Signs of spring

This 2nd picture is of Skeeter when she first came to us 1 1/2 years ago. She looks like a poor little malnourished kitten. Malnourished she definitely was, but no kitten. Our vet says she was a year old! Poor baby!
And the first is Skeeter now, well loved and fed, but destined to be a nervous little cat with ADD, we suspect, possibly from malnutrition in her youth. She has a very hard time settling. But, she is much treasured and loved not just by us, but by Bandy too, who actually first brought her to the house. I find her very hard to photograph not only because she is a cat and not wont to cooperate but also because she is so very dark in many lights. I would say she is an orange cat brushed with black but there'd be a good argument that she is just the reverse.Good eating and raw eggs have brightened her coat considerably.
The signs of spring, lest you feel I've been leading you on - two wasps in the slider window. I'm not sure where they come from or how but this time of year they start appearing. If we can keep the population down at this end of the year there should be less at the end of summer when they begin to believe they own the farm!
This has been a sad and thoughtful day. This time of year a herd of elk makes a daily migration: at dusk, down from the 80 acres of woodlands at the back of our place through the neighbour's fields and across the road to the river and in the morning just as it is coming light they reverse their trek. This morning James spotted a full grown adult with most likely a broken front leg. It could only hobble 3 paces, and then rest and then start out again. It was a painful sight.
I called the game warden who couldn't come right out and unless it is fairly close to the road they can't do anything as it would be a mile of deep frozen snow. If he can come out and harvest it the meat would go to the food bank. I would like to see it out of its misery. Nature is not always kind, in fact it's pretty brutal. We don't know if it was hit by a car or injured some other way..

I think I will live!

Here are Bandy and James communing. There's something about a nice warm cat in winter.
I finally think I'll live. First James got the nasty cold/flu and then I did and it sure takes its time to shake off.
Skeeter is such a nice round little cat, so very different from when she came to us, all scrawny and emaciated. Mind you, she is spoiled rotten! but such a good little hunter. She has been regularly bringing great big voles up to eat on the deck, or under it. She may be getting them under the chicken houses. She'd like to bring them inside but we draw the line at that!
Yesterday was lovely and sunny and so bright with the frozen snow. On a bright sunny day there actually is a lot of colour to be found. My big rose bush is quite attractive with its red arching vines.

A friend was bemoaning her lack of snowdrops yesterday. Obviously she's on another timetable than winter in the Kootenays. We can hope for them in March, I fear, this year as they are under that heavy frozen berm of snow where James shoveled off the porch roof.
But summer will come and in the next 2 weeks I need to make up and get the forms for ArtWalk printed and then we'll have a big day addressing envelopes to mail out the entries. Time also to mail out funding requests.
There was good news on the morning news! Another coffee study has found non-smoking nurses who drink 4 or more cups of coffee a day have a 43% lower risk of stroke. That's a good enough figure one could take it up, if they weren't already a coffee drinker!
I'm thawing a flat zip lock bag of tomato sauce from last summer's tomatoes. I find the flat bags more space efficient and if you have a large freezer, which we do, freezing tomatoes as they ripen, and then, at your leisure thawing and making them into sauce (to freeze again) is an easy way to go.
This morning on Martha Stewart she and her guests were talking about what one should have in one's pantry. Well, maybe city people live with nothing on hand but I can't imagine not having their list of foods on hand and then some! It was obvious things like pasta and rice and chick peas and canned tomatoes, mustard and olive olive oil and bread crumbs: the kind of things one needs every day if one cooks, but then many people don't cook from "scratch" or at all, so this is the new money saving tip - cook!
I've still been knitting touques on the round loom (more pictures next time) and this weekend and next am taking a class on "real" knitting.

