Hello from Canada

[Brenda]

Hello from Northern Ontario, where the snow has finally gone and we are getting our brief few weeks of decent weather before the blackflies come out. Ooo, bad beginning...that makes Northern Ontario sound a really awful place to live. Quite the contrary. We have created our own 'place for solitude' on 45 acres of woodland just outside the municipality of Powassan, a small town located about three hours north of Toronto, Ontario. Derek and Jeannie's desire to provide a haven for birds and wildlife, and to preserve the land the way it was for future generations was an inspiration to us, and we are happy to be able to do the same.

We met Derek 11 years ago today! I'd picked up some of his books by chance in the local library, and felt that pull to Cornwall that so many others around the world also felt. It was around the time of publication of The Confusion Room. We were invited into the porch for a glass of wine and he pumped us for information about our life in Northern Ontario, rather than talking about himself. What a wonderful man, and we were so pleased to have had the opportunity to meet him.

I wanted to join the forum because I am hoping someone can identify a particular book of his for me. It must have been one of his earlier ones, because the library didn't carry anything more recent. I remember a passage in which he described how inadequate he felt in matters of business - how 'not up to the task' when it came to being aggressive and business-like. Does that ring any bells for anyone? Thanks. I will look forward to visiting the website from time to time.

[Kath Mulligan]

Hello Brenda, how lovely to hear from you, and to hear that you have created your own Minack in Canada. We have another of your countrymen amongst our members - George Squires who lives in Nova Scotia. He too has been complaining about the snow you were having over the Easter period, especially since we were basking in a heatwave here in England and enthusing about it here on the forum.

Have you got all the Chronicles? I can't just call to mind the passage you quote, but will keep a look out for it when I am re-reading all my books. I also have his earlier book, Time is Mine, his account of his travels around the world before he met Jeannie and settled down.

Please do come on the forum regularly and tell us more about yourself, and join in all the discussions we have going on. We are a very friendly bunch and you will be made most welcome here.

Look forward to hearing more from you very soon.

Kath

[Heather]

Hi Brenda! Welcome to the forum! How lovely to hear about your meeting with Derek, I do so wish I had managed that.

You must tell us more about your own Minack!

Heather

[BunnyHankers]

Hi Brenda
Welcome to the forum. I'm a newcomer myself.

I do remember that passage as I remember thinking it sounded like me! I shall have a look and see which book it's from.

Love Bunny

[Linda]

Hi
I do recall him saying this in his books...but for the life of me I just cannot remember which one...I recall it because it was very pertinent to me at the time... I am thinking it was Jeannie or Confusion Room.....

welcome aboard as well!...glad you have posted...look forward to chatting with you ....as Kath says everyone is very friendly so have no fears here!...have a look at the recipe postings perhaps you have a recipe or two? Do post photos of Minack if you have any we will all love them!!

Linda
:lol:

[Janet Swan]

A belated welcome, Brenda. As the others say, would love to hear more about your life in Ontario. I'll join those who are doing this little bit of research to try to find what you're looking for.
Janet :)

[BunnyHankers]

Okay I'm not sure if this is the passage you were looking for but I've racked my brains and I think it's the one you made me think of:

'we found the pace too fast and any materialistic rewards poor substitutes for the peace of mind which was sacrificed. The world of politics, journalism and entertainment in which we moved requires a ruthless zest for professional survival if you are to do so, and this neither of us now possessed.'

The passage then continues in the same vein and I'm paraphrasing as I don't have the book here but it's from 'A Gull on the Roof' the introduction I think.

Hope this helps.

Bunny

[Brenda]

Hello, all,

Thanks again to all of you who welcomed me so warmly to the forum. It's my first time using a forum, so your kind greetings have made it easy. Several people encouraged me to describe in more detail my 'Minack' in Northern Ontario, so I thought I'd do that today. My husband and I moved to our 45-acre woodland almost seven years ago from the city of North Bay. We both liked the idea of a rural life to gain some peace and quiet away from inconsiderate neighbours, some space to work outdoors without fear of bothering others or infringing on by-laws, and a place where we could enjoy nature and all its wonders. We have a largish cedar-sided bungalow with (more important in my husband's mind) a heated two-car garage (aka workshop and motorcycle parking area). About 43 acres of our property is woods with some trails cut here and there for walking and snowshoeing. It's a constant battle for Peter to keep the trails clear of fallen trees and the rapidly growing conifers that spring up in the hundreds, seemingly overnight. The property is 3300 feet deep and we've never made it all the way to the back because, well, who really needs all this land, anyway? And, to compound things, just about five minutes' drive away, I also own a 96-acre woodland on the top of an escarpment.

Behind the house is a pond of about one acre in size. There's a small island in the middle, on and under which live quite companionably a mink, a muskrat (sometimes with a mate and, one year, with triplets!), and a never-ending lineage of beavers, which I have dubbed Osama bin Beaver for the way every one of them does its best to dam the stream running out of the pond towards the nearby river (and thereby flooding us out). At the head of that stream, we have a little waterfall which makes the loveliest rushing sound in the spring and gurgles along gently for much of the summer and fall. Marsh marigolds are growing along the banks of the stream right now and should bloom in about a month. There was a very tall pine tree on the island until a severe windstorm knocked it down a few autumns ago. My husband cut it up when the pond froze and, ever the recycler, thought, 'Now, what can I do with this great big piece of wood?' He decided to make it into a totem pole, which he carved with his chainsaw. In the summer, when our then-nine-year-old granddaughter and her school chum came up from Toronto for their week with us, he carved their initials into the totem pole and they helped him 'raise' it. A big hit with two big city girls who've seen it all.

The pond is a neverending source of calm, amusement and education to us. We are visited by great blue herons, kingfishers, mallards, mergansers, Canada geese (for the first time just last week), wood ducks, white-tailed deer, red fox, and the aforementioned mink, muskrat and beaver. We have many varieties of frogs, garter snakes, a painted turtle, groundhogs, porcupines, raccoons (a family of two parents and five babies wandered across the lawn one year as if they owned the place), flying squirrels, red squirrels, and many others. The list of birds is endless; some are similar to UK birds, some different.

You have to be at the kitchen window at just the right time. Once, a pair of turkey vultures (not a modest-sized bird) landed on the top of the totem pole, mated for all of three seconds, and flew away, the male hanging lazily in a nearby birch tree, having a smoke :wink: . Another time, a kingfisher (very much larger than yours in England) dived into the pond to catch a huge frog, flew to the top of the totem pole, and spent several minutes 'whacking' the frog back and forth to kill it presumably, then flew away into the forest with it. The mink and muskrat have had 'dust ups' for superiority over the pond. We're never bored. We've had black bears in the driveway and at the back of the house though, fortunately, no damage yet as some neighbours have had. I'm waiting for a glimpse of a great big bull moose with full antlers some early misty morning at the edge of the pond. Hasn't happened yet, although there are moose in the area.

My husband and I are opposites when it comes to the amount of privacy we want. He's very quick to extend invitations to people to drop in on us. I could stay here by myself for weeks on end without the need of another voice. I have books and music and 'all that nature' outside the windows to entertain myself. Last year I made the decision to quit my job as a communications coordinator in the public health field to work freelance, and have not regretted it for a moment. I've got all the 'utter peace and tranquility' I have ever wished for.

As my last name is Skinner, and we have a pond, one of our friends immediately dubbed the property 'Skinner's Pond' when we moved here. You might not be familiar with it, but there's a famous Skinner's Pond in Prince Edward Island, the boyhood home of Stompin' Tom Connors, one of Canada's legendary musicians. The name stuck and everyone now refers to our place by it.

At this time of year, our trees are just budding, my daffodils are showing slight signs of yellow, the delphiniums are up about four inches, and the peonies just showing some red shoots for the last couple of days. We're up quite high, so our plants are about two weeks behind the rest of the area. It takes a while to recover from all those weeks of minus 30C. When I see those daffodils starting to show, I sigh at the thought of Derek and Jeannie harvesting their early ones in January! And then I long to be on that coastal path once again, walking tentatively towards their little cottage. As Jeannie is quoted so often in Derek's books, 'how lucky they were!'

That's all from Skinner's Pond for today. I will look forward to continuing to read the posts, and hope to hear from one of you on that passage I am searching for. Cheers!

Brenda

[nashie]

A slightly belated welcome Brenda. I was just catching up on the forum after a really busy week and found a whole load of posts in reply to your intro on Monday. Haven't had time yet to read your last post properly, but just wanted to add my welcome to all the others. Hope to hear lots more from you and that you enjoy taking part in the forum.

[Kath Mulligan]

Oh Brenda what a fabulous place you live in! Your description brought it so alive that I can almost picture it in my mind. Do create your own personal gallery and post some photos for us all to see.

From the excellent way you have described it all to us, you should start to write your own Skinner's Pond Chronicles - they would be fascinating. :D

I look forward to hearing more about your life there.

Kath

[Linda]

Just what I was thinking Kath...it sounds wonderful....now you have set me off thinking ......a one acre pond eh?.......Jeff..........you know those rushes...could we.......??

:):)

[Kath Mulligan]

Go for it Linda! :lol: :lol: Although so far I am aware big bull mooses (?!) and black bears are not very prevalent in Arran are they?!

I am so envious of those of you who have lots of land to play with (says she who has an aching back from tending my small back garden this afternoon).

When I feel the urge to have lots of open space around me I take myself off, either to Lyme Park (which Linda knows well) or to Tatton Park which at this time of year is spectacular with a fabulous display of azaleas and rhododendrons set around a lake.

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Wow, Brenda, what a wonderful posting from you. As Kath says, we can see your Minack in our imaginations. To use Jeannie's phrase - how lucky you and your husband are, and we look forward to hearing more from you. On that note, you write so well - I think your posting should be the basis of a book - you really are a budding author. It was such a joy to read. And, unlike Derek and Jeannie, your readers would not interrupt your solitude as you are so far away!
Janet :D

[Janet Swan]

Kath - I always watch BBC Gardeners' World from the Tatton Park Flower Show each year. How lovely to live so close. It looks such a fabulous setting. No doubt you will be there?
Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

I do usually go to Tatton Flower Show, Janet, but haven't yet got my tickets for this year. Last year it was so hot that we gave up after about 2 hours and came home! Other years I have been up to my ankles in mud! It is a fabulous show though, Monty Don reckons it is his favourite RHS show.

Kath

[Linda]

I love the Tatton Show ....if only we could get there....I still have a lovely straw hat I bought from there the first year it started....wear it round the farm now.......:):)

[Brenda]

Hi again, everyone,

Thought today I'd tell you about our recent maple syrup festival in nearby Powassan. I don't think maple syrup is produced in the UK - at least, our great-nephew is thrilled when we take a jug over to him. I'm sure someone will set me straight if I've got that wrong. As the winter ends and we get warm days but still cold nights, the maple trees' sap starts to run. It's collected - the old-fashioned way in buckets hanging under a spigot tapped into the tree trunk, or in more modern ways via miles of plastic tubing strung from tree to tree and into the hut where it is processed. There are many producers in Northern Ontario. It's a significant industry and festivals abound around the province. We are lucky to have one in our town, complete with a mascot, Sappy. Poor volunteer who gets the job - the costume represents a maple syrup can or tin, and the bearer's face gets coated in a thick, silver-coloured makeup to look, I guess, like the cap on the tin. Last year, a tall, slim good-looking teenaged guy was the focus of all the local girls; this year, I noticed it was a forty-something woman who was at least a foot shorter and some pounds heavier than the 2006 mascot. No young giggling female mob. Still, Sappy's good for a photo or two.

The main street of Powassan is closed to traffic for the day and vendors and craftspeople set up stalls, many of which belong to the local, competing syrup producers. The day starts with a pancake breakfast at three locations, all of which have long lineups for the duration of the morning. Our 'fetes' in Northern Ontario are a far cry from those I've experienced in England. This part of the world has never seemed to get away from its rugged, frontier, make-do-with-what-you-have, no-frills attitude, and we lack polish and class and style sometimes. We don't have much history of finery and garden party dress and behaviour. So our pancake breakfasts, at the legion and in the church basements, are 'enjoyed' at long lines of cheap tables and chairs with plastic cutlery and styrofoam plates. Men and boys tend to never remove their hats indoors and, let me tell you, baseball caps are definitely the head covering of choice in this country! When you finally make it to the head of the line, you are given three sausages, one pancake (don't ask for a second; you won't get it), and French toast if desired. You move along to another table, where you can serve yourself coffee or tea (no pots and nice china cups here!) and pour all the maple syrup onto your plate that you want. Everyone seems to have a good time, from babies to grandparents, and I suppose it's all in a good cause.

The day was grey but the rain held off. The festival is normally earlier in the month - around mid-April - when there's still some snow on the ground. Trips to the sugar bush in horse-drawn wagons are fun. When there's still snow, the producers pour thin streams of hot maple syrup on it, and you can roll it up on a stick and enjoy fresh maple taffy. Scrumptious! There are tours of the sugar bush as well and, of course, all the syrup your heart could desire, from light to the richer dark amber. Our favourite producer is Matthews Maple Syrup in Powassan, and their website provides interesting details about production as well as some great photos of how the sap is collected and produced.

Our friends, the beekeepers, at Board's Honey, had a booth with not only their lovely varieties of honey but also many health-related honey products. They take a very cerebral approach to their work and continue to learn and to educate the public about the importance of protecting the bees and their habitat. I have just learned this year about the way some keepers make a business of shipping their bees around the country for pollination purposes, rather than bothering to produce/collect honey. The Boards have been persuaded this year to offer a two-day Introduction to Beekeeping in the summer for the local community college.

We've had a number of Amish families move into the area in recent years, a great boon for Powassan as it's a farming area and they add to it in a good way. Some of them have been building wood furniture and have opened a store on the main street. A number of their young girls had a booth at the festival to promote the store as well as to sell home baking. You had to be early to get that; it was gone by the time we finished our pancake breakfast. It's always fun to pull into the grocery store parking lot and see one of their sombre black enclosed wagons with the horses hitched to a railing at the back of the lot. Their life is so different from ours, but I think everyone welcomes them to this area.

There was some hope a few years ago that the old hotel, The Windsor, would get a facelift and major renovations and become a tourist attraction. Sadly now, it's gone bankrupt and even the cafe no longer operates. Roger George, the owner, is a Brit who used to be a pig farmer; he and my husband have been friends for donkey's years. The fun thing about it, though, is something we learned from him when he gave us a tour of the interior shortly after he bought it about a decade ago. In the early 1900s, the upper floors were a brothel! Apparently that tidbit has been carefully edited out of the little history book on the area produced by the local women's institute... It's all done up in pressed tin and gaslight-style fixtures and has such potential. We thought what a giggle it would have been to deliberately market the hotel as a campy, slightly wicked destination. Could have been fun.

Our local politicians turned out for the pancake toss competition, and were mercifully kept to very short blah, blah, blah PC speeches. A local reporter for one of the weekly rags has been the town crier for several years; he's an extremely quiet man to talk to, so his continuing participation always surprises me. The local legion has a small pipe band and played here and there in the town over the course of a few hours, so I got a small taste of one of my favourite sounds. One of my goals some year is to attend the Edinburgh festival so that I can OD on really good pipe bands. These little teases that we get in Canada just don't do it for me, although I've been to the Fergus tattoo in southern Ontario and it's rather good.

I had been anticipating missing some of the festival, as a number of enquiries have been coming in about my 96-acre woodland (which I have up for sale). A couple of the interested parties indicated that they would try to get to the area on the weekend to have a walk around it. In the end, no one came, so I had the day free for the festival. Interestingly, the property could itself become linked to the festival in the future, as it has enough mature maples on it for someone to start up a syrup operation.

And that was our day at the festival. Pancakes on Sunday morning, anyone??

[Heather]

Oh yes please Brenda! I love pancakes! :lol: Love to hear about life in your part of the world! What a wonderful writer you are, you are certainly bringing it all to vivid life for us! More please!

[Kath Mulligan]

What a fascinating tale about your maple syrup festival, Brenda. You really do have the knack of making it all come alive. I admire the Amish and their refusal to get involved in 21 century mad lifestyle - don't we all just get that feeling now and again of "stop the world, I wan't to get off". Just like Derek and Jeannie did in fact.

You really should consider writing a book about your experiences and lifestyle - I for one would be a willing purchaser and I'm sure that goes for most of the others on here too. You could be the Canadian Derek and Jeannie!! :lol:

Funny you saying how much you love the bagpipes - I think they are an instrument that you either love or hate, and I have to confess that I loathe them. Bagpipes and the recorder make me cringe, but I know that lots of people do love them both. It would be a boring old world though if we all liked the same things, wouldn't it?

Look forward to hearing more about your life in Canada.

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Brenda - Heather and Kath have said it all really. I so enjoy reading about your life, where you live and so on. It's the next best thing to being there! You've now written three great postings - so your book has begun - please continue!!!

Janet

[Linda]

I Love Maple syrup!! Brought loads of it back with me when i visited my Aunt in Canada....we went to the Kitchener market, lots of Amish there.I too agree that they have to be admired for their way of life.
You really do have a talent for writing...we can all just see it now...


I have a confession....although I now live in Scotland I cannot stand the pipes!.....the Edinburgh Festival however, is another thing altogether...absolutely fabulous! You are welcome to stay with us Brenda if you visit...we are only just over the water on the Isle of Arran, one hour by ferry and an hour and half to Edinburgh.


Linda
:lol: :lol:

[Heather]

Definately a book in the making! I would buy it as well! We will happily be your trial audience! Keep going!

[Brenda]

If you liked the sound of the Powassan maple syrup festival, you'll love another Northern Ontario favourite near Skinner's Pond: the annual South River Blackfly Hunt.

Four years ago, the nearby town of South River capitalized on the blackfly population in Northern Ontario. They issued hunting permits and held a 'weigh-in' at the end of a two-week period to judge who had killed the most blackflies. There was some talk one year that the incumbent had cheated by accepting some blackflies from a relative from another town, but that all blew over and it brought the town rather good notoriety and everyone had a lot of fun with it.

My outdoor activity is curtailed for the next few weeks because the blackflies are back. If you haven't visited Northern Ontario in May and June, you can't imagine the horror of blackflies. People who live in a country where window screens are a rarity would have a very difficult time coming to grips with blackflies.

They're hateful little things that show up shortly after the leaves start to emerge though, as much as I hate them, I adore them as well. On the one hand, they can drive a person to near-insanity with their biting; on the other, they are a necessary element in the pollination of our incredible Northern Ontario blueberries.

They start out by hovering about your face, just enough to annoy you, but there's no biting in the first days. They begin to bite about a week later, and they particularly love the skin behind the ears and on the neck, wrists and ankles. It's not enough to cover up; they can get under even snug-fitting clothing. Their bite is far worse than that of the mosquito - I believe you lucky folks in the UK have mosquitoes, now, so you might know what that feels like - blackflies, however, rip into the flesh and scoop out a chunk with their scissor-like jaws, then slurp up the blood. Sounds gory, I know. It's more annoying than gory. People who have become lost in the woods during blackfly season have sometimes been reported to emerge completely mad in the morning, after being attacked all through the night. The ones that will be biting us within the next few days hatched last fall and have grown slowly beneath the ice throughout the winter (it's hard for me to remember that, while we have a prolonged period of minus 30C in the winter, underneath the ice there is water warm enough to support life). As the ice melts and the temperature climbs, they metamorphose into adults and float to the surface of the water inside an air bubble.

This invasion causes particular trouble on our roads and highways: animals such as deer and moose are driven out of the woods by the insects, especially from dusk to dawn, and there are more collisions as a result.

There's a second wave of the little beggars later in the summer, though not as big. These hatch from eggs in the the spring and become adults by late June or July.

We northerners have several solutions to the blackfly problem: like me, some people stay indoors for most of the period, making mad dashes from the house to the car if it's necessary to go anywhere, swatting frantically and cursing roundly; some go into town to do outdoor things, as the bugs are less of a problem in town; some just get on with their normal life, claiming 'you get used to them' (I haven't); many, including me, who crave some outside time dress in a sort of Canadian Shield haute couture: The Bug Shirt. Bug shirts are pullover jackets made of a densely woven cotton with mesh panels under the arms and down the sides, and an enclosed face of mesh. There's a zipper that runs across the base of the 'face' almost from shoulder to shoulder. The hem and cuffs snug up with elastic and quick-release toggles. A pouch on the front becomes the handy-dandy little carrying case for the jacket when it's not being worn. In order to function while wearing a bug shirt, you must also wear a peaked cap (another good use for that ubiquitous baseball cap in Canada!) to keep the mesh front away from your face. I could not accomplish anything outdoors at this time of year without my bug shirt.

And, truly, anyone can see how a woman could be considered a goddess in one! I wear my jacket tucked into my pants; my pants tucked into my socks; my gardening gloves tucked into the sleeves of the jacket, with the elastic snugged up so tight that my circulation suffers. Wearing one makes you feel quite hot so, when I take off the jacket and the required hat, my hair is damp and plastered to my head. Sometimes the bugs get into the jacket in spite of the tucking-in ritual; once, I looked down through the mesh face and saw hoards of them around my midriff on my t-shirt. No doubt about it: I'm ravishing at this time of year.

