I don't like pancakes!

 ... horse pancakes ...

Today the new boarder was asking me if I have a pancake griddle.

Yes. I do.

I took it out to the lake.

Not having the equipment I need  is one of the vagaries of not having a fixed address. Most everything I look for is at the place I just left.

... ready to be eaten ...

A simple pancake is not that attractive.

Pancakes need to be heaped with seasonal fruit and decorated with whipping cream.

This was not the summer for that, though the cream, the fruit and the sourdough pancake batter were available.

 ...Meow-meow, David's cat ...

One morning I could only drum up interest in pancakes if they came in specialty shapes.

Mary obliged, making her best effort to create shapes that the kids could recognize.

She gave the pancakes names before she let the kids see them – just to underline the fact that in these Rorschach tests these kids were getting, one might be able to find an image if it was mentioned previously to putting it on some child’s plate.

"I love my cousins."

I was reminded of this today while watching a cooking show. In the equipment section of the show the demonstrator said that a Tovolo pancake bottle was a lot of fun – a flexible bottle that one can fill with pancake batter.

The tip of the bottle is silicone.

I went to buy it on the web, but I would have to buy three to get free shipping – the free shipping is probably a more important value to me than the pancake bottle.

Miranda told me an alternative method of making pancake shapes might be to use a baggie filled with dough.

Her idea saved me $12.

Whether the kids like pancakes or not, they still like the summertime treat of sitting at the table and eating breakfast together 

Saturday is a Special Day

Set Up

Today is the last Saturday of summer vacation.

David wonders why summer can't be 10 months and school be 2 months.

I am wondering silently if I can get him on a canoe ride.

Clean up -- drying our equipment

Yesterday we tried.

We made it to the beach with everything but the paddles.

We swam instead.

Luckily we did our clean-up yesterday of hanging out life jackets.  Haning up the fushia polk-a-dot towel was also a stroke of luck-- making it nicer to wear dry, today.

hands-me downs
labelled on the shaft of the paddle -- the words, Duncan and Dalton

The paddles have names of cousins on the handles, written in felt pen..

David speculates they got them when they were 7 because they are the eight size for him.

Photography credits: Mathew Wood

We have a  canoe trip photo only to let you know we eventually did get to the water.

Matthew, Evangeline and Stacy Wood are also enjoying the last days of summer.

Bonnie

Drive through Breakfast

... mmm, berries on August 30, 2013 ...

Bonnie and I have been dreaming of how we are going to spend the fall months together.

 Her vision is to have a hot breakfast for David every morning, now that the ratio is two women to one child at his house.

I began to collect recipes for specialty pancakes, starting with a new recipe for banana pancakes. Then I remembered that he doesn’t really like pancakes in the morning in the summer, so what might change in the winter.

... check it out ...
A little faster and there would have been
wasp protein
in the breakfast bowl.
The bee in the picture got away.

Since Bonnie was going to be alone this morning for breakfast, I asked her what kind of hot breakfast she was preparing for herself.

She said she usually has Coke for breakfast, but on a new health kick, she has change to ice water.

That will be her breakfast, though she might pass by the raspberry bushes and see if there is anything there to eat.

... drive through breakfast ...

I didn’t think much more of the conversation until I received some pictures from her in my email box.

No text from her  – she is just letting the pictures be worth a thousand words.

Arta

The Elwins at my House!

Hello Friends,
One of our favourite new bands, The Elwins, are going to be doing a house concert in our back yard on Saturday, August 31! 

A perfect way to send out the summer.

It will be a family friendly kind of evening, so bring you kids if you want.  All are invited.  

Bring some friends if you like.  The more the merrier.

The Elwins will probably play around 7:30.  Come share some goodies and enjoy some awesome music.

If you can, we are asking that you chip in to help pay the band.  We’ll pass a hat (maybe not literally).  $10 from grown-ups would be great, but come no matter what!

Check out The Elwins at their official website
http://theelwins.ca/

And their amazingly super good video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv92T-NooOY

We live in Aylmer at 219 Avenue du Grand Calumet – about 10 minutes away from Island Park Drive and the Champlain Bridge.