Frostier, and frostier

We have even more frost today than yesterday and if you can imagine a mountain behind the wagon and frosty trees you can see we are still socked in to a lacy lovely world - but c-c-c-cold - -6 degrees Celsius (21 F).
This is Japanese knot weed which some would argue really is a weed and others would class it as "noxious". It's all where you grow it. Mine is planted in a 5 gallon bucket in a trench between bedrock slabs. It has been here many years and never escaped. We're also so dry up here on the hill that few things wander, the challenge is for them to grow and live! I love the fact it holds it's lovely dry burnt sienna leaves in winter and the little stemmy business left from the flowers are lacy in themselves. In late summer when it blooms it is alive with paper wasps.
And this, the mock orange, is just so very lacy! I moved it from further down the hill. Here they are wild and wonderful in June,
So today James has "stolen" my beautiful big orange squash that I've been saving since fall and probably should think about baking before it turns to compost. James is seeing if it will star in a painting - and then I'll cook it!
I love the fact that winter squash will last and last without the need to can or freeze. Mortals shouldn't even consider canning them. They need to be pressure canned as they are low acid but even in the pressure canner it takes 90 minutes. Letting them sit on a cool shelf makes so much more sense, and then freezing the leftovers as, if we're talking of a big hubbard squash, there will be leftovers.
Your gardening - food preservation tip of the day: if you wipe things you've harvested from the garden, like winter squash, with a 10% bleach solution it will get rid of some of the organisms which would cause them to spoil. If you consider chlorine bleach to be toxic waste try using vinegar. It should work equally well.
Zucchini, which is not a winter squash, will keep a long time if allowed to get big and over ripe and to develop a tough skin. At this time it is good in soups or zucchini bread.
Besides the obvious "squash as a vegetable" serving suggestions winter squash is equally wonderful in soups and works as a rich filler. Winter squash also makes an even better pie than pumpkin. If you buy canned pumpkin in the store (and who would?) what you really get is canned winter squash.
And then, on a totally other subject, sweet potatoes or yams can be substituted for pumpkin and make a lovely smooth pie filling.

What an absolute trial!!!!

The next 2 posts actually run in reverse order.
Blogger did not want the second post (which runs first!) because I had copied from a Word document and I had to delete numbers, and numbers, and numbers of Html commands! What a fiasco!

If at first you fail, try, try, again....

This was taken this morning looking to the north east. The fog is rising along the Goat River and we have hoar frost on everything. The bird feeder is one of the many I built when I was building bird houses. You are actually looking at the back of the feeder. Sadly, the birds don't like this location except in spring and fall. I think here, on the north of the house is too dark for them.

So Blogger didn't like the number of photos first and then it didn't like the html which it had written itself! so we'll try this again. It actually is part 2 of Cozy heads, but given the computer's mind of its own.
This second picture is facing the north west and the fog is rising off the large flats which are a flood plain, now diked, of the Kootenay River. Some mornings with the fog it looks like a huge lake.

This third photo is facing North looking at Goat Mountain which is supposed to be a long extinct volcano and is a much smaller and less impressive mountain than the others surrounding us. The old wagon was used to haul logs out of the bush. It used to be in the poplars down below but we moved it up here to try to "save" it longer in dry location. Time is causing the wood to drop out of the rims of the wheels. "Time waits for no man", or woman either. We have been back here 19 years. The time has gone quickly.