Clouds of them come into the house in pet fur. The good thing about that is that they always gravitate to the windows and stay there, dying off after a short period of time. You don't have to chase around swatting them as you do houseflies. Poor Lester, the Very Cool Cat, gets terribly bitten on the bare patches of skin in front of his ears. I'm researching a safe insect repellant for him now.

We know enough now not to go away in April and early May because we have to make the best of those weeks to do our outside work. Over the last three weeks, I've cleaned up the raspberry patch, tidied up the flower gardens, prepared a new veggie garden and raked the lawn. We still have to stack our nine cords of firewood, to be delivered in the next week, and distribute the half-load of topsoil we've got coming shortly - guess what I'll be sporting to do those jobs?

It takes about five or six days of consecutive hot weather to kill blackflies off so, though I don't want to wish away the good weather, you know what I'll be waiting for.

Cheers from Skinner's Pond! Brenda

[Heather]

Wow! Brenda another great posting! I thought our scottish midges were terrible but your blackflies sound horrendous! I would want to emigrate for those 2 months! :lol:

[Dex Cameron]

How do people with horses cope with the blackflies? It's bad enough here with the midgies which cause sweet itch (intense irritation to the tail & mane area) or the field flies which cover their faces. We are always on guard with the fly repellant but your little horrors sound like something else.

Your garb reminds me of our trip to Finland years ago where the mosquitos in July were dreadful (lots of small lakes there) and those in the know took some protective gear, including one fellow visitor splendidly attired in his bee-keeping outfit!. I recall a humming device which was supposed to attract away the females who do the damage. Alcohol in the blood proved something of a deterrent I, only vaguely, recall!

[Brenda]

I've heard about those midges! I'd pick my times to go hiking in the hills of Scotland. Horses and blackflies...not something I've had to deal with. If the biting is bad enough to drive the tough-hided moose out of the bush, though, it surely must bother the horses, too. But, the protection from an elevated blood alcohol level sounds like a good theory. Maybe a visit to the local LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) is in order today (we can't get our alcohol just anywhere, here is staid old Ontario). Do you know if Strongbow works? :wink:

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

Oh dear, Brenda, your blackflies sound horrendous, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your very fetching outfit to combat them! Could this be next season's fashion must have? :lol: :wink:

Your graphic description of how they bite made me wince - I hate insects that bite, and wasps scare me because I am highly allergic to their sting and have to get myself to the nearest doctors quickly for an adrenaline injection and anti histamines. Fortunately it has only happened to me twice, but it makes me very wary of them.

I was thinking previously how much I should love to visit your part of Canada, but maybe not in May or June!

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Brenda - you have now written chapter 5 of your book! :lol:

Janet

[Brenda]

My apologies, but I seem to have deleted a message from one of you with advice about self-publishing. If you remember sending me the information, could I trouble you to re-send it, and I'll try not to have any more senior moments, at least for the remainder of the day. Ta. Brenda

Now... what was that I wasn't going to do for the remainder of the day??? :(

[Brenda]

When I first thought to pose the question about the passage I'm looking for in one of Derek's books to the members of this discussion group, I found out I'd have to join to do so. Linda asked me to complete the profile and provide some details on myself. I thought the little story I told her about our meeting with Derek was worth sharing with you.

I picked up one of Derek’s books by chance in the public library in North Bay, Ontario in about 1994. I was casting around for ‘an animal story.’ I hadn’t heard of him and was probably even unaware of Cornwall at the time; however, I’d felt a pull to England for about 25 years at that point because of my family history. Having read one book, I proceeded through the remainder of the library’s limited selection like the proverbial house on fire. My husband is from the UK and suggested we take a trip over in April, 1996 for his mother’s birthday. When he asked me what I’d like to do while there (on a much-needed break from my very deadline-driven job), I promptly said, ‘Just get me to Cornwall for a few days. I don’t care what else you plan.’ Derek had worked his magic on me. I didn’t tell my mate what I had in mind, but I wrote to Derek about three weeks before our trip to ask if it would be okay for us to drop in and meet him. I had no idea until later that he had the same effect on people from all over the world – I just thought I was being terribly forward in asking to see Minack, the donkeys, the cats, and so on. I had no idea even that Jeannie had died 10 years earlier, as the books I had been reading had all been written decades before. There was no reply to my letter by the tme we left, but I surreptitiously led my ‘driver’ ever westward until we got to Mousehole, and then finally got up the courage to confess what I was up to. He was enthusiastic about my hopes of meeting Derek. We parked at Lamorna Cove, asked directions, and walked up the coastal path. We tentatively stuck our heads around the corner of the house. There he was, sitting in his little porch on a hot, sunny, cloudless April 23, 1996. I was giddy like a star-struck groupie, stumbling out ‘Uh, you don’t know me, but, uh, I uh, ...’ and trailing off, feeling completely foolish and utterly intrusive. He said, ‘Hello, where have you come from?’, invited us into the porch, offered a glass of wine, and gave us the most delightful hour of his time in which he asked many more questions of us than we could ask of him. As it turned out, he was quite interested in where we lived because he'd been, relatively speaking, quite near our home at one time. On one of his trips to the States when he was with MI5, he'd been invited to spend a few days at the Bigwin Inn, a very posh resort in the Muskokas (a 'gazillion' lakes region of central Ontario). I think I fell a little in love that day! His newest book, The Confusion Room, was recently out, and I bought a copy from him and he kindly autographed it. What an experience! I was so happy afterwards that I’d gathered the courage to seek him out, and we were very sad to learn of his death just about six months later. He left a lasting impression, of course, sent us away with his 'No, take risks!' firmly stuck in our brains, and inspired us to create our own place of solitude.

He's often in my mind as I realize 'how lucky we are' to have what we do, to be able to provide a safe haven for birds and wild animals and to preserve this little piece of Northern Ontario so that others will be able to enjoy it as we do.

I have a couple of photos from that visit to scan and will send them to the site as soon as I can do that.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Brenda - a lovely story about your meeting with Derek. I was lucky enough to visit him for about 5 years, usually twice a year. The last time was in September '96 a few weeks before he passed away, if I remember correctly. I was just as nervous as you were on all my visits, but always he was welcoming and I have some lovely memories of all those magic afternoon visits. I've written a little piece for 'Wavelength' about my visits. Have told Patricia to only include it if she thinks it is good enough! I wish I had your writing skills!

About the message you've mislaid :wink: , I did send you a private message a few days ago, telling you about Patricia's little book about 'Bounty' and suggesting that a little book might be less frightening to write than a normal size one. In case that was the mislaid message, I'll have a go to try to find it and resend it. If it wasn't - sorry, but I might not even find it to send again anyway :lol: Janet

[Dex Cameron]

My wife and I also met Derek in 1996, in September, again by chance as we, too, got directions in Lamorna Cove - from the parking attendant! We, too, sat with him in his porch as he sipped from a glass of chilled white wine and received his wisdom on how to make up our minds about whether to move to Cornwall, which we did almost two years later.

[Brenda]

Last night, we had the first visit of the year from Stilts, the great blue heron. He’s just one of many feathered visitors we enjoy at Skinner’s Pond. He’s an amazing bird and his presence in the pond is hypnotic. Either that, or I’m just very easily led astray from my work (maybe I need 'a Derek' to lock me away in my writing space). I have spent literally hours at my kitchen window, or in a chair on the deck, watching this magnificent bird slowly patrolling the pond edges, catching the occasional small fish or frog.

Our pond edge is slightly tamed only on the house side; the rest is ringed with tall trees: tamarac, black spruce, tag alder and other varieties, and the heron doesn’t appear to like taking off towards the house. He often has to circle as he spirals upwards to get enough lift to fly over the trees. His flight is slow and lumbering, and we almost hold our breath in anticipation of his not making it, but he always does.

Lester watches Stilts with great interest but never shows any inclination to pursue him. One time, the heron walked onto the little isthmus leading to our footbridge over the waterfall – a rather ungainly stroll! – and Lester seemed to have a momentary thought about stalking him. But, as many thoughts like that do in cats, it passed.

Though the heron is a frequent visitor, we’ve just once had the rare treat of seeing an American bittern on the pond. I have to say at this point that we do not consider ourselves serious birders but, if we can observe from the kitchen window or the deck, we love to do so (even better if someone has poured the Strongbow). Anyway, this bittern came to the pond about four or five summers ago, spent the day, and left us, never to return. It was fascinating in its behaviour. We have some little tufts of islands in the pond, just overgrowths of grasses, really, and the bittern, after fishing a little, spent most of its time on one of those. It raised its beak to a vertical position, whereupon we could see that its neck and breast were heavily streaked, and it swayed back and forth, becoming ‘at one’ with the grasses. It virtually disappeared. Several times during the day, we thought it had gone, only to discover that it was still there, swaying with the grasses.

Blue jays keep us company throughout the year and, in the dead of winter when we have several feet of blindingly white snow all around us, their bright blue feathers are a welcome relief on the eyes. I’ve always loved blue jays. I like their raucous squawking and their boldness. We discovered quickly that they love peanuts in the shell and are especially attracted to shiny aluminum pie plates filled with them (not that I ever purchase ready-made pies, you understand –someone else must have left one here...yes, that’s it :roll: ). Blue jays are greedy and insatiable as they compete with our scrappy little red squirrels for this treat. They’re cagey, too: we once watched a blue jay carefully follow a red squirrel that was retrieving peanuts and burying them for later consumption. He trailed the squirrel all the way around the pond edge to the woods on the far side. After the squirrel hid the peanut and headed back to the deck for more, the blue jay dropped to the ground and pinched it!

We have a variety of hawks here and one summer were summoned to the back of the house by a tremendous racket in the pine tree (now the totem pole) that used to stand on the island. Robins had built a nest there and were raising their brood, and a sharp-shinned hawk was invading the nest. The robins (our robins are huge compared to yours) did their best to defend their young and we chipped in by clapping our hands loudly and shouting at the attacker. They managed to drive the hawk away at least twice but, in the end, they and we were helpless to keep the predator away from its prey. Letting nature takes its course is not always a comfortable thing to do.

From about early April to the fall, we have another creature soaring above our heads: the turkey vulture. With jet-black feathers, a wingspan of six or more feet and a grotesque red scaly head, the turkey vulture is an awe-inspiring if ugly sight. Because we live in a farming area, they’re often overhead, calling out, ‘Bring out your dead!’ And we can hear all the little critters feebly responding, ‘I’m not dead yet...’ Once, while we were out on a motorcycle day trip, a turkey vulture exploded out of the brush at the side of the road, right in front of us. Talk about being startled! I don’t honestly know how my husband kept the bike on the road and I’m sure, if I had been on my own bike, I’d have ended up in the ditch! The bird turned in its flight after passing in front of us and flew parallel to us for several yards before veering off into the woods on the other side of the road, giving us a rare opportunity to see one up close. I’m not sure it’s something I’d want to do on a regular basis, but that one time was memorable.

I mentioned in a previous post about the fortuitousness of being at the kitchen window at just the right time. And we happened to hit it right one Sunday morning as we were getting ready to go out on another motorcycle ride. We were just getting our gear on when we noticed some birds landing on the pond. It turned out to be twelve woods ducks, eleven of them males. I don’t know if you have wood ducks in the UK. I call them the ‘stained glass’ birds because of their markings. It’s rare in this part of the province to see wood ducks at all, though we’ve occasionally had one or a pair on the pond for a short time – passing through, I suppose. To have a dozen land together, and so many of them males, seemed unbelievable and such great luck. They stayed for about 20 minutes and then, with much splashing and quacking, were gone.

My one regret about the size of our pond is that it’s not big enough to attract loons. I can hear their haunting call in the distance, perhaps from a larger body of water, but they don't come close to us. They need a longer stretch of water for takeoff than our pond affords. Loons have a mysticism about them and they are much admired in Northern Ontario but, sadly, cottage development and too much disposable income (in the form of power boats and jet skis) are shrinking their habitat.

Many other birds pass through on their migration routes, stay for a while, breed and feed here, and move on: chickadees, sparrows, goldfinches, flycatchers, gray jays, flickers, woodpeckers (from the tiny downy to huge pileated, the ‘Woody Woodpecker’ model), and many more. There’s one other visitor we’re always anxious to see again: the ruby-throated hummingbird. It should be arriving any day now from its winter home in South America (and how incredible is that?!?), and I’ve got the feeder hung up just outside the kitchen window in anticipation. From the very tall great blue heron, the largest bird that comes to this area, to the wee little hummingbird zipping amongst the bright flowers in the garden, we have a never-ending entertainment package at our disposal. Once again, lucky!

[Sybille Weber]

What an interesting account of all the birds visiting you, Brenda.
I love bird-watching, too, and although we do not have land of our own, not even a garden, (we live on the 1st and 2nd floor) we can watch all kinds of birds from our window as they come to our balcony where we feed them. We can also watch them in the neighbouring gardens from there and in the adjacent hospital gardens. It's quite amazing how much wildlife we have here on the outskirts of a big town.
Apart from all the various species of birds, the hospital grounds are also home to two hares and several red squirrels. We used to have one squirrel that would climb up to our balcony, come in through the door, go for a walk round our flat, then stop in front of the TV set if it happened to be turned on, watched TV a little while and then left again. It wasn't shy at all. The others are different. They also feed on the nuts that we put out on the balcony for the birds, but as soon as someone appears they are gone.
Several years ago we used to have a blackbird that came into our sitting-room if there was no food left on the balcony. It would sit right in front of us, opening its beak several times, looking at us with irresistible eyes, and then, of course, up you would get and fetch another supply of bird feed to put out on the balcony.
Once we had a titmouse that spent the night in our sitting-room on four consecutive nights after obviously having been frightened the night before by a terrible thunderstorm. Each evening it would fly up to the lamp beneath the ceiling to sleep there. We always had to be up early the next morning to open the door when it awoke and wanted to get out again. Only when the weather had become stable again would it spend the night outside again.
We have a lot of birds visiting the balcony: bluetits, coal tits, great tits, blackbirds, starlings, chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches, bullfinches, robins, jays, jackdaws, a wren and doves. There also is a woodpecker (the black, white and red one) and a pair of green woodpeckers and some birds for which I can't find the English name in the German-English dictionary.
Swifts are nesting under the roof beneath our window, and a starling is just building its nest under the roof of the neighbouring house.
Unfortunately all those birds on our balcony also attract the occasional bird of prey. I was too late once to try and save a titmouse but my sister managed to save a dove. The bird of prey (don't know the actual species) had the dove firmly in its grip and only when my sister bent down to touch the bird of prey, did it let go. We were pleased to have saved the dove but at the same time I felt sorry for the bird of prey. It had looked at us with such appealing eyes. I shall never forget those eyes.

Oh well, must be off now. Will try and tell you more about our birds when I get the time.

[Dex Cameron]

Your balcony sounds like a very busy place, Sybille: you must be an animal magnet!

[Janet Swan]

Brenda and Sybille - all I can say is WOW. :o What contrasts - from the birds of the wide open spaces of North Ontaria to a balcony on the outskirts of a German town - so many different species in both locations - quite amazing.
Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

Another highly interesting posting Brenda, and you too Sybille. I am stunned by your knowledge of all the different birds. I feel very ignorant - I can recognise all our usual garden birds, but after that I am lost. :(

Kath

[Brenda]

Isn't it amazing to realize that one doesn't have to live in a rural setting to enjoy nature. It's wonderful to have visits from such a wide variety of birds, even when your 'garden' is a balcony! I hope that, if I ever live in a big city again, I'll have the same kind of experience. Enjoyed your posting, Sybille. And, Kath, just keep a good quality bird book by the window - you'll learn as you look up each new bird that appears.

Brenda

[Linda]

Brenda

you have now written 5761 words, a total of 10 pages... :)

...the book has really begun!! very enjoyable reading, more please!!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Linda]

ps I may be a bit late on the biting insects front but when Heather mentioned the midges I just have to say for me they are like the blackfly....I stayed with my cousin in Ontario some years ago and we went camping 'up north' my cousin took me...little did I know! Run for the hills! the water wherever...and thats how I feel about midges too! Leastways I did when i first got here...something like 50 lumps on my face and neck in the first weekend on Arran....and now the huge lumps are more like pimples...but still itch like hell. Jeff is unaffected! Except if we go to the frest edge and then you cannot breath for thousands of them. We walk round in 'cowboy style hats with mesh over them and jackets done up, not a bit of flesh bared anywhere and loads of Skin so soft sprayed on(by Avon) which really does seem to keep them at bay ...for a while!
Black Fly, midges, and the dreaded Cleg (horsefly to most!) they bite and pull out a chunk of flesh...and come up with a swelling the size of saucers! itching for weeks after. More recently we have noticed far more hornets....run!!
As with Kath I hate them all...but I guess they have their purpose....just wish it wasn't to 'bug' me! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Brenda]

Blackflies, midges, horseflies, whatever...it's obvious that Northern Ontarians do not have a monopoly on buggy things. We experience pretty much the same here as you've described on Arran, so please do confirm the time of year for me that they are at their worst, and I'll plan my visit for another time. Perhaps we can all just trade 'round our houses to get away from our particular bug season? They like me far better than they do my husband, as well, although people tell me it's because he ignores them and I swat and shoo. I don't wear any scented products. Some Canadians use Avon's Skin So Soft as well! It's supposed to do the trick, even on long canoe trips where you're really at the mercy of the bugs.

Linda - and all others who have been so generous with your positive comments about my writings - thank you very much for the encouragement and praise. You can't imagine how incredibly puffed up I am feeling right now. Seriously, though, I sometimes feel that I'm running on and shouldn't be using the forum this way. I've gone 'way beyond introducing myself. Please do tell me if my long and ongoing posts are inappropriate.

Brenda

[Sybille Weber]

Well, Brenda, how can your posts be inappropriate?

Just look again at the following quotes from postings of various forum members:
- Hope to hear lots more from you.
- I look forward to hearing more about your life there.
- Wow, Brenda, what a wonderful posting.
- Love to hear about life in your part of the world.
- More please.
- I so enjoy reading about your life.
- We will happily be your trial audience. Keep going!
- Wow, Brenda, another great posting!
- Another highly interesting posting, Brenda.
- Very enjoyable reading, more please!!

Any more doubts, Brenda? Please keep going.

I don't believe the subject always has to be Derek and Jeannie's Minack itself. It's the philosophy of life that's important and that we mainly speak about things that Derek and Jeannie would also have found worth mentioning. So the description of nature in your part of the world where you have created your own Minack just has to be of interest to all those here on the same wavelength.

[Kath Mulligan]

I wholeheartedly agree with Sybille, just keep on posting Brenda, we are all fascinated by your stories, and like she says, in many ways it is in keeping with the spirit of the forum since you are describing life in the wild, much as Derek did, albeit on a smaller scale.

Looking forward already to the next chapter of your book!! :wink:

Kath

[Brenda]

Having a cat often makes me think of Derek’s stories about accepting another cat - or not - unless the conditions are ‘just right.’ I’d had to put my old cat, Mr Sox, to sleep the day we picked up the keys to our new place in the country – a bad heart did him in. We were devastated, but decided to enjoy our freedom from the responsibility of looking after a pet. We tried to think, who needs a cat, anyway?

In my job at the time, I had to run an awareness campaign for a new mandatory rabies vaccine for pets in our area. That put me in contact with many individuals and organizations with dogs and cats. I fell in love with a gorgeous little *available* tabby with the most extravagant fluffy tail and we caved in and adopted her. She had an elegant way of sweeping her tail around her feet when she sat in the window-seat in the kitchen, prompting me to name her The Duchess. She stayed with us for five months, and then disappeared. She could have wandered away; she might have been killed by a wild animal. We never found out. Once again, we resolved to enjoy the freedom that comes with less responsibility. No more adoptions or kindness to strays.

Silly old us! Just two months after that, on a bitter cold Friday evening, we noticed the motion-sensor light come on at the front of the house. A cat was sitting in the driveway. I foolishly went out to see it, and found a very friendly, trusting feline eager for a rub and a kind word. I took him into the house (well, I couldn’t leave him out when it was minus 25C, could I?). It was obvious from the first that this cat was well-mannered and used to the good life. He knew the sound of a can opener, and he knew what a litter box was for. I called a neighbour who, having lived on our dead-end country road for decades, knew everyone’s animals: Well, Mary just down the road from you has two cats, but not that colour; Joan and Dave just have that little dog; Dennis has a bunch of barn cats, but I don’t think he’s missing any, and so on. Apparently no one on our road had a pet that looked like this one. He was beautiful! My first impression was that he’d started out as an all-white cat and someone had tossed a black blanket over his back. His face made me think of a Picasso painting - like it was meant to be symmetrical, but had ended up with one side pushed upwards, giving him a slightly lop-sided look. An out-of-town work colleague of mine who was staying overnight kidded me about keeping him, but I was adamant that he was going back out in the morning. She insisted I’d be keeping him and asked what we would name him. No naming, said I; he’s not staying. As he wasn’t neutered, I added that anyway, if we did keep him, he’d have to go to the vet and then there’d be ‘a little less’ of him. That’s it! she proclaimed. You can name him Les. I grumbled that I didn’t like the name, Les, and it would have to at least be Lester, but we weren’t keeping him. On it went, and so it was that Lester, The Very Cool Cat, came to live with us.

