Painting the picket fence, tender leaves and buttercups

I only do this job in bits and pieces, and have started with the inside of the fence, the part we see from the window that was all dingy, even though it wasn't too noticeable when the birds were gathered on the ground and around the bird feeders, and your eyes were not focused on the fence.

But when you put on your 'company' eyes, oh my, - it called out for some attention!  And so I went to the Irly Bird store and bought a couple of gallons of white recycled outside paint, and doing a couple of hours at a time over the last few days I have it looking quite respectable.  From the house side......

From the street side, where walkers and talkers pass by, it still has patches where the paint has worn off and it looks sad, shabby and neglected, so tomorrow, when it is warm and the sun will be shining, I will pretty up those pickets that are seen by the world in general!

Painting in patches often leaves you with extra paint in the bottom of the can, and I have been using this up on the steps and the garden furniture, and to clean the brushes I have been squeezing out the last bit and decorating the wheelbarrow.

And I spruced up the coffee bench and table with a new coat of blue paint....

I know this sounds quite mundane, - what is exciting about painting the picket fence??  Huckleberry Finn passes through my mind......  Mark Twain certainly did well by writing about painting fences.  However, I must be content with finding a great deal of satisfaction in welcoming spring this way, and look forward to lazy summer days when I can potter around or read, or day dream, without being nagged by raggedy tagged fences and unhappy looking benches and tables

So after a few days of brushes and paint buckets I welcomed an invitation to have Sunday brunch at the Grist Mill with an old friend and her daughter, and a further invitation to accompany them on a drive south through the Chapaka Indian Reserve to the U.S. border.

I was amazed that even ten miles south of us Spring had set up an encampment, planted buttercups along the roadside and tenderly opened the green leaves of spring on poplars and willows and small bushes.

Foliage at the Grist Mill.   Changes as we travel south.....

 Past vineyards  and high peaks beyond the Similkameen mountains that tower, snow covered.

To where the river winds under the Red Bridge to the Reserve

and along the meadows  - not cattle in the distance but bee hives,

 wintering on the Reserve

We reach the small Roman Catholic Church that lies close to the Border

I couldn't get the square bell tower into the picture from the back seat of the car, and would have

got out to take a better picture, but there were people there and I didn't want to intrude.

Here is a small picture with all the car paraphernalia included.......

and here are the buttercups, although I know you will have to search to find them and my

Photoshop skills aren't great enough to make them more visible.  And I really mucked up 

the blues and greens trying!!!!!

It was a lovely afternoon - we came home and had tea and exotic shortbreads from the Bakery.

Linden Gardens

ABC Wednesday
April 2nd, 2014

The letter is the elegant L, which stands today for Lovely Linden Gardens

Located about 10 minutes south of Penticton in the orcharding community of Kaleden, Linden Gardens was a pioneer fruit farm.for seventy-five years before the 1990's. 

Now it is a most resplendent nine acre garden with flowers and trees and shrubs, ponds and streams and winding pathways, and at its entrance The Frog City Restaurant which serves home made bread, soups and salads for a snack for garden lovers and wonderful full course meals for celebrations!  A perfect spot for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and reunions!

The Class of '42, (Penticton High)  before its numbers diminished, held their last two annual reunions there, and these are pictures taken in May of 2012 as we wandered through this beautiful acreage.

And some of the graduates of the Class, seventy years on, - still dear friends bound by memories and close association through the years.

I think small town schools are perfect places for fostering Long Lasting Liasons, and I count some
of Charles' classmates of '42 amongst my dearest friends.

Many thanks to Roger and Denise of ABC Wednesday.  Visit here for more interesting L's!!!

A Different Pathway Home

I rose early this morning with thoughts of baking uppermost in my mind.  The recipes were laid out on the kitchen table, and some of the ingredients.- I was making 'squares' (or do you call them 'slices' ) for a funeral reception tomorrow.  Because I have passed the time when I can scurry around with the younger ladies, setting tables, making sandwiches, feeding multitudes and cleaning up after I now concentrate on leisurely baking goodies, and usually promise two.  So this morning I made a nice lemon concoction and a pan of rich chocolate brownies.

But what  has really been on my mind the last few days is a wonderful trip we ( son Sid, and I) made through the hills and lakes above Okanagan Falls as we wended our way homeward after seeing the bone man who did such a marvelous job in mending my broken wrist.