Hope to see you there!  If you think you can make it, let us know so we can plan for snacks!

Mary and Gang

---

Come eat with us

Rebecca 2013

Greek Salad from food grown on the land.

The use of Rebecca's pottery, left behind in her haste to return to Victoria, B.C.

The Experience?

An unforgettable lunch hour.

 Tripple Ginger Cookies
... candied ginger;shredded ginger root; ginger, the spice ...

We do not mean to taunt you, but after lunch we served triple ginger cookies in another of her bowls.

If we had been meaning to taunt, we would have arranged the cookies in an artful fashion instead of just getting throwing them into the bowl so we could get them out to the porch and start eating.

A lovely summer!

Signed,

Arta and Bonnie

The Child-Minding Dads

Dad #1

Grandpa Chris Turnbull found a bouncy house at a garage sale.

I have a nice flat space on the lawn at the cabin.

So there  you have it.  A match made in heaven.

Dad #2

 I thought that a quick phone call to houses where there were more children would maximize the use of all of that air being pumped into the tubes of the castle.  

Down the road came dads from other homes – and moms too, but when I go around taking pictures my camera won’t focus on the moms, a fact for which they thank me. 

Dad #3

Other women just duck out – it is enough to gather up the kids and move them to another spot on the property, let alone to think of looking good in some candids.

But the dads don’t seem to mind a quick candid. 

They will flash a smile – so glad to be on holidays. 

Dad #4

Not having to dress up or do any kind of personal grooming is a bonus for them. 

All of them have the skill to be able to watch from one to four kids of their own and to chat with other parents at the same time. 

Dad #5

The men could do it – all comfortable with someone hanging on a pant leg or needing help to run around and find where the door of the house was so that they could go inside again.

It takes about ten minutes for the pump to get the bouncy house up – just the same amount of time as it takes to gather kids up and bring them down to our house. 

Dad #6

What I did learn is that those little ones needed a full-time person bringing them little drinks of water as they ran in and out of the house with their second cousins.

Spot the dad who thinks he is one of the kids.

 I know how many dads were there -- six of them.

I couldn’t count how many children that day.

When I try to count the number of children now, I suspect it was double-digits. 

Arta

Need Advice

If you were taking the day off to clean your house in advance of a party, which room would you start with?

The Game That Has No Name

 .. taken while sitting on the porch
at the Shuswap ...

From my own children, I sometimes receive requests for games from the past – ones that will support some kind of learning for their own child or for a group of kids they are working with. Today’s request was for a game for teen-age boys. The game has to use no words and be one that people can play cooperatively. I have a limited number of games in my backpack of games from the past. When they are games that Doral taught me when I was a child, they may or may not have a name.

I remember one popular game that involved searching the faces of others with your eyes, looking for clues in their faces as to where to find a hidden object. “The Quarter Game” came to mind. Not that anyone who has ever played that game will need the rules rehearsed for them. The two teams sit across the table from one another, passing a large coin and then one team slapping all of their hands on a table in unison so as not to let the other team know who has the coin hidden in their palm. I think that game will work for the purpose of learning cooperation and using no words.

A second game came to mind. Do you remember as a child how someone of us would stay in the front room and would hide a coin? The coin had to be in plain view: if not all of the coin, then at least part of it. No climbing on chairs or having to crawl under couches to find it. When the group who has been in the hall returns to the room, as soon as you saw the coin, you will sit down on the couch with your secret of where it was and let others search until everyone had found the coin.  No touching it.  No grabbing it.  No giving away to others that you have seen it.

What made the game fun was Doral would hide the coin in his ear, or on top of his ear or in his sock, or it would be on top of his bald head or tucked in the laces of his shoe. He must have had fun watching our eyes as we would first discover the coin and then make a straight face so that no one would know where it was as we sat down to watch others look for the coin.

Did the game have a name?

It may have ended with “You are getting hotter / colder” but when the game began there were no clues – just all of us running pell-mell into the living room to be the first to find the coin. That game also meets the specs of using no words, just your eyes and your face, either in subterfuge or by being aware that you couldn’t suppress the happiness on your face of finding the coin in such odd places.

