Emily's Christmas Concert

Emily performed as a caroler in the Christmas concert. School concerts are all so amazing! The teachers spend so much time finding the perfect play then taking the kids through the practices, arranging for music and costumes and scenery! It was a pleasure to attend.

After we came home I realized that Emily and the other girl in the caroler group reminded me of Mom's group of carolers that we decorate with every Christmas. I have always called them the angel choir until now.

Still Cold!

Susan hosted a lovely tea party for a few folks that included 4 young ladies and their chauffeurs. Susan went to an incredible amount of work, as you can see when you look at the table and all the goodies.

After the tea the girls enjoyed one another's company while the adults continued to visit.

This delightful tea party occurred the same day as the first power outage so we were just delighted to be invited out. Susan is fortunate enough to live in the area that only experienced one power outage this week.

The girls were treated to a game of poor manners by adults that they were encouraged to point out. This caused much laughter and many people had their elbows indicated!

I must be Diarmid's mother!

This is how I dressed for breakfast yesterday morning.

Ranting happens on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. I have had enough! The cold weather is bad enough but when we have power outages during the very cold weather it makes me rant!

Tonight I walked over to Bell's house to put their newspaper inside - they have the great fortune to be in Mexico this week. Since they left the temperatures have sunk to highs of -10. Tonight it is -12 but that doesn't even feel too bad any more. Good thing because the worst is yet to come! We here in the West Kootenays usually fare much better than most of the other interior folks and this cold snap is no exception. As Mom would have said - so this is global warming, eh.

Yesterday I awoke to a power outage as well. That one had already lasted 2 hours and I thought that I should just stay in my little cave of bedclothes until it was restored. Well bed is only comfortable for so long! I persevered and power was restored after a 3 hour outage at 9AM. The indoor temperature was 16, outside -11. Thus the breakfast garb.

This house has hot water heat. It takes a whole lot longer to warm up a house with hot water heat. The house was almost warmed up by the time that I went out yesterday afternoon at 2:30PM.

Tonight I left work intending to pick up a few groceries and come home to make butter tarts and spaghetti sauce. Ha! When I reached the turn-off to the mall, the traffic lights were out. As I waited in line for the 4-way stop procedure I noticed that the lights were off at the Aquatic Center. By this time I could not avoid turning into the mall and I noticed that all the lights were out on this side of the lake as well. Oh, oh. All of the mall lights were off but as I proceeded out of the other end of the mall parking lot, that traffic light was in operation, giving me great hope that Safeway might be open. Dreamer. As I came closer to home I was hopeful that the lights would miraculously come on as I drove up the street. Lit a bunch of candles. Called the neighbours to find out how long the outage had been before I got home - went out about 4PM. As it cooled down I decided to make a fire with the lovely wood that Gordon had brought over and left in a box in the carport - I called him the wood fairy that day. Other days he has been the shovelling fairy, the rototilling fairy, the power washing fairy - all of those lovely things that just happen while I am at work.

I had been saving the wood for a special occasion and today was it! The fire warmed up the house and has almost gone out now. I even decided that I could warm up some beans and make a cup of tea. Now I think that I'm allergic to wood smoke as well as everything else, all the coughing while stoking. The power was restored just about the time that the water boiled for the tea. I was going to use the fire-heated water but then I looked into the pot and decided that I didn't want to drink all the ash. Heated the beans in the microwave and made toast to go with them. But I sure could be happy if the power would stay on.

There sure isn't much to do when the power is out, once all the candles are lit. Reading is difficult, can't watch TV and the email is tanatalizingly close at hand. I thought of going back into town but needed to stay here to keep the fire going, then projected forward to the morning when work would rear its ugly head. Electric hot water heat means no shower, no tea, and should I even leave my fire. With hot water heat I worried about the pipes freezing. I was even willing to pass up going to work tomorrow to stay at home & stoke the fire. Would that ever be a long day!

Checking the email after power was restored was quite illuminating (heehee). Primus and I aren't finished yet. Anyone who is contemplating using Primus for their long distance provider should contact me and I can give them the story of Mom's account. Still isn't over.

Well, the rant seems to have calmed so this blog entry has done its work. Fire has died down and it's time for cleaning up and bed. Too bad the basement now smells of wood smoke.

Raspberry Mania

Here are my amazing fall raspberries. They start to ripen around Labor Day and keep going until we have a very heavy frost. So far this year we have had a half-dozen days of frost but apparently it hasn't been that heavy. The leaves are all turning yellow and blowing away but the berries just keep on coming! It's pretty amazing when you freeze your fingers picking berries. There are only enough ripening to pick about once a week now - good thing since it's pretty well dark by the time I get home from work.

Hallowe'en

Emily looked great in her ribbon witch costume and came to hand out candy at my house since they didn't expect to have anyone come to theirs.

Here's the work crew. Deb and I were Hallmark cards, Lisa was a slut, Marg was the new hospital administrator and Vicki dressed in her best orange shirt. The bowl of candy with the

squawking noise was as big a hit as the skull with the gummy worms slithering out of eyeballs and mouth.

More pumpkin carving

After we finished the carving and cleaned up we then ate and ate and ate - another very successful potluck. Thanks to Steve and Thalia for being the great hosts that they always are!

The great display after the lights went out

The great display before the lights went out A couple of interesting designs

This is Emily beside her pumpkin

Pumpkin Carving Party

Here are Emily and Garth with Garth's completed pumpkin.
Here is Emily with a couple of completed pumpkins. Thalia carved the ghost with the "BOO" across the middle.

