Monday Morning Musings

Monday, October 15th, 2012

I look at the week spread out before me in my daily diary and oh joy! no meetings pencilled in, no medical appointments....

I start the day off by stripping the laundry from the bed and giving the fridge a quick wipe-down and re-arrangement, so that when I open it all will look pristine and organized.  Amazing what that does for one's spirits.

The dark morning clouds roll away to reveal soft blue skies and the occasional sun-lit cloud skimming across the top of the hills.

Last week was so full of meetings and turmoil I barely had time to visit blogland, let alone put any thoughts into a post.  I shall start off today as I mean to go on all week!

Such a lovely day for raking the leaves off the lawn, - a task I accomplished last week, as well, but alas, an autumn breeze came along and scattered a fresh bed of dry leaves around the foot of the tree-that-we-haven't-identified yet.  Yesterday I noticed that the tree in the neighbour's yard that last year was so spectacular is just now beginning to show some promise of colour.

It calls to mind a comment by Allen Lacy in The Gardener's Eye

"Gardeners, like everyone else, live second by second and minute by minute.  What we see at one particular moment is then and there before us.  But there is a second way of seeing.  Seeing with the eye of memory, not the eye of our anatomy, calls up dlays and seasons past and years gone by."

And so I remember past Octobers, when all things worked together for such a glorious array of rich and colourful funeral clothes in trees and hills and ditches and gardens and skies.

And it does seem that the older we get the more years of wonderful memories we have to draw upon!

ABC Wednesday
October 10th, 2010

M is for Missing, and because I am Missing this great Meme I have returned, right in the Middle of the alphabet, to once again take up with ABC Wednesday!

And the M I have chosen for today is Mandrake the Magician.

This is not the serial Mandrake of cartoons and radio and film but our own home-grown Star of the World of Magic who was born Leon Giglio on April 11th, 1911 and raised in New Wesminster, British Columbia, although with his top hat, pencil fine moustache and scarlet-lined cape he bears a strong resemblance to the comic strip character.  Most people would acknowledge this and take for granted that Leon Mandrake was the inspiration for the cartoon.  Phil Davis, the cartoonist, did meet Leon Mandrake and they became good friends, corresponding for many years.

As a child Mandrake was enthralled with some of the great magicians of vaudeville, attending all the shows he could and doing odd jobs for them in return for lessons in magic.  At the age of eleven he performed on the stage of the Edison Theatre in New Weminster as one of the vaudeville acts and at the age of fourteen he bcame the magician for the Moyer's Carnival for the Pacific National Exhibition,  where he learned the art of fire-eating, mind reading and ventriloquism.

By the late 1930's Leon Mandrake had his own magic show and played to sold out performances in Los |Angeles and Las Vegas, billed as one of their biggest box office draws by the Music Corporation of America.

Leon was married to his first wife, Narda, fropm 1939 until 1946.  In 1947 he met and married Velvet, and together 'they were the first team to take a full magic show and tailor it to a night club setting, where the performers were surrounded by their audience.' (Leon Memorial Web Page) http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/mandrake/mandrake.html.

An account of the impressive career Leon and Velvet enjoyed can be found at this Memorial Website, along with information asbout their family, and the enchanting business of Magic which has been passed on to them.

In 1967 Leon and Velvet did a lengthy tour in the Far East and on their return to Canada they began performing at University campuses in Canada and the USA.  They performed their last magic show in 1985 for the Chocolate Festival in Victoria and were filmed by CBC's Fifth Estate.  I wonder if that show is still available in their archives?????  Leon Mandrake died in 1993.

It's lovely to be back and after posting this I will be off to visit other great posts here, at ABC Wednesday.

Saturday, October 6th, 2012

But see, in our open clearing, how golden the melon lies;

Enrich them with sweets and spices and give us the Pumpkin Pie.

                                Margaret Preston          

Thanksgiving Weekend here in Canada and I have just popped the pumpkin pies into the oven!

 

My very favourite, - a pie that floods me with memories of my grandmother and the pies she kept in the cooler, down in the basement - along with the doughnuts and the cookies and all the other delicious baking that she magically produced from the small fold down baking table

in her tiny pantry.

       I used to do pumpkin pies from scratch, - from growing the pumpkin to the choice of spices.

But now, alas, I rely on E.D. Smith and canned milk to make the filling.  Nevertheless, they are declicious, and I made two so that I would have one left to use for Thanksgiving dinner and the other one to grace the dinner table until the big turkey feast.

 

Alas, I am cheating on the apple pies as well, and buying them from the fantastic supply of pies the ladies from the local assisted living complex make and offer at their pie sale.  I say the ladies, but perhaps they lett the gentlemen pare the apples. 

 

 In our kitchen Charles manages the machine that runs around the apple, removing the skin, and he does it with great dexterity.

 

I smell the lovely fragrance and I hear the bell tinkle, - the one that tells me

it is time to check the oven.....

