The Squamidian Report – May 10/03
Also in this issue:
North Nova News
The Ontarion
The Melbourne Report
Hi All,
Remember when I might have mentioned about Sue having a birthday about a month ago. Well, I had gotten her a pressure washer. Not very romantic but then who would want me to do something romantic in the first place. Anyway, she finally got around to trying the thing out and it didn’t work. The motor was seized or something and all it did was trip the electrical breakers.
We were coming up on the 30 store return date very quickly. We put it back into its box as best we could. Things never go back in the way they came out. The local CTC store didn’t really believe that it didn’t work so they hooked it up in their shop and blew a breaker there. They gave us a replacement, which ran just fine when we tried it. In fact, she spent the rest of the day power washing everything in site. I think we should use it on those cooking pots that get that baked on black stuff stuck to the inside.
I also mentioned hummingbirds in a past issue, when I was being distracted by the slugs. Anyway, we have hummingbirds here the way other areas have bees. They are buzzing around all the flowering shrubs and bushes. Feeders are popular. Sue has had one out for quite a while. She had the kind where the bird has to hover, so they didn’t stay any longer than necessary at one time. She has switched to one with little perches so the hummers can land. That way they stay longer at each feeding, as they don’t have to burn fuel staying in the air. They sure are tiny little things as they sit there.
One of them has staked out our back yard as its territory. I was out there pooper-scooping (a rather big job with our dogs) when it decided to let me know I was trespassing. It would dive at my ears making a loud buzzing sound, then hover about 10 away and yell at me. Funniest little voice I’ve ever heard.
And hey, my blueberry bushes have been in blossom all week. That’s kind of neat. Sort of a promise of a summer of blueberries and ice cream.
We have had dark starry nights lately, with the sliver of a crescent moon shining over the mountains. Our night sky is as dark here as in northern Ontario so we get a good view of the stars and planets. We get to see lots of satellites as well. Sure is crowded up there. It was easy to forget about the planets and constellations when living under the light pollution back home. There are enough mountains between Van and here to block out the city light pollution and small town Squamidian doesn’t create much.
I just finished replacing a bearing post under our back deck. The old one was kicking out at the base because the footing it was sitting on was shifting. It could have been done in a couple of hours except that I had to pour a new footing and then wait for it to harden. There are a bunch of little projects I wanted to get out of the way so we can enjoy our weekends.
Sue’s parents are on their way to an Alaskan cruse. They catch the boat next weekend, so they have flown out here for the week. Sue is very happy to see them and have them visit. We picked them up at the airport just before lunchtime our time. The trip back up to Squamish was its usual scenic wonder. The sky is blue, the ocean in blue, the flowers and blossoms are all sorts of colour, the trees are green and the mountains are snowcapped and high.
****
North Nova News
So much for spring! It’s
snowing like crazy today. This week we
have experienced everything from rain, drizzle, fog, and now snow. While on our
walks from the top of Fitzpatrick Mountain we can see all the way to Prince
Edward Island at times but not this week.
The month of May can be very unpredictable. We usually put our boat in the water by the 15th and
it is almost always cold. It’s amazing
how fast it all can change though. I
found a great spot to put in a new flowerbed but didn’t get too far on it
yet. Next week we will be able to get
bags of compost free from our municipal dump.
Years ago they started a program where we were given green bins to put
our food scraps and yard waste in to be collected and then composted. At first I thought it would be just for the
towns since a lot of people in the country were composting already. Mine was never that successful and the
amount of good soil I produced was so small.
Doing it on the big scale is much better. They give away two bags a year and after that it costs $2.00 each
or so much a truckload. I will get as
much as I can since my beds are needed a good boost. Our soil here is gravelly and eventually all you see are stones
with a little soil.
Our 15th anniversary celebration for my hair salon
business is going well. We put a three
quarter page ad in the Pictou Advocate which attracted a lot of attention. I have never found advertising in newspapers
a good way to get customers but when there is something special to announce
with a story and pictures it does get more notice. The Pictou Advocate comes out once a week and is more of a
community paper with local news. I’ve
decided that the next time a reporter comes to interview me I will be prepared
with my own write-up. The article was
not very interesting as far as I was concerned. Our best way of promoting ourselves is through our existing
clients, word of mouth.
