Sylvia's Journal

Marta’s Fateful First Journey

2010-10-24T14:38:00.010-05:00

“Will we make to top of the mountain?” Our recreation vehicle clawed its way up a narrow, winding snowed-covered road in the Appalachians of New York State.

I had joined an online RV group and received directions to avoid the mountains in West Virginia, but the instructions did not start until Fredericksburg, Virginia. I had forgotten about the Appalachian chain in New York and Pennsylvania. If glances were deadly I would have expired after we crossed the boarder in Buffalo. I had given Haydn a wrong turn resulting in a dead-end. It is gruesome to turn an eight-wheeler around. Our rig was 37’ long with a Suzuki Sidekick toad that generated a total length of approximately 50’. “Bang, bang, you’re dead!” A toad in RV idiom is a vehicle that is towed behind, preferably 4-down (four wheels making contact with the road).

MARTA, was the designation our daughter had given our rig, an acronym for Metro Area Rapid Transit Authority. That name predated Toronto calling their system GOTRAIN. Our RV was very aerodynamic and resembled modern, designer diesel-electric locomotives.

Our destination was Lakewood Camping Park, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and trip length was 900 miles. We set off on a snowy Boxing Day.

The first night we stayed in a restaurant parking lot near Ellicottville, New York, the Aspen of the East, in the Allegheny National Forest. The owner let us plug into his hydro at no charge. We had driven past several ski resorts, but did not elect to go up their driveways to get to their parking facilities, because we did not want to repeat Buffalo’s cramped quarters of not having enough room to turn Marta around. The bistro lot was situated on a large piece of flat ground.

I had installed GPS (global position system) mapping software on my computer under the dashboard that drew a coloured breadcrumb trail on its digital maps. The route had looked charming on our 21” colour monitor between Haydn and my high-backed, emerald-coloured, driving seats. The maps had not been topographical and did not specify elevations readily. The voice commands did have a feature that announced how high the roads were above sea level that had not been activated when I chose the route. (I never disclosed that information to Haydn … secrets remain between husbands and wives that are not prudent to confess despite long years of marriage.) There also was a miniscule-sized box that bore altitude facts in tiny lettering that was not decipherable from the driver’s position.

I, of course, had realized we were in a mountain chain, and were committed to a route that was constricted and corkscrewed.

Just before we had travelled the length of Pennsylvania the engine overheated and clouds of vapour erupted from the radiator. We pulled over and waited thirty minutes for the engine to cool then stopped in a small town and purchased more coolant.

Before entering Virginia, Haydn saw the bronze tablet on the shoulders of the road informing travellers, “Geological feature: Pennsylvania’s highest elevation west of the Mississippi.” “Bang, Bang,” the imaginary shotgun aimed at me, fired.

Haydn babied the mechanical components of our vehicle for more than three hundred miles up one mountain, down, up another, down …

Several times we were down to the lowest gear and cheerleaded Martra to use all her strength to propel herself to the top. No problem going down, except would the brakes last and would we be able to stop quickly at the bottom if the need arose?

We cleared the mountains and spent the second night at a rest stop in Virginia. Clear sailing the rest of the way. We were now out of the mountains and expected to arrive at the rest stop separating North and South Carolina for our third night. The engine, transmission, cooling and braking systems had been under enormous strain over the Appalachians.

As night fell, just before Fayetteville, North Carolina, Haydn said, “What is that sound?”

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s getting louder!”

“Dam and blast” “Since we left the last gas station, I’ve been driving in second gear at highway speeds.”

“Boom!” As the rod in the engine blew!

Luckily we had the toad! We unhitched it and drove to a motel and called a towing service. Haydn felt badly that he had not noticed the gear lever position and I was equally guilt-ridden for not choosing a better route. That was unfortunate that he blurted out his mistake—he could have kept that information to himself and I would never have known. I suppose one of us had to be honest about what it was they did—just thrilled that the Gods had exempted me.

Poor Marta had not warranted her doom, but I resisted the Herculean urge to place a pacifier in her grille.

Prior to Marta’s birth, she was an ugly duckling, 1974 Citation 27...but that's a separate rather fascinating story.

Wet Suit

2010-07-29T14:00:00.004-05:00

The King of Rock ‘n Roll

2008-03-10T11:53:00.011-05:00

When Elvis Presley exploded onto the TV stage of the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, my age was 14. The world had never seen a performer comparable to Elvis the Pelvis. As I recall, it was his second appearance where the cameras were restricted to showing him from the waist up only. (A major disappointment, I might add for returning teen viewers.)

Elvis was not the first rock ‘n roll artist Canadian audiences popularized. Preceding his appearance by a few months was Bill Haley and the Comets performing in Rock Around the Clock. The beat of Haley’s exhilirating, music and the instruments used, propelled normally, obedient teen movie goers such as myself, from their audience chairs to dancing in the aisles. The Ed Sullivan Show not only launched Presley’s career, it also ushered in the Beatles a decade later.

Bill Haley & the Comets

(Sorry, the video quality is poor—seems there are few videos that focus properly.)

Elvis appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, circa, September/October 1956.

Douglas Kellner in his article, The Elvis Spectacle and the Cultural Industries, identifies strongly with the “Young Elvis, my Elvis, the Elvis of my generation,”1 and for teens of that period, Elvis the Pelvis, represented repressed sexuality, energy, freedom, youth, defiance, individuality, and oddly enough respect for elders. His usage of “Sir” when addressing Ed Sullivan marked him as a mannerly person consistent with 50s values. When I watched Elvis’s performance in 1956 at a neighbour’s television set, he came across as being a conundrum of personalities—a shy, handsome young man with brooding eyes, a lopsided grin, and long hair with sideburns, but when he played his guitar and sang, he metamorphosed himself into being a dynamic, cross-cultural singer like none heard in the world preceding him along with a never before public display of body-riveting movements! Boys shortly after his appearance emulated him by growing their hair long, coming the sides back, slicking their duck-tail haircut down with Brylcreem, adopting long sideburns and wearing shirts with high pointed collars. I’m wondering what the tolerance level of audiences would have been had Elvis not been "keenly encouraged" to wear a jockstrap?

“Don’t Be Cruel,” was my favourite song which I used for developing dance skills. On the flip side of the recording was, “Hound Dog” which must have cost Sun Records a small fortune for releasing those two songs on the same 45 record. Both songs were instant successes that stayed at the top of the record charts for months.

Love Me Tender launched Elvis’s first movie that had his career depended on his acting talents, his time on the world stage would have been abruptly shortened.

Elvis threatened establishment with his sultry, good looks, but more so his gyrations. His music was banned on several stations by the ‘good folks’ protecting their offspring from the sensuality parents believed he represented. He was a combination of complex emotions/images not stirred in youth cultures before his arrival.

Please compare this performance of Hound Dog, by black artist, “Big Mama Thornton,” and you’ll see the roots of some of his rhythm, movement, and sound that combines blackness whilst being white.

The combination of black and white attracted white, youth cultures around the world and made Elvis the popular singer he eventually became in a short space of time. His recordings during the 50s, Douglas Keller and myself, deeply admire.

Pity Elvis was turned into a cash machine, dressing akin to Las Vegas showman, pianist Liberace, than the artist he could have been with different management. His talent was corrupted by greed and consumerism and he paid with his life for the lack of gift development which left his soul barren. Elvis was a people pleaser and easily persuaded that dressing like a clown enhanced his performances in glitter, palace societies like Los Vegas. Elvis Presley gained fame and fortune without accoutrements during the 50s—his voice and natural performing style, coupled with finding good songwriters would have more than sufficed. As Douglas Kellner observed, “Elvis never moved far from his, “working class, humble origins.”2 I further agree with Kellner that his fall from grace was prompted by, “The culture industry consuming its own.”3 Whenever I watched Elvis, he never seemed to be at home with himself unless his internal singing switch was engaged in the on position. He appeared to remain an uncomplicated person needing only affection. In movies, he always looked stiff when not performing the activity he did so well naturally.

The public’s fascination with Elvis continues beyond his death. During his career, Elvis sold, “more than 500 million records and grossed over $180 million at the box office—a record no other singer duplicated before or after his time. Since his death in 1977, the star’s sales have actually increased.”4 Tragically, consumerism lived beyond Elvis’s time on planet Earth. People continue to make money off his talent that was reduced by becoming a Colonel Parker cash cow.

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1 Douglas Kellner, The Elvis Spectacle and the Cultural Industries, page 1, Retrieved Friday, February 29, 2008 (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/elvisspectacle.pdf).
2 Ibid, page 2.
3 Ibid, page 14.
4 Mark Duffett, "Transcending Audience Generalizations: Consumerism Reconsidered in the Case of Elvis Presley Fans". Popular Music and Society. Summer 2000, page 1, Retrieved Saturday, March 8, 2008 (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2822/is_2_24/ai_79573846/pg_13).

Freedom, Choice and Illusion

2008-02-04T22:48:00.003-05:00

Pictures of some of my teen idols smoking:

Katherine Hepburn, the epitome of the emancipated woman!

Ingrid Bergman, no star more beautiful and glamorous

Doris Day, no living human being was as wholesome. Day was part of the star system controlled by the dictates of the Studio owners. Most of her roles were specific to the image the studio wanted to present to the public and Day was slotted to be a 'wholesome' all American girl/woman, appearing in musicals and light-hearted comedies. Studios over time relaxed their influence and occasionally she was farmed out to studios where parts were given to her in dramatic roles. But even in the dramatic roles she portrayed, never, ever did she accept a role as a villain or anything approaching an unlikeable character. I expect Doris Day was a stable personality and relatively comfortable in her assigned roles and didn't believe it was a good idea to tamper with the reputation she had gained that possibly affected her potential for future earnings. Rock Hudson was often paired with Doris Day and it wasn't 'til after he died that the media published that this paragon of male virility and handsomeness was homosexual. Hudson's public image had been controlled by studios throughout his long career. It hasn't been until very recently that gays banded together and asserted their rights to be an individual. I'm convinced that professions in public places resist public pronouncements about sexual preference. Attitudes change slowly in societies--it isn't prudent to make announcements until the public is ready to hear and accept them. Societies excel at enforcing unwritten laws.

My first cigarette at the age of fourteen promised to make me free, stunningly attractive, the envy of anyone who came into contact with me. The advertisements were targeted at women and the message they conveyed was, “Picture you making the choice to be free. Conventional women don’t smoke…rebels and ‘liberated women’ are brave enough to defy society by lighting their cigarettes.

“Be sexy, be free, be glamorous”… in modern parlance, “Be Cool!”

The Marlboro man’s picture was plastered on billboards…he was a free spirit, rugged and manly ... he smoked the best brand and that choice had to influence him being super masculine. :-)

In retrospect, how anyone, myself included, managed to get beyond turning green, and upchucking until the nicotine habit became entrenched, boggles my mind.

Most girls my age started about that time and everyone, male and female, had fags dangling from their lips during my high school era especially at noon hour when good lunches were replaced with a cigarette and chips with gravy at the bar-type lunch counter located next door to the school. In winter the smoking was done at the foot of the stairs, in between bites of gravy-impregnated French fries.

None of my friends escaped lighting up.

The Marlboro woman in contrast to her male counterpart was chic, and used a cigarette holder. She lights up between WWI and WWII because society condemned female smoking. Feminism entered its early period with women lighting up in defiance of cultural norms.

The lettering on the package is commercial script portraying elegance. The words under the picture are, “Mild as May.” Double entendement meaning, feminist roles permit me to smoke and of course May is a woman’s name and to encourage reluctant women, the added message was May was mild, not threatening.

In 1902 a British cigarette manufacturer, Philip Morris, established a corporation in New York selling tobacco brands: Cambridge, Derby, and Marlboro - named after the street where its London factory was situated. In 1924, Philip Morris introduced Marlboro as a women's cigarette.

A 1927 Marlboro ad published in Vanity Fair Magazine targeted affluent society women with text describing her as, "Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, repose in so many hand bags."

Click here to read the Marlboro story. Click to watch Marlboro video

A more recent Marlboro ad, targeted at a younger generation.

The themes I see running through all the advertisements is in keeping with abstraction theory--"a potential place or state of being situated not in the present but in an imagined future with the promise to the consumer of things “you” will have, a lifestyle you can take part in.”(CK, Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire, p. 189) Present also are, implications of, “the product being sold will make the consumer unique, special, and highly individual. In other words, ads perform the very contradictory work of convincing many different consumers that a mass-produced product will make them unique and different from others. The concept is known as pseudoindividuality a false idea of individuality. Pseudoindividuality is the means by which consumer cultures sells a form of homogenization to consumers while proclaiming that it will produce individuality. Indeed a commodity is only successful when it is purchased by many people.” (Ibid, p.205)

I grew up in a house of women who were strong role models which played a role in my decision to smoke, but also present was a strong need to fit in with what the rest of my friends were doing. (Individual…nope…not at that age--that was a teen fantasy!)

All of the images presented depict, “social values and ideologues about the “good life.” (Ibid, p.189)

According to media scholar Stuart Even, has termed the commodity self, the idea that construct our identities, at least in part through our consumption and use of of commodities. I put my cigarettes in the same category as “clothing, music, cosmetic products, and cars among other things, are commodities which people use to present their identities to those around them. (Ibid, p.198)

Cigarette commodities fulfilled emotional needs. The paradox in my case, it would have been more rebellious to refuse not to join the crowd by lighting up. :-) I remember that period with great fondness--it was a fun time to be a teen.

Pictorial Diary, August 2007 Vacation

2007-08-06T22:49:00.001-05:00

Routing of our journey: Click for a larger picture.

Start: Grand Bend Yacht Club:

Haydn helmed, I navigated and our crew was Frosty, our miniature designer cross breed, 1/2 miniature American Eskimo and 1/2 miniature poodle, known as an Eski-Poo.

Before loading the boat with groceries, filling the tanks, making up the veeberth, adding clothing, Frosty's toys, necessary navigation equipment and charts, the boat used to travel close to 10 knots. To Haydn's chagrin, it could now manage just over 6 knots under power and sail. Wind for the day was light from the Southwest.

Our inflatable Winslow life raft died just before we left and so did my laptop. My mother kindly lent me hers for the trip. The new inflatable is a much cheaper version of inflatables and we're somewhat skeptical of its quality and suitability. The yellow and black, telescoping, plastic oars for it were purchased from Canadian Tire. Neither of us is experienced at rowing a boat. The reason for the inflatable is to take Frosty and ourselves to shore when we're kungholing (an expression sailors use when anchoring other than at a dock.)

The plan for today's sailing is to anchor overnight in Goderich. A distance of 26 nautical miles. (One nautical mile equals 1.15 statue mile) Estimated time of arrival (ETA) at 5.5 knots is 1453 (2:53 pm)...wonderful, sunny day!

After the first hour, a major leak develops in the stern taking on 30 gallons of water (300 pounds). Because the boat is so heavy, the stern is dragging its ass in the water and the self-bailing cockpit can't function. But the forward automatic bilge pump would kick in and discharge the excess. What's needed is a bung to block the water from accumulating. Haydn manages to fashion one from a piece of plastic.

At noon, we decide the boat's operation is capable of pushing beyond Goderich and our destination changes to Kincardine Harbour, which is an additional 28 nautical miles. There isn't much to do in Goderich in the middle of a Friday afternoon and the weather report is favourable for continuing.

Frosty gravitated to sitting and sleeping on top of veeberth and seems content to play with his toys on the bed.

Our Navman Tracker 5500 chartplotter equipped with a C Map electronic chart works fantastic. The boat's position displays and moves with the chart. To see the chart in more detail, just requires that the chart be zoomed by pressing the + button. Technology continues to be amazing compared to when I started marine navigation when all that was available were paper charts, parallel rulers and my set of brass dividers that Haydn gave me for Christmas one winter before we bought our first sailboat in 1972. Our first sailboat equipped with an inboard engine was a Hughes 29, named, "Tejumel." I took my first boating course from London's Power Squadron that winter and received my certificate after taking and passing a test. Before getting Tejumel we had previously owned a 20' homemade power boat that Haydn constructed in the garage of our house. We kept that one in Port Franks Harbour, approximately 10 miles south of Grand Bend. Then we bought our first manufactured powerboat, a used 26' Higgins cabin cruiser named, "Sans Soucci" that we harboured in Grand Bend. Interestingly, I never did take any courses when we owned the two powerboats? I have no explanation for that deficiency and lack of safety consciousness because prior to owning boats, I navigated several cars that we owned all across Canada in sports car rallying, so it wasn't as if I wasn't accustomed to reading maps. But I will say we never ventured very far offshore in those powerboats--but in retrospect, extremely foolish on our part. How could I have done such in thing and had our young daughter on board both of those boats?

Our first sailboat was a daysailer...a 19' Lightning that we also kept concurrent with Sans Soucci, but further up the river, and joined Grand Bend Yacht Club.

Sorry, I digress. Getting back to our trip. We rounded the Point Clark starboard-hand, reef buoy and I adjusted the settings in the chartplotter because our actual position in relation to the buoy wasn't accurate enough for my liking. Those settings brought us right into Kincardine Harbour at 1900 (7:00 pm) Total distance travelled 54 nautical miles (8.9 hours, which means our course over the ground was 6.16 knots.)

Friday: Kincardine Harbour:

Weather was perfect for the entire trip and we sailed the last two hours without having that noisy engine on. Life just doesn't get any pleasanter than listening to the whisper of the wind over the sails and hearing the gurgle of the water from the bow and stern. After not sailing for more than three years, it's marvellous how quickly one adapts to the motion of boats as they heel with the wind and dance through the water. Every sailboat we've owned has its own distinctive sound along with a unique personality when she's pleased with her performance.

Frosty was thrilled to make landfall and good little dog that he is, did not need to go to the bathroom in more than 8 hours. What I wouldn't give for his bladder if only it fitted! L0L

At 2000 (8 pm), a piper at the top of the Kincardine Lighthouse played three tunes on his bagpipes as we were enjoying our dinner:

I love the mournful, eerie sound of bagpipes. And we took Frosty for a short walk...we're rather tired and we'll sack out early tonight and explore the marina and our surroundings tomorrow. Haydn managed to stay awake long enough after dinner to watch a DVD movie, but my eyes surrendered to the sandman and was fast asleep within 15 minutes of it starting. It was far too comfortable with two pillows behind my head on one side of the salon table, with Haydn on the other side also with pillows and Frosty on the seat under the salon windows to not nod off. At one point before the DVD started playing, and thinking Frosty had fallen asleep, Haydn remarked, "Frosty seems to be liking being on the boat." "Grrrr" was Frosty's denial that broke us into gales of laughter! That's the same, "Grrr" he gives us when we tell him, "No, you can't do that!" He's a funny little dog and he really does know when you're talking about him as evidenced by his reaction!

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Haydn walked to the store in the morning after a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, salad, sourdough toast and raspberry jam. A bung was acquired for the stern at a nearby hardware store and he thoroughly tested the batteries. Fixed that leak, but another one sprang to life, this time from the brand new toilet in the head. It took more time to solve the head leak necessitating that the wet flush be disconnected from the plumbing system. No black water had leaked out, but the pressure water had been engaged and clean water flowed on to the floorboards and into the locker where our canvas clothing bags were stored. Now a forced trip to the laundromat to dry our clothes had to be made uptown. Mine, of course, were more numerous. What wasn't taken to the laundromat, I pegged to the lifelines. Rather pleasant taking them off the lines because the sun imparts a natural refreshing aroma, stimulates cotton fibres and if light-coloured, brightens them without having to use harsh bleach. Come to think of it, I miss not having clotheslines...think I'll put one up at the back of our house when we get home. Not only is that free; the sun does a far superior job of drying clothes and never shrinks them. What is it with municipalities that ban clotheslines? Must be that manual labour is involved and elitists prefer expensive appliances that are hidden from sight that do an inferior job? Oh vey...the price of convenience robs peoples of pleasures! Jeez, clothes flapping the breeze don't offend me! Sleeping on sun-dried bedding is nostril dessert. Interestingly, when Haydn returned with the dried clothing he did not object to the clothes that were hanging on the lines...I figured he would? Live and learn--just when you think you know what your partner's response will be, his lack of censure, surprised me.

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Friday, more Kincardine Harbour pictures:

Badmington nets on the beach and wonderful 1/2 moon technicolour kites used by windsurfers on the lake:

Flowers from an adjacent house with steps down to the marina maintained by super friendly, young Harbour staff:

Sheltered picnic tables and free propane BBQ's:

Fishing derby in progress:

A very friendly couple from Stratford with two grown sons docked next to us was entered in the contest. $8,000 prizes allotted for the top salmon and trout and $5,000 for the top overall fish. The top salmon also has a chance at a $50,000 hidden weight prize. Prizes are given to the top 20 salmon and trout. Tagged fish are worth $1,000 during the derby ($500 before and after). I'm not sure that I understood all they told me, but I wrote down the depths they told us for fishing and the speed to catch them when trolling for them. Nice to meet a lady knowledgeable about fishing...she told me to get a bucket and put stones in it to slow the boat down because our boat runs just a little faster than the optimum speed for catching them. All four were keen on fishing. I didn't disclose that I never catch anything, but I do enjoy holding a rod in my hand--makes me look like I'm doing something, when in fact, I'm just soaking up the sun. L0L I really don't care if I never, ever catch a fish and I do have a fishing box of very colourful lures--some of my tackle has marvellous looking feathers attached. I also own a downrigger that is fun to use.

Too many things had to be fixed to leave Kincardine today and we're staying an extra night. "Good-oh"...get to hear the bagpipes again and with luck I'll be able to stay awake to watch a DVD movie after dinner.

Just before dinner a huge powerboat registered in Maryland, RI, came into the gas dock behind us for fuel. It's white with a large second-story flying bridge, approximately 50' long and we estimate its age at ten-years-old.

An owner wearing a blue-cotton shirt between the ages of 55-60, was on the bridge with a crewmember tending gauges below. The boat seemed well enough equipped for ocean sports fishing. The pumps ran for 30 minutes filling his two tanks. The owner's wallet was lightened by $1,400. We're told there are fewer powerboats in the North Channel this year because of the price of gasoline. Kincardine Harbour has a plethora of masts at their decks. Several Mackinaw racing boats were tied up.

Because it took us in excess of eight hours to travel from Grand Bend to Kincardine, we decided not to travel to the North Channel. That daunting distance needs several helmsman to relieve the boredom of such a long trip. Next year Haydn will round up a minimum of three others and I'll drive up to Tobermory with the supplies -- many other sailors complete that distance in that fashion. Families with older children take turns with their parents and that would work for us. Christine expressed a desire to cruise the North Channel. We'll content ourselves for this trip being a shakedown to sort out mechanical difficulties.

Before dinner we'll take Frosty for a nice long walk uptown.

Frosty gallops up the stairs on his leash and at the top, goes through the bars, the gate swings open with him trapped between the bars and the force of it smashes his head against the cement abutment. He's temporarily stunned.

Because Grand Bend is free from traffic, Frosty objects strenuously to the proximity and speed of the numerous cars on the walkway leading across the bridge. He resisted the leash and made it obvious he would fight his restraints and would succeed at getting off. Haydn will continue on and I'll take Frosty back to the calmer atmosphere of the marina. Poor little guy!

I carried him to the bottom of the stairs and he glued his stomach to the cool grass under a picnic table. Several people stopped and petted him...he's in his glory and much better than walking along a hot sidewalk with noisy traffic, travelling at what must appear to him at breakneck speeds.

Pity I didn't have my camera to take pictures of the rainbow of kites flying from the beach.

Frosty and I return to the boat and Haydn joins us. Haydn engaged a taxi because his packages of rye, rum and tomato juice were heavy because today was a very hot, sunny day.

Another great dinner by candlelight followed by being able to stay awake long enough to watch the DVD movie.

Two of Haydn's clients have visited us since we arrived. One gentleman has a folk-type boat whose name Haydn doesn't remember we met on Friday. Saturday George Deietrich came over, his Beneteau has been docked behind us and Haydn did not recognize the boat. He stayed for about 15" chatting and right after he left the folkboat gentleman came back and chatted again. He admired how well our boat looked and so too did George. George's son attends to the electronics on their boat...I'll have to speak to him about NEMA settings for my Navman chartplotter to ensure I can't achieve our position with more precision. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a Power Squadron course this year in GPS navigation and electronic charting this coming winter.

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Saturday in Kincardine:

Woke up at 0500, completely slept out. The powerboat owner two docks over with the four downriggers left his dock at 0600. At 0700, could see no sign of life from the keen Stratford fishing family. But at 0720, they all were dressed and ready to go out and hunt for the fish during the competition. I wished them good luck at 0730.

That lovely lady gave me four lures suitable for salmon and/or trout and told me the lighter the colour of lures, the more sun required. How very nice of her to give them to me. She would not accept payment for them and commented that the fish were biting at 30' today. Friendly, generous people share their fishing knowledge as well as equipment for others to try their hand at the sport. They cast off at 0800!

We cast off at 1015 after having another great breakfast.

Destination: Port Elgin, Distance 21.9 nautical miles.
Sunday, Port Elgin Harbour:

Bruce Nuclear Station is huge and can be seen for miles from the water. The cranes and buildings are all the large, economy size. And windmill farms dot the landscape in their vicinity. There is a dock accessible by boaters in times of emergency, but I wonder how many helicopters and armed guards would be acting as Wallmart greeters? L0L

Another bright, sunny, hot day with not much wind.

Dratted diesel engine wouldn't start coming into port after sailing two hours and Haydn had to use our 1000-watt gasoline generator we carry under the cockpit flooring to excite the batteries into being charged. The diesel, inboard engine immediately started with minimal encouragement.

