July 14th, 2012

Saturday afternoon.......Monday morning....

I have been a long time away.  Completely zonked as far as blogging is concerned.  I keep coming back, hoping time and inspiration will be on my side, but no....life goes on but I don't seem to be fully participating.

and now Monday evening....

Over coffee this morning Charles and I got to discussing the wonderful yodeling a ninety-one year old friend of ours entertained us with at the Singers' Summer Potluck, - an event hosted by the group Charles sings with every Wednesday morning.

One thing led to another.  We reminisced about another old and good friend who played guitar, sang Wilf Carter songs and was an outstanding yodeller;  well known during World War 11 for entertaining his fellow soldiers, and always popular at parties and get-togethers when we all settled to grow fruit on the Fairview Height Veterans Land project.

We remembered in particular a reunion of Charles' crew members in 1997.   Charles was Seconded to the RAF so there were Scottish and English members of the crew as well, - and one Trinidadian. The overseas  crew flew into Calgary.  Charles and I met them there with a bright red Van and wetravelled leisurely through the Rockies, across central B.C., down the Okanagan Valley and home to Keremeos. 

When we reached home our children had prepared a wonderful party for our visitors and for our friends in Keremeos who were so anxious to meet these men who had kept their comradeship alive for over fifty years.  At that time Bill, our yodelling friend, sang those wonderful Wilf Carter western cowboy songs and delighted us all once again.  He is sitting beside Charles in one of the pictures below.

Brownie, the Wireless Op, had a movie camera with him and sent us pictures.

We spent the rest of this morning watching the tape on the VCR, with a great deal of poignancy.

Amazingly four of the crew are still alive, but so many of our dear friends who were

with us that day have now left us, except when they are in the room with us,

laughing and talking on the screen, and we would wish to reach out and touch their 

dear hands and hear their voices again.

Sentimental I fear, but there you are.  We are lonely for those

familiar friends who have gone on before us.

July 10th, 2012

Texture Tuesday submission

A spring morning at Ginty's Pond.  After a while a nesting

pair of Mallards and a family of Racoons  enlivened the waters

but the resident turtles stayed under their log home.

Kim's Phoebe at Multiply 41% and

Luminous Soft Light at 46%

ABC Wednesday
July 10th, 2012

Z is the letter for this week, and we are once more through the alphabet with hundreds of

 wonderful postings to this great meme.

Z is for Zillah

Ah yes, Zillah, who drank too much gin - the last of the Gashlelycrumb Tinies, created by Edward Corey

And Zillah, Dorcas's faithful servant in Lark Rise to Candleford

Zillah, in Genesis, was one of the wives of Cain's descendant, Lamech

and the mother of Tubalcain and Naamah

I have no pictures, - you will have to use your imagination!!

However, somehow this biblical Zillah has become one with 

Zillah, a second generation Vampire from White Wolf Wiki,  (as far as I can understand)

and some of you may have read or seen this fantasy character

or played the game.

But,  Wikipedia has a picture of Zillah, a vampire from The Lost Souls,

written by Poppy Z. Brite

Just a few hundred miles from the Canada-USA border in Yakima County

I came upon pictures of the town of Zillah, named after

Zillah Oakes, who cried so pitifully when she was being moved to this town with her family

that her father promised to name the town after her, if she would just stop crying.

I read that in Wikipedia!!!

It is vineyard country, that probably at one time was full of apple orchards. and an old 

picture of the town looks very much like Keremeos in early days.

A remnant of those olden days in Zillah is an historical building.

The Teapot Dome Gas Station

It was built in the 1920's as a gas station, and a reminder of the Teapot Dome scandal, originally

located on the outskirts of town, but the building was moved into the center of Zillah

where it is now used as a Visitor's Information Centre. (Center) 

Zillah, a lovely, musical name that I was not familiar with before,

but find slipping off my tongue quite pleasantly.

