Holidays

Jim

So you thought you got rid of us, eh?

Well sorry to disappoint! I know, I know, I promised you would hear more from our family over the course of the Christmas break, and originally, we were hoping we would have a chance to connect with you more. There was so much for us to tackle over the last month! First I flew home, and then Brenna and Sunny came along, and we all had a day to wind down and relax. But not for long!

man and womanShortly after there was Christmas Eve cooking, present wrapping, dinner eating, and drinks around the fire. We did two different gift exchanges, and spent all of Christmas Day lounging in our new pajamas (courtesy Brenna the Christmas elf): a tradition I think I personally had a hand in starting.

There’s nothing quite like relaxing with people you love.

We tested out new board games on Boxing Day, and feasted on Christmas Dinner leftovers for the second day in a row thanks to the neighbors! Jess drank his weight in eggnog and Brenna spent every spare moment baking. Twyla had her annual ‘Christmas Coffee’, and Sunny had some peanut brittle that was so spicy he cried (more on that later).

Not all of our time was spent on the farm.

two girls: Brenna and Kennedy

We rang in the New Year in one of our favourite places: Jasper! We skied and braved the cold for a few days of wonderful conditions at Marmot Basin.

New Years Eve we relaxed in our hotel hot tub, which I must admit is a little fancier than my homemade one. Not better, just fancier 😉. We went out for pizza and then wound up back at the hotel with some drinks and even better company.

We came excited, and left content.

boy and girl: Surya and BrennaIt seemed to me like it all went by much too fast. I think Twyla’s Mom was on to something when she phoned us Christmas Day. When asked how she enjoyed the Christmas Eve Dinner we hosted this year, she told us that she “Came excited, and left content.” I couldn’t have described my holidays any better than that.

So in short, no matter how you chose to spend your holidays, we hope you had an opportunity to spend time with those you care about.

boy

We wish you all the best from us at Farmhouse Frontier, and are excited to see what crazy fun this year brings.

 

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Hotel Slekirk
Jim

It’s time! Costumes are on, props are in place, and we all have our ‘creep’ on.  It’s time to head to town and see if we can’t spook, slink, scrape, screech, and boo everyone we encounter into quaking in their boots. It’s Halloween! Destination; Fort Edmonton’s Spooktacular. And let me tell you this. It.Is.Fun!

The drive to Fort Edmonton is usually over an hour, but on Halloween it seems much shorter.

It could be that all the whooping and screeching and howling at passing vehicles played a hand in that.With the windows down and all the shenanigans going on, the time did spin by a little faster. At least for those making the roar from within. At one point I worried that it may rattle our driver, Frankenstein. It didn’t, luckily Frankie’s a bit slow on the uptake so none of the chaos seemed to affect his ability to keep us between the ditches.

boy and girl in werewolf costumes

woman and man in mummy costumesFrankenstien and His bride costumes

We had a car full of screaming, creepy, classic monsters!

You’d think werewolves, mummies, Frankenstein and his betrothed would be quite frightening for other drivers. Especially with the windows down and all sorts of mayhem pouring out! I had expected our fellow drivers to be startled or gasp in surprise, maybe squeak out an “Oh My!” Nope, not so. As it turns out, this tends to generate uncontrollable laughter. Probably not a good idea while driving. But I don’t get it. I mean, we were pretty creepy! There really ought to have been brakes screeching, cars swerving, cursing, confusion, havoc…all of that. Nothing. I wonder, has the entire world become spook proof?

For those that are curious, the Spooktacular at Fort Edmonton comes to us in many different colours.

At one end of the spectrum things are completely family friendly. At the other end, even steely minded adults would find it on the edge of disturbing. You simply need to pick the path that best suits your group. This was the first year that our entire group was over 18, so of course we chose the scariest ‘avenue’ of entertainment available. And we were not disappointed.

As we strolled through the darkened midway guided by zombie lantern light, we experienced true horror tales from the local past; train derailments, serial killers, hangings, Spanish flu victims, circus elephant rampage. Each tale a little more sinister than the last, and each expertly told.

During one such tale, as has become tradition, Twyla tossed herself into one of the acts by stealing some lines. She was at the front of the group so only those closest to her heard her say them. The lines were predictable and most of us kept quiet. She did not. Once she had said them before the minstrel could they were immediately followed with him growling, “Hey pal, stop stepping on my lines!”, and then he continued with his monologue. This created a little misplaced laughter…most of it by me!

But the night was not only filled with stories…

In addition to the tales we strolled through haunted houses, grotesque butcher shops, in and out of coffins, met ‘Stretch’ and generally mingled with those trying to find their way past our world and into the next. I would recommend the stroll to anyone.

