This and That...

I am falling behind on the things I want to say, - to write about.  The week has flown by, - two wonderful mornings in the garden, but now we are into the monsoons, Similkameen fashion.....

Yesterday we had company all day, - the nice, interesting man who is doing a book on Veterans and comes to talk to Charles - or to listen to Charles, had French Onion Soup with us at lunchtime.  Then I left them to their conversation and went off to play piano for the Purples (Royal Purples, - lodge).


On my way home I stopped at the Variety Store to talk to Sharon, my daughter-in-law, to see if the knee length dresses she promised me were going to be delivered soon had arrived.  Alas, no, - all her beautiful dresses are for beautiful young ladies and inclined to make Great Grandmas look like mutton dressed as lamb!  Nevertheless she had a lovely surprise for me, - holding the phone out as I came in the door she said, it's for you, Grandma, and it was !  Our lovely granddaughter who lives away had come to visit for a few days, and was wanting to see us.  I scurried home and soon she arrived.....

What a lovely visit we had, - so much to catch up on.  When this family were younger their mother home schooled them, and once a week I was lucky enough to have them for a day while Mum caught up with other things.  Noni was passionate about words and writing and she told me yesterday about some poetry she had had accepted.  We had about an hour to talk before her cousin came to pick her up!

Accompanied by her son and two new energetic and enthusiastic puppies 

who immediately fell in love with Grandpa ....

and when they deserted his knee to go and terrorize Miss Callie the Cat and eat all her food, and drink all her water, Grandpa soon had a loving great grandson in their place

We were late with supper but it was a happy and wonderful whirlwind of family and pets

 and energy and love.

The little Shitzu reminded me of Caspar and brought back memories of happy times together, sigh.....

ABC Wednesday
March 23rd, 2011

J is the letter we are honouring this week

J is for Jasper, Alberta

A real Mountain style Canadian town,  Jasper's roots go back to 1811 when David Thompson got his men to build a base here while searching for a tracking route through the Rockies.

Today it is a 'relaxed mix of rustic lodges, cappuccino bars, eateries, a cinema, contemporary and historic Canadian art galleries and museums, excellent indoor sports and swimming and a friendly town with a permanent populations of 4.500 residents.

Jasper is now the commercial centre of Jasper National Park, located in the Athabaska River valley

It is a special municipality with governance shared between the Municipality and the Federal Parks Canada Agency, but in the beginning  it was first a North West Company, and later Hudson's Bay Company fur trade outpost on the York Factory Express trade route to what was then called New Caledonia, but is now British Columbia.

Jasper is a railway town, - the siding at the location was established by Grand Trunk Pacific and originally named Fitzhugh after a Grand Trunk vice president.  The local paper is still called  The Fitzhugh.

The Athabaska Valley and the surrounding Rocky Mountains enhance the beauty of the area.

The Maligne Park underground river, close to Jasper

and beautiful Spirit Island

The animals that live in Jasper National Park are a common sight around the town.

An awe inspiring Parkway runs between Jasper and Lake Louise, to the south with beautiful glaciers and ice fields

and in the winter Jasper Ski Resort gives tourists a great feeling of final frontier skiing.    There are no on-mountain accommodations because of the beautiful and highly conserved wildlife habitat, so tourists and skiers must stay in Jasper and ski at the Marmot Basin.  Jasper is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most pristine and protected environments in the world.

A most magnificent place to visit!

For more great J's visit here at ABC Wednesday with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her wonderful helpers.

March 18th, 2011

Yesterday, - what a lovely morning!

The clouds are light and buoyed with whipped cream, so they float  airily through a bright blue summery sky.

The air is still, and warm.  Breakfast over, and I am out in the garden, tackling the rest of the golden straw mulch and Charles is warming up the tractor....

I poke around, moving dead leaves and grass, and underneath the daffodils lie in a beautiful thick mat, tenderly green and bursting with promise .The tulips and grape hyacinth are pushing sword-like through the damp earth and finally the hellebore stubs make themselves known and strive to be part of this sweet March morning.

We come in for lunch, and in the distance I hear the West Wind whining and moaning, spurred on by Old Man Winter where he loiters in the hills.   Enough, he says, in a querulous voice - they've had enough - a small taste is plenty - go, go now and blow up a storm, - scatter those summer clouds and make room for my dark brooding babies.