All this happened, of course, many years after I’d read Derek’s declaration that the conditions had to be ‘just so’ before he would have another cat in the house, and I felt even more of a kinship with him after that.

Yesterday Lester killed an ermine. We have seen an ermine only twice since we moved to Skinner’s Pond: once, in the dead of winter, there was one peeking out at us from the woodpile, wearing its white coat. The next spring, we saw it after its coat had turned brown. It’s such a tiny animal – only about five inches long, and very slender, with the unmistakable weasel shape. One has to wonder about all that British royalty in ages past, as well as all those Canadian Supreme Court judges, whose robes have been trimmed in ermine. Hundreds of thousands of the little critters must have been needlessly killed for that ostentatious embellishment. How dare the human race be so arrogant as to feel we have the right to dominate and use other species in this way?

Lester, of course, had no such thoughts about the ermine; it was just something in his territory that required attention. How he managed to catch it is beyond me; ermine dart about at the speed of light! Lester’s a dedicated hunter, though we discourage him as much as possible and rescue as many of his trophies as we can. His abiding passion is to fish in the pond. No kidding! He catches tadpoles, frogs and small fish, all of which he partially eats, green-mindedly leaving half to fertilize the lawns. He patrols the edge of the pond almost ceaselessly all summer, waiting patiently, then dashing in up to the top of his front legs to catch his prey. He comes out muddied, soaking wet and usually with an amphibian dangling out of his mouth. I’ve lost count of the number of frogs we have rescued from him. When our big-city granddaughter and her friend come up for a week in the summer, they love to catch frogs and get quite perturbed when Lester cuts out the middle step and pinches his frogs from their bucket!

Last summer, we managed to save a chipmunk from the jaws of death at least five or six times – the same one each time? Who knows? He’s caught Lindy, the flying squirrel twice and brought it into the house alive. Picture that rescue operation as my husband dives madly around the living room, trying to catch the frantic squirrel, chased by Lester who thinks this is just great that his human has joined in the game, too! He killed a baby snowshoe hare one year, much to our sadness, and has brought us more than one garter snake. Note to Self: never, never let the cat lick you again. Just a few days ago, he managed to snare a ruffed grouse. Even though they can explode up into the air quite quickly, they’re pretty slow-witted birds; I wasn’t surprised that Lester’s patience paid off in the end. I distracted him long enough for the grouse to fly away, but not before it had left a rather large circle of feathers on the ground. I was most alarmed when the cat decided to chase Nessie, the mink (Nessie got his name because, when we first moved here, I saw it many times before my husband did, and he had begun to think it was a figment of my imagination). Mink are nasty fighters if cornered, and Lester very nearly had this one in a bad position. The situation diffused after a few minutes, thankfully. He puts up with an enormous amount of badgering by the feisty little red squirrels, and he’s got his own back on more than one occasion by catching one of them.

We both love dogs but have decided they’re too much work for us at the moment. But we have the best of both worlds, in a way, with Lester. He’s a bit like a dog: he adores going for walks in the woods with us, follows us around the house and garden as we work, and comes when we whistle for him. He doesn’t make a mess when he eats, doesn’t chase cars and, even better, is self-cleaning!

[Kath Mulligan]

No wonder Lester decided he was going to live with you, Brenda, it sounds like his idea of cat heaven! - all that wildlife on his doorstep to play with.

Kath

[Linda]

The Chronicles tell us about a way of life and a belief in and love of nature. I think Derek's wish was that we could all find our own Minack, whether it was in our minds as we read the books or we actually live in a such a place.
All of us talk about the different places we live in and how we are touched by the nature that surrounds us ~ how we try to create a little haven in the environment in which we find ourself.
The idea behind the forum is not only to for us to talk about Minack but about the affect it has had on our lives....and all of these posts are doing just that....a chance to share and enjoy and go to these other places in our minds with the photos, the stories and all the comments....how wonderful to compare all these places and yet find similarities too....

...as for cats arriving on doorsteps?....they hang signs up when they leave us to let the others know that there is a vacancy....sometimes tho' they forget to say how many!!


:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Brenda]

When I was looking at Linda's website today, I noticed the cat footprints in the left-hand frame, along with the saying, 'You never know a cat until you have followed in its footprints.' And it made me think back to the time when Lester was still making up his mind about whether he wanted to live with us.

There was about a two-month period from the time he first showed up in our driveway until he got the big snip and stayed for good. He used to settle in for two or three days, disappear for two or three, then reappear. This went on with regularity and we always wondered where he went. We had mixed feelings about whether we hoped he'd come back or choose another home.

One night in January, after he'd been coming and going for several weeks, he asked to go out, and we obliged. It was one of our typical January nights - probably close to minus 30C, crystal clear, with a full moon like a megawatt spotlight. There had been fresh snow earlier in the day, and we decided to follow his footprints to get the answer to the question.

We dressed for the Northern Ontario deep-freeze, bundled up so that just our eyes were visible, and set out down the driveway. The footprints turned to the right and so did we. Although I hate the extreme cold, I do like walking on a crisp night like that when the snow crunches underfoot and the stars stand out sharply in the dark blue sky. Every sound is muffled after a snowfall and the world seems completely still and at peace.

Lester's footprints took us all the way to the farm at the crossroads - maybe close to a mile away - and then they turned into the driveway towards the barn. Ahhh! He was visiting his friends. We didn't try to call him. We just retraced the walk to our house, shed our winter outerwear, and warmed ourselves gratefully by the woodstove.

[gloria townsin]

The Chronicles tell us about a way of life and a belief in and love of nature. I think Derek's wish was that we could all find our own Minack, whether it was in our minds as we read the books or we actually live in a such a place.
All of us talk about the different places we live in and how we are touched by the nature that surrounds us ~ how we try to create a little haven in the environment in which we find ourself.
The idea behind the forum is not only to for us to talk about Minack but about the affect it has had on our lives....and all of these posts are doing just that....a chance to share and enjoy and go to these other places in our minds with the photos, the stories and all the comments....how wonderful to compare all these places and yet find similarities too....

...as for cats arriving on doorsteps?....they hang signs up when they leave us to let the others know that there is a vacancy....sometimes tho' they forget to say how many!!


:lol: :lol: :lol:

Well said Linda - I think that is just what Derek had in mind for his readers. :wink:

[nashie]

Yes, Gloria, I agee, Linda put it exactly right.

[Dex Cameron]

I agree and can certainly say that reading Derek's books led to my looking at day-to-day life, especially when we moved to Cornwall, through a new prism. I observed wildlife in ways I never had before and for someone who originated in London, I have come a very long way in my general outlook. I would get very irritated now if anyone suggested I was a 'townie' for example!

He was also an inspiration in terms of looking at life in one's own way, independently of others. I won't go on about what I mean by this as clearly everyone here already knows, as evidenced by their own take on things.

[BunnyHankers]

It was slightly different for me with Derek's books as I was always a 'renegade lemming'.
I was always fighting against the mainstream and trying my best to create a little haven for myself and enjoy nature despite constant ridicule from a lot of people as they saw what I was trying to achieve as something you do when you retire as opposed to wanting to spend your whole life that way.
But when I read Derek's books it made me think it was possible and understandable that I wanted to live that way now and not wait until I was 65 and might be able to afford it. He was a dreamer like me but he'd lived his dream.
I've already created my own little haven and made the best of the circumstances I've found myself in. I live in a little village that's surrounded by fields and wildlife and for a while I thought it was the best I could hope for.
But I'm still determined to live in the real countryside and in Cornwall as I've always wanted to live there even before I read the Minack books.
I always really admired Derek and Jeannie for the way they took risks and tried things even if they knew they might fail, rather then not trying them and always regretting it. In that way I think their books are timeless as the message lives on and inspires future generations like me.
I speak to so many people who want to do things but just don't. Most times there is nothing stopping them except the fact that they believe deep down somewhere that it just can't be possible or else everyone would be doing it. So I really admire anyone who feels the fear and goes against the mainstream and does it anyway.
It seems to me that the main difference between people who succeed and fail is whether or not they actually try in the first place.

Or at least that's what I keep telling myself whenever I regularly stop whatever I'm doing and have a panic about whether I'll be successful at it.

I'm trying to write a book and I'm trying to build a website and I feel really inspired by Derek and his books and his outlook on life.

And even if I fail at least I would have tried.

I'm sure you could write a beautiful book Brenda. You just have to DO it!

[Brenda]

I agree as well with everyone's comments about the Tangye inspiration. When we left Derek and said, 'Take care,' and he responded, 'No, take risks!', I'm sure he knew - though we didn't at the time - that the phrase would stick in our minds. And that we would recall it from time to time and act on the advice.

We've found our Minack here in Northern Ontario and we do try to go out on a limb once in a while. My husband is a real 'let's give it a go' type of guy, and he can usually achieve whatever he sets his mind to. With his influence over the last 12 or 13 years, I have become much more like that, myself, starting with a motorcycle rider training course when I was 43! I still don't think I'm all that adventurous, but many of my friends tell me they're amazed at all the things I've done in my life. Maybe...

Thanks for the encouragement, Bunny. I AM writing more just since I joined this forum and, with all the support and kind words of the members, how could I not go on with it?

Brenda

[Dex Cameron]

[quote="BunnyHankers"]
I'm trying to write a book and I'm trying to build a website and I feel really inspired by Derek and his books and his outlook on life.

And even if I fail at least I would have tried.

quote]

Bunny: I'm sure if you change the word 'trying' to 'going' and change the last sentence to 'Then I would have succeeded...' you will find the book writes itself and the website gets designed and set up! It will be very satisfying too.

[Kath Mulligan]

Go for it Bunny, you never know what you can do unless you try, and if you don't succeed, what the heck, at least you will know you have given it your best shot. Better that than to look back later and say "if only".

And Brenda, you definitely have the knack of painting vivid word pictures, so you MUST have a crack at writing your book.

Kath

[Brenda]

Thanks to Queen Victoria, we have a long weekend coming up. Canadians relish the Queen’s birthday because it’s our first long weekend of the ‘summer’ season. No matter what day of the week May 24th falls on, we have the closest Monday off as a statutory holiday. For some people, usually the younger crowd, there’s a tradition of celebrating – whether it’s on the first camping trip or with the first barbecue – by getting several cases of beer in for the multitude of friends you celebrate with. It’s even spawned the term ‘the May two-four weekend’ (a play on a case of 24 cans of beer).

But I’m looking forward to it for a different reason: the opening of local farmers’ markets. In southern Ontario, the large markets stay open year ’round, selling all manner of products that aren’t strictly tied to the growing season. Here in Northern Ontario, however, our farmers’ markets are smaller and more geared to produce and bedding plants, homemade products like honey, jam and soaps, crafts such as knitting and crocheting, and later in the season, hand-picked wild berries.

With all the concern for a greener environment and the encouragement to reduce one’s carbon footprint, I’ve decided this year that I’m going to do my part by buying locally grown foods more often from the farmers’ markets instead of doing my usual one-stop shopping at the grocery store and buying foods that have been trucked in from distant lands. It means an extra stop, but I’m going to look on it as part of my entertainment.

I'm not sure if the entertainment factor can ever top the one year when I chatted with one of the ladies at a stall selling cut flowers at our farmers’ market in nearby Powassan. She asked me if I was from the area, and I asked her the same, and then came a long explanation, delivered without pause and seemingly all in one breath, about her family background. It was real ‘banjo country’ stuff – straight out of ‘Deliverance.’ She was related to this person, who was the daughter of that person, whose grandfather was her third cousin’s uncle once removed, and on and on, so that in the end, she could actually prove that she was her own 3rd cousin and 7th cousin! I could only nod my head in mute astonishment. You can’t buy that sort of entertainment.

The May 24th weekend is also our traditional planting weekend. No guarantee that we won’t have a frost or two after that, and in Northern Ontario, it’s not even unheard of to have another light snowfall! But, generally, we can feel fairly safe putting in our bedding plants and veggies. My husband and I have framed a new raised garden and filled it with earth (we have extremely sandy soil here, and have to frame our beds or soil and water just vanish), and soon I’ll be able to plant out the squashes and pumpkins I’ve started indoors, and put in the onions and garlic. I might have one tomato plant just for the occasional taste of a fresh tomato. I’ve already put two varieties of peas and some broad beans in an existing garden. And if all that helps to reduce our dependency of trucked-in food just a little, I’ll feel good about it. I’m hoping the butternut squashes grow well as I’ve been making a wonderful curried soup with them in the last year.

Just under an hour’s drive away, in a little town called Port Loring, there’s another market I want to visit. I’ve heard good things about it and have meant to go there for years, but you know how it is...the best-laid plans... Anyway, this year, it’s a priority to visit it at least once or twice. And now I have an extra incentive: the Strawberry Fields tearoom will be open on market days for tea and scones (and my friend Debbie, from Derbyshire, usually manages to have clotted cream whenever we drop in). I’ll tell you more about Strawberry Fields Ironworks and Debbie and her Cornish husband, Pablo in another post – what an interesting couple!

So on Saturday, I'll be off to market! Have a good weekend everyone!

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

Being a Derbyshire lass myself I'll look forward to hearing all about Debbie and her Cornish husband. Whereabouts in Derbyshire is she from?

Kath

[Brenda]

Hi, everyone!

I’ve had quite a mad scramble this Victoria Day weekend to meet one of my editing deadlines. I took Friday off as it was a fantastic day, bought some herbs and bedding plants and spent most of the day outside gardening. On Saturday, I buzzed into Powassan quickly for a visit to the farmers’ market and the community yard sale, but was back at my laptop by 10 am and hard at work again.

A bit of a disappointment, this first farmers’ market in Powassan. Just six vendors occupying the stalls, and with not much on offer yet. The German couple were back in the first stall on the right with their herbs, bedding plants and sugar-free jams and, next to them, the lady with the second-hand books, crockery and miscellaneous stuff (she might have been the one who told me she was her own 7th cousin). One of the local maple syrup producers had their wares on display in the back right corner. I avoided the highly tempting fast-food stall in the back left corner with its wonderful-smelling but very greasy sausages-on-a-bun and hamburgers. I haven’t eaten that sort of food for years, but the smell of it still makes me feel hungry, even at 9:30 in the morning! Next, in the left-hand row of stalls, was one with a range of kids’ clothing and baby quilts – quite a riot of colours! Then there was the young, pleasant-looking Eurasian woman who had a variety of beaded jewellery and crocheted summer tops for sale. She and I flapped in unison at the blackflies, much in sympathy with one another. ‘You can try,’ she said in heavily accented English, inching a rack of necklaces towards me. I wondered where she had come from, how long she’d been in Canada, and what on earth had brought her to Powassan. After the flies have gone, I’ll go back and ask those questions.

I really admire all the effort it takes to produce enough of anything to sell at a market. It takes much more hard work than I'm willing to put in. And I think of Derek and Jeannie's flowers and potatoes, so lovingly and painstakingly grown on the Cornish coast, in spite of sometimes adverse weather or other difficult conditions. It must have given them such satisfaction to produce and sell their wonderful crops, as indeed Derek noted so often in his books.

Our market area is not posh. It’s an open-fronted square shape consisting of very plain, mostly unpainted wooden stalls. The ground is dirt and patchy grass. It’s situated somewhat away from the downtown area, in the not-very-aesthetically pleasing spot next to ‘the beer store.’ In Ontario, beer and ale are sold only in the government-sanctioned beer stores, and they are always an entity unto themselves. The fun thing about the market (and I’ve seen something similar in England) is that they pile two hay bales out near the road and decorate them to look like a person to draw attention to the market. Two years ago when they first did it, they had a contest for people to name the ‘person.’ I don’t know if an official name was chosen – another mission for me once the blackflies have gone. I thought of submitting Hayward or Heyyou, but I didn’t get around to it.

Powassan was also having its community yard sale on Saturday. A grand day! Sunny, warm, a cloudless sky. Bloody blackflies everywhere! Everyone flapping and complaining about how bad they are. One woman downtown said to a friend she met on the street, ‘I feel so horrible; my hair’s full of bug dope!’ Some people choose to use insect repellent on their skin. I don’t. I’d rather wear my bug shirt or stay indoors. Can’t imagine what a chemical like that must do to the body, or what dire things we’ll hear about it in 20 years – nothing good, likely. We can buy all-natural repellents here, but they don’t seem to be very effective. You have to use the toxic man-made stuff to truly keep the bugs away.

So, Main Street shops had tables outside with things on sale; it seemed to be mostly merchandise they couldn’t otherwise sell. Why does it look more interesting when it’s on a table outside the store? And why does an outdoor display make people feel that they need ‘more stuff’? The church had a massive sale of used household goods, toys, books, hardware, etc, on the front lawn and in the basement, though a lot of it looked like broken-down junk. The fire station had its big doors open and tables both inside and out with dishes, books, puzzles, games, sporting goods and baked goods for sale. Homeowners all over town also held their own yard sales, and there were signs up at every street corner directing people here and there for ‘great deals.’ I saw a young Amish couple looking at the items on display at the church. He was wearing the typical serviceable pants, suspenders, heavy black boots and hat that makes the members of this religion so recognizable; and she was wearing a long, very plain, full skirt, a black cape buttoned to the neck, heavy black shoes and a black bonnet that hid her hair completely and obscured her face to all but those who faced her directly. There was another young Amish woman helping a toddler up the stairs from the church basement, and her wee girl was dressed from head to toe in the traditional garb as well. I don’t know why I should even remark on that, except that it’s a novelty in this area, and I admire them for their determination to keep ‘the old ways.’

So, needing nothing to make life at Skinner’s Pond better, I came home with no purchases. I will try to go back most Saturdays during the summer to support our local farmers.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Thanks Brenda, for another most interesting posting. As soon as I began to read it, I thought "what about the black flies?". It is amazing how life goes on despite their attacks. Perhaps the Amish style of dress protects, but their faces are still exposed?

We have a small farmers' market once a month in my little town in Hertfordshire. Mostly preserves, plants, fruit and vegetables, cheeses, confectionary and lavender produce, as we have our own lavender farm.

Yesterday, there was a festival, mostly to raise money for various charities. There was a display of vintage cars, tombola, games for children, plant stalls, rescued animals from a local sanctuary and, quite adorable, rescued ferrets - who seemed to enjoy racing each other!

Fortunately we don't have the blackflies. People here just complain when it rains during a special event!

Janet

[Brenda]

I've been lucky enough to go to several markets and festivals while on vacation in England. As we really like to get off the main roads and poke along the 'B' roads or single-tracks, we often stumble upon something neat going on or something quite unexpected. We usually plan only one definite destination in a day to leave ourselves time for several unplanned stops. And those usually result in good material for my journal. As I am the navigator, I get to pick the roads! 8)

A couple of years ago when we were touring on the borrowed BMW1000cc in Wales and the Peak District, my husband tried subtly to discourage me from wandering around the market in Buxton because 'we had to be careful about carrying too much on the bike.' Silly, eh? I said to him, 'Dahling! What do you think the postal service was created for?' At that point, he rolls his eyes and wanders away to look at things that interest him until I'm finished.

When we're on the way to East Budleigh to my sister-in-law's house, we always stop in Honiton for coffee and a treat (even though there's just a short drive remaining to E Budleigh - we like our cappuccinos and goodies...). If we time it properly, we can often hit market day, and I get such a kick out of the walk up one side of the high street and down the other to see what's on offer.

I'm not usually much of a shopper, but I have to thank two good friends in Canada for helping me with this indulgence. My Welsh friend, Myra, tells me when we're shopping together and I see something I like, 'Go on then...have it if you want it!' Though I say that I wasn't really wanting the item, just admiring it, after she has said that to me several times, I find myself thinking (with attitude), 'Yeah. Why shouldn't I have it? No one's going to tell me I can't have that!' The other, a dedicated shopper, goes to Ottawa or Toronto twice a year on a 'Swipe the Stripe' tour. Her motto, which I find helpful if I'm ever in doubt, is: See it, Want it, Buy it!

It's always fun to shop when you're in a different country. As I have been a lover of most things English for most of my life, I really enjoy any stops we make when we're in the UK on holiday. It's all good for my soul.

Brenda

[Brenda]

The courtship ritual of the ruby-throated hummingbirds is so much fun at this time of year! I guess I’ve taken them for granted because they’ve always been part of my summers. I was never aware of the ritual until moving to Skinner’s Pond, but life here quiets the mind, and makes me more receptive to the subtleties of nature. That’s how I moved from taking hummingbirds for granted to taking notice of this extraordinary courting dance.

The males impress potential mates by zooming very quickly back and forth in a shallow ‘U’ shape, usually about four or five yards in diameter, as if they are suspended on a string. All the while, their wings are making the loud humming noise that gives them their name. A few days ago, though, I saw a male and female arrive at the feeder at the same time, and saw a modified courtship dance. The female immediately flew away and sat in the nearby trellis that supports a clematis alpina pink flamingo, less than a foot from the feeder. The male ‘performed’ for her benefit, about six inches from her new perch, in an arc of about six inches! Snap your finger and thumb as quickly as you can – that’s about the speed of his back-and-forth zooms. He kept that up for a full minute. What gal wouldn’t be impressed with that?