Put in at 1500 (3:00 p.m.) Speed made good over the ground 4.53 knots

No one ran to the dock to help us tie up as the young staff had in Kincardine. It's a much bigger marina that has lost the personal touch--how unfortunate when they are dependent on how well they treat boaters that dock there. Southampton Harbour is less than 5 nautical miles North. There are no free BBQ's or picnic tables, but there are benches for seating. However, the showers are great with no shortage of hot water.

The beach butting up the marina becomes wall-to-wall people--have never seen a beach so heavily populated. The restaurant adjoining the marina offices do a roaring business.

Next door to us is an old scow of a boat that has radar and what looks like satellite TV judging by the round receiver fastened to a pile on at the port side of it. People on the boat were not rude, but on the other hand, they weren't particularly outgoing. The owner was fixing something on his boat that was oily. So he could have been preoccupied with his task. We aren't positive, but this boat appears to have been there for quite some time. They could be quasi-permanent liveaboards. Uptown and stores are not within walking distance, so I hope for their sake, they have a vehicle at their disposal because taxis are ten dollars return. This is the second marina where there isn't a free jitney service. Perhaps they have relatives or friends that fetch things? Sometimes the exterior of boats belie the luxury of interiors...don't judge books by their covers is a good maxim.

Rather a nice place for walking pets and Frosty appears not to mind the price of taxis Haydn had to pay in order to get some fresh meat. The refrigeration on the boat is working wonderfully and so too is the beer locker that abutts up to it. That locker keeps the beer and pop at perfect temperatures.

The repairs Haydn completed appear to be holding, but it is rather worrisome that the engine didn't start when the next anchorage we're going to that we anticipate gungholing. Will the batteries last an overnight stay? We'll find out shortly.

Watched two DVD movies tonight after dinner.

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Monday, Whitefish Island

Cast off from Port Elgin and didn't write down the time.

Destination: Whitefish Island, Distance 20.2 nautical miles.

Another gorgeous day...bright sunshine and no rain or thunderstorms in the forecast. Watched several fairly large powerboats go between the mainland and Chantry Island. I'll have to check the water depths on the chart on our way back because I can get overcautious. It's possible there is no need to go west of Chantry Island to clear the Chantry Island shoals. We draft only 30" and don't need much water.

Had a great deal of difficulty figuring out where the mainland ends and islands begin. It's hard to decipher where there is open water that separates pieces of land. We did overshoot the end of the mainland and had to retrace our route to find the opening that leads to the group of islands where the anchorage is at Whitefish Island. Must train myself to trust the chartplotter more!

The anchorage indicated on the chart is between Whitefish and Cigar Islands. We had hoped Cigar Island would be uninhabited, but that was not to be...there was a house and dock on the leeward side. This anchorage is very exposed to winds coming off the open lake, but from weather reports I heard this morning, there are no high winds or storms forecast for this area of Lake Huron.

Left-hand side of the bay:

Right-hand side of the bay:

Haydn puts the engine into trolling as slow as possible to test the depths of the water. Chart depths can't be depended on when lake levels are down. We would like to get the boat as close as possible to land. Frosty needs to go to shore and he has not used the litter box since leaving Grand Bend. We troll as close as we can and drop anchor. Haydn plays out very little rode...we're in 3-4' of water.

We blow up the inflatable using the automatic air pump from Canadian Tire...it takes about 20" Can't find the oar locks!

For safety, I put Frosty's life preserver on him:

Haydn manages to get into the inflatable. The ladder at the back of the boat is useless to stand on because the treads are too slippery and the ladder seems to give as you stand on it. I hand him Frosty who immediately jumps out of his arms and back into the trawler--so we have to repeat that procedure with Haydn holding him more firmly. I do manage to get in with my digital camera on a lanyard around my neck. I hold Frosty between my legs...his heart is beating like a hummingbird's and seems to be trying to eject out his shoulder. L0L

It was rather difficult to take pictures when the three of us were in the inflatable and this was the best we can do:

Distance to shore from the boat, approximately 300' in water less than 4' deep. I try to use the other oar but my oar counters Haydn's. Pity we couldn't find the oar locks so Haydn could have used both.

It's harder to get out than it was to get in because the bottom is small rocks that are covered in wet moss than have become super slippery. But we do manage and all three of us are now on shore.

Frosty has two or three pees and does a couple of other things too. Very, very precarious to negotiate a firm footing through the shallow water between two pieces of land.

We clamour over lava-type rocks that must be hard on Frosty's feet. We see in the distance a stand of coniferous trees and head for them. Along the way are many Cinquefoil bushes growing wild and blooming with their distinctive pointed, bright, yellow petals that cover entire strands of the plants. Among the Cinquefoil bushes are blueberries that appear to have finished fruiting. Pity, blueberries make delicious breakfast muffins and I do have a propane oven on board that I could have baked them, or if there weren't enough to make them, we could have eaten them raw! Obviously, we'll have to go back when they're in season.

After an hour, we elect to return to the inflatable. Frosty and I get in first at Haydn's suggestion and with difficulty he manages to get in too. Haydn is convinced the boat is drifting away as he rows toward it. But we do get back; now all we have to do is get out of the inflatable and back into the trawler.

In retrospect, why it doesn't occur to either of us to just roll ourselves out of the inflatable and stand on the bottom to give ourselves purchase for the transom ladder when we're in less than 4' of water is mind boggling. L0L

Haydn gets one foot on the trawler's ladder, loses his balance and like the cartoons you see of people with one foot on their boats with the other slowly stretching the person into gymnastic splits as the boat drifts away from the side of the hull .... Drat! What with holding Frosty, I couldn't get to my camera. But had I managed to freeze that moment in time, Haydn, with justification, would have murdered me, or at a minimum used the picture to obtain a divorce! L0L (I do however, have the picture of him locked in my bank of memories) L0L!!!!

His arms became like bands of steel with the adrenaline his heart was pumping out and he hauled his weight back into the trawler using an invisible sky hook. (There just is no other explanation for him in his position being able to do that impossible feat other than his deploying a secret sky hook or he somehow became the Bionic Man!)

Without hesitation, he then reached down, picked Frosty out of my arms and transported me with my right knee firmly on the ladder tread which I then effortlessly put the left knee on the tread above and presto, we're all back in the trawler safe and secure! I hate to say this, but I have gained a little weight since we've been married ... Haydn literally beamed me onto the treads.

Haydn cursed the inflatable, said he hated it and would never use it again.

I remembered that the oarlocks are in the side pocket of the inflatable with the repair patch and glue and also recalled we were never in any danger because neither of us is a midget and our height exceeds 3'6". ROTFLMAO!!! What an absurd, ridiculous moment that was in our lives!

After we have a cup of tea and are calmed down, Haydn takes the stretchy ropes off the transom ladder and installs Spectra rope (Spectra rope, does not stretch) which stops the ladder from giving when weight is placed on it. Betcha if the Spectra had been in place, we wouldn't have had any difficulty getting in or out of the inflatable. But it's now rolled up and it will take some time before he gets over his embarrassment and admits that there is nothing wrong with the inflatable. I'm patient and if it means I have to buy a new one with a more rigid floor, I'm prepared to do that ... just please, please, never let him know what I've written in this diary entry...anyone reading this has to swear to an allegiance of silence! L0L (He just may be able to laugh at this hilarious episode sometime in the future?)

While on shore, I did get some lovely pictures of the boat:

Tuesday, Stokes Bay

departed Whitefish Island mooring Monday morning, destination: Stokes Bay. The dawn brought yet another gorgeous day.

Distance 15 nautical miles.
Stokes Bay cottagers dock:

Saw a commercial fishing boat off Pikes Point that seemed to be heading for Stokes Bay, but he stopped and proceeded out toward the lake. Perhaps he needed to dump the innards and bait he had used for catching his fish?

Throttled down and proceeded cautiously toward the government dock when we spied the commercial fishing boat coming toward the anchorage where we wanted to dock. Anywhere the fishing boat could go, assured we had enough water to dock there too. Haydn really wanted to tie up to a dock because he despised the idea of getting in and out of that inflatable again. L0L

Waited, and sure enough he pulled into the windward side of the government dock. We snuggled up to the leeward side and tied up against the dock. Grand little spot—no other sailboats or powerboats at that anchorage—only the fishing boat and us.

We watched the helper unload the catch: three tubs that he carried unassisted. The tubs couldn’t have weighed anymore than 150 pounds including the ice. At $1/pound, that fisherman would receive less than $150 for an entire day’s work to cover his diesel fuel, wages for his helper and God forbid if he had to amortize the purchase of his boat. What a hard way to make a buck!

We were very tempted to buy a fish from him and pay top dollar for it, but we didn’t have a knife big enough to fillet it. The captain of the fishing boat had a blonde cocker spaniel puppy on board with him and Frosty went out and made friends with it. That gave us the opening to speak to the captain. Never did find out if his helper was a hired hand or a member of his family, but regardless both men have to earn their living from their catch. They also have to pay for their truck, the gasoline for it, put a roof over their head, buy groceries, and pay utilities.

We knew we were short of diesel fuel and there was none on Whitefish Island, our previous anchorage. Closest harbour would be Southampton, a distance of 25+ nautical miles. We have enough to perhaps do 15 of that, so the hunt was on for diesel fuel.

A lady came down and collected $10 for dockage at the government wharf. She said we could get diesel at the marina that was distinguishable by its red roof. Added that the channel was well marked and any necessary groceries were within walking distance of the stop sign passed the campground

The fisherman were long gone

We set off in the boat to go to the marina. The entrance to the channel we could see from the dock and we followed it ‘til there were no more markers in the water. There were lots of weeds to starboard and port and figured perhaps the channel went straight on. But we ran aground and had to use our diesel engines to get ourselves free. We never did see any sign of a marina, nor any gasoline signs that indicated there was fuel anywhere available. The place with the red roof was just a house—it was not a marina.

We put Frosty’s leash on and set off for the store, thinking maybe we’d be able to use the phone and call a marina and have 5 gallons delivered to the store. But she hadn’t told us which way to turn after arriving at the stop sign. We tried left and saw no buildings, so we went back and turned right. Most of the dwellings along the paved, country road were run-down cottages without insulation and typical of cheaply-constructed accommodation for vacation dwellers. We stopped at a trailer park down the road and the lady that answered the door, said we had quite a way to go before reaching the store. It was a very hot day and walking was not easily accomplished. Next we stopped at a man’s house that was taking groceries out of his car. He told us the store was more than two miles – he checked with his neighbour that has lived in that community for more than ten years and was told there was no diesel fuel at the marina. He did offer to drive us to the store, but upon hearing the nearest diesel fuel was more than ten miles away and small communities don’t have taxis nor would they be persuaded to deliver it.

Who was that 'masked' woman that took our ten dollars and sent us off on two wild goose chases? No one seemed to know?

As we were walking down the road back to our boat, the commercial fisherman appeared behind us driving his truck. He was on his way back to his boat to spruce it up with some paint. Haydn asked him if the engines in his boat were diesel and he said, “Yes, they’re great engines and that’s the reason I bought such an old boat from a fisherman in Port Dover.” Our heart sank for his man and his helper. There is no way given the catch we saw on the docks that this hard-working man who gets up at 0600 every morning and spends his day fishing to earn even a modest living especially given this was not a family boat passed down from one generation to another.

We needed fuel and this captain deserved to be paid handsomely for it. So Haydn went over and offered him $60 plus the cost of the fuel. He generously consented to accept our offer. Funny how you tell whether someone will accept charity—we absolutely knew in our hearts, there was no way this man would accept a handout. Turned out when he delivered the fuel the following morning, he had driven 20 miles to get it. Yes as a fisherman, he gets diesel fuel cheaper than Joe Blow who isn’t a fisherman. Perhaps he too was low on fuel and couldn’t spare any from his commercial boat’s tanks?

Making $60+ from us may be the only profit he’ll realize for the week. Rather heartbreaking, considering the amount of effort he expends.

Later that evening, we were treated to families that came down to the government wharf to swim as well as some locals that fished off the dock. Friendliest bunch of people we’ve run into for a donkey’s age. One of the adult female swimmers told me that swimming in that location was better for hair than collected rainwater. All the children that we saw that evening were well-behaved. I light up the face of a lady that was fishing on the pier by telling her we had hamburger helper for dinner that night. We’re fairly certain that all the people we met were blue-collar workers – just a great bunch of friendly people with no pretensions and very polite. Betcha had we asked, they would have shared their knowledge about how to catch the fish—just like the lady from Stratford that gave me four lures out of her tackle box. Small, rural, Northern communities are among some of the most generous people there are. I regret that I didn't take a picture of that wharf, but we'll remember Stokes Bay.

I am told that Strokes Bay was once the busiest lumber community on the Peninsula and a lively commercial fishing port, it is now far better known for its sports fishery. The lumber barons are gone and from what I saw of the fisherman's catch, so too are the fish.
Sunset, Stokes Bay

Began the trip home ... Wednesday, Port Elgin
Port Elgin Beach

We never did see the beach that deserted, anytime we saw it, people were almost shoulder to shoulder. We had stopped into Southampton Harbour, just outside of the Chantry Island shoals and discovered we did not need to go west of Chantry Island, there was more than enough water to cut between the mainland and the island which decreases the length of the trip down to being very manageable. We pulled into Port Elgin at 1500 (3 pm from Stokes Bay). Good thing we did get those five gallons of diesel fuel, because we took on 19.2 gallons and our gas tank is only 20 gallons, so there would have been no way we would have been able to make that journey without sailing an appreciable amount of the way and there wasn't much wind and what there was of it would have required us to do several tacks, because it was from a southerly direction. I had swing the compass on the range lights at Stokes Bay--we hadn't had time to do that before leaving Grand Bend. Knowing the amount of compass error improved our ability to find marks the chartplotter displayed. What a fantastic device chartplotters and digital charts are when you know what your compass error is. We just had far too many things to do before we left. That compass was installed on the trawler from a previous installation and had thought I knew what the errors were...I was incorrect. Stupid me...that's one of the first rules of marine navigation...never, ever assume. The further distance one travels, the more important it is to know for certain what the compass error is. My bad!

Thursday, Kincardine Harbour:

While in Kincardine, we saw a boat that Haydn had designed in the early part of his boat building career. The gentleman who owned it had bought it from a previous customer of ours that Haydn made new trailboards for and the new owner was eager to talk to the designer of his boat.

Here's a picture of it, It's a Bayfield 36. Haydn's brother Hedley, started that company and when he left the company to form a new boat building business in Goderich called Gozzard Yachts, the company approached Haydn to design the boat and build moulds for them. Unfortunately Bayfield Boat Yard burned down and most of the moulds Haydn designed were destroyed in the fire. The shelf life for fibreglass boats hasn't been established and provided fibreglass glass is well maintained, we haven't found one that can't be repaired. All existing Bayfield 36's are still in existence to the best of our knowledge.

Trailboards are the carved pieces of teak under the bow sprit.

Nice talking to him--the new owner lives in Stratford and said he'll be stopping into the shop.

We were of course, treated to the wail of the bagpipes Thursday evening. And we combined that delight with a medium, deluxe, delivered pizza for dinner.

Friday, Goderich Harbour

We were delayed leaving Kincardine because of a small craft warning that had been issued for that part of the lake and not rescinded until 1030. By the time we got underway from Kincardine, it was 1100. Distance from Kincardine 28.7 nautical miles.

Goderich is a larger port with deep channels. Lake freighters regularly depart and arrive in Goderich. It's not of the prettiest harbours I've been to, but if I were in a storm, it's one that I'd recommend as a harbour of refuge. Friday there was a Canadian coast guard vessel lying just beyond the north pier. The harbour has large grain elevators, and railway cars and Sifto Salt has a large presence. The salt mines that are concrete lined, run under Lake Huron and giant loaders in the shafts collect the salt. The mine extends 5 kilometers under Lake Huron, and is the largest salt mine in the world. Sifto maintain large storage silos and bins above the surface--not particularly attractive to recreational boaters as being scenic. Salt has thousand of uses beyond flavouring foods. Goderich is a major shipping port on the Great Lakes and is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Overhead view of Maitland Valley Marina, Goderich:

We arrived at Goderich at 1530 (3:30 pm) speed over the ground 5.74 knots and powered all the way. The sails add stability to the motion of the boat when it's underway regardless of whether it's sailing or being powered.

A more attractive view of Maitland Valley Marina:

Goderich claims to have the prettiest sunsets on Lake Huron. From what I understand, colourful sunsets are caused by pollution. The sunsets are glorious in Sarnia, where the petro chemical industry is concentrated. L0L

Saturday, Last Day, Grand Bend

Distance Goderich to Grand Bend, 26.2 nautical miles

When he left Maitland Valley Marine in Goderich the waves were breaking over sandbars and rollers were coming toward us. Wave height was in excess of 6' when we left, but winds were moderate and it was sunny and bright. The forecast was for the winds to come out of the NW which would have been perfect.

Shortly after coming abeam (90 degree angle from our position in relation to an object) off Bayfield Harbour, which is just after the 1/2 point, the wind began to pick up and filled in off the quarter of the boat. We reduced sail on the forestay by rolling in the sail. Our main was not up and we didn't dare turn off the engine because it had failed to start a couple of times on our holiday. Lake rollers were now about 8' and at times Haydn's log device that also measures speed was reading over 8 knots. We were now flying home instead of sailing. The sensation of a 27' sailboat clocking at over 8 knots is equivalent to motoring in a speedboat at 40 mph but in a sailboat no one gets a broken spine or sore backside when the hull smashes down off the top of the waves. We had now become one with the trawler and were able to enjoy the sensation of speed because we were confident the keel wouldn't fall off. This trawler presents high windage because of the roof and higher freeboard that sailboats typically don't have. And we were thrilled that the wide cockpit where four deck chairs can be placed horizontally across the stern didn't look like the waves would poop on the stern causing the cockpit to fill with most of Lake Huron. L0L She's turned out to a saucy lady that handles herself well in a good breeze. The westerly gusts were in the range of 20 knots and she performed like a trouper. The bulb keel that drafts only 30" that allows us to go into shoal waters was more than adequate for the task. I had spent a fair amount of time ensuring before we left our home port that when I pressed the red emergency button on my Digital Selective Calling VHF that puts out our latitude and longitude automatically to the coast guard was working and able to acquire a fix from the GPS. It still boggles my mind that I had to take a Power Squadron course in order to legally push that 'red' button! L0L Jeez, what is the coast guard going to do if someone is in dire need of assistance and pushes it without a license to do so? Will they come back on the radio and say, "Sorry, you don't have a license...drown you fool, you should have the course!!!" "Don't call again, because we aren't going to respond to people that push that 'red' button without that piece of paper?"

Wonderful blue skies and just the right amount of wind and waves to make her hum. We had a racing sailing boat that almost sang when it was going at flank speed, but it had a deep lead keel, and slender entry fore and aft in the water and a low profile. The trawler presented a challenge by having a shallow bulb keel, fine at the bow but square at the stern and presented windage because of her height. We've found that this one hums instead of singing, but we have no fear that she'll turn turtle on us. (Or at least not at that wind speed and height of waves). There was nothing in the weather forecast that predicted these conditions, which often does happen when you're on the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are temperamental waterways and unpredictable...we've been caught in tornadoes, line squalls and other sudden storms which this boat, we thought, could have difficulty handling. We know it wouldn't respond as well as our racing sailboat, but all we ask is that she doesn't sink and this trip gave us confidence that she may not perform in storms as well as our previous racing thoroughbred, but she will cross the finish line. Just a great sail and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We averaged more than seven knots for the last seven miles that means there were times surfing down the waves when she was handling eight knots. No one in their right mind deliberately goes out in a storm to defy Mother Nature, with a boat such as this trawler, but there will be times when she's out there and not able to make port. We're now a lot more confident about her abilities. Such a great day!!! What a high sailing those last seven nautical miles!

We made port in Grand Bend just after 1400 (2 pm), folded our tent and came home to an air-conditioned house. The weather has been rotten ever since we came back, so someone up there was watching over us. "Thank you!"

Click the picture for a panoramic view of our home port sunset.

Finishing the living, dining room, study ...

2007-07-14T05:31:00.000-05:00

Installing the flooring, painting, insulating around the windows, baseboards and trim around the windows, hanging doors and hardware, and last minute things to complete before our first Christmas in the house. We didn't put a Christmas tree up last year at the apartment we had rented in Exeter and we had dubbed it, "The Hovel." :-)

As you might have observed from the pictures of the kitchen outside the bay window it was snowing and Christmas was coming up very fast and we still had lots to do before I could put up our tree.

We bought the cork flooring for the kitchen from Home Depot. Chosing 'cork' for the kitchen flooring was based on ease of maintenance, resistance to heat and spillage, durability, and because many tasks have to be done while standing, it had to be kind to feet. Cork failed on heat resistance, but excelled on all the other variables. The type we installed was tongue and groove panels 1' wide x 3' long with a clear, acrylic finish. It also provides a sound barrier; its soft, warm, dependent on what pattern is choosen, it can look like burled wood or have a freckled appearance, and it's very easy to install. It took us an afternoon to lay.

For our entrance foyer, we chose greenish, ceramic tile and that took a little longer, but that too is simple if you have the right tools. The place where we buy our tile lets us rent the equipment for the weekend.

Between the foyer and the kitchen, Haydn custom made cherry wood flooring. He milled the Cherry on his planer to the width and thickness he needed just as he had milled the Hickory for making the kitchen cupboards. That flooring took Haydn several days for him to lay (having bad knees made the job much harder for him) and several more for me to apply the number of coats of varnish required. Each day I'd put another coat on in the morning and by the time Haydn arrived home from work, he was able to cross it without leaving marks in it.

We had set up a routine for varnishing the Hickory trim for the doors and windows. He'd tell me what he needed varnished and I had the basement (where there wasn't furniture that I had to work around) to lay the pieces on horses set up to elevate it for drying. We used Siken's, clear marine varnish that is very durable and doesn't yellow over time. Siken's cannot be put on thickly; several coats applied thinly works best and it dries to a very hard finish. We used that varnish on the cherry flooring, the kitchen cupboards, the walnut and cherry stairs, and all the wood trim in the house.

All the interior, closet and laundry room bi-fold doors had to be painted, jams installed, doors fitted, and hardware added, total ten. Windows had to be caulked before trim was put around them.

We called professionals to lay the carpeting for the living, dining room and study. As December 2002, came upon us, we were down to installing curtain rods, minor filling and finally getting the rest of our furniture out of the basement and placed in the rooms. Several nights we were able to sit around our wood-burning fireplace and plan our first Boxing Day vacation -- we decided to take a well-deserved holiday in our RV to the United States. I bought Haydn a digital compass for it and we treated 'Marta', our RV, to a new set of hubcaps.

Pictures of where we were December 2002:

Review: Sailing Time's Ocean

2007-03-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

Red Deer Press, Author: Terence M. Green

A compelling Science Fiction tale originally published by McClelland & Stewart in 1992 as Children of the Rainbow, that transports the protagonist back in time urging readers to examine their beliefs about the present and what the future holds for mankind.

The setting is 2072, interwoven with 1835 Britain's Norfolk Island penal colony and 1972 Greenpeace III's renunciation of French nuclear tests in French Polynesia.

The author braids his tale depicting one of the characters in Peru as an Inca mystic representing rules, and dogma and the protagonist, a scientist named Fletcher Christian IV, currently professor of Life Sciences, a famous descendant from Mutiny on the Bounty who escaped to Pitcairn Island. Fletcher is the antithesis of old-style religion and rejects the concept of professional or ordained intermediaries placed between an individual and the holy environment. As a learned man, Fletcher IV disputes the validity of original sin and heredity as being foundations of the human matrix. The third major character, Dalton, is a convicted convict.

One of the themes running through the story is the impact dishonesty, barbarism, domination and despair create in several generations of mankind. For instance, at the beginning of the story Dalton naively states that the inedible food at the prison requires a spoon. A guard strikes him with a rifle butt splitting the skin of his face and knocking him on the ground for voicing what everyone knew to be true. The crime that brought Dalton to Norfolk Island was breaking and sacking tea chests in a warehouse for which Dalton being a simple man, deprived of education, failed to comprehend the import of seven years' transportation.

Fletcher Christian rebelled against Captain Bligh's abusive, controlling leadership. British naval officers were trained and legally obligated to follow Bligh's orders which caused the mutiny on the Bounty and the subsequent settlement of Pitcairn by the crew members. Fletcher's descendant, Christian Fletcher IV, in the book became law-abiding, principled, valuable members of society. Dalton, the convict, inadvertently time-travelled from Norfolk Island to Pitcairn and like the Bounty mutineers is freed from literal and abstract chains, becomes pleased with his new life and fathers a child. Choice and freedom galvanize self-empowering motivators.

Throughout the book, the author draws the reader's attention to the spaces between men and women. For example, the prison commandant, Major Anderson, represents linear, intellectual, left-brained thinking that leads him to condone and authorize the brutal treatment of the prisoners. His wife and daughter rely on creativity and intuition, right-brained conceptualizing for their conclusions resulting in their acceptance of Fletcher Christian IV's tale of conveyance to the prison from the future. Anderson's style of cognition blinds and prejudices against the truth of Fletcher's arrival on the island.

A central feature that brings numerous themes in the story together is the rupture in time caused by two instances of nuclear tests spaced one year apart as observed by Green Peace III. Given the political unrest, nuclear proliferation, and wars in the Middle East, the concepts in the book are topical today for countless generations. Albert Einstein pessimistically remarked, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking.” Each reader after absorbing the novel needs to decide for themselves which road mankind travelled in the past and where the journey ends.

If the macro elements of the story lack appeal for some readers, the novel's plot and development apply at the micro level to individuals—everyone in their lifetime has metaphoric nuclear incidents that alter their life's directions. Science friction is not a genre which frequently attracts me, but like Shadow of Ashland, a previous book by Terence M. Green which I read in one sitting, Sailing Time's Ocean, glued me to its pages.

