Monday, October 13, 2008

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving

My mom's brother, David, and his son came to visit my mom for Thanksgiving. We were able to bring her out to our place for a turkey dinner Sat night and then Sunday my uncle and I joined her for turkey dinner at the lodge. We are well turkyed.
Other than seeing my mom this holiday for my uncle's visit was sort of a wash as people are out of town or busy with their own family dinners.

Poor Uncle David, not only are people occupied or out of town this time but he is 88 and hasn't lived here since the early 50's and there are less and less people he remembers from his past still living. I guess that's why we need to live in the present.

So, in that we did the turkey dinner on Saturday, the "not picked clean" carcass is simmering along on it's way to lots of turkey soup.I'm not sure which is the best part of the turkey: the cranberries and stuffing or the soup!We're thankful for both.And many little packages of sliced turkey for sandwiches, with more cranberries.
There's also some left over sweet potato pie, so we can still celebrate on the actual day.
Uncle David and Bruce left on their way home as there wasn't enough excitement and "Dad doesn't like to sit around." Some of us wish we had time to sit around a little more.
James and our friend, Garth Huscroft, made the annual pilgrimage to the back to pick apples off the "secret tree" but this year there was not apple one. It's a bit late so the deer and elk and bears and ravens may have got a few but apples have a good and bad year and last year was very good so we were prepared for less this year. Well, maybe not this much less!



Wednesday, October 08, 2008

ScotiaBank Nuit Blanche 2008

This is a recent painting of James currently being shown in his show at the Creston Public Library.

Our son, Larry, was invited to take part in the ScotiaBank Nuit Blanche art show in Toronto last weekend. Here are some sites concerning his piece. Nuit Blanche is a grand occasion, taking place outside at sites around Toronto from 7:00 pm Oct 4 to 7:00 am Oct 5. Larry's piece is a combination of installation and performance.



Here, fall approaches and our Canadian Thanksgiving is this coming Monday. James has been clearing up the yard and gardens getting ready for winter, while we carefully move praying mantids so not to squash them in the process.


Wednesday, October 01, 2008

An egg case, as promised

This is what the egg case of a praying mantis looks like. It is about 1 - 1 1/2 inches long, made of a funny dried bubbly stuff. This one would have hundreds and hundreds of babies in it but once they hatch, and eat each other in the first days, there will be many less.
Fortunately, the shovel handle this is on is not from the only shovel we own. We will keep it safe until the little ones hatch out - next spring, I presume.
I contacted the Royal BC Museum as no praying mantids were listed as having been found here so I am sending them a couple specimens.
No frost yet.
I had a call from the gentleman who is studying badgers. They would like to set aside appropriate crown land as badger habitat but there really isn't any in our valley so I hope the private land owners encourage the wildlife.