Because James and I only heat with wood we don't go off on overnight jaunts in the winter and if it's REALLY cold we don't leave the house for more than a few hours as one has to feed the fires. Now we have settled into a more comfortable winter pace. The cats were not amused to see it snowing yesterday morning. I think they thought I had "fixed" that! However, we only got around 2 inches which was very slick in the morning and melted by the afternoon, except on the driveway. In that we have a good 1/4 mile of driveway and it was all ice, the snow was actually an improvement.
James and a fellow artist friend have been painting the bathroom in the library to look like an aquarium. There are nearly life sized seals and all manner of fish and sea gulls and..... In that one wall is curved it only adds to the look.
I go along and sit in a nice wooden rocker and knit. I have been knitting toques on round looms. I started doing adult sizes but the last few have been little kid sized and they are just too much fun! I put pictures on Facebook of the adult ones and one child's. Most of these are done with a double yarn so by varying yarns and adding novelty yarns one can get some really fun hats. I have spent WAY TOO MUCH MONEY on yarn but I think I'll be able to sell them. The different colours and textures are quite fun!
For 15 years I built and sold rustic, arty, functional birdhouses but with the problems I have had with my hands the doctor and I decided that building the birdhouses was making me need more hand surgeries earlier. It has taken me a year and a half to be able to say "I quit." and the thought still goes flitting through my brain as it was a significant part of our income.
However, "I quit."
A year and a half ago my girl friend and I organized our 40 year high school reunion, I had two hand surgeries and had had multiple ones the previous 2 summers, was still trying to bake for the farmers' market and build bird houses, and we mostly emptied my mother's mobile home so it could be rented out. However we ended up storing more than we should have and I hit grid lock, mentally and physically.
I wouldn't call it a depression, and I did continue coordinating ArtWalk with all the shows and openings that entailed, and doing openings for James' shows but I've spent an awful lot of time sitting in a comfortable chair. I am hoping to crawl my way out and actually making something again feels good. I still aspire to finding another medium closer to art than craft but this is fun just now.
I'm also trying little by little to get through some of the physical gridlock, so that has been my life. It is a time of losses for us all. Our parents, those of us still lucky enough to have them, are not as they were nor are we.
This Christmas I bought myself Dragon Naturally Speaking so I can get my grandmother's diaries in print form on the computer so they can be shared with her other grandchildren. Grid lock and procrastination being close bed fellows I haven't loaded it on the computer yet.

Keeping wee heads cozy.

This was taken looking east from our porch. In summer the huge mounding rose is a riot of pink blossoms. It was one of the sort you buy in a box and it is very definitely NOT what the box said it was. I recently read Claire Fenton's answers to one of those internet quizzes and the she had listed 25 things about herself, one of which was "I once grew 4000 roses." Well, I did too, but they were all on this bush!
This little rose does not distinguish itself by its many blooms. It is a messy little thing called Winnipeg Parks and it has the most beautiful rose hips. As you may note very few are left. They are not only beautiful but a tasty treat to the deer. Last summer we had a doe with twin fawns hanging around. We kept water in our leaky pond for the little family and they could have pretty much whatever they wanted.



I've been continuing to knit toques and the last few have been for little folk, to keep their wee heads warm. This is a small child's hat - not a tiny baby. These are just far too much fun to do but I need to be careful not to set myself up for some other repetitive stress disorder with my hands. I am right handed but have been practicing doing these left handed. I have always been fairly close to ambidextrous so it's sort of fun challenging myself.

Another January done gone.

Bandy is showing all the enthusiasm I have had this month.
I spent about 3 weeks off my feed and by the end I couldn't tell if it was me being sick or the anti-biotics making me miserable. One is so wretched I have to cut it in half and put it in a gelatin capsule to choke it down. Well, that bout is finished and I'm almost back to eating like a human.
Both James and I find January a lazy month. A few years ago I officially gave myself permission to have Januaries off, in that I don't get anything accomplished anyway.
James has had some reprieve from plowing snow and digging it off the low roofs of the porch and studio. The studio got so bad that the gutters filled and started creating ice dams back onto the roof and James ended up tearing off all the gutters and chopping ice. We will have to find another approach next summer as we do want to save water. My part in this was to ply him with Banana Bread and Sweet Potato Loaf.
I've baked very little in the past couple years since I was having hand surgeries but it is now nearly a year and a half since the last. I still can't open doors with my left hand and have to be careful not to drop things.
Every surgery would mean that that entire palm would peel so I now have no calluses left and a lot of the padding in the palms of my hands is gone. It leaves one feeling very vulnerable, especially when my hands were fairly strong for their small size. I had to realize I was doing things with the tips pf my fingers that others did with more of their finger and therefor it was not such a strain. I finger a drill "creatively" as I can't reach the control with my index finger. I use the middle one.