 

I will put on some nice music and save you a piece of pie if you come quickly!!!

 

 

I whisper back to my darling mother

October 4th, 2012

 

Dorothy Emily Grace

 

February 16th, 1902 - October 4th, 1957

 



The past cannot be forgotten while memory lasts

and love preserves.

Janette Hospital

 

 

I quote from Julian Fellowes

 

"One of the strangest parts of growing older being that

ever-increasing Team of the Dead, who stand behind your shoulder

 and take it in turns to jump in and out of your head. 

A picture, a shop, a street, a clock that someone gave you,

an ornament that came from this dead aunt

or a chair from that dead uncle,

and suddenly for a second they're alive again,

whispering into your ear. 

There is a religion somewhere in the world

 that believes we all die twice;

once in the normal way

and the second time

when the last person who really knew us dies,

so one's living memory is gone from the earth".

 

And so I keep my mother's living memory vibrant,

full of the grace and courage and love

that sustained her.

 

Weather Report et al

October 3rd, 2012

After a restless night I waken late, spring from bed to unlock the door for our daughter's early morning coffee visit, and as I do I hear a plaintive sigh throughout the hills and orchards - the night has come and gone and still no rain;  no frost to redden the apples and change the drying leaves to gold.  The clouds have departed and the light from the sun brightens the horizon in the east - come to sweeten the grapes, no doubt.  At least no 'sour grapes' to complain about, but even they could do with a long refreshing night of rain.

That is the weather report for the day!

As I went to click the coffee pot to 'on' I passed the little loom on the kitchen table, and patted the woven part fondly.  The rachet on the back loom doesn't hold the warp as tightly as I would wish, but we soldier on carefully, and I lose myself in the pleasure of the familiar back and forth of the shuttle and the closing of the reed.

It is Senior's Day at the local grocery shop and I have a great long list that astounds our daughter!  "How can two people require so much"???????  Well, sometimes I forget Senior's Day all together,  but this month I resolved to take advantage of the savings and added everything I could foresee we might need during the month, and that is how I will spend my 'free'morning, while Charles goes singing.  He has had his regular Scott Joplin concert while he showered, so it is a musical morning for him and a social one for me, depending upon how many friends I meet at the grocer's..........one never knows how much time will be filled with chit chat during a shopping expedition.

Charles is off to sing, and I am off to shop and the sun shines brightly in a cloudless sky, reminding me that it is time to clean windows!

Open Arms to October and other Odds and Sods

Monday, October 1st, 2012

Well, that's as far as I got with that posting, - now it's Tuesday, October 2nd and an overcast sky that had a hint of rain in it has cleared to scattered clouds and intermittent sunshine, so we continue dry and thirsty, well into the autumn season.

After a soggy spring we have had no rain since the first part of July,  unless you count the forty-five drops that fell on the windshield one day last week when a miniscle shower favoured the valley!

Sunday afternoon Charles and I and the camera set off on a small drive to see what was happening in the hills around Cawston, and to the wild fowl in Ginty's Pond.  Alas, the grasses in the hills are sere and brown, and the leaves on the trees are crispy dry, curling up and turning a sad shade of greeny grey.  There is very little colour - only the sumac and the rabbit brush have sparse red leaves and yellow blossom.

Even where the creeks flow down the crevasses and canyons in the hills, and where the colours are usually brilliant and luxurious, there is no indication of the alchemy of water that encourages the leaves and trees and shrubs to have one last glorious colourful fling at life.  So bleak and sad!!!

Ginty's Pond had no water in the farther end, that borders the river, - no birds, no water fowl; dried husks of bull rushes crowd despondently along the roadway and southward towards the mid section of the dry waterway.

At the village end of the Pond a few ducks huddled on logs, while around them the water, covered with scum and slime, lay dormant.  As I captured a few pictures a woman who lives along the edge of the Pond came to discuss this sad state of affairs, and to tell me about the beaver and the culverts and the neglect that has caused the water to lose its vitality and nourishment, and together we remembered when the water flowed freely where now a great fill accomodates a roadway.

I think we need to arrange a Rain Dance!!!  I see that dark clouds have gathered in the east, - perhaps we will have a decent rainfall to nourish the trees and shrubs and gardens as they go into the winter.

Sometimes October can be rather wild, - great wind and rain storms, brilliant sunrises and sunsets and drama in the heavens.  It is too late for colour this year, but we could do with a bit of theatre, - and we do have the memories of other years when all things combined so copacetically and everything was glorious and breath taking......

 

Gracious thanks giving.......

September in the Garden and passionate Weaving

September 28th, 2012

A small record of the town garden in September, - I have to say it is much quieter and more refined than what we left behind, growing in the hillside garden - but equally appreciated and loved!


Here is the little patch of wild flowers that we planted in the spring, next to the compost heap and in behind the Stella D-Oro day lillies.  I expect it will spring up again next year, early in the spring, and we will be able to enjoy it
all summer long.


