposed to vocational class.  

They will  take in a Knights hockey game on Friday night and have another visit with the family catechism group (which I wish I didn't have to miss).

In the meantime, I'll be taking care of Houston business, hoping to connect with more than a few friends while I'm there.  And just relishing my short time with our daughters.  They are awesome young women!  Well, at least in Tom's and my eyes.   

Meghan is picking me up at the airport and will be spending as much time that day as she can with me.  This weekend she will be camping with her fellow St. Augustine residents and the FSE's.  (Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist who oversee the Augustine program.)

Friday I will be trying to sort out college financial aid, and tuition issues at UST, pay property taxes, drive by our Houston house and visit with friends!  That night I'll be attending the UST drama production of Charlie's Aunt with my good friend Rebecca.   Kate is stage manager, and she tells me via phone that it is an exhausting job that is far more work than being on stage as an actor.  I know she is up to it, and it gives her the perfect opportunity to legitimately boss people around.

Saturday Liz, Kate and I will be heading to the extravagant bridal fair at George R. Brown convention center.  We'll be joined by Liz's future mom-in-law.  It should prove to be a wonderful morning.  With luck, too, I'll be able to visit our "home" parish, and attend Mass on Saturday in their new church!  I'm definitely looking forward to being able to be inside the new church instead of just peering through windows, as we did before our relocation north.

Sunday sees me in airports, flying back to Detroit, then on the bus back to London.  

That "Odd" Smell

Our Houston house finally has renters!  That is a huge relief for us.  It has been touch and go since September 1, first trying to offer the house for sale, and then the end of October to begin locating a good renter.  

Back in July when Tom accepted his current job in Canada, we were in Peru, and had only two months before made arrangments for our daughters to continue living in our Houston home with a room mate.  That all changed quickly, and their new room mate happily reunited with her own parents.  We located an apartment close to their campus for the girls to rent the first of September.

The end of August, just prior to Tom leaving to begin his new post, we signed papers to sell our home.   Of course, this all happened prior to the Sept 9 weekend economic meltdown!    I stayed with the kids, and kept the house show-ready, and worked on getting us ready to move to Canada.   My Houston friends will definitely recall that in between we all experienced the winds of fury with Hurricane Ike.

One of the realtors who showed the house remarked on their showing report that the house "reeked, and my client refused to look beyond the front door."  My feelings were definitely hurt since I do pride myself on keeping a clean home.  Several things went through our minds, including how much neglect (unintentional, but neglect nonetheless) happened the previous year when we moved to Peru and left the care of the house to our daughters.  

Before we made the move north in October we terminated our "to sell" contract, and signed with a new realtor to find renters for us.  Slowly, more folks came to look, but none decided in favor of renting the house.  Fortunately a family with similar relocation circumstances contacted our realtor in hopes we would be amenable to their own pets.   

Then, come the first of the new year, with various delays for the tenants, we are told there was an "odd odor" and they were hesitant to move forward with the deal.  Yikes!  So, in desperation our realtor actually got down on his hands and knees to see if he could determine the cause.   The carpets upstairs had been professionally cleaned, but still had a very, very faint animal scent.  But that wasn't the "smell."  Then several possibilities were considered.  Could it have been the resin from the replaced hardwood floors?  Could it be mold?  How about unflushed drains?  A huge variety of ideas were thought of, investigated, and discarded.   At one point the realtor's wife brought a restoration person in to see if he could detect what it was, and see if he knew how we could solve the problem.   He assured her it wasn't any of what we thought it might be.  

As they walked in, the restoration tech asked if there had been a fire in the house.  She said, no, not her knowledge, so he didn't have any ideas.  Fortunately once she returned home and as she readied her oven to clean she was struck by the exact same smell.  At this point she called me, and I said, yes!  

Right after we returned from Houston to Lima last June, our girls experienced a fire in the oven of the kitchen range!  The house wasn't damaged, and other than a bit of heart pounding until the electricity could be turned off the girls were okay, too.  It was summarily replaced and since they had no visible damage outside the range, so we didn't think much more about it.  But, this was the source of "that smell."  The restoration company set up an ozone machine on a Tuesday evening, and by Wednesday morning our realtor said the house smelled wonderfully fresh!  I am amazed that even for a shortlived, contained fire, how it could rapidly permeate the house.  

The good ending is that our renters went through with the final deposits, and are now beginning to move south.  We hope they enjoy our neighborhood as much as we did.  I know they'll enjoy the Houston springtime! 

Please note: using an ozone machine is best left up to professionals.  A good review of various air filter options can be found at Dr. Mercola's website.