And so the West Wind comes and blows the top off one of the bird feeders, whirling the others around while the little birds cling to the edges, and the crows caw caw and wheel through the air and down into the orchards, and the sky grows grey and sombre.

Today I am making muffins - the tractor man is hunched at his computer, listening to music and reading the news..  Off to the west the hills are hidden by misty clouds.  Snow falls on the mountain tops. But the promise of spring is still green in the garden, and we look for Tomorrow and content ourselves with the forsythia sticks and pussy willows blooming in the house.

Charles is much more sanguine than I about this late spring and constant snowfall in the hills as

he anticipates the underground aquifiers in the valley being replenished from the snow pack as it sinks and spreads itself into the ground.

March 17th, 2001

St.Patrick's Day

The Passing of the Gael

from Ethna Carbery's "The Four Winds of Eirinn"

They are going, going, going from the valleys and the hills

they are leaving far behind them heathery moor and mountain rills,

All the wealth of hawthorn hedges where the brown thrush sways and thrills

They are going, shy-eyed cailins, and lads so straight and tall

From the purple peaks of Kerry, from the crags of wild Imaal,

From the greening plains of Mayo, and the glens of Donegal.

They are leaving pleasant places, shores with snowy sands outspread;

Blue and lonely lakes a-stirring when the wind stirs overhead;

Tender living hearts that love them, and the graves of kindred dead.

They shall carry to the distant land a tear-drop in the eye

And some shall go uncomforted, their days an endless sigh

For Kathalen No Houlihan's sad face until they die.

Oh, Kathaleen No Houlihan, your road's a thorny way,

And 'tis a faithful soul would walk on the flints with you for aye,

Would walk the sharp and cruel flints until his locks grew grey,

So some must wander to the East, and some must wander West;

Some seek the white wastes of the North and some a Southern nest;

Yet never shall they sleep so sweet as on your mother breast.

Within the city streets, hot hurried full of care

A sudden dream shall bring them a whiff of Irish air -

A cool air, faintly-scented, blown soft from otherwhere

Oh, the cabins long-deserted!  Olden memories awake.

Oh, the pleasant, pleasant places!  Hush! the blackbird in the brake!

Oh, the dear and kindly voices!  Now their hearts are fain to ache.

And no foreign skies hold beauty like the rainy skies they knew;

Nor any night-wind cool the brow as did the foggy dew.

They are going, going, going and we cannot bid them stay;

Their fields are now the stranger's, where the stranger's cattle stray,

Oh! Kathaleen No Houlihan, your way's a thorny way!

UFO's and other delightful visitors

It was early in the morning when the UFO appeared.

There was just a hint of a nice day to come after all the brooding skies we have had pressing down upon us.

It came wrapped in an ordinary plastic grocery bag, hiding its heavenly blue wooliness as it slipped in the door, accompanied by our younger daughter who had found it loitering in the local Legion canteen....abandoned, alas, by the Past President of the Branch.

UFO's are not new to this house.  They first began to make their appearance in the early years of our marriage when I was awakened to crafty enthusiasms, some of which were carried forward to a triumphant maturity, but others who sadly morphed into UnFinished Objects....UFO's.

I remember well my first  'almost' UFO which narrowly escaped being a full blown UnFinished Object by my wiliness in turning a sweater I was knitting for my father into a Vest, with no Sleeves.  It was the first of many, and occasionally I come across an unfinished piece of embroidery, tucked away at the bottom of a basket, or a warp, cut from the loom in frustration while the half a yard of woven fabric that preceded it was turned into a skinny pillow, or a little bag, - or perhaps just a reminder of another 'dog' on the loom, folded neatly away and forgotten.

I have a soft white sweater still on needles, accompanied by a pattern, - the front, the back and one sleeve half done.  Perhaps I could ask our daughter to take it to the Canteen where someone might fall in love with it and with the click of the needles, take it from it's UFO stage to what it was meant to be.

As I plan to do with the heavenly blue cable knit vest that has been sitting around for the past decade,  bemoaning its fate, ever since the Past President gave up knitting,

It arrived along with six or eight extra balls of this lovely blue Sidar wool that I can dream about knitting into a pretty lace scarf.

