Kith and Kin

We’ve been to the Maritimes again, for three weeks this time, and this post is mostly about why we go, which is to see our family and friends who live there. I talk myself in and out of blogging ‘on the road’: on the one hand not wanting to advertise to the world (not that the world is reading my blog!) that we are out of town, and on the other hand my original intent was to communicate while we travel. I’ll get back to you on that dilemma.

When we go east we go to ‘The Maritimes’ not just one province, so we drive a lot. Jim has a brother in Saint John, NB, Peter; a sister in PEI, Pat; and a son in Nova Scotia, Paul, (I’ve just noticed that they are all Ps) and they all have spouses and kids/grandkids so it gets complicated. And we both lived in PEI for many years so our oldest friends are there too. The timing of this trip encompassed two birthdays, Jim’s brother Peter’s 60th and our daughter-in-law Sue’s un-numbered and we had to factor in Paul’s extensive travels for their company Over the Edge.

The weather was wild and weird as it has been in so many locales. We had a week of 32-35C in Nova Scotia which is unheard of in September, and then there was our buddy Earl which blew through fast and furiously, followed by a week of showery cool clouds.

And now we are back home catching up on the garden gone rampant and projects neglected.

Here are the siblings, Jim on the left, (me) Pat, (Ed), (Betty), Peter.

The quite famous Saint John Public market. I don't know when it first opened but it is still a going concern.

Lakeside at Paul and Sue's house. It was wicked hot which you wouldn't guess by seeing P&S sitting in the sun.

Let's not neglect the PEI beaches. This is Brackley, about 20 minutes from Charlottetown, on an early September afternoon - empty.

This motley crew is the group we "hung around with" when we lived in Charlottetown. Twenty-one years later we are all still active and reasonably healthy and we have this group photo taken every time we get together, just to prove it. There was one hilarious year when we realized we no longer fit on the stairway where the orginal shot was taken. Missing from this photo is Betty ( a different one) who was at the theatre that night. Jim Colodey, second row, second from the left had face-planted a couple of days previously and had a broken cheek bone and two black eyes but he showed up anyway!

Jillian (almsot 6) on the left, mugging as usual, and Rachel (7 1/2), looking after Sue's birthday dinner, which was delicious! Lobster doesn't get any fresher than this.

Grandfathers Jim and Darryl putting together a gas heater. The shed in the background really is as crooked as it looks. It leans a little more each year and we assume someday it will collapse on itself!

The birthday cake and Paul's three girls. It was a very happy occasion.

And last night sitting out on our own deck in Victoria, enjoying the garden and Jim's favourite red-meat meal.

picking up some pieces

Not much to report really, just filling in some blanks from the last couple of weeks.

We made a return visit to Arthur & Jessica Vickers studio in Cowichan Bay with friends Martin and Angele Segger on the only rainy day, seriously, we've had all summer, August 7. We had booked the excursion with the Seggers way back in June so decided to go ahead despite the downpour and chill; I actually lit a fire that night to warm the house a bit.  We had lunch at the Genoa Bay Cafe, new owners and worth a visit, 'did' a couple of wineries, and had an hour of Arthur's wonderful stories specifically about the process of building the Leadership Desk. He had told us part of the story before but this time we saw some of the raw wood he worked with and more about the 40 people who were involved in the project with him. In the tradition of his people he is a spell binding teller.

Paul (no. 2 son from Halifax) spent a few days with us, a real gift since we don't see him very often. he was overseeing one of his events in Seattle so skipped across the pond for a visit.

3 amigos: Jim, Paul, Mark on Mark & Melynda's deck. While Jim and Mark look most alike they all have a similar cheesy grin!

Family dinner (we were 14!) at Emily Carr: Paul, Mark, Barb, Besty2, and Melynda

Betsy1 on the wasp warpath (we are plagued by wasps in late summer as their food supply literally dries up); she'll be thrilled to see this photo!

We had a mini heat wave for the duration of Paul's stay with temps in the low 30s which he didn't seem to mind. And we didn't seem to carry a camera with us even though we were doing tourist things like the Dragon Boat Races, a classic car show, kayaking (Paul and Jim).

When it's hot here the humidity goes down instead of up, we were averaging about 25% humidity which crisped the garden as you can imagine. We are up to 65% today and it is markedly cooler. Have I mentioned that we have this desert phenomenon in the summer? We may get another shot of moisture this weekend but it is only looking like cloud at this point. Meanwhile the province is having a dire forest fire season. There have been something like 1400 fires this summer, with hundreds of thousands of hectares involved. Some of the fires are human stupidity but lots are from lightning strikes, and all are exacerbated by the miles of standing dead timber from the pine beetle infestation (I painted a 7 foot  long series after I first saw the outcome of the beetles 5 or 6 years ago)  and decades of not letting the underbrush burn itself out occasionally. Alberta and Arizona both do controlled burns and they don't have the conflagrations that we experience here. One of the hardest hit areas is where Betsy1 has just moved from, Quesnel/Prince George/William's Lake, where the air quality has been off the scale for weeks.

