September
3rd:
back
at
home
in Toronto, after six long weeks away. The ivy has tried to eat the house in our
absence. The squash has wrestled my raspberry canes to the
ground, invaded two neighbours' yards,
and claimed squatter's rights all across my back lawn; and there's a
strange new vine with pumpkin-orange ornamental
gourds growing across my front lawn. The red cana lillies and
yellow sunflowers worked nicely against the blue siding of the house,
but although the sunflowers were from a 2' dwarf plant, they grew to
twice the size of their parent plant - how does that happen?
Doesn't genetics mean anything, anymore?
Anyway, we're eating delicious beans
that have made many a meal for over three months for our neighbours as
well as ourselves, and they're still coming; also there are still some
tomatoes, the September raspberries (our canes give two rounds of
berries, one in July and one in September), lots of herbs for pesto and
other cooking adventures, and even a late strawberry or two...and lots
of squash. Even a good-sized romanesque zuchinni.
I bought this fancy looking
painted
electric guitar, which came with a little black amp. It has
orange flames and a lovely green dragon;
I'm thinking of naming it "Puff". Is it "me"? Not
sure...but the price was right, and I
will spend some time learning more chords and songs each day to see if
I
enjoy this guitar, or if I should
trade it in for a plain tan-coloured acoustic with nylon strings. This one has steel strings and a narrower
neck than I'd wish, for the size of my hands, but it does look pretty
cool, in a Motley Crue sort of way...and the strings are easy to
depress, and the stretch for a G chord isn't hard. It might
actually hang around for a while.
We
got
adopted by a young red tomcat as soon as we returned - looked like a
psycho cat from a cartoon, but had a very bold and friendly
personality; but
Deborah wisely delivered him to the animal shelter...only to return
with four more cats. She got talked into adopting a mother and
three kittens who didn't have enough room in their cage - "only for
three weeks!" - and they gave her all the food and paraphernalia she'd
need to be a foster mom, so they didn't have to twist her arm, not even
a little bit.
Photos will follow, no doubt.
Lots of gardening and some
sailing days ahead, and we have signed up as volunteer
house-builders with Habitat for Humanity, through the third week of
September. We have concerts scheduled, lots of friends to get
together with, I'll get back to my
Thursday evening living room jam (which they often do now on a Sunday
as well, turning it into a BBQ party), and we will join a Tuesday
afternoon retired teachers' bridge club.
August
29th:
a lovely morning wake-up at Cass Lake, near Bemidji, in Stony
Point Resort. We've had two weeks of great visits with family at
the annual camp-out. We gathered at the Wild Horse campground, close
by the Ya-Ha-Tinda federal horse ranch, in the foothills near Sundre,
an area filled with elk (we stumbled into one herd two kilometres from
our campsite), deer, grizzlies and wild horses. We hiked up a
steep-walled canyon to a dramatic waterfall. Back in Edmonton, we
visited with Ian and Joyce, saw Lara once more, and racked Mom's
ginger-apple cider, made from the apples on the tree in her back yard,
before beginning
our drive back to Toronto. We made it out to Edmonton in three
thirteen hour days, but we'll relax and take five days or possibly six
to get home - gotta practice being retired, don'cha know.
August
14th:
Back in Edmonton now after a great trip to
the coast and back. We had a great visit with Kenton and
Sarah, and Lara, and Arnd, Stefanie, Silken and Una on Salt Spring
Island. We didn't get to meet Bryn but I'm pleased to say that I
drank some of his excellent beer.
We did "family" things the whole time rather than "tourist" activities,
but that was fine with me because it was about our sixth visit to Salt
Spring and I've been visiting and sometimes living and working in
Vancouver so many times that I can't think of anything special I'd want
to see - although I can't find my way around in Vancouver
anymore. I guess it would come back to me if I hung around long
enough and looked at a map. These days Deborah watches the map while I
drive; we call her the "nag-ivator".
We took the southern route on the way
back, overdosing on spectacular scenery. We passed wineries and bought cherries and apricots at
roadside fruit stands. We stayed overnight at a campground in Osoyoos, which is pretty but the camping
sucks - packed in like sardines, expensive, too loud, lots of kids
allowed to stay up too late. I like working with a classroom full
of kids, but not camping next to that many. The locals claim the water in the lake is
like "a warm bath", but I found it decidedly cool, and the beach isn't
up to Caribbean standards, even though we were on the edge of Canada's
only desert. They call it a "pocket desert", and it
has scorpions, praying mantis, rattlesnakes, prickly pear cactus,
antelope brush - all the typical plants and animals you'd expect in a
desert. It's hot during the day but it was cool overnight.
The view of the town and lake in the
valley was phenomenal as we drove up and
over Anarchist Mountain, where many private homes sport celestial
telescopes in their own observatory domes, looking upward rather than
down, where the view must be even more out-of-this-world after dark -
there's
even an Observatory B&B that you can stay at and learn a little
about stargazing. We stayed the next night in Nelson, then
bathed the following morning at Ainsworth Hot Springs, which was
relaxing with a kick: spooky hot sauna
caves to wander through and linger inside.
We visited the excellent Kettle
Valley museum, then took the Galena ferry at the top of the Arrow
Lakes. We cruised up along the side
of Kootenay Lake, stopping in Kaslo to tour the gorgeous S.S. Moyie
stern wheeler and learn about Gunpowder Gertie, the lady pirate of the
Kootenays - a true story and a fascinating bit of Canadian historical
romance.