I have all the instructions, which appeared somewhat bizarre when I first glanced at them but which now are quite orderly and readable.  I have finished the last row which the PP abandoned midway across the back, and am just waiting for an hour or two when all is quiet and I can begin to rescue this lovely UFO from its erstwhile fate.

I could have done it this morning when Charles was away at 'singing' if I had just remembered to turn the freezer part of the fridge back on last night so that it wouldn't have leaked water all over the kitchen floor, - which Charles, being first up, sloshed through on his way to turn on the coffee pot, - and which resulted in me having to concoct a vegetable soup from all the veggies that had grown soft and soggy in the warm freezer, - and which also resulted in us having a shrimp stir fry for supper tonight to rescue the limp shrimp....

But then, that's another story.....and I wouldn't want to distract you from thoughts you might be having about UFO's that could be hiding in dim, dark corners of your Craft Room....

ABC Wednesday
March 16th, 2011

The letter this week is I and I stands for a country of great beauty,  romance and oft times great hardship, begorra.......to Irish the world over the wonderfully nostalgic homeland of  Ireland
with its ancient history, its music and its culture, all ties that tug at her children wherever they may roam.

From this Link I offer this very condensed version of the story of the Irish race.

It is said that the genuine Irish (Celtic) people of today are descended from Milesius of Spain, whose sons invaded and possessed themselves of Ireland a thousand years before Christ, and brought a powerful aristocracy to add to the Firbolg and the Tuatha De Danann peoples who populated Ireland at that time..  the Fibbolgs having been forced into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Dannan,  a capable and cultured, highly civilized people, skilled in arts and crafts to such an extent that the Firblogs and the later Milesius created a mythology around them, and named then necromancers.

In a raging four day battle on the Mayo-Galway border the Tuatha De Dannann overthrew the Firblogs, but so bravely did the Firblogs fight that the De Dannann left that quarter of the Island wherein they fought to the Firblogs, - the province now called Connaught.

The struggle is commemorated by many cairns and pillars strewn on the great battle plain in Sligo.

Scotia was one of the earliest names of Ireland and the people were commonly called Scots.  One of its ancient titles was Hibernia, mostly traced from Eber or Heber, the first Milesian king, just as the much later name, Ireland, is by some traced from Ir, whose family were in the northeaster corner of the island.  Its own inhabitants called it Eire, - hence Eireland - Ireland.

"This Isle is sacred named by all the ancients,

From times remotest in the womb of Chronos,

This Isle which rises over the waves of ocean,

Is covered with a sod of rich luxuriance,

And peopled far and wide by the Hiberni"

by Rufus Avienus, written at the beginning of the fourth century.

And, of course, we all know that it is the land of the "Little People" - the Pots of Gold, the Fairies and those of the general population who have that slightly 'fey' look, as if they had ' just had breakfast with a Leprechaun'.

Charles and I both have Irish ancestry, - his from the Border country of Tipperary and County Clare....
the land of the Shamrock and the forty shades of green

and from whence his O'Callaghan ancestors came to Canada with the Peter Robinson Settlers,
By 1840 James O'Callaghan (C's great great grandfather) had purchased land
in Emily Township, in Upper Canada

and mine from Antrim, where my emigrant Scots ancestors settled in the early 18th century

and where they became part of the MasThamais native Gaelic Sept of County Cavan, and anglicized the name to Thompson, instead of MacCavish

John Thompson's reasons for coming to Canada have not yet become apparent, but his arrival at the time of the American Revolution indicate he may have come to serve in the British Army, and his eventual settlement on granted Clergy land in Stormont  County strengthens this suggestion.

He married an emigrant lass from Kincardinshire whose name, of course, was Arbuthnot.

Here is a charming touristy video about Ireland,  - do listen and you might become enchanted.....

For more takes on the letter I visit here at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt

 and her crew of kindly helpers.

Bits and Pieces

This is how I feel my days are, - bits and pieces and somewhat fractured..

Can I blame this on the weather?  It is all in bits and pieces too, and somewhat fractured.  Early in the morning the skies are grey and melancholy;  the sun makes an effort to break through and the sky lightens somewhat, and then finally he (the sun) bursts forth and breaks the grey of the sky into pieces, proclaiming his dominion and carrying with him bright blue skies and if not white clouds, at least pearly grey.

