Shout out on this Solstice to the Village! The wonderful community and Men in my life are such gems!! These guys all work their butts off and they still willingly showed up for our work party last month to put a roof over Bernadette’s head… I have so much respect, admiration and appreciation for the incredibly skilled and talented and generous humans in my life… as the world spins lazily towards the artificial, I am especially aware of and in deep reverence towards the handmade long standing traditional skills and trades and how hard the men in my life work. It takes a village and I’ve got a damn good one! Here we goooo!!!
Wanted to park these summer maternity photos here because they are some of my favourite photos ever taken of me! Can’t appreciate and thank @meghan_goertz of @sweet_heirloom enough for always capturing me so delightfully…it’s a funny thing to miss being pregnant in the early postpartum days… and it’s wild to acknowledge how quickly time is parading on… Remi is almost five months…how did that happen? And everyone always asks… will you have another? I have no idea… that is the honest answer. In many ways I am completely surrendered to this chapter of motherhood and in other ways I’m itching to create and dream big and do other things again, just with kids in tow…I want them to grow up faster while already missing their babyhood and feeling sad that they grow up so quickly…and I also wonder how many years can I go with complete sleep fragmentation before I go insane… and maybe if I go insane I’ll finally be my authentic self… my grandmother had 13 kids. How the heck is that even possible? The woman is an amazing species…I love what my body has done for me…
Wild that two years ago on this most wondrous day my little Felix entered the world… looking back on these photos- I’m amazed at how much we’ve all grown…so grateful for the ups and downs and valleys and edges and people and places that have shaped our growth, our joy and held us so deliciously as we’ve evolved mostly gracefully onto our path of a family of four. Today I am celebrating the magnitude of my little Felix, his passion and curiosity and fearlessness and humour. He is the ultimate bundle of exuberance and I can’t believe how lucky I am to be his mother.
THAT’S WAY TOO FAST JONAS! SLOW DOWN! 😂 so happy to announce that Bernadette has been given a new lease on life… she has been put into road retirement but the best is yet to come as she will now house woofers, family and friends etc.. after sitting for a few years while I was busy making babies- she had complete brake failure… yet somehow Jonas was able to move her like a champ…even though I was losing my mind… and he built an epic pad beside the barn in such a lovely area- beside our massive fig tree and with the most glorious view of our meadows… we had a work party to build a gorgeous roof over her head and I’m thrilled she’s still with me… packing up my entire life in Toronto and driving across the country in 2020 is one of the best decisions of my life; it was also one of the hardest… but sometimes when you walk away from some dreams, other ones arise that are bigger and better than the original ones…i am so grateful for all of our friends and community and especially @jonas_shandel for making this happen!! #winnebagobrave #restoredmotorhome #farmlife
Reminiscing on warmer river days. Living next to the Cowichan River is a dream lived over and over again, each time I leave the house. Rock caverns and crayfish, kids laughing and mother tree holding shade for us to sit below. River otters show their face from time to time, but only if you sit long enough, patiently waiting. Eagles and herons. Ravens and songbirds. An ecosystem so alive and is now settling to sleep for the winter months to come. We had a big wind storm on the weekend and most of the orangey yellow colors fell back to the ground. Trees bare remind me to cover my neck with a scarf and to move abit slower, amongst the hustle bustle that the system tells us to move within. Some mornings the crisp air smells so fresh I wonder if we will have an early snowfall. Knowing the coastal life, it'll come and go and rain will truly give us the gift of hydration. Blessed to have a wood stove in our new home, I long for days off with no plans but to just sit. No book, no phone, no journal. Just sitting, enjoying the hearth and enjoying stillness.
Some morning words from my heart to yours. Go take a fall walk, it's worth it 💖
Photos captured by: @acehicks
Happy Birthday my love! @jonas_shandel Another busy year around the Sun! Another Son! Endless projects, but also endless love. Hard moments and joyful ones. My birthday wish for you is that the next year allows you to do more of the things you love; music and playing with your sons! Thank you for being you. For your gifts, talent and magic. We adore you!
Life is but a dream! Finally a rainy day and both babies sleeping at the same time so I can look through my camera roll and catch up with my own life 💗Reminiscing on making fire cider with the best women of the valley. How lucky to have a community of robustly skilled, generous and glorious women to weave life with… #firecider #community #villagetending #ittakesavillage #herbalism #ancientremedies
I’m just out here adding some wholesome content about simple ordinary stuff that somehow becomes divine and miraculous if you let it. I have nothing to sell you and not much to even say right now. There will be a time for that. For now I am just in the slow, unhinged reality of keeping up with a toddler and a baby and letting that be the most important thing. Because it is. And it’s a love that the world needs. If you’re out there, doing your best to love your little humans, you are doing the most important work in the world and I see you! And I know we will win this war waged upon humanity’s soul. And if you don’t have littles to love than love the little you inside of you and that too will be the most important work you can do. So within so without. As above so below. #firewood #autumn #homestead #chickens #chainsaws #woodsplitter #woodchips #farmwisdom #twoundertwo #goldenhour #vancouverisland
These were taken exactly one week before Remi was born by my absolute favourite photographer and childhood best friend @meghan_goertz of @sweet_heirloom photography. What a gift to look back on these sweet summer memories and such a sacred time of carrying my sweet little Remi in my womb. #maternityphotoshoot #orchardphotoshoot #bubblesphotoshoot #motherhood #twoundertwo #cowichanvalley #cowichanbay #homesteadlife #summerpregnancy #postpartumjourney
It’s the simple things that often bring out the most joy. I’m tired, sure, but it’s a small price to pay for going to bed every single night declaring “thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for this life and these boys”… sometimes a little forest walk is all you need to calibrate to the highest level of pureness and joy.
Tis the season of abundance on the homestead… what a gift and joy to spend the early autumn days, the last days of summer, processing fruit… it’s a family and friend affair, if you show up to our house this time of year, you’ll likely be passed a paring knife and sent home with some kind of fruit! Owning a farm is a funny thing, because really it owns you… but the gifts are so endless, the work is all worth it… there are so many moments where we feel it’s too much for us, but then fruit season happens and it’s a literal slice of heaven, we eat dried prune plums like popcorn all winter… the frozen apple juice is a little kiss of sunshine on a dreary dark day… I often think of and thank the ones who tended to this land before we arrived here… how incredible that they planted all of these fruit trees… we often get so wrapped up and consumed with outside stuff… but really is there anything more wonderful than fruit trees? In fact, I think I’ll plant some more fruit trees so that in 40 years from now, my boys or whomever is lucky enough to find their way here, will arrive at the same overwhelming sense of gratitude… the world might be dark at times, but fruit will always brighten lighten and nourish. Don’t ever forget the sacredness of fruit. The divine can be found in a glass of fresh pressed apple juice.
Bittersweet to have my Felix away for a few days, but receiving these videos bursts my heart wide open. This postpartum phase has its moments of challenge, but mostly I am forever grateful for how amazing Jonas has been with Felix, how loving, patient and tender… especially in the moments that I can’t be those things for him… because I’m healing and tending to baby Remi…how great that he has taken Felix to Hornby, made him a custom skim board and is creating opportunities for him to be the wild wonderful little boy that he is! My deepest moments of joy come when I realize how exciting the future is with two little boys growing up on Vancouver Island. The potential for endless adventures await us!!! #boymama💙 #twoundertwo #skimboarding #toddlerlife #hornbyisland #tribunebay #pacificocean