There is the quick way to get home from Penticton, along the highways, but there are also a few ways that are even more of an adventure, where small lakes appear beside roads winding through the hills before they connect up with the highway, and we chose one of these lovely drives on Tuesday.

As we turned off the highway we looked back upon the meadows and mountains of the Okanagan Valley.

and soon came to Green Lake, still rimmed with the beautiful dried grasses of autumn and swimming with Mallards who came closer to shore as we stopped to admire the clear green spring waters.

Some of the hills have been turned into vast vineyards and there are vestiges of old homesteads, 

built by early settlers.

We came eventually to Mahoney lake, located on the Mahoney Ecological Reserve and protected by a post and rail fence from damage by motor vehicles.

Mahoney is an extreme Saline Lake, well known around the world in ecological circles.    It is 18 m deep and occupies a kettle basin of glacial origin - a 'meromictic lake' in which much of the water remains unmixed with the main water mass and which fails to have the typical spring and fall overturns. A layer of purple sulphur bacteria extends completely across the lake at about 7 metres in depth and it is said to be the finest example of a purple sulphate bacterial plate known to occur in the world.  There is a small opening in the surrounding fence to allow 'foot' visitors to read this information on an information plaque

Continuing on we reached the Willowbrook Road, a more inhabited agricultural area where the roads join, but further on is the White Lake Ecological Reserve where we stopped to take a picture of the Lake. 

 As we rolled down the windows of the SUV we were delighted to hear the first Meadowlark song of the season, - not just one meadowlark, but a conversation!!!!  Marvelous!  It is a family tradition that he/she who hears the first meadowlark of the spring is mightily blessed!!!!  As we intrude on the meadows with our homes and tightly planted orchards the meadowlark is not as plentiful or generous with its beautiful melody so this really warmed our hearts!!!

Off in the distance lies the White Lake Observatory about which I have posted in the dim past,

 and likely will again, sometime.

We pass by typical rock formations and follow the winding road that borders Twin Lakes and the golf course of many memories.....

I miss the wonderful leisurely drives Charles and I used to take, along with the camera, but I appreciate the generosity of time. the conversations and the empathy our sons show in traveling with me 

through the byways and back country roads.  Good fellows all....!

Keremeos Columns

ABC Wednesday
March 26th, 2014

The letter is K for Keremeos Columns

Picture by Sid Finch

The Keremeos Columns are tall columns of basalt resulting from Volcanic activity 

some thirty million years ago,  located in the Similkameen hills and
overlooking the town of Keremeos.

They are thirty meters high and form a l00 meter-wide cliff with more or less regular fractures of basalt which followed further cooling of the already crystallized liquid lava, 

just like mud cracks after a puddle has dried.

These  volcanic monuments of slowly cooled lava with the characteristic vertically hexagonal columnar jointing of basalt  loom out of the surrounding forest.

This is the same geological phenomenon that has formed the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

and the Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

It is possible to drive to within fairly close proximity to the Columns, 

but permission must be obtained from the owner of the gate that accesses the road.

If you choose to walk it is a three to four hour hike through forest and meadows,

uphill all the way!!!

The spectacular view of the valley below, and the grandeur of the columns themselves

makes it all worth while.

For more interpretations of the letter K klick here to visit

ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Roger and Denise

and all their visiting helpers.

This and That

It's like being on a roller coaster!!!  Or inside a kaleidoscope!

April is fickle, but March is just totally confused and can't make up it's mind what the day shall be. So it vacillates.....

The catkins grow longer each day, fringing the branches of the hazelnut with a golden glow in the sunlight, and quivering gracefully when the March winds pass through.

I am lured outside by the sunlight, which may or may not last as long as my energy and enthusiasm for tidying beds and raking leaves and poking carefully around the little dry sticks left on the perennials, looking for signs that something is stirring!!!  Especially with the new bed of peonies, - did I plant them too deeply?  Did their roots have time to settle in before November brought the frost and snow?

And somehow my enthusiasm exceeds my energy, and I remain outside, lost to time and indications of creaking knees, so that the whole garden operation results in days like this, spent indoors doing this and that and the other thing, while my knees recover.

I finish the thumb on my latest pair of fingerless gloves, made from Navajo plied singles

And I read a chapter of the Quick Read I brought home from the library the other day - The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.  It is a novel inspired in part by the historic figure of Sarah Grimke who with her sister Angelina played a large part in advocating women's rights and the abolition of slavery, especially before the Civil War.  I am only on page 59 but expect the book to live up to the praises on its jacket.