That lasts for an hour or two, and then the wind comes hurtling from the west, causing confusion and chaos, - a few grains of sleety snow swirl around the trees, the starlings all rise in alarm and the sun hurries away behind that same grey sky that bore down upon us in the morning.

All in the name of March - a mecurial and tempermental month if ever there was one!  It is all fits and starts, and one never quite knows where one is with this moody month.

So perhaps I can cast a little blame on the weather for my somewhat melancholy demeanor.  And yet, having lived this long I know that all years are not the same - spring doesn't arrive on a set date, - she either dillies and dallies along the way, or she bursts upon the scene in glorious array before anyone is ready for her.

And then it comes upon me that the blossoms in Japan won't be as sweet this spring, and that I need to apply some Lenten patience and discipline to my wayward whingeing.......and so I do.

It is the Happy Hour and I am off to pour a small libation and toast the Ides of March that will soon be upon us.

ABC Wednesday
March 9th, 2011

The letter this week is H


H stands for one of the loveliest and most welcome of perennial spring flowers - the Hellebore.  The Hellebore comes early, - if it is a Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) you may find it in your garden in January, but this year even the Lenten Rose (Helleborus orientalis) is going to have to hurry along if it is going to bloom before Ash Wednesday!

Yesterday in the garden it was shy and unaccommodating - only the very tips of the promising, pregnant stubs pushing through the frozen ground.

and I had to hunt up last year's March pictures of this sweet and delicate bloom

some of them a little tattered and past their prime, but always beautiful

For more great interpretations of the letter H click here, at ABC Wednesday, with

thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her kind helpers.

Anticipation, anticipation!

At last the day has arrived.  There are snow flurries in the mountains to the east, but mainly the clouds sail on bright blue seas and the wind is gentle.

I have scurried around, - put dinner on in the slow cooker, set the bread machine so that in another fifteen minutes it will be groaning and whining as it takes over kneading duties.  The bed is made, the dishwasher stacked, and I'm off with wheelbarrow, shears and rake and hoe to lay waste to the fall debris in the garden and make a general inspection of any greenery that might be approaching the surface to unfurl its verdant banner.

The year we moved to town from the farm we planted potatoes in our lovely riverside garden, ( the one with the deep black loam, and room for a pony)  on the 4th of March, but this is a different spring and today is a little jewel glowing in a stormy setting, - gradually milding temperature but rain and snow flurries all around for the rest of the week as Old Man Winter huffs and puffs his way out of the valley, reluctant to leave and throwing little tantrums all the while.

I'm off!  Delighted and stoked with energy.....

ABC Wednesday
March 2, 2011

The Great letter today is the letter G


G is for Gardens - please come and wander a bit with me in this one, and we'll stop for tea!




For more interpretations of the letter G visit here at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her kind crew.

If you had your druthers

What would you like to do on this wintry February day when the snow is so thick I can't see the Cawston Hills, or even K Mountain, just across the valley from us.

Suppose it was summertime........

Mary Cassett

and you could go boating on a sea shell

or with Berthe Morisot who painted this lovely picture of two friends chatting

 as they enjoyed a day on the river.

would you like to join this party of Renoir's friends at an after boating luncheon?

Louis Aston Knight?

or would you prefer a little country fishing?

Frank Weston Benson

perhaps you could gather on this New England beach in your summery best, under a blue sky

 and the gauzy clouds of summer

Sorolla y Bastida

and afterwards, -  take the children to the sea  in Spain,  for the Bathing Hour....

Wherever your imagination takes you it will be a warm day 

with only the faintest breeze to stir the air; 

a leafy bower to shade you if you  decide to just languish

 with a novel and a frosty glass of lemonade

or would you like a little mint with that and a dash of gin?

Awash in books!  Brand new books, old favourites, a number recommended in blogland, and they all arrived at once over the library desk....

Plus three Adobe Digital Books that I thought would be ages coming!

I have put off getting some of the library books until the last minute, to give myself a little more reading time, and if I were really clever I would quickly devour the ones that I know someone else is eagerly awaiting because for sure there will be no renewing them.

But I'm not clever, - I'm sentimental, and I am living at Stillmeadow with Gladys Taber these days, as I have many other times over the years, - I keep going back to the mid twentieth century when her work originally captivated me, first in the Ladies' Home Journal and Family Circle as monthly columns, and then I became passionate about her books describing the life she, her friend Jill, and their children lived in a heritage house built in 1690 just off Jeremy Swamp Road near Southbury in Connecticut.

