Facing the Flood

The debris was blocking the road. 

When one thinks of spring there may be thoughts of flowers, green grass, green leaves budding on the tress, sunshine and the beginnings of bugs. One would not normally think water rising and rising, cottages, homes and structures being washed away. Roads covered with water and impassable. Families and home owners stranded and stuck in their homes due to being surrounded by water. Water in homes and cottages measuring by the foot rather than by inches.
The month of May is flood season in New Brunswick. We were fortunate to have an epic 100 year flood this year. The water has not risen to this level in close to 100 years. The rose to 7 meters in the lake area and in Fredericton the city I work in, it rose to 2008 level of 8.2 meters. It is difficult to understand how high that is I suppose. What happened to my house is the water reached the bottom basement windows and filled our basement with five feet of water. I am 5'6" so another six inches and it would have been at the top of my head. Yikes! The distance from the edge of the beach to my house is 55.5 meters. The water traveled that distance.

The flood started in the city and some residents were having to leave their homes due to water surrounding them. I had a friend who had to leave her apartment with 3 children under 4 years. The sewage was backing up into her building. At that point I was saying "it looks good here, the water is no where near us." The water would have been at least 30 meters away. That was on Monday. By that Friday we were getting nervous. The sump pump was working constantly to keep the water out of the house. I can tell you it is a strange feeling to be sleeping in a house where you know the water is slowly creeping up and surrounding you. It creates a fear in you knowing that the water is getting closer and closer to wiping out some of your precious belongings. I laid in bed for the next few nights wondering how I would move all of my things to safer ground.
Confession here, I am somewhat of a hoarder. Not in the sense of the show where there is barely space to move (although admittedly there was a narrow path from the stairs to the laundry room.) Ok so maybe in the sense of the show Hoarders. But really not as bad. I didn't have endless amounts of the same thing. I do have A LOT of clothes. Yeah OK alright I admit I have a problem. It was stuff from all of my fifty plus years as well as some belongings from my mom. She owned the house before me, I took it over. Because the house has only one bedroom and one closet, most of our belongings were in the basement.

By Sunday my husband and I knew we would have to move things to the upstairs. We then had to get what was most important. Some books, pictures, decorations, some craft supplies. I tried to move my crafts to the higher shelves hoping they would not get wet. Now my house looked like Hoarders because there were boxes all over the living room dining room area. We spent another day watching the water slowly rise closer to the house. By Tuesday the plan was for me to go to work and stay at my daughter's for a few days while my husband stayed at the house with the dog. If the power went out he would live off the generator. Off to work I went worrying about the water. Later in the day my husband called and said the water in the basement was getting close to three feet and the power would have to be turned off. Our electrical box is in the basement. The protocol is turn the power off if the water can reach the power box. He plan was to do the survivalist thing and live on the generator and hope for the best. I mentioned his plan to a co-worker and she was concerned about running the generator close to the house and causing carbon monoxide poisoning. Well that worried me too, so I told my boss I was leaving and went to rescue my husband from the flood.
When I got there he had the generator going, but there was something wrong with it. I convinced him to leave. He's big on survivalist stuff. He's into those Alaska Frontier shows.
We were fortunate to stay at my daughter's house. Her home has a spare room with a queen bed. She has two dogs so an extra one was not too much of a problem. So long as we kept the bandeau diaper on him because he can pee all over the house,
The next week and a half was spent watching the water levels and waiting for when we can go back to the house. We left the house on the 1st and returned on the 12th of May. Here is what we came back to. The sight was overwhelming to see.
One of the first shocks was seeing our neighbor's tree house in our yard. "What the heck is that!" I exclaimed.
"It's the neighbor's tree house!" replied my husband.

This is our neighbor's tree house. It was originally several feet away on the other side of our house. 

Looks like the shed is done. 

"Where are our tires?" we ask. We later found them throughout the woods.

The roots system from the erosion. 

"Look at the ground. I think the tree house was drug across the ground." says my husband almost in tears. He loves the yard and property.

