It's pronounced Matt 😉

emMAyTeeTee

Chirping
Mar 21, 2020
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Howdy.
I'm Matt, my profession is upholstery for home and auto /marine.
Feel free to stop reading here, the rest is a ramble describing home.
I live rurally in south western Ontario in a farming community older than Canada itself. Home is a two storey red brick farmhouse complete with white gingerbread gables and lightning rods. The most recent addition on the house is dated 1911.
Sunsets on the front porch are a spectacle even the neighbors come over to enjoy as our view is clear across the fields from the comfort of a Muskoka chair or one of the comfy couches. So long as you don't mind the Barn Swallows buzzing and chirping it's absolutely wonderful to sit and sip sweet tea or lemonade. Sometimes I sit out there in cold crisp clear winter nights and watch the northern lights wrapped in a wool blanket or quilt as the wind rarely stops here. It's amazing the arora is visible this far south! It's a rare year when it is.
You'll find us tucked away amongst the fields on a straight stretch of gravel road not far from the highway or the nearby villages, but far enough to not take much notice of either except when needed as convenient. It's peaceful and quiet here.
I may offer a Bn'B service some day.
Once through the white gates and you've passed beneath the tall firs shading the porch till mid day, the drive circles round behind the old house then turns back to the barns.
The ample patio scattered with more comfy seating for idle chatter and draped in a burgundy umbrella of dense maple boughsy is a wonderful respite from the summer heat. Nightly the tree is a chattering flock of house sparrows.
A long low barn soon greats you on your way down the drive to the auto shop. This old familiar red building hides the vegetable garden, berry patch and nursery beds behind its south facing longest wall. Occasionally a friend parks his rv back here and spends time getting out of the city for some solitude. He'll be some sorry when I build the wisteria pergola where he parks. It can wait another year, the vines can be printed back another season I think. Within is the wood shop, a pottery studio for doll making and a sprawling eclectic collection of stored treasures awaiting resurrection or just sunshine and use. I keep projects I haven't gotten around to in the back, along with the garden equipment etc.
The auto shop perches on the concrete floor of the original hip roof barn built in the 18th century long before the present house. Gone from all but the longest memories it was taken away by a tornado some seventy years back. The then new concrete was perfect for a new all steel clad tractor shed. Thank goodness for insurance policies! A sturdy looking zinc grey with a weathered white roof and doors. Housing the odd combination of classic cars, airstream trailer or boats, depending on the season and what customers have brought to be worked on. This is where I work from home.
Four acres and a pinch of verdant paradise in Kent County not far from the river Thames and Lake Erie.
We're blessed with great neighbors, fantastic weather and the longest growing season in the country east of British Columbia.
I'm sure there's room for a few free ranging chickens to forage on the lawns. There's plenty of compost heap back behind the veggie garden to keep them entertained and amused. I have a partial fence on the vegi patch for squash and morning glories to compete for sun on. I may need to add a few more sections and wire fence to keep chickens out. Hopefully the netting keeps them and the wild birds out of the berry patches. I bought fishing net from a local manufacturer to drape from the eves of the barn down over the berry patch. The coop will go back there behind the long barn as it has hydro. Water is an issue that I'll have to contemplate further as it was removed from the barn when the new well went in... 🤔 Hmmm
We get seasonal visits from snowy white Arctic Snow geese and the Trumpeter Swans by the hundreds/thousands. The fields turn white overnight and it isn't snow.
Lilacs ranging from century old clumps of the purest white to the richest red-purple of merely five years age tucked within a hedging border on the western lawn brings in butterflies and bees and give home to nesting wrens and hummingbird.
The lawns though kept short are full of wild flowers and clover.
A collection of Bluebird and Martin houses sit atop a cedar rail fence placed within a bed of lilies and runs between French lilac and nectarine trees.
Old family plows long retired from breaking the fields mark the edge of the lawn of the crabapple orchard and the parking area. If you wander in our back door and up a few steps you find yourself in the back kitchen turned mud room. Through the doorway over a much worn cement threshold and the harvest table greets you. There's always tea and coffee offered up and possibly even some baked treat fresh from the oven or tucked in the pantry. Sometimes our doing, often from the neighbors or church ladies.
The parlour beckons through a deep doorway where a variety of Victorian armchairs in pinks and golds are a welcome spot for a visit with the lady of the house and her dolls. You'll often find her there doing needle work or with her nose in a book of you didn't already find her busying herself in the gardens scattered all over the property. From shade gardens filled brimming with hosta, wood poppy and fern to the rose beds on the kitchen walls there's always something to be brought in to the table. Something wondrous to behold, to be drunk in by the senses and soul.
Can't you just picture a few fat chickens languishing in the lawns? I can.
Cochins, Barred Rocks, perhaps even a Chantecler or something fizzled!
 
Thanks for the kind words
Matt
 

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