For more Z's click here, with many thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt for originating this meme

and to all her Zany helpers who assist in keeping it fresh and fun.

July 8th, 2012

By cool Siloam's shady rill
how sweet the lily grows
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
of Sharon's dewy rose.

Richard Heber

It is the time of the lilies, and they are so beautiful here in the town garden, and in the

garden on the hill.

Mary Oliver writes endearingly of the Lily, - of all lilies

I have been thinking

about living

like the lilies

that blow in the fields.

They rise and fall

in the edge of the wind,

and have no shelter

from the tongues of the cattle,

and have no closets or cupboards,

and have no legs.

Still I would like to be

as wonderful

as the old idea.

But if I were a lily

I think I would wait all day

for the green face

of the hummingbird

to touch me.

What I mean is,

could I forget myself

even in those feathery fields?

When Van Gogh

preached to the poor

of course he wanted to save someone -

most of all himself.

He wasn't a lily,

and wandering through the bright fields

only gave him more ideas

it would take his life to solve.

I think I will always be lonely

in this world, where the cattle

graze like a black and white river -

where the vanishing lilies

melt, without protest, on their tongues -

where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,

just rises and floats away.

And do you know,  it is the last two lines of this poem that touch me most, and

which I find quite sweetly enticing.

"where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,

just rises and floats away.

illustration Amy Wolfe

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is Y


For Yellow, Yellow, Yellow

The Brightest and Happiest of Colours

For more interpretations of the letter Y visit here,

at ABC Wednesday

with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her helpers.

July 2nd, 2012

My Maiden Aunt

Hildred Evelyn Thompson  ca 1918

Bd. July 2nd, 1903

D.  Nov. 26th, 1994

My grandparents were both descendants of United Empire Loyalist who had settled

on land in Southern Ontario after the American Revolution.

Before they came West they lived in Chesterville, where this picture of

Hildred, their youngest daughter, was taken.

and here, the family  in a visit to say goodbye to her Grandfather, before 

the journey west to Calgary.

Before a half a dozen years had passed my father, leaning on the left side of the post

had been wounded at Cambrai in the First World War,

and Harriet and Edith,  my other two Aunts at the right had married

and then tragically died in the Influenza Epidemic of 1918.

When my Aunt Hildred had finished school she became a secretary, working for the

 United Grain Growers of Alberta.   She became engaged, but didn't marry when her fiance turned 

out to be a  rascal and a bounder, so that when I began spending childhood summers in Calgary

she was there, at my Grandparents' home, beloved of all her nieces and nephews.

The epitome of kindness, love, generosity and patience.

I loved her dearly.

The last gift of all is Remembrance and I hope I can pass that on to my family

so that her memory is cherished at least for another generation. 

July 1st, 2012
Canada Day

Raising the Flag!!!

Charles, ever resourceful when presented with a crisp new Canadian Flag
 and  part of a flagpole with halyard.........

No cleat or snaps or truck or fancy ornamental ball, but those are mere bagatelle, sure to be found  buried somewhere in a sixty-five year accumulation of treasures.  That would be Charles' treasures, his father's, and some of his grandfather's......

A trip to the resting place of a lot of these treasures (the garage at the house on the hill). where we found lengths of metal tubing which would extend the flagpole to its wanted heights, providing they all fit together.  We will take them all, just to make sure!

We chanced upon the grandson who now lives in our house on the hill and he very kindly offered a helping hand, much to my relief.  I am happy to be a go-fer, and even a swamper,  but sometimes the Boss gets a little terse when I fail to understand what he wants and I was not too familiar with how a flagpole gets raised, or just what he had in mind.

The fellows laid the various bits and pieces out a fitted them together so that they had quite a decent looking

pole on which to attach the Halyard, and this, I think, they poked down the support for the gate to the side garden.  I wasn't there for this part of the operation, having been sent to find snaps to attach the flag. And a metal ring which I think was meant to guide the Halyard as it raised the flag to the top of the pole.

