Felted landscape piece done for Mum's birthday (detail)

Merry Christmas!

They exist!

Now I'm going to have to start trying to find the end of rainbows.  And leaving out milk and cookies for Santa.

It's great to have my parents visiting Powell River for the first time. Charlie is happy about it too.

My first goat cheese

It cut without crumbling, tasted tangy but smooth, clean but rich, and made me very happy.  I wish I had the patience and a cheese cave to age a cheese like this and see what it might become.  But maybe I'll leave that to the professionals and stick with young, fresh cheeses.  I made ricotta from the whey (not a high yield product, it has to be said) and will be eating that with honey on pancakes for a breakfast treat.

Little Sliammon Lake, Canada Day

Note the excellent technique being demonstrated for the traditional "canoe nap" activity.  He managed to assume and maintain this napping posture as I single-handedly paddled the canoe across the lake.

Fauvist rooster for Al

Quick, they're escaping!

Monday night's Paddle and Pint outing

Sky driving in the Shuswap

Charlie's life just keeps getting harder

I have to say I do make an excellent grilled pizza

Practice I guess, as it has now been a year of steadily tweaking my dough recipe and experimenting with different temperatures and cooking techniques.  I won't go so far as to say this one was as good as a wood-fired one could be, but it was pretty darn good.

Farm to School map has its debut at May Day Festival, James Thomson School

final mushroom paintings!

perfect birthday kayaking trip

more perfect birthday kayaking trip!

the party

Adorable Aria

This is my friends Jeff and Ela's wee girl Aria: one of the sweetest, smiliest babes I have ever had the pleasure of hanging out with.  Sometimes it really sucks being so far away and missing out on the daily lives of these amazing little beings my friends all seem to be producing, but it makes it extra special when I do get to visit.

my new view

Goes pretty well with fried Okeover oysters on a sunny afternoon.

mushroom paintings

Spring sketching excursion

First meal outside for the year!

Home-made pizza, green salad and champagne, on the deck, as the sun went down - bliss!

seafood chowder with local clams, shrimp and steelhead trout

Oh, and the potatoes, tomatoes, celery, garlic, bacon, parsley and thyme were local too :)

Farm to School Map

Here is the Farm to School map I made with the students of James Thomson Elementary; it shows the eight local food producers they visited last year as part of the F2S program, and some of the animals and plants they saw there.  The idea is that the kids can stick icons of different foods onto the map to show where each F2S meal came from, so now I need to take it to the city to get laminated (although at 3.5x2.5 ft it barely fits in my car!)

Feline groovy

Yes, I know, I featured this same cat only days ago, but Charlie is true star material and I just had to share his awesomeness.  Again.

Sauteed, not chard (arf, arf)

Winter shades

February grey and blue

But not in a bad way - look how beautiful!