Spunky Old Mariners

2007-02-20T18:48:00.000-05:00

Blustery winds on Lake Huron exhilarate 82-year-old Ken McArthur, who sails with his nephew, the helmsman, of a Shearwater 16’ catamaran. The gusts increased from the Northwest and blew more vigorously as Ken used his weight and agility on the trapeze to stabilize the windward pontoon of the cat. The skilled partnership of helmsman and trapezed, human ballast rocketed across the outside of Grand Bend’s harbour mouth. The cat approached a power vessel from behind, and Ken spied the new owner accompanied by six of his friends. Roaring past the powerboat, Ken yelled, “Does that thing use much gas?”

Shearwater Catamaran, windward trapeze
The owner cranked up the powerboat’s engine several notches, but could not catch the swifter catamaran. Ragbaggers and stinkpotters tease each other unmercifully.

Eighty-year-old Irish Ferguson, laughed heartily as he related that story to me. At 35, his sailing days began and for many years plied the waters of the Great Lakes, cruising, and racing whilst belonging to yacht clubs on Lake Huron. The boats he owned ranged from a homemade, marine plywood, 18’, sloop-rigged Y-flyer, class boat to his present high-performance, fibreglass, 36', fractional-rig Kirby, monohull.

“It’s fun, can be competitive, and it is something that I can do with my family,” paints how Irish sees the attraction of sailing. His three daughters and son shared his passion for the sport while his wife, Tina, tolerated it. But his desire to keep sailing did not diminish with the passing years as he recounts it, “At 55, I could, at 75, I could, at 76, things started to slow me down.”

Devices that extend his time at his chosen sport, Irish described as, “It’s just a matter of what you want to spend, because everything is available at a price.” Such as: “an automatic helm, electric winches which few people install because they are expensive.” A friend who owned a Bayfield 24’ sailboat was almost totally unable to move had a lift put on his boat and he could get on with his wheelchair. It would lift him right on. He could sail it, and afterwards lift himself off. The wheelchair was too wide for the companionway door that led to the cabin below, but he crawled down the stairs if he needed to make a cup of coffee or use the head.

His advice to people yearning to learn how to sail, “Join a local power squadron and take the sailing course, then go out with an experienced sailor, or crew for them half a dozen times under various conditions to know what to expect.” Irish knows of people who did not start to sail until 55+. Instructors at the power squadron teach marine rules of the road, aids to navigation and safe operation of boats. Canadian regulations mandated a license for sailing vessels with inboard engines. Skippers of sailboats without engines do not need a license.

Irish rolled his eyes recalling a person who stuffed a paper placement into his pocket from a restaurant to navigate from Grand Bend to Port Sanilac, Michigan. The placemat depicted both places, and an arrow decorated the top right-hand corner marking North. Irish chortled when I interjected into the interview that my brother who had a powerboat, navigated Lake Erie using an Ontario roadmap. He recalled the times when all that was available for navigation on the Great Lakes was a compass, parallel rulers and a chart. Radio direction finders (RDF’s), did not count as aids because playing music was the totality of what they did well. Global Positioning Systems, (GSP), transformed an onerous task into simplicity.

Irish believes a 19' Lightning class boat accommodates beginner sailors, or any small, beamy (wide), stable boat limited to one sail (cat rigged). Larger boats for seniors need, at a minimum, a bilge bump, preferably motorized, a head (toilet) with a large holding tank, a stove, all lines running aft from a forward position to the cockpit, roller furling for the jib and lazy jacks for the main.

The high cost of gasoline reduces the number of power, favouring increases in the number of boats on the market equipped with sails. Also, sailing is environmentally friendly and people have more fun on a sailboat because there is more to do than just steer. More pleasurable talking without shouting over the din of an engine and hearing the sound of the wind as it passes over the sails.

The Ferguson family used the Scorpio designed and built, 26’ sailing trawler for one season two years ago and suggested two improvements, “An easy way to get from the helmsman station to the deck and install handrails on the top of the cabin.” Part way through the summer, the addition of lifelines stem to stern, and a bow pulpit, resulted in nothing appearing on his end of season wish list.

While on the subject of well-equipped boats, Irish drew my attention to a single-handed race starting in England and finishing in North America. The length of the boats cannot exceed 26’ with most between 22’ to 24’. The entries have radios, radar, solar panels, and every imaginable device. The small craft making the transatlantic passage is not the major cost of the race—the compulsory equipment list ran the expense to $100,000 per skipper. Food, transportation to the start , marina expenses, and other supplies increase the cost.

I got the impression during the interview from Irish’s wistful tone, enthusiastic description of the boats, and his animated facial expression that he would like to participate in the event. A more vital, keen, remarkable sailor who retained his love for the sport would is hard to find. Tina at the end of the interview added, “He is no longer steady enough on his feet to sail alone.” Irish knows his limitations and freely advises people of like advanced years, “Get a good crew!” Few people are as physically fit as Ken McArthur hanging on a guy-wired trapeze at the age of 82—he continued to sail his catamaran until age 85. Every lover of the sport regardless of age or type of boat, wishes their fellow sailors, “Bon Voyage!”

Trapeze sailing technique

Puerto Rico Snapshot

2006-11-19T06:56:00.001-05:00

The ride on a busy highway from the airport to the home of our host, revealed lavish emerald foliage, against lofty mountains reaching skyward to an exuberant sun. Elegant palm trees papered the road where gentle zephyrs stirred the air. The afternoon sparkled with the colour of freshly, polished copper.

Peddlers dotted the landscape along the grassy sides at the edge of the road. The shorts and skimpy tops of the vendors boiled with fiery gold, vivid turquoise, shocking pink, and lime green. Chartreuse moss hung languidly on the deciduous trees. A battalion of merchants, unimpeded by buildings freckled the landscape. The cab stopped for a red light and a man ran into the traffic and cleaned the taxi’s windshield. The seller showered us with Spanish holding up a decapitated fresh chicken. The cabby did not acknowledge the squeegee panhandler. His eyes were affixed on the light waiting for it to turn. The ribbon of black that we travelled became an army of similar merchants.

The route to the guarded, gated community unveiled my eyes to the stark poverty of the mansions behind the fencing.

Mortifying Moment

2006-11-19T06:26:00.000-05:00

When I entered the staffroom at day’s end, the giggling stopped.

This was my first week of teaching at a secondary school for special education students. I had been hired to teach Retail Sales.

I sat down and one of the teacher’s remarked, “I noticed your students put the final touches on your display for the fall window.”

“Yes, didn’t they do a marvellous job?" "I was very pleased first period this morning with my grade ten class.”

“When was the last time you checked the window?” another teacher inquired.

I had assigned a senior grade ten class the task of assembling the props and completing the large display window that everyone walked past coming into the school or changing classes during the day.

“Right after they finished it at ten this morning,” I replied.

The chuckling recommenced.

“Perhaps you should go and take a second look,” another staff member suggested.

As recommended, I walked to the show windows that I had been so tickled about earlier.

The male mannequin had the skirt hiked up to the top of the legs of the female mannequin revealing her bikini underwear. His fly had been unzipped with his left hand on the girl’s privates. Her right hand was inside his pants. The sign behind the dummies heads read, “Discovery and Learning.”

Appalachians and Parents Kill Newborn

2006-11-13T03:52:00.000-05:00

Similar to the Phoenix, who rose from the ashes, our motorhome was born from its previous life. In five years she emerged from being a 27’ ugly duckling made from aluminum siding into 37’ aesthetically, beautiful, fibreglass swan named Marta.

Marta, Haydn and I set off on a snowy Boxing Day for an extended holiday. I had completely forgotten about the Appalachian chain of mountains in New York and Pennsylvania when I chose the route. Towing a vehicle behind her, she struggled valiantly to get up and down the mountains. When she breathed hard, we held our breath and felt in our bones how ardently she tried to perform. Marta panted as hard as Atlas, God of Burdens, must have as he toiled with his weight. The feelings she evoked when down to her lowest gear, clawing her way in the frigid outdoor temperatures on twisty, corkscrew, snow-ladden roads were agonizing pity for her plight.

Marta’s heart was her original engine that Haydn had overhauled, and made improvements that he believed were necessary for the added ten feet of length. The amendments were to give her more strength and lengthen her life.

Night one, we were able to give her respite on a flat, restaurant parking lot in the Alleghany Mountains.

Marta performed stoutheartedly the following day through the mountains in Pennsylvania. She, unfortunately, exerted herself beyond her strength and vital fluids erupted. After her temperature returned to normal, we picked up the necessary antifreeze in a small town, in case she needed another life-saving coolant transfusion.

Before entering Virginia, Haydn saw the bronze tablet on the shoulders of the road informing travellers, “Geological feature, Pennsylvania’s highest elevation west of the Mississippi.” There was no need to add to my guilt by reading the words aloud.

We had been Marta’s cheerleaders over ascents and were gleeful when she was able to control her speed down the descents. Her curriculum had been rigorous and to us she had graduated Magna cum laude when she reached the Virginia rest stop at the end of day two.

As night fell, on day three, just before the rest stop, Haydn questioned, “What is that sound?”

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s getting louder!”

“Shit!” “Since we left the last gas station, I’ve been driving in second gear at highway speeds.”

“Boom!” As the rod in the engine blew!

We had to leave when the tow truck arrived, because we would have bawled like infants at the sadness of seeing her crippled and being towed on a hook.

Marta had not warranted her doom. There had been a Herculean urge to place a pacifier in her grille.

Marta's construction: http://www.geocities.com/sylley2000/

Before her re-birth:

A Day of Remembrance

2006-11-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

In memory of the men and women of the armed services, who were not able to return to their home countries, and dedicated to the families who mourned them.

Ceremonies Clock

2006-11-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

Eight: as the sun smiled from its corner and filled the sky, a long snowy gown with lace, ruffles and ribbons had been worn at the christening ceremony. A minister intoned the service and made the blessing with droplets of water on my tiny forehead.

Ten: flowers eagerly quenched their thirst on its rays. I had worn virginal white for confirmation services, followed by a first communion with burgandy-coloured wine in an ornate silver chalice. The morsel of bread was received in cupped hands. Spirited organ music, and the choir’s voices reached the vaulted ceilings before and after the service conducted by the Bishop. The sweet smell of lilies and delphiniums from the altar filled the air in the pews.

Noon: the sun blazed high overhead. My wedding dress was Caribbean blue silk with pale crinolines that prompted the turquoise gossamer material to billow. I had carried a small white bible with two bleached satin ribbons and miniature blood red roses at the ends. Low-heeled, pale shoes elevated me almost to the shoulders of the groom. A petite frosty pillbox with three peaks and a small veil adorned titian-coloured hair.

Two: psychedilic coneflowers sought shelter from thr intensity of the sun's fire. We were blessed with a healthy female baby. Milky colours flowed for her baptismal ceremony. The water blessing welcomed her into the world.

Four: blue, verdant or white-stripped hostas, saucy-faced violets, and elegant ferns vacationed under treed umbrella beds. Our daughter flowered into adolescence. Her confirmation was celebrated wearing a spotless, cloud-coloured dress and veil with fragrant lily of the valley guilding her curly straw locks.

Darker, more sombre colours stamped the funeral services of our grandparents.

Six: as the shadows grew long on the ground, our offspring had chosen a traditional chalky gown and trailing veil for a formal June wedding. Bridesmaids were no competition for her loveliness as she floated down the aisle carrying a large spring bouquet of daisies, tulips and daffodils. Her reception was joyful, and the dance floor crowded with well wishers. Toasts were made to the bride and groom in sparkling, clear champagne flutes filled with tasty wines. The day culminated with confetti rain.

Eight: with the kaleidoscope of the setting sun, ivory gowns characterized our grandchildren’s baptismal sanctification. Their baby faces were smooth, round and full, unblemished by life's toils and strife.

Ten: as darkness descended, ebony marked our parents’ deaths. Funeral processions had flown flags from automobile antennas to cremation memorial services.

Midnight: my life had been peppered with many birthday and anniversary celebrations. Mine had been the most frequent ceremonies, fewer for our daughter, and markedly diminished for our grandchildren. A prayer of thanks was offered before the expected joining to the crystalline quasars where partners could embrace in the cosmos.

Collage of story and Venice 24-hour clock in the background. Click the picture to view a larger size.

The Bride's Waterloo

2006-11-02T21:53:00.000-05:00

My role as a new homemaker held Godzilla-sized expanses of ignorance.

As a new bride, I had managed not to burn the water too severely and was becoming quite masterful with macaroni and cheese from a package. There were many days that a can of brown beans was added to that dish without scorching them beyond edibility.

My next challenge was to be tomorrow–the defrosting of the refrigerator. My landlady, upon questioning, had said there were no manuals for it. She did not volunteer more information about that task. Not wanting to press the issue, I tried to peek at her collection of books about housekeeping. Alas, only cookbooks were in her modest library.

Casting my mind back to my childhood, I recalled the icebox in the kitchen. That didn’t help, because the ice just melted—it didn’t build up the coating that had appeared on this much larger appliance. “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” I parroted Scarlett O'Hara.

Tomorrow came all too soon.

As I was bidding ‘my husband’ (that was such a delightful coupling of words) to have a good day, he commented, “Now I understand you’re going to defrost the fridge. The way you do …”
“Don’t you believe I know how to do that?”

“How stupid, do you think I am?” was my indignant retort to his unwelcome tutorial.

After he left, my thoughts turned to the formidable milestone.

“Hmmm, let me see, ice melts, so it makes sense that I should unplug it.” I pulled the cord, depriving it of its energy to make ice.

Then I commenced to tidy the rest of our remarkable abode.

About noon, I checked to see its progress by opening the door.

There was a copious amount of water inside!

“No problem, guess it must be almost done.” With sponge in hand, that was soon cleaned up. Pleasingly, my next chore was to go to the Laundromat that was conveniently only a block away.

There were no other ladies there that afternoon to ask. Pity, because there would have been no shame in revealing my lack of enlightenment about that job to a complete stranger.
Upon returning at 2:00, tea was in order. But, much to my amazement, upon getting the cooling milk for my beverage out of the refrigerator, there was more water inside. “Oops, silly me ... I guess it takes more than a couple of hours before its finished!”

About 4:00, a leak appeared under the door. But this time, there was only a small pool inside.

My coffee break with the downstairs landlady was a welcome break. She was my elder, but not wanting to betray my naiveté, there was no mention of my upstairs defrosting ordeal.

Soon, it was time to begin to prepare dinner for my returning spouse.

There was another puddle of water leaking from it!

“When, will you be done?” I wanted to scream at it!

“A towel to absorb the leakage is what is needed here,” as the mop-up routine was repeated.

At 6:00 p.m. the towel was removed–it was annoyingly wet!

At 6:30 the second towel was removed–it was only damp.

At 7:00, the third towel was almost dry and safe to remove.

And just in time too, because the sound of approaching steps on the stairway were now beckoning toward my returning partner.

Haydn was pleased to greet me with an eager kiss.

He cheerfully asked, “How did the defrosting go?” My eyes darted to what had become my Waterloo as yet another pond had seeped my betrayal.

My tears welled. The flood broke and the anguish surged forth. “I’ve been mopping it up all day. There must be something wrong with it! It just will not stop defrosting.” “Look, its doing it again!”

“Did you put a pan under the drain hole?”

“Hole?”

“It has a hole in it?”

He hurried to the pantry, picking the first pot off the shelf. At the same time, he gently eased the electrical cord back in, opened the door and put the pan under the freezer opening.

“Do they all have holes?”

“Yes dear, they all have a drain hole, that is how the water drains when they are being defrosted.”

“Oh!” The rain of tears poured again.

His arms enfolded me and kissed the aquaeous enemy away.

My Furry Friend

2006-10-20T10:11:00.001-05:00

Hybrid, designer mutt,

Eskimo, Poodle bred twice,

Eski-Poo-Poo, named, Frosty,

Frizzy, woolly, snowy fur,

Inky dot eyes, large ebony button nose,

Short, floppy ears,

Four little legs, Lilliputian paws.

Doggie K-mart greeter,

Wet, rosy tongue, panting enthusiastically,

His bird-size heart races,

Stubby tail wags like a metronome on steroids.

A berserk friendly gene adheres

Frosty glue to arm, leg, foot, slipper or shoe.

“Play ball?” he invites,

Squeaky toy thrown,

“Fetch!”

Alpha dogged into single paw guarding,

Challenges owner to toy possession.

Toddler photocopying via two hind legs prancing,

Shows off with twirling pirouettes.

Trampoline poodle legs create

Lamb-like, four-legged loftiness,

Boing! Boing! Boing!

Dreamstate, fluffy puppy counting o’er fencing rails.

When scolded, “Grrr…” is his witty repartee.

Territorial canine marking sires window critter vigils,

Trespassing penalty: ballistic barking,

Leviathan disappointment: cats reject his friendship, sulks.

Plays, sleeps, eats, sniffs,

Pasture frolics: 'Merry Dung Rolling'

Rebreed mutation: Eski-Poo-Poo-Poo:

Frosty, Malodorous, Stinky Poo!

Frosty and the Plants

2006-10-15T12:37:00.000-05:00

Pat, watering can in hand

Went to water the plants

The ivy was missing!

All that remained

Were lady bug stakes

Where the plants had been.

“Lady Bug, where are the plants?”

“Ask Billy Goats three.” answered Lady Bug.

Pat visited Mr. Butcher

Owner of Billy Goats three

“Your Billy Goats three ate my plants.”

Overheard were goats braying, “Baa, baa!”

"What can I do?" Frosty asked.

“You are too small, the Billy Goats three are much bigger than you.”

“I run fast and bark loudly,” hinted Frosty.

To the store they went to get more

When all were planted

Pat revisited Mr. Butcher with the bill.

While Pat had been busy

Billy Goats three, drooled their meal

Frosty barked, ran circles

Around Billy Goats three.

“I stay on my property,

Wait for an invitation to come on mine,” Frosty scolded.

A neighbour exclaimed, “Frosty, my superstar!”

The Billy Goats three had dined in that neighbour's garden too.

Frosty and the Billy Goats three

Became friends.

Plant eating forbidden.

The Lady Bugs partied!

Frosty was tremendously glad.

Free Verse Poetry," I am a ..."

2006-10-15T06:10:00.000-05:00

I am a Clock

Early morning of nuptials, love was passion,

As noon arrived,

The child we brought into this world

Added joy and contentment.

To see her blossom,

Mid afternoon into a caring adult,

Was our reward for the loved we shared,

Early evening, grandchildren added depth.

Life’s clock blessed us with longevity and permitted,

Desire to age, like vintage wine,

Deep, full of character, satisfying.

As midnight descends on our marriage,

Sweet dreams my beloved, with generous love,

We’ll meet again and embrace in the cosmos.

“I am a Metronome”
How did my owner spend my ticking?

In childhood, obliviously,

In teens, freely and joyously,

Confident a long future lay ahead.

In early adulthood, recklessly,

Climbing and aspiring without restraint,

Gambling that the future won’t be cut short.

In the middle years, more wisely,

And sharing with a partner and children.

Shadows gather, foretelling pendulum’s swings finiteness,

Natural universe co-operatively,

Laughter cherished, compensating for sorrow,

As grandparents and parents fade.

As the metronome's beats wan, introspectively,

Tragedy is: “I’m sorry,” unsaid,

Something undone or vista unseen,

Within the time that was measured out for me.

Autobiography

2006-10-12T06:18:00.000-05:00

My first memory of school was tripping over my feet when I tried to skip in kindergarten. I was pigeon-toed and had to wear special ‘ugly’ shoes. They had inside corrective soles and outside were slanted soles on the bottom of the shoes that were designed to correct my weight distribution. I exercised every day. I walked on the outsides of my feet on a line marked on the floor and curled a pencil under my toes. I never did figure out what the pencil exercise was supposed to cure. But I regularly did all the exercises I was instructed to do in hopes that one day I’d be able to walk like the other little girls. I fantasized about wearing pretty black patent leather Baby Janes with one delicate thin strap that fastened cloud-like shoes to my feet. By contrast the ones I wore were brown army boots that laced up well above my ankles.

The first time I tried to skip like the rest of my class, I fell flat on my face and they all laughed at me. Mrs. McKie, the teacher, made them stop. She asked me to stay after class and tried to teach me how to skip, but I just couldn't master it without falling down again no matter how hard I tried. She said, “Well how ‘bout we try skipping with just one foot?”

“Wow!” Much to my surprise, I could skip with one foot without tripping.

It must have looked weird, with one foot shuffling across the floor and the other one going up and down. But her eyes sparkled, and she said, “Sylvia, you’re my only student that skips with only one foot, the rest of the class has to use two.”

I played hooky the next day and the school called the truant officer. He came and I hid under the bed. Granny and the truant officer got brooms and poked them under the bed, but I was small enough that I had managed to get above the floor and was between the springs and the mattress. I can’t recall how long I was up there, but I did finally come down. The truant officer had waited for me. He escorted me to school that morning.

When I got there it was time for skipping—the reason I had dreaded going that morning. Mrs. McKie said to my fellow classmates. “Sylvia and I practiced yesterday and I want the rest of you to see how one-foot skipping is done.”

Feeling like an elephant with one of its leg in a sling, I demonstrated how one-foot skipping was done thinking I’d be laughed at again. She clapped when I was finished and the rest of the class joined in with their applause.

I never forgot the kindness that kindergarten teacher and my classmates had shown to me that day. I hadn’t been fooled that skipping with one foot was an accomplishment—all I had wanted was to be like them and not be made an object of pity or laughter. It wasn’t possible in kindergarten to stop wearing the big clunky shoes or not do the exercises, because my feet weren’t capable of doing anything except point the way they did. I was able to jump rope. Not having the toes point outward hadn’t prevented me from participating in that childhood game. Mrs. McKie was an older teacher with white hair and blue eyes like Granny. Lucky me! Now there were two people on my side, both of whom were kind. School and my friends were a great place!

#

The following year I had an equally wonderful teacher.

It was super to have been a ‘Bluebird’ in my grade one class. There were three other groups of birds: Cardinals, Robins, and Chickadees. I admit to hungering for and enjoying the reward of gold stars from my raven-haired young teacher. Miss Taylor’s deep brown eyes were set in an oval face devoid of lines. The dresses she had worn often were in soft pastels that paired with her calm voice.

Spot, Dick and Jane were the characters in my reader. “See Dick, See Jane, See Spot, See Dick Run. See Jane Run. See Spot Run.” The cover had been dark green, ‘Dick and Jane’ were printed on the cover along with the illustrations of the two characters and animals to the right and left of orange stripes. We also received a lined exercise book with a plain, light, kraft cover for arithmetic and printing. The school supplied our pencils; they were bigger than the ones available at the stores. I can't recall those large pencils had an eraser on the end or that we had a ruler. Everything was kept inside our wooden desks, the top of which was hinged. In later grades, the desks had an inkwell in the top-right corner.

Dick was a boy without the double meaning of his name from a modern world and there was no Tarzan for Jane. Spot was their dog. Dick had black hair and Jane’s was blonde. Spot was the combination of white with black spots. (the books came to be known as the Elson-Gray Readers). We practiced daily sounding out words and learning the difference between long and short vowels as well as hard and soft consonants.

When it was the Bluebirds’ turn to read aloud from our Dick and Jane readers, we sat in a circle on small wooden chairs. There were other books on low shelves that we could look at the pictures and try to sound out the words if we didn’t know what they were. To me, it was a fun to open them up and see what was inside them.

One afternoon, Miss Taylor asked me to go to the library with her after school. She took my hand. Her hand was much bigger than mine was, smooth and soft to the touch. When we arrived at the library, there were stacks and stacks of books—I’d never seen so many books in one place. They towered over me. On the lower shelves were books for children of my age. I reached out and peeked inside one of them. Miss Taylor said, “You do know a library card lets you take a book home don’t you?”

“Really? I can take this book home?”

Miss Taylor looked at the title, which I don’t remember what it was, then put it back on the shelf and said, “Well, perhaps we should ask the librarian which book is suitable for you to read.”

“Granny, look what I have” I bubbled with glee when I got home that afternoon. “Isn’t it wonderful, I can read this at home and all the books are free as long as I get them back by the date on the library slip at the back.”

“Make sure you do,” was her reply as she turned back to the ingredients she was mixing in her special yellowware bowl she used for making bread, cookies, Yorkshire puddings and other yummy things.

Now both of us had something we enjoyed doing. Granny loved to cook and I liked to read. She never ran out of great things to make and my life would be filled with millions of stories.

“What a great world it was—there was something in it for everyone.”

#

I had not outgrow being pigeon-toed by grade three, but that year did find me with a nasty teacher. She placed me in grade four then told me I was too small for the higher grade and made me go back to grade three. In retrospect, I really was smaller in height and skipping the grade would have isolated me socially in the later grades. In grade eight, there was only one student shorter than I was. As an adult, my final height was 5’1”.

On my way home one day, who should appear beside my side but the cantankeous teacher from grade three. She drew alongside me and said, “Sylvia, why do you walk like that?”

The tears welled in my eyes.

“Walk like this!” she barked.

I looked down and had to stuff my hand in my mouth to stop from laughing. Her toes pointed outward like a duck!

She went her way a block later and I rushed home, took off my ugly boots and threw them out the kitchen door. “Granny, I’m not ever, ever going to wear those ugly things again. If you don’t buy me a pair of black patent leather Baby Jane shoes I’m not going to school EVER again!”

I refused to put the boots back on to go to the shoe store and went with her in my yellow rain boots. I just didn’t care—I was fed up with people laughing at my orthodepedic boots and I knew no matter how hard I practiced nothing was going to straighten my feet.

I did get my dream shoes and every day I forced myself to walk along the railroad tracks on my way to and from school with one foot in front of the other doing my very best to keep my toes lined up with my arches and heels. By the end of the year, with the lighter shoes, I was able to walk well enough that no one was laughing any more.

