Paint Party Friday - the farm

I visited my client. When his wife arrived home, chauffeured by her son, she told me, as she does every time I visit, that she used to paint canes and began selling them. She cannot anymore, due to her Alzheimer's she told me. Again. Bess her heart. I simply nodded and listened as if she'd told me this story for the very first time. She's such a dear. I had a lovely time sketching while my client slept.

Medium: coloured pencils and Isabelle's thin, erasable, felt markers!

Same drawing –photographed using ToonCamera

Inspiration scene, ToonCamera

PPF

On Monday, I was asked to replace an absent volunteer at our local Dignity House Day Hospice program. It is a day away program for those living with life limiting illnesses. There, we made some Christmas swatches while the Complimentary Therapist gave clients a massage.

What a busy day –a couple near misses, too!

Yes, off we went. It is a 35 minute drive to visit our dentist. Off we went. for our 11:00 a.m. appointments. I was eagerly hoping to see a Snowy owl, like all the rest of the world, and had my zoom lens all hooked up, heavy in my lap. Several people have seen them, one along highway #7, where we were driving, and one in Perth, too.
No owls. Again. Sigh.

About to turn into Carleton Place, to turn left and drive north up highway 29 off of highway #7, the car in front had an issue. S/he couldn't make our turn. We sat and waited behind the car in front of us.
There was a car blocking the northbound lane. Some dippy driver was sitting BESIDE a left turning car (black car), in the correct lane, trying to make a left turn.
We had to sit and wait for the light. Funnily enough, there was an OPP SUV that stopped to talk to her, wondering what the heck she was doing. You can't really see the white car in the first photo, but in the 2nd photo, she does a quickie reverse to get behind the properly turning black car.



 We made it to the dentist.

Quite a snowy day! On the way home driving west to home along Highway #7, another yahoo.

Just before I took the first photo, this guy veered into the oncoming lane, checking to see why they were going so slowly. Of course, the guy with the trailer was slowing down to turn. Heaven forbid red car dude would have to do less than the 120km he'd been doing when he passed us, on a double-yellow line, 5 minutes ago. 

Red car dude speeds up, about to pass the truck in the left turn lane a few metres later, despite the fact that there was a clearly marked passing lane 500m further west. He's tailing the truck. He ran out of a turn lane, or he would have passed him. 

We arrive at the passing lane, which we find frequently all along highway #7, and red care dude speeds along. Another car passes us, the white car, doing 90km in an 80. Two minutes later, doing 90km/hour, we spotted him turning right. He lives in the area, methinks, and was risking our lives showing off. 

Finally, we made it back to Perth, where I had my hair cut, we had lunch at the pub, and we took a deep breath.

Trimmed and a selfie

Christmas is coming!

 We made it home, and I took the cats out for walkies. Sady waited in the window, as she doesn't like the other cats. It was nice stress release after our big drive!

Sady inside her bedroom window, hubbies office!

BOOK REVIEW: Amazon Burning

This is a fun mystery. I quite liked it. It is about a young college grad, a journalist working for her father. The setting and locale is beautiful, a hot, steamy jungle, especially with snow falling outside my window!

It's quite a good read, with lot of action. It's recommended for YA, but this middle-aged woman enjoyed it! Normally, I don't like novels about young, beautiful women who seem to have it all. Their whole lives ahead of them,  and life is perfect. They don't and aren't, of course, but I find it hard to identify with the perfect creatures some authors create. What made a difference in this novel is the knowledge the author has about the region where the story takes place, as well as the challenges our hero faces.

I very much enjoyed learning about the Yanomami Indians and their cultural practices, aside from their loss of habitat and ecosystems. For those who are concerned about the environment, this group of Aboriginal Peoples very much illustrates the huge impact of 'civilisation' on humans, flora and fauna. I learned quite a bit about the region. It is a familiar story, unfortunately, what with the issues in western Canada regarding the pipelines. Our Aboriginal people are demanding that the Crown recognize fairly negotiated treaties in British Columbia.

