winter evening drive

There's always a heightened sense of anticipation as Christmas nears. Sometimes it takes an extra effort as one gets older to keep the spirit of Christmas intact. It's been a discouraging year in many ways, but there have been wonderful highlights that have rekindled my faith in human nature and reassured me that good prevails.

Wally had a day off on Wednesday and unearthed me to go to Greenwood to top up our health food supplements, most importantly magnesium  which we all, cats included, take. A trip like that would leave us free to enjoy Wally's coming 4 days off.

I really mean it when I say "unearthed" as we left quite late in the afternoon.

I didn't find out til later that evening that the reason I was feeling so sluggish was because I was fighting a low grade cold. Still I enjoyed having some clear weather for this trip - a change, as it always seems to be crummy weather on the Saturdays that we've gone.

Clear weather aside, the light was already getting low and I lost quite a few shots taken from our moving car. This is a little farmhouse scene with a barn in the back that has a roof so low it appears to touch the ground as the property dips downhill also indicated by the addition on the garage in the foreground.

This was a sad little blue house that sat for sale since before we moved here over 5 years ago.

This summer new owners repainted it and put new windows and a driveway in. The wind has clearly played havoc with their Christmas decorations, but it's nice to see the house being cared for again.

This has been a treacherous week for ice with some awful accidents on the highway. I nearly fell a few times myself.  Wally slowed here as he negotiated this icy on-ramp where one is normally obliged to speed up. This is the highway on which he might normally come home on a good day, but he always takes the slow and easy route, knowing what goes on out there.

The early evening light (it was almost 4:30pm) made even this industrial area not so bad. You can see the range of the north mountain (beyond which is the Bay of Fundy) in the background.

Heading northwest here, you may be able to see all the black specks in the sky, a small indication of the thousands of crows that do an evening migration around here.

Dressed in peaches and mauvey violets, the clouds were almost iridescent.

more crows flying over this snowy cornfield.

the sun going down and it's not nearly 5 yet.

Backlit by the sunset, I suspect by the size of it, that that's a raven in the uppermost branches

of that tree to the right.

I was lucky, for all the shots I lost, to have a few decent ones of the sun setting over the farmfields.

the clouds backlit in mauve in a peachy sky

You may remember this wonderful farm scene with the 3 silos from past trips.

Though blurry, the colour is so painterly that I had to share it with you.

So many shots lost in a blur on the highway, I just barely caught this favourite house of mine as we slowly came to the corner in Kingston, Greenwood's sister town.

Looking closer, we can just make out the choirboy on the front porch. 

The eagle emblem over the door makes it look somewhat American.

Like a fuzzy1940's Christmas card, I'll end here, with more to show you over the weekend.

Have a jolly old time of it dear ones.

This festive season takes some careful negotiating sometimes. That's easy to do when we set our expectations aside and remain present to the wonder and glory of what IS.

breathing gently into this moment

remembering that the best present is presence

random early winter snippets

Well, what do you know, I found some more November pictures on my camera.

Towards the end of the month, a blazing sunset.

If I had my car, I'd get myself to a better location than this view over our street, power lines and a cell tower, not to mention trees and branches blocking its radiance. This is the view out the kitchen window.

The next day Wally and I gave ourselves a holiday and hit the road.

I've regretted not recording the amazing carving up of this forest to make a cloverleaf access from the main highway to shopping in New Minas, our big box shopping area "for the Valley", that has lost so many of its businesses since this project was planned ten years ago making a mockery of "the horse designed by committee".

Our destination (yes again) Ikea for lunch. We can't really afford eating out, both financially and healthwise, but a late lunch at Ikea with most of the cafeteria to ourselves, was a rare treat. Could Wally look any happier with his "Naughty Meal".

Mine was barely healthier with its sauces and sugar and salt, etc. I opted for poached salmon with "vegetable patties" (mostly potato I think) and an appetizer for dessert: gravlax- more salmon.

I came home with a bad back that lasted for 2 weeks. I don't remember what would have caused it.

As usual Babu wanted to play. He has demanded I play with him after breakfast every day for a while now, but boy, it was hard to unbend myself. Still, it was good for me to get out of my chair.

I'm pretty much healed now with a little bit of stiffness.

One of our many first snows. I kept getting a chance to re-experience the magic.

Wally strung me out a heart in Christmas lights on the cabin doors.

I will try to get a photo with them on.

And a parting shot, as I have regrets about not having any new artwork of my own to show you.

I treated myself to this little collection of Patrick Mok's fantasy work several years ago.

Handmade out of stoneware clay, Patrick is an older man now, living in Toronto. Once a cartoonist, he changed his medium to clay. With an elfin sweetness about him,I wish I had got to know him better. Here is a link to a gallery that carries his work to get a closer look.

(Oh yes, that's the first picture ever taken of Wally and me. We were picking raspberries with friends at the house we since sold, in Bracebridge.) 

Now I will tell you a not so secret secret. This is post 94. (You can see that in the sidebar.) Because of all the posts I made this summer, these are the most posts I've made in a year since starting this blog. That is so cool for me who can get so discouraged at times by the lack of response and the crazy amount of "Bot" hits (automated views) that have made a mockery of my statistics. But I have made new friends through this blog, and that pleases me more than I can say.

