This and That

A fix-it weekend, and I have on occasion donned my GoFer hat, - and any other required accoutrements. (Runners are almost imperative)

A couple of weeks ago when someone asked me if I was still weaving, I had the gall to answer 'YES'...this in the face of a warp which has been hanging dejectedly for at least six months, waiting to be threaded and tied. I was abashed, and came home determined to get the warp ready for weaving. Which I did, and gained enthusiasm for my silk ribbon project all the while.

All was ready, and I put in the heading, and then a few rows of silk thread, but when I went to beat it down the whole warp slipped forward. Alas, the brake was out of commission... I could see what was wrong, but it was a matter for the Master Technician to deal with. When the cards fall thusly then I am no longer The Master Weaver, but just the Apprenticed GoFer.

A couple of years ago I posted the requirements for this position, and my advice to anyone who found themselves demoted to GoFer. A friend told me it was preferable to 'YouShould', but I'm not sure.

Anyway, between us we got the brake working on the loom, and I thought that might be the best time, within all the glory and praise and thanksgiving, to tell Charles about the washing machine leaking through the wall on to the bedroom rug....

This is a work still in progress, but it has advanced to the stage where the area under the washing machine has now been washed and polished, and all that remains is to push the machine back against the wall and hook up the various pipes and fittings.

Charles had to go to town this morning to pick up parts, and while there he went to see a traveling caravan of World War Two vehicles, and to talk to some of the men who were driving them.

Our daughter was there and took pictures...





And while Charles was away our granddaughter phoned from Nanton, Alberta. She was visiting the Air Museum
there, and talking to Veterans who were attending a special ceremony which involved the twinning of the Village of Nanton with the Village of Senantes, Oise, France.

You can read about the history of this Museum which honours all those associated with Bomber Command and those who participated in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan on fields that dotted the Canadian prairies, by clicking the link above.



'The museum is the custodian of the Ian Bazalgette Memorial Lancaster that was Dedicated in 1990, to the memory of S/L Bazalgette VC who was born just 85 kilometres north of Nanton. S/L Bazalgette died near the Village of Senantes on August 4, 1944 in an attempt to save two of his injured crew members. He is buried in the village churchyard. '



A day that stirred poignant memories....

Supper time rolled around, and I'm here to tell you about one of the perks the GoFer enjoys. Depending upon the amount of energy expended, she/he is privileged to forego the usual dinner time meal and offer peanut butter and honey sandwiches instead. (The Master Technician's favourite!)

Sky Watch Friday - August 13th, 2009

Tonight we are having a wonderful, welcome rain. The blue hills show faintly through the mist, and if you listen carefully when you go out you will hear sweet breathing and contented sighs coming from the garden.

Last night, and the night before the evening show was enchanting.



Tuesday evening, 8.16 p.m.



Tuesday evening at 8.17



and Tuesday evening at 8.18

Just a preview to the fiery rolling clouds on Wednesday.



Wednesday at 8.12 p.m.



..at 8.14 p.m.



at 8.16 p.m. - and here's a bonus. Off to the north, a lovely quiet sky, watching all these fiery shenanigans with a certain serenity.



See wonderful skies from around the world at Sky Watch, by clicking here.

ABC Wednesday

D is for Dawn



The sweetest time of the day.

Dawn in the Similkameen August 5th, 2009 6:41 a.m.

For more delightful D's click here for Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday.

This is the infamous 'barn flower' which every August creates a glorious riot in the front garden.

I don't know it by its elegant name - I originally bought a piece in the lost garden, tucked in a little jog on the southwest corner of the house where it could erupt in all its golden joyousness in a confined space.

Here, where it got plunked towards the back of the bed, it is a beacon and a bane, albeit a beautiful one.

My header picture is a close up of the flowers on this ten foot plant. It has long, dark green, sawtooth leaves and the stems are branched and flexible, - all the better to spread an umbrella over the surrounding daisies and lilies and roses.

Is it familiar to anyone? Or must I go on loving its great exuberance and just calling it 'the common barn flower'........

Kitty Foyle

Once upon a time I had a Kitty Foyle dress, - it was a lovely fine wool, - a soft shade of grey with white collar and cuffs. It came from Johnstone Walkers, in Edmonton, and I wore it to our mother's funeral.

It was a special dress, and one I loved and wore often, but somehow it disappeared from my wardrobe, sadly and mysteriously....

I ran into Kitty Foyle the other day, - do you remember her? There she was, in a used book store, folded between the pages of a sixty cent paper back (original price)!



What a lot of memories she brought back. I was young again, entranced with Ginger Rogers Oscar winning portrayal of Kitty,






And when I thought of Ginger, of course I thought of Fred Astaire.....



We are spending time together now, Kitty Foyle and I. We started off in Philly, and so many years have gone by since I first read Christopher Morley's book about Kitty Foyle that it is all a new adventure to me.

I would love to get the DVD and see the movie again, but old movies make me nostalgic and somewhat sad. It seems like another world. My imagination and Morley's writing will suffice.