Our little brother, Zane, has decided he would like to build a
bunkhouse in his back yard. He calls it
a shack. We have been drawing up
blueprints and calling around for prices on building materials. This is quite a project for a 13 year
old. He gets $20.00 a week allowance so
he is on a pretty tight budget. So far
he has managed to get all his studs for free and we have odds and ends of
materials in our barn from past projects including a couple of windows and a
door. Today we are planning to start
building the floor joists in Peter’s barn since the weather is too nasty to
work outside. He calls us everyday to
update us on his latest find. He and
his friend, who tows a trailer behind his bicycle, cruised up and down the road
looking for junk that people had put out for the once a year clean up. Their treasures included a crokinole board,
a Nintendo cord and a gun rack. He
couldn’t believe his luck!
Until next time,
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
May 8, 2003
Hello everyone and welcome to another weekend! I’m actually writing this at midnight Thursday. Today started out to be quite overcast but by 11 am the sky was clear blue and the sun was warm. I think we achieved a high of 24c today. Just a pleasant day all round. I spent the better part of the day installing a new railing on our front porch. One of those things that needed to be replaced after so many years of twisting in the rain and hot sun. I got smart and replaced it with a new plastic style that looks like turned wooden spindles. It should outlast my stay here. Bright white and NO painting, ever! Of course, painting is no big deal to me, I just let Carole do it because she’s great at it and I’m the world’s worst painter! I once was ordered to paint the front walk in door of the Fire Station I was assigned to about 2 years into my career. When the Lieutenant in charge came out to see how things were going, he blew his stack. He told me that if he ever saw me with a paintbrush in my hand again for as long as I worked for WFD, he’d personally shove it somewhere I wouldn’t like!!!! I took him seriously and was able to use his promise to avoid ever painting at work again. I actually think he did me a favour. Since there was always something to paint around Fire Hall, I never again got any painting experience. Consequently, I never did get any better at it and that helped me to avoid having to paint around our house. Carole actually likes to paint and is the creative one of the two of us. She leaves the construction and repair stuff to me. I’m so grateful that I married someone with an amazing talent for decorating not to mention gardening and landscaping flare! Our home is always lovely inside and out. Carole receives many compliments on her decorating and gardening ideas. Other friends of ours have asked her to pick out colour schemes and furnishings for them because of her success in her own home.
I can’t imagine
what it would have cost us over the years for a professional decorator if
Carole hadn’t been able to do these things so well. Don’t get me wrong, I do
help with the wallpapering and wood trim etc Carole just doesn’t like me near a
paintbrush either. She’d prefer to do it right herself when it comes to
painting than to have to watch every brush stroke I’d take to make sure it was
right. I’m just no painter as I’ve said before. Over the years I have shown
some talent as well. I not only have a license in Air Conditioning and
Refrigeration but I’ve a wealth of experience in plumbing, electrical and
carpentry as well. We designed and built our own home back in 1990 in a small
town called Linwood Ontario. It’s a small village about 30 kms from
Kitchener/Waterloo. We lived in that house until 1998. We loved the house but
didn’t really like the small town atmosphere of Linwood. We were so happy to
move back to civilization here in Kitchener. A place where you can walk to the
corner store or drive 5 blocks to the Grocery store and Mall. In Linwood, they
rolled up the sidewalks and closed the store at 6pm. If you wanted anything
after that hour, you had to drive for half an hour to get to civilization and
another half hour back. It really was a pain in the butt! Anybody that says
they love the small town living, is welcome to it! Speaking of small towns, I
took the liberty of looking up the town of Lightening Ridge in New South Wales
Australia. Karin had mentioned it in one of her letters about the thunderstorms
that everyone was talking about this past week. I found Lightening Ridge to be
located directly north of Melbourne. It is however a considerably long distance
north of that city. Karin, I hope you don’t mind my checking the location of
Lightening Ridge out. I know you said you didn’t know where it was and said you
were going to find out. I just wondered if there was anything on the net about
the place and started looking. It is located almost at the northern border of
New South Wales, which is the southern border of Queensland.