This involved trying to find my embroidering basket where I knew I had a very small set
of metal embroidery rings.
 All in vain, but I did find a silver bangle that I felt might do the trick, and look quite elegant as well.

The bracelet, however, was dismissed disdainfully, and replaced 

with a precious dog collar that probably belonged to Charles' first Border Collie, 

a never to be surpassed sheep dog, faithful and well loved.

There was a bit of measuring and a general scurrying around, looking for snaps with which to attach the flag.

Going over to the hardware store to buy what was needed does not figure in the fun of this adventure....

Eventually the rope (Halyard) was run through the loops on the snaps and the snaps were attached to the flag. even though I had not yet sewn on the tabs which were to make this whole operation neat and tidy.

For now we did not worry about the fancy ornamental top to the flagpole, 

or the cleat to wrap the rope around.

The flag men, satisfied with the morning's work, stopped for a peanut butter sandwich and admired their handiwork.  Our grandson has the makings of a fine Redneck - when needs must the handy

rise to the occasion.....

An eagle circled the sky above us, giving final approval before it drifted off to

 the south-east and down the Valley

A breeze caught the folds of the flag and the maple leaf flew proudly over the roses and delphinium below.

Happy Canada Day and many thanks to David
 and his determined and enthusiastic grandfather....

My apologies for Bloggers random insertion of a white background in text lines.

What are those little men up to!!!!

Friday, June 29th, 2012

A drive to take the lay of the land, - and the river.

On Sunday the blue skies that had been quite gorgeous in the morning were tenuous in the afternoon, - threatened by large puffy thunderhead type clouds and a few morose fellows hanging around the tops of the mountains.

We hadn't seen what was happening with the river, but the news from the rest of British Columbia talked about lakes topping their basins and rivers escaping their banks;  creeks going mad and frothing down mountainsides and through towns, and the mighty Fraser threatening northern towns and the southern estuary.  Could we escape this great expanse of water spreading over the countryside
and into the cities and villages?   We cross the Red Bridge...

Over to the right the talus slides have a green and cream aura of growth, refreshed by spring rains.

Would you like to have that rock looming over where you live??

We turn back towards Keremeos on the far side of the river.  The water flows swiftly

but orderly, down under the Engineers Single Lane Bridge  that connects the

Rodeo Grounds and the south side ranches with town.

Charles stops at the end of the road and I step out of the SUV to catch a snapshot

of the Similkameen, with stern orders to stay well away from

the edge of the river bank..... and I do!

I point the camera up and down and across the river and note

 the island sandbars that have built up over the years, covered with poplar trees,

not completely covered by the water as they have been in other years at flood time.

We pass the big houses of the city people who have come to retire in this lovely valley,

and the working ranches.

The rock on the far left of the picture  below is Charles'  'measuring rock'

and as we cross the Engineers Bridge we remark how some years it is completely covered,

and  we wonder why this year the valley has not had a recalcitrant river

to deal with  when other parts of the province have been

so sorely tried. 

And are thankful!!

June 28th, 2012

The Memorial to the brave men of Bomber Command, unveiled this day by the Queen

in Green Park, London

The resident Lancaster Pilot with part of his crew (missing from the picture, George and Bob,

the Engineer and the Navigator)

A rather bittersweet day with even yet so many negative comments about the morality of it all underlying this late recognition of courage on the part of these young men who fought the war

when there was no other defensive front.

And the Nazis chose well to place their munitions factories and railway transport centres

under cover of Dresden Shepherdesses so that it would appear Bomber Command was attacking

only civilian citizens in this most romantic of German cities with its connotations of porcelain and delicacy.

Does nobody remember the constant barrage of London over so many months early in the war, 

when they had the upper hand, and the terrible stress and loss of life that Londoners were subjected
 to by the Luftwaffe, night after night after night??  And Coventry...