This post is for Randy

Randy Mains is a good friend of ours, at least we think so, and a very accomplished guy. He flies helicopters and teaches pilots in the oil fields in Abu Dhabi, has written a couple of books one of which, Dear Mom I’m Alive, is in movie development under the title “Letters from Black Widow 25”. Randy enjoys jokes and stories at about the grade 4 boy level (he and Mark get along fine!) and is lucky enough to be married to Kaye who is a legend in her own right. Randy teases Jim and me a lot about our constant ‘projects’( he has had the benefit of Jim’s help on a couple of his own) but his real favourite is about Jim renovating and/or moving our garden pond. The pond has just been renovated, again, hence the title of the post.

Befores

We’ve had a leak for months in the short stream that connects the larger fish pond with a small ‘head of the river’ pool. Jim has long hankered for a cascade from a fissure in our rock outcropping but that’s a job for professionals and probably will cost a few dollars. So he’s been procrastinating, which is always a sign that he doesn’t have a vision for the project. When he gets the idea nailed down he’s very gung-ho. I finally suggested that he just fix the leak and do some minor tweaking so the stream was at least operating. Fixing the stream meant removing a lot of rock, taking up the old liner, laying a new one and resettling the rocks. Btw, all the rocks in any of our garden photos have come from our own dirt, which I hesitate to call soil. Some of them are pretty darned big and Jim has dug them out during various garden excavations. We have literally tons of rock.

We all have our vision of work; Melynda got roped into helping too.

Back to the pond -“while we’re at it” crept in to the equation as it invariably does! It’s been a bit of an issue that we don’t really get much benefit from the pond because we are forever on the main deck which is some distance away. Also the pond was closed in by a vine covered obelisk, some big grasses, and various other plantings all of which was really nice but obscured the water feature to the point that it wasn’t. So, says I, why don’t we open up the near side by moving a few things. And (still my big mouth flapping) if we (that would be the royal we not the plural!) move the upper pool down a level and straighten out the stream a bit you could then add the rock fissure thingy next year or when we win the lottery. Well, suddenly rocks and dirt were flying like one of Randy’s helicopters. Yikes! Have I mentioned my rather dysfunctional shoulder? After 6 days of pretty hard labour the shoulder doesn’t seem to be any better or any worse which is absolutely astounding. Another “have I mentioned” item, we haven’t had rain for 35 days now and the dirt is QUITE hard while the sun is QUITE hot. The best thing about all this activity is that the birds have a little beach to swim from and they are very happy.

Afters

The not having rain part is great for us and we are loving it only because we aren’t affected by the many forest fires. For the last few days it has been pretty hazy which we are told is caused by particulates from various fires in the province. The photo of the sun was taken about 8:00am.

And we are feeling like very bad parents as we have lost the hard drives on two of our computers in the last month: one desk top, one laptop, different brands, different stores, both only 2 years old. Luckily we recently updated our netbook and have an antique (6 years makes it an antique, right?) laptop as well, so we are functional if not overjoyed. Plus we have external hard drives doing weekly scheduled back-ups so haven’t really lost any data (that’s a nudge for any of you who haven’t got one), not that we have anything very important to lose.

So many places to sit and no-one ever sitting!

and Jim's latest project

About a year ago I sent some photos to some of you showing the evolution of our primary deck, our outdoor dining room really. The original daeck was a builder special, 12x12, and the first change was to double the size. Next came an open roof structure which we covered with reed mats for a couple of years, and then installed Suntuf panels which give us all weather protection. Last year Jim opened the front of the deck by removing a garden bed ( the lilac tree that committd suicide) and adding an apron onto the lawn.

If you live here you are very well aware that Jim gets pouty if I want to eat indoors anytime between April and October. Because not all our friends feel the same way about the great outdoors, (can you believe some people actually use their dining rooms all year round - maybe even you?) we have three gas heaters http://www.costco.ca/ for $179.99) and a pile of blankets and pashminas at the ready.

Jim is always willing to improve things and since we experienced the fabulous outdoor rooms in South Africa last year he has been hankering to close in the end wall, preferably both, to make the deck really seem like a room. The value-added is that a wall on the west end would mitigate the prevailing Pacific breezes (cold!). We managed to compromise on the vision and Jim has recently completed a skookum (a Pacific Northwest word that can have meanings from 'good,' to 'strong,' 'best,' 'powerful,' 'ultimate,' 'brave' and 'first rate.' Something can be skookum meaning 'really good' or 'right on! 'excellent!', or it can be skookum meaning 'tough' or 'durable'. When you are skookum, you've got a purpose and you're on solid ground, in good health/spirits etc. When used in reference to another person, e.g. "he's skookum", it's used in respect with connotations of trustworthiness, reliability and honesty as well as (possibly but not necessarily) strength and size -.Wikipedia) partial wall with a 12 foot long tiled counter top, built in fridge and scads of storage.