We fill the feeder with a high-energy sugar and water solution which I change every few days. Apparently hummingbirds can get drunk if their sugar water solution has fermented in the hot sun! They’re tremendously territorial little birds and at times it seems they spend more time chasing each other away from the feeder than they do feeding, but they do manage to eat half their weight every day. In their fierce pursuit of one another, they have zipped past our heads so close that we have felt a brush of air, but there’s never been a collision.

After figuring out the courtship ritual, we got to wondering about baby hummingbirds. We have never noticed a hummer that appears to be young or smaller than usual, the way you can with other birds. I looked them up in my ‘Up North’ book and found that once the male has done his dance and had his way, he disappears for good. The female builds a nest about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide of moss, lichens, grass and plant down and binds it together with spider's silk. Then, from a clutch of two pea-sized eggs, bee-sized babies hatch in about 16 days, blind and naked. They fledge in three weeks and are capable of the typical wind-up toy flight right away. They fly with their mothers for up to a month, then are sent off on their own or abandoned by mothers leaving for their southern retreats. I feel that something no bigger than my thumb (when fully grown yet!) should have more coddling than that!

This is the only hummingbird of more than 300 species in the Americas that comes to Ontario. And now that I’m more tuned in to their intense little lives, I think of Jeannie once again: how lucky we are to have such lovely creatures at Skinner’s Pond!

[Kath Mulligan]

How lucky you are indeed Brenda to have such wonderful birds performing their rituals almost on your doorstep. I have only ever seen a humming bird on TV (I love David Attenborough's programmes) but they are fascinating.

Kath

[Brenda]

I managed to snap a few shots of a female hummingbird today, one of which I've posted to my personal gallery. I'll try to get a male - they're the ones with the ruby throat.

Brenda

[BunnyHankers]

That really is a brilliant picture Brenda.

[Brenda]

My husband thought he might have seen a baby hummingbird a few days ago! :D He saw something that was larger than a bumblebee fly past him to the azalea, which is in full bloom right now. He said it wasn't as big as a hummingbird. Wouldn't that be exciting, as we had just been wondering why we had never noticed a 'small scale' hummingbird. Our dark pink honeysuckle bush is positively vibrating and humming with all the activity of the bumblebees in it. They seem 'supersized' this year. Maybe they're McBees...

This weekend is Celtfest in Callander, about 20 minutes from Skinner's Pond. I think I'll take a drive to get my annual dose of bagpipes. Off to market now. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

Treasure your bees Brenda, I was watching the BBC news last night and there was an horrific story about American bees suffering catastrophic losses - almost 30% of hives have been wiped out but as yet no-one knows what is causing the problem. One of the people affected was saying that he understood that the problem had also spread to some areas of Canada, so hope your bumblebees survive.

The interview was talking about how devastating it will be, not only for the honey producers, but for all farmers and growers who rely on the bees to pollinate their crops of flowers, fruit and veg. Hope they can find the cause and eradicate it soon.

Kath

[Brenda]

Our beekeeper friends at Board's Honey tell us that they are not terribly worried about the bee population. They say this has happened periodically in the past as well. Their feeling about the cause of the situation is that is could be the amount of stress of the bee populations that are shipped all over the place - hired out, as it were, for pollination. I think the situation is worse in the States than in Canada, as far as I know from the news reports - no doubt something to do with George Dubbleyuh.

Brenda

[Linda]

Just a thought...could genetically modified crops have any affect on the bees??


We have a bee hive somewhere ..we haven't yet found it...but our beech tree is 'home' the them throughout the summer and a constant hum emits from above us....swallows race around the tree towards sunset....
I keep thinking I might climb it to find it .... :lol:

[Kath Mulligan]

Hope you were joking Linda, or if not, you are a braver one than I!!

I have no problem with one or two bees in the garden busying themselves in and out of my flowers, but I shudder when I watch beekeepers surrounded by swarms of them. I could do that if my life depended on it! :lol:

[Brenda]

But working with bees would surely be just like any other job in that you'd have to get to know what to expect and what precautions to take, and understand that many jobs come with some risk. Still, I suppose it would help to WANT to be around them in the first place, Kath! I, for example, cannot imagine myself as the keeper at a snake farm... :shock:

[Kath Mulligan]

No, nor me either. Snakes terrify me, along with rats, mice and all other furry beasties of the same family. My poor girls could never keep hamsters or gerbils when they were children because I point blank refused to have them in the house. What a mean mum I was!! :wink:

I have just re-read my last post on here and what I meant to say was that I could NOT be a beekeeper if my life depended on it. Reading it again I appear to have typed the exact opposite!

Kath

[Brenda]

I went to Celtfest yesterday in Callander (the Ontario one!), about half an hour from Skinner’s Pond. It’s a little festival started six years ago to celebrate the Scottish heritage of the area. Like many northern events, it began with a hopeful bang, grew for three or four years, and then settled back into its niche with keen volunteers and loyal attendance by the local population. Northern Ontario festivals quite often suffer because they don’t have a large enough population base to support them. The event is located on the shore of Callander Bay, on Lake Nipissing - a beautiful setting.

Allan Dafoe made Callander famous in the 1930s when he was the doctor who delivered the Dionne quintuplets. Quite an event in Canada’s history (although not completely admirable) and his practice in Callander certainly brought notoriety to the tiny village; the museum that was his office still pulls in a good crowd today. It’s a pretty little village with the lingering feeling of a summer cottage area, but it’s growing and poised to become ‘the’ place to live.

I was a little disappointed in finding only four small pipe bands at the festival. When I saw ‘massed bands’ in the lineup, I guess I was imagining something on a grander scale. In any case, they paraded en masse to officially open the event and I had my annual top-up of bagpipe music. I know that people fall into one of two categories with bagpipes: they either love them or hate them. I don’t know what it is about the music that brings tears to my eyes (and I’m in the ‘love them’ category – those aren’t tears of pain!). Among the vendors’ stalls, I discovered an old map showing the clans of Scotland; I found that my family was of Clan Boyd headed by the Earl of Kilmarnock in the 1400s. It’s several generations since my family emigrated from that area, perhaps as far back as my great-great-great-great-grandfather. I wonder if they wore the earl’s tartan?

There were some traditional heavy events with local competitors tossing big things around and hurling massive items through the air. And a small sheepdog trial was being run, although not when I was there; I noticed about a dozen anxious-looking sheep running around in their enclosure. Many beautifully attired young girls were waiting to compete in the Scottish dancing events. I love all the tartans and the formality of the costumes, and their hair held neatly in the cute little bun. I wonder at the pipers’ ability to stay vertical in the heat when they’re all dressed up in their thick woollen knee-high socks and their kilts, the shirts and full jackets buttoned up to the neck. I was suffering a little with a short-sleeved linen shirt on! The honourary piper this year was an 86-year-old man who did a credible job with a piece of music - The Rose of Scotland, I think??

I didn’t stay long, just long enough to have my appetite whetted for that trip to the Edinburgh festival some time in the future. :wink:

Brenda

[Brenda]

I was thinking about Derek and Jeannie yesterday, as I discovered that my two beautiful delphiniums had been denuded overnight. :cry: The same thing happened last year, but this year I thought I might squeak by without the damage. They were looking so healthy and lush! Today, they are sticks. I found inch-long pale green caterpillars all over them where there had been none the day before - it was as if they had magically appeared overnight.

It reminded me (in a very small way) of some of the challenges Derek and Jeannie faced as they grew their various kinds of flowers, and how they always seemed to work it out and come up smiling. What strenth and perseverance they had!

Brenda

[Brenda]

Forgot to say in the previous post: the 'baby hummingbird' that my husband thought he saw a few days ago turned out to be a hummingbird moth. We found it on the web. Just bigger than a bumblebee, transparent wings, and the ability to hover like a hummer. The key to the identification was the antennae. That's a first at Skinner's Pond. Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

I've given up on trying to grow delphiniums, Brenda for the same reason. I would put gorgeous healthy plants in the ground, then next morning come out to find that the slugs and snails had been feasting on them all night, leaving just a forlorn stalk. I tried putting slug bait down, rings of crushed shells round the plants, cut off collars from plastic drinks bottles round them - you name it, I tried it but each time the beggars defeated me. Shame cos I love deep blue delphiniums but the slugs seem to love them even more.

Kath

[Brenda]

Arrggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more worries about my denuded delphiniums: it's SNOWING here! :evil: I've just come in from covering all my tender little veggies and wrapping fleece scarves around my sweet peas and morning glories and bringing in the baskets of geraniums and petunias. Really snowing - visible flakes, slushy bits building up on the deck and all! The temperature is about 5C and should go down to close to zero tonight. The furnace has just come on! That makes it 11 months of the year that our heating is on.

But, hey... there weren't any blackflies when I went outside to do that! :roll:

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Brenda I would be going demented if I had to put up with winter weather for so long. But then last week we were all about to grow flippers here so it's probably even stevens. :roll:

[Brenda]

The crazy thing is that until late yesterday, we'd had about a week of incredibly hot humid weather - up around the high 20s C. Everyone was wilting and fearful that we were in for a horrible summer. It's not unheard of to have a light snowfall in this part of the province in early June, although it is fairly rare. To console myself, I'm sitting here with a large bowl of steaming Bird's Custard! It's comfort food time.

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

We've had snow too in June in Derbyshire, Brenda. It once caused a cricket match to be postponed between Derbyshire and Lancashire at Buxton on 2nd June, but by the end of June it was blisteringly hot and we had a scorching summer through till September.

It's lovely here this week, sunny and warm, but no doubt it will change next week because I am having a week off work. Not got anything much planned but hoping to get some gardening done. I was detemined not to work on my birthday this year! Going out for a Chinese meal with some friends next Friday evening so looking forward to that.

Kath

[Brenda]

Kath, hope you get good weather for your week off. Here, the prediction is for close to 20C today! Who can keep up? I uncovered all my little plants this morning and put the baskets back outside. The sun is shining. Yesterday must have been just a little tap on the shoulder to remind us that we shouldn't get complacent about nature.

I always feel sorry for the little birdies when weather changes like this happen. I wonder how they manage, but they seem quite adaptable. It does make a case for continuing to put out food even though the flowers are blooming and worms are available and so on. They sing their cheery songs despite the weather. We have a wood thrush nearby that goes on with its wonderful trilling no matter what else is happening. I feel quite cheered up when I hear it.

[Brenda]

I finally managed to get a shot of the male hummingbird, which I have uploaded this afternoon. I didn't get a confirmation message that my photo had been succssfully uploaded - just a return to my personal album page :? . I'll check on it later.

Couldn't manage to get the hummingbird face-on so that you could see the ruby throat, but the view of his lovely irridescent feathers makes up for that, I think.

You wouldn't know that we had a snowfall here two days ago - right now it's brilliantly sunny and too hot to sit in the sun. It's like a mid-July day.

Brenda

[Brenda]

Yippee! I managed to see the hummingbird moth finally! Another first for me at Skinner's Pond. AND I managed to get a few pictures of it - so one's posted in my album. What an incredible little creature it is. Slightly bigger than a bumblebee (and if my husband hadn't remarked on it a few days ago, I wouldn't have given it a second look, figuring it was just a large bee), but with the flight pattern of a hummingbird. It hovers around the flowers on clear dragonfly-like wings, and it has a most lobster-like shape! Do you have these insects in the UK?

Brenda

[Brenda]

What a fuss in the old treehouse! I heard it several nights ago for the first time and twice more in the early morning. The treehouse is decrepit and should have been pulled down shortly after we moved to Skinner’s Pond. But we ignored the task because it wasn’t near the path and wasn’t really a danger to anyone, and we discovered that red squirrels were living in it.

Sometime during a late winter windstorm, some of the supports collapsed – I remember hearing a crack in the woods, but didn’t know what it was at the time – and the treehouse now leans precariously on a huge boulder. A cupboard that had been attached to the back wall, and filled with leaves by the squirrels, had fallen and inched its way partly out the doorway during the collapse.

The fuss was a combination of whining and alarmed screeching, a cross between a fretful child and murder victim. Early this morning, when the ruckus started up again, I crept along the woodland path, camera at the ready, until I could see the edge of the doorway.

There was a tail sticking out. I’d been conjecturing that an owl might have been nesting in the treehouse, and this seemed to indicate that it had brought its young something to eat! The tail twitched – good grief, a live meal?

As I worked my way along the path and saw more of the body, I recognized the owner of the tail for a porcupine. Ahhh... :idea: A porcupine – not the meal, itself, but a marauding creature in search of a meal – looking for a nest to plunder. Now the sound took shape: a frantic parent protecting its young!

After several minutes, the porcupine entered the treehouse and disappeared from my sight. I heard hissing and stamping. What was going on? My camera framed the doorway, ready to capture an attack. To my disappointment, the porcupine re-emerged and slowly waddled off into the woods.

A stamping or knocking sound continues in the treehouse periodically, and I’m dying to take a look. At the same time, I’m nervous of being attacked, myself, and conscious of disturbing the creature’s habitat. I’ll have to give this some thought. Will my curiosity get the better of this creature’s entitlement to its own ‘place for solitude'?

Photo uploaded to my personal album.

[Brenda]

Ahhh... the treehouse mystery solved :)

One of my neighbours up the road is a trapper, so I invited him down yesterday to look into the treehouse, thinking I was going to provide him with an interesting up-close view of some wild creature. I certainly wasn't going to stick my head around the corner of the building, in case a huge owl flew out at me! Across the stream we went, he walked fearlessly up to the doorway of the treehouse, and found...nothing! Nothing! I was so sure there was going to be a nest of some sort with babies in it. The racket had been so intense.

The row of cupboards was still on the back wall, each compartment stuffed with dead leaves - a great home for the red squirrels. Aside from that, there was only a piece of highway sign that had formerly graced the '401' near Toronto (not us - it was here when we bought the house). It was quite gnawed at. Trapper Wayne said, 'You've definitely got porcupines living in here, and they've been eating this sign.'

Later in the day, I again heard the thumping or banging sound that had made me think of an overgrown baby owl agitating to get out into the real world, and I realized it was the sound of the porcupine gnawing at the sign.

So the confrontation yesterday morning must have been the objection of the porcupine already at the breakfast table to the interloper. I am amazed at the noises these creatures make! I would never have guessed that the sounds I heard came from porcupines.

[Brenda]

Hello, everyone! Today this entire great big enormous from sea-to-sea-to-sea country is celebrating Canada Day! Canada is 140 years old today. I know, I know...your NEW houses are older than that! But Canada does go back much farther than that - the First Nations people were here well before Jacques Cartier explored the St Lawrence River in 1534. Lots of huge cakes everywhere today with white icing and a red maple leaf on them, fireworks at dusk, parades all over the bloomin' place. It's a traditional moving weekend, too, as well as a big camping and 'must get to the cottage' weekend, so the major highways are jammed with traffic and moving very slowly (although, relatively speaking, that's probably misleading in terms of the traffic you're used to in the UK and Europe). Just the same, Skinner's Pond is a good spot to be at this time - I have utter peace and tranquility coming out my ears.

My husband and his buddies had made it as far as North Battleford, Saskatchewan by last evening. He said the landscape is a tad flat around there. In just three days, they put about 2700 km on their bikes.

The only drawback to this weekend, which is traditionally hot and sunny, is that we had an overnight temperature of 8C and this morning the #%#$&^$*#@ furnace is still coming on!!!!! :x

Anyway, Happy Canada Day from me to you!

Brenda

[Linda]

One of the things I liked about Canada are the celebration weekends...like the start of official summer when everything opens and everyone starts to 'party' and BBQ!

Happy Canada Day Brenda!

Linda

:lol:

[Kath Mulligan]

Happy Canada Day Brenda.

Re your overnight temperature, if it's any consolation, it's chilly and wet here again today - just had a mini thunderstorm, but from the look of the sky we could be in for more yet.

Roll on winter - at least it tends to be drier then, even if cold! I know I remarked on an earlier thread, when we were all saying how early all the spring flowers were, that we would be having autumn in July at this rate - but I didn't think I would be right!! :roll: From the torrential rains and gale force winds that were around last week though, you could have been forgiven for thinking that it was around the September equinox.

Kath

[Sybille Weber]

Happy Canada Day from me as well, Brenda - or what is left of it.

A suprisingly very hot day over here today (28°C), but they have forecast thunderstorms, torrential rain and a temperature drop for tonight with more storms to follow tomorrow.

Just watching (or rather listening to) the live broadcast from London of the 'Concert for Diana' on TV as I'm typing this.
Can't believe that it is ten years already since Princess Diana lost her life in that terrible car accident.

[Linda]

I have just watched the Diana concert from beginning to end and it was wonderful! A true celebration...I cried right at the end when they showed the family video, a tribute too to Freddie who was also 'missing' from the concert!

A wonderful idea and a tribute to Diana as to the effect she has had on her boys!

[gloria townsin]

I have just watched the Diana concert from beginning to end and it was wonderful! A true celebration...I cried right at the end when they showed the family video, a tribute too to Freddie who was also 'missing' from the concert!

A wonderful idea and a tribute to Diana as to the effect she has had on her boys!

Yes it was great - could have had two tickets to go but my friend in Spain is the only one who would have been keen to go with me so had to give the tickets a miss. If you go to Althrop they show the video on a continuous loop in the old stable where all her dresses are on display. I could tell you an odd story about finding myself in her home village a year before she died, came upon it quite out of the blue while trying to find our way home after I had been judging Shih Tzu. A year later my friend and I were back to take flowers to the church where her ancestors are buried. On the day of her funeral I went to junction 12 of the M1 and waited for the funeral cars to go past - it was a stunning sight (I know that is a strange word to use) but they were covered with flowers. There was a lot to admire in her and if things had been different I feel she would have secured the Royal Family and would have been a tremendous asset.......but now we will never know, sadly.

[Brenda]

My husband and I differ greatly on this, but I felt great admiration for Diana. She may have had her faults (who hasn't?), but she brought a lot of attention to some important issues and I admired the way she tried to give the two princes a more normal upbringing than previous members of the Royal Family had. I was sickened by the way the media hounded her. I watched her funeral on TV, from Canada, of course, and was tremendously moved by the number of Brits who stood for hours (days in some cases) to pay tribute to her. The most touching moment for me was when a camera zoomed in on the funeral cortege and the envelope on which Harry had written 'Mommy.' I think it was brillliant of her children to honour her with this concert and to bring her good deeds back to people's minds.

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

My Sister and a friend also took flowers to Kensington Palace. I think she would have been very good for the country if things had worked out in her marriage. I have fairly strong feelings about that but I won't air them here.
I think Derek and Jeannie were pretty traditional in their outlook towards the Monarchy, though I'm not sure why I have that opinion.

[Kath Mulligan]

I too watched the concert and was very moved by it. What lovely boys William and Harry are, and how very proud Diana would have been of them last night.

Must admit I was very glad that Elton John didn't sing Candle In The Wind at the end of the show - I haven't listened to that since the day of Diana's funeral and I would have been in bits.

I thought Diana was the best thing that ever happened to the Royal Family, and more fools them that they couldn't see it. What I think of Charles and Camilla is best not written here, suffice to say that if the day ever comes when he becomes King I shall no longer be a Royalist.

Right, down off soapbox now!!

Kath

[gloria townsin]

I too watched the concert and was very moved by it. What lovely boys William and Harry are, and how very proud Diana would have been of them last night.

Must admit I was very glad that Elton John didn't sing Candle In The Wind at the end of the show - I haven't listened to that since the day of Diana's funeral and I would have been in bits.

I thought Diana was the best thing that ever happened to the Royal Family, and more fools them that they couldn't see it. What I think of Charles and Camilla is best not written here, suffice to say that if the day ever comes when he becomes King I shall no longer be a Royalist.

Right, down off soapbox now!!

Kath

Wow Kath - we are definitely on the same Wavelength!! :lol:

[Brenda]

I wonder if Derek had any idea how many people would find the word 'wavelength' exactly the right word to describe the way we feel about things at times. When he wrote about people who were on the same wavelength or 'in sympathy' with something at Minack, I remember yearning to find such people and such a place. I felt the magnet of Minack long before we walked along the coastal path past Carn Barges, but I felt it pulling me more urgently as I got closer. On the same wavelength, indeed, and a feeling that has followed me to Skinner's Pond.

Brenda

[Linda]

well I have to join in with this...I was on my way to Minack with a friend and I had introduced her to the books and she agreed to leave her family for a week or so and come down there. We camped on our first night at the Roseland Peninsular and next morning we went to wash our dishes, whilst doing so a woman came in to wash hers. In chatting she said have you heard about Diana? We both said no and she told us. My friends reaction was that it was awful...guess what mine was...'She has been killed deliberately' (for want of better words on here) I cannot believe to this day that it was a pure acccident.

I too watched the funeral on TV and wished so much I was there, I cried so much for her loss.

She did so much more than her charity work. She made the monarchy reassess itself at least as far as its able to...I agree she would have changed so much more if she had lived.