Camping was great the whole way - a
smattering of rain during the days but none at night, and moderate
temperatures. We saw many deer, two elk, and a coyote who we
startled away from a deer carcass (road kill); we indulged in our usual
silliness on the road,
dreaming up clever ideas for cottages and businesses, and puns: we
passed
a pawn shop in Victoria and decided we'd open our own so that Deborah
could call herself
"Goldie Pawn"; drove past Yoho mountain and speculated on the merry
hooker who must live up there: the "Yoho ho"...
Next event is a family group camp near
Sundre: three days of chili and campfire singing and relaxing, and then
we'll be motoring home to Toronto, starting to consider how to spend
our winter, and continuing to speculate on how much longer Toronto will
be our home.
July
24th: in mid-July we left our tiny bungalow in the care of our street
of excellent neighbours - who are also mowing the lawns, trimming the
hedge and keeping up the garden for us, in return for our summer
harvest of produce. We have a wonderful Neighbourhood Watch on
our street, especially when they are motivated by the hundred
large
green
tomatoes
about
to
turn
red
as
I
drove
away,
not to
mention raspberries, apple-sized strawberries, beans and other
treats. We drove across the northern U.S. to the Saskatchewan
border - the town of Portal, great name for a border crossing and for a
band - and up to Edmonton. We are now hanging out for a few weeks
with family and western friends. We'll probably drive down to the
coast - Vancouver and Salt Spring Island - in early August, and enjoy
our traditional annual family camp-out in the mountains on our way back
to Ontario.
July
7th: We are back home after a very long Canada Day weekend at the
harbourfront, where we lived aboard
Awelyn for five days while serving as Liaison Officers to the Unicorn
and the Playfair
during the Redpath Festival Tall Ships
Challenge.
This
was
the first Tall
Ships event held in Toronto since 1994, and it was a great
success. Our ships are both
training vessels for
young people; the Unicorn is strictly for young women, and has an all
female crew, Sisters Under Sail. You can view a slideshow of
the photos I took from the deck of the Playfair during the July 4th
Parade of Sail. Click on the photo of the tall ship to the right,
and then on "Slideshow" when you get to that page; use your F11 key to
give yourself a full screen view. I only have an old, small 2
megapixel camera, so the quality isn't wonderful, but the ships are
beautiful.
Last night we had a supper of fresh produce from our garden: romanesque
zuchinni and a plateful of our first crop of beans and peas - they
taste wonderful when they are freshly picked - and strawberries and
raspberries for dessert. The squash is growing, and the tomatoes
are large and abundant, but not red yet.
June
21st:
we
spent the weekend in the Muskokas, in the stomping
grounds of the G-8 but a few days before their arrival. We toured
the woods and the many falls in the area - a very beautiful part of
Canada - and stayed in Pat and Clare's brand new house. Apart
from that we're just continuing with our house-slimming, and spending
hours on meetings and email exchanges in preparation for the Tall Ships
weekend.
June
14th:
Highland Yacht Club's
Sailpast and
Salute to the Commodore took place on Saturday. We had a lovely
party and dinner, but the weather and lake conditions kept us confined
to the clubhouse and the docks - the Commodore cruised his sailboat up
and down between the slips to receive his salute, standing on the bow
of his boat looking like Mary Poppins in his yacht blue-and-whites,
under his black umbrella. Here's the video: Commodore's Salute
On June 9th, we attended Deborah's teachers' union retirement dinner at
the Old Mill - a pleasant, low-key event with good food and more free
booze than we could ever have imbibed in one evening.
We're absorbing the concepts of the Slow Movement. We've
been oriented in that direction
for some time, and even more so in retirement. Topics like downshifting, seachange and
treechange are now part of my reflective process. We
combine these concepts and stay within our geographic comfort
zone - we're downshifting in place, in our suburban bungalow, while
considering our next step, which may be one of several alternatives to
our current land-based abode.
June
5th:
The Ringing of the Bells. This week we attended our official TDSB
retirement reception. There were several nice speeches by departing
staff, culminating in the
traditional closing ceremony - they give each retiring teacher a yard
bell as a parting gift, and the retirees (over six hundred and forty of
them, this year)
stand and ring their bells all at once. It is an unforgettably
deafening, ear-splitting celebration.
May
30th: A live music weekend! On Thursday we enjoyed a four
piece
male a capella group called Cruisin'. On Friday evening we saw
Carol
King and James Taylor in concert at the Air Canada Centre,
courtesy of our friends Pat and Clare, who often take us to Tafelmusik
concerts, where they
have
the
four
best
seats
in
the
house:
front
row
balcony,
not
even
a
hundred
feet
from
the
Tafelmusik
orchestra.
On
Saturday
they
took
us
to
a performance of Handel's Israel in Egypt,
performed
by
the
Tafelmusik
orchestra
in
the
new
Telus
Centre
Koerner
Hall
-
a
beautiful
concert
hall
with
spectacular
acoustics.
We
take
them
out
for
dinner
before the
concerts, so it is always a full night out. On Sunday
Deb and I went to see a sextet swing band. These four concerts
were quite a contrast of musical eras and styles, but
each fun in their own way.