That is my best shot at today’s request.

 It comes freely given to all, except to the person who asked me for the game and I shall invoice her.

Arta

Pots and Hats

I brought pottery home from the lake.  Gifts for Trell, Ina and Kelve who didn't come on holidays and receive their gift from Rebecca in person.

She spent the summer at the  pottery wheel until she had necklaces, mugs and dishes for all who were interested in her gifts.

Now Rebecca sends me a photo of a new craft -- a felted hat -- made in a day with the help of her friend, Stacey.

I am ordering one if she goes into mass production as she has with the clay.

Arta

3 minutes and 25 seconds - David's current record for buttered toast.

The Woman in the Taupe Skirt - Part II

Much later, when there was time to talk, I asked Bonnie, “Did you actually know that woman, or were you just getting her out of there, getting her away from the woman in the taupe skirt to a safe place?”

Bonnie laughed and said,

Oh, I do know her. I have seen her at this group, and that group. This was a very unexpected meeting. As you know, it’s a small town. We all wear more than one hat.

Like Steve Carter, I can find myself maintaining cat-like awareness of my surroundings. As we were talking and people were filing into the courtroom, and Madame Clerk was making an announcement through the PA system and into the foyer, I overheard a timid voice whispering, 'Please leave me alone. Please leave me alone.’ I turned and realized I knew the person behind the soft voice.

There was an arm’s length space between her and another woman who was saying in an angry tone, “This is yours. Take it.” I pivoted and in two strides had inserted my body into the arms-length gap between them. I gave my typical Bonnie greeting which included a hearty hello and a full hug.

I felt something on my arm. In my periphery I could see a woman shoving a paper into the crook of my arm. The woman being hugged still had her arms tight at her side. I realized, my arms were being treated as an extension of the other woman’s body. Had I been served?

I straightened my arms and the paper wafted away.

I will refer to the woman I was greeting as 'the woman in the hat' because her head was downcast and from my bird’s eye view, all I could really see was the darkness of the top of her head.

The woman in the hat entered the courtroom and as I turned back to Arta, I saw the taupe skirt swish by and after her. I don’t think I took the time to tell Arta what I was doing. I marched right into the courtroom. I think my basketball defense reflexes just kicked in unexpectedly, but now, instead of trying to steal the ball, I was trying to do a running screen to protect the other woman from the ball. At this point, I still don’t think I realized the woman in the tape skirt was trying to serve my acquaintance with a legal document. And I found a more direct route to the woman in the hat by slipping in the pew behind her.

 I felt like I was seeing it from a distance. The bullying. Throwing the paper onto the chest of the bullied and proclaiming in a dramatic and victorious tone, “You have been served.”

What was there left to do. The woman in the taupe skirt exited with such speed that her skirt blew behind her, as if she rode a broom. I turned back to the woman in the hat whose complexion was drained of all colour and said, “It is so hard dealing with crazy.”

I saw a brief smile flit across her face and then we embraced again. She was whispering on my shoulder, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

It was the judge’s eyes on me that made me feel uncomfortable with this embrace. I heard a nickname come out of my mouth that I had never called her before. If her name were Rebecca, then my phrase would have been, you’re going to be OK, Becs, you are going to be OK. Her body was trembling like a leaf. But her grip was like a barnacle. Now it was me with a downcast head, realizing the spectacle of my behavior. It is not that the judge was looking at me with judgement. But I still wished all 5 foot 10 inches of my body were invisible. Truly, he just had a look of concern on his face, which made me think, this may not be an everyday occurrence.

Then I saw the sheriff exchange nods of the head with the judge and the sheriff left on the same wind.

I was speaking to an ally of convenience later, and she said, my child goes to school with the sherrif’s children.

I said, do you know anything about serving papers?

The ally said, well, I know that you can’t do it yourself, but you can get a friend to do it as a witness.

I said, Oh no, no, I am not looking to serve papers. I just think I saw someone serve papers today and I don’t think they were a professional. Then she laughed very hard.

