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In Adventures/ Country Life

Just Bloom

If you need me to convince you to plan a road trip with your daughter/mother/best friend/sister/significant other/stranger off the street to go wander among rows of flowers, cutting fresh blooms and trying your hand at arranging bouquets, then this is the post for you!!

Just Bloom Flower Farm, run by Emma Cole and her family, { shout out to future flower farmer Pip } is in Middle Musquodoboit and well worth the drive from anywhere you are.  The rural setting, nestled among the hills, dales and meandering rivers of the Musquodoboit Valley is picturesque but if you level that up with a dairy farm, some stone walls, lush green lawns and adorable cows, well, it doesn’t get much prettier!! While we strolled flower rows with scissors in hand, Emma chatted with her guests, guiding us in the art of cutting fresh flowers, arranging bouquets and even taking the odd picture, all while keeping an eye on Pip and carry her littlest one, Tilly, tucked in close.  Her middle child, Lauchie, was too busy dairy farming with his dad to bother much with us ladies clipping our blooms.

Pip’s little cluster of blooms

 

Don’t ask me the names of any of these flowers, I couldn’t tell you.  Everyone gathered whatever struck their fancy, clipping blooms, stripping stems and tucking them into their various vessels.  I took my good old green enamelware coffee pot, it is still my favourite for bouquets.  I decided I wanted to do a colour scheme of a deep wines and purples paired with creamy blossoms.  Sure the bright pinks and yellows called to me but I was craving something a little softer, a little more subtle.  And yes, I had bouquet-envy as I watched everyone else’s colourful clusters start to come together but I stayed the course and I have to say, I’m glad I did.

 

When Hannah and I got home, we trimmed our blooms and made up our final bouquets, which was fun, too, playing floral designer.  Hannah did up a bouquet just to dry for her room, and I love how it looks tucked into a sweet little thrifted pottery vase.

I had fun digging out my camera for the first time in quite some time.  It made me realize how much I do enjoy taking pictures and writing and miss it.  Thus, you are getting a blog post after all this time!!  I love how the arrangements look gathered together on the front porch!

Just Bloom Flower Farms does lots of different events throughout the year.  They do cutting garden seedling classes, wreath making, flower subscriptions, the cutting days like what we attended and lots more so I highly recommend giving Just Bloom a follow on Instagram HERE so you don’t miss out!!

Warmly,

Lori

 

 

 

In Adventures/ Blogging/ Life

Seeking – A Recap

Well, guys, 2020 is almost over.  Who would’ve predicted what we would go through as a global community when we first launched into 2020!!  But today is the last day.  We made it.

I’m sitting here, coffee in hand, tree still up but half the decorations knocked off by a cat or two, grateful for all that 2020 has taught me.  And I’m looking forward to what 2021 might have instore. I was scrolling Instagram, as one does, when I read a recent post by Emily at Mom Struggling Well { my favourite podcast!! }  And I loved her recap of the year, which nudged me to do one of my own, based on THIS post.

For 2020, my Word of the Year was Seek.  And I had come up with a list of ways I wanted to Seek.  So, an honest review, heart on my sleeve, for you to close out 2020.

SEEK TRUTH – through open, honest conversation and guided talks, I found some truth.  Some was easy to accept, some hurt like a bugger.

SEEK POSITIVITY – I choose to surround myself with glass half full people.  And I will also pick to see the bright side.

SEEK WELLNESS – I took my health by the horns this year.  I moved more, eat better { still love me some sugar though } and came out feeling so much better about this 45 year body I call home.

SEEK PEACE – a quiet cup of coffee, a still wander in the dark, knowing that God is in control, I’m so thankful for the peace of 2020, in the midst of so much chaos.

SEEK GOD – the irony of this, churches closed and so it was up to me to seek time and space out for God.  Worship music, podcasts and Christian people in my life helped me with this throughout 2020

SEEK HEALING – this one stopped me in my tracks this morning.  I feel like it should say forgiveness….and I have to admit, there’s so much more work that needs to be done here.  There are things that need to be healed, forgiven.

SEEK NATURE – I feel so fortunate to be able to have spent so much time in nature.  Walking in my yard, exploring beaches around this part of the province and beyond, and hiking so many trails.  I feel like my mental health benefitted greatly from seeking nature in 2020.

SEEK GRATITUDE – so much to be thankful for and I certainly am.  Provision, guidance, opportunity, I had it good this year in many ways and I am grateful, so very thankful.

SEEK LAUGHTER – I laughed a lot.  But there was lots of tears, too.  It was not the easiest year in some ways.  But there was laughter and good times.

SEEK CREATIVITY – usually I would have rocked this but I didn’t feel like I did a ton of creative things this year.  I need to clean up my studio space and fix that.  It feeds my soul.

SEEK ADVENTURE – ohhhh, there were adventures of all sorts. Waterfalls, hikes, beaches, vacation – lots of adventures and I hope to continue that in 2021

SEEK JOY – my favourite, always.  I found joy.  In many ways, places and with many of the people in my life.  There is no end to the joy to be found.

I know that everyone had different battles to fight throughout the year.  It was a year of loss as a community due to the mass shootings, COVID and the changes that brought to our ordinary life.  Everyone did the best they could despite it all.  Fortunately, we have a new year stretching out in front of us, let’s make the best of it.