Anyway, the Lancaster Pilot here does appreciate the Memorial  and the fact that it was funded

solely by private donation;  only sorry that half of his crew are no longer alive.

(you will note that Blogger is being difficult - again!)

ABC Wednesday
June 27th, 2012

The letter this week is the elusive X

So I have chosen Jan Baptist Xavery to represent the letter X.

He was a sculptor, born in Antwerp on the 30th of March, 1697, the son of  sculptor, Albertus Xavery, who quite probably taught him before Jan Baptist went on to more advanced training.

In 1725 he became a member of the Confrerie Pictura and in the same year he married Maria Christina Robart.  They had two sons, who both became painters.

Jan Baptist Xavery became Court Sculptor to Prince William IV of Orange Nassau,

He died in 1742 at the age of forty-five.

Here are two of his works.   The first is entitled 'Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl'

and the second is a Relief in the St. Bavochurch in Haarlem

It is always a scramble to find another X word, but if you go here

to ABC Wednesday you will find a great variety.

Monday, June 25th, 2012

My sidebar is stale!

It has been carrying the same comments, the same pictures, the same labels, the same old same old for probably two years now.  Maybe even more.

It is time to have a change - time to shake my shoulders, roll my eyes and fly a bit.

What is it that I find wise and wonderful right now, this minute?

It seems that it is not only my sidebar that is stale;  it seems that I, myself, have grown old and dry and covered with dust.  I think I have been reading too many blogs by young, vibrant women.  Blogs about Art and Book Clubs, and Style and Dubsteps, and besides that the weather is moody and miserable and it is making my bones ache.  You can tell we are in the middle of a Low Pressure System and I have been wandering too far away from home in Blogland!!!

On the plus side I have been reading Essays from 'The Best American Essays, 2009' edited by Mary Oliver. And in particular an essay by Chris Arthur who expounds the virtues and attraction of the genre of the Essay.  As does Mary Oliver, in her Introduction.

They are 'preaching to the converted' here.  I have always liked  Essays, - both reading them and writing them, - they seem so complete and so 'tight' in their brevity and focus  I am not speaking of the Essay as utilized by schools and Universities where they are used as a way of assessing a student's comprehension and writing skills.  I am speaking of what is called a 'Familiar" essay written on a one-to-one basis  - the writer to the reader.  They may be critical or they may be personal or a combination of both, but they have a warmth to them that keeps one reading and pondering, almost like a conversation.

Chris Arthur is writing about his memories of his childhood home, and in particular about the pillars that guarded the gateway.  He says "I always see Shandon's pillars lit by mellow sunlight.  Even as it warms my recollection, I know this distillate of a hundred perfect summer days cannot be real........while not 'true to life' in the sense of constituting a faithful reproduction of a camera's snapshot, is, at a deeper lever, far more accurate than any photograph could claim to be.  Memory's version captures a truth about the place..........Memory can offer up the richness of imagining where a photograph would only dole out the thin gruel of the visually literal".

I grew up in a city, and do not have the same childhood memories of adventures in large outdoor spaces that he speaks of, but I have heard our children talk about the memories of growing up in the country - the freedom they had to explore, the caves, the waterfalls, the ravines and the small wildlife that inhabited the valley, and I wonder if they always see the days 'lit by mellow sunlight'?.   And I wonder how their memories are coloured by the richness of imagination.

And even though my memories are confined to city spaces one of my most familiar and satisfying is of a shortcut to school through a lane lined with wild roses, and the heady fragrance of that space in June.

What a lovely comfort memory is to us as we reach the 'ancient' years - and I have distracted myself from the task of sprucing up my Sidebar.  But watch, I will be on the lookout for wise words and beautiful images.                                                                                                                          

Chris Arthur has a new book of essays, "On the Shoreline of Knowledge" 

and on his website are these words.

Anyone who can look attentively, think freely and write clearly can be an essayist;

no other qualifications are needed.

Graham Good