“Thanks to you, you old battle-ax, who made fun of the way I walked when your way of walking was an old Victorian method that had gone out of style a generation before.”

She was the last straw on a tall heap!

#

When I got to grade nine, there had been a discussion with my family whether to take the commercial or the art course. Learning to type had come easy for me and I had taught myself using an old Remington manual typewriter in grade six. I hadn’t been positive I had enough talent that I could earn my living being an artist. Electing to take the commercial course was a sure way to get the skills that would enable me to support myself. Wise choice. But the commercial course was super boring and I quit after grade ten. I worked for seven years, took two grade thirteen classes in English and History and wrote an aptitude test before I could indulge my passion for learning again. I was admitted as an adult student to the University of Western Ontario in 1969.

1970 did not mark the end to my tribulations with education.

Review of Meg Tilly's book,

2006-10-10T05:16:00.000-05:00

Gemma

"Flip side of Lolita is a darker story yet
IBI KASLIK
Gemma, By Meg Tilly
Syren, 268 pages, $17.95

Gemma, a novel by Meg Tilly, is a graphic if simplistic exploration of the interior world of a sexual predator and his young victim. Tilly is best known for her portrayal as the suicide's gamine young girlfriend in the 1980s sleeper hit The Big Chill, as well as for her performance in the title role in Agnes of God, as a nun who may have murdered her baby. She left Los Angeles a decade ago, moved to British Columbia and wrote Gemma, her second book in 12 years.

Gemma's awful plight begins when the preteen's mother's boyfriend, Buddy, prostitutes Gemma to his friend, Hazen Wood. Hazen kidnaps Gemma from school, stores her in the trunk of his car and proceeds -- through systematic rape and violence -- to transform a feisty, lovable child into a passive sex slave. Hazen's infatuation with 12-year-old Gemma is fuelled by base sexual impulses and by a desire to possess her like an object; Hazen is depicted as a man with little to no humanity.

Gemma is a timely novel considering the kidnapping and confinement of young Austrian girl Natascha Kampusch, which captured the world's attention with its sordid yet commonplace details and dimensions. But Gemma, the character, couldn't be more different from the cool, self-possessed Kampusch, who was also objectified and psychologically tortured.

Unlike her real-life counterpart, Gemma is a raw bundle of nerves, guts and emotions turned inside out. After Hazen is caught and arrested, Gemma begins her life of freedom and regresses into a girly-girl who cries a lot and likes stuffed animals. Her regression is hard to believe -- never mind the fact that she is adopted by the policewoman in charge of her case and that she doesn't receive intensive therapy for her abuse. These are but a couple of instances where situations and characters do not play or act out in a believable way.

While the promotional material touts Tilly's sophomore novel as a "disturbing twist on the theme of Vladimir Nabokov's infamous novel Lolita," a reader would be hard pressed to find any parallels between the two works beyond the slight similarities in situations. For Lolita's success relies on Humbert Humbert's heightened self-analysis, his awareness of the fact that he is a monster. That is: Lolita is predicated on the reader crawling into HH's pathology and his strange, clever, if twisted, universe.

Hazen, on the other hand, is a primitive animal who, until the very end, does not even grasp the nature or the import of his crime. Creating a character like Hazen, who is barely sentient, barely human, is an easy out. Child molesters are the scum of society; there is nothing you can say to humanize them. Or is there? The fact that, statistically, male victims of sexual abuse grow up to become abusers while female victims of abuse grow up to be re-victimized bears exploration. It is too simplistic to create an Evil Child Molester with no redeeming or sympathetic qualities. Making Hazen himself a likely victim in the chain of abuse, for instance, would have made his character more life-like.

In terms of style, what is problematic is that both Gemma and Hazen, who share the narrative in Gemma, have precisely the same stuttering voice. Both narrators have the same stylistic tic of articulating themselves in sentence fragments. The similarities in style render the voices of victim and perpetrator indistinct, which is rather the opposite effect an author requires in a polemical narrative such as Gemma.

Still, although this book is not great literature, it is highly readable for those who have a high tolerance for violence and an interest in what victims of abuse undergo. It's also commendable on Tilly's part that half of the royalties of Gemma go toward organizations serving child victims of sexual abuse; it reveals that the author is not merely exploiting her subject, but has an honest intention of improving the lives of those she writes about.

Ibi Kaslik is the author of the novel Skinny, which is being published in the United States this month."

There was an article about the writer, Meg Tilly in today's Art Section of the Globe and Mail.

I find it admirable that someone has used their life's experiences to detail the horrors that are perpetrated on young girls as they grow up. It probably isn't written by the most skilled author. The review points out there wasn't enough contrast in the speaking styles of the two characters. What it does sound like the book captured is the raw horror that young girls experience by pedophiles, especially when they're shielded from prosecution by being members of girl's family. I'm in awe that an author is donating half of the proceeds from the sale of her book to help those who suffer similar abuse.

A Place in my Past:

2006-10-09T03:35:00.000-05:00

The first time I entered All Saints Anglican Church, aged ten, I was struck by the stained-glass windows. The one that appealed to me the most that morning was Jesus tending to his flock with a lamb at his feet.

The sun was shining through the stained glass that acted like prisms sending shafts of different hues onto the clothing and hats people were wearing. Colours always did attract me from an early age. Red was one I did not particularly like, because I associated it with anger. I have seen red auras around people when they are very agitated. Red can also be sexual passion.

Purple being a secondary colour sometimes produces a similar effect. Pastels are synonymous with quiet and calm. Yellow, the colour of the sun, was a happy colour, tints of blues are pleasant experiences. Greens and oranges the two other secondary colours can be nature's harmony, money, enthusiasm, or excitement. Not everything in my childhood memories are connected with colour, but many are including adult recollections.

The effect of the colours and the artistry on the windows was a feeling of calm, warmth, and peace with myself. The longer I gazed the more minor noises disappeared which increased the emotions I was experiencing. It was not a cathexis with the images in the windows, because I didn't begin to have sexual feelings until I was older, but the feelings gazing at the windows did become intensely felt.

The moment was shattered by the organ playing an exuberant hymn. But it did stay in my memory banks. It's still there for me to recall.

The connection I made with the shepherd was not Jesus. It was the person closest to me—my grandmother. The lamb was me.

The reason I connect red with anger is based on physiology. When people get angry, the heart beats more blood and circulation increases to the face, and the extremeties of the ears, noses, hands, fingers and toes. If you are a keen observer of people, you will notice the increase of the blood supply. If you are in danger, you're more alert to signals and colours that people send out. The only auras I've actually seen around people are red. Red auras are used by some people as self-defense mechanism that alert them when there is possible danger to their physical safety. It is the first colour children are able to see, yellow usually comes later and then blue.

The other associations I made with colours were formed over time starting before kindergarten when my pallet of colours were expanded beyond the primaries. The connections with more complex emotions were matched with hues, tints, shadings.

Most of the emotional experiences that I stored are in technicolour – none are black/white or shades of grey. My daydreams are in colour and so too are my infrequent night time dreams.

Hall of Mirrors

2006-10-03T11:12:00.000-05:00

My eyes were open and this was what I saw in the reflection of the mirrors:

The night air hardly stirs--it is very warm in the Hall of Mirrors. But it is not too heated to discourage the dancers from dancing the Minuet. The ballroom is filled with the sounds from violins, cellos, woodwinds, and the harpsichord. The men dressed in fashionable powdered wigs, brocade vests in velvets and silks with volumous lace cuffs at their wrists. Their waistcoats speckle the ballroom floor with gaiety. Leggings in taffetas and silks are completed with dazzling snowy stockings, and black glistening boots are garnished with diamonds and rubies.

The ladies coiffures are piled high embellished with emeralds, topazes, and strands of frost and rose-colored pearls. Their ears twinkle with jewels. Garnishing their necks is a world rainbow of precious stones. Above their tiny waists, are velvets, silks, taffetas, and satins festooned with lacy insets at their wrists. The lace topping the bodice nimbly banters with cleavage. The stays under their clothing support the hoops, and enormous petticoats that will bounce to the music.

There is an air of expectancy among the guests. An occasional murmur is hidden behind a fan or hand. A smile is exchanged between dancers, the Baroque music begins. They glide into a wide circle, bowing to each other as they begin the dance. A toe is pointed, then tapped. As they spin and glide, tiny slippers, appear occasionally from under the mountain of swirling petticoats revealing shimmering white stockings bedecked with embroidery.

The couples, their bodies like swans, execute the intricate steps. The kaleidoscope of dresses flash brilliantly, enhanced by the overhead and wall-glittering glass chandeliers. The image of the dancers is magnified a thousand times in the mirrors and shimmering windows giving the appearance to the watchers that there is no world outside the ballet that is taking place.

---

I could faintly hear the music too, but usually the images that I see are not accompanied with sound. It was an incredible experience to see that Hall--one that I'll never forget. Was there something in the Hall that created that 'for' me or did it happen because of 'my' imagination? Doesn't really matter to me which it was--it was just a fantastically moving and enjoyable experience.

Click on the Video of Versailles.

If you stand back, it's very compelling, but not as entrancing as being up close such as the one above:

This experience is permanently etched into my book of memories.

The palace and the grounds:

After watching the video and looking at the pictures, is it any wonder why the people revolted? LOL

Writer's Journal: Noteworthy Articles about Writing

2006-09-26T04:40:00.000-05:00

Susan Sontang’s journals Several pages "On Self."

Essay, “Dumbing Up." Im reference to the series of Dummies books.

Learning "How to Read Slowly Again."

New York Times Collection of Essays from writers about writing. These essays share knowledge about writing from exemplary writers and make fascinating reading. For budding writers, their observations have a "prized knowledge" sticky tag added in my journal.'

Writing Journal: Publication Resources for Writers

2006-09-25T19:18:00.000-05:00

Submission guidelines from:

Fiddlehead Magazine

Brick Magazine Non-Fiction only.

Geist Magazine

On Spec Magazine Occasional fiction contests.

List of Canadian Magazines Broad category, see link below for finer breakdown:

Canadian Literature Magazines From Canadian Magazines, link above. Visit individual magazines to get their editorial policies and submission guidelines.

Room of One’s Own Women’s Literature.

Journals & Magazines for Writers.

Valuable blogs:

Canadian Mags Blog.

Raincoast Blog

On Spec Magazine Blog News About Fiction Writing and Awards.

Writing Journal (Poetry)

2006-09-22T02:28:00.000-05:00

Haiku

Fall is approaching early

Reds, golds, oranges, replace greens

Soon no leaves are here!

Butterfly Sonnet

As summer wanes, the monarch takes to flight,

It has been gathering its strength through long summer days,

The gentle creatures fly from my sight,

Southward their wings beat toward this part of their life’s phase.

At night they stop to replenish their thirst,

A collector with a net spies them in repose,

Their beautiful wings were their curse,

The tiny butterflies fight the bonds of death’s throes.

The nylon breaks; they are free to survive,

Exhausted from their journey they arrive,

One of the world’s smallest fluttering elite,

Their circles of life are now complete.

They are as precious as a world gem,

The sun-baked earth welcomes them.

Free verse,
To My Darling:

In the early morning of our nuptials, love was passion,
As noon arrived,
The infant we brought into this world
has added to my joy and contentment

Our child blossomed
at mid afternoon into a caring adult,
A tender grown woman is life’s reward to parents,
At early evening, grandchildren added depth.

Time has blessed us with longevity and permitted,
Our desire for each other to age like vintage wine
To be deep, full of character and satisfying.
As midnight descends on our marriage,

"Sweet dreams my beloved, the depth of your love,
Will remain with me into eternity."

Writing for Publication-Writing Journal

2006-09-17T04:03:00.000-05:00

September 17, 2006

I just finished reading, On Becoming a Novelist, by John Gardner and would highly recommend it. The author talks about the writer's nature, his/her training, education and the need to have faith in yourself to be able to write.

A novelist gets his ideas from life's experiences that are kept as symbols in memory. The noblest originality isn't stylistic, but visionary and intellectual, the writer's accurate presentation of what he, himself, has seen, heard, thought, and felt. Detail is the lifeblood of fiction. The novelist develops an acute eye, sometimes bordering on the psychic, for human feelings and behaviour, tastes and habitats, pleasure and sufferings. An aesthetically successful story will contain a sense of life's strangeness, however humdrum its makings.

"Does the study of creative writing and literature help a writer to be better at their craft." His answer is. "Generally yes." "Will the study of it improve a student's chances of supporting myself?" "Possibly. The world has far more writing teachers than it needs, and as a rule it is publication, not degrees, that impress employers. He later on gives an estimate of how much a professional writer makes." It's $4,000-$6,000/annual. That figure does mean most writers shouldn't rely on writing as their primary source of income.

If writing workshops are attended, they need to have standards for good fiction--creation of a vivid and continuous dream, authorial generosity, intellectual and emotional significance, elegance and efficiency, and strangeness. For young writers they need to be positive experiences. They should not teach or encourage writing formulas.

Senior studies in a broad range of interests provide tools that writers can employ. It isn't necessary for all writers to have University diplomas, but not having them, does narrow the number of tools a writer has exposure to which causes limitations to the work that is produced.

What the book stresses most is that a true novelist is not so much of a profession as a yoga, or "way," an alternative to ordinary life-in-the-world. Its benefits are quasi-religious--a changed quality of mind and heart, satisfactions no non-novelist can understand--and its rigors generally bring no profit except to the spirit.

A story that has lost its way

2006-09-14T19:23:00.000-05:00

Possible to have these stories come alive There is much more I would change, but without knowing the writers, it isn’t possible to alter it any more than what I have suggested in the blog.

Other diaries

2006-09-14T18:45:00.000-05:00

As a member of an American news bulletin board, I contribute original stories in diaries, this is one of them:

Pondering on America’s Descent into Torture

How could a country with such high ideals as the United States become a lawbreaker rather than a policy and lawmaker?

I have read some of the painful blogs of former and active military who are struggling with that question. They have personally seen it or in some cases been unfortunate enough to have participated in it.

I have witnessed a change in attitudes in the United States, as I am sure many others have. There was a time when depriving civil rights to a foreign national visiting in their country would have been unthinkable. The public took great pride in their freedom and generously extended it to others. This is not the case in 2006.

Because President’s are elected every four years, it’s easy to divide my recollections into administrations.

Starting with Eisenhower, who thousands of men and women around the world served under in WWII, his administration took place during the rock and roll years. In retrospect, it was a blessed time–relatively carefree with great music for teens and young adults to enjoy. Light-hearted comedies and musicals dominated movie houses and drive-in theatres. Elvis Presley was the undisputed King.

The 50’s were also cold war times, but the threat of communism pales in comparison to more modern times. McCarthyism was prominent from 1950-1954. There were aggressive manhunts and people were ruined using questionable evidence. He ceased to have influence in the courts after the Army-McCarthy Hearings. (Interestingly, Robert Kennedy was part of Joe McCarthy’s staff during the McCarthy Hearings—he also was a hard-line anti-Communist). How could he be anything else to be able to work for Joe?

This was also the time of the Korean War.1950-1953.

A new era opened up with the election of John F. Kennedy. He was young, clever, articulate, and handsome. His charismatic manner transmitted itself through the medium of TV and was the reason he won the election. Nixon was much better qualified, but lacked Kennedy's electricity.

John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech in 1961, “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country" swept away cobwebs that may have existed from the 50’s. John and his beautiful, elegant wife, Jacqueline, glittered in contrast to Eisenhower (a much older and probably wiser man). Kennedy captured the minds and hearts of young people. Together, they brought glamour and sophistication to the American Presidency.

One year, and ten months after the inauguration, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oct 28, 1962, brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war. It wasn’t ‘til years later that documents surfaced displaying a picture that differed from what was seen on TV. There was no brinkmanship—deals were made between Russia and the United States that averted the war.

One year, and one month after the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. There aren't many people who don’t’ remember where they were on November 22, 1963. The grief and shock was shared around the world. If there had been some way to collect the world’s tears the day of the funeral, when John-John saluted the passing flag-draped coffin of his Father, they would have filled a new Great Lake.

Life didn’t return to normal. Kennedy’s death marked an end to a dream.

Perhaps he didn’t pass the world’s greatest legislation, and his character was flawed in relation to women...none of those things captured what he represented to young people. Hope!

With the Johnston administration came the Viet Nam war which was yet another tragedy. It divided the United States as no previous war had. It was an ugly period of history. Troops came home from Viet Nam and some of their fellow Americans spat on them. Some young men had dodged the draft and fled to Canada. To put this war into perspective, go and see the movie, “Apocalypse Now”. The dark Joseph Conrad imagery that pervades throughout the movie, the cruelty and senselessness, and the awful emptiness was brilliantly captured in that picture. Marlon Brando was perfectly cast—he was formerly a young and handsome man. He was now aged and grossly overweight distorting his features in what was by contrast a bit part. Similarly the young troops morphed into hideousness. When the film was over and the house lights were turned on, there was a moment, I felt disoriented and somehow tainted. It’s a very powerful and moving film.

It wasn’t until President Richard Nixon’s term in office that the troops from Viet Nam returned home. Nixon is ‘the’ most experienced man that was elected President in my memory. He came with so much promise and left prematurely as a crook. The TV blared daily scandals, dirty tricks, White House plumbers, money laundering, stonewalling, executive privilege, missing pieces in tapes, the growing cancer just could not be sustained.

One term of Gerald Ford who wasn’t forgiven for the pardons he gave out. He also seemed prone to hitting himself, or tripping? Followed by another one termer, Jimmy Carter, and his brother Billy with his failed Billy Beer.

And now we come to President Ronald Reagan who is remembered fondly by a large portion of the population. He did have a presence, gave excellent speeches, had a marvellous sense of humour, and was genuinely approachable. He gave the impression of being a friendly neighbour next door. His health didn’t allow him to be as robust in his second term.

Look at the cast of characters that were later cycled and in some cases recycled: Bolton, Negroponte, Oliver North, Condoleeza Rice, George Herbert Walker Bush, James Baker, Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell, John Poindexter, Scooter Libby, DonaLd Rumsveld, Frank Carlucci, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and others.

George Herbert Walker Bush (one term) – Desert Storm

William Clinton—should have had it all. Rhodes Scholar, personable, young, good-looking, articulate, economic policy sound, and most of his policies did work out. His fatal flaw—a blue dress and a cigar. Jeez, now I have to admit, I am confused. There have been numerous Presidents’ that had sex with someone other than their wife. Why would another human being want to hurt a woman by telling her that her husband is unfaithful? That is unforgivable that anyone would do that. IMHO, it’s quite all right to have a low opinion of the philanderer, but that doesn’t absolve us from being cruel to the wife who has done nothing. Do we know what any of the President’s did behind closed doors? Is it any of our business what they did behind closed doors?

Why was the American public so hostile to William Clinton? Books are still being written about him and he hasn’t been the president for five years.

George W. Bush—who has made laws and policies that don’t benefit the electorate? Patriot I, Afghanistan, Iraq Invasion, Patriot II, Guantanamo prisoners held with no trials and usually without benefit of council. In fact most of the prisoners don’t have charges against them. No tribunals, and no trials anytime soon. Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, foreign nationals, etc

If I type the two words, USA torture, I get 80,200,000 hits from Google! I get only 19,200,000 for China torture.

As far as I can see, the only hope America has of regaining the greatness the United States is capable of is to elect someone other than Republicans. Then, she will shoulder her responsibility and lead the free world The position has been vacant far too long.

I really do have an ulterior motive for writing this, because I’m hoping if the United States is able to save itself, than my country will see the light too and roll back some of its Anti-terrorism laws its been making lately.

A Place in the Mind

2006-09-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

The way my mind recalls this picture is with dark, navy-blue rollers with white caps on the Atlantic and serene, soft, blue-green turquoise on the Caribbean side.

It's there for instant retrieval in my mind's eye.

Its origin was standing on the Glass Window Bridge, which was one-car wide, at the approximate centre of that picture. (Eleuthera Island, Bahamas)

Images are masters against the confines of verbal language.

I found it fascinating that my imagination had added details to the 'reality' of finding that picture a couple of days ago. It caused me to retouch it somewhat to try to capture what it was seeing. My feeble efforts were rejected.

Let me take you by the hand and join me on my bridge.

Close your eyes and imagine:

On the left, an endless stream of dark, navy-blue rollers with exploding white caps as far as the eye can see. Accompanying it is the sound of fury. Cymbals clash, and the bass drum beats out an ominous array of sounds. The salt spray stings my cheeks and body, and waters my eyes and hair. It tastes salty and is accompanied with an odor of seaweed, fish, and plant life. It imparts the feeling of excitement--of mountains to conquer and boundless skies that have no known end.

On the right, a sea of tranquility, it's a soft green-blue turquoise. It laps gently at the shore and conveys a pickling flavour by some mysterious force. The scene fills my nostrils with images of playful seahorses and laughing dolphins. The seashells lay in abundance to be collected or just to envy their uniqueness and range of how many there are--each perfect in their symmetry. The palms with their greenery cast shade on the white sands--they invite me to come and sit under them. All is peaceful and soothing for my soul.

We are one these two seas and separated only by a sliver of man’s engineering. The ground beneath is my foundation--it's my centering point.

That picture has over the years given me a place to go to gather myself and to know what forces are within and which come from outside.

The mind is a marvellous thing--it gives up so few of its secrets that can be shared with another. The connection that artists try to evoke for us is done through great books, poetry, music, painting, writing, and a myriad of other art forms. An artist would perhaps use curves and circles with soft tints for the Caribbean. Perchance vertical and horizontal lines using rich darks for the Atlantic? It's quite possible my mind depicts it that way and doesn't need words at all. The challenge for visual artists and writers is to somehow transfer those images unto canvas and written language. Skilled artisans are fortunate to have been given the tools and more admirable if they have trained themselves to convey it. I hope you find your bridge or have enjoyed my vain attempt to share mine with you.

An Alarming Way to Cure a Headache

2006-09-14T17:25:00.000-05:00

THE PLAYERS:

I or me: Sylvia, the owner of the purse

Haydn or he: the poor dupe who=s married to the owner of the purse!

The Alarm System:

1) The shop has an alarm system that uses two interior and one exterior bullhorn-type sound devices that utilize motion sensors to guard against intruders and to act as a fire alarm. It's comparable to the racket a klaxxon makes on a submarine. It's activated by signing out with a code that's punched into the main security system. The system allocates 60 seconds to clear the building, once armed, by exiting and locking the front entrance door.

2) OOH AH: The motorhome has a relatively weak, 'Ooo ah' sensor inside the unit. When we plan to leave it unattended, we pair it with the shop's more effective intruder and fire alarm system. It's deactivated and activated by pressing one of two buttons on a small rectangular wireless remote control attached to which is are the ignition and entrance keys for the RV.

3) BEEP BEEP: The car has a standard Lock Doors/Unlock Doors and a centre Panic button that engage the horn of the car. It's very useful it one was attacked on a dark night or you just can't remember where the car is parked. (This gets a lot more usage and will possibly compete with electricity as a utility as I get older.)

I have a spare set of motorhome keys that are on a lanyard that also has the arming and disarming device as a backup set in the event that the primary keys are misplaced. This set is seldom used and remote from conscious thought. I believe I've used it a couple of times when Haydn hasn't been handy to open or close the motorhome.

THE PLAY:

We were camping outside the shop one summer night and after retiring for the evening, I was tossing and turning and sleep was eluding me. In due time, a headache befell me and I remembered there were aspirins in my purse.

While fetching them from my purse, the motorhome's alarm system began to sound, "OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH!"

The noise woke Haydn from a sound sleep and he rushed past me as I was retreating to the rear of the unit. He snatched up what he thought was the motorhome's deactivating key and began to depress the centre button.

The car replied, "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP" very loudly.

In his sleep-induced disorientation, he pressed it again, which silenced it, but the motorhome's "OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH" persisted, so he pressed it again. "BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH" were the replies to his command.

In the dark, he managed to find the light switch and quickly lunged for the correct motorhome deactivating button. The "OOH AH," quit, and he could now see the offending device that had set the car horn off, and hurriedly depressed the panic button on the car. SILENCE!

Clutching my purse to my chest, "OOH AH, OOH AH, OOH AH!" screamed the motorhome's alarm.

"Give me your motorhome keys out of your purse!" Haydn barked at me over the din of, "OOH AH," and I fumbled in my purse for the aberrant device.

"Push it!" he shouted, and I complied.

SILENCE! was the reward!

I couldn't grasp what had happened ... all I wanted was an aspirin and a cacaphony of bells and whistles sounded instead!

"Why did you have the alarm system hooked up?" I asked.

"I didn't have the alarm set up, you and everyone else in the Town of Exeter, would have known if the building's alarm system had gone off," he answered as he reached up to pull his fingers through his sleep-tousled hair. He retreated once again toward the bedroom.

"You've got the motorhome's alarm key in your purse and as you squeeze it, your setting off the alarm!" he exclaimed in frustration.

"Ohhh," I moronically replied as I got back into bed. Haydn immediately resumed his slumber.

As the fog lifted from my brain, I realized what he was explaining. When I'd picked up my purse, I had put both hands around the body of the it rather than picking it up by the straps as is my usual method of handling it, and in grasping it thus, I'd squeezed the button that activated the motorhome's alarm setting off the OOH AH. In my total confusion, I thought the building's alarm had gone off and couldn't comprehend what was causing the pandemonium.

Because the car's alarm system felt, in the dark, identical to the motorhome's, Haydn couldn't figure out what he'd done to set off the BEEPING of the car. In his muddle, he'd repeatedly tried to silence the car. By pressing the panic button more than once, he'd stopped it and then reactivated it. It wasn't until he turned on the light that he realized he had the wrong device in his hand and reached for the correct one. I was still holding the offending device and like a doe caught in the headlights, clutched my purse to my chest more tightly and set it off again!