The concert was a superb way of celebrating her life and teh boys
looked like they were having fun...I hope that neither of them become 'assimilated' over the years.

I was extremely disappointed to say the least at the wedding ..and in the lead up to it with the way she was being 'groomed in readiness'.

...me thinks we are pretty much of a like mind about this subject....

[Kath Mulligan]

No-one will ever convince me that our secret services and some of the senior royals were not behind Diana's death, and the more smokescreens that are thrown up around this inquest, the more convinced I am of it. I doubt we will ever know the truth because I think it would bring down the monarchy for sure, but it is what I believe.

Must admit when I was watching the concert last night, I couldn't help thinking how Charles must have been gnashing his teeth to see just how popular she still is 10 years on, no matter how much certain people try to blacken her name. The British people are not stupid and their refusal to allow her to be whitewashed out of our history should be a lesson to those who would brainwash us into accepting Queen Camilla - never, in my book.

Crikey, this has really strayed off topic! Sorry, will shut up about it now.

Kath

[gloria townsin]

Kath and Linda - 100% in agreement. :cry:

[Linda]

Must admit when I was watching the concert last night, I couldn't help thinking how Charles must have been gnashing his teeth to see just how popular she still is 10 years on, no matter how much certain people try to blacken her name. The British people are not stupid and their refusal to allow her to be whitewashed out of our history should be a lesson to those who would brainwash us into accepting Queen Camilla - never, in my book.

...must admit Charles was the last person on my mind when watching the concert but you are spot on Kath!...



No-one will ever convince me that our secret services and some of the senior royals were not behind Diana's death, and the more smokescreens that are thrown up around this inquest, the more convinced I am of it. I doubt we will ever know the truth because I think it would bring down the monarchy for sure, but it is what I believe.


......thats exactly what went through my mind that morning!

.....in fact behind closed doors I hope somebody who had the idea is being told what a 'twit' he was....I think we all believe that this has 'backfired' such as they never dreamed ....

[Kath Mulligan]

I don't know Linda, since it was William and Harry who organised it, I think they knew exactly what they were doing - trying to redress the balance against those who have been rubbishing her. Good for them, I say especially if Charles was not too thrilled about it, as I'm sure must have been the case.

I always thought he was incredibly jealous of Diana's popularity. I know when they both came to New Mills years ago they split up in the walkabout and both took a separate side of the road. Everyone rushed to be on Diana's side and he looked absolutely furious that hardly anyone wanted to shake his hand. :wink: Shame, diddums.

Personally I think the only hope for the monarchy is for William to succeed the Queen.

Kath

[Brenda]

All the way from Northern Ontario to an underpass in Paris... I love the free flow of this discussion! :wink:

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

We must be linked by a secret thought process.........is all I can add.

[Linda]

...I meant the first part of your post Kath....sorry I dont think I was very clear....

:oops: :lol:

[Linda]

...in fact I have edited it to try and make it clearer...sorryyyeeeee everyone.. :oops: :oops:

[Brenda]

Hi, everyone,

I thought I'd be posting some photos of our balloon flight for you today, as my birthday flight had been rescheduled to yesterday from June 21. But we were again defeated by high winds and the trip didn't take place. Dang. We are trying again on August 21. Talk about an extended birthday...

On the plus side, the cancelled trip gave me a window of opportunity to complete the quilt I'd been working on since mid-June, just in time for the arrival of our granddaughters on Saturday. I'm so pleased with it and, if I do say so myself, it looks terrific!

Continuing fantastic weather here at Skinner's Pond - mid-20s, light breezes, glorious sunshine, low humidity - and no bugs! Still lots of raspberries to pick, beans and peas aplenty in the garden and...does anyone want any zucchini?!?!?!!??!?!?!?!!!? Arrgghhh! :lol:

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Hi, everyone,

I thought I'd be posting some photos of our balloon flight for you today, as my birthday flight had been rescheduled to yesterday from June 21. But we were again defeated by high winds and the trip didn't take place. Dang. We are trying again on August 21. Talk about an extended birthday...

On the plus side, the cancelled trip gave me a window of opportunity to complete the quilt I'd been working on since mid-June, just in time for the arrival of our granddaughters on Saturday. I'm so pleased with it and, if I do say so myself, it looks terrific!

Continuing fantastic weather here at Skinner's Pond - mid-20s, light breezes, glorious sunshine, low humidity - and no bugs! Still lots of raspberries to pick, beans and peas aplenty in the garden and...does anyone want any zucchini?!?!?!!??!?!?!?!!!? Arrgghhh! :lol:

Brenda

Oh Flip!!!
Pics. of the quilt would be nice.........I would love to quilt, it's one of the things I am saving up to do when I am sitting in my abode near the sea........if you get my drift :lol:

[Kath Mulligan]

Tough luck Brenda, that is what happened to my friend too, but she got there in the end and had a wonderful time; I'm sure you will too.

Any joy with the house hunting yet, Gloria?

Kath

[BunnyHankers]

The same thing happened to my Mum also.

She was thrilled though as she hates heights but had'nt ever mentioned it to the person who booked it. :lol:

[Linda]

I booked it for my 40th and they said it was too windy, and to come back in the afternoon, when it was too windy again...although I have to say it didnt strike em as even being a breeze! As it was in the Lake District and I lived at that time on the south coast, I wasnt able to go back again as I was working and couldnt just get off whenever, so I never got to go in the balloon...something I really miss not having done...I actually freeze at heights and I mean cannot move...but still would love to have done it...did a paraglide in Greece and realised it was fantastic even tho' I was up there on a pice of wire...felt safe as it was the sea below.!!!daft eh?

So be patient and keep waiting to have that flight! It will be worth it!

[Brenda]

Gloria, I have posted a photo of my quilt in my album now. It was a fun project - quite easy for a beginning quilter. It was all straight lines and quick to cut out and assemble. The pattern is called 'Turning Twenty' if you're looking for a good starter project. This one fits a double bed, but could be made for a queen-sized simply by adding another row of the border pieces.

Brenda

[Joan]

Hi Brenda - It seems ages since I've been in touch with you. Sorry about your balloon trip being delayed yet again. You will get there in the end, and believe me it will be worth the wait. Will keep my fingers crossed for good luck with the weather next time.

Joan

[Brenda]

Thanks, Joan. We're rebooked for next Tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed for gentle breezes! Brenda

[Joan]

Fingers and toes crossed. Hope you have a wonderful flight - and don't forget the camera and a hat (to protect your head from the heat when they fire up the burners).

Joan

[Brenda]

Recently, we've had a red-tailed hawk hanging around the pond, a rare sight for us since moving here seven years ago. He seems to find the totem pole a good vantage point and spends a lot of time scanning the ground for prey. We have so many chipmunks, red squirrels and other small creatures that I'm sure he must have success in his hunting, even though we haven't seen him catch anything so far.

This morning, three mergansers landed on the pond, and twice I saw the hawk swoop down over them. I wondered if they would be too big for him to go after, but they must be a temptation!

I snuck out of the house by the basement door early this morning and took a picture, which I've posted in my album.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Brenda - what is a merganser, please? I've not heard of this creature and think it might be something from the latest Harry Potter book? :lol:

Janet

[Brenda]

Mergansers are fishing ducks. They do well in the lakes of the Canadian Shield, where the vegetation is sometimes less than suitable for the dabbling-type ducks such as mallards. They are good swimmers whose feet, like those of loons, are placed well back on their bodies (and therefore are not too good for walking on land). They tend to swim in huge flocks that rush ahead in a body when a shoal of fish is detected - it's quite a comical sight. They're a smaller duck than the mallards, not colourful or particularly attractive, and they have what looks like a bad hairdo - a sort of crest that juts back from the top of their heads in an unkempt way. Still, welcome visitors that add life and activity to the pond.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Thanks, Brenda. Don't think we have them in England.

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

Hope the balloon trip comes off tomorrow, Brenda. Have a great time.

Kath

[Brenda]

Thanks, Kath. The five-day forecast wasn't looking too great when we checked it a couple of days ago - too windy, mostly likely, so we're prepared for another postponement. To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the flight didn't take place until nearer the middle of September, because that's when we get the spectacular fall colours that Canada is so famous for. But, whenever it happens, I'll be happy. Standby for photos...

Brenda

[Brenda]

Our balloon flight on September 11 was postponed AGAIN - this time because the balloon was undergoing repair after getting snagged on a fence. We're rebooked now for October 15, which I think will require us to dress in our down coats!!

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Our balloon flight on September 11 was postponed AGAIN - this time because the balloon was undergoing repair after getting snagged on a fence. We're rebooked now for October 15, which I think will require us to dress in our down coats!!

Brenda

Do you get the feeling you are not meant to do this? Or am I being a defeteist? :?

[Dex Cameron]

I think if I was going in a hot air balloon I'd wear an up coat! :D

[Kath Mulligan]

Very droll Dex!! :wink: :roll: :lol:

Have to say Brenda that flying on September 11th is not something I would have wanted to do, be it in a plane or a balloon.

Hope it does come off for you in October, otherwise I should think you will have no chance before next spring, will you, once your Canadian winter sets in?

Kath

[Brenda]

Gee, Dex, thanks for the suggestion on the ballooning wardrobe. I'll get out to the shops right away tomorrow to look for an up coat...

Yeah, that danged Canadian winter thing, Kath. We had frost on the deck this morning (tomatoes still ripening on the vine, yikes!). Last year, I took a picture of the first snow on October 12 - a heavy snowfall that hung around for about a week - and four years ago there was a light snowfall on October 2. After last year's shock, though, our winter didn't really get started until mid-January. We were all waiting for 'the other shoe' to drop and felt pleasantly surprised when we got such a snow-free break. If the October flight doesn't go, we'll definitely be waiting until next spring. Maybe I'll get my 2007 birthday present before my 2008 one! :roll:

[Brenda]

Living in northern Ontario has its upside at this time of year. We are now into our Indian summer and enjoying the fantastic colour display that the maple trees put on every year. The change seems a little later this year - people are saying the trees are stressed because of the dry summer (you remember what a dry summer is, don't you?) - but there's been rain more recently, so now the leaves are looking very pretty. When the days are warm and sunny and the nights are dry and frosty, we get the brilliant colours. It's particularly breathtaking in a couple of areas near Skinner's Pond, where there are long, high ridges covered in a patchwork of reds, oranges and yellows. I posted a few photos in my personal album, pictures I took along the road to Skinner's Pond. Hope you enjoy!

Brenda

[Sybille Weber]

Beautiful photos, Brenda! I was just thinking the other day - when someone mentioned the Indian summer on TV - that it should come to Canada as well soon and that we might see a few photos taken by you, and there you are!
We had a beautiful last summer's day here today - glorious sunshine, blue sky and quite warm. Most trees are still very green over here and butterflies are flying about, so that you would think it was still peak summer, but you can sense the autumn already as the nights get quite cool, and you can see it all around you: the odd coloured leaves, the autumn flower dahlia in full bloom, pumpkins for sale in farm shops, etc.
I have posted a few photos of today's walks in my album.
According to the weather forecast tomorrow is going to be as nice as today - so summer has very gently slipped into autumn.

[Brenda]

Thank you, Sybille. I'm enjoying this time of year very much, as I always do. It's my favourite time of year, and I regret that it doesn't last longer. It's a bittersweet time of year - the sunny warm days and frosty nights, gleaming birches outlined again the startling blue sky, the pond speckled with gently drifting leaves, the patchwork of colours, the smell of autumn, all fill my heart with such gladness I feel it could burst, while the knowledge of the long cold winter to come makes me a little sad. I try not to waste any of these wonderful brief weeks with thoughts about the months whose arrival I cannot prevent!

The sky has emptied gradually of all my feathered friends. We had a very late hummingbird here briefly a few days ago, just after I'd brought the feeder in and cleaned it and put it away for next season! I think it must have been just passing through from somewhere farther north. At least there were still a few blossoms on the honeysuckle, so it had a feed before disappearing. I've heard what I thought was a red-tailed hawk three times in the last three days but have been unable to spot it. As I hadn't seen one around the property for a good two weeks, I thought they had all left. This call might have been made by a blue jay, though; they sometimes imitate other birds. The great blue heron had one brief stop a week ago to fish in the pond before heading south. Our pretty little goldfinches filled up at the feeder for the last time just a few days ago. There were four robins here two days ago, which seemed quite late to me. Our pair of little merganser females came to the pond until a few days ago as well, but don't seem to be around anymore. Sigh. :( A few small flocks of Canada geese have flown over, but so far I haven't seen any major migration.

We'll have the company all winter of chickadees, blue jays, nuthatches, three woodpeckers (the pileated - remember 'Woody Woodpecker'?, the hairy and the downy), and crows and ravens. There will be passing visits with evening grosbeaks, rosebreasted grosbeaks and purple finches, among others.

Our fall flowers are making their last show. I have three fall mums in full bloom in pots, and I'll try planting them into a garden this week, but they don't seem to overwinter very well in this part of the country, unless they're in a very sheltered spot. My clematis tangutica is hung with its bright little yellow lanterns. The miniature red rose, the little trooper that it is, continues to push out blooms, and there are some black-eyed Susans still standing bravely at the end of the drive. We've had a frost or two already, and it won't be long before the remaining plants get hit and the deciduous trees are bare. The last burst of colour we have in the fall is in our tamarac (larch) trees. Their 'needles' turn from green to a brilliant gold and then drop off - the only coniferous tree I'm aware of that sheds its leaves. I'm going to enjoy this time until we rake up the last of the maple and birch leaves and put them around the flower beds. And then I'll claim my spot six inches from the woodstove!!!

[Sybille Weber]

Lovely account from your part of the world, Brenda.
I practically like all seasons as each season has a special charm about it to me, although I always do get a bit sad when, as you put it, the sky has emptied of our feathered friends. Over here this becomes especially obvious in early August when the swifts leave. All summer they can be seen everywhere flying high up in the sky. Then, when they have left I always find the sky looks so empty without them which makes me feel rather sad. We still have a lot of birds though that stay for the winter. All the usual garden birds are a common sight and hardly any of them leave.

Today we've had a glorious summer day on the first day of autumn - 'a day lent'! It was almost too hot to walk in the sun, so we sought the shelter of the lovely old trees in Villa Hügel Gardens here at Essen where we could walk in the shade. Some of the trees couldn't hide the real time of year though as they had already started to change colour.
I hope we will get what we call a 'golden October' over here - a sunny October with lots of coloured leaves on the trees.

[Brenda]

I envy you your swifts, Sybille. We don't see them or swallows around here, which my husband attributes to the decline in the number of farms and, therefore, barns and similar nesting places. He remembers seeing them many years ago when he first moved to this area, when it was still primarily a farming area.

I hope that you get your Golden October, too.

Brenda

[Sybille Weber]

Your husband is probably right, Brenda. We usually only see swallows over here where there are farms, so if we want to see any nearby we always have to go to the stables where we used to keep our horse.
As to the swifts we usually don't see any near the farm as they normally prefer towns where they can build their nests in existing gaps or holes in the walls or under the roofs of buildings.

The weather has changed dramatically today as it is pouring down with rain, still quite mild though, but they have forecast a temperature drop to about 6 - 10°C by the middle of the week.

[Linda]

I hate to say we have both!

Jeff and I were talking about them on Sunday and we both feel so uplifted when they arrive. The last of our swallows and swifts went last week. Very late for them, normally gone by 31 August. They did manage to raise two broods tho' this year.

I have posted a picture of some of them gathering before they flew off last year. Itried counting when they all gathered and it was something like 100, but we only have around 20-30 actually nesting with us.

[Brenda]

Thanks, Jeff, for my new bounding kitty!

Brenda

[Brenda]

Uh-oh...a very sad sight this morning as I was hanging laundry on the clothesline. A truck driven by neighbour Jim drove past, full of turkeys. Presumably on their way to The Big Platter in the Sky.

When my husband left on the Yukon trip at the end of June, I chose not to eat meat while he was away. I had no intention of becoming a vegetarian; it was just that buying and cooking meat for one or cleaning up after cooking it seemed like too much trouble. I didn't miss it and though I cook it for him, I haven't felt inclined to eat any meat since he's been home.

So after almost three months of not eating any meat, I find that I feel a little repulsed at the thought of eating something that used to be alive, and I certainly felt :( when I saw the turkeys going to their death in aid of our annual Thanksgiving Day celebrations.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Go with your feelings, Brenda. I gave up eating meat and fowl 22 years ago, because of reading reports about the cruel methods of raising the creatures for our plates. I still eat dairy produce and feel rather guilty about that, but haven't yet gone totally soya :roll:, perhaps one day. I've never pushed my views onto others, just telling them in advance "I'm sorry but I don't eat meat", when invited to their homes for meals. I do still eat fish and frequently cook this for friends - if I think they might not enjoy a veggie recipe. In England, it's really not odd to be a vegetarian, but I don't know how things would be for you in Canada?

Janet

[Linda]

In Scotland its quite difficult to be veggie. I was veggie for seven years until I met and married Jeff, continued for about three years and then we moved to Scotland...I do miss being veggie and may well find a way back someday...do believe it is healthy for you...

I laugh up here tho' when someone says they are veggie and then you are offered fish or chicken...as if chicken is not meat....

for example at our school the school cook says wont they eat chicken? I thought they were vegetarian...yes says I...thats veg..etarian...it means vegetables and no meat....its the same in restaurants.....
doh!

Keep up the veggie! (I started when I was a Shoreham Protestor at the time of the Ban Live Exports campaign across the country) So that in fact would have been more than seven years perhaps ten??? In changing back it was a gradual process and I still hate what I am doing ....

[Sybille Weber]

I hate to say we have both!
Jeff and I were talking about them on Sunday and we both feel so uplifted when they arrive. The last of our swallows and swifts went last week. Very late for them, normally gone by 31 August. They did manage to raise two broods tho' this year.

Surprised to hear the swifts leave Scotland so late in the year. For swallows that would be normal. They usually leave our area in September but swifts are usually gone by the end of July / beginning of August.
I was very worried this year about one of our two pairs of swifts as they were still here feeding their young ones in the nest under our roof in the middle of August when the other pair had already left. The sky had also emptied of swifts, and ours seemed to be the only ones left, until one day in the third week of August we saw the whole family dashing by including the young ones, and that was the last we saw of them. So I hope they did arrive safely in Africa after all.

[Linda]

Where we live is actually very mild, the climate can be compared to that of Cornwall, indeed for planting purposes it is counted in the same 'zoning'...

I did wonder about the swifts but it is definitely them too! We have a small rooflight window at the back of the house where you can watch the birds within a couple of feet as they fly around the roof...there is also a nest within three feet so you can see them coming and going...amazing sight!

[Sybille Weber]

In England, it's really not odd to be a vegetarian...
Janet

Not odd here in Germany either, and most restaurants offer vegetarian dishes although the vast majority of dishes on the menu are still those with meat.
As for myself I tried to be a vegetarian once but started to feel very weak soon. My doctor told me that it was absolutely essential for me to have meat because I'm so anaemic. Meat, he said, would contain a lot of iron, and the body could also process it better than iron from other sources. Hence I had to give up my life as a vegetarian. If only animals were treated with respect and didn't have to suffer that much before they become our 'meals', but in most cases they are kept and transported under the most cruel conditions. I remember people collecting signatures against this type of cruelty to animals in my youth, and nowadays, more than 30 years on, nothing has changed really.

[Sybille Weber]

I did wonder about the swifts but it is definitely them too! We have a small rooflight window at the back of the house where you can watch the birds within a couple of feet as they fly around the roof...there is also a nest within three feet so you can see them coming and going...amazing sight!

Yes, isn't it great to watch them? From the end of April / beginning of May until the end of July / beginning of August we can always see our swifts flying to and fro, and we always hear them moving inside their nests at night as one nest is under the roof just above our kitchen room ceiling and the other above the sitting room ceiling. Then, shortly before the young ones are ready to leave the nest we can usually see little heads peeping out from underneath the roof until they will join their parents in their chase for food.
We have noticed that a sure sign that they will be off to Africa shortly is when they clean out their nest obviously to find everything clean on their return the following year which I'm already looking forward to.

[gloria townsin]

Re vegetarianism........my son's girlfriend is vegetarian and eats nothing but vegetables so when she visits I make certain there are lots available. Often when she goes home there are veggie dishes left over and so as not to waste them I have begun eating them. Well I have to say now when I have a meal without meat I feel less bloated, more comfortable tummy wise (I suffer with IBS) and no less full. I think various chefs here have promoted the 'if an animal lives a good, cared for life and is slaughtered humanely that is the best way meat can be produced'. Hugh Fearnley Whittenstall is a great promoter of this and I have to say I agree with him if we are to continue being meat eaters. Of course the argument put up against this method is cost. And it has to be acknowledged that there are many people who wouldn't be able to afford to buy meat that has been raised in an, now, old fashioned way. My Mother was a great meat eater and believer that animals were put here for us to eat and she lived to be almost 94, my Father ate less meat prefferring vegetables and he lived to be almost 91. So for them it didn't prove which was the healthiest route for humans. I have to say as I have got older and perhaps wiser I am not so keen now on the slaughter process........pretty grim I'd say even when done humanely. So I guess I am veering more and more to the veggie side of things but don't have a problem with cooking meat for the rest of the family. I agree it isn't always easy to be vegetarian just as it isn't always easy to find a tea room that serves fruit and herbal teas. In Cornwall there is never any problem with this. Cornwall seems to be more tuned in to good eating and food services, they are much more in touch with all that is good in that County. :)

[Brenda]

Eating out in this part of the province is getting to be somewhat less of a challenge, although the alternatives to meat are often deep-fried, as in cheese sticks or breaded mushrooms or similar. Either deep-fried, or smothered in a fatty cheese sauce. It's quite a mission to find something that is stripped down to an unprocessed or unadulterated form! Restaurants near Skinner's Pond also don't tend to offer lower-fat cheese or milk products, multigrain breads, or dessert options such as fresh fruit.

