Do you ever long for a time when life was simpler? I’m not talking about the time before cars or computers or the internet. I’m talking about childhood. You didn’t have to think about what to eat, what to buy, what activities were going to fill your day. Nope, you just were. You enjoyed life as it came and you took joy in the tiny things.

Your biggest worry was if your lawn-mower bubble maker ran out of soap. And that was pretty stressful.

Yup I long for those days sometimes. When I’m trying to file taxes or paying bills or selling insurance when it’s just so sunny outside.

Or when I’m longing for those few extra minutes before getting out of bed.

It would be really nice to just sleep when you want to sleep.

And some mornings, it’s a drag choosing your clothes when you get dressed. Somedays, you just want someone else to do that part for you.

Then again, you could end up dressed like this!

Most of the time I love being an adult. I get to eat what I want when I want. I get to drive a car and go where I want. I don’t have anyone telling me when to brush my teeth, much to Marc’s chagrin. And I make more money than I did as a kid. I mean, I don’t have to beg and plead and dress up like a pink bunny to get some candy every now and then.

I suppose life all has it’s trades and growing up ain’t so bad. After all, I can drink so much more coffee now than when I was a wee one.

And caffeine is fun because it makes you type really really fast and with hands that you just can’t believe how fast you can type, resulting in an incredibly long sentence that you blame on your vibrating vision, and well it’s only been 3 or 4 cups and really how bad can it be?

…. in my case, quite bad…..

Before you get excited seeing these photos, they are borrowed from various internet sources because when I tried to go out and take photos of my darling herbs, they were not photogenic. Could have been the lighting but they were also making faces at the camera. And that cannot be tolerated.

My mom has a beautiful herb garden. She would spice up our meal by frequent visits to her garden, right out her kitchen door. Many of the herbs that I cut fresh from my garden are offshoots of her plants. Which is appropriate as my habits tend to be offshoots of hers. (And that is a very good thing.)

I’ve included these photos borrowed, as previously mentioned, so that if you are unfamiliar with the way some herbs look, you will have an idea.

Chives are a herb we use all the time. They die back in the Winter and then rise again in the summer, like I’m certain we should. (I am a strong advocate for hibernation.) My chives are already coming back up green and fluffy. It’s an amazing testament to how mild our Winter has been. Usually I don’t see this resurrection until late February, or March. We also love eating the chive flowers, but we have to fight the bees for them. They look so lovely in salads, like purple pom-poms.

This is a curry plant. I just got this from my mom late Autumn, so I haven’t had a chance to trim it’s culinary delights yet. It smells amazing and I look forward to the kitchen potential that it will unleash. To me, it looks a lot like tarragon.

To prove my point, Tarragon. We use this when we cook salmon. It has a lovely nearly licorice taste. If you do not use this herb very often, I encourage you to try it. It imparts a beautifully sweet flavour.

Marjoram is a plant I haven’t used a lot of prior to this year. I think I just didn’t think of it and it wasn’t called for in a lot of recipes. But this plant has taken off in our garden. I designated such a tiny rock circle for her, and she has surpassed my expectations. Marc sneaks this in as often as possible. And the best thing is that the bees are just as in love with her. We often see bees crawling on her tight purple flowers.

Oregano goes so nicely with the tomatoes we grew all summer long. The bees love her flowers too. Her leaves seem so delicate but she’s survived very well over the winter. This is definitely a staple in our kitchen.

We are very lucky to have inherited a booming rosemary bush when we moved into the cottage. It flowers early and we use this plant with lamb, chicken and pasta among other delicious dishes. Rosemary is a necessity for tomato sauce and often goes really nicely with mushrooms.

This one is my favourite for mushrooms though. Thyme adds such depth to our oyster mushrooms that Marc has been growing. We use thyme with spaghetti, fish, and we throw the flowers into salads as often as possible. (As you can guess, I am very fond of eating flowers.)

Just so I don’t gloss over my terrible photo-taking skills of last night, this blurry photo is my sage bush. I had to show this girly off because of her busty hips. I’ve had this plant when we first got married and she has gone through some hard times. Yes, the transition from her sunny place at my mom’s (and the first couple years of our transient marriage) was hard on this one. But she is one of the reasons why I am so happy to be where I am. One of the first things I did when we moved into the cottage was to take my cramped herbs out of their pots and put their toes into real ground. And look how Sagey-pants has flourished! She had beautiful fragrant flowers this year that the bees were all over. And she has provided many a good flavouring to our dinners. I hear rumour that she makes a killer pesto too but I have yet to try that one.

Beside her is some lavendar. We have lots of lavendar and in the fall, I snipped off all the flowers to dry them. We use lavendar in our humidifier on the stove, I have a little sachel of it in my underwear box. And I’ve been known to slip a pouch of it in my pillow case to help me sleep.