Our neighbor's belongings dispersed through the woods. 

"Look his two sheds are gone. And his boat is over there, and his other stuff is all over the woods!" he goes on. 

This is part one of I don't know how many parts, My husband has been spending all week cleaning up the basement. The cleaning will be ongoing. I hope this will help to cure my hoarding. :)

Home is where the heart is.

Photos by Kyra George Lund

I decided to try thread crochet. What actually happened is I saw this pattern from Garn Studio and loved it. I took on the challenge. Here is the link to the pattern.
https://www.garnstudio.com/pattern.php?id=8328&cid=19

It"s called Home is where the heart is. I didn't get mine to look quite as perfect as theirs. Do they use Photoshop on crochet I wonder? In any case I think mine looks pretty good. Especially since I have't done much of this type of crochet.

Be prepared to take your time with it. The better the stitches the nicer the look. I did stiffen it once I was done with a mixture of 1 part glue to 2 parts water. Other recipes called for 1 to 1 but I didn't want it that stiff. I just dipped it in the solution and squeezed out the excess. Patted it with a paper towel, and layed it on a foam board. I found using one of those foam puzzle pieces you get at the dollar store works really well. They are in the toy section. Pin it on to the board with regular straight pins. Be sure it looks all pretty in place when you pin it.
                                                                                    Leave it dry overnight. 


What do you think of hanging it from the driftwood? There is a ton of it where I live. It came in rather handy. I like the contrast of the textures and styles. The rough wood and then the delicate crochet.
There is a video tutorial for this that was very helpful. Start and stop all the way through.

I gave these to my married daughters and wrote something about crochet being like love.
Crochet takes time and patience to construct a piece of work.  Love takes time and patience to construct a relationship. Crochet requires a lot of doing over and over again. Love require the doing of kindness and forgiveness over and over until perfected.                                                                     .

Any piece of art or craft requires patience, time, dedication and commitment. Love is also a craft requiring patience, time, dedication, and commitment. Perfect and work at the craft of love.

Berries Berries Berries

One of the wonderful things about where I live is the berries. In the summer it begins with the strawberries in late June early July. Then the raspberries arrive for the month of July and into August. Blueberries are in great abundance in August. They line the shore of the lake. Then when winter begins in late October early November, is when it is time to pick the cranberries along the beach.
We had strawberry shortcake with the strawberries. They are so small that we only had enough for a couple of servings each.
The blueberry jam was lovely. I made some to give away to neighbors. I will share the recipe.
The cranberries were a delightful Christmas treat. I made cranberry butter (it's really jam), don't know why they call it that. I made plenty for neighbors and friends. I will share the recipe for those as well.
I am so looking forward to this upcoming summer. We are thinking of having a blueberry festival with our family. I will post pictures of course. Also looking to do something new with the cranberries.

Yummy

Wild NB blueberries.

Cooking the blueberries.

Blueberry Jam
Add 2 cups of sugar, and a tablespoon of lemon juice to 4 cups of blueberries. bring to a boil and boil for about 20 minutes. It will thicken. Do not add pectin. It did not work for me. Add to sterilized jars when still warm. Seal the jars





To make Cranberry butter/jam
You will need 2 cups of cranberries
1 apple
1 cup brown sugar
2tsp maple flavoring
2tsp cinnamon.
Add all to a crockpot with one cup of
water. Cook for 4 hours. Then puree. Add to sterilized jars.

Hello everyone

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog berries, yarn and lake.
I created this blog to share my love of crochet, crafts, cooking, and life in general. It is my desire to inspire all of you to do better in your lives. I am always striving to do better.
Please feel free to comment and give helpful hints. I am new at this blogging thing. I hope to get better with time and commitment.
Here is something I made for my beautiful grand baby boy. My daughter has an elephant theme for his room, so I made him an elephant hat. Isn't he the cutest? He is such a great model and it doesn't hurt that his mom is a great photographer.

Photo courtesy Kyra George Lund