Another value-added is that the messy part of the garden, hose, bags of weeds and other debris is hidden behind the new wall-ette as well as making a hot spot for the tomatoes.

In other news, my sister Betsy has returned to Victoria after 6.5 years in the hinterland, (Quesnel). Despite loving to visit her in Q we are really happy to have her back in closer proximity where I can bully her and she can ignore me, both with greater ease.
So all is good!

How does my garden grow?

Even if you are mega gardeners, (Nancy, Alan, Miriam) you have to suffer through my minor success story, or skip this post. You might recall that back in March, the 21st actually, I wrote about my new garden venture. Here it is July 21 already, we had a crummy June and in true Victoria fashion it now hasn't rained for at least 3 weeks. In spite of me paying virtually no attention to the veggie garden, not to mention the flowering ones, it is producing stuff. It's too hot for the kale now although it is still trying, but we are having beets and beet greens tonight!

Not many, but beets nevertheless.

It also looks as though we may get some yellow zuchinni eventually (look really hard at the photo and you can see a tiny zuch buried in the shadows), the tomatoes are looking promising ( I seem to have been on a yellow theme when I planted seeds.We have yellow zuch, yellow toms, and yellow beans. March must have been a dark month) and we even have a few stawberries. The red leaf lettuce is the biggest I've ever seen but our beans seems to have been on the rabbits' list of comestibles so not much happening there. What I've learned: plant later, use good soil, stay small, and that the copper anti-slug strip really works.

Other than that ignoring the garden seems to work pretty well.

Summer has finally arrived

And it seems to be all about eating outside, not to mention the dramatic change in temperature. On Monday we had to wear sweaters and have both propane heaters on to be comfortable with pashminas, fleeces, and blankets at the ready. Our Arizona friends, Malcolm & Peggy (in down vest), found it decidedly chilly.

Wednesday we decamped to ranbow Park in Esquimalt to what we consider to be "our" picnic table, again with Tweedies, and Forbes' this time who are off to Hong Kong on Tuesday. It was a perfect evening and warm there for a change. There often is a 10 degree temperature difference between our house and this picnic table site.

The Arbutus trees at Rainbow Park were the inspiration for a pair of paintings that weren't painted as a diptych but turned out to be one. They are looking very stressed this year and we have noticed a decline in them for the last few seasons.

Last night we didn't eat until well after 8:00 as it was pretty darned hot, not that we are complaining having whined about the cold for the past 2 months. These thermometer photos were taken at 8:30pm. I don't know what the temperature actually was at the front of the house in the sun because the thermometer only registers to 50C (120F) and that's what it was reading. The back of the house in the shade was a comfortable 31C (88F). This morning we finally got around to digging out the window aircon for our bedroom.

 We are looking forward to going on a water garden tour this weekend, anticipating some exciting new ideas as Jim is getting antsy about our pond which needs to be cleaned out. If that isn't an excuse and opportunity for a renovation I never heard one. Someday soon we'll go kayaking and I believe we are going camping next weekend ...

Summer in Victoria is dry; we will have weeks of clear blue skies with no rain and low humidity now that we can finally say summer has begun. Long may it last!

Sea of Red & White

   Canada Day 2010 dawned gray and cold, and even rained. Not to be completely deterred Jim, Barb, Betsy (Barb's niece, not my sister. It'll get confusing when sister returns to Victoria in a couple of weeks) & I decided to brave the elements and do downtown to, as the Griffiths all say about everything and anything, "see what's going on". Of course there was a lot going on and a lot of people enjoying the festivities. The international food-fair was a non-event but the buskers were great and the atmosphere happy despite the cold wind. Three of us managed to get into the living flag on the grounds of the 'Legde', which was fun. I started out in the red section but the flag was short of whites so I took off my sweater and 'crossed the floor' in that great Canadian political tradtion. It was pretty chilly in just my white shirt and I was glad of the relatively dense press of people. Then we followed the crowd up Governmnet Street and home again, without the corwd, for hamburgers and potato salad under the gas heaters. It was a unanimous decision to forgo the fireworks and mega concert along with the 50,000 spectators. Probably the only disadvantage to our northern long evenings is that it isn't dark enough for fierworks until almost 10:30pm which means the organizers have to keep everyone happy for a couple of hours, the police have to worry about inebriated teenagers, and we old folk are ready for bed. Some years we go and always enjoy the spectacle because the setting is absolutely stunning, but often we don't, curmudgeons that we are becoming.

Speaking of curmugeons, how about the gangsta in our midst, aka cousin Barb who hates wearing hats but felt the need to (literally) wave the flag.

It wasn't really cold enough for the Tweedies to wear their Olympic mittens but it wasn't that far off. Reference was made to the year Alan Bull wore his Raccon coat and snowshoes to one of our CD parties. We hope you fellow Canadians marked the day somehow and that our US friends enjoy local festivities on 'The 4th". We always need to remember how lucky we are to live in free and affluent countries even if they aren't perfect.