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!

what's snew?

SNOW!

It was really looking like spring over this last week.

We were seeing the deer grazing quite regularly, and finally caught sight of the piebald yearling

that was just a baby last spring.

We usually see the deer at day's end when the light is low, hence the poor shots.

This past weekend we headed off to Greenwood again to my favourite health food store, Valley Natural Foods. My order of kelp was in.

The spring runoff was pooling in the low parts of the farmfields.

As always, I took particular pleasure in the line up of trees on field edges.

This fan of pines was particularly sweet.

But then, so were these lovelies.

Some of the farms we saw as we drove through the Annapolis Valley

with the North Mountain in the background

another stand of trees bordering a somewhat overgrown field

Coming into Kingston, this super stand of firs greets us

Aha! My darling little house that I show you each time we come

Well, Greenwood and the health food store have come and gone and we are driving home again

past some cultivated blueberry fields with an out-of-place subdivision bordering them.

past a little creek with a pretty stand of stunted trees or, as we would say here, "scrub"

The evening sun finally shows beneath the clouds, casting its golden light across the fields

lighting our way like a stage

I had to include this blurry shot for its drama

We got off the highway at Coldbrook looking up this commercial patch of road towards where Wally goes to work. This is sub highway #1  that traverses the Annapolis Valley called the Evangeline Trail.

We could have taken it to Greenwood, but it would have taken three times as long.

We turned left into Kentiville

Which has some pretty nice properties, this one being another favourite of ours.

I also love this Leave It To Beaver/ Father Knows Best house, a 1940's beauty.

Again, please forgive my blurry shot in the low light from a moving car.

It isn't unusual to see these giant houses on a hill

A poor shot of the Kentville "castle", the Cornwallis Inn that operated from 1930-1973 was on par with the finest hotels on the continent. It contained ninety guest rooms (including four luxury suites) and ten sample rooms for commercial travellers. The hotel had a head porter, bell boys, maitre d’hote, accounting department, chef, maid service, full kitchen and dining-room staff, clerks, stationary engineers and drivers.  English Royalty has stayed here.

Now it is rented out as apartments and offices, some of its façade compromised with commercial signage. My hope is that it is maintained well enough that someone some day will restore it to its former glory.

We decided to stretch our day and carried on past our road.

I love this old house too- so quaint.

This almost-a-castle house sat on the market for quite a while til the colour was changed from a drab all over green to this contemporary palette.

We come to the New Minas 4 corners where we proceed to do a little grocery shopping in town before going home.  The next day we debated about whether to keep our nasty old tin shed and revamp it as a greenhouse, but decided against it as I couldn't bear the idea of an eyesore makeshift structure to match our makeshift deer barrier. So the shed will go.

By day's end I saw a crocus!

Now I did tell you about snow. It has snowed in succession over the last few days,

interspersed with freezing rain.

I stepped out the front door yesterday and took this shot in our lily garden.

Such hardy little flowers

What an amazing thing Spring is

This impetus of Life

I still love the muted beauty of winter

There is an elegance to this palette that soothes me

Perhaps that's why I get a kick out of looking at my pictures from behind.

Here I am holding up that drawing I showed you in my last post to the late afternoon sunlight.

Here it is right side up, on a real gold kick, using a Sharpie paint pen.

And here is Muji carrying on the gold theme.

“Did you know that wherever you find fool's gold, real gold exists somewhere nearby? This also goes for relationships and friendships. Real gold is found in the heart. For every piece of fake gold that you discard, remember that true gold isn't too far.”   Suzy Kassem