Big City, Little Homestead

Happy World Frog, Sparrow, and Rewilding Day! (March 20th)

March 20, 2025 / Jane S (BCLH) / 0 Comments

Over the past year, I’ve been updating this website by paring down and consolidating but also elaborating on blog topics, mostly in the context of what was available or happening around the time of their publication. Sometimes I added a quick update, but sometimes I overhauled it. And so I have a lot more visitors than before (still modest, though), because it’s good to enjoy the simple stuff.

Now that I’ve combed through my content history and brought it up to a certain standard, I’m ready to redirect my attention to what else this little Big City, Little Homestead website could do. (I am having trouble coming up with a new name, or even a reason to change it. I do not want to become a content mill; posting to the socials is just not something I’m naturally inclined to do, nor am I particularly good at it.) I expect to continue making 4 to 6 blog posts a year, projects to build and observations I make about nature or whatever. But that’s just holding a pattern, and I’m looking to shake something up. I have an upcoming new-roof project, and last October, I changed up the basic configuration of my front yard so I have some new ideas to update the landscaping. I’ll blog about both of these when they’re underway. But I want to do something else, something more.

A photo archive-and-use project

So for now, I’ll introduce a new project that’s an extension of an effort I began during the pandemic. That’s when I began organizing, harmonizing, and sometimes publicizing my photos and other resources – and I did so exhaustively. It continued on a monthly basis, for years, because I was going through 20+ years of digital and scanned photographs.

Photo of a year (2012) where we had as much snow as this year.

February’s Snowmageddon (and its removal)

February 23, 2025 / Jane S (BCLH) / 1 Comment

I thought about writing this type of post ages ago, and then thought “no way ugh” and then last Sunday’s absolute deluge compelled me to write something. I was actually happy to have such a big storm, because the snow hasn’t been this deep in years.

The 2012 photo I’ve had in prep for YEARS (the wall to the right is much more viney now; the row of box hedge moved)

The above two pics and the header might not be the last time we had snowbanks 3 feet deep (but they might). I kept these from a 2012 post I’ve since deleted, when I blurbed about a big storm. We must have had one more big-snow winter since then, but it really is that rare.

Here’s what this year’s storms (two in the space of a week) left on everybody’s doorstep:

I knitted that Jule-poncho out of Icelandic Alafoss Lopi wool (I wish the edge wasn't turned up in this pic) and yes, those are two hearts knit into it!

Jul-o-rama! Make the Yuletide extra hygge this year

December 1, 2024 / Jane S (BCLH) / 0 Comments

Warning: this blog post has more exclamation points than I utter during the rest of the entire year.

For those who were living under a rock when this word took the world by storm, hygge (huu-geh) is a Danish word (as is Jul, for Christmas) that means cozy, fun, and satisfying. Vi hygge os means “we are amusing ourselves together” – except it’s opposite of robot-speech. To say something is meget hyggeligt (mile huu-ge-leet, drop the t if it’s plural) is to say “it’s a lot of fun” or “very cute and cozy.”

When I first started writing this blog, I might not have thought I’d be the one to say this, but I love Christmas. If the featured pic of me-as-Mrs.-Claus isn’t proof enough, please indulge my running mania a bit, before I go on to the apologia and the deco-rama of this post.

Last year we overran a corner, so the Santa Hat had a loose thread (not shown here)

I usually go on a streak called “The Twelve Runs of Christmas” – every day from the 13th–24th, or any twelve days. It’s to run the remainder of the annual goal, so that any distance done between Christmas and New Year’s is a bonus (or remedial). Some runners do it by running 1, 2, 3, all the way to 12 kms (78 km in total) in any order that they see fit. This year I will surely do the any-twelve-days-1-2-3… series, because I’ve been super-consistent with my training this year. I don’t have any catching-up to do.

One of those runs is the 10K Santa Hat run, which is a route I saved on Strava. You don’t need to know me to use the map, but you can message me if you do want to join us. Conspicuous Santa running is a way to bring joy to the world!

Another run I go on is for the Christmas Bird Count, which is 8-11 kms along the Canal and through Pointe-St.-Charles. The point is to cover a territory and report all the birds I can see. There are a lot of pigeons, especially around the grain terminal, but sometimes I see a black-backed gull or a pair of ravens, or a woodpecker makes an appearance.

The ghosts of Christmas Past (apologia)

Being a landlady to squirrels

October 30, 2024 / Jane S (BCLH) / 0 Comments

Now that it’s autumn, the squirrels are setting up their homes for the winter. You definitely want to make sure it isn’t in your attic! No, no, not a good thing! (Damp insulation doesn’t insulate, wires can get chewed, things get soiled, yuck, no good.) So I have an article to share with you: “Something’s living in the ceiling — maybe squirrels, maybe not” —in The Washington Post. The upshot is, a company licensed for wildlife control can banish whatever is up there. More and more companies are specializing in human removal and release. And you can just as easily release them on your own property, only with reinforcement against them regaining entry to your attic.

Not that squirrels in the attic (a link with DIYs on humanely removing them) has ever been a problem for me (they’ve never gotten in). My novel solution is actually providing them housing. I do it for them seasonally. I have a new DIY called Make a Squirrel Cabin Out of Wine Crate that’ll get you started, and it’s rather an easy effort, too.

Four, count ’em, four squirrels, on a cold morning

So as I described in that tutorial, I’ve had a squirrel cabin out back since oh forever, but a few years ago I started putting one up above my front door like so:

A squirrel demanded a house (by trying to move into the bird house)

So I provided a cabin I made out of a wine crate and scrap wood in about 45 minutes

That first winter, I had at least three squirrels living in new cabin: A black one and two greys.

Happy World Frog, Sparrow, and Rewilding Day! (March 20th)

A photo archive-and-use project

Like this:

February’s Snowmageddon (and its removal)

Like this:

Jul-o-rama! Make the Yuletide extra hygge this year

The ghosts of Christmas Past (apologia)

Like this:

Being a landlady to squirrels

Like this:

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