I found nothing
about the origin of the name of that town but did find out that it is
considered the Opal capital of Australia. Some pretty interesting reading about
the area on the net. This has always been one of the things that intrigues me
about Australia. You can literally stumble onto huge nuggets of almost pure
gold just lying on the surface of the ground. You can also walk up to any rock
in the Lightening Ridge area and crack it open to find an Opal. So they say! I
do remember reading about 10 years ago of two elderly American ladies that took
a holiday in Australia. They were sisters and had saved for many years to be
able to visit Australia before they were too old to do so. They were driving
through the Outback and decided to get out of their vehicle and stretch their
legs. They walked a few yards off the side of the road and one of the ladies
tripped over a rock. She decided that it had a pretty glow to it and dug it up
to take as a souvenir. It turned out to be a nugget of almost pure gold and
weighed in at approximately 10 lbs I think. She finally sold it to the Golden
Nugget Casino in Las Vegas for, I think, One Million Dollars. They apparently
have it on display in their main lobby. Now, this is the second huge gold
nugget I’ve talked about in the past week. There was one found in BC a few
weeks ago as well. I think that Doug and Karin should spend their vacations in
the streams of BC and the Outback of Australia looking down at the ground under
their feet! They just might get lucky! Another interesting aspect of my search
was names of the towns in New South Wales. I guess not exclusive to NSW but
that’s where I was looking. Names such as Angledool, Cumborah and Collarenebri.
Now that I think of this, these names were probably derivatives of names of
Welsh towns in the British Isles. I know they have some pretty strange names
there as well. I remember seeing The Tom Jone’s show on TV back in the 60’s and
he talked about being from a town called Pontipridth in Wales. I also think
that the town with the longest name in the world is in Wales as well.
I think it’s spelled
Clanvierporquengethgullgerichclabacilliaagogogosh.
You can look that one up on the map. If I
have misspelled it, I’m sure all you have to do is look for the size of the
name. Of course, we here in Canada have some strangely named places as well.
For example, there’s Tuktoyauktuk, Kapuskasing, Swastika and Penetanguishene.
Not to mention Squamish and Kitchener!
Heck, we even have a place called Punkydoodle Corners! So I guess one
should never throw stones when living in a glass house. I just find the names
fascinating. Many of the names are taken from Aboriginal inhabitants of
whatever country they are located in.
We are looking
forward to the lovely “British” weather that Doug sometimes has over the next 4
days at least. I just checked the 5 day forecast and I’m not smiling! I am
hoping to get our MGB out and cruise around with the top down soon. However, it
looks as though we’ll have to wait a bit yet. Here in this area, we have become
used to the experience of attending what we call “Cruise Nights”. It’s a
gathering of antique and custom vehicles. The local building supply store Home
Depot sponsors a cruise night every Tuesday evening from May to October. People
show up with everything from classic Jaguar’s to Super Charged Chrysler
Hemi’s. It’s really interesting to walk
around and look at all the vehicles that enter these shows. I don’t know if
Cruise Nights or something similar are commonplace in other countries or
Provinces but there sure are a lot of them in Ontario. I like them because they
provide a place to show off the results of one’s hard work restoring a vintage
car or truck. Most nights we have approximately 200 vehicles at the Home Depot
show. It’s usually the 60’s muscle cars that attract all the attention but
everyone has fun regardless of what make of vehicle they enter. I always say,
it doesn’t have to be the prettiest, fastest or most expensive car in the show,
as long as you like it and enjoy it that’s all that matters.
Well, I guess
I’ve covered a varied range of topics this week. I hope I haven’t put anyone to
sleep. Wouldn’t want anybody to bonk their forehead on the keyboard and blame
it on me! Until next week, I wish you all a safe and happy one. Take care and
enjoy this lovely Spring weather. Talk to you then!
