Cleaning is Cleansing

There are some spaces that need yearly attention.


One of them is the space under the huge fir trees, the space that has traditionally held hammocks.


The two hammocks the grace that spot now come from Mountain Equipment Coop, single size, ultralight, top quality and ideal for backpacking.


Bonnie bought four of them.


There were used at the LaRue 50th Birthday party between the cherry trees.

Now they are being slung between taller trees and in darker spaces.


Richard says he is now on the outlook for the other style.


The kind that has two poles and the hammock is spread between the two poles.


That is the kind of hammock that is meant for two people.  These can hold three in a pinch, but for sleeping, one person is better.

If one hammock is good, four are better.

Just two more to put up and there is space for all under those spiring trees.

Sometimes cleaning under trees is cleansing.

"Hey, I'll get the branch that dropped off"

We have had spots at home that require multiple brooms, garbage cans, detol, bleach, hot water, mops, brooms and rakes.

But this day we were pulling out deadfall, loose branches, and twigs from the occasional wind storm that brings down limbs.

... the more hands, the less work ...

Bonnie and Richard used the old method of putting trash on a canvas and then pulling it down the hill.

This was not Richard’s preferred method, but Bonnie had it going up the gentle slope and down the hill while he was protesting.

Again, evidence that sometimes just doing it is the right thing.

... Alice and Betty find the best stick ever ...

or

 ... mimetic desire at work ...

Sticks are made for hitting, grabbing, poking, giving, withdrawing, and holding.

Sticks are made for drawing lines in dust, for poking into cracks, for gathering and for sharing.

Sticks can carry bugs, can poke at slugs and can be used to investigate the insides of dead animals.

Sticks are made for girls to play with.

And for boys.

Arta

The Ultimate S’More Cook-Off

The Ultimate S'More Trophy

Tonight was the Ultimate S’More Cook-Off Party.


Families have been gathering at the Bates night after night, practicing for this moment.

The prize was a gold-wrapped marshmallow stick springing from a silver vessel, a trophy to be desired and sitting on a table for all to see.

Supplies have been purchased at No-Frills and at the Bulk Barn, each time with even more thought and acumen, knowing that this night was about to happen.

There were two sets of judges, a younger set and an older set.

The Challenge Begins

The latter had pens and paper in hand, as did the younger set, who were to give marks out of 10.

That was only possible for the first contestants, but soon the younger set of judges were giving 20’s and 100’s and soon thousands for the presentation of the s’mores that were passing their way.

... 3 intense marshmallow roasters ...

The older judges were Art Treleaven, Glen Pilling and Laynie Hicks.


Their job was to taste each S’More, judging quality of ingredients, quantity of ingredients and quirkiness.


The night wore on as individuals from all age categories were toasting their marshmallows to perfection and then building the s’more of their dreams.

...judging and eating a s'more at the same time ...

When the party was all-in, the judges went to confer in the house, looking at pictures that had been taken and tallying marks.

The winners were Michael Johnson, Teresa Oldham, Annalisse Bates, Alice Johnson, Zoe Bates, Tonia Bates, Marcia Bates, Ezra Bates, Ivan Bates, Senya Bates, David Camps-Johnson and his friend, Connor.

The categories included the sweetest s’more, the fluffiest, the tallest s’more and the best presentation of a s’more.

There was also a category for the s’more illustrating nepotism (Zach who built his out of a dad’s cookie).

... the ingredient table ...

This was a serious contest with marks being carefully calculated.

Tonia won for a category which I can’t remember but I do know she had her prize withdrawn for being a teacher, which, with slumped shoulders, she sadly acknowledged as true.

The ultimate prize went to Gabe for delivering the most influence to the judges. I asked what that was all about.

Someone answered that he kept bringing them drinks of water.

Little Alice was afraid to enter.

I went to the ingredients table and brought her a wide selection so that she could at least taste what might have gone onto a s’more, if she had had the courage to make one.