Victoria Griffith

About The Author

Victoria Griffith is the author of the award winning non-fiction picture book The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont (Abrams, 2011), which won numerous awards, including the prestigious Parents’ Choice. The book was recently translated into Portuguese for the Brazilian market and was also released in audio book version.

Before becoming a full-time author, Victoria spent twenty years as an international journalist. During that time, she had fun writing on a wide range of topics, including Brazil’s Yanomami Indians, architecture, space exploration, the human genome, and the growth of the Internet. S  Victoria lives in Boston with her husband and three daughters.

Hutukara Associação Yanomami

I found it interesting doing a bit more research on this issue. Illegal gold miners, ranchers, strangers transmitting diseases, depositing poisonous mercury, raping the people and the land, this impacts the approximate 32,000 Yanomami Indians. Their territory straddles the border between Brazil and Venezuela, making it increasingly difficult for them to fight for their territory across two nations.

The BBC World Service has done a story [BBC Story] about a young man, David Good, raised in the US and in Yanomami territory, who went back to find his Yanomami mother. It's an interesting idea of culture.

Click icon for more

book review blogs

@Barrie Summy

More information is here:

Venezuela: Violations of Indigenous RightsJanuary 1995 | 44 pages
Yanomami: A Survival Campaign January 1990 | 16 pages

We went to the nursery!

Strange metal piece
has had several iterations!

Angel and greens

Winds knocked it out, but I redid it!

Hubby rescue the stuff from the backyard.

The greenhouse was beautiful, filled with poinsettia. I usually put some greens into this metal thingie my late mother had on her property. It was quite sentimental, since they used to have it in their first second rental apartment, the house they ended up buying on Walker Ave. in Toronto. They lived there from the early 50s until 1991, when they sold it and finally retired to the cottage in Bala, age 66.

It held their room heater. I don't remember if it was an oil burner or something. Mom dragged it from Toronto to Bala, and I brought it here.

Anyway, I painted it green, and gathered some pine branches. Sticking in some lovely fake berries and a gold ball in it, it doesn't look nearly as good as the professional ones from Hillside Gardens, but I'm proud of it!

Hillside is a wonderful example of a local business. I'm very happy to support them! They had Christmas cookies and cider for their weekend customers.

Can you spot Santa hiding in the poinsettia in the 3rd photo?! Hubby's grown a beard.



Here were Hillside Gardens greenhouses in the spring! What with the melting snow and mud about, I love being reminded of the wonderful colours!

Home repairs: floor tiles!

Ta Da!

Semi-final, next: grout

I like these small projects. Old dog, new tricks! I've never done tiles, since a large room would be too much for a new project.

We have 12 tiles in front of the wood insert fireplace in the basement. Well, had. Whilst lifting, and dropping some logs, I managed to break some tiles last winter. This isn't normal.

I had to lift them all and replace them.
Yes. If you look closely, you'll see that the tiles were installed with 9 small circles of glue. Likely done 20 years ago. Not a good strategy.

I'm so glad there are lots of How-To shows and videos on-line!

Complete!

Just a small job, requiring only 12 tiles, I was directed to a small box of Thin Set. I didn't buy more, as the box looked big. Fancy marketing, you'll note the dry thin set only takes up half the space of the 4 kg box. Très deceiving...
I was 2 tiles short of Thin Set. Back to the store, after 10/12 tiles were laid, the only amount of thin set was an 11kg bag. I should throw it up on Freecycle!

One thing I'd forgotten from hiring someone to install them, you can choose the colour of the grout and it makes a difference. Mine was in the cupboard from the previous owners. It was stark white. I rubbed some ashes into it to change the colour and dull it some.

Only half full. Crikey.

A great receptacle for the old tiles:
a kitty litter box. Very strong!

Ironically, the tile was made in Brazil

For entertainment, I was watching
World Cup soccer in Brazil!