The folly of it hit me and I finally realized I didn't have a headache any more and began to giggle softly. The image of Haydn, in his BVD's repeatedly pressing the panic button of the car, thus activating and deactivating and reactivating the car's alarm which was doing everything except flap its doors to use as wings for takeoff caused the giggle to grow. I tried to push my mouth into the pillows to suppress the laughter, but mirthfulness won.

At 0230 a.m., the chuckling refused to abate ... it grew in intensely and awoke Haydn once again. There isn't anything more infectious than someone laughing in the middle of the night and my Tee Hee's was soon joined with his hearty Ha! Ha's and we both broke into enthusiastic laughter.

Not a recommended or conventional way to cure a headache!

The End ...

THE CURTAIN DESCENDS.

The Visitation

2006-09-14T17:16:00.000-05:00

Monday's was always a special day for me when I was a youngster because it was washing day. Granny would haul out the tin tubs, fill them with water and heat them on the stove 'til the water was hot enough to be poured into the newfangled washing machine she had acquired. My job that I had taken upon myself was to be her helper, fetching pails, filling the tubs, shaving the soap and just generally being on hand when she needed something. It was a fun day.

We had just filled the washer when I heard, "Rap, rap, rap," at the front door. There was Nanny, the ancient matriarch of my British family. When Nanny entered a room, all feeling was sucked out of it.

Granny took one glance at her stiff mother and in her best no nonsense tone said, "Maw, come in and take off your clothes, we're about the start the washing. You might as well join us--we'll make up a tub for you."

The gaunt silhouette acquiesced by coming to the kitchen and began to disrobe in our bedroom, where I had began to move the high-backed tin tub that was used for bathing.

Nanny put her long-sleeved, black, cotton dress with small-patterned pink, miniature roses she had been wearing on the bed. I went to fetch it to put in the washing machine. But much to my amazement, she had another dress on underneath. It was pale blue cotton with smocking at the top. Soon, it was joined by a yellow-plaid one, and followed by yet another that once upon a time was forest green. My eyes widen as the fifth dress was added to the pile--it was dark mauve! That was the last one … now she was down to an under garment which was a faded, ochre-coloured, muslin camisole and a matching half-slip. All I could think of after witnessing that spectacle was "Why don't you know you're supposed to take one dress off before you put another one on?”

Of course those were just thoughts. I just stood there and gawked at the 88 year-old bird, with skin that was streaked with pale blue veins, dotted with dark brown moles, and an overall colouration that was cloudy white. She began to take out the pins that were holding her yellowish-white bunted hair. It fell on her bony shoulders. It was only remarkable for its lack of sheen, volume and definitive colour. Lastly, she took off her stockings that had been held up with a garter belt that felt grimy to the touch. It was hard to look into her eyes, because light came into them but none radiated outwards. They were a cold grey-blue, lacking depth and any sign of friendliness. As Granny and I assisted her into the tub, my nose was assailed by a thunder of odours.

Now I was certain, the nearest creature I'd seen that she resembled, was a buzzard. The loose skin from her scrawny neck hung down in folds, her arms were bluish and her stark skeletal, white legs looked chickenish. She was wrinkled all over like very old translucent parchment paper. What really convinced me that she was a member of the bird of prey family, were her toenails. They were long, hard, slightly curving, yellow weapons -- a raptor would have been envious of them. There had been no Mother-daughter banter between Granny and Nanny, nor any sound from the silent Sphinx when her nails had been trimmed. I wasn't alone in wishing the clock could tick faster.

Granny took a flannel and washed her as I picked up the huge bundle of clothing and carried them to the washing machine and dumped them into the churning water where the agitator greedily sucked them up. It had been a long time since they had been laundered. As if I were an invisible servant, Nanny since she had arrived at the door hadn’t acknowledge my presence.

Next came an event, which was truly daunting. Granny began to cut her talons. The pieces shot around the room like shrapnel. People and pets needed to take cover--especially small children such as myself! I began to pray that our task would soon be over. Fetching Nanny's tea was also part of my job during the day, which didn’t rate an acknowledgement it had been delivered. I made her stout walking shoes fresh with oxblood shoe polish, then buffed them to a high shine. They had brought her to us in the morning and would now take her back in the later afternoon to whence she came.

I was ecstatic when we handed her the paper bag filled with her clean belongings that had hung in bright sunshine, perfumed by gentle warm breezes, then touched up with an iron and carefully folded. Nanny, as usual, hadn’t spoken a word to me. Blessedly, she isn’t due for another visitation ‘til she’s soiled what was put in the makeshift suitcase. As we waved goodbye, the light begin to return to Granny's eyes as she treated me to one of her rare winks along with a bright shiny nickel!

The Mixing Bowl

2006-09-14T17:08:00.000-05:00

My grandmother who preferred to be called 'Granny' used a large thick yelloware bowl for mixing various concoctions. It held bread, cookies, cake mixes, Yorkshire pudding, hot cross buns and a host of other things. Time itself drifts back and forward in that bowl.

The bowl is precious to me because it invokes her image. It is a total experience that includes not only the ingredients, but also the order of them, their scent and hers, her well-worn, gentle hands kneading, stirring, mixing, and blending. I wasn't supposed to be in her kitchen when she was working because she didn't like to be disturbed when she was cooking, but I often found myself there because Granny's kitchen was a place that was cosy and friendly.

My grandmother had been trained as a cook in England and knew her trade very well. As she mixed, she often told me stories from her past that encompassed Queen Victoria to Elizabeth II. She would tell me about Prince Edward who was for a long time suspected to be Jack the Ripper. The first killing was in 1888, White Chapel, London, the year she was born, and were talked about for generations later. She had extensive knowledge of the royal family and it was in the warmth of the wood from the stove that she told them. It was fascinating to hear her East Anglia accented speech that she never completely lost. She often spoke of Norwich where she was born and where she had spent the first twenty-one years of her life. Her first-hand knowledge of history sparked what would be for me an appreciation of history.

As her hands moved, so too did her sapphire twinkling eyes above the bowl. Her pale English complexion was accentuated by rose-tinted cheeks where just below, was soft lips that turned up at the corners. The sound of her laughter echoed the tenderness of her mouth. Her face was round with a slightly pointed chin. The short hair that topped her features was the colour of white flour. Juices often stained the white-faded apron around her ample waist as they flew out of the bowl when she mixed furiously with one of wire whisk beaters. She described modern appliances as lacking 'touch', which were so often imparted into her dishes. Her diminutive stature camouflaged massive character.

Whenever her teeth peeked through her lips when she laughed heartily, they made me giggle, because I so often saw them in the glass alongside the bed we shared for many years. The gusto of her mirth invoked tears down her face that she taught me to do by example.

By having Granny's piece of her yelloware mixing bowl in my possession, where she is permanently etched, my hands followed hers. The continuum of the two of us together is a living memory that resides in that bowl -- it is irreplaceable just like her memories.

Foolish Pride

2006-09-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

The new, for us, apartment in London was enchanting. It was an upstairs duplex consisting of a living room, large bathroom, bedroom and a huge kitchen with a walk-in pantry, stove and an ‘electric’ refrigerator. Those rooms marked a transition from a simpler lifestyle to that of a married woman. Pots and pans, dishes, and everything else that makes a household functional were eagerly accumulated, including a vacuum cleaner. Everything was new. My fresh role as a home administrator held vast tracts of complete unfamiliarity.

It had been completely furnished with a trip to All-Star Furniture on Dundas Street, for the grand sum of $399.00. At that time, much to Haydn’s surprise, I had spoken up and managed to barter two living room lamps that were thrown in at no extra charge. We had splurged on the purchase of a 17” RCA cabinet-style television.

As a new bride, I had managed not to burn the water too severely and was becoming quite masterful with macaroni and cheese from a package. There were many days that a can of brown beans was added to that dish without scorching them beyond edibility.

My next challenge was to be tomorrow – the defrosting of the refrigerator. My landlady, upon questioning, had said there were no manuals for it. She did not volunteer more information about that task. Not wanting to press the issue, I tried to sneak a look at her collection of books about housekeeping. Alas, only cookbooks were in her modest library.

Casting my mind back to my childhood, I recalled the icebox in the kitchen. That didn’t help, because the ice just melted—it didn’t build up the coating that had appeared on this much larger appliance. “I’ll think about that tomorrow,” I rationalized.

Tomorrow came all too soon.

As I was bidding ‘my husband’ (that was such a delightful coupling of words) good day, he commented, “Now I understand you’re going to defrost the fridge today. The way you do …”

“Don’t you believe I know how to do that?”

Indignity arose to replace reason, “How stupid, do you think I am?”

After he left, my thoughts turned to the formidable task of mastering the assignment.

“Hmmm, let me see, ice melts, so it makes sense that I should unplug it.” I pulled the cord, depriving it of its energy to make more ice.

Then I commenced to tidy the rest of our remarkable abode.

About noon, I checked to see how it was doing by opening the door.

There was plentiful water inside!

“No problem, guess it must be almost done,” thought I. With sponge in hand, that was soon cleaned up. Pleasingly, my next chore was to go to the Laundromat that was conveniently only a block away.

There were no other ladies there that afternoon to ask. Pity, because there would have been no shame in revealing my lack of enlightenment about that task to a complete stranger.

Upon returning at 2:00, tea was in order. But, much to my amazement, upon getting the milk to cool my beverage out of the refrigerator, there was more water in the fridge. “Oops, silly me…I guess it takes more than a couple of hours before its finished!”

About 4:00, a leak appeared under the door. But this time, there was only a small pool inside.

My coffee break with the downstairs landlady was a welcome break. She was my elder, but not wanting to betray my naiveté, there was no mention of my defrosting ordeal.

Soon, it was time to begin to prepare dinner for my returning spouse.

There was another puddle of water leaking from it!

“When, will you be done?” I wanted to scream at it!

“A towel to absorb the leakage is what’s needed here,” reasoned I, as the mop-up routine was repeated.

At 6:00 p.m. the towel was removed – it was annoyingly wet!

At 6:30 the second towel was removed – it was only damp.

At 7:00, the third towel was almost dry and safe to remove.

And just in time too, because the sound of approaching steps on the stairway were now welcoming toward my returning partner.

Haydn was pleased to greet me with an eager kiss.

He cheerfully asked, “How did the defrosting go?” My eyes darted to what had become my waterloo as yet another pool had seeped my betrayal.

My foolishness at trying to pretend that I was other than a neophyte at being a wife immediately abandoned me as the tears welled. The flood broke and my anguish surged forth. “I’ve been mopping it up all day. There must be something wrong with it! It just will not stop defrosting.” “Look at it … its doing it again!”

“Did you put a pan under the drain hole?”

“Hole?”

“It has a hole in it?”

He hurried to the pantry, picking the first pot off the shelf. At the same time, he gently eased the electrical cord back in, opened the door and put the pan under the freezer opening.

“Do they all have holes?”

“Yes dear, they all have a drain hole, that is how the water exits when they are being defrosted.”

“Oh!” The rain of tears gushed again.

His arms enfolded me and kissed them away.

Veggie & Fruit Patch

2006-06-18T23:36:00.000-05:00

What I missed most while building our new house was not being able to garden. Two years ago we were able to do some landscaping and all the structure was laid out at the front of the house. As well, I managed to find a source of used railway ties that weren't rotten and we used them at the sides and in one area at the back of the house that butts up to the deck which Haydn completed last summer.

Before the rear deck was finished, I had decided to try my hand at Square foot gardening. The raised beds were made using 2x4's, pathways haven't been finished. The problems with pathway materials are: small rocks and stones get hot, slate, flagstone and brick are too expensive for the number that would be required, critters live in mulches, and I'm not keen on the appearance created using landscape fabric. Because the pathways in my yard are close to being beach sand and not much grows in them, the sand is preferable to any of the aforementioned materials. I'm playing with the idea of making designs in the sand paths, but haven't as yet firmed up my ideas about how to do it and/or how designs could be incorporated.

This was the plan I drew up for the first year 2005 garden plan. There were minor changes made to that plan. The rectangle at the bottom right-hand corner, labelled 'Greenhouse' is black metal with 4 shelves in a frame with a plastic cover that has a zipper. It is handy for hardening plants to being outside or to use 'til the weather warms up. (Melons, squash, tomatoes, peppers, and beans don't do well until there is a sustained period of higher temperatures.)

Several books recommended a soil sample be taken to succeed with a new vegetable garden. The sample revealed a condition that is very difficult to correct. The pH was 7.5. There aren't many plants that thrive in alkaline soils. All the chemicals that were suggested by the lab technician I added to correct the imbalance.

I didn’t take any pictures of my garden the first year that I planted it, but I did take several the following year after the rear deck was finished, the summer of 2006. I’ll post those later.

Completing the Kitchen

2006-04-19T05:28:00.000-05:00

We shopped ‘til we dropped looking at Kitchen designs that we liked. Read kitchen design books, architectural magazines, and went to a couple of home shows. I also surfed the Internet and printed pictures of kitchens. Then we went to Phillmore Enterprises in London, Ontario and looked at the kiln-dried wood they had for sale. I bought three fairly large samples from them in hickory, cherry, walnut, maple and white elm. The elm that he had was particularly striking...excellent variation in colour and he had lots of it. It was the cheapest of the woods we would compare.

Haydn, being a yacht manufacturer, does have teak in stock in limited quantities. He had built teak cupboards for our motorhome that we knew how to finish.

Our final decision was to make them out of Hickory, with small Walnut accent squares in the corners of the doors. He would also build an octagon-shaped eating table at the end of the island in teak. The finishing strip for the counters would be teak because it’s impervious to water and if it gets damaged, marks and scratches sand out.

I tried to get an account at a kitchen supply store for hinges, knobs and sliders, but their minimum order was far beyond what we would need.

We used White Melamine for the bases. It’s important to order enough Melamine to ensure the colour of the white remains constant for the entire construction. There is quite a variance in the colour white. If you think of melamine as having a dye lot, you will understand why you need to make all the bases with the same dye lot.

He built all the bases at the shop. It took several trips to get them all home.

He started at the edge of the wall backing on to the Master Bathroom and worked his way counterclockwise to the edge of the dining room sliding door. The Closet cabinet is the full 6’6” height of the cabinets. It has one permanent upper horizontal shelf that gives it stability and storage for buckets, tall cleaning supplies, paper towels, etc. It’s 20 1/2" deep x 30” wide. He installed the on/off switch, a receptacle, a central vacuum cleaner outlet and put the bracket for hanging the hose on the inside of the cabinet. The hose reaches everywhere in the house except the Master bedroom, which doesn’t require as frequent vacuuming as other more heavily travelled and frequently used rooms. Opposite the vacuum hose, he put in a 1' wide storage cabinet with two shelves for smaller bottles, cleaning supplies, whisks, dusting wands, extra pads for the floor polisher and miscellaneous other equipment. The vacuum hose curls on the bracket with the power head standing upright & remains hooked to the hose. There is lots of room for mops, brooms and swifters. All I need to do when I use the vacuum is take the power head out, remove the hose from the bracket, and turn the switch on. I looked forward to having such a convenient vacuuming system. The other outlet is in the hallway, opposite the laundry area. The Master bedroom only needs to be vacuumed every other week. We had placed a sweep-in type outlet (the technical or tradename is vac pans) opposite the garage door, because that’s where we come in on a daily basis. I keep a broom in the closet on the landing so I don’t have to bring the power head down the stairs. Normally, the stairs are just swept and any dirt is swept into the automatic vac pan. There’s an additional vacuum outlet in the garage.

Next to the large closet is the pantry. The face of it is on a 45 degree angle. Haydn made the pantry like a bookcase. It’s also 6’6” high x 30” wide x 20 1/2" deep at one end, narrowing to 8 1/2" at the other end. One permanent shelf is in the middle at 3’3”. The rest of the pantry is made up of melamine shelves, supported by shelf pins in drilled holes. The bottom storage area has two shelves, with the top having four. We should have put roll out shelves in the pantry, rather than the fixed shelves, but that can be added later. There is more than enough storage in the pantry for anything I would need to put there. The roll out shelves would just be a convenience.

The wall now cuts back from the edge of the pantry and accommodates bases the rest of the cabinets for the kitchen all the same depth. Here is the first bank of drawers, 22” wide. The finished height with the counters will be 35”. I did manage to convince Haydn that I needed the bottom cupboards to be reduced in height because of my 5’1” height, but I agreed to the cupboards being only 1” shorter than standard cupboards, because Haydn is much taller at 5’11”.

There were no bottom cabinets needed for 5' because that's where the upright freezer and the 100% fridge are located. We tried our best not to have corners in the kitchen cabinets, but it just isn’t possible. Had we placed the refrigerator closer to the corner, we would need access into the cabinet that abutted up to it, so it is best to have a cabinet that’s wide enough to put a bi-fold door on to get into the corners. That L-shaped cabinet butts up to the refrigerator and ends at the cabinet for the sink.

The next cabinet was very problematic for me. It was the cabinet that houses the kitchen sink. Because the window opposite the sink is a deep bay window, I couldn’t reach across to get to the two window openers and certainly couldn’t reach to the back of the fixed window unless part of it was cut back. It does narrow the horizontal opening under the sink to being only 17” wide with the two 8” 45 degree angled pieces at each side that aren’t accessible. Haydn studied that dilemma for the longest time before he came up with that solution. It did make that base cupboard difficult to build. It was now much too late for him to trade me in for a wife that had longer arms. :-)

The opening for the built-in dishwasher butted the angled cabinet.

The second set of 4 drawers was next at 17” wide with one of them being a larger drawer at the bottom possibly for bread.

The final cabinet that butts up to the sliding glass door is another angled 45o base cabinet. It's 19” wide x 33” high x 24” wide at one end, narrowing down to 12” next to the door.

Hadyn elected to put up the three wall cabinets before starting to assemble the island cabinets. To the left of the sink is an upper cabinet that has 3 shelves for dishes, glassware and cups.

Because of the bay window, there wasn’t any room to put an upper cabinet to the right of the sink. That worked out very well, because there is just enough room to put two upper cabinets butting up to the refrigerator.

The cabinet beside the upright freezer housed the microwave oven with a short upper cabinet storage above with one shelf.

It took an entire week of Haydn getting home early and working ‘til approximately 11:00 o’clock every night to put the uppers and lowers in place.

Assembly of the Kitchen Island:

More angled cupboards had to be put in place to the right of the slide-in oven in order for there to be enough room for the door of the dish washing machine to be fully extended. It’s kinda hard to describe: first piece is 7” wide, next to it would be an opening that requires a bi-fold type door on a piano hinge. Its 10” across on a 45 degree angle. Then there's a cupboard for pots and pans in the end of the island that’s 17” wide. Another 10” 45 degree angle piece to match the other angle (or it would look unbalanced and wouldn’t be pleasing to the eye). The final piece to that base island cabinet is a straight piece 7” wide.

The slide-in oven needed only a small cabinet to have a piece at the back of the oven that encloses it. It’s 30”. It has shelves for cups accessible from the dining room side.

To the left of the slide-in oven is my dream mixing area. It’s 30” wide x 30” high with a finished surface with the countertop installed of 32” in height. I had never had a custom-sized mixing area in any of the other houses we’ve built.

Let me explain the dynamics of being vertically challenged. Suppose you wanted to mash some potatoes. When the counters are too high, you can’t exert enough downward pressure without standing on your tip toes or moving the bowl to a location that is lower down, such as putting it in the sink. If you’re short and try to mix potatoes on a counter that is too high, just the simple act of mixing places the wrists at an awkward angle. If you have to beat with your wrists in that position, your arms get tired very, very quickly. Not more than 30 seconds and you’ll feel your arms tiring. In order to convince Haydn I really needed that mixing area at that height, I asked him to squat down to my height. Then I handed him a bowl with whole potatoes in it, gave him the potato masher and said, “Okay, now feel what it’s like just for that simple task” He didn’t believe me ‘til he actually tried it. Within 45 seconds, he said, “I now see why you need them that low.” He didn’t give me any more hassle and just built the cupboards to that height. Now I don’t have to put bowls in the sink—-I can just use that area like a person with normal height without getting tired. If you have really strong arms, you might not feel the pressure on your arms ‘til you try mixing something that takes longer like whipping cream. I now use that area whenever I’m making bread or other tasks that require my wrists to be at the optimal angle. I can’t rave enough about the height of this mixing area...lived all my life ‘til I was more than 60 years old to have an area that is at the right height for my size. Someone taller than me has now used that area and finds the lower height convenient for them too. So perhaps 36” isn’t the proper height for anyone? I don’t know, just know that 36” is far too high for me.

The finished surface of the mixing area is Maple. Maple is the traditional source that breadboards are made from--it's a very dense hardwood.

Under the mixing area are three drawers for mixing bowls, flour and the ubiquitous junk drawer that everyone has in their kitchen.

Next to the mixing area is a narrow 6” cupboard with three shelves that houses only spice-sized bottles. I have an extra shelf mounted on the wall above the dishwasher. It's for extra tall spice bottles in glass containers with fancy lids.

The final base cabinet is angled to accommodate the octangon-shaped teak surface that goes above it. I won’t describe it because a picture is much better than words.

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Above the slide-in range, Haydn installed the custom Hickory ventilation hood he had designed and built. Inside, it has a updraft vent that hooks up to a duct that goes to the top of the roof--steam and heat is driven up it and exits outside. It's powered by a fan within the duct. It also has a fluorescent light. To finish the underside off, we had been lucky enough to find a pot rack in a kitchen store that was very well designed. It was made out of wood with a stainless steel grid. The large hooks were stainless--just had to buy an extra six hooks.

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The countertops are made from large, dark green, 18" square, porcelain tiles. When we picked up the tiles, we had the supplier cut two of them with his special water wheel because they would be needed beside the sink where it’s cut back. I had taken a template of the area where they would be installed and left it with the professional to cut. We figured if those two tiles were cut professionally, they wouldn’t crack from the constant use. They charged us $25.00 for cutting those two tiles. In less than two years, both of those tiles started to have hairline cracks in them. Now the cracks have widened enough to make them visible. I do have to be careful that I don’t cut in those areas, because germs build up in cracks. There is no point to just having another two pieces cut, because they were cut correctly the first time. There just isn’t enough surface area for the porcelain tiles not to crack again. So we either have to find another material that will fit in that small area around the sink or replace the entire tile in the kitchen. We possibly wouldn’t have to replace the porcelain tile on the island if we could find something that would co-ordinate perfectly with whatever new surface we put on the cupboards that face the backyard and butt up to the refrigerator.

I hadn’t wanted to use conventional Formica countertop material—it doesn’t stand up to high heat and it scratches over time. I also rejected Corian counters for the same reason. Copper and stainless steel is impervious to heat. I could live with copper, but it discolours. Stainless steel also would work, but it’s too modern for my kitchen. That leaves only expensive, thick, heavy, granite at approximately $150/foot installed—-I’m still saving my pennies to be able to afford that. We would have to pay someone to install granite because we’re not capable of installing that material ourselves. Thar, you see we do know our limitations, Carpeting AND Granite are beyond our abilities! :-) I understand Granite isn’t perfect…it’s a porous material and some spills can leak into the surface if it’s not sealed on a regular basis.

Perhaps what we’ll do is go to Corian, taking a piece of our porcelain tile with us and see what ideas they come up with to match the porcelain tile or co-ordinate with it. The porcelain tile is perfect—it stands up to high heat, is extremely easy to maintain, always has a lovely shine and isn't a porous material, but we just can’t use it in a small part of the counter. If the area was kept to a minimum, I do believe I could avoid putting a hot pot where the Corian would be installed.

Another option that I just thought of is to replace the tiles around the sink with teak. I’ll mention that to Haydn and see if there is a way to just cut that area out and put teak in its place. Teak is thick and wouldn’t be at the same level unless the 1” piece of plywood that the 1/4" tile was glued onto was removed. Hey...that just might work! The teak would match the surface of the eating area and wouldn’t be obtrusive. It would also provide me with a surface that would stand up to cutting all around the sink. You can put hot pots on teak. If it does stain, it can be sanded out. That is a job Haydn would be able to do ... just don’t know when and if he’d be willing to do it! :) I would gladly pay someone else to do it, but I highly doubt that he’d allow a tradesman to come into this house that he's built with such love, precision and attention to detail, and start messing with his creation. :) I can live with the cracked procelain tiles as long as he can ... so there’s no rush.

Update: (This comment added 2007...a gentleman came into the shop late June, with samples of very thin granite, that we possibly will use to replace all the porcelin tiles. We'd have to see that thin granite in place on a kitchen counter before ripping all the porceline ones off.)

All that remains now is to install the cork flooring. I’ll leave that for another chapter.

You’ll have to excuse me if some of the pictures of our completed kitchen cupboards show the cork flooring. I don’t believe I have any pictures of the cupboards in progress before the flooring was laid.

My special mixing area isn't shown on the photographs, but it's between the slide-in stove and the eating area where the stools are.

Laundry Area and Bathroom

2006-04-18T02:37:00.000-05:00

We used the same ceramic tile we had laid in the Ensuite for the flooring in the Laundry Area. Haydn had installed a vent that exited outside for the dryer. He then installed the electrical receptacle for the washing machine. Above the two appliances, I hooked up an electrical receptacle for an iron or other low voltage electrical device.

We put a shelf to span both appliances with a shorter tier shelf above the dryer. The last item was a light above the area with a switch on the wall in the hall.

Then the washer and dryer were moved from the garage into the laundry area and bi-fold doors added in front of them to enclose the area when the machines weren’t in use.

The linen closet had its shelves added too along with a door.

Because the hallway connected to the railings above the staircase, it was necessary to use a very long handled roller to paint the ceilings above the staircase. A long stick with a paintbrush taped to it was used for the top of the walls where the ceilings met.