Skywatch Friday

An angelic sort of sunrise in the Similkameen, Wednesday, August 5th, 2009.



A variety of beautiful skies from all over the world, - enjoy them at Skywatch Friday by clicking the link on the sidebar.

ABC Wednesday

C is for Castaway

Robinson Crusoe, Gilligan's Island, Alexander Selkirk - all famous castaways, - some of them fictional but Alexander Selkirk an actual castaway from an English Pirate ship.

Three hundred years ago, after a disagreement with his Captain, William Dampier, over the seaworthiness of the ship he sailed on Selkirk demanded that he be set ashore. He was, and although he had second thoughts, the ship sailed off and sank.

Probably just around the next reef!

Selkirk remained in isolation on his island for two years, and was eventually rescued by his former Captain who had survived the sinking of his ship and was back to harassing the Spanish gold ships.

Selkirk went back to pirating, looting Spanish ships and profiting mightily from his activities. Eventually he left the sea and got married, but domesticity was not his cup of tea, and the adventures of the pirate ship lured him back to the waters.

News today of another volunteer cast-a-way. Smoker Geoff Spice is going to great lengths to give up cigarettes by casting himself away on the 40 acre island of Sgarabhaigh (scar'a vay) for thirty days. Other than some sheep Mr. Spice will be on his own and he will be searched to make sure he doesn't have any cigarettes before being let on the island. One desperate phone call will not result in his rescue, - nor two. It will take a third phone call to activate his removal from the island.



To stop him getting bored he will take a guitar, which he hopes to learn to play, an iPod, a mobile phone and a computer (powered by a photo voltaic solar cell with a wind-up handle as a back up to generate electricity.) A castaway on scaravay.......


Tomorrow I am going to work at The Bargain Centre, a place where castaways have another definition, more or less. Some pretty fine castaways from bulging closets are offered for sale at diminutive prices, and in these unhappy economic times the shop gives a whole new meaning to 'castaways'.

"The door to the past is a strange door. It swings open and things pass through it, but they pass in one direction only. No man can return across that threshold, though he can look down still and see the green light waver in the water weeds."
- Loren Eiseley, "The Snout," The Immense Journey

Loren Eiseley

Before Watson and Crick, but first in my affections!

Loren Eiseley, Lewis Thomas, Konrad Lorenz, Robert Ardrey, - these are the authors I was reading in the late Sixties and early Seventies at the time I went back to school to indulge in all the Philosophy courses I could manage.

Loren Eiseley seems passe now, as far as the library is concerned at any rate. He was still searching for the Secret to Life when he wrote about the endless mysteries in his own experiences, and meditating on the long past.

An anthropologist, an imaginative naturalist and a master of prose and poetry, Loren Eiseley fired my imagination and my searching soul.

"When the human mind exists in the
light of reason and no more than reason,
we may say with absolute certainty
that Man and all that made him
will be in that instant gone."
Loren Eiseley

From his Biographical Notes.....

"Loren Corey Eiseley was born on September 3, 1907, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Eiseley learned much from his parents, both of whom were descendants of pioneers. From his mother, Daisy Corey, an amateur artist, he gained an immense appreciation for the beauty of natural structures and creatures. From his father, Clyde Edwin Eiseley, once an itinerant Shakespearean actor, he acquired the sensitivity and expression of a poet. In addition, the Plains environment in which he spent his childhood stimulated his interest in anthropology with its salt flats, ponds, and the mammoth bones and fossil collections of the University of Nebraska museum.
The difficulties of the Depression led Eiseley from work in a chicken hatchery and sporadic attendance at the University of Nebraska to the life of a drifter and rail-rider, to fossil hunting and an academic career in science..... Loren Eiseley died on July 9, 1977"

Eiseley described himself as 'the fox that sits at the edge of the woods'.....

He was admired by W.H. Auden, described as a modern day Thoreau, and yet the discoveries of recent times have dimmed his light.

Only his "Immense Journey" sits on my shelves these days, - I have passed on to family all his other books, hoping to share with them his wisdom and philosophy.

But as I run my hand along the shelves, looking for something to read, invariably I pause at Loren Eiseley, and if I don't slide the book from the shelf I make a mental note to come back soon and read the wonderful natural philosophy he writes with such eloquence.

At the same time I was reading Eiseley 'The Life of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas was not far from my hands.

One of his quotes....

"The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers."
Lewis Thomas

Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

William Blake

We are back to the heavy golden days of August.

The moon tonight is a great orange lantern swinging across the sky, coloured by the smoke of the forest fires that are causing so much distress in the southern part of the province.

The wind, which was cool and refreshing in the early morning, still blows hot off the rocky hills that have been gathering the heat of the sun to their bosom all this long, humid day.

The pair of goldfinch that haunt the sunflowers find a bountiful menu of dark and fulsome seeds. Yellow is the predominant colour in the garden, as a prelude to the rich autumn colours of the chrysanthemum and the sedums.