The woman in the taupe skirt didn’t stay up on the second floor. The sheriff was after her. She went down the stairs, out to the parking lot, and into the building through another door. Then down through the doors to where the counsel sits. It was as if she was circling the building. It was hard not to rubberneck because they have that lovely balcony in the court and you can look over and see what is happening below.

Perhaps there will be a part three to type, since I have only started telling the  facts about my story and have much more to tell.

Bonnie

Two Walks to Wyona’s

 ... Zoe's artwork ...

The road between Wyona’s house and mine is not well travelled in the summer time.

Twenty-eight people are at her house – and that number is too many for me to be able to find her in the crowd, even if I get there.

 I did walk down there this morning at 7 am to say good-bye to Trent, but they had taken the road to Kelowna at 4:30 am – so I missed saying my farewells.

 ... Chelsea making the final touches ...

Trent is in the bishopric of a university student ward in Texas.

He has the physical look of my father – more so than most of any of the cousins, and I was interested in how their lives are paralleled in this instance of both being in the bishopric when their children are young.  A charming story of Doral’s call to that service is on page 93 of his biography. I looked it up and was going to share it with Trent – but too late. The words and the tone capture a certain je n’ sais quoi that I was going to share with him. Maybe next year.

On my other trip to Wyona’s I came across a Chinese painting class: Zoe, Charise, Alicia and Chelsea all doing water colours. Zoe was finished, her painting still on the table. Charise still had a brush in her hand and Wyona was calling from the kitchen to someone else, “If some paint drops unexpected where you don’t want it, don’t try to take it off the paper. I will show you how to incorporate it into your work.”

 ... Alicia at work ...

Through the instructions she was continuing her vegetable chopping.

When Wyona took her classes, I wonder if the instructors was also a multi-tasker.

Arta

The Woman in the Taupe Skirt

I have often wondered what I would do in the fall if I lived in Sicamous full-time. Hidden among the long list of potential excursions is spending a day or two in court (See the Bernd Hermanski Architech's website for some beautiful photos of the inside and outside of the Salmon Arm Court House). I could get the flavour of the city that way. Wyona agrees with me that a trip like that would be interesting and if she is here she will come along. But she left for Calgary today, David was off at Kids Club, and so I brought Bonnie Wyora along with  me.

We climbed the winding staircase, noting that the second floor rotunda was full of people who began to move into the courtroom door as the voice on the loud speaker announced that court was in session. I saw a woman in a taupe skirt bullying another woman. She was waving a document at her and trying to press it into her hands. The second woman was softly saying over and over, “Please leave me alone. Please leave me alone.” She began moving backward, away from the bulling behaviour. An older man, perhaps her father stood nearby her, not knowing what to do.

Bonnie Wyora swept forward to the retreating woman and side stepped between her and the woman in the taupe skirt. She threw her arms around the retreating woman bending low to make up for the six inch height difference. She was hugging her and saying in an unexpectedly loud voice for the court house, “I am so glad to see you. It has been such a long time. How are you?”, all the time, her body kept between the frightened woman and the woman in the taupe skirt.

The woman in the taupe skirt was now yelling the name of the woman in Bonnie’s embrace. “You have to take it. It’s yours. Don’t make this difficult. So, you’re going to be that way, are you?”.

She pressed the document into the crook of Bonnie’s arm. The crush of the document stayed v-like for a while. Bonnie opened her arms, letting the paper fall to the floor, and stepped on the corner of it.

The paper under her right foot, she circled the woman around to the left, into Courtroom 201, through its open doors, and followed behind releasing the trapped document.

My interest of being with Bonnie for the day was lost. Rather than follow her in to the court to get my seat for listening to the proceedings, I was riveted outside, now focused on what was going to happen to that document that was floored. The woman in the taupe skirt retrieved the document, the sequins on her skirt swishing as she marched in the other direction, down the foyer, to the winding stair case and presumably down the stairs.

By the time I collected my sense to try to find Bonnie, she was in row 3 and the woman who had been bullied was in row 2. She appeared to be sobbing on Bonnie’s shoulder. The row of chairs between them made it impossible for me to see Bonnie’s face. I could see the woman’s face, whom I thought was never going to let go of her. But let go she did.