Eating at someone's house...now THERE'S a challenge! I find myself almost dreading a dinner invitation in case I have to start explaining to friends about the way I'm eating now. In my case, I have found that the above-mentioned stripped-down diet is working very well for me - so that means the foods that leave me feeling good are ones that are in their 'purest' form, along with excluding meat. Many of our friends might eat plainer foods on their own, but go to greater lengths when having company and that means foods dressed up in sauces and toppings, etc. The reason I am concerned about this is that we seem to have a large number of friends who have fussy little ways about their eating or special dietary requirements - one won't eat peas, another won't eat garlic; one can't stand spicy food; another is diabetic; one can't have any dairy; one couple is on a macrobiotic diet, meaning they will only eat food grown locally and only when it's in season! Those of us who don't fall into any of those categories have always had a good laugh about them and have found it aggravating to include them in get-togethers. The best thing for our group is potluck - perhaps the ONLY thing.

Now my husband's old mum, a woman of good strong Yorkshire stock, absolutely LOVED her bread fried in drippings, clotted cream and any other food she cared to eat throughout her 96 years. She was hale and hearty until about two or three years before she died. My sister-in-law and her daughter have both been vegetarian for many years and are extremely healthy women, too. I haven't felt any downgrade to my health since I haven't been eating meat. I have at least as much energy - perhaps more because of the 20 pounds I've dropped (what's that... 1 1/2 stone?). I never feel bloated anymore or wake up with a headache as I sometimes used to. That's not just the meat, of course, but the entire change to the diet.

Anyway, I realize it's a very personal decision, whether it's for health concerns or respect for other living creatures. It's only right and achievable for someone when they decide the time has come. When winter comes to Skinner's Pond, and the wind is howling around the house and the snow is building up in front of the windows, and we come back in from a snowshoe in the woods, I'm wondering how tempting it will be to tuck in to a big bowl of pasta smothered in steaming meat sauce - comfort food plays a pretty big role in northern Ontario winters. For now, eating a vegetarian diet is working for me quite well and I'm happy to continue.

[Brenda]

[quote="Linda"]Where we live is actually very mild, the climate can be compared to that of Cornwall, indeed for planting purposes it is counted in the same 'zoning'...

Linda, I'm afraid that if you insist on painting such an appealing picture of Arran, you will find that we will take you up on your invitation to visit next spring! :wink:

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

What a lot of interesting postings arose from a couple of views expressed by Brenda and I, and, as food is SO important for us all, I've got to continue the dialogue :lol: .

Gloria's son's girlfriend only eating vegetables does concern me, as vegetables alone aren't enough, we all need protein in the form of lentils, nuts, beans, cheese, eggs plus fruit, cereals, breads etc. Even if the young girl is Vegan, she should be eating the above and you can buy Soya cheese. Sorry, I promised not to preach :wink: .

And Brenda - if you'd like me to send you my own recipe for a tasty pasta sauce made from split red lentils, red peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes and anything else to hand, you need not fear desiring your meaty pasta sauce on a freezing day :lol: . I'd also be interested to hear about your new "stripped down" meals.

I think I'd better stop now!

Janet

[Linda]

aha! I knew there was another recipe out there for the book...Janet please get that recipe on the recipe book..as much because I would like to try it too! :)

Any thoughts that perhaps we could put a veggie section in the book...so any recipes please....

I recall when I lived in Brighton I went to a friends house for dinner and this was before I had become veggie ..everything in the meak had been prepared by her...the bread rolls, Starter, main and dessert and sweets...ALL veggie and all from scratch..and not a cheese sauce or deep fried mushroom in sight (take the point Brenda...I remember that so well...so boring and oh! so fatty!).

...we have big skies here Brenda ...no midges or crawly things until May..... :) need I say more....

Linda

[Brenda]

Linda wrote:
...we have big skies here Brenda ...no midges or crawly things until May..... :) need I say more....

Oooo.....such a tease. You just watch what you offer! Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Er I think I was a bit misleading when I said she only eats vegetables. She, in fact, eats a lot of cheese and organic bread with seeds, etc. so she does eat protein, I was just being a bit on the general side. :?

[Brenda]

Janet, thanks so much for your offer of the vegetarian pasta sauce recipe. I think Linda's suggestion to include it in the cookbook is a good one, and then anyone who wants to try it may have access to it.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

It's on my To Do List, Brenda :lol: . I never thought about adding any lentil recipes to the Minack Recipe section because I know Derek would never have touched them - he much preferred fish and meat, and looked quite bemused when I said I didn't eat meat or fowl :wink: . Will write them up soon.

Janet

[Brenda]

If you can all stand one more photo of the fall colour change in Northern Ontario, I have posted one last picture (promise!) in my personal album. The colours reached their peak last week and the reds are now fading. We are left with a warm, soft blanket of orange and gold, and that, too, will be fading soon. Thank goodness for all the coniferous trees! They make a welcome break in the seemingly endless white of winter.

Brenda

[Sybille Weber]

Keep posting your photos, Brenda. It's lovely to see what autumn does to other parts of the globe, and your pictures are beautiful.
Over here trees are gradually starting to change colour, but the peak is usually only reached later in October, sometimes only in November (like last year).
Have posted a little autumn colour (autumn 2006) in my photoalbum.

[Brenda]

No balloon flight again! We were supposed to go up on Monday, but the flight was cancelled once again due to 'weather.' I wasn't unhappy about that because the lateness of the season meant colder ground temperatures (so I could imagine how much colder it might be once we were up in the air) and earlier darkness (and therefore a shorter flight). My certificate has been extended to April 1, when we are supposed to start calling the company again to book a time. Hey...I know! We'll go up and I'll just arrange for the pilot to let the balloon go with the prevailing winds, and ask him to touch down in the West Country! Now wouldn't that be nice.

We had our first snowfall here on Saturday. Almost rain, but snowy enough to make white patches on the ground for a couple of hours. Yuck. Fall is well and truly here, and winter's definitely on the way. I wish I were on my way to England for the next six months!

Brenda

[Sybille Weber]

Sorry, the balloon flight was cancelled again, Brenda, but then maybe it's better if it has turned that cold your end.
Over here more than a week of endless sunshine and very mild temperatures (a real "golden October") has come to an end. It is raining now, and a temperature drop is forecast for tomorrow or Friday with even snow possible! So you are not alone, Brenda.

[gloria townsin]

I really don't think I could bear to have snow so early in the Winter. :( You must at times feel like real 'Frontiersmen'. The balloon trip is turning into a serial but sooner or later you will make it. Why not steer towards Cornwall it's just a hop and skip away. :lol:

[Kath Mulligan]

Oh poor you, Brenda, I'm sure you WILL get your trip one day! :lol:

We have had a period of fairly quiet settled weather here recently, much colder today and think we will have a frost tonight but at least the day has been nice and sunny, although it was thick fog driving to work this morning.

But at least there doesn't seem to be any snow on the horizon for us yet - thank goodness!!!

Kath

[Brenda]

Hi, everyone,

My bad for not participating in the forum for so long. I've dropped in once or twice but seem to have been too busy with things to settle down to keeping in touch. But lately, I've been dreaming of a walk along the coastal path in Cornwall as our winter has arrived. We are in a white world now, although not much snow has fallen yet, and it's been pretty chilly lately - about -8C a few days ago. Just a foretaste of the months to come...

I'm in a 12-step program now and go to meetings in which I have to stand up and say, 'My name is Brenda, and I'm a quilter.' :wink: I don't really go to meetings; that was just my little joke about my new addiction. What was supposed to be a gap filler this summer until I decided on a new hobby has become my new hobby. I've just finished making a crib-sized quilt for our grandson in California (like he'll need it there!). He turns one on December 29 - a year already! How can that be? I had so much fun making this quilt for him. My son and daughter-in-law have been very concerned about the recall of toys from China, making it extemely difficult for us to find things to give him - it seems just about everything we can buy in North America is imported from China! So something hand-made seemed to be the ticket, and I hope they'll appreciate that gesture. Photo to be posted in my album.

I have plans for other quilts - for myself and my husband, our granddaughter (and maybe the spare granddaughter at some point), my younger son, etc, etc. The work brings me such a feeling of serenity, and that can't be bad.

We've started making arrangements for the trip to the UK in April, having put in the request for timeshare exchanges. I'm thinking we should move our travel dates later, though. Right now we're planning to be away during the period of spring weather when we usually get the outside work done, which means we'll arrive home just as the hateful blackflies are emerging. It would be smarter to travel just as they're coming out, wouldn't it? I'd even feel better about the cat being in the kennel during that time; he gets so badly bitten by the blackflies. So we might take our trip from about mid-May onward instead. We wanted to be there in time for the may, thrift, rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias, etc, but I could certainly enjoy England in late May or early June just as well. Something to sustain me through the winter months... and we might even take a short trip to California in January or February to see the baby if I can find us a cheap flight.

Anyway, that's me for now. Cheers, everyone!

Brenda

[Dex Cameron]

For my money May is the best month to see Cornwall, followed closely by June and then December - when the grockles have gone and those that live there get their county back!

[Kath Mulligan]

Yes, May is my favourite month to be in Cornwall too, although looking forward to being there in mid June next year. Hopefully the thrift will still be in bloom on the cliffs.

Kath

[Brenda]

Hi, everyone,

Winter has come to Skinner’s Pond early this year and with attitude. As I sit at my ‘desk,’ aka the dining room table, looking out at this winter wonder land, I’m torn between my fondness of our beautiful property and my loathing of the cold and snow. My husband objects to the phrase, ‘winter wonderland,’ but I tell him I use it because I always wonder why we live in this land in the winter!

The ancient wooden garden table beside the clothesline pole is already groaning under about two to three feet of snow on its top – I wonder every winter if it will collapse, but it somehow survives. There are depressions in the snow here and there where passing snowshoe hare have leapt across the garden. I can't keep the bird feeders filled! Several varieties visit constantly all day, gobbling the seeds and suet that we frequently replenish. The pond is frozen, of course, although I suspect not too solidly yet as we’ve had warm spells interspersed with the below-zero nights. And there have been below-zero nights! Several in the minus teens already. Compared to last year’s unusually late arrival of winter in mid-January, this year is more normal but still seems to have everyone feeling surprised. And there’s a lot of grumbling – you’d think northern Ontarians would be used to this, but there’s almost a sense of moral outrage that we’re being subjected to this unreasonable weather so early in the season, or that might actually just be me...

We’ve been on the Internet fantasizing again about buying a small motor home and taking off for four months every winter. They’re being sold off at such a rate these days because of the high cost of fuel that we could pretty well put one on a credit card. I suggested we fly to the southern US, buy one, live in it until mid-March and then head home. The fly in that ointment is a country property that needs a lot of care in the cold months. We need someone who understands wells and septic systems and woodstoves, freezing water pipes, the danger to a roof heavily laden with snow, driveway ploughing, etc. I fear life in a warmer climate during our frigid months is just a dream at the moment.

So a more manageable solution to the winter blahs is a getaway, and I’ve taken care of that. My husband and I had already planned a three-week trip to the UK in the spring – tentatively scheduled now for mid-May to early June – and recently I jumped at the offer of an Air Canada seat sale and persuaded a friend of mine to take a girls’ trip with me. She and I will be in London for nine days around the end of February. Yippee! It will be just the break from winter that I need – the markets, the galleries, theatre, pub lunches, lots of walking. No down coats, fur-lined gloves or boots rated for minus 40C – what a treat!

In the meantime, I’ll be working on another quilt or two, doing my freelance communications work, and staying close to the woodstove.

Cheers from Skinner's Pond!

[Kath Mulligan]

Don't get too excited, Brenda, London at the end of February probably won't be too balmy either, or not as cold as Northern Ontario granted!

Kath

[Brenda]

Yeah, Kath, but what we found in the last two years in February was that we could walk around London in running shoes and raincoats, on bare pavement - not in heavy boots and calf-length down-filled coats, between snowbanks of several feet in height. Brenda

[nashie]

Hi Brenda
Enjoy your trip to London. I've only been back to London a very few times since we came to live here, and although I've no regrets I do miss a few things about the old place - mainly the things you'll be doing I expect - going to the art galleries, museums, theatres (especially!), pubs and markets. February is usually pretty cold there, at least it is compared to here, but after what you're used to you'll probably get a deckchair out in the park and enjoy an icecream in the sunshine.

[Brenda]

John, London in February is looking sooooo good right now. We have at least three feet of snow piled up on the roof already, and there's more falling. We've shovelled until our backs are aching and our noses are frozen, carried in many loads of firewood, and cursed the length of time it takes for the car to warm up. Thank goodness, at least, for a mechanized snowblower! I take care of the path around to the front door with a shovel so that we get the 'aesthetically pleasing' first impression of the house, and my husband takes care of the driveway, the path to the compost box, the area around the bird feeders, and the path to the back deck. He goes a little crazy with the snowblower, cutting deep gashes into the snowbanks, and not minding much whether his lines flow - he's thinking practical thoughts of moving the snow away from the house, of course, so that when it melts, it won't cause wet basement problems. I'm thinking magazine cover.

London in February sounds good because I won't have to pull on boots or gloves that are rated for -30C or deal with static-plagued hair and dry skin. I'll be able to walk without twisting my ankle on uneven snow or slipping on ice. I won't have to shovel! I won't have to peel off several layers of clothing every time I go into a building. It'll be a treat!! Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

I sympathise about the static-plagued hair and dry skin, Brenda. It is very cold and frosty here at the moment and I have been getting regular static shocks off the filing cabinets and doors at work. I took to opening both with my cardigan sleeve pulled down over my hand.

I just can't imagine how you can function with so much snow - over here if we get half an inch, traffic and life as we know it grinds to a halt!! Probably because we don't get snow all that often we are just not geared up for it in the way that countries like Canada and Scandinavia are.

Think if I lived in Canada, I would be a hibernating animal and curl up somewhere warm and cosy until Spring!! :lol: :wink:

Kath

[Brenda]

I think I do hibernate much of the winter, Kath. At least, I stay indoors a lot of the time, as close to the woodstove as I can be without singeing my pants! We are wonderfully well equipped with clothing and boots that insulate us against the cold and wick away the moisture. My new car has heated seats!! We have snow tires for our vehicles, and ploughs to keep the roads clear of snow. We have snowblowers to clear our driveways, and there's a thriving industry in snow shovelling and roof clearing. Northerners picked up on central heating and double glazing much earlier than a lot of home owners did in the UK. Those of us who do not like outdoor activities in the winter stay in and read, do crafts, bake, knit, etc, etc. I do not downhill ski, snowmobile or go ice fishing or winter camping (horrors!), but I've built many a snowman and done my years of toboganning and cross-country skiing with my boys. Nowadays, my husband and I go out occasionally for a snowshoe in the woods. On a mild sunny day, down to about -10C, it's a lovely way to get some exercise and fresh air, and it's always fun to spot the animal tracks in the snow. Then home for a hot chocolate!!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all my friends on the forum a very merry Christmas and happy New Year :D. I wish you good health and much happiness in 2008. Perhaps I'll get to meet one or two of you in the coming year when we travel to England.

Best wishes from Skinner's Pond!

Brenda

[Linda]

Hi Brenda...and a very Merry Christmas to you too!

...heated seats are wonderful aren't they...we got a real treat when we got the Trooper and found we had heated seats and for the ferry we could pull in the wing mirrors...saved a lot of bother with them....

Look forward to seeing you if you make it up here...if not another time...we arent going anywhere..well leastways not yet anyway!

:)

[Brenda]

Hi, everyone,

I know, I know...long time no talk. I've been around, lurking a bit, but not participating. Seem to have too many things on the go lately.

I just wanted to announce that Wiarton Willie has predicted an early spring for Ontario. It was Groundhog Day on Saturday, February 2, and the little town of Wiarton on the Bruce Peninsula always celebratrates with a weather forecast from the honourary groundhog. There has been a succession of Willies (now, stop that!) over the years. Every February 2, Willie is trotted out of his burrow to determine if winter will continue to plague us or if spring will make an early appearance. If he sees his shadow, we're in for many more weeks of snow and cold. If he doesn't, yippee! There will soon be melting of snow and warming of air and budding of flowers and rushing of streams. This year, there was no shadow for Willie to see, so it looks like we can count on that early spring. He's tremendously accurate, you know. The US has Punxsutawney Phil but, when it comes to a contest with George Dubbleyuh, we think our Willie's better (now, I've already said, cut that out!).

Hope you're all well. I'll be in London in 19 days! Can't wait.

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Hi Brenda.........good to know you're still around. Where are you staying in London? We have had some lovely sunshine today and not so cold. But as you know the weather here can turn on a sixpence so better be safe and bring warm clothes. :)

[Kath Mulligan]

Have a great trip Brenda.

Kath

[Brenda]

Oh, oh, oh! The flowers! The theatre! The galleries! The cider! The pork pies! The market! The walking and walking and walking! The daily cappuccinos! The music! Paddington Bear! The mild weather!

Oh, oh, oh! The return to snow! The cold! The boots! The down coat! The slippery roads!

MUST...FIND...WAY...TO...MOVE...TO...UK.

[Kath Mulligan]

Take it you had a good trip then, Brenda?! :lol: Look forward to hearing all about it.

Kath

[Brenda]

'A good trip' never begins to describe it for me, Kath. I always enjoy my time in the UK so much. We got very lucky with the weather, with only one half-day of rain. Most of the others were brilliantly sunny. Early mornings were chilly, but warmed up by about 10 am to very pleasant walking weather. You can't imagine what a treat it is in February and early March to shed heavy winter boots and long down-filled coats, scarves, thick gloves, etc, etc. We saw The History Boys (excellent!) and went to a candlelight baroque concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Paid a visit to the National Gallery and ate a picnic lunch in Trafalgar Square. Spent a whole day wandering around Portobello Market, and another wandering around Marks & Spencer and other shops on Oxford Street! Tried to get in to see the Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum, but tickets were in short supply, so we toured the permanent collection instead. We had a stroll through Little Venice and went in search of the rolling bridge in Paddington Basin. We spent the better part of a day viewing the Wallace Collection at Hertford House and indulged in a rather pricey lunch in their cafe (as my friend said, "we're buying a memory..."). Drank lots and lots of yummy cappuccinos and a little cider, reminded ourselves what pork pies and pasties taste like, and stocked up on all the varieties of Cadbury's chocolate that we can't get at home. We met up with my husband's niece and took a boat ride to Greenwich for a pub lunch and a look at the Painted Hall and Chapel. A tour of Windsor Castle with my friend's cousin and her husband, which I was happy about as the chapel had not been open on my first visit. On our last day, we walked for an hour in Hyde Park, then caught the Heathrow Express to the airport and said farewell to England...the difficult part.

My husband and I are still hoping to go again in about mid-May for three weeks. The timeshare exchange folks always keep us on the edge until the last possible moment, but they usually come through with a suitable exchange, so we're hopeful. If we get a call that there's a place available for us, that will clinch it and we'll book the flight.

Now I have lots to catch up on with regard to my freelance work, and I've sort of promised our granddaughter that I'd have a quilt made in time for her birthday at the end of April. So I'd better get a move on!

[Kath Mulligan]

Wow, you certainly seem to have packed plenty in to your visit, Brenda. I'm so glad you enjoyed it and that the weather was kind to you. We have been incredibly lucky this winter to have avoided the snow, and the last couple of weeks have been almost springlike. I love crisp frosty mornings and cold clear sunny days. Although I suppose what feels cold to us would appear positively balmy to you! :lol:

Hope you do manage to get your time share trip in May. Do you know which region you would be coming to or is it a bit of lucky dip according to who wants to visit your area?

I am somewhat ashamed to say that you have visited much more of London than I ever have! I am not a city person at all so avoid them like the plague wherever possible. I have only been to London a couple of times and each time I couldn't get away fast enough. Give me the open spaces, cliff tops and beaches any day.

Kath

[Brenda]

Well, friends, I'm three months later on this than I intended to be, but as of today I can officially thank the many of you who encouraged me to write about life at Skinner's Pond when I first joined the forum. As of today, my little book of stories is published on www.lulu.com. Without your supportive words and expressions of interest in our 'Minack-in-the-Colonies,' :roll: I would never have considered that anyone would have been interested in reading 'this stuff.'