GREG.
PS: Something to Think About>
If you’re in the right, argue like a man!
If you’re in the wrong, argue like a woman!
****
Everyone has deserted me. Karl and Kris have gone out to take some night photos of the city. And Jennifer has left with her girlfriends to drive down to Geelong. It is Friday night, and I am home alone (only me and Buddy).
Now that is a rare thing, because usually on a Friday night Karl is watching
TV, and Kris is at his computer in his room (or out with friends).
Instead of the blaring TV, I am enjoying some nice mellow music as I write. This is so nice and peaceful. I love it!
Well, what will I write about today? Will I tell you about going sailing/shopping at St Kilda market last Sunday, or shall I tell you about the 21st birthday party we went to last Saturday?
I could write about my Wednesday, which was my busiest day, with all that Art activity.
I’ll just start writing and see where it goes…
Well, let me start with Kris (my son), because I should mention that he has been busy taking some really great pictures. I may have mentioned that he bought himself a really top quality digital camera and has therefore been experimenting with everything it can do. As a result he has taken a lot of really awesome pictures.
If you have the time and hardware to look at some pictures, I suggest you check out deviant art, where he displays his photos, for all the world to see. To view his pictures go to: http://disguy2k.deviantart.com/ He updates his photo daily, so there is always something new and interesting to look at. He already has over 100 shots in the Gallery, so I recommend you have a browse.
We all seem to have caught the photo bug, and it’s no wonder. Once you try taking pictures with a good digital camera, you become addicted. My little camera is not as good as Kris’ but still takes some really great close-ups. The great thing about digital is that you become totally uninhibited, because, well, it doesn’t cost anything to take pictures. No film, no processing. The only cost is the batteries. So you tend to also experiment a lot. It’s great fun…
Jennifer is learning photography as part of her studies in Illustration. So she is learning to use Karl’s old SLR Pentax at the moment. It’s the same camera, which Karl used when he was enrolled in Graphic design many years ago.
Jenn and I took Buddy for a walk this evening, just before sunset, and took the camera along. We got some interesting shots and will include some with the report.
Now let me backtrack to last Sunday:
Karl and I were invited to go sailing with Jutta (Karl’s sister) and John. We had about half hour to get dressed and pack a picnic and get there. I grabbed my picnic basket and threw in two kinds of bread, a log of cheese, two apples, some peanut butter and a bag of pistachios and a bottle of wine… and we were off.
When we got to the boat, which is docked at St Kilda beach, we noticed that it seemed very windy and chilly. It looked like the sailing might be good, but much too choppy and stormy for Jutta. Turned out we were right, because soon after we got out on the water, the boat started to lean a bit, which made Jutta extremely nervous; (well, maybe terrified even).
Let me explain about Jutta’s fear of water. Well, it is kind of a phobia, really which has up to now prevented her from learning to swim. She is still trying to overcome her fear because John loves sailing so much.(they’ve had the boat for about a year) She has gone out many times, but it has to be “boring” calm or else she doesn’t enjoy it.
To make a long story short, John offered to take us ladies to shore if we
wanted, so we could just go shopping while he and Karl went sailing alone. This
turned out to be a great idea for all concerned…
Jutta and I ended up walking up to the St Kilda Market, which is a fantastic Craft market. All the artists and crafts people are top notch, so we really enjoyed looking at all the beautiful stuff. They have everything there from artists, to pottery, to jewellery, clothes, shoes, hats, photos, souvenirs and more. Everything is handcrafted by the vendors, as they don’t allow anything that isn’t produced locally. I love going to this particular market. It is located right along the beach, on the main drag.
The location is lovely, makes you feel you are in Hollywood or California, because the street is lined with palm trees. The old architecture is also really beautiful and impressive, because this is the old part of Melbourne. The buildings are all built in the old Victorian style. It’s now one of the most desirable parts to live in Melbourne.