James painted this this fall. It is one of a series he has been working on. He has a show at Kingfisher Used Books in April and one in Nelson, BC this summer.
Our son and his girlfriend are moving from Victoria back to Calgary. I believe it will be a positive move for them as that is where they have many connections in the arts community. I've a feeling Victoria has been a lonely winter and not their common idyllic weather either. They had snow and the whole nine yards! Larry is preceding and Lisa will follow when her current job is done.
I've continued knitting on the Nifty Nitters but have signed up for some real knitting classes later this month. I can't imagine it would be as fast. I can make a toque in an evening. It remains to be seen where this will lead.
I want to find places to give some away to cold folks but I also am toying with whether I could make enough selling them, in which case those may need to be embellished.
"Heartbeat" is about to come on the TV. I mustn't miss that!

It's a new year.

Sometimes life is a mystery.
For some unknown reason the computer gremlin decides to underline everything - in blue! - from time to time.
As you can see it's still winter but we have had a week without new snow which is reason enough for hope. The weather here has moderated while everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains is locked in a relentless deep freeze - minus 40 degrees some places!!! Brrrr.
For Christmas I bought myself a set of circular looms (Nifty Nitters) which work on the same principle as the spool knitting we did as children. I've been making touques for my husband and I and a few left over.
Last fall my sister bought me a kit with eye lash yarn to crochet a shawl but I could not see to stitch it. Knitting with a strand of worsted yarn and a strand on eyelash on the loom I can see! and I can figure how I'll do the shawl. The eyelash was red with black and I used black worsted and made a really soft and fuzzy hat. I have a "fat head" and most commercial hats are too tight. I've finished 3 touques and then dug out a lap robe I started 10 years ago and finished it. It is crocheted in blues in a lacy ripple pattern.
Right now I'm making a soft hat of an very irregular novelty yarn in pinks and mauves, along with a Federalist Blue worsted, then I may go back to the shawl.
The cats very much approve of the thaw. What was over 2 feet of snow has sunk down to from 8 inches to a foot of hard frozen snow which supports their weight and yesterday they both had to go out and scoot up the electric pole just because it was there.
This time of year, and with as deep snow as we've had, they begin suffering from Cabin Fever and taking up various naughty habits. Skeeter has decided she likes the sound of pencils played with on the floor. She's found the cup I keep them in on a buffet and has been choosing her own. She also is tearing little bits off the newspapers we start the fire with and eating my plants. A nice romp over the snow is good for her!
James saw the elk in the neighbour's field last night - barely, as it was after dark, but the field is white and the elk aren't.
Now that it isn't 15 below Celsius anymore James and Bruce have started working on the conversion of the changing rooms from the old pool at the Wynndel Hall. They are removing walls and making them into a place for the Wynndel Mudders to work in clay and not have to put tables away each time.

Winter persists!

Christmas is over! I'm ready for spring.
These pictures were taken yesterday and we even had a bit of blue sky but now it is snowing again, and snowing, and snowing, and snowing.


The picture above is of Goat Mountain, looking north from our deck. The rule is you can take as many pictures as you can without putting boots on!
This Thompson Mtn where the fire lookout is. It's to the east of us and following the ridge south is the Skimmerhorn.
The picture below is the Skimmerhorn. It was taken Dec 10, before it started to snow down at our level.

