Thursday, or Thereabouts - October 20, 2016

Happy and Home Free!

We slipped under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at just past 5:30am Tuesday morning.

Bowed to the grand Lady of Liberty just before 6am - She is such a fine and wonderful sight!

And then on past the lights of lower Manhattan to dock at Pier 88.

Some eight hours later we greeted yet another fine and wonderful sight - Toronto - undiminished in my heart by clouds and mist.

We enjoyed our time away (more about that another time, when the laundry has been dispatched and 5600 photos uploaded), but it is always good to see the lights of home, to come back to familiar places, faces and routines. No haute cuisine for supper tonight, but the comfort of a home-cooked meal has its own rich flavour.

While we were away, Autumn breezed in, her resplendent beauty filling the countryside with vibrant colour. Best of all she seems to have waited for our return before dropping all her fine artwork to the ground.

Even in today's rain, her palette along the street where I live, is on full display.

And around the house, there are still begonia blooms. Nothing prize-winning here, but worthy of special mention because it is October 20, not August 20.

These gourds though do proclaim October fullness.

As do the sumac leaves.

It's time for gathering in all the joys and blessings of life here and now: family, friends and a good homeland.

Deo gratias!

©2016 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - April 18, 2016

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

On a morning such as this, when the world news is filled with stories and pictures of the terror of earthquakes - loss and fear carved deeply into hearts and faces, and heard in cries of anguish - on a morning such as this when I arise to sunshine, safety and love following a weekend resplendent in Spring's best attributes, any lament I may have, any complaint, affliction or gripe, seems utterly unworthy of words.

Amidst my embarrassment of riches this day, I celebrate a new day, a new week in humble gratitude. I am so very lucky and privileged to be able to sing with joy, Oh what a beautiful morning!

Just look at all those buds...

And the rhubarb? Well it has doubled in height since Thursday!

I would be seriously remiss if I did not acknowledge Spring's whole-hearted response to my letter. Thank you dear Lady of Radiant Joy. It matters not how you got your act in gear, whether it was good therapy, better meds or a kick in the backside. It matters only that you are now here and we are thrilled by your presence.

And so help me Hannah, if I hear one person complaining about the heat (23°C) - well just don't!

Have a great week everybody. Make it sing.

©2016 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - October 12, 2015

No moaning at the table today!

Today is

"...a day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."

So reads the decree enacted by Parliament in 1879. Though the date has moved around a little - at first it was November 6, then it was the 3rd Monday in October - on January 31, 1957, the government proclaimed that National Thanksgiving be celebrated on the 2nd Monday of October.

Sir Martin Frobisher

But it is Martin Frobisher who is credited with celebrating the very first Thanksgiving in Canada. In 1578, the Englishman and privateer set out on his third voyage to the New World in search of the Northwest Passage. The expedition encountered fierce storms and heavy ice. One ship sank, crushed by sea ice, one ship deserted the fleet and sailed back to England and the remaining thirteen ships were scattered by the storms and currents. By some great miracle they all met up again at the anchorage established on Frobisher's first voyage - Frobisher Bay (now called Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut).

 "... Mayster Wolfall, a learned man, appointed by her Majesties Counsel to be their minister and preacher, made unto them a godly sermon, exhorting them especially to be thankful to God for their strange and miraculous deliverance in those so dangerous places ..."

While not a harvest Thanksgiving it was a celebration of homecoming and gratitude for being alive and protected.

Our family celebration was Saturday. As always, it was a feast of plenty, perhaps even a feast of  "too much". I worked too much, I made too much, and we all ate too much. Yet it was also a cornucopia of good conversation, great laughs, and the best company.

It was a celebration of Thanksgiving for the blessings of life, for the great privilege it is to call Canada our home and native land.
Thanks be to God!

©2015 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - October 8, 2015

Thanksgiving - the View from  the Kitchen









Thanksgiving Weekend stands on the doorstep bidding me come, enjoy, celebrate, and give thanks for the harvest; urging me to make the feast.





For both the early pioneers and the indigenous tribes, this time of year in North America was one of both deepest gratitude and fervent hope. Come wind, come weather the land had yielded her best and barns were full. But would the bounty be enough to sustain life through a winter of unknowns?









I have not known such a tenuous life, none of my family have. Sure we've had our struggles, our lean times, but we've always been able to gather together at Thanksgiving amid an embarrassment of riches.

I am as humbled as I am grateful for this bounty. I've companioned others whose lives been flipped upside down by a sudden reversal of fortune and I'm now of great enough age to be keenly aware that good living does not grant any immunity from calamity down the road. A winter of unknowns may give warning but never asks permission to visit, let alone stay a while.