Along the edges of this blog you will find pictures of all of our costumes from that evening. Even though Meaghan, Kenny, Brenna and Surya could not be with us, they had fantastic costumes and they sent us pictures of them. I wanted to share them with you here as well. We’ve put their names in the pictures, can you guess their characters? The only one you probably won’t get is Kenny, and that’s because I think she’s being herself.

There are no rules when it comes to Halloween costumes.

In fact they’re not even a prerequisite. When we arrive at our ghoulish haunt there are many around us wearing the very same clothes they could wear any other day of the year, and that’s fine. However, between you and me, dig around in your personal tickle-trunk to see what you can unearth. Buy, build or borrow that spooky ensemble. It can be anything, it doesn’t really matter. It has been true for us that any costume you wear will bring a smile to your face, when not growling, gasping or creeping. And here’s the best part, you’ll bring a smile to another’s. Be they friends, or new friends. For us that really is what it’s all about.

Frankenstien and his Brideboy and girl in werewolf costumes

 

 

 

 

 

Now we’ve been to Halloween celebrations without ‘costuming up’, I admit. But never do we have as much fun as we do when we put on a little makeup, take some scissors to an old bedsheet, raid the racks at Value Village and blacken out a tooth or two. There is no comparison to the level of enjoyment. Now if this year didn’t work for you, do yourself a favour and give it a think for next year. I know you’ll have a lot of fun with it all! You’ve got 364 days. Let your imagination take you by the hand and see what it can dream up.

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corn field in fall
Jim

It’s Autumn. Summer chores are slowing, and will soon reach an end. All the hay has been hauled and stacked. You can literally watch the farm change from one day to the next. Each morning is new and different and exciting. The colours dance from every tree and every shrub. You can’t look down a fence line and see the same thing you saw yesterday. The leaves are a brighter red, the rose hips look richer, the grass and wild grains have become more golden. It’s always new, almost by the glance there’s something there that was not the day before.

Yellows, oranges, reds, browns and left-over greens sprinkled in. And if all that colour wasn’t enough, take a deep gulp of that air. You’ll never breathe anything like it any other time of year. It’s cool and quiet and crisp and full of scents from every grass every leaf, every pond, and every field. You will feel full to the brim just breathing all this in. There is no other time of year when your senses become so heightened and aware of everything that surrounds you as they do now.

This is autumn, and I can’t imagine a soul who wouldn’t fall in love with her.

Even better, it’s the start of the visiting season. It’s that time of year when the gentler days allow you to take that oft-delayed visit. It’s tough to do in the summer, but not so now. There’s no need to worry about rain or drought or pasture fences or water supplies or, or, or. It’s the season that has the two best holidays. You get to celebrate with an oven roasted stuffed turkey on one holiday and have the bejesus scared out of you on the other. Honestly, you can’t beat Thanksgiving AND Halloween! I love when it’s not too cold out, there’s no place to be, and no chores for me to tackle.

All you need to do, is take your time and use it to have coffee with a neighbour, enjoy some time with your family and find someone to scare the daylights out of!

Start with the visiting. Twyla and I have a number of ‘must sees’ on our list and beginning this weekend we will get on the phone, make some calls and try to figure out whom we get to see first. I confess, Twyla is much more of a social butterfly than I am, so she’ll be making most of these arrangements.

 

Of course we won’t be off to anyone’s house this weekend for coffee.

We can’t. We already have plans to attend the Spooktacular at Fort Edmonton. It promises to be a lot of fun. We’ve done this before and so know a little of what to expect. I can’t wait for it all to begin! We promise to tell you all about it and include pictures of our costumes when we get back home.

Come to think of, you could say that this weekend we will be combining a little of our visiting time with a little of our spine-tingling entertainment since there is a group of six of us going together. Fort Edmonton is beautiful all year round, and is the absolute best in autumn. And best of all, we’ll be costumed up!

On a side note, I also have some scary stuff planned soon. After all it is Halloween.

Someone has to get good and spooked, don’t you think? Now I’m not going to name names but we have one particular neighbour that is deathly afraid of Ouija boards. Who knows why? It’s not logical. We have a decorative Ouija couch throw pillow. You can literally chase her with it. I’m guessing she thinks if it touches her skin she’ll have a curse placed upon her. Maybe, something that changes her into a black crow with one wing, and a broken beak and that continually flies into the same pain of glass for all eternity. That’s just a guess folks…I don’t actually know anything about curses.  😉

So anyway, this autumn I was able to find a very old wooden chipped and worn Ouija board at a pawnshop. It’s seen some crazy hard miles from it’s planchette, just judging from the missing letter paint.  Much of the surface and finish has been scraped completely off.  Well I bought that Ouija board and have it tucked safe and sound somewhere inside her house.  When it’s dark and cold and windy and spooky and when the time is just right she’s going to ‘stumble’ onto that old antique. I’m hoping I have the good fortune of having my phone ready to record it when it happens. Something tells me that video will be worth loading onto the blog!

Happy Halloween everyone!

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