Warmly,

Lori

 

In Adventures/ Life

Not Missing Summer

Last summer felt like a bust to me.  Between life stuff going on and waiting for our new building at Costandi Designs to be ready, I feel like I missed out.  I think I can count on two fingers how many times I took the girls to the beach, we didn’t go on vacation – it truly was a bust.

So, this summer I’m determined not to miss it.

If it means spending days off touring the province and rolling in after bedtime, so be it.

If it means trips to the beach after supper is eaten, so be it.

If it means hitting the trails on the mountain in the drizzle or at 5:45am, so be it.

If it means the house being a little less tidy, so be it.

If it means ice cream for supper then so be it.

I refuse to miss summer this year. 2020 has been the most bizarre year to date so I’m not going to miss out on summer, too.  Our Nova Scotia summers are short, so I’m determined to make it sweet.

 

I think I could start a series of ‘Lena Jumping Pictures’….

This next picture might just be my all time fav for this summer…..or it’ll be their album cover….I’m very thankful for the friendship these four have forged.

My sweet babe – with blonde tendrils and sun-kissed cheeks!

And our faithful little side-kick!

These two ran and screamed as if there were giant waves sweeping them away….thankfully we pretty much had the beach to ourselves!!

No crabs were harmed in the taking of this picture….he was already dead! Gross, Noah!

Tell me – how are you making the most out of your summer?

Warmly,

Lori

In Adventures

Tangled Gardens

We did a Valley road trip this past weekend, just me and a few of my favourite little girls.  We toured around, stayed in a hotel and explored random beaches throughout the Valley.  If you missed my stories on Instagram, check out the highlights tagged Valley 2020 HERE.

As I love to do, I alway ask each road tripee what their favourite stop was.  Tangled Garden was close to the top on everyone’s list, if it wasn’t THE top pick!!

I’m having camera issues, and thankfully I have the best of friends with great gear and so Christine lent me one of her cameras.  It weighs a lot more than I’m used to and I didn’t quite have a handle on the settings, but slowly I’m figuring it out.  So, these pictures aren’t the best I’ve ever done, so bear with me!

There are some beautiful structures throughout the garden, perfectly rusty and being enveloped in greenery.

Tucked in the middle of the garden is the sweetest little Tea Room, seen in the picture above.  It is rustic, but feels very airy and feminine.

I found a few little garden nymphs running around, too…

There was one more but she moved too fast for me to capture on camera 😉

Dark clouds starting to roll in and you could hear thunder off in the distance.  The light really shifted and created an eerie backdrop.  I love how the wild, unruly signage looks against the sky.

If you find yourself in the Grand Pre area, I would highly recommend stopping at Tangled Gardens.  If it had of been open on Monday, the girls wanted to go back and I would’ve gladly taken them.   We went a few years back, but I guess I didn’t share the pictures here on the blog!! There is so much more to see and explore than what I shared here, I even missed places during my visit there as the girls talked about things I didn’t see!

Warmly,

Lori

In Adventures/ Country Life

Beach Bonfire

There’s a FB Messenger conversation that is probably 3 summers old now. It started as an open invitation in our circle of friends to meet at our local beach on Wednesday evenings. Bring your bathing suits, supper, kayak, whatever, just come to say hey or come for a few hours, we’ll see you there kinda thing.

Over the years, it’s still the same basic idea, but not just for Wednesday nights anymore…and we’ve made it to some, missed most but that doesn’t really matter, the invitation remains to join anyone from the group who posts their trip to the beach.

A couple Sunday nights back, Christine posted a trip to the beach with the dangling carrot of a beach bonfire in the group chat. Now, I love a good bonfire, but with the fire ban that’s been barely lifted this spring and summer, I was especially craving a good ole bonfire. And an evening on the beach to boot with friends, I was in!!

We took our usual sidekick, Marley, packed up bonfire supplies and headed to our favourite local beach to meet up with Dave, Christine, Simon and Izzy – everyone else from the chat had other plans. I had a lovely fire going in no time and sat around enjoying the sound of the kids playing before the rest of the crew showed up.  

Get ready for lots of beach pictures….

We started with snacks!  A bonfire just wouldn’t be complete without s’mores!!  Is there anything cuter than a kid and a s’more? No, I didn’t think so!

Clearly Izzy takes cookie eating very seriously!

After bellies were full, it was time to play and explore.  The four biggest kids { I’m using the term loosely!! } decided they wanted to go around the point.  Izzy thought she should be allowed to tag along, too, but it’s tricky walking on those rocks!

I shadowed Izzy and we veered off to walk up along the edge of the rockier part of the beach.  We found a stick and she played with it in the sand for quite some time.  It was so fun to hear her chatter away in her play.  She may have fed me a spoonful of sand when I wasn’t paying  close enough attention to what she was actually doing as I tried to get some pictures of her!

The crew come back from around the point all safely intact.  They clearly had big plans as they took off across the sand bar…

We finished off the night with some sparklers, it wasn’t quite dark enough but the kids did not care!!

It was time to wrap it up and take the tired, sandy kids home to their beds.  Izzy was clearly done in and needed a snuggle with her momma!  That makes everything better!

Pack it all up!  Be sure not to leave anything behind!  Especially the cute little ones!! 

I hope your summer is filled with trips to the beach with friends!!  If you are in Nova Scotia, there are lots to explore…granted, I think the best beach is also the one closest to us!!

Warmly,

Lori