A Merry Christmas to All

When morning comes our trees and bushes will still be robed in snow, but this is a winter scene James painted a couple years back.
I have been carefully turning the Christmas lights out over night because of power concerns but tonight they are tinting the steadily falling snow - very peaceful from our vantage point but a real problem for travelers and others at this time. I just read Greyhound has suspended bus service from Vancouver until it is safe to continue. I sympathize with folks stuck in a terminal somewhere not getting home for Christmas.
Later today James and I plan to go have dinner with my mom at Swan Valley Lodge. It's not the sort of weather to take frail elderly out in.
I bought myself a set of Nifty Nitters (circular looms that do large spool knitting) and am making a few toques for this winter. It doesn't seem at this point that it ever develops a smooth rhythm like crochet or regular knitting. I do enjoy crocheting but haven't mastered knitting. I got the Nifty Knitters specifically to use with a red and black eyelash yarn my sister gave me to make a shawl. The pattern called for crochet but I could not see the stitches and I plan to use the circular looms and knit a black yarn with the eyelash and hope I can see that. Another of the joys of aging.
Saturday is Creston's Christmas bird count. I had said I would watch our feeder and hoped to have one on the other side of the house. I have not seen any birds at the feeder in a long time. They like it in spring and fall but really don't like this location in winter. Maybe next year.
Poor James got to celebrate Christmas Eve by plumbing as the sink faucet decided to spring a good leak. Unfortunately "progress" has changed the parts available and they no longer make 1/2 inch supply hoses. They don't even make fittings to go from the 1/2 inch supply valve to the hose so it will mean more parts and a more involved job. There's no cold water in the kitchen until at least Saturday when the parts stores open again.
Well, now it is 4:16 am and maybe I should try sleeping again. You would think I was waiting for Santa!

Little flakes, big flakes, little flakes, big flakes........

It's snowing tiny flakes just now and at 2:30 pm it feels like night. Dec 21st - the shortest day of the year and James always looks forward to it with anticipation as tomorrow the days start getting longer. Yeh!!!!
I think we are almost safely into our quiet, reclusive Christmas. I got up this morning with grand intentions of going in to town to find an elusive gift for my mom to put under the tree at Swan Valley Lodge.It's so hard to shop for someone who doesn't need (or want) anything. I buy her cut flowers because if I bring a plant she promptly gives it away, lest it die! When you're 87 you deserve fresh flowers all the time. My resolve melted with the falling snow and we're just staying warm.
James has been racking wine. We will have lovely berry wine on the deck next summer. I should be baking something (she said unenthusiastically). The lasitude of the season is upon us. I want biscotti but I need to bake something softer for James first.
My sister visited recently and brought eyelash yarn for a shawl but I can't see the stitches when I crochet it. It is the joy of growing old!

The cats are not happy about our weather. Bandy sits at the door with his ears at an irritated angle and if I open the slider for him he looks insulted. Little Skeeter is such a faithful hunter that she has to go out for a bit every day but she's not impressed either.
Well, back to the football game! That's what this weather is good for.

The seasons change

The picture above was taken this morning. It was -17 Celsius which works out to 1 degree Fahrenheit - very cold, especially with a wind.
The picture below was taken last Tues. We've had a very long and open fall - quite lovely.
This is our little town. Today it is lacking one of it's historic buildings, built in the early 40's, Sunset Seed (known to old timers as "The Pea Shed" because at one time Creston grew many, many peas) burned to the ground on Thurs night.
http://www.crestondaily.com/news.html
I'm told my grandfather may have been the contractor for it. Grandpa Good was a fine carpenter and built a number of buildings and homes around Creston.
The last 2 weekends James and I were busy at craft fairs, one, the Creston Arts Council Christmas Craft Fair and one, the Wynndel Christmas Craft Fair.
I make calendars and cards from photos of James' paintings and we sell them. It's been a busy time.
Now it's so cold I can't think and the lower photo may portray my aspirations more closely.
Larry and Lisa will be in Victoria this Christmas and we anticipate a quiet time at home.