Maybe next year.

And thus endeth another of the best parties ever.

... starting to build a s'more ...

...

I heard Graham say, “no other family has parties like these”.

I don’t know if he was referring to the decadence of the ingredients, to the spontaneity of the laughter at many moments, to the inter-generational character of the attendees, to the hours of repartee over the selected ingredients, or to the intensity of the participation.

As the party closed I heard Jeremy say, “I can’t believe no one built a s’more out of ice-cream”.

Now there is an idea for next year.

... Michael getting first feedback from Glen about his s'more ...

... judge taking careful data ...

 

Judge #2, Art Treleaven inspecting s'more

Oh yes, the judges were in agreement.

 Next year they are stepping down and letting a different set of judges taste that many s’mores.

Enough is enough.

 

Laynie takes a bite and prepares to give careful feedback to Michael.

In the background, Graham wonders how the judges will hold up
to the amount of sugar they are eating.

The Jarvis Vacation - The Last Supper

The Last Supper - at least in Iceland.

Here are the last photos in our vacation series. We have been home for 5 days, and there hasn't been a spare moment to sit down and write this last post. Sigh. When is the next vacation? I love vacation for the simple reason that I can sit and write, and take photos all day long if I want to.

The last supper in Iceland was of course FISH AND CHIPS. 

Delicious.

The restaurant is called Icelandic Fish and Chips and is right on the Reykyavik Harbour.

It only cost $150 dollars for 6 people and that is why it was the last supper - no one had any money left for food.

So the lesson learned here is that when you see an airline advertising a free stop over in Iceland, just remember that nothing is ever really free.

Hebe, Catherine and Catie

Eric, Tom and Rebecca

Before we ate our last supper we went to the Settlement Museum.

Hebe making a Viking stew

This might be the best museum I have ever been to, and I've been to a lot of museums so that is saying something.

This is a small museum built around an archeological site.

It takes only 1-2 hours to see the whole museum, so it is the perfect amount of time before one gets museum fatigue.

Additionally, they get kids.

They have so many interesting things for people of all ages.

Here were the highlights: A kids corner that occupied Hebe for more than one hour. Almost miraculous. Above, she is making a Viking stew.

 Getting ready to go to war.  Not sure I would want to fight this Viking.

 Hebe playing Fox and Lambs.   

I think I will try to recreate this old VIking Game at home.  The rules are below.  So much fun, and all you need are 14 rocks and a piece of cloth with the grid.  Thirteen rocks should be white and one should be black.  Hebe loved it.

Rules for Fox and Lambs

For the adults there was the archaeologic uncovering of a Viking Long House from AD 831 +/- 2 years. They know this from the layer of ash that covered the home following a volcanic eruption around 831 AD.

Eric sat at the museum computer reading up on Iceland and it's Viking history. He almost missed the museum because he was so interested in what he was discovering online.

Learning about the Viking Ruins. Wish I had known about this days earlier when I was trying to pronounce the various places we were visiting.

Where will our next adventure take us? Well for now back to Montreal to plan our next vacation.

C.

The First Tomato

 ...Alice and the first tomato of the season ...

I've been watering my tomatoes and watching one plant that I thought was about ready to bear fruit.

As we walked by it this morning, Richard bent down and showed Alice that it was about ready to eat.

Her little hand went into the plant, picked it and it went right to her mouth.

Eating a tomato out of hand!

The only person who would have enjoyed it as much is me.

Arta

Jarvis Family Holiday - Surprising Things in Iceland

The new colour of my silver rings after three days of bathing in 

Icelands rejuvenating hot waters. 

Chalk that up to a chemical reaction between silver and sulfur.  

Hoping the rings don't start giving off the same odour as the water taps. 

Any tips on restoring their original color?