I tinker with my new bedside CD player and radio, looking for a station that will carry me through the night with soft music, and bemoan the fact that it is no longer possible to get a multi disk CD player. Technology changes so quickly and I am continually learning about new ways of doing things from children and grandchildren when sometimes I would be quite content to just carry on with those things I am familiar with.

This afternoon the finals of the women's world curling championship will be on the Sports Channel, and the Canadian team are at the top and will be playing for Gold - I sent my timer so that I won't miss it!!  And search for a scarf pattern to cast on lovely lilac wool while I watch.....

This and that, and the day passes from sunshine to clouds, - a little shower, perhaps a cold March wind just passing through.  Lovely white clouds in the east - a dark curtain in the west that speaks of rain.  Never a chance to get bored with the weather in March......

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet

If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,

If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun

And crocus fires are kindling one by one:

Sing, robin, sing:

I still am sore in doubt concerning spring.

Christina Rossetti

ABC Wednesday
March 19th, 2014

The Letter is J, for Jelly Roll

When we were young and newly married we were part of a Veterans' community involved in establishing a new orchard project on the Cawston Bench, - the Fairview Heights Irrigation District.

Amongst our many friends was a War Bride from the United Kingdom who brought with her two great accomplishments;  the knack of gathering together friends for wonderful parties, (most of which eventually included a round of Knees Up Mother Brown),  and her elegant and delicate way with Jelly Rolls!  They were the star of most tea parties, and she was generous with the recipe, - which follows....

Norma's Lemon Jelly Roll

4 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp hot water
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sifted flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of sale
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Lightly beat the egg yolks, gradually beating in 1/2 cup of the sugar.  Continue beating at a high speed until thick and very pale in colour.  Beat in water and vanilla.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, folding it into the yolk mixture.  Set aside and wash beater thoroughly.

In a large bowl beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until peaks form; gradually beat in the remaining sugar until stiff shiny peaks form.  Fold the yolk mixture into the egg whites with a rubber spatula, turn into a prepared 15x10 inch jelly roll pan lined with parchment or waxed paper.

Bake at 325 F for 25 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly touched.

****sprinkle icing sugar over tea towel; invert cake on  top.  Remove paper and gently roll the cake in the tea towel from the long side......   Let it cool on a rack.

Unroll the cake when it is cool and spread with Lemon Curd.  Re-roll and dust with icing sugar....

Put it on your best plate and prepare for accolades....

****this is the delicate part

If you're going to make this for a party here's a little bonus to make things even gayer!

For more interpretations of the letter J join Denise and Roger and all their helpers

  here at ABC Wednesday!

with many thanks.

Oh, this week has been quite perfect.  Blue skies every day, - warm sun and that lovely spring energy that urges you to be outside; tempts you into the garden even before the breakfast dishes are done!!!

I have been raking leaves, cutting down last year's dry flower stalks and poking around where

the earth is soft, looking for precocious pale green stubs, rich red folds of awakening peonies, and baby daggers amid last year's beds of iris.

Marvelous to have been released from gingerly treading on slippery ice to a springy step on dry ground!!

A wonderful drive on Sunday, over the Richter Pass and into the south Okanagan, 

looping up through Oliver and Okanagan Falls and then back on the

highway to the Similkameen.

All the baby calves and the beautiful naples yellow of the grasses, tinged with the emerging greens

of spring.  A sharp shinned hawk sits in the sun, with vigilant eye....

Too early, I know, but I imagined that aura of green that surrounds the poplar trees

before they burst into leaf!  And the gold of the willows as the sap rises!!

I have been very remiss in visiting in blogland, but the temptation to be outside 

has been overwhelming......

Tonight, as I came to the computer after a busy day outside, I found this

poem from Wendell Berry's  'Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems'

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

continuing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now, more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

It seemed to describe so well and poignantly the space I now occupy.

Idioms

ABC Wednesday
March 12th, 2014

The letter this week is I
I for Idiom

An Idiom is a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definition of the individual words.

Phrases such as:  singing the blues

at your fingertips

nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs 

 jumping in with both feet

yesterday's news

spit nails

Well, you get the drift!!!

For more great interpretations of the letter I idle on over to ABC Wednesday, here, 

with thanks to Denise and Roger and all their intrepid and industrious helpers.