Another Thanksgiving

The truth be known, the leaves have mostly fallen off the trees and it's frosty mornings and ice on the puddles and any day could bring snow. Tomorrow is our son Larry's birthday. I remember when....
Next week will be American Thanksgiving which falls on James' birthday this year and the anniversary of the day we met 39 years ago, can it be so long?!
Sat the 29th is the Christmas Craft Fair and the next Saturday is the Wynndel Craft Fair and then we may get a chance to rest a wee bit.
Right now we are very busy with calendars. Every year I make calendars of James' paintings which we sell, along with cards, at the craft fairs. James likes this better than when he had to help lug in my bird houses to sell.
Sadly, because of the recurring problems with my hands I have had to give up building bird houses.
My hero has been a friend of ours, Ted Diakew, who said "I'm retiring" from doing spectacular pottery, and on a given day, he invited all his friends, threw a retirement party, and quit. I have had to ease into it, but I now can say "I don't build bird houses any more." It is still hard.

This is James bull floating concrete, while our friends Sandy Kunze and Bruce Johnston help, as they pour the floor for the storage room for the Wynndel Mudders' "Mud Hut."

The Wynndel Mudders are a group of us who work in clay and we are retrofitting the old changing rooms at the Wynndel Hall into a place to use for our work.
I think they just squeaked in under the wire on pouring the concrete before the freezing begins.
As we were cleaning up and finishing up from the "pour" yesterday we looked up to see 3 eagles soaring by. I have never seen more than one at a time before and even one I receive as a blessing.
When we were growing up in the 50's and 60's we never saw an eagle but happily their numbers are getting pretty healthy.
The other day as I was heading out for town I looked up in one of our bare poplars and there sat a fat little pygmy owl. He looked like a little ball with a tail. He was probably looking for little brown birds, but even the little owls have to eat.

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!

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.

http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/exhibition.aspx?zone=B&mapID=9

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/509942 Note # 7

http://www.azuremagazine.com/newsviews/blog_content.php?id=1119 Note: Artist to meet.

http://flickr.com/search/?q=nuit%20blanche%20corvidae&w=all&s=int

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.

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.

That fallish time of year

The day before fall officially began our weather turned cool and rainy and fall was here.
Not many trees have turned colour yet but even on warm days there is a coolness and as soon as the sun sets, which is earlier every day (at 6:00 pm this evening), there is a chill in the air.
As we're getting ready for winter we look forward to a killing frost, not because we wish an end to the growing season or to the of the flowers in the garden, but we look forward to less wasps. They are a plague this year. Their nests are in every nook and cranny and this weather has them very grumpy. On cool days they are not so evident, but these sunny warm days they are really busy and really cranky.
We have praying mantis this year.
Today we found 5 praying mantis on the side of one of our raised beds.
Praying mantis are new to our area, but if you want something to expand it's territory this is a good candidate as they eat many, many unwanted insects and do no harm. Besides, they are truly wonderful, being up to 4 or more inches in length at maturity.
Here's an article about how they are expanding their territory in British Columbia and a history of how they even came to North America.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4139/is_200712/ai_n21279234

Praying mantis change colour depending on what they are on and we've seen them anywhere from a pale fawn wheat colour, to bright green, to dark green, and to a rich brown. Their egg cases are a pale brown dried bubbly looking affair that can be found stuck on a board or other object. It is sort of oval shaped. If we find one we can photograph I'll add the picture later.

This was a nature weekend. On our way home from town on Saturday afternoon James and I were in separate vehicles and a minute or so apart, and we both saw a badger cross the road going from left to right at the foot of the rise before our gate. We think it was likely two separate animals, but even one is wonderful. They are red listed in our area and they too are a very beneficial sort of wildlife.

Badgers will dig out the burrows of gophers and stay until their job is finished before moving on.

James has seen geese flying south. The white tailed deer who only weeks ago were a lovely red have turned to their grayer fall and winter coat.

It is hunting season. We do not hunt nor do we let anyone hunt on our land and I always am cheering for the wildlife. We know that people poach and we have no interest confronting someone who may well have been drinking, and we know they have a gun. It affects our ability to enjoy our wild land as not all hunters are careful. Soon enough, though, the season will be over.

Afternoon Excursions

James and I took an excursion today to Nelson - a flying one as James was helping paint the tourist kiosk this morning - so we left at 1:00 and were back by 5:45.

