Five Things on a Friday - 8/5/22 - The Creek Line House

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Happy Friday, friends! Hope you’ve been having the most lovely summer so far! Time for me to fill you in on all the little happenings around here.

I’ve been on a bit of a relaxed summer schedule and haven’t really been keeping you updated quite as well as I usually do, and I’ve missed it! We’ve just been kind of busy doing all kinds of things and also somehow nothing at all? In other words, just the perfect first few weeks of summer vacation. We’ve been out berry picking some more, to every lake and beach in our area, mini golfing, to the movies, out for family lunches on patios, etc. It’s so nice to be around town for a little while in the summer and do all these mini outings, but I have to admit that I’m looking forward to some more substantial plans in the second half of summer. I always forget how hard it is to keep kids busy one little hour-long activity at a time. 🙂

We have a new driver in the house! Kennedy’s been working hard at practicing her driving all spring and summer this year and she finally had her test last week. I’m so happy to report that she passed with no trouble at all and even though she really isn’t itching for freedom and doesn’t see herself actually driving much, we know she’ll be glad that she got this done and she’ll eventually appreciate being able to get out and drive herself wherever she wants to go.

Our apple trees have apples! This is no small thing. We planted these trees quite a few years ago and they’ve never really had many apples at all, but this year they’re just loaded up. Finally. I don’t really know anything about growing apples, but I guess they must have reached a point of being officially established now. Maybe? Will we harvest and eat the apples in the fall? Chances are the birds will get to them before we do, and we’ll just go apple picking at the orchard like we always do, but the fact that the apples are there means that one year if we want to fend the birds off and keep the apples for ourselves, we totally can. We have the same philosophy with our grapes and our raspberries. They’re there and we’re happy to share for now, but if we ever want them, they’ll be available.

We lost our poor Chuckers a few weeks ago. He was happy and healthy right up until the end, so we’re glad he didn’t suffer for long, but he was about 14 years old, so we knew the time would come eventually. He was fine one minute and then we just found him laying on the floor looking quite ill one Sunday afternoon. We rushed him to the emergency veterinary hospital in a town an hour away, but he just didn’t make it. We’re not really sure what happened, it may have been a heart attack or something like that, but the frustrating thing is that just a few days before, we saw tire tracks on our property and then came to realize (when we saw the plants dying a few days later) that someone from the city had actually come on our property and sprayed the creek with something to kill the “weeds” on the creek bank, and Chuckers may have eaten some of the grasses they sprayed. We don’t spray at all and have been successfully naturalizing that area and seeing more and more native species popping up for quite a few years, so the fact that they may have poisoned our dog, along with killing off my little natural creek bank garden feels like even more of a violation. So that’s some sad news, but I felt like I should let you all know since so many of you always remarked on how handsome and unique looking he was whenever I shared photos of him. We miss him a lot, but we definitely had a great 10 years with him in our lives and we’re thankful for that.

Life goes on around here and my home goal is to finish up the last corner of the living room refresh by the end of summer. Honestly, I could probably finish it up in a day, but time just always seems so fragmented in the summer and it never really seems like the right time to start tearing apart a room. So I’m keeping the bar low here. 🙂 I just have one wall to paint, some holes to fill, some new art to hang, and some lamps to order and then it will be all freshened up. Chris has been picking away at the back stairwell project and he’s about to start building the boxes for the cabinetry so we can get the cabinet doors ordered soon. I just love the process of making all these little changes and tweaks around the house and making things better and cozier and more functional, little by little.

NEWS AND FINDS

-Lots of new friends have been joining me over on Pinterest recently! If you’re on Pinterest, this is the best place to get caught up on all my most-loved posts from the last 11 years! Follow The Creek Line House on Pinterest.

-My friend Shannon from Home Made Lovely has a new book coming out on September 13th! I had the chance to read a digital copy of The Clutter Fix this spring and it was just so inspiring and yet so practical. I’m really excited to get my copy of the physical book because Shannon has the most beautiful home and is also an amazing photographer. The book is available for pre-order now if you’d like to check it out!

-Have you tried my Three Ingredient Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe yet? I first shared this recipe a few years ago and that page of my website still gets so busy at this time of the summer every year. I love some of the different ideas for add-ins that people share in the comments on the blog post and in social media. Catherine on Pinterest said “Made this with Keto cake mix and sugar free chocolate chips! Yum!”

-I went ahead and ordered my Christmas stockings (just a bit) early this year. I found these on Amazon and they were such a great deal, I just had to see them for myself. Happy to report back that they’re beautiful in person and I actually heard from a friend over on Instagram after I posted them that she and her sister both have the same ones and love them as well! You can see them here if you want to grab a set before they sell out. This was me testing one out on the mantel. Love it!

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Vicki says

August 5, 2022 at 11:26 pm

So very sorry about Chuckers! We also lost our 11 year old dog Humphrey this summer that we’ve had since he was 2 months old. He was lethargic and not eating and lab tests showed really high white blood cell counts. Vet said either lymphoma or leukemia, and that it was common in dogs😬. Steroids and vitamins helped perk him up where he would eat and was more responsive, but he passed two weeks later. Ironically, I noticed a social media post about those cancers in humans being linked to chemical (Roundup) use. I then wondered if he was exposed because the farmer across the road sprays their wheat field every year and he liked to go over there and wander around in the wheat and weeds around the edge of the field. It could have even drifted over into our yard. So frustrating to have someone trespass on your property to spray weeds, especially near a creek! Makes me wonder if that is the reason it’s common in dogs, with so many people using toxic chemicals on their lawns, gardens, and fields. So very sad, and not much we can do about what our neighbors do in that case.

- Courtenay says
  
  August 12, 2022 at 9:38 am
  
  So sorry to hear about your Humphrey! I’m pretty sure that the really strong Roundup is illegal here in our part of Canada for residential use, thank goodness, but of course the farmers can still use it as much as they like, which always makes us a bit nervous. We checked with the city and there’s actually a by-law that says that they can’t spray on our side of the creek at all, but of course if that information doesn’t get to the actual person doing the spraying that day, it’s useless. I guess all we can do is learn our lesson and mark/block off that part of our property a little better and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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