The year is quickly winding down, but with 6 more posts, I can reach 100 altogether. With a little more time on my hands, I am aiming for that. So, once again, thank you dear viewers for dropping in and allowing me to share my little part of the universe with you.

peace dear ones

first snow and a trip to Ikea

Still doing the last bit of November catch-up, including this:

our first snow!

It's unusual for us to see snow here in November, our 5th in Nova Scotia.

Usually we're lucky to get it by New Year's.

Our little Harelson Apple tree is still wrapped in netting to keep the birds off the apples.

But the apples were all wormy this year, and discouraged, we left the netting up and the apples as groundfall.

The trees and shrubbery still provide great pleasure, with the empty field beyond.

This sugary beauty all disappeared within a day however. Ho hum.

The following weekend was our 2nd since Connie had been gone and we were itching for some fun so we hit the road south to Dartmouth, passing the white cliffs of Gypsum Mines just beyond Windsor.

This rough terrain with its sheer bluffs are just further down the highway as we climb Mt. Uniak.

A rainy day, I still felt it was worth keeping some blurry highway shots of the kind of mixed landscape we see in the space of an hour, from farmland to these great boulders and rock cuts.

I love the lighting on this little forest pond.

Here is another larger pond,

and one, larger still.

In the grand foyer of our destination, Ikea,

this crisp bedroom was done up so that one could walk all around it.

In fact, all Ikea's displays are done in the round and people are encouraged to sit on the merchandise.

Wally was quite taken with this display, wondering if we should put some more of the trendy brass into our décor. We already have a vintage lamp and some sculptures so that's probably enough for our little house.

That's the thing: our house is pretty full as it is though I love the eye candy of interior design.

There always seems to be an accessory here that we find to update the energy of our old house with its secondhand furniture.

I got that linen tea towel on a previous trip, but I do love the modern country style incorporating the black and white ticking for the duvet cover, and metal furniture.

Oh, I didn't do Wally justice taking our picture in this bathroom mirror. I probably saw him from a different angle, but it does show the teeny camera I've used all these years for the blog.

We spent a good little while inspecting this sophisticated "Besta" modular wall unit that we both liked for the living room as we, old fogies that we are, still have a LOT of videos that we'd like to store out of sight but handy. As it is, we keep them in the blanket box coffee table and baskets, scattered throughout the room, inconvenient to say the least. Since we didn't have a tape measure handy I asked Wally to "reach for the top" to help us estimate how this arrangement of modules would fit in our low-ceilinged room.

We couldn't stay late on a Sunday, not only because Wally had to work the next day, but also because the doors shut at 6pm. That was probably a good thing; otherwise we might have moved in.

Well, I think that finally winds up November.

Thank you for coming along while I play catch-up to this present moment in time...

as if that's possible on the internet!

Still, it's good to have you along to share these experiences.

thank you!

jaunt to the airport

The ocean cold is gripping us here and even temperatures above draw the bitter damp right through you. But that's November.

On the first of the month we set off to the airport to gather up our honoured guest and old friend, Connie, who came for a week's visit. It was a gorgeous afternoon, not the rainy forecast we'd been expecting.  But that's becoming normal, these false alarms.

It wasn't always easy to get a good exposure in the contrasting sunlight but I thought this fine old house was worth sharing with its 2 chimneys and 3 dormer windows, the middle one larger than those flanking it. Three is the magic number, used again in the covered porch with its 3 groups of 3 windows.

a modern cattle farm

closer to the cattle

more cows in the afternoon sun

another large operation near Hantsport

along the Gaspereau River as it begins to widen into a huge "S" before it spills into the Minas Basin

Silos with supportive equipment

just beyond the Freddie Wilson overpass, colour still glowing

looking Southeast over the mountains

Falmouth, built on lowland, with the mountains rising in the distance

Birch and White Pine

outcrop of gypsum

another gypsum outcrop

gypsum cliffs

FYI: Gypsum is a soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, that is 2nd only to coal as a mineral resource in Nova Scotia, whose mines are the largest in Canada. Quarrying began in Nova Scotia in the 1770s, when farmers in Hants County first found gypsum deposits on their land and started exporting to the United States. By 1818 the industry employed over 150 men locally and 50,000 tons were being shipped annually. These early quarries were chiefly around Windsor, Falmouth and Hantsport. Subsequently, even larger mines were opened around the province.  In 1953 the huge open-pit quarrying began at East Milford, Halifax County began and is the world's most productive mine of Gypsum to date. Originally used as a fertilizer and paint filler, Gypsum, is the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard chalk and wallboard,  the latter commonly known as Gyproc.

As we begin to climb the rising Mt. Uniak, spruce on the rocks

Despite a late getaway, we got to the airport in time to meet Connie.

First stop: Pier 21, landing place, gateway to Canada for one million immigrants between 1928 and 1971, of whom Connie was one at the age of 4 years old. 

More to come of our jaunts over the week that she was here, the only time Wally and I seem to get out of our fix-the-house rut.

Til then....

peace dear ones