Our friends Lyn and Eric Johnson have a daughter Laura who is about Larry's age. She has opened a chocolate desert restaurant in Nelson called the Cocoa Nut Lounge.

We did indulge! I had a great piece of very cinnamon's apple pie - one where the apples are cut very fine and stacked with not a lot of "goo" between and not a lot of sugar - a "best" choice for a diabetic.

James had bitter chocolate cake with about 3 kinds of chocolate and heavy, very chocolaty icing. He felt as if he overdid it. It would have been better shared.

Laura needs some art work for December so we went to see the venue and agreed to "participate."

We also wanted to check out the Craft Connection where I sold many, many birdhouses over the years. The Craft Connection is the best run artist owned co-op I know of - always well run, very professional, and very high quality crafts. They have bought their own building and it has an art gallery in the basement so it was necessary to scope that out too.

We entertained ourselves by noting all the pieces to the "new wardrobe" we saw along the pass. Some poor menopausal woman must have gone before us as first there was a black, quilted jacket, and then a red sweatshirt, and still further on a pink T-shirt, and at the top of the pass all discretion had gone to the wind and there were TWO (you never see two!) gloves on the road!

We also saw about 8 mountain sheep who were so unconcerned I could have reached out the window and patted them. Fortunately everyone slowed down for the silly creatures.

The little red bushes and Mountain Ashe berries at the top of Kootenay Pass are brilliant! There is still Indian Paintbrush blooming at the summit along with Pearly Everlastings and Asters. A very pretty day.

We got back to town in time to call our friend, Betty, and meet her for dinner at DQ.

After our very rich desert at the Cocoa Nut Lounge simple fare seemed quite attractive.

Fall approaches

As you see, James has another show of his new work at the Creston Public Library.
James has 13 new paintings in the meeting room and will have several other pieces of work in the main library.
We had an enjoyable opening Friday night and then all adjourned to the Snoring Sasquatch Hostel and Music Venue for the CD launch of Elena Yeung's CD "The Gravedigger's Daughter." That girl can sing!
Elena has taught herself banjo and the songs on the album are ones she has written herself and are truly great work. She has former Juno nominee, Mark Koenig, accompanying her on guitar, Karl Sommerfeld on fiddle, Gary Snow on standup bass, as well as a number of other very talented musicians. Our neighbour, Peter McLennan, did the cover photography and the photos are of the old house I was raised in.
Earlier, actually in May, our friend Mark Koenig released his CD ," "Livin' this Life," for which James provided the cover (and inside) artwork. James painted a loose portrait of Mark holding a lovely rooster for the cover and Mark used several of James' tractor, and old car pictures inside.
With ArtWalk over for another year this was the day James and I travelled up to Riondel to pick up his paintings from Bob's Bar and Grill. It was a lovely sunny fall day, clear as clear could be. We visited with a couple local artists at Bob's and then thought we'd take a brief detour to Nelson.
No such luck! As we approached the ferry landing the boat was just pulling away. We decided not to wait the hour and a half for the next ferry crossing but to pop into Fairy Treats for a snack (they always have good home style baking) and meander our way back home along the east shore of Kootenay Lake.
Stopping at Lockhart Beach we took our annual end of summer stroll and as it was such a sunny day we wandered longer than many other times. Often this late in the summer there is a cold wind coming down off the mountains across the lake to the west. Not this year. It was just great.
We found 20 or more bright orange little butterflies having a drink in some damp sand and warming their wings. I'm not sure what they are. They are shaped like a Mourning Cloak with dark outer wings but the insides are bright orange and spotted. I will have to look them up.
We also found a number of lovely little miniature villages someone (or ones) had built, some all of tiny stones and one with battlements of tiny 4 or 6 inch driftwood twigs and with rows of "trees" of fir tree cones.
We stopped and talked with several of the folks who were enjoying the sunshine and then continued our way home.
Too soon the nice warm weather will be done.

It's been quite the summer!