Carving photos

More carving photos. What a cute little chick!

This was serious business.

Here you can see both Garth and Emily carving.

Victoria October 2008

Incredible scenery looking south towards the US Olympic peninsula. The weather was a bit cloudy when we arrived but cleared up quite nicely as we went along.
Kevin's self-timer worked!
Sooke on the far side of the water and the twisting trail on the spit
My son the amazing photographer - I took the same photo but it was not nearly as nice.

Here is the main gate leading onto the spit

Victoria 2008

This looked like an extremely comfortable piece of driftwood.
Looks can be deceiving!
This is a small area off to one side at the entrance to the park. These two stones are filled with beautiful wooden carvings that are now covered by plexiglass, probably to stop the weathering and erosion. The plaque on the stone cairn to the right in the photo states that the bust on the top was a gift from the Spanish to commemorate their voyage of charting the west coast in the 1790's and has a bust on top of one of the Spaniards. The beautiful coast along the spit
Just an interesting tree that has been shaped by the elements

Victoria

This video is my very amateur attempt to show the relationship between the Empress Hotel, the inner harbour and the legislature, now called the "leg" (pronounced ledge). I think this abbreviation is derived from the website which is www.leg.bc.ca I thought that people who have never been to Victoria might enjoy this, and certainly that might have happened if all of those tourists hadn't been "in my shot" as they say in movieland.

Trip to Victoria October 2008

This is the inner harbour at Victoria with the Empress Hotel across the water all decked out in red vines. Across from the inner harbour are the BC Parliament Buildings. This is the first time that I have actually set foot inside. I didn't take the guided tour as I was not willing to wait the three hours until the next one, but wandered around and looked at everything. My comment: I'm sure glad that this was built 100 years ago - imagine what it would cost today! Here is a slightly different view with the statue of Queen Victoria in front, cast from her younger, slimmer look.
And even further over is the local totem pole that shows this is truly west coast Canadian.

Harrop - Procter Fall Fair

Shirley and Robert invited us to go to the fair with them. We had the BEST corn on the cob that I have had in many years. In the top photo Emily is chosing a bag that she is sporting in the next photo. After we finished browsing all the booths and eating our lunch we went back to Kammerzell's house and had a lovely apple crisp. Another incredibly beautiful day in September in Nelson. The raspberries are just starting so I hope that the frost holds off for at least a couple of weeks.

Spawning Kokanee

I took this short video because I am amazed at how the fish just stay in one spot, in such a big "clump" while the water washes over them. Unfortunately the color of the fish doesn't show up, the bright red with the green heads. We were in too much shade at the time.

Middle of the bloody night - I'm going back to bed soon!

Here is a photo of Emily with the balanced rocks on the sandbar. We didn't even have to get our feet very wet! From the other side - the sun was so warm, the sky so blue, too bad there was still one mosquito who didn't know that summer is over!
Relaxing a bit This is the end of the sandbar, in the form of a question mark. You can just see the ripples in the very shallow water out at the end of the sandbar. My favorite subject Emily) helps with the perspective of size.

Middle of the bloody night - still

This afternoon I picked up Lor and Emily and we went to the spawning channel at Kokanee Creek Park to see that phenomenon that happens every September. I am always amazed by what nature can do, from flowers that work so hard to bloom for only a day or two; my fall raspberries that are just now starting to ripen; and these fish that swim up the creek, turn red, spawn and then die. This first photo is of Lor and Emily on the bridge that spans the channel. At this time of year people hang over the rails to watch the fish gather their strength and then jump up to the next level and then the next, until they reach their particular choice for their nest.
I haven't before seen this many fish in one area but Lor tells me that when she was a school student that the creek was red from one side to the other. The fish population has dropped in the past few years but runs in cycles. This photo is of a sandbar on the lake. Someone has balanced stones carefully so that it almost appears to be a woman with a couple of children behind her.

Middle of the bloody night - part 2

On Sunday we attended the Hills Garlic Festival at New Denver, about a two-hour drive from Nelson up the Slocan Valley, such beautiful scenery along the way. Jim and Kim met us there. Christa and Laurie were there as well but we didn't meet. New Denver is a small community that lists its population as 556. The Garlic Festival used to be held at Hills, an even smaller community a bit to the north. This past weekend there were approximately 5000 people in the community park. It was a lovely September day and the vendors and entertainment and food at the park made it an extremely worth-while trip. This photo was taken while we waited in line for our lunch for about an hour. We knew that we would be waiting that long so it just became part of the fun of the day. The food is Kootenay fabulous and well worth the wait.
This photo was taken at the beach of the community park, along Slocan Lake. Right behind me the magician was performing. I bought 2 of the over 50 varieties of garlic that were for sale. We'll see how they perform when planted.

Middle of the bloody night

You lucky people - you get to follow my mental meanderings when I should be asleep because I have to work in the morning but can't for some silly reason. Last night I tried to ignore all of the thoughts careening around in my head but tonight I decided that I should be productive during my awake period. Now why I can't make myself do some housework I don't know. That would be extremely productive! But likely wouldn't make me feel as sleepy as lying in my bed with my computer on my lap.

Premiere Performance!

Here I am in my new blog because I had used up almost all of the alloted space in the last one. As well, it seemed like a good time to switch what with the end of Mom's funeral. I will try to make a link to the old one - may have to enlist tech support from either Victoria or Yarrawonga.