Foto Friday

Let's begin with Unohoo. Cuppa posted a version of this photo yesterday, but here's the same photo of HerRoyalCuteness cropped more closely and converted to black and white.



Here's an old family photo. That's Cuppa and I ... Seriously, it's my grandfather and grandmother with my father, circa 1920 I'd say. It's not a good photo; for that reason and the fact that there are so many scratches etc, I haven't tried to repair it aside from lightening it to make it more visible. Why this picture then? well, it may be the only one of the three of them together. There are precious few anyway.



This is hockey-mad country, partly because we're in Canada, partly because we have a major team, and partly because it's a very good team. Down on the highway through town, there is a rink, with Canadian flags, a Senators (our team) banner, a chair in which to watch the supposed game, and a snow sculpture of the Stanley Cup (awarded to the playoff champions). I'm surprised there's no case of Molson lying there.



I posted a butterfly picture last week and decided to add this one, also taken at the Niagara Butterfly Conservatory in 2004. I cannot begin to name these wonderful creatures, but that's okay. I had just gotten my DSLR at the time and was enjoying playing with it; it's now obsolete. :(



Thinking of spring: back in Sarnia, I had a fairly nice garden. This is what it looked like (in spring 2004), I think. I managed to get a decent photo wit both the daffodils and tulips in bloom at the same time. The ground Phlox made a splendid covering. I don't garden in our present location. Perhaps I will return to the hobby someday, but I have no concrete plans — just concrete soil. :)

What About Grandma?

After posting a number of blogs about Grampa recently, I spent some time editing and printing a lot of information for a family booklet of sorts. From a one-off post last November, it has all suddenly become involved and time-consuming. In addition to scanning photos and writing the material, I have found myself searching through records on Ancestry.com. While I've certainly uncovered some information there, it has taken quite a bit of time because I don't know what I'm doing and how to properly record information. But I'd like to persist; I wish to do what I can while I have access to all of the records for a free, two-week trial period. After that, it begins to cost, at least for information beyond the basics. Another time-consuming task that I've appointed for myself is entering the data into the LDS program called Personal Ancestry File. It's not as though I didn't already have enough to do, you know. Oh well.

Once I learned what I could, for now, about Grampa, I turned my attention to his wife, my paternal grandmother. There's less photo album information about her and her family, but there is some, and I've also learned a little more from Ancestry.com.

Let's start with a map from Google. Using information from the album and the internet (mostly the internet), I have plotted all the places that I think my grandmother or her folks lived in Kent County at various times. The blue area on the map below is it, the whole stomping grounds of the family for three at least generations and goodness knows how many before that until my grandmother emigrated to Canada.


While the area might look large enough on that map, it's only about 40mi/65k in length and 25mi/40k at its widest. While we all know that mobility was much more limited in times past, it still surprises me a little bit to realize just how tiny their range actually was — for generations. The six pins within the shaded area represent where different people lived at different times, but to keep it simple for now, my grandmother was born and lived near Bexley and North Cray, which is near the aqua pin at the top to the east of London.

That's probably enough information for one post. No doubt, I'll post more with some photos in the near future.

Memo

Dear Ryan and Simon

It's not about you, and we're not impressed, so stop the childish bickering. NOW! Don't make me come over there. Do you hear?

Sincerely, AC

The Enlightened Feline

Oprah's A New Earth class went much better last night — for me and Rocky anyway. The cat and I endured a only few minor hitches on our computer, but, strangely enough, Cuppa didn't share such good fortune with her hookup in the next room over. Who can say why, but perhaps Oprah had her on a different and less reliable server. Regardless, the end result was that she joined Rocky and me in our quest for Enlightenment and that led to her taking this picture, which gave me something to post today.



I enjoyed both the chapter and the webcast. Its focus was the ego and how to begin to shunt it aside (my words) and live in Consciousness (Eckhart's word). I know it's a bit ethereal for most of us with a solid Western background and mental constructs, but I didn't actually find the material too mystical or outlandish: not so much that I can't grind some grist from it anyway. With mentors such Oprah, Tolle, Cuppa and especially His Enlightened Rockiness to help me on my path, how can I not make spiritual progress, I ask you.

Baby Whisperer

First her mother caught it, and then poor, little Nikki-Dee caught it. A cold. Mom says that the little munchkin is really feeling and acting woebegone. But this clip is from a day or two before the viral attack when she was being her perky self. She was in my lap, and I decided to whisper in her ear. The sensation seemed to interest her, and she kept putting her head back to my ear for more of the same. Now if that isn't the cutest ...

Throwing Up

It is my plan for this to be my last post about winter and snow, but come on, this storm on top of everything else was something else. Despite appreciated family concerns about my wonky back, I felt that I had to go out and at least do something to attend to my own house's needs. So, I shovelled the short walkway from the driveway to the front door. Can you see how high I had to lift the shovel to throw the snow on top of the pile? Maybe I will call this post Throwing Up. (There, I just did it.)



Although the walkway isn't long, the snow, as you can see here was rather deep. Before I totally finished with it, I left some right in front of the door and asked Cuppa to come out and take a picture.



I think the next photo gives an idea about the height of the snow. Even still, with the camera angle and the depth perception problem, the mountain still doesn't look quite as it really is, which is probably about eight feet.



I didn't shovel the driveway though, or not most of it at least. Thankfully, our neighbour did both his side and ours.



But we both left the snow-plough-filled-mound by the edge of the street for Nice Neighbour with the snowblower. She had been out since about six o'clock in the morning helping out one person after another.



She said she even helped the guy up the street, the one with the little plough who never helps anyone. Guess what? He actually began do do his bit for some of his neighbours too. It makes me glad for him.

Storm Day

We lived in Sarnia, Southwestern Ontario, a region we laughably called the Banana Belt, for almost 35 years. Everything being relative, it was almost as close as you can come in Canada to having a Banana Belt. Southwestern Ontario's summers are the hottest in Canada, and its winters, although not of West Coast mildness, were often fairly benign. There, we experienced many winters of low snowfall, and even when we it did snow a lot, it tended to melt down quite a bit before the next one struck.

When we moved to the Ottawa area, we were prepared for a more genuine Canadian climate, but our first two winters here were not all that wintry. Although they were colder than Sarnia and the ground tended to be snow-covered for a much longer period, it was less than we expected. In fact, as I've mentioned previously, winter almost didn't arrive until mid-January last year.

This year, as have I been pointing out ad nauseam lately, the weather more than made up for two somewhat soft winters. We had our first snowfall in November and have pretty well had continuous snow cover ever since. It's almost a record-breaker; the Ottawa area hasn't seen the likes for more than three decades.

So, while yet another storm raged yesterday, we kept ourselves snug as bugs. It's a good thing we have an old cat to show the way when it comes to knowing how to relax in decadent comfort.


Come late afternoon, however, I thought of y'all and decided to go out long enough to take some pics. I told you the pile was high.


Nice Neighbour did clear our driveway twice during the day, but the snow kept falling, so we cleared the walk a bit just before supper time. However, we left the driveway in hopes that she would show up for a return engagement today. How many things can I cross when I say that?


I know I've been harping on about the weather rather a lot lately, but I've been pretty impressed and can't seem to help myself. I will make an effort to lay the topic down. Really. But I might get out for some more pics later today. Meanwhile, here is one that Cuppa took from inside the porch this morning before AC had deigned to arise from slumber. See her blog for more.