ZZZZZzzzzzzz

The Jarvis Holiday - French Food

Monday, July 24th - late entry

Eric and I decided that this time in Paris we were going to take the children out for a real French meal. We hadn't particularly planned to go to Cépe and Figue, but happened on this restaurant while walking through the Latin Quarter. The kids (and I) were grumpy from lack of nourishment and this place seemed like a good option at that moment. It was only 19 euros for a two course meal, and that worked for our budget so we obliged.

What is a Cépe you ask?

"An edible European and North American mushroom with a smooth brown cap, a stout white stalk, and pores rather than gills, growing in dry woodland and much sought after as a delicacy"

The name of the restaurant wasn't insipiring to the teenagers.  Who wants to eat at a place called Mushrooms and Figs.

We had to wait about 15 minutes for a table and Hebe was getting restless.  She took a seat outside next to the menu.  What would you order?  You can check it out if you enlarge the photo

As in any good french restaurant, they offer you bottled water.  Ordering tap water is so gauche.  The teenagers wanted to try Perrier.  Here is Hebe giving that a go. It was a two thumbs down.

I guess we started this french meal adventure a bit late at night.  Here is an exhausted Hebe waiting for her meal of  French onion soup and Beef Bourginon.  

The meal finally arrived and boy was it delicious.  The girls and Eric all ordered Pork with Potatoes and Apples.  Wish I had ordered that too. It was fabulous.  What's not to love about cooked apples over pork.

Thomas ordered a hamburger, but it was no ordinary hamburger.  It was a Rocquefort Hamburger.  I was a bit concerned at this order, but he loved it. My children are not huge fans of sharp cheese, and they have never even put a piece of blue cheese into their mouths, so I was skeptical.  However, there is always a first time to try something new and this was a hit.

The highlight of the meal was the apple tarte, not included in the menu degustation, but still so worth it.  I've been looking for a piece of tarte like this for nearly 20 years. I had a similar dessert in Montreal in 1994 in a French restaurant near Park Ave.  The restaurant in Montreal has sadly long since closed down.  This apple tarte is made with huge chunks of carmelized apple on top.  Ooooh la la.  We were all so full from the meal that we decided to simply share the tarte with an order of crème brulée.  Just for a taste.  Afterwards, I wished I had only ordered dessert.  I took the restaurant's business card, and  hope to get back here next time I am in Paris.

Our walk home from Cépe and Figue took us over Ile de la Cité.  Rebecca stopped to admire the thousands of locks attached to this railing.  Who wouldn't want to leave a piece of their heart in Paris.

Hebe found a great place in the metro to stop for a photo.  

Which minion in this photo lineup do you think "done it".   

Here's to the end to another great day in Paris.

The Jarvis Holiday - The Golden Circle

Monday, July 31, 2017

To say today was golden would not do it justice. None of the photos below actually capture the incredible beauty of the Icelandic landscapes we visited, although they are still pretty striking

Iceland has a Golden Circle Route which is simply a well touristed circular route to some of the best natural wonders in the Reykjavik area.

Here was the itinerary for our Golden Circle Adventure

1 Hellisheidi Power Plant – Geothermal Exhibition he Hot River

3 Kerid Crater Lake

4 Gesir

5 Gullfoss Waterfall

6 Thingvellir National Park (UNESCO site)– to see the seat of Iceland's first parliament and where the two tectonic plates between Europe and North America meet.

We left the house around 10:15 for what we thought would be about an 8-9 hour adventure. We arrived home around 11:15 p.m with daylight to spare, but completely exhausted. I love the summer when you are near the Arctic circle. Just 3-4 hours of dusk between midnight and 4 am. It makes late night touring possible.

Our first stop of the morning was to the grocery store so that we could get some breakfast and lunch/ snacks for our day long journey. When we arrived at the store, we had to wait outside until 11 am. The grocery store in Reykjavik doesn’t open until 11 am on Monday’s. What! Great place to be an employee. That was a surprise as was the $130 dollars we had to spend to buy enough food for a single day. We purchased bread, cheese and meat to make sandwiches, along with Skyr (Icelandic yogurt) and Icelandic donuts for breakfast. The kids also stocked up on a bit of candy and chips for all the hikes. Food is not cheap in Iceland. In fact nothing is cheap in Iceland.