Haydn had to have one of the men from the shop to help him get the walnut/cherry stairs from the shop into a truck to bring it home to replace the construction stairs we had used. He installed the balusters and spindles above the staircase in the hallway. The spindles and balusters I had varnished in the basement, but not the finished railing at the top. That was finished with the dark brown paint that I had used on the stools for what would be the octagon-shaped, teak eating area at the end of the kitchen island. Two ceiling Tiffany lamps were installed in the hallway ceilings.

A hanging Tiffany-style fixture was added to the area above the staircase as well as a Tiffany ceiling light between the two closets at the entrance to/from the garage. The two lights were sufficient--closet lights didn’t need to be added.

I intended to make a hanging gallery for art and framed family pictures on the tall wall opposite the spindles & balusters. Because of the open concept of the living/dining and kitchen area, there aren’t many places in the house to hang pictures.

Next order of business was my bathroom! Yabba, dabba, doo!!! I really did not like using the shower in the ensuite.

A white 5’ bathtub was installed with a matching white tub surround. I like white fixtures in bathrooms--it's a clean, fresh look and easy to maintain. The top of the tub surround was finished with a row of navy-blue 2” shiny ceramic tiles as a border. I do like temperature controls. I combined it with Victorian-type manual taps with the letters, “H” and “C” on a small white ceramic button in the middle. A large 9" downpour shower rain head was installed above the taps. The vertical sides of the tub surround were finished with a white twisted-rope style 1” ceramic edging. I didn’t want to use glass tub doors because they’re a pain in the arse to keep clean. IMHO, it’s much better and more economical to use a curtain with a clear plastic lining. The one that I chose was a medium blue on white, French Toile pattern. I was lucky enough to find shower hooks that were very similar to the Victorian taps.

Haydn does all the installation of plumbing in the house—my job was just to pick out the fixtures that are needed.

I had bought two toilets from Canadian Tire that were on sale. Both of them had to be replaced. Their flushing mechanism was very inefficient. It was no bargain buying them, because one of them got broke and the other we didn’t consider that a toilet that didn’t flush properly was any good so they were just put in the shop’s garbage bin and hauled it away. I did have to pay a little more for the American Standard toilets and Haydn made sure they weren’t the low flush models. Toilets that use a bit more water to flush are still sold in some stores—-we searched 'til we found them. Usually building codes protect an ower, but if there isn't enough water for something to function efficintly, the building code becomes a punishment and a source of frustration. The low flush toilets don't save any water, when they have to be flushed twice! :-)

Haydn hadn't finished making the Hickory cabinet for my bathroom as yet. The doors and the drawers hadn't been fitted. I had always wanted a long counter that had an opening where a chair or a bench could be placed for applying make-up or to be able to sit down while drying my hair. There will be a narrow drawer above the chair or bench that spans the distance from the edge of the vanity to the wall. Navy-blue ceramic tile was used for the top of the vanity with small, multi-coloured, predominately blue glass tiles for the backsplash above it.

The 5’ wide mirror I had purchased with full-length piano hinged wings was installed above the vanity. A Victorian-style oval fluted sink was installed into the vanity with a chrome 3-lighted, fixture above the mirror and sink. Handled Victorian taps completed the bathroom sink’s vanity.

Later he installed an automatic motion sensor to turn the lights on and off because he complained that I frequently forgot to turn the lights off in my bathroom. The only problem I’ve had using that motion sensor is when I run my bath and get into it, I’ve forgotten to take it off the automatic setting and end up in the dark because I’m too low in the tub for the sensor to know that I’m there. Small penalty to pay for not being smart enough to remember to switch it to manual before getting into the tub. I forget often and one of these days, those small payments may result in an ordinary switch being installed, since I know how to replace that type of device myself. I know I wouldn’t get Haydn’s approval to replace it—-there isn’t much possibility he would voluntarily take it out himself.

The door to the bathroom with a white and blue ceramic knob was the last item. Fantastic to have my own bathroom and I betcha Haydn was glad to see me out of his. I did grumble about not having a bathtub to use. My much larger bathroom was heavenly. My toiletries quickly filled the drawers and the space in the vanity--marvellous to have them all in one place and be able to space them out so they can be found. I always liked motel rooms that had wall-hung hair dryers ... one was added convenient to my chair.

It’s now mid July and we haven’t been working like demons to get the house finished. Several times we’ve taken the opportunity to drive our RV to a quiet camping place and commune with nature. We’ve discussed driving it to South Carolina at Christmas time this year for a much-needed holiday.

Vanity with bench (Hickory doors & drawers not installed):

That brass light fixture looked tacky! Come to think of it, I didn't pay much for it :-) The replacement has simpler lines--three straight, white, frosted-glass shades. Three was a better scale for the room and the mirror.

Tub/Shower:

Rope Ceramic Strip:

Portion of Picture Wall above stairs:

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Next ... we’ll concentrate on completing the kitchen.

Pictures of Finished Rooms

2006-04-12T08:18:00.000-05:00

Master Bedroom:

That's the closest I could get to the colour of the carpeting. It's still not light enough, and the tint isn't quite right, but it's close enough. I wonder why digital cameras don't depict some colours accurately?

Ensuite:

The Big Day Arrived

2006-04-12T05:23:00.000-05:00

We had rented a moving truck from Ryder Truck Rental—the same one we had used when we moved from London to our apartment. It had a hydraulic lift gate on the back. The truck was big enough to hold all our furniture. One of the men who worked for us has a commercial license. Quite a bit of stuff was still in storage on the upper floor at our shop. We did drop by and picked up some things, but the bulk of it stayed there.

We had them load the bedroom furniture last, because it would be the first to come off. Haydn had given me strict instructions that no furniture was to be placed until the rooms were finished. He despises working around furniture.

Did I tell you about the system that I had developed when we moved from our house in London? I carefully made lists of "everything" we packed into boxes. Then I gave the boxes unique sequential numbers. I typed all my written lists into Excel. My thinking was that if I needed to locate something, by using the Find feature in Excel, I wouldn’t have to search through boxes to find things. The first time I had the occasion to try out my system, in seconds I found what I was looking for and knew exactly which number box where an item was located. This particular box was at our shop. I drove there. I knew exactly which box I needed, but much to my chagrin, the boxes were haphazardly piled on top of each other and the numbers weren’t visible. Additionally, heavy stuff had been piled on top of the boxes that had no connection with the stuff from our house that I had so carefully labelled.

What’s that they say about, “The Best Laid Plans O' Mice and Men?” Or in my case, “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Women!" :)

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I hate to say this, but there still are boxes at that location coming up more than four years later. I do know what’s in them, but they still have tons of crapola on them. There’s a small possibility the boxes could be exposed this Spring. Most of the stuff that’s in those boxes will probably be good for a garage sale. :)

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I did repeat the same procedure that I had used for making lists and labelling boxes when we moved from our apartment into our new house. This time I would monitor how the boxes were stacked and where they were put. :) The ones that contained our clothing and linens, I had the men put in the truck at the very last. They and the bedroom furniture would come off first.

There’s a set of very narrow stairs leading up to our apartment. Those stairs had to be reinforced for the men to come up and get our furniture. Even after they reinforced the stairs, I had visions of the stairs collapsing when they were carrying stuff down. Thankfully, it didn’t happen. They truck took only two hours to load and not much more to empty.

The boxes were stacked inside the garage. The stack of boxes at the sides was about 6’ high…the one at the back was a daunting 12'. I made them turn the boxes so I could see the numbers. No point numbering boxes unless you can see what the numbers are on the boxes. The experience of the boxes at the shop had taught me that lesson all too well. All the furniture was piled into the middle of the garage.

I didn’t dare take my eyes off to set up the bedroom furniture before all the furniture and boxes were in the garage.

When that was complete, two of the men helped me to put the frames on the bed and lift the queen-sized box spring and mattress onto the frames. I had known exactly where I wanted each piece that came into the master bedroom. Our clothing boxes were stacked in the study as well as the linens. There were no shelves yet in the linen closet nor had there been enough time for priming and painting. The only completed rooms were the master bedroom, dressing area and the 3-piece bathroom.

I made the bed and found some towels and face cloths we could use. How stunning and inviting it looked. Added some wild flowers I found outside in the backyard and put them in a vase that I had kept in the car, because I knew I would want at least one accessory for us to enjoy.

The men and the truck left about 3:00 o’clock and we were now alone in our new house. What an enchanting day it was. Our dinner that night was prepared on the BBQ and I used one burner on my new gas stove to prepare the vegetables.

Our daughter and her family dropped by that evening – they didn’t come empty-handed. They gave us a house warming gift – four gorgeous big Hosta plants for our garden, a couple of flowering bushes, a bottle of wine, and a very thoughtful card they had all signed with hugs and kisses. The card read, “Congratulations on your new home!” We were very touched by their generosity, their love for us and their heartfelt message. Christine agreed that the rooms that were finished were nothing short of ‘stunning’. Her choice of adjective to describe them echoed our thoughts.

She helped me put up the curtains for our bedroom. Then we went into the garage and found and hung some pictures that completed the room. One was a big framed mirror above the bed, with two framed needlepoint pictures, one above the other to add balance to the large mirror. Haydn’s Dad had crafted those pictures and given them to us as Christmas presents years ago. He’s dead now, but we always appreciated the amount of work he had put into those needlepoint canvases. One was an old lady in a rocking chair with a colourful blanket on her lap. The other was an old man with a cane. It was an unusual hobby for a man who had worked in steel construction all his life beginning that career in Sheffield, England. His engineering background gave him the patience to do needlework that was 18 stitches to the inch. He often individualized the patterns he bought. The back of his work was almost indistinguishable from the front. He was a master at needlepoint. Not a mistake was to be found in any of his work. Like Haydn, he was a perfectionist.

One year he and Haydn’s sister, Susan, combined their talents and made both Christine and I crocheted and knitted Afghans. Dad did the knitting and Susan the crochet. Ours were crocheted baskets of flowers with our last initial worked into the design. Dad knitted the off-white wool squares and Susan had added the crochet work and joined the squares together with a border in olive green. Christine’s was similar without the initial. It was another floral design on off-white wool squares combined with a deep red border. Both were magnificent—-a family heirloom to take care of that would last the two of us for the rest of our lives. Dad and Susan are very talented. Their gifts are family treasures, given and received with love. Each year they accompanied their gifts with hand-made Christmas ornaments for the tree. After Dad died, Susan carried on what had become a family tradition by continuing to make the ornaments. Her daughter helped her to make some of them. I have one small tree that I dedicated to those Christmas gifts. It’s now full after receiving them for more than 40 years. Christine too has a very handsome collection that she puts on her trees every year.

We miss Dad and have continued to get together every year at Christmas to mark the occasion and celebrate as a family. The family has grown, with each of our children having their own families to swell the number of the chairs that are needed for the seating of all of us. Susan’s son hasn't married yet, but one day he will and then he and his bride will add their progeny too.

Breanna, our granddaughter, will be 17 this June. Tory, our grandson, will be 16 in December. Soon they will complete high school, be off to College or University and get married. The number of chairs will increase in relation to the number of children they have. Will there be a talented crafter among them that will make the ornaments?

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Another thing that was remarkable about our moving day was, the date -- June 1st -— it marks Breanna and my birthday. She was 13 and I turned 60. It was a very happy day for all. Christine had made a cake —- we light the candles. Breanna and I blew them out.

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The next day was Sunday and we would be getting up to complete more on the house. I had priming and painting left to do. Haydn had begun to mill the rough cherry wood for the floor in the hall and beyond the foyer.

His next task was the replace the temporary construction stairs he had put in place with cherry and walnut stairs. He had completed them at the shop and would be bringing them home later in the week to install. He’ll bring one of his men to give him some assistance putting them in. The stairs are far too heavy for me to give him assistance.

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What will be on our agenda over the coming months:

Install the permanent cherry and walnut stairs
Replace the temporary lighting above the stairs with a hanging fixture
Light between the two closets on the landing from the garage
Lights in both closets

Finish the priming and painting in each of the rooms
Put interior doors on and fit knobs
Finish the varnishing of the wood trim and put it in place in each room

Shelves in the Linen Closet
Door for the linen Closet
Light in the Linen Closet

Ceramic tile in the laundry area
Dryer vent and electrical box for the washer
Bi-fold doors on the laundry area
Shelving above the washer and dryer
Light above the washer and dryer

Put the bathtub and shower in my bathroom, the toilet and the vanity.
Install a fibreglass tub surround
Install the 3-way mirror I had bought to go over the vanity
Make and install a cabinet under the vanity
Install the sink into the vanity
Install ceramic tile on the vanity
Small ceramic border above the vanity
Light over the mirror
Ceramic flooring

Ceramic flooring in the foyer
Light in the foyer
Light in the foyer closet

Install the cherry flooring between the foyer and kitchen extending into the hallway area
Light fixture in the foyer
Varnish the flooring—they would take several coats
Give the stairs a final varnish coat:
Haydn had pre-varnished the stairs with a couple of coats while he has building it at the shop, but it would need a final coat

Install a light fixture in the dining room
Install an overhead fluorescent light in the kitchen
Install a light fixture above the sink
Install a switch that lights up the stained glass window in the dining room. (The design for the stained glass window was one that I copied that had hung in Mark Twain's house)

Continue making the kitchen cupboards at the shop (Hickory with small Walnut squares in the corners of the cabinet doors) Haydn would finish all the varnish that was necessary for the cupboards at the shop where they can dry, free of dust, and have additional coats as needed
Install the bottom cupboards when they are finished
Install the kitchen sink and the faucet
Install the top cupboards when they are finished
Install the knobs on the kitchen doors
Paint the legs and the backs of the kitchen stools chocolate brown to approximate the dark walnut of the squares in the cabinet doors
Install cork flooring in the kitchen

Have carpeting laid in the spare bedroom and in the living/dining room

Think of some way to finish the cables
Put a railing and spindles above the stairs
Varnish the railing and spindles above the stairs

Finish the columns out front with fieldstone. One each side of the garage complete with planters and two without planters for the porch as per the plans
Install steps faced with flagstone for the front steps
Install a railing and spindles between the pillars at the front to finish the porch
Install a hose bib on the front porch
Place the cedar arch we owned that we had in the backyard at the base of what will be a curved walkway
Build a flagstone, curving walkway to the front door from the driveway
Define garden beds at the front with stone
Possibly put a small flagstone path in front of the bed below the porch

Landscape the front and rear by planting an alternative to grass

Build a deck at the rear off the dining room

Define the garden beds that butt up to the house with railway ties
Build a small railway tie wall out the front to hold back the dirt

Insulate the basement walls
Complete a Craft Room in the basement
Complete a Spare Bedroom in the basement
Decide if there will be plumbing below grade
Build a second Fireplace in the basement
Complete a Games Room in the basement
Complete a Work Room in the basement
Complete a Cold Storage Room in the basement
Complete a Gardening Area in the basement for growing and starting plants indoors

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All these things are not going to get done in one year! We’ll just take our time and work away at it. We’ll have to see how co-operative the building inspector is and how much time the Village of Grand Bend will allow us to complete the house to their satisfaction. Like several municipalities, we weren’t supposed to move in ‘til it was complete. Let’s hope it takes less than 13 years for us to finalize this last house we’ll ever build.

Move In Date Approaching

2006-04-11T03:10:00.000-05:00

Our notice to be out of our apartment was June 1, 2002, making it almost 2 years since the buying of the land (2000) and our move in date. We did a lot of work that doesn’t show up in the physical building of the house, but it was necessary to enable the construction to begin in the Spring of 2001. Plans and permits had to be submitted to the municipality, arrangements had to be made for subcontractors to dig the basement, and begin the septic bed. Arrange credit terms with suppliers … there’s a lot of planning that goes into building your own house if the finished product will be something you’re enthused about the quality of it. Some lots require fill—ours didn’t. The house that we lived in had to get the best price in order to have enough money to build our retirement home without taking out a mortgage. Lawyers are involved in the initial stages of buying property. Real estate people have to be contacted to give market assessments on the value of the property you’re selling. That all takes time and contributes to the success of the building project, albeit delayed in our case to the Spring of the following year.

We knew it was beyond our capabilities to have the house finished by 2002. Did we rush out and hire subcontractors? No, we did not. From the houses we’ve built in the past and the quality of the work we’ve seen, why would we pay someone else to do inferior work? We’ll just take our time. We don’t work quickly, but the standards will be ours and we’ll save a bundle of money by insisting our standards are met even though we have to do it ourselves.

I had purchased a new range that had gas burners and a convection oven, along with a Wood’s all refrigerator and upright freezer. Those three appliances needed to be hooked up. If possible it was preferable to have the walls behind those two large appliances painted including the ceiling above them.

That was what we targeted.

The oven because the burners were gas had to be installed by a licensed gas fitter. We made the arrangements to have one come to the house in May. I had to go and pick it up because the place where I bought it was a scratch and dent appliance store. The refrigerator, freezer and dishwasher would be delivered in May.

First we put the drywall up in the 3-piece bathroom off the master bedroom followed by the dressing room and what would be our new bedroom. I now went to the house by myself in the daytime in order not to impede Haydn joining me in the late afternoons.

The walls were primed. The finished colour we chose to paint the interior was Northern White “Bleached Cotton.” It’s a white we fell in love with when we painted our house in London. It has a slight yellowish tinge to make it warm. It takes on the colours of the furniture in the rooms. It doesn’t give rooms a stark, cold feeling; on the contrary, it makes them light, airy and relaxing. What I discovered when I removed all the wallpaper from the house we were selling was, we both liked it much better. The furniture doesn’t compete with patterns on the walls, making them the focus of the room along with paintings and accents that are added. I told Haydn he had my permission to shoot me if I ever said I wanted to put wallpaper up again. :) We didn’t have the ceiling paint tinted, just used white ceiling paint.

I do like to paint in the daytime and by electing to go there during the day, it speeded the project up substantially.

Haydn installed a walk-in shower with glass doors with two glass panels at the sides. Then he installed the toilet. It’s a very small room, but big enough for a good-sized pedestal sink. Because he’s finicky about the shower head he uses, I had removed a German-made head from our previous house. It wasn’t in place when we showed the house. He preferred chrome, single handle, temperature setting, anti-scald plumbing faucets for both his shower and sink.

The dressing room was a conundrum. There were two doors, one leading into the bathroom and another one from the bedroom. With having to redesign the back of the house so there could be a window in the kitchen, it really isn’t big enough for two people. We had done the best we could with the interior design and promised each other we would build an addition onto the back of the bedroom at a later time. Room for hanging clothes, and shelves had to fitted into an L-shape. Corners in dressing rooms make it not feasible for all clothes to be equally accessible. Haydn did bite the bullet and said he'd willingly put his sweaters and folding clothes there. What a peach of man he is! :)

We didn’t buy top of the line California closet and storage units because of the temporary nature of their fate.

The carpet we chose for the room was in golden hues. We picked it out together and brought samples home to see how they looked in the light where they were intended to be installed. It isn’t a high pile, but it’s not so tightly woven as Sisal. Our's does have a muted pattern. One of the criteria was it had to be kind to our feet. The same carpeting extends into the dressing room from the master bedroom. We don’t skimp on the price of carpeting, but we don’t buy the ‘the’ most expensive carpeting in the store. Just spend enough for it to last a long time, retain its shape, colour and not show wear spots where it’s more heavily travelled. Good underlay gives softness, bounces back under constant use and provides insulation against cold air.

The flooring in the bathroom would be reddish/brown ceramic tile, with a Tuscan look. This is fairly close to what we picked:

While Haydn was installing the plumbing in the bathroom, I primed the walls and ceiling in the kitchen and finish painted the ceilings and the wall where the refrigerator and the freezer would be placed.

We didn’t have a sink in the kitchen and wouldn’t be hooking up the dishwasher until the bottom cupboards were made and installed.

All that remained to be done was install the doors in the bedroom area, varnish the Hickory trim, and affix the doorknobs. The doors were painted with white high-gloss paint after they were hung. I used Sikkin’s clear marine epoxy varnish that Haydn uses for boats in high-gloss finish. One gallon of it goes a long way. It doesn’t change the natural colour of the wood or cast a yellow hue. On Teak it breathes moisture out of the wood while preventing it from sinking it. That’s one of the reasons boat builders use it. It’s also very durable, and is almost impervious to water. The Hickory needed two coats. That’s a very hard hardwood. It’s difficult to mill because its so hard. Cupboard manufacturers sometimes use it to make breadboards instead of Maple. We looked at several different types of wood before we decided on using Hickory.

He bought enough rough Hickory to do all the trim in the house as well as the cupboards. I assisted a couple of times with the milling of the wood, but mostly the guys at the shop and Haydn milled it. I did do all the varnishing and helped Haydn place it around the rooms.

The flooring installers came and laid the under padding and the carpeting. The rooms looked fantastic! Three rooms, ready for furniture! What a feat! We treated ourselves to a bottle of wine in celebration of all the work we’d done.

With eager anticipation we looked forward to our moving date.

Exterior Clad

2006-04-08T01:36:00.000-05:00

We would have preferred to use wood siding but after seeing how our daughter’s deteriorated in less than ten years, we decided not to use it. At the speed their siding was rotting, they were wise to put it up for sale.

We also didn’t choose brick because the footings weren’t wide enough to support the weight.

That does narrow down our choices. Because this is our retirement home, we needed something that wouldn’t require constant maintenance. Haydn's days of climbing ladders are numbered and for me to climb them is not an option after my experience of fracturing my wrist because of an unsecured ladder.

"Vinyl is Final!" or so the salesmen claim. We did have vinyl siding at our house in London. That house had architectural interest added with panels of white stucco. There was one panel of siding at the back that needed attendance over the period we lived there—it had been installed incorrectly.

We considered vertical vinyl siding, but couldn’t find anything we liked. Nor could we locate any horizontally applications that satisfied the designer’s concept. We attended quite a few home shows and all the clad was a boring repetition of each other's booths. I turned to the Internet to find some siding that was pleasing.

Gentek Canada came up. Their line of Northern Forest siding was perfect for our application. The profile we chose was the double 5”

It’s maintenance free, and is guaranteed for 40 years.

The colour we picked was Willow.

It isn't apparent from that small two-dimensional sample, but it has black, dark to light gray and white mixed in with the predominate greenish-gray background. Some of the other colors are raised, giving the siding the most natural look to wood we’d ever seen in a vinyl product. The colour isn't depicted accurately; it has more green, and brown muted with gray.

There was a dealer for it in Sarnia, which is within a one hour drive from us. It looked even better when we saw the samples that I had seen on the Internet. It comes in 10’ lengths and would require a flat-bed trailer when it was ready for pickup. There are numerous channel mouldings, J, D and special window finishing mouldings as well as starter strips. The lead time was six weeks.

The advance time was just enough for us to finish more of the inside before starting the exterior siding. We gave our notice at our apartment and knew when we moved into the house, it wouldn’t be complete. We’re accustomed to roughing it. We have moved into a couple of houses that we've built and finished them while living there.

The least finished was the house we built overlooking a small inland lake. I slept in the unfinished living room on a 5 foot long vinyl chesterfield with a pig trough we used to mix cement for the three-storey fireplace we were building. No one else would have fitted on it. One night I awoke with a mouse just inches from my face. Yes, I screamed and woke up both Haydn & Christine from their sound sleeps. The two of them were sleeping in the only finished room in the house. Amazing, how quickly that changed! :)

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Did I tell you that when we sold our house in London, I had to call the City of London Planning Department to get a final inspection? We had lived there for thirteen years and didn’t have an occupancy permit. The department went bananas when I called! Turned out, they’d lost our file and that was the reason we’d hadn’t been kicked out. I had the original permit and a list of deficiencies from the last inspection we had received. A building inspector was at my door that afternoon to verify we actually had an approved permit. He verified the list of deficiencies and said we had 30 days to complete them or we would be evicted.

It wasn’t a cheap permit to obtain. There was an additional $3,500 fee for City parkland development we had to pay beyond the normal square footage cost for permits that are used in calculations for building permits. Lucky that I kept the permit and the list over a thirteen-year period.

We were already in receipt of an offer on our house that we had accepted, and the City talking tough was amusing. The City of London building inspectors weren't at all helpful of any of the places we've built. Our first house had been in London. The only labour we expended on our first home was painting on the inside and some staining of the cedar on the outside. We had used our labour to bring down the cost of the building of it. We also added our own deck at the back and did our own landscaping. Apart from that, it was erected and built by a general contractor. The mortgage that was arranged on that house was a Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation (CMHC) for $12,600 amortized over 25 years. The terms were fixed, 6 1/4%. Principle/Interest/and Taxes (PIT) was $105/month. We weren't sure we'd be able to make those huge payments! :) The year was 1962. The lot was pie-shaped, 150' at the front, 180' long and 10' at the back. It bordered on a schoolyard in an up-scale neighbourhood. Housing was much more affordable for first-time buyers in the 60's. General contractors in cities were more approachable for couples that wanted to do some of their own work. But we never did experience any difficulties making arrangements to be our own contractor. The evolution of building houses did codify into rules and regulations that cities adopted. Today, they can be daunting for an inexperienced person to understand and perform up to their standards. Building codes do protect owners from shoddy workmanship. There is little variance from one city to another. Houses built in rural areas are also built under the code, but the inspectors in those areas are more willing to extend assistance to owners who are doing it themselves.

We had built two houses in rural communities—the inspectors there gave us advice about the interpretation of building codes and offered assistance when we found the restrictions confusing. The City inspectors, when asked a question would just say, “Buy a code book, study it, and let me know when you’re ready for my inspection.” That was the extent of their assistance! Ever read a building code book? :) Rural and City inspectors have no resemblance to each other.

I would strongly advise anyone who is thinking about building their own house not to attempt it in an urban setting unless you’re thoroughly conversant with building codes and won’t need any guidance.