... plum crisp ...

... plum crisp with cream ...

When the judge stopped for lunch, so did we. We headed back to the lake. We sat on river rock chairs that we dragged around to the lake side of the balcony. It simulated a cafe before the lunch-hour rush of customers, with amazing outdoor seating.

We toasted home made-brown bread and heaped it with fresh bruschetta. We finished with a Plum Crisp. The tomatoes and plums were from Moiya and Dave’s garden. The cucumbers were from Glen and Janet’s garden. We took a picture of the dessert because it was served in dishes made by Rebecca at Pilling's Pottery Wheel. Our question to her in this blog post is ... how does one get just the right amount of cream when trying to add it to the Plum Crisp.

Long after the plums were gone, we finally felt safe to swap details of our different perspectives on the event.

Bonnie will post hers as Part II. 

Arta

Trombone Quartets

Teague is looking for a folder like the ones pictured to the right.

One of the sets of music that goes to his musical hobby is missing - TROMBONE QUARTET I.

The last time that a performance was done using this music was at last year's Pig Roast. 

Does any reader of this blog know where the other folder is?

Without it, at the next performance, one of the important voices will be missing -- on every chord.


There is a $5 reward.

Afterall, if you can earn $5 by answering ten questions about a film that you didn't want to see, surely it is worth $5 to send an email telling us where you have seen this folder.

This next photo will provide more clues for those willing to join the search.

Yours for more complete chords, Arta

Roots and Blues 2013

 ... the osprey beside the main stage ...

The 21st Annual Roots and Blues Festival has come and gone. I am going to tell the truth about sitting on a tarp and watching the festival stage, all of the while, keeping the sky in my peripheral vision. To start the show from that perspective one would have to know that there is an active osprey nest built in the top of the telephone pole that services the sound system for the stage. “Did you see the osprey come through the air, the fish it had caught still flapping in its claws, and then the bird land in the nest to feed its young?” Any festival viewer who had been watching the nest at that point got double the value for the price of their ticket. At other times the osprey stood on the edge of the haphazard stick and mud of its home, overlooking the crowd below. When she had gone to fetch more food and the next was empty, little heads peaked up over the edge of it.

hardy festival goers -- Duncan and Ben

On this point of watching the sky, last week I had my eye on the fire above Cedarbrae on Bastion Mountain across from us. “You can see the helicopter dropping water,” Wyona had said, “if you look for something as small as a mosquito just above the fireline. Then a white line will seems to drop from no where. That is the water being dropped, and above it, is the helicopter. ” So, sitting at the folk festival, I was still tuned into the sound of the helicopters, different ones, and I could see them passing in front of mountains off to fight different fires.

Late in the evening I looked up at the sky again, this time to see a shooting star at a 45 degree angle, heading down toward the earth. I thought, I am pretty sure I am imaging this, since what I see could not be real. And if it is real, no one is going to believe me. They will think I am growing old and romanticising the magic of evening performances. When I was telling this to Wyona, she reminded me that it was August 17th, the day that the earth goes through the second part of an old comet tail – so yes, in Disneylike fashion shooting stars fell from the heavens as other stars showed their lesser brilliance on stage.

The Secwepemec Welcome

The festival begins at 11 am for regular patrons. Those who want to stake out their spot on the grass with a tarp and some low festival chairs are in the 7 am line-up, waiting for the gates to open. The weather was perfect both days until the heat of the sun drove all but the sun worshipers to find shade. Glen pointed to the back of the crowd and said, “Look – some people bring their large beach umbrellas and put them along the sides of the venue, creating their own shade. That is an idea for next year.”

 ...workshop with Shakura S'aida, Rita Chiarelli, and Fatoumata ...

I counted to see how many people did this. There were fourteen umbrella just at the Blues Stage. We just must be slow to catch on. “Why are you wearing black? That attracts heat,” a woman I didn’t know said to me. “Oh well, you look terrific anyway, so what does it matter.”