The highlight of the day for most of us was the hike to the Hot River (stop 2). We all agreed that the online information classifying this as an “easy” hike was completely misleading. Whoever gave it that classification obviously does a lot of intense hiking.

It is a 3 km hike but the first 2 km is straight up hill. There is lots of shale type gravel that makes the risk of falling high. Cathy, Catie, and Hebe all took a spill at various times along the path. Gratefully the worst injury was an embedded rock in Catie’s hand which we will try to get out later, and a shoulder strain by Cathy that could have been a shoulder dislocation had she just fallen back on a single arm. That was a close one.

The 2 km hike straight up hill eventually led to a thin path around a mountain and a descent into the valley of the hot river. We knew we were getting close when we saw not only returning visitors with wet hair but odd patches of steam risking up from the ground.

Thankfully they have signs marking which pools to avoid – like the ones that are literally boiling hot. No swimming here.

We finally reached the part of the river safe for bathing. After a tough climb, it is nice to have a jacuzzi-like soak in one of the hot pools.

We finally reached the part of the river safe for bathing.  After a tough climb, it is nice to have a jacuzzi-like soak in one of the hot pools.

The change rooms at the hot river were in fact not exactly change rooms. They were simply a cross shaped wall built along a boardwalk. However, if you strategically hold up a towel, you can create a triangular space in which to strip down and change into your swimming suit.

Here is Hebe in her Canada swim suit.

It was fun to watch the kids soaking in the hot pools along the river.  Quite a spectacular view and 100X better than the Blue Lagoon.  

The price was right too- FREE.   

We were not successful at getting Eric into the hot pools despite vigorous efforts.  He did oblige us finally and put his feet in for a soak.  Not his cup of tea, but a good sport none-the-less.  

His knees survived, but he will never know the "restorative powers of the hot river."

 Third stop was the Kerid Crater Lake.  

Here we are after hiking around the rim and then descending to the lake floor.

Stop Five - Gullfoss Waterfall

"This is the last place I’m going to visit," was Hebe's declaration after our second stop on this six stop adventure.  She had had it.  Too much walking and quite frankly I had to agree.  

The hike into the hot river was over 15000 steps and that was just the first hike of the day.  

Hebe obliged us at stop number five and walked out to see the Gullfoss Waterfall.  Spectacular.

This glorious moment happened after we left Geyser heading towards Thingviller National Park.  The sun streaming through the clouds was magical, like rays from heaven. 

The clouds parted for just 1-2 minutes and then it was gone.  This photo does not do it justice.

Final pit stop was Thingviller National Park to see the crevice that is forming where the two tectonic plates are moving apart.  

Can you guess what time it is?  Nearly 10:45 p.m.    

I haven't sent a photo of stop number one or four which were also impressive.

What I can say about stop number 1 is that I am in love with how Iceland generates it's energy and hot water. Learning about how they harness geothermal energy at the geothermal plant was incredible. It is a completely ingenious and sustainable energy source that provides both hot water and energy to all the homes on the island. Hard to imagine homes without a hot water tank but here they pipe hot water directly to homes at a temperature of 78 degrees Celsius. The only problem with this arrangement was quickly discovered by Hebe. She can't stand the sulphuric acid smell that tags along for a ride. She can hardly drink the water and announces each time she is forced to take a sip that it smells like a dirty diaper. The water tastes fine, but the odour is somewhat undesirable.

Geyser (stop number four). An Icelandic word that has made it into the English vernacular. Geyser really needs a video to enjoy it properly. I will try to send it in another email when we are back in Montreal.

This Golden Day is done. A visit to the Settlement museum tomorrow morning, a meal of fish and chips and then we are off to catch our flight home.

 So long Iceland.

C