There is also a lovely park, and all sorts of recreational facilities and restaurants. One popular attraction is Luna Park, which is an all year amusement park, located right at the end of the Craft Market.
After checking out the market for a couple of hours Jutta and I were getting a
bit hungry, so we went to one of the trendy bistros there. They have them all
along this popular part of town. You can go to these great places and dine
alfresco.
We ducked into a bistro, which looked pretty busy, so we figured the food must be good. (They usually have the menu outside so you can check it out before you go in). They had such a great selection, but we are both watching our diets, so we ordered a traditional Greek salad and cappuccino. Normally I would have gone for pizza or pasta, which I love too much. The salad was good, although I’ve had better.
Well, after lunch, we looked at the market stalls, which we missed earlier, (there are so many), while heading back to the boat. The boat, by the way, is at the end of a very long pier. It’s about a 12 min walk from the start of the pier to the boat is kept.
When we got there, the boys still weren’t back, but before we could worry about it, the neighbour, Michael, invited us aboard, and offered us a tour of his boat. He warned us first that his living quarters were a total mess at the moment, as he was still doing some minor renovations, and in the middle of getting it ready to sail up to Queensland.
He explained, that by the time he is ready to leave, it would be nice and tidy. So we did go check it out. It was great, except it was a total clutter. He is a bachelor, by the way.
His boat has everything, including a lovely kitchen, bathroom, shower, TV, laptop computer. He has all the comforts of home. Actually he is living on the boat right now, (which is apparently illegal), since he is heading up to Queensland in three weeks. What a life. He has no family (he does have an adult son), no job, and no house. All his worldly possessions are the boat and everything in it. I wonder if he is living his dream? It looks like he is having fun…but I can’t imagine living in such cramped quarters for more than a month.
Well, when Karl and John finally returned from their sea voyage, they looked very happy. The conditions had been ideal, so they really enjoyed themselves, not having to worry about any women being scared or getting seasick. Jutta and I were happy too because we got to do what we enjoyed…shopping…Well, we didn’t really buy much, just lunch and a couple of trinkets. I bought a lovely ceramic bowl, which was just beautiful. I thought it was so charming and reasonably priced. I loved it even more when the girl told me that the items were all decorated by intellectually disabled people.
We celebrated a great day with a few glasses of wine, which tasted even better from the deck of the boat. Michael, and his friend from the boat next door also joined us. We drank about three bottles of wine and I must say, with only a salad in my stomach that wine went straight to my head. John always has some special wines, so I had to try a little of each. Those pistachios and the cheese and crackers also tasted really good after all that walking and fresh air. The next two hours seemed a pleasant blur, as we chatted and relaxed and before we Knew it, the sun was starting to go down.
We watched the sunset from the boat. It was just lovely.
What good timing. Karl and Kris have just returned from their outing. I bet they got some fantastic pictures. Can’t wait to see them….
Hope you all have a very Happy Mother’s day!
And have a great week…
PS. Jennifer has put a new section in the photos page of my website. I will put some new pictures in there relating to the Melbourne Report. To view them just click on:
http://www.8ung.at/karincharlottezeller/mr.html
The photos have no captions:
They are of Sunday night sunset from the boat; Luna Park at St Kilda beach; the tree dahlias which I was going to tell you about, but never got around to; also a Grevillia (that weird orange flower); and a couple of shots from our Wednesday morning arts and crafts class.
****
A note from Sue’s
mom.
Hi, we just arrived today May l0, 2003 via Tango
Flight AC607l to Vancouver to visit with Doug and Sue (our daughter) until May
l9th when we are then taking a 7 day cruise to Alaska on Holland America
Volendam May l9th. We will then fly
home on May 26th. We have
had a hectic week getting ready to go but will certainly be able to relax here
and enjoy the weather and flowers = everything is beautiful.
June and Alfred Preiss
****
Clyde was kind enough to post that Brubacher picture that Carol sent out onto his web site. It can be seen at:
http://members.rogers.com/clydeascope/clydeascope/brub.htm
Thanks Clyde.
Have a good one.
the
doug