 She didn’t stay long enough for me to explain that my mission was to stay covered to my wrists and ankles and that this is the only outfit I hav hee. Any bit of skin was not covered was getting an application of 60 Sunscreen from me, the next layer applied as soon as the layer before ran off in beads of sweat.

Bruce Cockburn on the main stage

By 5 pm the air cooled off. By 7 pm I was putting on a jacket. By 9 pm I was pulling out a blanket for my legs. For me, anything would do. Twelve year old Ben said the second day, “I would like a blanket, but not the “Hello Kitty” one.” Yes, I don’t mind that one. After Day One of the festival all of our equipment has to be collapsed and packed home, ready for the next day.


 At midnight I took a festival chair on my back, another chair that I could carry in a case in my left arm and picked up 2 large bags of blankets with my right hand, heading back to the car. “Could I help you?” “No I am fine, thanks.” The woman who asked went on and then came back. “No. Really. I am going your way. Please let me help you.” “My party is behind me. I just struck out ahead and they will catch up,” I assured her. They did catch up. When Bonnie saw me she handed me a bucket of mini-donuts saying, “Could you carry this for me? You see to be carrying everything else.” This is only a rhetorical question, one that I probably have the answer to, but I might as well pose it ... what is wrong with my mind.

 ... early moon rise over Mount Ida ...

And now on other matters, I keep trying to articulate what is the charm of this festival. The fact that you can park within a 2 block walking radius of the main door? The most excellent price if one signs up for the early bird tickets? The fact that children 12 and under are free? Five music stages, 3 of which are always in performance? The setting – the festival tucked in a valley surrounded by verdant hills and a moist wind? The variety of singles, duos and larger bands? In the middle of a public park and across the road from the festival is a small Mexican take-out stand – Rosa’s. Bonnie and I walked across the street to get a fully loaded vegetarian taco and a drink for our supper. We could see the festival grounds a block away. The leaves of a gigantic weeping willow tree were rustling. I could hear the festival music – at just about the right number of decibels for me. “Next year, let’s just come and sit at Rosa’s, and listen to the music.” Bonnie laughed. The locals call the people who di that, poachers – people who walk their dogs, or just walk themselves around the perimeter of the park all day, listening to the music inside.

...  Corvus Corax ...

 Should we have done that, we would have missed seeing Corvus Corax, a band from Germany. They base their music on bagpipes, shawms, citterns, drums from all over the world and a giant hurdy-gurdy. They were large on theatrics dressing in anachronistic medieval costumes. I couldn’t take them seriously.

 Bruce Cockburn, Rita Chiarelli, Shakura S’Aida or Mighty Mo Rodgers were outstanding. Bonnie Wyora told me that the critique of Cockburn is that he doesn’t have much stage presence. I was mesmerized from the moment of the first note to the last.

 As you can tell, I didn’t get far from the CBC Blues Stakes. I heard Chiarelli do her song, “I would do anything for you,” in three different sets. When her three octave voice soars and then descends with all of that breath control – that is the price of the ticket right there. This morning I woke up humming that tune and then singing the words, so I guess the festival isn’t over for me. The Glen and Janet Pilling Family were at the festival (Jeremy, Sarah, David, Shawna, Connor, Julie). Baby Nowlan wore a pair of over-sized head sets to keep the sound down for him. His was one of the pictures flashed up on the big festival screen – so cute.

 ... Gandalf snoozing ...

They brought Caesar salad to stuff in pita for their supper – and they had bbq-ed eight chicken breasts for la piece de resistance. Janet said when she got it all together at the festival is when she remembered that the cold chicken was still at home. Rebecca, Bonnie and I were the recipients of their left-overs. Yum.

I may have fallen asleep during the festival. Sometimes laid right out on the ground. Sometimes just by dropping my head a bit as I listened to the music.  Rebecca told the boys that with the brown floppy hat I was wearing I looked like Gandalf. For some reason Duncan thought that gave him permission to call me Gandalf for the rest of the festival.

 Arta

 P.S. My favorite T-shirt motto from the festival: I’d love to have a battle with you, but you appear to be unarmed.