On a good day, I thought, 'well, why not?' and on the bad days, I thought, 'who'd want to read this junk, anyway?' But your kind and encouraging words always topped up my failing confidence. And so I went on, gradually adding to the stories and tweaking here and there.

Right now, it's published as an e-book. I intend to have an artist friend of mine convert my colour photos to sketches, and then I will obtain an ISBN number and republish it as a paperback book - summer is the next goal.

So if you know of people who would be interested in reading about life in rural northern Ontario, it would be a great pleasure for me to have you point them to the lulu website and give them the title of the book: Utter Peace and Tranquility.

Thank you, thank you again for all the encouragement.

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

Wowee, congratulations Brenda. Have just been having a look on Lulu and your book is brilliant. Well done you.

Kath

[Linda]

Congratulations Brenda!!

Its terrific, I have just looked at a preview, most definitely Skinners Chronicle!

Just delightful! I want to move there! (even with the
snow! :) )

Well Done, I am sure Derek would be so proud....the affect he is having....on us all in different ways.

[Sybille Weber]

Wow, Brenda. That's just great. A wonderful achievement. Congratulations!
Let us know when the paperback has been published!

[gloria townsin]

Well done Brenda - how do you fit everything in? Quilting, writing and the numerous other things you seem to get through. I think too much of my time is dissipated in living in a busy part of the county, I seem to get less done now than I did when the boys were small.

[Brenda]

Well done Brenda - how do you fit everything in? Quilting, writing and the numerous other things you seem to get through. I think too much of my time is dissipated in living in a busy part of the county, I seem to get less done now than I did when the boys were small.

Gloria, I think it's because I'm not very motivated to work on the freelance communications business that I'm pretending to do! All these other things are so much more fun. It's a pity they don't generate the income that would enable us to spend more time in the UK...

[Linda]

It's a pity they don't generate the income that would enable us to spend more time in the UK...

Aah! but what if you set up a website and sold your goodies through that ...or even through ebay...you could include quilted cat and dog cushions, small throws for chairs or settee, table runners, place settings, aprons, I know a quilt takes a lot of work and therefore time...but these could take less time...

...or website for your freelance comms work...

....am thinking, thinking, what else ...

or just win the lottery!
:lol:

[gloria townsin]

Good ideas there from Linda - the last one is a fav. of mine!! :lol:

[Linda]

...we keep trying......I nearly won it last week...only got five number wrong....so its real possibility!

:):):)


just getting back to the book Brenda...and if you look at how many views there have been of this topic you will see just how popular its been......I appreciate every time we look at the topic it counts but its a staggering number of occasions!...your next book will be about ? :)

[Brenda]

Thanks for all the supportive and encouraging comments, folks. Winning the lottery would be my number 1 choice of income generation, but then, I'm a dreamer like the rest of you! Not very likely to happen.

Of course, with that website you mentioned, Linda, I could also market my 'Skinner's Pond Nearly World Famous Seville Orange Marmalade.' Along with my communications services, of course...

Hmmm...now the quilted dog and cat cushions, throws, placemats, table runners, aprons...all sound like attractive ideas. Maybe I'll just get right on that. I'm sure it will be the making of me.

With all this money about to pour in, could I ask one of you to start looking for a house for me, please? On the southwest coast, minimum 10 acres and under 50,000 pounds, if you please. :wink:

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

If any of us could find a property like that for £50,000, you would be at the back of a long queue, Brenda!!! We should all be there before you.

Kath

[Linda]

there wouldnt be a queue ...I would have already bought it!


:roll: :lol: :roll:

[Brenda]

We always look at real estate listings wherever we stop for tea when we're in the UK. I said to my husband a night or two ago, 'Remember on my first trip to England with you (in 1996, the year we met Derek), just for fun we drove up to Moretonhampstead to look at a place we'd seen advertised in an estate agent's window in Bovey Tracey?'

And we remembered that it was a barn conversion listed at 75,000 pounds, which we thought was outrageous (in view of house prices in our area at the time) but which we might just be able to afford.

When we got there, and discovered that it was just a small section of the whole barn conversion and that we would have several neighbours and no private land, we just shook our heads and thought how crazy the Brits were to be taken in by this highway robbery. STAND AND DELIVER!

But I added the other night, 'We could probably flip that place for about 350,000 pounds today. How short-sighted were we!?!?!?'

Sigh. Unless a big bucket of money falls into my lap, we will not be contemplating buying anything in the UK. Holidays only, I'm afraid.

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

There are lots of young people in this country, Brenda, who are finding it almost impossible to get on the property ladder because of the ridiculous house prices for little more than a shed. With the current credit crunch and banks and building societies severely restricting their mortgage lending too, things are going to get much worse I fear. I am so glad that I am not starting out afresh nowadays. I really do not envy our younger generation.

Kath

[Brenda]

I'll second that, Kath. It's not as bad in Canada except in the larger cities. Young couples in smaller places can get into the housing market reasonably easily if they're willing to keep their feet on the ground and not have the biggest and best to start with.

Housing prices even in our relative backwater (ouch, I'm sure others living in this area would not like my calling it that! - it's just that it's not one of the rapidly growing parts of the country) have been going up at an alarming rate in the last couple of years, though, in my opinion. We haven't had our property appraised since we bought it in late 2000, but we are guessing, just based on what's for sale near us, that our price has almost doubled.

Still, if we sold our 45-acre property with heated double garage, pond, and four-bedroom, two bath house, we'd perhaps end up with enough to buy a park home (is that the right term? - what we would call a manufactured home over here, essentially a non-mobile trailer) in rural Wales! :shock: There's just no getting your head around that.

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

It is certainly very hard if not impossible for youngsters to get on the home buying wagon now. Although I have to say that when we were first looking for a house 44 years ago it was far from easy for people in our 'walk of life' to buy their own home. My Mum used to say to me 'why don't you rent a flat?' but I had this dogmatic idea that I didn't want to pay rent for something that would never be ours. We were fortunate that Eddie worked in a trade where he could do lots of overtime etc. so while my friends were seeing their boyfriends and going here there and everywhere I was at home with my parents collecting and making things for my bottom drawer and generally passing the time as best I could. When we eventually found our house we could put down a third of the purchase price........sounds great huh? but a third was £1,000 as it was on the market for £3,150 and that was a three bedroom semi. in Bushey (not a stone's throw from The Rutts). But we had to settle for a house that needed so much work done on it, a huge reinforced air-raid shelter in the back garden that needed knocking down and we moved in with just our bedroom, kitchen and one other downstairs room done, air-raid shelter still in place!! We had no telephone, no TV and Eddie worked from 7am to 9pm. Once I got in from work I was very lonely as I had never lived away from 'home' before and now I was a good few miles away, couldn't afford a car for me and anyway I didn't drive. The thing is and this is a bit critical I guess, but nowadays people want everything and they want it NOW. We had to be content to have what we could afford our biggest expenditure and priority was starting in our own home. But, and again this was before the Good Life thing became a popular idea, even then I wanted a small holding, it appealed to me so much, not to Eddie however and anyway unless we had moved miles and miles away from my parents we definitely couldn't have afforded to buy anything with land. But you can see how appealing Derek's books were when I started reading them as they described a way of life I would have loved to pursue. Of course once we had the boys then they had to be considered first and their schooling, friends, hobbies etc. dictated our life-style. But the Chronicles allowed me to live that life if even for a short while and only in my imagination. :) But going back to todays youngsters even though they have a much higher income than we could have dreamed of I really don't know how they can begin to get the where-with-all for their first house. Our middle and youngest sons would only be able to achieve this with an enormous amount of help from us and then it would only be a very modest house or flat. A very straighforward 1930/40s semi in this part of Hertfordshire, often without garage or space, would be in the high £300,000 to mid £400,000. There is a 3 bed bungalow (I would imagine quite small bedrooms) detached, just, no garage, forecourt to hold 2 - 3 cars at a push and it is on the market for £450,000. Crazy and in the end does no-one any good.

[Linda]

I do not see how any youngsterstoday can buy anything. With most prices in most areas starting at over the £100k mark, most people do not earn the £30k and above figure which at 3 times would just give a 90% mortgage ...even then to save £10k is an enormous sum . I know that a lot is relative to todays prices but the ratios are so different to when we started out.
I bought my first house 25 years ago. Following my Mum's death I was sudddenly in the big world at 30!! Lucky for me I found a fiend to 'lodge' with and did so for the nect three years. With his help I found a house that like Gloria needed a lot of work. Indeed it was classes as uninhabitable. At that time there were Local Authority grants both discretionary and mandatory and I was lucky enough to get teh basics , plumbing, roof, electrics sorted out. At the time the house looked like it had subsidence but I took the chance and it paid off. I was lucky enough to have £1000 my Mum left me in her will and it was this that got me on the property ladder. Everyone kept sayingto me why dont you buy a flat. But I too was determined and wanted a house.
I had to wait another two years before I could move in. I was trying to sell that house at the peak of house prices in the 80's and then suddenly like today they started plummeting. I sold for less than I had hoped but a lot more than I paid. I stayed with my friend again as his lodger for another three years whilst I waited for the market to bottom out and then bought a property, in an area, I would never have normally been able to buy, because of the drop in house prices.

That property helped us get this place and just three months after we moved here proparty prices on Arran shot through the roof and are now still buoyant. There is a move on the island to try and build affordable housing for the very reason that none of the youngersters can buy anything. It doesnt help that the economy is tourism based and as such wages are poor too.

I just wonder whats going to happen as first time buyers 'dry up' for without these the market is unlikely to move. I can only assume it may mean a massive drop in prices which in turn will have a huge affect on those with large mortgages in the negative equity we saw back in the 80/90's.

You know who I think may have started all this...Estate Agents ...preying on the greed of people to make a fast buck???

[Brenda]

When I was first on my own with my boys, I decided to go to college and applied for student loans. Naively, I thought I'd be given enough to buy my textbooks and pay the tuition. I guess, as a single mom, I was in the right place at the right time, because the government gave me all kinds of money.

As I was so paranoid about having to pay it back on graduation, I simply put most of it in the bank and never touched it.

And that is how I came to have a small downpayment on the first house I'd owned by myself! Within two months of getting a job, I took the leap back into home ownership and bought a down-at-heel older brick home in a slightly undesirable downtown neighbourhood in North Bay. Old windows, deteriorating shingles, a hateful kitchen, deadly dull decorating. And hardwood floors that gave my boys much pleasure because they could set a marble down at one end of the house and race it to the other end!

But it was mine and I was pleased to have it, and especially not to be paying rent to someone any more.

I think that the attitude about starting out with what you can manage and trading up over the years has flown the coop. I know lots of 'adult kids' today, both in Canada and the UK, who do not want their parents' old junk - they're going to get all new stuff right at the beginning of their independent life. I guess that's okay if you can stomach the debt. All my life, I've been on the side of saving until I can afford something or else being content to do without.

Ai-yi-yi! What a rant. And it's only 7:30 in the morning!!

Brenda :oops:

[Brenda]

How exciting! This morning when I got up to let Lester out, I saw a pair of mallard ducks swimming on the pond. They're early! Our four decoys haven't even popped up through the ice yet. The pond is still about 80 per cent covered by ice, but the mallard pair were swimming and feeding along a narrow strip in front of the house.

Now I know spring is truly here.

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Some very interesting stories here (about buying our own homes) and I do agree that it is very difficult indeed for youngsters to get on the property ladder now. In this part of Hertfordshire, there are a few 'shared ownership' schemes, which are probably the only possibility there is for young people in work without parental help. For example, a small apartment can be partly purchased with a mortgage, with the remaining part belonging to a housing association for the foreseeable future, for around £675/month, which is the same as paying rent in the private sector. The monthly charge covers part mortgage repayment and part rent, and the mortgage repayment part can be increased as and when it is possible. Probably a scheme like this would suit your boys, Gloria?

I do think, however, that it is a generation attitude as well. When we were young, people did save and spend little in order to get a home of their own. When I divorced my ex, I was advised to go out and have fun with my settlement! But I knew having my own home was more important, so I put all £4K (yes, it was a while ago!) down on a small apartment and took out a mortgage for the remainder. Being a secretary/admin person all my working life, my salary was never very high but I did pay off my mortgage eventually (having moved twice too) and now own my 2 bed house, and this meant I could retire at 60 - whoopee - never regretted it!

However, with young people struggling even more today, where will I find a buyer when I want to move in the future? The situation really does affect us all.

Janet

[gloria townsin]

Well done Janet, now you are reaping the benefits of not having a 'mad spree'. As you say it is a 'have it all / want it all - now generation. Great if you have the income to support that kind of lifestyle but what if you don't or it suddenly changes? that's the problem.

[Kath Mulligan]

I agree with all these comments. Vin and I bought our house from my grandparents (my gran died just after we got engaged and grandad came to live with my parents) but it was very old fashioned and needed lots of work doing to it. We started knocking it apart on Boxing Day 1971 and worked on it non stop every evening and weekend until we got married in May 1972. In that time we had knocked down walls and ceilings, ripped up old quarry tiled floors (I know, I regret it now but they were broken up and uneven), had the whole place re-wired and re-plumbed and had to waterproof cement all the downstairs walls (it was built in 1879, made of stone and had no dampproof course). The re-wiring and plumbing were done professionally but most of the rest of the work we did ourselves because we could not afford to pay anyone. We did get grants from the council for some of the work which helped, but funds were very tight. I got to be a real expert with a sledgehammer!!

By the time we got married we had managed to get the main living room, kitchen, bathroom and our bedroom habitable, albeit with second hand carpets, furniture etc. I think the only things we bought new was the bed and a 3 piece suite (my gran's was ancient and very uncomfortable so we had to throw that out). Over the years we gradually decorated and carpeted the rest of the rooms as and when we could afford it. So different to nowadays - I hate these wedding lists that detail very specific items, where you are to buy them from and how much they cost. I'm afraid I tend to go out of my way to buy something completely different just to be awkward!! Probably stupid on my part, but it is just something I resent.

I do think, however, that doing most of the work ourselves, and saving up to buy new things gradually meant that we appreciated them all the more when we eventually could afford to buy them. I can remember being so excited when we bought our first new cooker (we had made do with my gran's ancient one for about 3 years).

Well, we're on a real trip down memory lane here, aren't we? Derek would be proud of us reminiscing like this, I'm sure - something he was very good at!

Kath

[Linda]

My desire to own my own home came from the fact that as my father had been an RSPCA Inspector all my life(he was a trained/qualified? butcher funnily enough!) we lived in, at that time Inspectorate houses which meant that we didnt pay rent but the wages were lower and that we could be moved at any time to another region. When my father died my mother was able to live in the house for the rest of her life, but the time came when she passed away and that meant I had to move. (Oh she had wanted to buy a house but I told her to enjoy the legacy Dad left her, as she had worked all her life and I mean worked...several jobs at a time to pay bills put food on the table etc etc...with 3 children....I remember many hand me downs...and I would look after myself after...she wasnt to worry about us kids ..we were old enough to make our own way in the world..and we each did...by the same grafting...I wouldnt have had it any other way...the lesson of life's values..)...
Funny they had originally owned their own home before Dad went into the RSPCA, paid £800 for it and it was in Driffield...my Mum was from York and tehy met when Dad was posted from Egypt to York in the war and tehy were working on airplanes repairing the capillaries that went through the wings to the controls in the cockpit.
So yes I think it is a generation thing...but is it also about accessibility of things today which were not available at prices any of us could even contemplate.
I am glad I am not staring out again...used to have four jobs to juggle the finances when I got that first home, main job, making cakes, being a 'runner' in a greyhound stadium (no I wasnt one of the greyhounds! :) I used to collect the bets from restaurant tables and boy you did run around the restaurant) and looking after the foreign students we used to take in at my friends house....phew!

[gloria townsin]

Re Wedding Lists which are so specific and give no room for whether or not you can afford to buy them. I think the two lists that flabbergasted me more was one when my sisters grandson was about 3 and it was his birthday list and the other was when a friend turned 50 and she handed out lists...............!! I was not amused about either. :(

[Brenda]

'Well,' she said, continuing her rant of the early morning, 'I get a little frustrated when a couple is getting married after having lived together for several years and have well established their home, and being told that all the gifts have to fit into the 'garden theme' or the 'patio theme' or something like that, because that is the only classification of things the well-established couple has not yet acquired.'

Or else I could just be jealous. I'm not sure.

Brenda

[Linda]

...or being sent a list where you have to purchase froma particular store because thats where the list is! Then you find that store wont deliver to you because you live on an island and then!you think 's** it! I'll send money so you end paying out more because money seems insignificant against a not sending a present so you send more to make up for it! I'm not being mean honest! But as Brenda said especially when they have lived together or several years!

I was very proud of the work I did in my fisrt house, like you Kath it was an old Edwardian house...and I turned the satircase into a work of art after getting off layers of paint including what looked like lead! and did both wrists in with carpel tunnel syndrome...couldn't use one of my hands to wash etc for two weeks...but the staircase looked absolutely fabulous!

[Brenda]

And maybe part of the apparent dissatisfaction of today's home buyers is due to a lack of involvement in having to fix up a less-than-perfect house. When you've agonized that you'll never have the money to renovate or redecorate, and when you've spent hours/days/weeks doing a job yourself, and then you see an end result that makes you feel proud, you truly appreciate the home you've made.

Now, I have to admit to myself - and I caution all the recent posters to this topic - we're all getting dangerously close to uttering the words, 'When I was a girl [boy], things were different...we didn't have...we didn't expect...' Well, you get the picture. Pretty soon we'll all be walking five miles to school barefoot in 10 feet of snow (and 10 miles on the way home!).

Every generation has its own set of problems. But, as someone else said, I'm kind of glad I don't have to go through it all again.

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

:lol: :lol: :lol: you are quite right, Brenda! We have all got a touch of the "it was better in the old days" syndrome - but in many ways it was. I think when I was growing up in the Swinging Sixties, what seemed like outrageous behaviour then, appears so tame in comparison to what today's youth gets up to. But the world in general was still only just coming out of the post war austerity period, so maybe we hadn't been conditioned to expect something for nothing as so many youngsters today do. We expected to have to work to afford a home, furniture etc because no-one else, least of all the state, was going to provide it for you.

Think we could do with going back to some of those old values.

And now I really am starting to sound like my parents and grandparents!!! :roll: :wink: so I'll shut up.

Kath

[Linda]

...couldn't agree more with all these sentiments...teh nuber of times I sit watching teh news and shout when I was young...we didn't get ....what happened to respect...no sense of values... oh dear! and I am only in my 50's!!

I used to wonder why my Dad went on the way he did...

I rolled about laughing to Brenda's post as I visualised us all doing just that! and then kath says 'We have all got a touch of the "it was better in the old days" syndrome - but IN MANY WAYS IT WAS!! I cried with laughter!

You know any youngesters out there may get put off this forum with us old uns!

Please dont be! Come on in and tell us where we're going wrong!

Thank you for a good old chin wag!

[Kath Mulligan]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


Kath

[Brenda]

Well, I shed my old fogeyism today. We went out for a spin on the Triumph Tiger. We've had a brilliant week of sunshine and near 20C temperatures - summer-like weather always comes with a bang here. We actually call spring 'those two rainy days between winter and summer.'

So we donned our motorcycle gear and had a tour of the back roads in the area for about an hour and half. The roads are still in pretty motorcycle-unfriendly state, but that never deters Peter. Now I'm feeling encouraged to get out on my own bike again.

I'm posting a new photo of the pond so you can see how quickly our snow is disappearing and how little ice there is left on the pond. Just two days ago, it was covered about 90%. It's so good for the soul to have the summery weather back. I feel human again!

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

'Nanny State' is all I can say to much of todays 'help me to afford everything I want rather than need generation'. What a misery guts!! :lol:

[Brenda]

What an exciting day it's been here at Skinner's Pond!!

A female mallard, after quacking very noisily near the waterfall early this morning, settled on the little island to incubate her eggs.

Shortly after, we had our first sighting of Nessie, the resident mink, in the pond. Hadn't seen him all winter.

When I was hanging some laundry on the clothesline, I saw a sandhill crane fly over the pond - I've heard them in the area but this is the first one I've ever actually seen.

I heard the first kingfisher of the year.

We had our first visit of a flicker this year.

And to finish off the day, the first great blue heron of the year visited the pond in the early evening. Stilts is back!

Two pics of the mallard to be posted in my album right after I submit this.

Brenda

[Brenda]

Sorry, tried but couldn't get the photos posted and now it's beddie-bye time. I'll try again tomorrow. B.

[Brenda]

Oh-oh. Yesterday morning, we saw the duck startled off her nest by the mink who swam up to her little tuft of an island. She flew a short distance away and quacked loudly for several minutes, during which we watched the nest anxiously to see if the mink would go after her eggs. We didn't see anything, and she eventually went back to the nest and settled down.

We noticed in mid-afternoon that she was off the nest, and we didn't see her for the rest of the day. And she's not there this morning.

We think that the mink must have got to her eggs, after all, and now she's abandoned it. :( I always wonder how on earth anything manages to get its young beyond the first stage of life with so many threats around.