It has been a while!!!

The summer has gone briskly by while we seemed to be spinning at times.

After our trip to Calgary and the launches of ArtWalk in Creston and Riondel I took the time to go on a brief Greyhound Bus trip with my sister to Duncan, BC to visit an ailing auntie and my cousins nearby.

Auntie Lorine fell and broke her hip earlier and was hospitalized and then in a seniors facility. First there was the hope she could go home eventually but it became apparent more care was needed. At the time we visited she was in a "transition bed" and, the day we arrived, her family (and many other families) had been informed the facility was closing in a month (an illegal government maneuver which is being appealed) and the 100 residents would either go to the new 50 bed unit that was opening, and already had a 100 person waiting list, or perhaps hover in the air!!!

There has been much brew haw haw since and the BC Ombudsman has just recently said there will be an inquiry into the bed situation and closings of beds and moving around our elderly and separations of families.

At one point, when it was pointed out that moving fragile elderly could cause an attrition (read death rate) of 25% the man in charge had the gall to say he could live with those figures.

Obviously, it wasn't his mother!!!

Fortunately, at this time my aunt is stronger than when we saw her and has been moved to a more permanent situation for her, but it was flash backs to getting my mother into adequate care.

The day after I arrived home, even before I could get a shower!!!, the pump on the well went out. We had a week of hauling water, begging showers, and bucket flushing.

I grew up without a well and my dad hauled water in barrels which was transferred into a barrel by the door and bucketed into the house, but we had an outhouse, and the lack of one was not handy, and James was hauling water for 2 households as our son and his girl friend have spent the summer in the guest house.

So, the pond did not get its liner. The new pump and PVC pipe came to very near $3000.00, but when we remember the former pump lasted for 20 years the cost is not so bad. Also, a very special blessing is that, in getting rid of the old galvanized pipe, we got rid of our rusty water problem!!!

James taught his week long class in acrylic painting at the college again this summer and we helped organize and put on a summer long show of artist's hand pulled prints at the library.

It has been a slow tourist year but nice to see those we have.

James and I got fishing licences for the first time in years and, though I've only made it once, James has gone a few times and brought home a tasty meal.

My computer had serious problems and was in the shop on and off for nearly 2 weeks - not quite as long as Skeeter had to be at the vets. Poor wee tweep, we don't know what she did but she very badly cut the top of a back foot and the inside of that thigh.

The doctor bandaged her foot and stitched her leg and kept her in so she'd be quiet and heal, and a week later when she should have been able to come home she pulled out all her stitches and had to be restitched and more extensively bandaged and didn't get to come home for another 2 weeks!

Skeeter is home now and up to her old tricks, spending some of her nights out, and generally loving "out" so much more than "in." She came home favoring that leg but is improving quickly.

Larry and Lisa are in the process of moving to Victoria where Lisa will work as a nanny to her sister's little ones while her sister writes her master's thesis.

I'm feeling like summer will be over and I haven't done any of the work I had planned. With car sharing, and running too and fro, I haven't worked on any art myself. Also, I absolutely melt in hot weather and end up just sitting in front of the fan. I have great plans for reordering rooms as it is absolute gridlock of my and my mother's stuff since last summer. I want to move the woodworking out of the room it is in and make that room into expanded gallery and a place to work in fabric. That part of the house, the shop, is 4 steps lower than house and on a concrete floor and cooler!!! in the summer.

A friend of ours has just "retired" from pottery. He has for many years been a master potter but felt it "was time."

I have not had such success in "retiring" from birdhouses. I actually finished 3 recently and as one went as a wedding gift, and one sold, I'll need to finish a couple more. I did inform all the businesses that had carried them over the years that I wouldn't be able to supply them but I believe I can still make them for our own gallery and sell a few on line - at least until I've found another medium to work in.

The joy has been not having hand surgery this summer - the first in 3 years - and that is the incentive NOT to build too many birdhouses as it aggravated the condition of my hands.