The delphinium in the back garden are still blooming next to the phlox, and they make a pretty picture at night, glowing in the night lights along the edge of the raised bed. 
Early morning shadows on the back lawn and I am tempted to take my first cup of coffee here in the quiet shade of the willow tree, away from
morning traffic.

I miss the view to the south, where the long reaches of the valley cross the border at Chapaka, and the changes in colours and shadows on the Cawston hills, but this little garden has many compensations as we grow older and appreciate the surroundings as much as the exercise required to keep everything within bounds!

Last year we watched the quail come up across
the meadow from their home in the burn pile of prunings down below the house.  This year their village cousins scurry across the 'parkland' from the old creek bed that runs along the bottom of the benchland to the north of us, eager for the feed that Flo, the neighbour, puts out for them.

This afternoon I saw a dozen of these lovely creatures checking out the walnuts that lie on the roof of the neighbouring shed, just outside the bedroom window....

Yellow is the predominant colour of the autumn gardens -  small daisies, huge petalled sun flowers and starry coneflowers.

A few autumn crocus, some late roses and the ubiquitous Chinese lanterns that I mentioned before, in a previous blog, - somehow smuggled down from the hill garden  to establish a branch in the village proper for all the town blooms.

 

The roses are particularly beautiful.  I want to pick the Abraham Darby but then again, I want them to last as long as possible, and so I leave them where they grow and visit often.  Mister Lincoln has grown very tall and lanky, as befits his name, I guess.  The gorgeous deep velvety bloom atop the highest stem could easily be taken for a top hat.

 

 

 



These are volunteers - cheerful daisies against the blue of the raised bed.

 

As are the snapdragons that hide amongst the roses and shasta daisies.

 



 

A perfect bloom, faintly fragrant and appealing.

 



 

The bee balm is looking as little tattered, but still a great attraction to the bees.



 

I spoke of the passionate weaving, and the passion arose when I found I had been too hasty and enthusiastic when I was tying on the warp by myself, and had made a real mess of getting it tight and even.  So evenutally I faced up to the problem, unwound the back beam, inserted new brown paper to separate the rolls, rolled it up again, carefully and with great attention, and now I have about six wonderful inches woven.  And I am as delighted as I was when I first started to weave, forty years ago.  This is a funny little loom, with quirks all its own. but I think we will manage nicely together.

 

Life is good.....

Happy Songs with Doris Day

Thursday, September 27th, 2012

In case you're out of sorts and feeling peckish here is a happy song to cheer you up!  And who is cheerier than Doris Day!!!  Smile!

 

 

 

Blue Monday

Monday, September 24th, 2012

Yes, Monday....why is it so often a gloomy day??? 

 

Not gloomy weatherwise, just spiritwise, it seems to me.

 

I did finally make the apple sauce first thing this morning, and that should have been enough to raise the spirits, but somehow, after I had done the floors and the beds and the bathrooms the day seemed to get away on me and I napped a bit in the afternoon, and was just generally out of sorts......

 

So I will post some pictures I took in the garden at coffee time,

and they at least will be cheery and upbeat. 

 

 And perhaps I will find a few sweet words to say at the end.....

 

 

Charles took this photo of Mr. Lincoln against the morning sky

 

 

 

 

and Abraham Darby is looking quite chipper these days

 

 

 

 

 

Colour in the peony leaves, and another of Charles' pictures -

the Mountin Ash against the blue sky

 

 

 

Fiddling about with a cloud photo from long ago

I included an excerpt from the New Zealand Prayer Book

which seems like good night time advice.

double click to enlarge and read unless your eyes are exceptionally good.....

 

 

Hopefully I will awaken tomorrow feeling more like Pooh Bear and

less like old Eyeore!!!

 

 

Welcome to Autumn

Friday, September 21st.

A faint blush in the Eastern sky where autumn makes her first hesitant steps through the  hills and vales of the Lower Similkameen. 

 

Along the creekside waterways the poplar and the alder leaves are golden in the sunshine, where summer still lays claim to the afternoon, tossing her head at the calendar; warming the valley to shirt sleeve and shorts weather and leaving to autumn the alchemy of frosty nights.

 

In the garden once more the Abraham Darby delights

with its tightly packed petals, its perfume still as perfect now,

in its third flush as it was in June, newly blossoming.

 

 

A few feet away a passenger from the Chinese Underground Railway

alights at the new Depot, securely established as a Branch

from the hillside garden!

 

 

 

Yesterday afternoon I visited one of the many fruit stands

that line the highway west of Keremeos

looking for farm fresh eggs.

 

The market was bustling with travelers

and crammed with colourful bins of apples, pumpkins, squash

and nectarines side by each with all the wonderful fall vegetables.

 

Sid brought us two boxes of apples and I will set a large pan full of MacIntosh to simmer

for apple sauce and enjoy the marvelous combination of

apples cooking and cinnamon.

 

'By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

with summer's best of weather

and Autumn's best of cheer'.