Tugwell Creak Meadery has a beautiful recipe for Lavendar Honey cheesecake which I’d highly recommend. Especially if you can use honey from a local beekeeper. This dessert is one you’ll want to encore. I also add lavendar to my peppermint tea.

There are many herbs we use often: peppermint, basil, chamomile, parsley etc, but I am still collecting for my little herb garden. Do you have any recommendations? Any must have herbs? Have I forgotten any important uses for herbs that you depend on?

The flowers still aren’t in bloom but my bees are flying. And they are trucking in little loads of yellow pollen like they are leaving on a long trip to Europe. Their bags are stuffed. So I’ve been wondering, what are they eating? It is just barely February after all and I know we’ve had a mild Winter, but seriously!?

This sillouette of twigs are attached a tree, a very important bee-tree for early eating. Anyone guess what it is?

If you said, Maple, you are CORRECT!

(and you win nothing… sorry)

Now, I meant to do more with these maple trees than just let my bees feed off them. I meant to tap these babies in the Winter. But I missed the syrup train. I bought a little maple tapping kit from the people I get my bee stuff from (Bees ‘n Glass) because they have quite the sweet tooth. But I thought I still had time to tap in January. Apparently the sap was not flowing in January. It was flowing when we had that freeze in early December. So next year I’ll be more organized…

Big Leaf Maple tapping is a little different than tapping Sugar Maples back East. Sugar Maples are tapped in February or March. And their concentration of sugar in the sap is quite a lot higher. Big Leaf Maples have to bleed 44 litres of sap to produce 1 litre of syrup. When you start thinking about the legistics of this, it becomes clear that you cannot boil off the water in the sap to make syrup in your house. I do not want 43 litres of water humidifying my house! It became clear to me that we would have to do the evaporation process outside and over a long period of time. That was the part that I did not get as organized and it stalled me this year. But next year, I have high hopes.

I mean, what else is Winter for when you’re not beekeeping?

Apparently Big Leaf Maple syrup is like the stout of syrups. It’s quite a bit darker and stronger. But this is all hear-say. I haven’t tried any yet. Have you?

This weekend is the Big Leaf Maple Syrup festival in Duncan, BC. It is put on by the Vancouver Island Sapsuckers. (I know, the name makes me laugh too.) If you get a chance and are in the area, I recommend checking it out. It’s bound to be sweet. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

When I walk back and forth to work, then home for lunch then back to work, I get a chance to think, to listen, to re-evaluate. It is my “space between.” The verse above is from Tracy Chapman’s song “Telling Stories.” I’ve been thinking about the different stories that I’ve seen that I would love to tell and how to write them properly, with dignity and with consideration for whom I’m telling the story of.

A friend of mine gives her children a mandatory “quiet time.” When I was young, before breakfast we had to have a quiet time too. This forced reflection has carried on with me and I try to make time for it during the day so that I can process, recalculate and gain perspective.

Though, in another conversation I had this week, I must be aware that I do not let the “space between” be all encompassing, thus forgetting me and reality. As beautifully put by a dear friend, I don’t want to be a head that my legs just walk around. I want to be present and involved in the moment so that I don’t miss it as it scurries past.

Do you build in a time to process into your day? Or week? Do you also have difficulty balancing between living in the “space between” and living in reality?

(The picture of the anchor I included above is what I’m currently searching for in my space between. With John’s passing, I feel I am one less anchor in my life and I am floating rather aimlessly. This anchor symbolizes what I want, to be grounded.)

I am pleased to report that I checked on my last hive yesterday, the one that is far afield, and it is doing well. It has little red mites clinging to some of the bees, but the smell is sweet, the traffic at the front entrance is encouraging and they still have some capped honey in the hive.

So 4 out of 4 have survived January. How encouraging!

At Andrea’s suggestion from this post, I have been trying to define what community means to me. Marc put it very succinctly.

A community is: People, seeing each other often, in meaningful ways, and effectively interacting with each other in a positive caring environment.

Now putting this into practise has been harder for me than I would have first assumed. I’ve tried following up with people who say that they want to have tea/coffee so that we engage with each other. That has worked to a minimum to be honest. Then I have tried going places where lots of people will be and having conversations. I have not found this to be very satisfying yet. I have also tried to nurture the relationships that I already have.

At this point, I think that I am envious of the bees. They don’t have to figure out their place in the hive. When they are babies, they are cared for and fed. When they are young bees they have a specific job to nurse the babies and then to process the food coming into the hive. Then they are foragers. They don’t have to wonder at their place. They have meaningful purposeful interactions with their little comrades constantly.

The other trail of thought is to just let it “bee.” Those who come into my life, I will love and enjoy. This more laid-back approach may be more healthy for me than striving for meaningful exchanges.

How have you attempted to build community around you? What ways have you been successful or discouraged? I’d love to hear from you. I know this virtual community really encourages me.