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

Nature can be very cruel at times, can't it? We have been watching a wildlife series recently called Big Cat Diary, following the fortunes of some tigers and cheetahs and lions in Africa. Simon King, one of the presenters said that one of the hardest things to do is to watch, for instance, a lion cub being attacked by a mature male lion, and to know that this is nature's way and they mustn't interfere.

Kath

[Sybille Weber]

How sad, Brenda. I always have difficulties to come to terms with such happenings but of course I know that's nature.
The pair of ducks that used to breed in our front garden several years and that our neighbours downstairs chased away last year because they occasionally left a few droppings in the house entrance, built a nest under a tree in the adjacent hospital gardens last month. A short while ago we found the male dead in front of the tree, feathers all over the place. We don't know what happened - probably a bird of prey or a cat. We haven't seen the female since then. So sad.

[gloria townsin]

Big Cat Diary is a very watchable programme but has you on the edge of your seat when the babies are involved. They seem so carefree at that age and only realise danger when it is right there, often too late, it's a wonder any of them survive. Their mother's have a hard job to raise even one or two from a litter.

[Janet Swan]

As soon as you mentioned the mink, Brenda, I was concerned. Over here, mink were bred in captivity for their fur. Over the years, so called animal rights activists have broken into the mink farms and released them into the wild, where they have flourished. They are now responsible for wiping out much of our native wildlife - so much for the rights of the native ducks, swans, otters, etc. but the minks are happy! :(

Janet

[Mili]

Janet I cannot agree with you more! I have seen endless stories about minks.
My English friend sends me the recordings of Springwatch every year. LOVE the show! I am grateful they are not too graphic when it comes to nature’s cruelty.

I must add that when I joined this group I was just expecting discussions about the books and daily life topics but I have been wonderfully surprised with all the discussions about birds, animals and nature in general. Love it! I do need to start the chronicles, definitely before the week is over. I am due to go to the post office tomorrow and all books shipped the same day so the others should be here already.

[Brenda]

Well, we were supposed to go on our balloon flight yesterday (my 2007 birthday present, if you recall....) and were once again frustrated by cancellation due to high winds. Argh.

Instead, we went for a very long ramble through our woods. I was absolutely delighted to see many white, red and painted trilliums, the latter of which I understood were quite rare, at least in our area. But there they were! We also saw many pink ladyslippers, a member of the orchid family, which I also thought were rare. They seem to favour the growing conditions of our lichen-covered rocks in the clearings - what a dry, acidic atmosphere!

I posted photos of these spring flowers in my album. Also at the moment, I'm enjoying my pseudo-bluebell woods as our lawn is covered in drifts of forget-me-nots.

We've found that the wild blueberry plants growing along the roadside in front of the house have spread again this year, so I'm anticipating a better feast in July. And because of all the rain this spring, the wild strawberries that grow all over the lawn are looking a little plumper than usual - I might not mind picking them this year. It's usually too fiddly for me. Hoping for a good crop of blackberries out in the swamp in August. We've missed them for one reason or another for the last three years. I'm determined to get something from the bushes this year. I'm getting more and more to like the idea of returning to the traditional idea of eating foods that are native to the area and just when they're in season, rather than relying on imports. Trying to make more effort this year to buy locally produced foods. I can willingly give up some foods that are imported to Canada from distant lands, but I'm going to have a very hard time if I have to do without bananas! Some things are just non-negotiable.

The Duffoons - have I told you about The Duffoons? - have now parked two decrepit cars almost in the ditch across the road from us. What an aesthetically pleasing sight this is! I can only hope that they are making arrangements for a scrap dealer to pick them up in the next day or so. And - oh, joy - the For Sale sign has come off the property. We were so hopeful of having new *and improved* neighbours...sigh.

Brenda

[Brenda]

The other photo I posted - Peter at the Lake of the Good Sheppard - is of the body of water near the back of our property. We've never made it all the way to the back, as it's 3300 feet deep, but this waterway is getting close, we think. Because of our pond, a friend said, when we moved here, that we had to call the property Skinner's Pond. So it seemed only right, as Peter's last name is Sheppard, to call the other body of water The Lake of the Good Sheppard!

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Sounds as though you could be making pots of jam and bottling masses of fruit Brenda. Blackberry jam was such a favourite of mine, we used to pick the berries in the woods as children with my Mum and Nan then Mum would make huge pots of jam from it. The smell of the jam and the licking of the wooden spoon were wonderful. I am wondering if my Olive tree will bear olives that will actually grow into a decent size this year. Last year there were plenty on it just minute. does anyone have experience of Olive Trees. This one is about 3 feet tall and this must be the third year I have had it so I would assume it is about 6 or 7 years old.
Perhaps your neighbours are having a clear out of their goods and you will find them gone one morning. Well you can but hope :D

[Brenda]

We don't get enough fruit for me to be able to make jam, Gloria. I have made lots of kinds in the past, but with purchased fruit. It was especially nice when I lived near Windsor (SW Ontario) to drive out to the farms early on a Saturday morning, buy fresh-picked peaches, and go home and make jam that morning.

What we have now - except for our raspberries, which we can't eat fast enough! - is enough blueberries to give us a few little feeds through July. The blackberries, which grow in masses in the swamp, got completely knocked off the bushes by a very heavy rainstorm the first year we knew they were there; the second year, Peter couldn't go into the woods with me because he was on crutches for a while - and I was too nervous of meeting a bear to go by myself; and last year was very dry and no berries matured. So I'm hoping for a crop this year - I'm determined to pick some wild blackberries!

Brenda

[Janet Swan]

Phew Brenda! Meeting a bear when picking blackberries is a problem we don't have in England, although I did see a couple of huge black bears fast asleep today. No, I've not flipped - just visited a safari park on a day trip (Woburn). Was also thrilled to see girafes (?), lions, tigers and monkeys jumping onto the roof of the minibus! Great fun :lol: .

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

And to think I moaned about having rats in the house!! Bears in the wood puts that well in the shade. :roll: :lol: Don't think you would catch me going anywhere near those woods, with or without hubby!

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Where's your sense of adventure, Kath :wink: :lol: ? The bears I saw today looked so cuddly I wanted to hug them :roll: :oops: :lol: .

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

Ah yes, Janet, but you were well aware that those bears couldn't get at you, which is slightly different from coming face to face in the wild methinks! :lol: :lol:

Kath

[Mili]

Brenda,
You really are living in your own Minack! Lovely photos of the trilliums! Such a wonderful experience, though I think I am with Kath if I risk finding myself in front of a bear I might prefer to miss all the glory!

[Janet Swan]

I suppose you are right, Kath! Also wanted to hug the lions and tigers - just big pussy cats to me! By the way, retirement is full of contrasting jaunts - yesterday it was 'Sex in the City' (loved it - so funny - e.g. why does Carrie have bare legs and really high heels when walking in the freezing Winter's snow of New York? :lol: and today I was on safari in wellies and waterproofs chatting to the monkeys :D .

Janet

[Kath Mulligan]

My, you know how to live dangerously!! :wink: Will I be able to live up to this expectation, I wonder, when I am retired? And just what are you planning for us when we go to St Ives? Should I be getting scared?!

Kath

[Janet Swan]

Kath - bring your waterproofs, wellies, warm socks and a vest for Cornwall, and this will safely rule out anything that I saw in 'Sex in the City' :wink: .

Janet

[Brenda]

Phew Brenda! Meeting a bear when picking blackberries is a problem we don't have in England... Janet

Not many of us ever meet up with a bear, either, because they usually just melt away into the woods when they hear us coming. But I worry a little about quietly picking the berries by myself and having one come upon me unexpectedly. It's more dangerous to be in the woods earlier in the year, of course, when the cubs are still young and the moms are ferociously protective.

A common feature of trails brochures in this part of the world is the steps one should take when one meets up with a bear. Sounds simple, but I'm not sure I'd like to have to put the steps into practice!

Brenda

[Linda]

....like

....'don't run!', 8)

...don't climb a tree~they can do it better!' :?:

...curl up in a ball?
........................or is it make yourself large...thought that might be more threatening than the curled up ball :lol:


...what if you offered to bake a pie for them with the berries or some jam for the winter months :? :wink:

[Linda]

...with Cornish cream , of course!

[Brenda]

Ha, ha, ha. I can just see one of our black bears tucking in to a bowl of clotted cream while I make my escape!

So, then, for the next AGM walk along the coastal path, just in case the group encounters a bear, I give you the instructions on:

What to do if You Meet a Bear

Bears are normally shy around humans and quickly get out of your way when they see you. If you spot a bear on a trail:
- STOP! Face the bear and slowly back away to increase distance between you and the bear.
- Do not run or try to climb a tree. Bears are very good at both running and climbing (as you said, Linda!).
- Make sure that the bear has a clear escape route, then yell and wave your arms to make yourself look bigger (right again, Linda!). Use a whistle or air horn if you have one. The idea is to be aggressive and to persuade the bear to leave. People going for walks in the woods here sometimes carry items like tin pie plates and wooden spoons as noisemakers.
- If you are with others, stay together and act as a group (although, there's the old joke about not needing to run faster than the bear, just faster than your companion...).
- NEVER come between a mother bear and her cubs. The mother bear will generally give you many warning signs to let you know that you are too close.

Now that you know this, and you've also read about our blackfly precautions, you're ready for a visit to northern Ontario!

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

I will print this to take with me the next time I go to Oliver Land, sounds like essential reading. :lol:

[Brenda]

I JUST NOTICED I HAVE A NEW CAT!!! Thanks, Linda!

Brenda :D

[Kath Mulligan]

OK so I must remember to take a tin plate and wooden spoon with me to Cornwall next month just in case I meet a stray bear on the cliff tops! Or maybe just a tub of clotted cream instead. :wink: :lol:

There aren't too many trees available to climb on the cliff tops, and what there are tend to be small and stunted, with a distinct lean away from the prevailing winds - not much good for escaping from a bear. He wouldn't have to climb up after me - he could just stand underneath, reach up and swipe me with his paw!

And there was me, worrying about maybe seeing an adder or two on our walks; bears never crossed my mind. Suppose all I need now are some of Janet's great big pussycats to make my day!!

Kath

[Brenda]

No bears to be seen at Skinner's Pond today, but we had a lovely visitor about half an hour ago. I've posted his (or her) picture in my album.

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Taken a look at your recent pics Brenda which are lovely. We have a pond in Chipperfield called 'The Appostle's Pond'. It is quite small and is surrounded by trees each named after one of the twelve Apostles. The tree named after Judas died and was replaced only to die again.......this is an old village story so I don't know how true it is other than there is no tree for Judas, my Mum told me the tale which she had been told as a child.

[Brenda]

Thanks, Gloria. I often miss getting high-quality photos because I don't want to chance opening the door and startling the animals or birds away. So I shoot through the window. And, er, sometimes my windows are not perfectly clean. Hard to believe. But there it is.

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

D'you know that is the worst thing about sunshine (when we get it :) ) the windows look fine until the sun comes out and suddenly the windows don't look so good anymore.

[Brenda]

This news wouldn't have made it to the UK market, I'm sure, but the former medical officer of health for Ontario died on Monday after a short battle with a very rare form of cancer. Dr Sheela Basrur gained notoriety when she was MOH for the city of Toronto during the SARS crisis. I'm starting this topic because I'm wondering if my feelings are unique or if others have experienced something similar.

When a former colleague left me a voice mail message with the news of Sheela's death, I felt a physical pain that I would have expected on hearing about the death of a long-time close friend. The odd thing is that I spent a total of half a day with Dr Basrur over five years ago. I met her when my health unit was absorbing part of another health unit that was being closed. She came to our offices to address the staff about the coming changes. As communications coordinator for the HU, I spent a little time with her that day on media issues. I later described my feelings about her presentation as 'feeling a blanket of calm settle over me.' Her words and manner reassured me that the change would go okay.

About a year after I left the HU, I learned that she had been diagnosed with a rare cancer and was stepping down from her job to take care of her health. Some impulse prompted me to send her an e-mail to let her know that I was thinking about her, and to tell her what an impression she had made on me the day she visited my office. I was astonished that she replied because of the enormous number of professional and personal contacts she already had. But she did, and we went on to exchange a number of e-mails about ordinary things in our life, activities and crafts we enjoyed, etc, and she was very interested in life at Skinner's Pond.

I felt that we had truly connected - and the reason I think this new topic is appropriate for this forum is that I have since found out that people all over the place felt the same as I did about her, so it seems a bit like the way Derek affected people all over the world with his Minack stories and the strength of his personality. So when I heard the news about her death, I had such a feeling of loss, as if it were a very personal thing for me.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with someone of such a short acquaintance?

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

I am so sorry to hear about Dr Basrur's passing. Yes I have felt a loss even though I haven't been connected by family or close friendship. Who knows why it happens, probably because as you found you made a connection outside of either of those things and so the loss is just the same. I agree it is a Wavelength thing and that is a very precious connection something that sometimes you don't have between relatives or even some friends. I think that has to be why we identify with each other here and even if we have differing ideas on things we have a common cause that links us. :)

[Mili]

Oh yes!
I think the saying of ‘it is quality not quantity’ applies here. It is the intensity of the connection that makes a mark in our heart. You can have a long standing relationship and not be a deep connection. I believe that when two souls speak the same language (and I am not talking about lexicon) the bond is deep and lasting forever in our hearts. The opposite being a blood related person with which you feel no connection whatsoever. To me it is not blood that links or grants love and mother is not necessarily the one that gives birth.
I had a friend for years and years and whom I called my best friend, she was even my daughter’s godmother… and then I left home and she was not good at all staying in touch so for almost 20 more years I was the one always calling and writing and sending a Christmas card until one day I decided I would let her be the one to get to me. She called once and no more and I were finally able to let go. On the contrary I have long distance friends of a year or five years with whom I communicate almost every day and who feel like family and when they are ill I worry and when they are happy I am happy.
Love, in marriage as in friendship, is a commitment of loyalty and honesty and of growing up together for better or for worse and we can make it as lasting as it is a two way street! I do believe it takes two to love… I always say love is a two way street. A one side love is something else and too complicated and controversial to discuss!

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love”. – Eliezer Wiesel aka Elie, a world-renowned Jewish novelist, philosopher, humanitarian, and Holocaust survivor

“To the soul, there is hardly anything more healing than friendship.” – Thomas Moore

“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only what you are expecting to give.” - Katherine Hepburn, actress

[Kath Mulligan]

I think we all feel for you in your sense of loss, Brenda, and it is good that you are able to share your distress with us as your friends. I don't think any friendship can be measured in terms of longevity; really it is a connection of minds and souls, and as Gloria and Mili have said, sometimes you can make an instant connection with a stranger and feel drawn to them, whilst never really feeling quite so close to someone you have known for years.

Whilst you are sad now, at least you will be able to look back with pleasure on the links you did have. A friend sent me an email recently about friendship along the lines of: sometimes a friend is for a reason, sometimes for a season and sometimes for life - each one valuable in its own way. I think this is very true - maybe the doctor was meant to be a friend for a season.

Kath

[gloria townsin]

I
sometimes a friend is for a reason, sometimes for a season and sometimes for life - each one valuable in its own way.

Kath

I like this very much, I guess, if we are lucky, we all experience one or all of these during out lifetime. :)

[Brenda]

Thanks to all for your comments. Brenda

[Brenda]

Okay, all you cat lovers and people who know about cat behaviour, here's a poser:

I have a weigela bush that is just coming into blossom. Lester, The Very Cool Cat, seems particularly 'turned on' by this plant. Though it's surrounded by gravel (I sunk a very large pot into the ground), he rolls around on it and tucks his head under the low branches, and even seems to get a little, er, ahem, 'stimulated' by it. Has anyone else ever observed this behaviour in cats with this particular plant?

Brenda

[Kath Mulligan]

You should get someone to investigate that weigela plant immediately, Brenda! If it is an aphrodisiac for cats, who knows you may have found another Viagra - could make your fortune! :wink: :lol: :lol:

I used to have a bush of it in my garden and don't remember my cat ever getting turned on by it, but then again, cats are supposed to adore catnip (nepeta) and Cindy ignored that too!

Kath

[Mili]

Brenda,
I am not familiar with weigela but I do know that like people cats are attracted to certain smells and the smell that one like might not be the one another like. My Andrew (who swears I am his real mum) loves the smell of my perfume and he tenderly sniffs me and gives me little licks in the area of my arm I put it on. Of course this is hours after I have applied, I would not let him do that right away.
And as for catnip, I do not know how it is for other cats but all 3 of mine were never interested in catnip when they were young, all 3 started getting interested as they grew up into adulthood, past the 1 or 2 years old (3 for Sebastian).

Two questions I have, how old is Lester and is he fixed? I never heard of a fixed adult cat that would get “stimulated”.

[Brenda]

Well, phew, we have made it through blackfly season once again. Thank goodness they're pretty well gone now. They were voracious this year! I was so grateful for some unexpected cold weather in the early part of May, so that we were able to get more outside work done before their arrival. But then they came with a vengeance! I didn't go outdoors without my bugshirt for the next three weeks. Poor Lester was so pestered and bitten. He just doesn't understand why I make him stay indoors once in a while. Unfortunately, there's no 'good' time of day to be outside when the blackflies are here. Unlike mosquitoes, which are most active between dusk and dawn, blackflies are biting 24 hours a day. Last weekend we had three very hot days in a row, which usually is just enough to kill most of them off.

Our very cool, wet spring this year has also brought us a bumper crop of mosquitoes, which are currently driving us all bananas. They, too, are voracious this year. At least, though, if we time it right, we can get outdoors during sunny periods without getting too bitten.

But what a lot of rainy weather this spring! Not at all like our usual weather. Patterns are changing everywhere, aren't they? On the plus side, my roses look like the roses in an English garden this year. They're so robust! And everything else has grown tremendously well in this cool, wet weather.

And, oh dear...we have our third Osama bin Beaver in the pond already this year! :x Will have to get our neighbour Trapper Wayne over for another visit...

Brenda

[Linda]

wow! Brenda it sounds awful...far worse than midges and horse fly....how long do they normally hang around for? I thought you had them all summer..?

we got through our sheep shearing and foot paring as it was so nice and windy so no real midge problem, I got bitten once in the corner of my eye so thats up like a balloon at present...but nothing major! :lol:

[Brenda]

The blackflies are with us for about three weeks, from the time the leaves start to emerge on the trees, until we get those three or four consistently hot days. That seems to finish them off. But the mosquitoes are around all summer. Right now, they're out all the time but, as the weather gets hotter (if it ever does get hotter this year!), they'll only be a problem between dusk and dawn. If we have to be outdoors at that time, we can mostly beat them by wearing long-sleeved tops and long pants, and socks and shoes.

Our Cornish blacksmith friend, Pablo, who is currently working out on the oil patch in northern Alberta with his wife, Debbie, was home for a few days last week to see to their property (I really must do a post on Strawberry Fields sometime...). He came for dinner before flying back to the west, and we noted that he was completely covered in blackfly bites - like he was heavily freckled. He isn't bothered by their biting and doesn't take any precautions like covering up or using bug spray. I don't know how he stands it. One bite sends me into the house!

Brenda

[Brenda]

Hi, everyone,

Happy Canada Day! Today is Canada's 141st birthday. Not too impressive in the face of England's looonnnnngggggggg history, is it? Forty-one years and about two weeks ago, I was dressed up in a pioneer girl's costume with a little straw bonnet on my head, part of my school's celebration of Canada's centennial.

I was listening to a CBC program today, 'Q,' which was broadcasting from Canada House on Trafalgar Square. One of the guests noted that the grant for this year's 'fourth plinth' art project had been awarded. I have not been impressed with the last two years, particularly the deformed pregnant woman sculpture (or, as I called it, 'How to Ruin a Perfectly Lovely View from the National Gallery' :x). This year's, however, just might get me back to England. The plinth will be left open, and anyone who wants to stand on it for an hour will become the art exhibit. I think that's worth another girls' trip, don't you? My friend and I could fetch our sandwiches and drinks from the nearby food-on-the-go place and get up on the plinth for our hour's worth of art exhibit. Whatcha think, then? Does anyone feel that this year's grant will be well spent...? :lol:

Also just had to say how much I enjoyed the news item about the group in Cornwall who rescued the two leatherback turtles, rehabilitated them and released them somewhere off Spain (Portugal?). What a heartwarming story! I like the beeb because it offers more than just doom and gloom all the time.

Brenda

[gloria townsin]

Sorry I missed Canada Day - hope it was a happy one.
Arty Nonsense........is all I can say.......I too see no beauty in the pregnant statue.......I often wonder if those who have control of these things have lost their marbles when it comes to deciding what is art. Or is a case of the Emporors New Clothes?

[Kath Mulligan]

Think you already know I am on your wavelength when it comes to art, Gloria! My friend and I nearly got thrown out of Tate St Ives because of irreverent remarks I made about some of the so-called exhibits there!

Kath

[Brenda]

The Emperor's New Clothes is exactly the phrase that always comes to my mind, too, Gloria. There was the infamous blue and red striped thingee that the Canadian government bought several years back for gazillions of dollars. I'd have done it for only one million AND I'd have supplied my own paint! :wink:

Brenda