It is not the month for strenuous activities, and easy to slide into a lovely state of indolence! Afternoons are meant for nodding off, - meals are meant to be light and easily prepared. Enough to dream of the crispness of September and what wonderful things we will accomplish.

In the meantime the Sunflowers 'count the steps of the sun' - feed the little birds, and stretch magnificently into the blueness of the August sky.

SkyWatch Friday

Spectacular Skies in the Similkameen

So many magnificent evening shows I hardly know where to start....

A week ago today, on Thursday, July 23rd, the curtain rose with subtle lights on the hills of the Cawston Basin...



and the setting sun tipped the face of K Mountain.



Five minutes later the eastern sky was a fiery cauldron...



On the 24th a lovely rainbow reached up and pulled the curtain on a more mellow sunset.



First an angelic sky....



followed by the lovely pastels of a fair weather summery sky.



Squint your eyes a little and look at the cloud-clown who stood off a little to the north and watched for the moon floating languidly amongst the clouds in the south.

ABC Wednesday

B is for Ballad and B is for Blues

Here is the Blues Ballad played by Theo Burke, courtesy of The Hills Blues Collective.




Enjoy.....

Summery Days

I'm here to tell you, nobody needs to complain about a miserable summer!! What we are having is a hot, hot, lie on the beach season. If you are past that time of life and an afternoon on the beach is too much to cope with, then find a shady spot, a blanket and a good book!

Around this house we rise early and open up the house for an hour or two, hoping to catch the coolness of the early morning. I push a few buttons, - the coffee pot, the computer - and then Caspar and I go walking....

Sometimes there is a freshness in the air, but for the last few days, when the heat has been intense during most of the day, there lingers in the morning just a trace of yesterday's oppressive warmth. Nevertheless, today started with a refreshing walk, - an exciting encounter with three humming birds exhilarated by their first sips of the day from the feeders, and coolness through the garden path where the sprinklers had been running all night.

Charles works outside until lunchtime, - I can't make it past coffee time at ten o'
clock.

The garden sighs with pleasure as the sprinkler turns lazily, and it is on its own until evening.

The afternoon is for reading and napping; maybe tidying a drawer or two; looking through old photographs to pin up on three newly acquired poster boards.



A little conversation; plans to cut up some old silk blouses into ribbons for weaving when the trailer/loom room is cooler. (An enchanting occupation, - the colours are brilliant and the silk feels cool and crisp, - and besides, it is a plan of long standing and I feel virtue with each long length of ribbon cut.....)



I am re-reading Rose Macauley, and a new to me Canadian author, Susanna Kearsley. Her award winning book "The Winter Sea" tells the story of a dark time in Scottish history when in 1708 an invasion fleet of French and Scottish soldiers were foiled in their attempt to land the exiled James Stewart as the rightful King of Scotland. There is the usual romance, and a touch of the supernatural, - captivating and just right for summer reading.

And then it's 'happy hour'.

The days come one by one, and bring their own charm. The house is cool, and the hours pass pleasantly....life is good!

Silent Sunday

This evening's skies, and a flower or two...



































Amen, Amen, Amen.
And perhaps an Alleluia!!!!!

Sky Watch Friday

July 24th, 2009

Sunset tonight in the eastern sky after a day of storms in the Similkameen - jagged lightning, rolling thunder and pelting rain. Exciting and welcome after long weeks of hot weather.

What a wretched lot of old shriveled creatures we shall be by-and-by.
Never mind - the uglier we get in the eyes of others,
the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship. --George Eliot

I am unloading the dishwasher of yesterday's lunch dishes, and washing and putting away the good cutlery.

As I do it my heart is warm and my memories of yesterday's luncheon delight me.

We invited some friends from Charles' Class of '42 to share a meal with us, and to visit. Most of my invitations these days are by impulse, - if I think too long about them I am inclined to shy away, not being as adept at entertaining as I once was.

Our time together with these old, old friends was full of happy reminiscence, - laughter and good stories of the fellows' school day friendships. Tales of adventure and mischief and sometimes nostalgia.

Wives and husbands have all been adopted into this wonderful fellowship that the Class of '42 has maintained for the last sixty-seven years. Loosely at first, while everyone was scattered and busy with the demands of life and family, but for the last thirty years it has been a close and precious relationship. Far away class members don't have the energy to come to week-end reunions anymore, but the little core of friends who live close by keep the associations alive in small ways.

We lingered long over coffee and dessert. At no time does Charles let the opportunity to talk politics pass him by... We discussed the whereabouts of old school chums. I think they gossiped, - a little! We talked about being ancient, - its pluses and sometimes its drastic effect on health, but we also mused about paintings and modern music and the Dream Cafe. No rocking chair slouches present.

Reluctantly, four hours later we said goodby.

It was so warm and wonderful I could do it again, quite easily! Preferably next week, while the house is still in pristine company condition and the garden has not fallen back into its cheery but disheveled state.



There is nought better to be
With noble souls of company:
There is nought dearer than to wend
With good friends faithful to the end.
This is the love whose fruit is sweet;
Therefore to abide within is meet.
~Mahabharata (B.C.400)