 Credits for the photos and captions go to Rebecca

Bonnie's Dream Inuit Film Festival

Bonnie’s Dream Inuit Film Festival

The summer was coming to an end. We hadn’t done even one-half of what our ambitious plans had outlined at the start of the summer. I had given up on anything new happening.  I looked on Bonnie’s bedroom door to see a poster entitled “Bonnie’s Dream Inuit Film Festival”.

... with more funding
there would have been
a more professional looking poster...

Listed below the title were five films, the times that they were being shown on a big screen in her room and a rider that the film times were subject to change:

1:30 pm Kiviuq (72 min)

2:15pm Welcome to Nunavut (30 min)

2:30 pm Silent Messengers (93 min)

4:30 pm The White Archer (50 min)

5:30 pm James Houston (48 min)

6:30 pm --- Discussion ---

BYOC (Bring your own chair)

I wanted to go to the film festival. First of all, I know how difficult it is to create one – bring in the films, do the advertizing, create interest, find funding, hire space. Rebecca has been helping with some of this. She leaves an Inuit Critical Studies volume lying around, open to pages that she has marked with comments or yellow highlighters. And she has been showing single films in the evenings. If you watch one of the films with her and can answer ten questions after the film is over, you can earn $5. Thus, there has been quite a bit of interest generated in the past few weeks.


... lapel pin given to me by Catherine
when she did a rotation
in northern Quebec ...

I brought my own chair, found my own treats and I attended the festival.

The discussion period was a bust. Instead of saving up questions until 6:30 pm people talked during and after every film, often doing instant replays if someone thought they had missed a word or not quite got at a concept that was being developed.

 I don’t like it when people don’t follow the festival rules.

Still, that was not so irritating that I will boycott the Second  Annual Bonnie's Dream Inuit Film Festival on Lot 3 next year.

Arta

A Snap of the Branch

Janet's grapes ... and oh, for a zoom lens ..

s

 ... a pear attached to a dying branch ...

 ... downed branch which spilled across Greg's lot ...

s

... left half of picture / note where the branch split off from the tree ...

The wind was barely rustling through the trees but a loud crack was heard by the strawberry patch on Janet and Glen’s lot.

The heavily laden pear tree could not stand the weight of the fruit any longer and one of the tall branches snapped off onto the ground, stretching from the tree right across to Wyona’s porch.

I went over to see what the wound on the tree would looked like.

... hops in the sunlight ...

By the time I got there other onlookers had gone.

Only Janet was on the lawn, gathering the pears and putting them in boxes.

“Looks like you will be going to the farmer’s market”, said Jeremy to his mom before returning to the pottery wheel.

3The Pillings have a full house right now.

The whole family try to get together around Roots and Blues time and all were present but the Hicks who are home with Piper, their new born.

I tried to think of what a family will do with so many pears.

... green grapes ... hard not to grab a  handful ...

I like them dried. I think the sandy taste has a certain charm.

What happens to my pears is that they all ripen the same day – just about at the same hour.

It is a struggle to find as manyways as possible to eat them fresh.

Even though that large branch is down on the ground, Janet was cheerful.

She told me that if I liked the look of the abundance of pears, I should also check out the purple clumps of grapes that are hanging on the vines that cling to the porch railing.

6And then she pointed me in the direction of the green grapes, not as showy, but surely present.

On the porch, containerized are Roma tomatoes, the vines tied up to bamboo sticks.

The hops are in full fruit, climbing all over the sides of the green house.

... to market, to market ...

“Those are the vines that show growth about every couple of hours,” said Janet.

Once they start growing, they just run away.

I wondered what else a person can do with hops besides make beer, but maybe making beer is enough.

 ... all beauty is not edible ...

Last year I collected a recipe on how to make bread out of the mash that is left over when the hops have been used.

That will be a project I haven’t taken on before.

The strawberry plants on their lot are still bearing fruit, well tended in that triangle of land between the Pillings and the Bates house.

... strawberries still in bloom ...

I checked to see how Wyona’s pumpkins are doing.

They are the only plant that is still in flower – hope they can make it to being fruited by October.

Arta