We did finish the items to the inspector’s satisfaction and got our occupancy permit 30 days before the new owners took possession of it. How very fortunate we were that the unfriendly City lost our file. :)

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Vinyl siding is easy to cut including the mouldings and the pieces that finish the corners. And like roofing, you start with a starter strip and work up. Initially there are no ladders, but it takes two people to put the siding on because of its 10’ length. Finishing strips around windows do have to be put in place before the siding butts up to them and that does take considerable fitting and cutting time to accomplish. We were very careful to ensure there were no leaks between the siding and the windows and that the siding had room to breathe, expand and contract in hot and cold temperatures. We had placed scaffolding around the house and it wasn’t as frightening to be on that structural support as it is on ladders.

It took the two of us a little more than two weeks to put up all the siding, soffits and fascia. Here’s a no-nonsense article about How to install Vinyl Siding.

We had used the Gentek vinyl soffits, but elected to use aluminium for the fascia. We changed the colour from willow to white for those two components to add accent to the house. The reason it took so long to finish that job was because we had large overhangs both at the front and at the back and a porch that had to have soffits fitted. There was a great deal of cutting, especially for the underside of the porch. Since we planned to spend considerable time sitting on the veranda, it had to be perfect. Haydn, with his critical eye and his need to have everything square and fit precisely, would have driven himself nuts if he had to look at errors we made during that installation. Had it not been for the overhangs and the porch, we could have been finished in one week.

It does help if you’re working with someone who has had experience putting siding up and has high standards about the workmanship. He will not accept sloppy work either from himself or from me. As I’ve said before, he’s like that with everything he does and I share that work ethic and take pride in what I do.

My appreciation for the superiority of natural products has been gradual over many years of living with a wide variety of products. Natural products have a patina and a richness that so far hasn't been achieved with mass-produced technology. It's not exclusive to colour that appeals to the eye, touch them, and they are gentler to the hand or in the case of fieldstone, they're sharp and very rough to the touch. The roughness is indicative of their natural environment which is what you transplant when you use them. Canadian Shield and its resulting northern majesty was wrought from mountains that were violently thrust up from evolutionary times. Man-made products don't achieve what nature does. Real granite does speak its environment, artificial ones don't. Nature also has the ability to achieve softness that can't be duplicated. How effective are man-made products at duplicating nature? Plastics and vinyls aren't capable of capturing colour, feel, smell, taste, sound, and the 6th ... the indefinable connection we feel with natural objects. Industry does try to compete, but it's a failure. Show me a staircase that's made from walnut and cherry and compare it to any man-made product and you'll realize the former is far superior to the latter.

But in our case, we did have to compromise on the selection of some of the products that went into the house because of longevity and our inability to be able to maintain them. We did have a house that had British Columbia cedar siding on the upper floor. It was used for architectural adornment under/above the windows and on the back of the house. But the constant need to keep it varnished to prevent it from discolouring is an enormous task that we now weren’t able to do at our age. Reality does play a factor in what it is you choose to use for your home. Cost is another factor that has to be considered. If it’s not within your budget, it’s wiser to choose something that will last over natural products. We always will pick natural products when it’s within our budget and meets with our ability to maintain it—very few things reign above them.

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What a fantastic experience it was for us when it was all done!

All that remained to be finished to the exterior was the painting of the garage and front doors and to finish the gables at the front.

We declined to use the vinyl products that Gentek had for sale. Half-round, restoration-type, Victorian vinyl products do look well on some houses,

but we had some other ideas and that wasn't quite the look we we had in mind. Copper for those areas was a option, as well as half-round or octagon-cut, custom, cedar shakes. We elected to leave that area ‘til another time. Copper would achieve a greenish patina in time that is very pleasing to the eye. Cedar shakes weather and turn silvery when they are untreated.

We needed more time to ruminate ... didn't really know what we wanted to put there, but our house did need something added to give it interest and individuality that wasn't on the plans. Ponder, ponder, ponder ... I could achieve it with a distinctive garden; Haydn needed to add his mark on it that said, "This is Haydn's house!"

Our moving date into the house was fast approaching and we had appliances to install and at least one bathroom had to be complete before we moved in. We were prepared to live without kitchen cabinets, counters and rooms that weren’t finished with the exception of the master bedroom. That had to be painted, carpets installed and furniture in place.

We do not install carpets—that’s the one job we leave to professionals. Tried only once to install it ourselves—the result was totally unsatisfactory and we ripped it up and had professionals replace the carpet we had bought and installed. One of the reasons could have been Haydn’s knees? Even as a young man, his knees were the weakest part of his body. He wasn’t able to exert enough thrust on the kicker that tightens the rugs. We don’t really know, but we just aren’t able to install carpets that look like they weren’t installed by amateurs. That neither Haydn nor I can live with on a long-term basis.

Next chapter. Finishing the master bedroom and one bathroom.

Shingling the Roof

2006-04-06T06:03:00.000-05:00

I forgot, we did shingle the roof as part of closing it in before winter.

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Again the guys from the shop pitched in to help us with the construction of this house. Since I have a fear of heights, shingling isn’t a job that I’ll do. Haydn really isn’t particularly agile because of his arthritis. There is a myriad of styles to choose and colours to pick.

We had decided not to use cedar shakes on the roof. They look wonderful and would have suited the house, but with all the trees around us, the shakes being wood products would be prone to moss and mildew collection. The trees made them impractical for our location.

Packages of asphalt shingles are ‘extremely’ heavy. Like we did with the drywall, we didn’t have it delivered until just before we were ready to use it and we bought it from a place that had trucks equipped with cranes. Heavy equipment can easily put packages of shingles on the roof where it's needed. It costs the same to have shingles delivered to exactly where you will use them as it does to have them delivered to where you have to pick them up and carry them to where you’ll be using them. So if you see shingles that are on sale, make sure the company stores and delivers them according to your specifications. It’s no bargain if the roofing crew breaks their backs carting them around or has to struggle to bring them up a ladder. The packages should be on the roof ready for whomever you hired or pressed into service to help you get the job done.

We went with a traditional almost black asphalt shingle.

Felt was used under the shingles. It forms a membrane the shingles are nailed to using broad-headed, short, roofing nails. Flashing was put around the chimney, all the vents and in areas where there were valleys.

Pretty and interesting rooflines do have quite a few changes in their pitch. An attractive roofline can make or break the appearance of a house. Good designers do pay attention to rooflines.

Houses and roofs do move and you have to give components room to breathe. Don’t attach flashing to both the chimney and the roof—they have to move independent of each other. Here’s an article that gives clear instructions about the types of things you will encounter when you’re shingling a roof.

Too often I see endless diagrams and cross sections that just confuse do-it-yourselfers. It really isn’t that complicated. Bear in mind, the goal is keep wetness out of the interior of the house and allow the heat to stay in. To me, just getting up the ladder is the hardest part of roofing. The next thing is to ensure you stay up there. Use a safety line if you have to--just don’t fall off.

Haydn did have to go up on the roof a couple of times. Once to ensure the guys put the flashings 'round the chimney correctly. The second time, when one of the men nailed into the centre of a piece of flashing over a valley—it would have leaked had he not seen the helper nail right into it.

It bothered him that one of his men had done such a foolish thing. Made him wonder if he’d done it elsewhere. He did lose his temper and swear at him. Haydn can be abrupt if he thinks someone should know better. He sometimes doesn’t take the time to explain why some things are important. He just assumes that people are more knowledgeable than they are.

There’s an opening over the front door where we should have placed a skylight. The skylight would have allowed the light to come in and keep the rain out. It’s right in the middle of the roof over the front door and when it rains, the rain drips on people. We do make it a point to get to the door as quickly as possible when we have visitors and it’s raining. He never did put eaves around it because he’s always intended to fill the space with a skylight. It’s now coming up four years and there still is nothing in place to keep visitors and us dry when it rains just in front of the entrance door. Doesn’t really affect us because we normally enter through the garage, but our visitors sometimes get wet! If he doesn’t put something up there soon, I’ll have to warn people to bring an umbrella with them if it looks like rain. :)

Did I tell you when we sold the house in London, I phoned the City because I knew there had never been a final inspection? The planning department went bananas. They had lost our file and that was the reason the inspectors hadn’t kicked us out of the house. We lived there for 13 years before we sold it.

There were still some things that had to be finished:

1) Put a self-closing mechanism on the garage door,
2) Finish the drywalling in the garage. What am I saying…finish it, we hadn’t started until we got the offer for the house.

Correction: Drywall had to be started to be installed. The drywall had to be completely finished in the garage, all joints and air spaces sealed, primed, and tested to ensure gas fumes didn't leak into the house.

3) Insulation in the basement had to be completed.

We passed and got our occupancy permit 30 days before the closing of the sale of the house. :)

That is one of the things that happens when you build your own house. If there aren’t inspectors to hound you—they just don’t get done.

All of Haydn’s men are hard workers and don’t take many breaks. The shingling took three days for a crew of four to complete.

For anyone who is reading this blog, I’m sorry I got this step out of order. But if you were building your own home and had to have your house closed in, you would have noticed something as big as the roof not being shingled before the snow started to come down. :)

Drywalling:

2006-04-05T03:23:00.000-05:00

I like drywalling—can’t say I want to do it for a living, but it is one of the more pleasant steps in the process of building a house.

This is the stage where squareness pays off!

If the ceilings and the walls aren’t square, more cutting and fitting will be required. Think plaid wallpaper—not that I’d ever use it, but nothing looks more horrible than squares and stripes that don’t match in the corners. Paint covers a multiple of sins! :)

It does take some planning to estimate the number and size of the sheets that will be used. We used 3/8" on the ceiling and 1/2” sheets on the walls. 5/8 and 3/8 is probably a better choice, but it’s more expensive and it’s harder to lift. Often tradeoffs do have to be considered. Besides, we don't have another 30 years ahead of us. That doesn't mean we relax our standards, just that at our age, reality has more of an impact.

Here’s a very good article about Drywall techniques.

We figured to put the sheets horizontally on the wall. The height from subfloor to ceiling is approximately 8’2”. Planning does save time. Horizontal placement of sheets reduces reaching and the need to use ladders. It also diminishes the number of joints that have to be taped, and mudded. There are other advantage to putting the drywall on horizontally; the studs can be located much easier. With vertical placement all the studs are covered—that leads to more mistakes figuring out where they are.

Oops, I should have given this tip at the beginning of this topic: When you’re installing electrical receptacles and switches be consistent about the heights of their placement. When drywall is being put on, that will pay off because all you have to do is mark on the floor where they are. Knowing their height makes cutouts for them precise and will help to prevent craziness hunting for them! Or worse; great gaping holes for a tiny box! You probably have to have done that a couple of times before you’ll realize how frustrated you’ll get. :)

Make sure when you’re having your drywall delivered that the truck is equipped with a crane. Having it delivered to the rooms where they'll be used takes just minutes when the truck is equipped to handle heavy loads. We didn’t order any sheets bigger than 12’x4’ because one sheet is quite heavy to lift, especially when it’s overhead. Three sheets would require two large men. We used screws because nails pop out. Screws penetrate drywall easily, especially if you have a battery-operated screwdriver—we had two of them.

First we did the ceilings. They aren’t that hard to do if you have two t-shaped 2’x 4’s to use as props. Make sure they’re long enough to support the drywall when it’s in place on the ceilings without having to brace them. One heft up is all that it is required. Overhead octagon boxes I mark their location with stickies (Post-Its) that you can get from a stationery store. It’s tempting to not be bothered to make the cutouts as you go along, but it’s a mistake. Do them when they’re fresh in your mind and there’s a stud overhead for guidance. I suppose if you marked the sheet before you put up the next one you’d be able to find it. We just didn’t try that—Alzheimer’s can attack at any time with us! There are quite a few overhead octagon boxes in the ceilings of our kitchen and we just cut them out as came upon them.

We normally take a break when all the ceiling drywall is in place.

Next we begin the horizontal placement of the walls. There are lots of cutouts with switches and receptacles in the walls; most of them lower down. I tend to do the cuts of the receptacles because I’m much closer to the ground than Haydn. :) He has arthritis in his knees, has had one kneecap replaced. There are times when he gets down that he has great difficulty getting back up again. I’ve been blessed not to be equally affected—the only part of me that’s been likewise afflicted is my wrist, which I broke when were building the house in London.

I had gone there very early in the morning to get some instructions for something we were going to install. The previous day I had been there and noticed there was a ladder leading up to the top floor. What I didn’t check to see was if the ladder was against studs. I got all the way up to the top before the ladder collapsed. Luckily, I didn’t fall two stories into the basement. Fell backwards and the ladder came down and hit me on top of my head. The ladder had been placed between the studs—there was nothing to stop it from falling and me with it.

I really don’t have a lot of recollection about the amount of time that passed before I noticed that my hand was at a really weird angle and it hurt. All that went through my mind was, “No one is going to come here and find me because I didn’t tell anyone I was coming to the house to get the instructions.” I cannot recall any part of the drive from the house to the hospital—the first thing I remembered was the nurse saying, “Is it a simple or a compound fracture?” I replied, “Oh, I think it’s just a simple break.” She replied, “Well, what’s that bone doing sticking out?” That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up in my hospital bed with an external fixator on my wrist. I have no idea who moved my car because I do recall just leaving it in front of the emergency doors. Afterwards, I took six months of physiotherapy for it, then I asked the surgeon to rebreak and set it again, because it was stiff. He told me arthritis would set in and he had done the very best he could with it. Osteoporosis found it instead. Funny how you adapt to having a weak part? .... I know I hold that hand close to me whenever there is any possibility that it could be damaged again. I also picked up an abnormal fear of heights because of the experience.

And wouldn’t you know that it would be my ‘right’ wrist that was fractured! My employer at the time was extremely generous and patient. He did one day say, “Sylvia, I think perhaps you shouldn’t try to write cheques for the company until you’re more accomplished at filling them out left-handed! What a kind man he was. The external fixator wasn’t on that long—only six weeks, but it took a great deal longer before I was able to type, write or have fine motor skill control again. There will never be a time again that I don’t look to see if a ladder is secure at the bottom before I begin an ascent passed the third step.

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Drywalling defines rooms and you get an idea of how they will look when they’re painted. They expand rooms because there is no furniture in them. Doesn’t stop your imagination from picturing how they will look finished with all the chesterfields, tables, chairs and in some cases, curtains in place with the walls painted.

Unlike the previous stage, putting up drywall brings a real sense of what the house will look like when it’s done. Sure it’s premature, but it does give incentive to work harder to bring it to fruition.

After we finished the drywalling of the living, dining and kitchen area, we just sat and enjoyed our day. It really was going to happen—all the planning and hardship to bring it to reality was for us to relish. We can put our efforts into the book of memories. Every time we look at it, we’ll know that the reason it’s here is because of our efforts. That’s something you never get when some else does the work for you or you pay them to do it. There is great joy in extending yourself beyond what you believe you’re capable of doing – it’s how we measure ourselves in life. If we don’t strive to do our very best in getting this our retirement home as close to perfection as we’re capable of, we’ll have to look at our failings for the rest of the lives … so we better just do the best job we can. Isn’t that the essence of life?

We’ll have to do a lot more planning now … start thinking about moving into it, buying appliances, bathtubs, fixtures, thinking about the design of the kitchen cupboards, colours, and a myriad of things. Style of faucets and electrical fixtures that go with the outside of the house?

Spring, 2002, is fast approaching, the next chapter will be, “Installing the Outside Clad.”

Redesigning the Interior

2006-04-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

We took a rest over Christmas, just relaxed with our family and organized ourselves for what we would do over the winter.

Thank goodness we managed to get the fireplace finished. It kept us toasty warm, had there been beds, we could have slept there.

We redesigned the interior of the house. The great feature of using manufactured roof trusses is we can put walls wherever we like on the main floor or leave them out altogether. The combination of the strength of the trusses with the load-bearing wall in the basement means the house is structurally very sound and doesn’t need interior walls for further strength.

Here’s a pic of the original plan:
The writing on the plan is mirror image because we need the garage on the right.

Here’s our revised interior:

The biggest problem in redesigning the interior was the stairs. First of all, we wanted to widen that staircase to avoid the sensation of going into the bowels of the earth. We put a couple of extra large windows down there to provide light. The rear of the basement is elevated making the very large window in that room fully exposed. That was going to be a spare bedroom and we didn’t want our guests or our grandchildren experiencing below grade claustrophobia. We went to great pains in attempt to minimize it. Haydn, the genius, figured it out! We could make the staircase 4’ wide if we have a landing at the entrance from the garage. There was just enough headroom—someone really tall (6’3” or more) will hit their head going down the stairs. Since we don’t know anyone of that stature, we elected to base or design on moving the stairs there,

Can’t tell you the number of pieces of paper we went through before we finalized our plan. Even after we’d solved the dilemma of the stairs, neither of us liked ‘all’ the features on the original plan. There was no window in the kitchen and I had so looked forward to having one where I could grow plants. The kitchen backed on to the second bathroom. Also because there are only two of us, we didn’t see the necessity to have two bathrooms that were identical to each other. Haydn doesn’t take baths—he prefers showers. I seldom take showers, prefer bathtubs. We decided we’d each design our own bathroom. The dressing room off the master bedroom was very well laid out and we were wont to change it. But no matter how many designs we came up with, the rear of the house had to be changed to accommodate a window in the kitchen. Regrettably, we did have to change the dressing room layout. Ultimately, we will build an addition on to the back of the house to have a bigger walk-in close with no clothes going into corners. Or we could just add a small dressing room on the back for myself and Haydn could have the one that's adjacent to his bathroom with the shower. It would mean each of us would have our own dressing room and we could decorate it to our individual tastes. So that’s what we decided.

One more thing…the left side of the house is very sunny, but we didn’t want to look at our neighbour’s house. We elected to put a stained glass window there. It would provide light without having to look at it. We’ve never told old neighbour’s why we installed it, they just think it’s a lovely addition to the house. :)

Decisions, decisions, there are hundreds of them when you’re building your retirement home. This one has to perfect because it is the very last one we’ll own.

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That done … now comes some really boring stuff…electrical, mechanical, an installation kit for a central vacuum system, and heating and air conditioning. Because we had decided to install a gas furnace, we couldn’t do that work ourselves. The building code requires that a licensed person install it. We talked to gas fitter that sells and installs the furnace. Not to be overlooked is wiring for telephones, computers, sound systems and TV’s.

A fiend of ours has an electrical construction company and we took his advice and ordered the size of air conditioner we’d need. We also ordered all of our electrical wiring, receptacles, and outlets.

We contacted a sheet metal company where we had the plenum and ductwork designed for the heating system, but they had gone out of business. Tried several more, but none seemed very anxious to do the job. So Haydn decided to do it himself. It really is very difficult to get sub trades to do any work when you live in a small rural community. Number one, they aren’t very reliable when all you have is just your little job. Most of them who are any good, work with contractors who provide them with a stable source of income. The ones that are left aren’t worth hiring or they want an arm and a leg to fit you in to their schedules—with no guarantees of when they’ll show up.

We really haven’t had very good luck hiring sub contractors. We’ve been very dissatisfied with the quality of their work. If you’re not on site, you don’t know what mistakes they made. Sooner or later their errors do show up and it’s a heck of job to correct them. Some can’t be fixed. At least when you do your own work, it may not be perfect, but you do know where there are weaknesses. Haydn is a perfectionist and has an eye for squareness. I’ve seen him throw things away when they are finished because he didn’t like the look of something. He’s very exacting and takes pride in everything he does. He’s like that with whatever he builds regardless of whether he gets paid.

First on the list is the wiring. I hate drilling the holes in the 2x4’s. More than once, when attempting to make the holes, the drill gets stuck and slams my wrist and hand into the stud. So I wasn’t looking forward to tackling that again. Because we were well rested, Haydn offered to do the drilling. “Thank you, thank you kind Sir. I’ll follow behind you with the wire.”

I spent quite a bit of time planning where to run wire other than electrical. Then I followed after Haydn with the appropriate cable and wire.

The rough wiring was done in a week on the main floor, and then we ran it in the basement for future usage.

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Next was the rough in of the plumbing and the central vac. Haydn does that by himself, but I do stand by handing him supplies. We have made no final decision about a toilet in the basement and didn’t put any drainage pipe down there. Putting a toilet below grade can be very problematic. At a house we built adjacent to a lake, we did install one. The first Spring, the ground water level rose and up came fecal material, so we’re still pondering.

It takes a little longer to do rough plumbing. We’re now into early February, 2002,

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The next stage is really exciting. Putting up the drywall.

Building of the Fireplace

2006-04-03T19:38:00.000-05:00

I had to start a new thread because the comment section of blogger.com doesn't enable enough html for this entry.

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First we had to pick out the fieldstone that would be used. I went to several yards and picked up individual pieces. Made several trips, loaded them into my car and drove home with them. The ones I picked out had stripes, sparkles, and ranged in colour from black to white. After we had enough rocks we would use for accents, we went to a yard and ordered a full pallet and had them delivered.

Cut Granite rocks are extremely heavy—should have had the yard deliver them into the house instead of leaving them outside. It varies in width from a minimum of 4" to a maximum of 9". We had to rig boards over the stairs and with a wheelbarrow load the stones into the barrow and get them up the stairs into the living room where it was being built. The cement mixer was outside and we didn’t want to mess the area up where we were working, so there had to be enough mixed cement for a couple of rows.

We restricted ourselves to one row at a time because granite rocks need to be in place overnight to set before another row can be added. It’s slow work because the rocks have to be cut with a chisel to fit.

We did get a couple of rocks from friends that wanted theirs included. One that we used had a vein of gold in it. Another was from Newfoundland and we brought back one from a sailing holiday at the North Channel in Lake Huron.

There were a couple of occasions I couldn’t get the wheelbarrow up the boards and I had to offload a couple to make it. Haydn was just too busy laying them to have the time to bring them inside. I also mixed the cement in the mixer, but Haydn did bring that in. I had become quite a good mixer from when we did the block basement.

What a great deal I got on a fireplace insert. There aren’t many places that sell inserts for wood-burning fireplaces and I was extremely lucky to come across that one. They also sold me a set of glass doors that were on sale that were designed to be built in. They had been custom made for a previous customer that wasn't pleased with them--the value was $900. Got everything for $200. Our insert was made from plate steel. This company has stopped making inserts for wood-burning fireplaces. It was the only one they had left in their stockroom. The regulations for building wood-burning fireplaces are becoming very restrictive. Quite a few cities don’t allow them to built any more because the chimneys can become fire hazards. New fireplaces are sealed systems that don’t compromise the quality of the inside air. They’re exclusively gas with vents. Chimneys in the sealed systems are often stainless steel that makes them quite expensive.

Gas has no sound of crackling logs and no aroma either! Yes, it is more trouble to build wood burning, but in our opinion, it’s worth it. Our daughter has a gas fireplace that lacks the ambiance of ours. They enjoy sitting around ours more than they do their own. Both can be used when there are power failures that don’t allow furnaces to run. Gas fireplaces have fans that don’t work when the power is off. They did stay in their cottage one year that has a wood burning fireplace. They got the chimney on fire and had to call the fire department. The cottage is about 50 years old. Day and night, they used it for heating the cottage. Because it was the only source of heat, they were tired of feeding it the wood it needed. It wasn’t a new design, burned lots of wood and not particularly efficiently. They did add some insulation to it before attempting to live in it. It wasn't a comfortable winter for them to stay in it while they were having their new house built 3 miles away from us. Not to mention there was no washer and dryer, so they had to do their laundry at the laundromat. They experienced a lot of inconvenience for a family of four.

Our fireplace has a mechanical fan that doesn’t depend on electricity to work. It has cold and hot air vents and Haydn built an ash dump into the bottom that collects into a pit where there’s a door to it from outside. We’ve used it a couple of times and sometimes I use the ashes on the garden.

Steps to building it:

See: Buiilding a fireplace from scratch

We had three flues, one for the central gas furnace, and two for wood-burning fireplaces. We can add another one in the basement at a later time should be chose to put ourselves through building another one? If we do, it won’t be another fieldstone one; something simpler will do for the basement. We used clay flues that we bought from a place that sold stone for a very reasonable price. They aren’t used much anymore.

If you’re thinking about building a wood-burning fireplace, here’s some more facts about building them

Ours draws very well and we do use glass doors to keep the heat in, but we have the option of opening the doors, which we seldom do. The glass doors are efficient and once the logs start to burn, they keep burning ‘til there is nothing left of the wood. They ignite easily using candle firestarters that we buy in quantities of 50 from a small town not far from us. They’re made at a nonprofit community care centre.

The heat comes out the vents instead of the fireplace opening; the cold air vents from outside replace the air. Another reason for using sealed glass doors is it stops the fireplace from leaking cold air into the house when it’s not in use. We burn a fire most nights when the temperature outside warrants it – it takes the chill off the rooms. Haydn integrated the heat of the fireplace with the ducting of the house so all the heat isn’t concentrated just in the living room. He’s a purdy smart fellow and has built several in homes we’ve owned and built, so he knows what he’s doing.

It took us about two weeks of laying the fieldstone every night. Then he added a mantle he had built from very hard Hickory that he milled himself and finished. It was the same material he used to build the kitchen cupboards and much of the trim in the house.

Here’s the finished fireplace we built:

Medium-sized picture…It’s a better picture of the colours & the textures of the granite:

The rocks that sparkle are quartzite granite. They come in more colours than regular granite, vivid greens, pinks and whites.

Large picture:

The outside stack was finished with the vinyl cladding that is a greenish gray (colour didn’t show up well in the picture because it was overcast:

The hearth is slate tile finished with a surrounding of hickory that matched the mantel.

The rest of the work we did before the middle of December, 2001 was putting the insulation in the attic, the walls, around the windows and doors and stapling the vapour barrier on.

Seniors build their own retirement home

2006-04-02T01:26:00.000-05:00

In August 2000, we bought a piece of property just south of the village of Grand Bend, Ontario. Our daughter had moved there and we wanted to be closer to her and our grandchildren. It was a large wooded, somewhat irregular, shaped lot, the dimensions of which were 88' frontage, 188' down one side, 150' down the other, 88 across the back. It backs on to the Pinery Provincial Park.

