I Suspect This Is Not The Place To Do This..

But here's where I hurl my goblet at the wall....

words and thoughts fail me....the sadness holds me-
I s'spect that all the trauma/drama of the past 6 years caught up with me
Ahhh....so that's how one is supposed to react...tears...who knew?...

Really - I didn't. It's been a revelation

Couldn't do it before.

Bye Bye Sunshine

Sorry you had to leave us so soon but thanks for hanging around as long as you did.

Jacob Jones - age 9 - afflicted with an ultra rare metabolic disorder (only about 30 kids with it in the world), succumbed to a virus last week.
I attended his celebration of life today - beautiful tribute.

I'll miss you and Mummy at my art classes...

Context Is Everything

These are all over the church parking lot now since we had to kill some time during Vacation Bible School.
The theme has been 'Power Lab' so what yer lookin at would be an upside down view of a test tube with chemicals bubbling out the top. (duh!)

Global Weirding

It's been a topsy-turvy summer in terms of weather. The grass is dry and brown on the BC north coast and there are mist 'n mushrooms in Calgary.

Interrupting This Freebie-

For that freebie.

The painting will be submitted to a silent auction in Texas at a conference on lissencephaly. (my kids' former gr. 5 teacher has a granddaughter afflicted with this disorder and requested something representative of Kitimat. I dragged the framer in on this one and am painting to fit a frame she couldn't use so no one is actually out of pocket)

The boards go with shutters on someones cute little home on Tweedsmuir here.

In fact they belong to Crazy Dewie's grandma!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqh-xDxVjx0 (little sample of His Craziness)

God was kind when He chose not to bestow any such offspring on me

Never, Ever EVER Mock The Name of a Lake

I had this nifty idea that we should explore the back road from Fraser Lake that runs south of Francois Lake, where we'd travel past Binta then Uncha lakes and catch the ferry heading north into Burns Lake.

A few things went awry.

The first involved inadvertently ending up on an active logging road instead of the Holy Cross forest route and almost getting smoked by a logging truck. I think he was a little surprised to see us since he ended up fishtailing to avoid a head on collision. We sat in his zero visibility dust cloud for 2 minutes fervently hoping no one else would be coming along soon, then turned around and headed back still unaware that we were on the wrong road - hence the second erroneous turn.

We thought we had returned to the east end of Francois Lake and were on our way back to highway 16 but it was really taking a while and for some wierd reason I still didn't have phone service yet. Around this time we hear a strange sound from the back of the truck and drove along wondering what was vibrating in there. My brother - a mechanic - strongly recommended that we stop to investigate and as we exited the truck we were met by the stench of burning rubber from a blown out tire. The husband backed the vehicle into the driveway to a small lake where he and my brother set about trying to free the spare from beneath the undercarriage. (stupid place to keep a spare) Brother's girlfriend and I wandered away to investigate the one campsite on the lake, pick wild strawberries and dodge blackflies. She walked up the main road and read the little wooden park sign..."Meudon Lake"...I went around to check and then recognized it as "Meuoon Lake" - the very lake that The Husband had been mocking just the night before while we all studied the map.

We'd been smited by the vengeful spirit of Meuoon Lake.

This posed another little problem, since it left us about 40 kilometers farther out and in a completely different direction from where we believed we'd travelled and no amount of scrutinizing the map could explain why. (I pieced it together later following much study)

So - we were actually on the trip we'd been planning all along, not that we wanted anything to do with it at that point.

Meanwhile...back at the truck...Husband and Brother are still trying to access the spare and Husband discovers that all that rattling and bouncing had jammed the latch on the back window where they need the tools he packed. Eventually he manages to find access squeezing through the cab window. Progress ensues - the spare's retrieved, truck jacked up, flat tire removed and then - it becomes apparent that the truck can't be raised high enough to install the spare.

Hmmm. What to do...

Luckily there is a good supply of cut firewood though it's not the most stable material for that purpose. Somehow the Brother locates a single 2 X 4 lying nearby so he and the Husband saw it into just enough pieces to lift the truck and finally - oh glorious moment! - we're ready to roll once more!

The four of us carefully scan the map, check the direction on the truck's display, turn around and head for home. I spend the trip with eyes roving between the mapbook, our direction and every identifiable feature in the landscape. Anzus and Borel lakes are marked thank goodness which confirms that we are indeed headed back to Fraser Lake as long as we can stay on Holy Cross road, and after about 40 minutes we see blacktop again.

The Brother asks "Is this where we get out and kiss the pavement?" to much agreement.

Later it occurs to me that our two lane Highway 16 is wilderness aplenty for most folks so I resolve not to subject guests, especially cityfolk, to backroad adventures in future.

I just noticed that I began a B.C. backwoods adventure with 'Never'.

And after the way I went on about it a few posts back!

Huh. Guess it really is impossible to resist.

Kicking Back - Old Style

Just dropped in to Fort St. James and took a little break on the original La-Z-Boy. The outpost dates back to 1806 and originally sent furs out and took supplies in from Fort Vancouver in Washington.
I found internet at the covered picnic site at the beach and it's free!