Gladys Taber died in 1980 and  her books, of course,  have a remarkable fragrance of those simpler times which I find appealing.  The recipes she includes are the lovely comfort kind, - food that that was quite at home in my kitchen and could often be found baking in the oven or simmering on top of the stove.

She was my inspiration for gardening and for cultivating the awareness of beauty in country life;  in the comings and goings of birds and wildlife and in the appreciation for the simple rural way of life.

And yet, she also was very aware of the dangers that threatened that rural life, and her daughter Constance has said....

 " Gladys was one of the first to write about the dangers of uncontrolled development in Connecticut.  If she were alive today she would undoubtedly be finishing a book on land conservation.


Her books clearly depict Stillmeadow and its world as symbolic of something larger than one family, one town:  a way of life very precious and inevitably endangered.


Somewhat prophetically, in Stillmeadow Sampler, a book of essays first published in 1950, Gladys Taber wrote about a zoning meeting she attended in Southbury:  "It was a grim picture.  Business was bound to come; light industries were already shopping for land.  The quiet country farms were already going and developments would take over...  Eventually, of course, we will have to have some sort of plan to guide future developments.  Somehow we must protect the wooded hills, the greening meadows, the clean, sweet-running brooks, and the historic white houses - they are a precious heritage"


I only have a few more pages of this lovely book to read, and then I will set it aside until next time my hand and eye and heart are drawn to it.

Tomorrow I will start to read Alan Bradley's new book,  " A Red Herring without Mustard" which begins with the quote....."a cup of ale without a wench, why, alas, 'tis like an egg without salt or a red herring without mustard"   from A Looking Glass for London and Englande (1592) by Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene. and features the further adventures of Flavia de Luce, "the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven year old  sleuth" who is the heroine of this series (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag).

The wind still blows with a chilling vengeance but I am looking forward to March coming in like a Lamb!

ABC Wednesday
for February 23rd, 2011

The Letter of note this week is F, and F is for Flash Mob

Twenty-two million people have already watched this Fantastic Flash dancing to Julie Andrews and the Sound of Music in the Antwerp Central Station.

Nevertheless it is the best one I have Found on my search tonight, so if you have already seen it, I hope you will enjoy it again!  I'm sure you will, - watch for the happy looks on the spectator's faces, and the spontaneous dance steps they do as they join in!



For more great F's visit here at ABC Wednesday with many thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and her crew.

Friday, February 18th, 2011

A cold wind, - some blue sky to the north with clouds heaped up like dumplings, but the wind is miserable, - it whines as it scurries down the street in town, and I hurry with my shopping and errands.  I was bewitched by the  cornflower blue of the clear sky and came out without a scarf.  Before I was finished in town a large black cloud had appeared and the wind was wild and blowing granular bits of snow in erratic patterns.

We came home to a warm lunch and poignant thoughts of a mild day yesterday that had sent me out into the garden, filling bird feeders and moving straw back and forth, peering to see how the foxgloves had survived the winter and if the hellebores were going to make it for Lent.  Ah well, I see these alternating winter/spring days are prevalent in blogland, even in those parts where the snowdrops are blooming.

I have to be content with looking at pictures of the garden in bygone days.

Apricots in the Lost Garden

The promise of all this lovely jungley growth where today 

there are only dried, bleak remnants of last year's

fall splendour.

That pretty annual vine that I bought at a Garden Club sale and that grew 

and bloomed so beautifully,  Although I buy the seeds each year and the plants grow I

have never had a bloom on it like this again.  But

that won't deter me from trying again this year.

Remember how the black-eyes Susan carpeted the hills in early spring

and the bloom on the apple trees wafted their fragrance  along the lane

where Caspar and I went walking

the sweetness of the Violets

the tender new growth along the banks of the creek

and the lush beauty of the white peony!!!!

I could show you the Iris and the Poppy and the Roses and the passengers

alighting from the Chinese Lantern Underground Railway,

but it is bedtime, so I will tuck in with my dreams

and try to be patient.......

Life is eternal and love is immortal;
And death is only a horizon,
And a horizon is
nothing save the limit of our sight. - Rossiter W. Raymond