All the streets in this little subdivision end as blind streets (Cul de sacs). Then we sent for a reverse image of this set of plans. We needed 5 sets of plans with the garge on the right:

This is now the third time we've picked designs from American magazines and the second time we've selected one from this particular designer. We highly recommend that designer--all the plans we've ordered from them have been very complete and passed building codes both in cities and rural municipalities. Some adapation is necessary from American to Canadian, but they've been very minor.

We formerly built two houses on lakes...the first was a 3-story A-frame overlooking a small lake within driving distance of London. That one we subbed out the basement, the services and the framing.

The second was a two-story English-Tudor style on Lake Huron. Haydn lived in the motorhome while he was building the house while I was teaching in London. Use to go there on weekends and help him with the construction, but he did the majority of the work. The location of the house didn't suit us. It was a retirement community and we were too young to enjoy living in that kind of environment.

Sold it and built our next house in London. It was a more modern style Tudor, split level on a fantastic site. It was just up the street from a golf course with many of the holes adjacent to the Thames River. It was a five minute drive to the centre of the City of London. This time we subcontracted out bringing in the services, basement, and the framing. We would have done more, but urban restrictions about what individuals can do is much tighter than rural communities where we have built before. It's not the intent of cities is punish capable people, it's to control builder-type people from living in basements because they run out of money or the energy to finish construction of their houses.

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The building permit to erect our final retirement home from Collective Designs was approved in late September. Haydn then rushed about trying to line subcontractors up to dig the basement and lay the septic system. We had great difficulty finding subcontractors in this rural community that weren't already committed to other projects. We did manage to find someone in late November, who promised to install the septic system, but the weather closed in and we decided to not start until Spring 2001. We asked the municipality for an extension and delay to the start--that too was approved.

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Commencement of construction:

The septic system was installed and the hole dug for the basement. Got our approval from the plumbing inspection office for the drainage system.

We had put our house up for sale in London in April, and it sold in less than 24 hours with very little bickering about our asking price. I had spent the entire winter stripping off all wallpaper and painting everything 'Bleached Cotton', with the exception of one wall in the living room that was painted pale, olive green. We got within two thousand dollars of what we needed for our budget to build our final retirement home.

Perhaps we should have considered our age at the time? Haydn would turn 65 in November, 2001 and I was no spring chicken at 59.

In June, 2001 we moved to an apartment in Exeter. Now, we were compelled to build the house as fast as possible so we could get out of it. We parked our motorhome at the building site.

The summer we built it, there was of course, a heat wave. In the peak of that very hot summer what were we doing? The gentleman who dug the hole didn't make it large enough. I'm not very big physically -- the cement blocks weight 50 pounds each. As I recall, there were lots and lots and lots of piles of those blocks that had to be carried and laid.

That was the first time we speculated whether we were too old to be building this house with subcontractors playing such a small role in its construction. The only other person we hired to do anything for us was a guy to dig the trenches for the services. Haydn had called him several times and each time he said he'd be there...he didn't show up on three separate occasions. So Haydn went out and bought all the materials to do it himself. The day he was going to rent a backhoe to start it, the guy showed up...charged us $500 bucks and he used the materials Haydn had bought. His estimate to us had included them! Pay the piper and just don't hire another bandit from this little village to do one more thing for us!!!

We persevered, because we had no other option. "Great planning huh?" :)

I don't think I'll ever forget the final thing we had to do that first summer. We managed to get all the cement block walls erected for the basement. The final thing was to put the tar on to seal the blocks. Guess what the temperature was the day we could no longer put it off? Yeah right...it was cool at 0500 in the morning at 85 degrees and the day just got hotter as it progressed. Oh and don't forget that the hole wasn't big enough and the material surrounding the basement was comparable to very fine beach sand.

Let me explain the procedure for putting tar on cement blocks. You need to have the footings at the bottom of the foundations where the blocks meet the footings clear of any dirt or sand to begin. The race was now on ... get a broom, sweep off the footings, fight the minute-by-minute erosion of the beach sand above us. Too bad we didn't have a camera...it was a Laurel & Hardy moment in our lives! The thirst and the sweat from working in such high heat with a desert that fills in almost as quickly as it's swept and broomed with tar on the walls!

It was my job to fight with the desert while Haydn manned the broom with the hot tar. Two more 'busy' people who didn't exchange a word while they were doing it would be impossible to find! We kept a case of cold brewskies very close at hand and shuffled it along as we worked.

Haydn at times had less than 6" between the block walls and the sand that threatened to engulf him. How he managed to do that job in such a confined space was nothing short of a miracle. The heat from the sun, the walls and the tar was close to being unbearable.

It took an entire weekend to complete that task. Jeez, I wonder where my daughter, her hubby and all our friends are??? Not a sole came to help us ... we were completely on our own. The three nights we did it, we collapsed into our beds in the motorhome and had the sleep only lackeys have who built the Canadian railway. Made us appreciate how very hard they must have worked! But at least they got 10 cents an hour ... for our efforts we could expect nothing.

Surprising enough, we did not lose our tempers at each other...just plugged along 'til we got it done! I did have to go to the beer store to replenish our stock to satisfy our thirst that weekend.

Next chapter I'll elaborate on a couple of other 'little' snags that we possibly shouldn't have tried ourselves.

Pictorial Diary, 'Trent/Severn Waterway'

2006-02-24T22:07:00.001-05:00

Traversing the Trent Severn Waterway

Depth of water that’s guaranteed in the waterway is 5’ and it could be ‘slightly’ shallower if the channels silt up over the course of the summer That precludes any deep-keeled sailing vessels travelling down it. The boat we have is a sailing trawler and it drafts 2’6”. The mast is on a pivot and is easy for two people to raise and lower, which makes it ideal for inland waterways. Because it's trailerable, we can drive right to wherever we would like to begin our trip.

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Lock #1 is at Trenton, Ontario, Lake Ontario. It meanders in a westerly direction to Lake Simcoe, then turns north and ends at the northern gateway of Port Severn, Ontario on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron.

The system is 386KM long (a little over 230 miles).

Cultural Heritage:

Successive groups of Native people have travelled the natural waterway formed by the Waterway Lakes since at least 9000 B.C. Around the 17th century, the waters of what is now the Trent-Severn Waterway were a significant transportation route for fur traders. It began with a small wooden lock in 1833 in the Kawarthas at Bobcaygeon.

The system was intended as an alternative routing for goods for shallow-drafted boats, barges and ships. It didn’t become navigable until 1920—making it 87 years from start to completion. When it became usable, the Welland Canal had been built that connected Lake Erie with Ontario and the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

Large ocean-going and lake freighters were now able to sail into all the Great Lakes. That access made The Trent Severn obsolete for commercial vessels.

The Trent Severn Waterway has been classified as natural heritage and was declared a national historical site under the aegis of Parks Canada. Currently, it’s managed by the Friends of the Trent Severn Waterway.

More of its history

The story is quite fascinating. You’ll find diaries of Richard Birdsall Rogers 1874-1915, one of the leading engineers, the hardships he faced, the scandals, the disappointments, the financial obstacles, escalating costs and ultimately his vindication.

Not many people realize the Murray Canal is part of the Trent Severn:

The canal was built to provide an alternative shipping route to the treacherous waters surrounding Prince Edward county. Murray Canal has a depth 9 feet and is 5 miles long joining Presqu'ile Bay with the Bay of Quinte and is restricted by three swing bridges.

Swing Bridge, Murray Canal, Brighton, Ontario

Carrying Place Swing Bridge, Murray Canal:

The present system is 36 conventional locks, 2 sets of flight locks, two of the highest hydraulic lift locks in the world, and a marine railway are all part of it.

Trenton, Ontario is also the site of Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Trenton. If you have a military frame of mind, you can read the Message from the Wing Commander.

(I do apologize for making this introuction so long, but to me, the Trent Severn Waterway is steeped in history).

Just before we begin our trip, let's take a look at a map of all the locks we'll be passing through to get from Trenton, Lake Ontario to the westerly destination of Port Severn, on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron:

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Map in hand, now let's set off on our trip:

Lock #1: in suburban Trenton, Ontario:

Locks 11 & 12 Ranney Falls Flight Lock:

Locks #16 & 17 Healey Falls, Flight Lock:

where within walking distance is an excellent site for viewing the Trenton and Black River limestone formations. Located along the Trent River, these exquisite falls (during high water flow) consists of a rugged series of wide steps.

Lock #20 Ashburnham:

Lock #21 – Peterborough Lift Lock:

It opened July 9, 1904 and after 100 years, it’s still functioning. It’s an engineering marvel.

Here are a couple of golden oldie photographs of the Peterborough Liftlock on the opening day of what was then called, ‘The Trent Canal’, 1904:

Waiting for a Steamer above the lock:

One chamber lowering as the other rises:

This lock works on the same principle as the Kirkfield Liftlock, and the chambers have the same dimensions. The drop here is 65 feet, making it the world’s highest liftlock by 15 feet. In 1999, the Peterborough Hydraulic Lift Lock became the first Canadian site to be designated by the American Society of Mechanical engineers as an International landmark.

Here's some boats being raised:

Trent University, Peterborough; a tranquil canal near the university:

We tied up not far from the University and went for a walk to the downtown area, picked up some lunch and ate it on park benches and watched the boats going by. Above us were a wide variety of colourful blooms from hanging baskets. Casual, bright, summer flowerbeds dotted the landscape. There were numerous wild birds swimming in the canal, which we fed with leftovers. In no really hurry, we meandered upstream to the next lock.

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A few of these pictures, I may have out of order, because I've forgotten their exact locations. I do know these are all in the area of the Kawartha’s/Muskoka’s (It’s a very popular resort-type area of Northern Ontario, because of its natural beauty and charming little towns). It’s also called, “Cottage Country” by residents of Toronto who don’t have to drive very far to escape from suburbia. There are hundreds of lakes in the Muskoka’s and boaters tend to seek the secluded areas. The nautical term for it is, “gunkholing” similar to what is done in the North Channel where boats don’t dock at marinas. The anchor is just set into the bottom and the bow is tied to a tree or a large rock water. Most of the bottom is mud, sand or gravel, and it's very easy to set anchors as opposed to the North Channel where it's granite rock.

Muldrew Lake, Muskokas:

Morning Mist on Muldrew Lake:

Fall picture of Long Lake, Muskokas:

Lock #28 Burleigh Falls rapids:

Lock #31 Buck Horn Lake, not far from it is the Three Castles Resort:

Buckhorn Lake: You could spend weeks in each place and not run out of things to admire.

There was a lightning storm that caused a power failure at the Buckhorn Lock. We stayed there overnight, tied to the wall. An man and his companion rafted off our stern. They had one of those round ‘pup’ tents which they struggled to erect. We had to go below to muffle our laughter watching their antics trying to put it up. It was obvious it had been quite some time since either of them had been boy scouts! :) It was a fun night, because there were quite a few of us rafted up together in the lock. Someone started playing a guitar and impromptu singers joined in the merriment. The two men with the tent finally got it up just before we went to bed.

A great herd of boats didn’t develop the next morning that all wanted to exit at the same time. The departing out of the lock was quite orderly. The fees were waived for everyone for the overnight dockage. The people who operate the locks are friendly and very accommodating. At one place, we were getting low on brewskie's, and the man at the lock drove us to the beer store because we were his only customer. In addition to washrooms at the locks, there are quite often BBQ's that boaters share. If anyone else is there, usually a friendly exchange takes place.

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Lock #32 Bobcaygeon: pastureland

Fall picture of the channel at Bobcaygeon:

Locking the logs, circa 1900's:

Bobcageon Sentinel Pine watching over a lake:

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Lock #33, Lindsay, Ontario (not shown.)

We went to see a play at the Academy Theatre, what a beautiful theatre it is, very baroque. You wouldn't think there would be such a lovely place in such a small community. But there are many small communities that do have marvelleous summer stock theatres where plays and musicals are done with great expertise. Most employ professional actors, actresses, singers and dancers that are supplemented with local talent. The productions are usually well-worth seeing. I can’t ever recall being disappointed with any we’ve attended. Lots of other towns if they don’t have a theatre; they’ll have summer festivals in their villages or towns; strawberry suppers & socials are alive and well in small towns. We sometimes go to the Stratford Festival, about 40 miles away from us where there are world-class Shakespearean productions.

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Lock #34 Fenelon Falls, circa 1930:

The falls at Fenelon Falls:

The approach to locks are before dams and falls, which is the reason locks are built so boats could bypass navigational hazards.

Fenelon Falls sunset:

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Lock #36 Kirkfield Liftlock (Balsam Lake):

Assent is 49’, 2nd highest liftlock

The concept of this liftlock and the Peterborough Liftlock were derived from liftlocks built in England, Belgium and France in the 1870s and 1880s. The Trent Canal Superintending Engineer, Richard B. Rogers felt that due to their geographic locations, both sites would benefit from a lift, as opposed to the conventional lock. Water conservation, cost, and lockage time were all contributing factors. Originally, Rogers envisioned cargo transportation on the Waterway being done by using strings of five to twelve barges towed by a single vessel.

Another thing that's interesting about this lock is that Balsam Lake is the summit of the Trent Severn Waterway. Probably doesn't mean a lot unless you're navigating. But when a waterway such as this reaches its peak, the flow of water changes directions. Aids to navigation in North America are usually lateral systems and are based on the direction the water is moving, or put another way, from the direction of the flood tide or an approach from seaward. (Red Right Returning is something most navigators drill into themselves very early in their training). After Kirkfield, marks that were previously left to one side are now left on the other. The way to remember which side aids are supposed to be left on, is that upstream: red markings or lights, even-numbered or pointed markers or buoys, are left on the starboard (right) side. Boats, especially sailboats, don't usually travel quickly so there usually is time to adjust to which side it is meant for them to left! :)

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Lake Simcoe: a largish fresh water lake, lies between the locks--stocking the lake with whitefish and lake trout:

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Orillia, on the mainland off Lake Simcoe

Orillia is perhaps better known as the home of Canada’s premiere humorist Stephen Leacock. He wrote of people and events in Orillia with a razor-sharp wit, and a sense of the ‘funny side of life’. His book, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town was produced from these observations of his home town.

Orillia, at the "Flock and Drover":

Leacock was head of the department of Political Science and Economics at McGill University in Montreal, and became a world famous author and lecturer. In his lifetime he wrote 62 books; 35 of which were humorous, the rest being scholarly texts on economics and political science.

One of my favourite short stories Leacock wrote was, “My Financial Career” What I like most about Leacock's writings was they were never mean-spirited. His brand of humour wasn't satirical. He was a master of irony and good-natured understatement.

Somehow I don’t think Leacock would have approved of replacing paper dollars with 'Loonies and Toonies'! What a great story he’d be able to make up about those heavy coins that tear your pockets and weigh down the jeans of men making their pants sag! That’s the only reason I can think of for wearing them so low that the crotches drag on the ground. If they had to run away from an attacker with a paring knife, they’d be goners!

Loonies and Toonies:

He undoubtedly would have laughed heartily at the new quarter that was designed by 11-year-old Nick Wooster. I’ve dubbed it the 'Moosie':

Oh, I do hope no government official is reading this blog, because that would inspire them to use that design to start minting a replacement for our five dollar bill!

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Oops, I forgot to mention that in Buckhorn, we did hear the loons singing in the evening. But I didn’t get any pictures of them because there were too many boats and people for them to come close enough.

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Sparrow Lake, on the way to the Swift Rapids Lock:

Rock Island Bird Sanctuary, Sparrow Lake:

Pink Clouded Twilight on Sparrow Lake:

Swift Rapids, Lock #43:

Swift Rapids Dam and Power Station

Coming up to Lock #44 in the early morning:

Lock #44: Big Chute Marine Railway Lock

Artist’s watercolour rendition of the Big Chute Marine Railway:

This is where the Severn River rushes through a narrow chute of pre-Cambrian granite. A marine railway has been in operation since 1917. Today's giant-sized carriage and tracks were installed adjacent to the still-operational smaller railway in 1977. Although replacing the marine railway with a conventional lock would have been simpler, the land portage over the 17.7 meter height of land was necessary to prevent the possible migration of the parasitic sea lampry into the Lake Simcoe fishery.

Actual picture of the Railway lock:

Lower Severn River:

View from a boat being transported in the railway lock:

Port Severn, Lock #45, last one:

Bit of background about Port Severn, which like many other small villages and towns on the Trent Severn were logging communities.

I have no axe to grind with logging companies or their owners that dominated them. What they did probably profited the towns and villages, but like always only infestimal amounts were for the benefit of the workers.

Honey Harbour, Port Severn, aerial view of the gateway to the Trent Severn Waterway from Georgian Bay, Lake Huron:

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All tied up ‘til the next trip. Would we ever do the Trent Severn again? “You betcha!” Extraordinary trip, hundreds of more gunkoling places, and things we haven’t done or seen before.

On the next trip, we might even be treated to the rare splendor of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) on a night when the skies are inky enough.

Pictorial Dairy, 'North Channel'

2006-02-24T14:34:00.001-05:00

Map of the Great Lakes

Manitoulin Island is located just north of George Bay at the top of Lake Huron.

The North Channel lies just to the North of Manitoulin Island.

Most people that cruise it come from southern Lake Huron, up the shore ‘til the reach the northern tip of the Bruce peninsula and lay over in Tobermory.

Forged from the limestone outcroppings of the Niagara Escarpment

Cliffs at Tobermory

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A couple of miles east of Tobermory in Georgian Bay is Flowerpot Island

Flowerpot Island is in Georgian Bay, Lake Huron.

It’s part of the Fathom 5 National Park

It’s a diver’s paradise with sunken ships that provide them with interesting things underwater

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Here’s the lighthouse at the entrance to BigTub Harbour, Tobermory, Ontario

and the ferry, Chi-Cheemaun ("Big Canoe," origin Ojibwe)

departing from Tobermory and aerial photograph of Tobermory.

From Tobermory, the ferry goes to South Baymouth, Manitoulin Island.

on the South side of Manitoulin Island. Manitoulin Island is the largest fresh water island in the world.

It’s usually just the ferry that puts in to South Baymouth, most boaters cruise directly to Little Current on the North side of Manitoulin Island where the entrance to the North Channel begins.

Here’s a view of where three of the lakes meet.

There’s a swing bridge at Little Current, which is the entrance to the North Channel

The Town of Little Current is on the left after clearing the bridge. This is where most boaters stock up for fresh groceries, supplies and sometimes top up with fuel if they need it.

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Now begins this remarkable body of water where islands are accessible by water where boaters throw their anchor in and enjoy the peace and quiet of their vacation. As long as we’ve been going there, we never tire of the grandeur of the scenery. The water is crystal clear and you can see the fish swimming when at anchor.

A series of deserted islands approachable only by water are set in pristine, sparkling fresh water

Here’s an overhead of the anchorage at Croker Island:

A closer look at the Inner Harbour at Croker Island:

Most marinas have been left behind on the mainland and ropes are often tied to trees with anchors used off the stern. The bottom is often rocky and sometimes more than one is used.

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Many artists have been attracted to the North Channel. The Group of Seven are famous for the pictures they painted:

The West Wind, by Thomson:

The Red Maple by A. Y. Jackson:

North Shore by A.Y. Jackson:

North Shore by Lawrence Stewart Harris:

Inlet, Georgian Bay by Thomson Byng:

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Back to the islands of the North Channel. The next anchorage is in the Benjamin Islands.

Anchorage, Benjamin Islands South:

Anchorage, Benjamin Islands North

Skyline, Benjamin Islands in the distance

Next stop: Baie Finn:

Aerial view of the Baie Finn Pool:

To the best of my knowledge, it is the only inland fjord in the world. The pool at the end is approximately 7 miles long and 100-150 yards wide in the bay. The marked channel into it is very narrow, with mountains at both sides and about 8 miles long.

The anchorages in the pool are breathtaking. Mountains all around and completely sheltered from storms. Most people do have either an inflatable boat or a small tender they tow behind.

White granite rocks that line the channel:

Casson Peak overlooking the pool at Baie Finn:

Sunset, Baie Finn

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Next stop, map of the location of the Village of Killarney on the mainland of Northern Ontario

This is one of our favourite villages. It’s a world of isolation and mystery. The town of Killarrney didn’t have any electricity ‘til 1951. With no road access until 1962, water was for many years the only route of travel for its citizens and visitors. The reason for the lack of roads was because of the rock formations known as the Canadian shield. The 44 mile road that was built that connected them cost more than:$2,500,000.

Fishing resort in the background, Killarney, Ontario:

We normally stop and pick up fresh perch for dinner.

When you’ve been a boat for a number of days, sometimes when you get off, it’s hard to get your bearings, because you are accustomed to being on the boat with the decks moving up and down. So there is a tendency to make up for it by weaving about as if it still were! :)

Probably some of you who have been in the navy might be able to identify with that! Somehow, it’s much easier to adapt to a boat going up and down with the waves, than being on solid land! It leads me to believe that scientists wer correct...humans really did evolve from the fish in the sea! :)

The community of Killarney was once serviced regularly by steamships that carried both passengers and freight to various locations on Georgian Bay and throughout the North Channel area.

It’s primarily a fishing, logging and trapping village. Almost all of their goods came first by sailing ships and later by steamers. They were extremely self-reliant and had to make due because the lake froze over cutting them off from supplies that arrived in the Spring. They did have telephones starting in 1936 enabling contact with the outside world.

Being in that town is a step back into history. Do not miss the little pioneer museum that houses several original sound recording of villagers complete with background scratchy sounds that lend authenticity to them. Before it was turned into a museum, it was the jail for the village! :) It’s a very small building, so they mustn’t have had too many drunks they had to toss into it.

The people who lived in that village were very independent. There were no ships, trucks or cars that delivered supplies in the winter because the lake froze over. Preserves were done up so they had fruit that lasted ‘til the next Spring. No mail was delivered over the course of the winter.

Their physical separation from the mainland often produces a cultural separation as well. Islands are always a little rustic and behind the times, it seems, from the mainlander's point of view. When travel to them is difficult, the feeling of separation increases. Manitoulin may only be located a few hundred miles due north of Detroit or Toronto, but reaching it --other than by boat-- has always been difficult.

That village wasn’t alone in being unaccessable. To reach Manitoulin from Mackinaw City in Michigan's lower peninusla, you must cross the Straits of Mackinac, travel 50 miles across Michigan's upper peninsula, cross the international border at Sault Ste. Marie, bridge the St. Mary's River, traverse 200 miles of Ontario mainland forest, crest the La Cloche mountains, and wind your way down the rocky hills to the Little Current passage. When you consider that many of the bridges along this route were not built until the mid 1950's, you can see the historical difficulty in reaching the island from the south via automobile.

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Onto the next stop:

One of the most pleasant places we stayed was at Sturgeon Cove. We were guests on a 55’ Wellington that Haydn designed, built and installed the swim platform we're sitting on.

Drawing of Sturgeon Cove:

This anchorage is looking Northwest toward the narrow opening:

Prevailing winds do come from that direction and there are wonderful sandy beaches on the southeast end. The darker island in the center of the opening is High Island. Behind it are the quartzite hills of the La Cloche Mountains, the true northern coast of Lake Huron.

Our host was a pilot who worked for GM. He flew around the world taking GM executives to their destinations. He's very knowledgeable about the gallaxies and it gets inky black in the North Channel ... no light pollution from nearby cities. The stars against the black velvet of the skies are brilliant and you can see the entire Milky Way without the assistance of binnoculars or telescopes. He drew our attention to overhead satellites. If you’ve never experienced a really dark sky, you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about. The whole dang thing lights up brighter than any billboard – the feeling it invokes is oneness with nature. That night sky and those stars, just makes you feel so small and yet belonging to what’s up there. We really are just part of a very big universe. The Milky Way is just one of many galaxies—the effect to see it so plainly is soothing to know we’re part of a much bigger picture. Did you know there are over a 100 billion stars in our Milky Way?

Big Dipper, in the Milky Way Galaxy:

In the bay, we were treated to a family of Loons.

Their evening song is a real treat. I hadn’t realized ‘til last summer that in Canada we only get to see them when they look their very best. Their distinctive white and black colouration isn’t apparent when they aren’t mating. They mate in the northern lakes, away from civilization. Listen to the charming Indian story of how the loon got its markings.

Loon Necklace

The Common Loon is Ontario’s provincial bird. Closeup of a loon with chicks:

Loons sometimes appear to do a Penquin dance vertically while treading water on the surface to keep themselves upright.

Loon haunting calls, click to hear:

hoot

The hoot call is not as intense or as loud as the other calls. It is used to keep in contact with mates, chicks and social groups residing or visiting the same lake.

Tremolo

The tremolo has been described as "insane laughter"; it is 8 to 10 notes voiced rapidly which vary in frequency and intensity. This alarm call usually indicates agitation or fear, often caused by disturbance from people, a predator or even another loon. This is also the only call that loons make in flight.

Wail

The wail is most frequently given in the evening or at night, and can be heard for many miles. This haunting call is not an alarm call but is used to keep in contact with other loons on the same lake and surrounding lakes.

Yodel

The yodel is exclusive to 'male' loons. This call is used to advertise and defend their territory, especially during incubation and early chick-rearing. If you are watching loons and they make this call or a tremolo, it usually means that you are too close and are disturbing the loons. If that happens, you should leave their territory and give them their space.

Sunset at Sturgeon Cove:

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Just a couple of more pictures of some other anchorages:

Little Detroit Passage, North Channel:

Meldrum Bay, Manitoulin Island, at sunset:

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We’ll continue to go to the North Channel because there are still hundreds of islands and anchorages to discover.

I’ll make up another diary about another wonderful place to go sailing, to anchor and get in touch with nature.

Here’s a marvellous picture of Haydn I managed to get last summer.