My kitchen these days before the feast is cornucopia of aromas, a sometimes frantic place with a spoon-wielding, dish clattering, occasionally foul-mouthed chef at the centre of things pulling it all together. No one ever claimed that celebrating harvest time was easy! But it is fun.

Bacon - there's got to be bacon!

Celery, onions & parsley for sage & chestnut bread stuffing

Wild & Brown Rice with chorizo, hazelnuts, apricots, green onions, parsley & thyme

Mix it all together and stuffing #2 is done!

Today the cup of my life is overflowing with good things. The kitchen is awash in dishes, but I'm pumped. The Family centrepiece of my harvest will gather around the table on Saturday. We will eat well and probably too much. But more importantly we will celebrate love and life with joy and laughter.

I am humbly grateful to be able to cook up a storm in my own kitchen, looking out the windows of my own house to a landscape that is decked out in autumn splendour.
I am blessed. We are blessed.

©2015 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - September 24, 2015

Autumn Overture - Hitting all the High Notes

This is my favourite season - a symphony, a classic tone poem of colour and form, tempo and texture, light and shadow; always changing, always moving toward its inevitable conclusion. The opening movement of this annual performance has been full of promise of the presto of colour now only just hinted at.

The high notes of bright sunshine and warm days have been modulated by cool nights, with not single ice crystal yet etched in the time signature. The frost will surely come but for now only early morning mist blurs the fledgling grace notes of colour before lifting to reveal ever-brightening yellows and reds.

And it's just way to lovely for me to sit inside writing. The opening to this season of gratitude will not remain so gloriously melodic, and I don't want to miss a single note.
See you out there!

©2015 April Hoeller

Labour Day - September 7, 2015

The First Monday in September

No moaning here, except perhaps about the heat. It's been 30°C (nudging 40 with the humidex) for a week now, but I dare not complain. January might hear me and unleash  MINUS 30 for seven days plus one, just to balance everything out.

















Today is a day of rest.
Today is a day of gratitude for the work and workers who keep this country functioning.
Today is a day of celebration of freedom:

the freedom to choose our work, 

the freedom to choose our leisure,

the freedom to write.

Tomorrow morning the pace of live rev's up again:

          7am will NOT be blissfully silent;
          my windows will resonate with the rumble of school buses.
          and the 3pm 'rush hour' convoy of those same buses returning their precious cargo home,
          will be back.

Tomorrow, the rhythm of my day will be picked up and transported by that fleet of yellow rumblers, out of lazy summer mode and into active mode. There's work to be done: jobs to be started, jobs to be completed, and dream jobs. It's time to get back on track.

But today is a day of gentle anticipation of the harvest of delights that lie ahead.
It's like New Year's Eve all over again, minus the hype and the carousing.

Make the most of it.
Cheers!

©2015 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - November 27, 2014

I love a parade!

Today is American Thanksgiving and that means only one thing - the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. It's a tradition of sorts for me to tune in to this mega event and if you love parades as much as I do, then this is the one for you! It is nothing short of an extravaganza of marching bands (sadly a tradition that never really caught on in Canada), eye-popping floats and those iconic flying balloons (also largely absent in Canadian parades). This parade is a stellar performance from start to finish, including song and dance from current Broadway plays.

©Macy's Inc

Today with a temperature hovering around the zero C mark (32F) and winds high enough to get all those flags flapping and low enough to permit the flying balloons to do what they do best - lift eyes and hearts up, way up, the parade lead off with the NYPD motorcycle troop. I looked for Tom Selleck but - oh wait, that's another TV show. The first float featured two Pilgrims perched atop a mammoth Tom Turkey - well it is the Thanksgiving Day Parade and legend has it all began with the Pilgrims.

©Macy's Inc

Then Thomas the Tank Engine flew into view followed by so many other wonderful characters. And it wouldn't be the Macy's Parade with out Snoopy and Woodstock, the characters with the longest history of appearances in the Macy's parade. Yay Snoopy!

©Macy's Inc

©Macy's Inc

©Macy's Inc

©Macy's Inc

Some 8000 volunteers brought us the music, song and dance acts, and the myriad of floats that all lead up to the grand finale, the entrance of emerald and golden sleigh bearing the jolly old elf himself, along with Mrs. Claus. It's enough to make anyone shout, "I believe!"

©Macy's Inc

This is New York City at her best - colourful, fun, spirited and proud with EVERYBODY working together. Now that really is something for which to very grateful, profoundly grateful. And here's one more take-away from the parade: if you can step away from the obligations and duties of your life, especially the self-imposed ones; if you can leave behind the 'shoulds' and 'oughts' for a few hours to be amused and amazed, to be a kid again eyes wide with anticipation and bodies bubbling with joy, DO IT!

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all my American family, friends and writers. 

©2014 April Hoeller (all parade photos courtesy of Macy's Inc.)