Family

Standing at the Crossroads…

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Laura

My cousin, a journalist in Toronto shared this last evening.  It is such an interesting film I thought I would also share it with you.  It is not directly connected to Tiny Houses, Food, Art, Music, Nature, Animal Rights, Consumerism or any of the other topics that are important to me.  Yet this film has everything to do with all of these topics.

It is a full length documentary of one hour and once it starts you will want to watch the entire thing, so give yourself the time to sit down and think about it.

The paradoxes within this film are so huge but never directly mentioned… Do you see them as well?

This is a tree back at the foot of the escarpment. I must have walked right past it a hundred times and never noticed it. Even though life is slow paced sometimes I don't see the trees, for the forest. I share this today because I found this film to be the same sort of paradox.

This is a tree back at the foot of the escarpment. I must have walked right past it a hundred times and never noticed it. Even though life is slow paced sometimes I don’t see the trees, for the forest. I share this today because I found this film to be the same sort of paradox.

 

Categories: Art, Environmentalism, Family, Food, Materialism, Money, Nature, Open your eyes, Simple living, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario, View, World | 2 Comments

T-rex and the YaYa Sisterhood

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Laura

My sister T-rex just sent me a photo of her in her new digs in Saskatoon with the caption “Tinier House Saskatchewan… in your face Laura!”

I laughed so hard I bet she heard me in Saskatoon.

I wonder where she is going to put her six and a half foot tall sweetheart?

Tinier House SaskatchewanShe and her  YaYa sister staged this photo up really well eh?

Thanks so much for the giggles girls!

Categories: Family, Friendship | 4 Comments

Live on CJAI

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Laura

Tiny House Ontario (Laura) will be the guest of CJAI Radio’s show Shannon’s Mixed Tape from 7-9 pm tonight.  CJAI is Canada’s smallest radio station, therefore I think they make a very fitting host for Ontario’s tiniest house dweller.

The station is a little tough to connect to (if you have a Mac) you might need some technical assistance, so if you plan on listening in check in advance for your connection.  If you miss it, don’t worry, it will be a podcast later.  After the show airs and the pod cast is ready I will be sure to post the link.

I already picked out a few tunes… But you will all have to wait and listen for yourselves!

Awesome kids visiting Laura at the Sunday MarketIt has been a busy week!  Here is a photo of some great kids who stopped to watch me paint at the Sunday Antique Market, at Springer Market Square.  It was my fist Sunday market and I really enjoyed it.  When I have not been working the market, I have been visiting with my sister who leaves in two weeks to make her home in Saskatoon.  I have also moved 1.5 tons of limestone shale.

Categories: Art, Family, Kingston, Laura Moreland, Ontario, Original Art work of Laura Moreland, Simple living, Tiny House Ontario | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Me & My Shadows

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Laura

The last leaves are now just reflections of nearly forgotten memories, cast like shadows on the wall.

Nelson Mandela said “there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”  I think he is right.  I have not yet met the goals that I have set for myself and I know that once I attain these there will always be more.  There is always more to come, I think, even beyond death there is more.

I hope that I still have a lot of time to work my life plan out, but one never really knows.  It seems to me that my future life is set out like a dinner party to which I have have not been invited yet.  Still, I can’t help it!  I hope that Judy Chicago set the table for me!  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to sit in on this dinner party with all the fantastic attendees?

But, I don’t know what this life has in store for me.  The future, my future, just like everyone else’s is somewhere just beyond my grasp.  My future exists only like the shadows of last years leaves which promise that there will be other springs; other falls.

I think about Aesop’s warning to “beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow”.   I could use some illumination, but in these short days when the sun casts so much shadow it is not always easy to find the light that will surely come again.  It is easier to focus on the unreachable shadows which are long, sleek, and mysterious.

Thankfully, I can do some shadow exploration tomorrow when I return to THO.  I can’t help it!  I wonder what is waiting there for me?  I know it will be my home, my land, my friends and family.  I know that there is a big party at home this weekend coming.  What else is waiting in tomorrow’s shadow?

Categories: Art, Erazim Kohák, Family, Forest, Open your eyes, Tiny House Ontario, View, Writing | Tags: | 2 Comments

The Love of the Land

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Laura

What I loved the most about my dad was his deep and thriving love of the land.  He was a farmer who lived not too far away from the place in which Tiny House Ontario is built.  He dreamed of owning expansive property where he make a living ploughing straight long furrows into the earth and filling them with seeds.

This love of the land is one thing where my dad and I found common ground.  I absolutely love the earth!  I love the sky, the soil, the rocks, the trees, the critters and every single natural thing that sprouts from the Mother Earth.  I am the sort of person who could spend a day looking at a tiny mushroom and marvel in the wonder of it.

Too, like Erazim Kohák, I find that the former human interaction with land puzzling and I feel strongly connected to this as well.  An unexpected human thing left behind and out of place in the natural world leaves me with thousands of questions.  On my land, about a half kilometre from THO, there are many small and random stone cairns which draw me back to them time and time again.  They are quite curious because they are way up on the top of the escarpment far away from the low laying fields.  My people, farmers, would never have carried stones for futility, so they came before the Irish parts of me settled here 150 years ago.

Here, in a crescent of stone, is my beloved cousin S (son of my father’s twin); he is also drawn to and fascinated with the cairns on our historic family land.  The pull of them on us, is strong and magical; we are connected.

Did you find our gorgeous little M who is hiding?

Categories: Erazim Kohák, Family, Forest, Friendship, Magical, Off Grid, Ontario, Tiny House Ontario | 3 Comments