Evening of Words, Music, Art & Wine

I had the pleasure of reading at the fifth annual Evening of Words, Music, Art & Wine in Dorset, Ontario on Friday April 11.

I read Let's Go, of course. Thanks to James Jones, Dorset's famed garlic farmer and the evening's MC, for encouraging everyone to browse the book to see Scot Ritchie's fabulous illustrations for themselves.

The evening included display tables featuring the works of talented artists such as stone-carver Elise Muller, basket maker Sheila Ziman, painter Vicki Dodds, fibre artist and storyteller Fay Wilkinson, painter Karen Sloan, mixed media artist Naomi Brinkhof, and the team of Kevin Vallieres and Tara Gilchrist-Vallieres, a woodworker and potter.

We sampled cranberry, cranberry blueberry, and blueberry wines as well as the Red Maple dessert wine from Muskoka Lakes Winery. Music performances by Zoe Chilco and Albert John Saxby kept us all entertained. Word is the evening will be broadcast on Haliburton's Canoe FM sometime in the future.

Thanks to Melissa Alfano for putting together such an enjoyable evening.

Complain, complain

If you've browsed this blog a bit I'm sure you haven't failed to notice that I complained about the snow an awful lot. Turns out I might have been justified in grumbling...at least a little.

Yes, I'm Canadian. Yes, I live in a rural area. Yes, I should be used to snow. But nearly 18 feet in one winter? According to this article in The Bracebridge Examiner that's how much snow my part of the world got this winter. The highest in the province!

All I can say is we're lucky we had two partial melts in there.

And speaking of melts, it looks like it's finally underway for real! For the last week or so it's been a pleasure to see these signs of spring:

* the beaver paddling along the narrow shoreline melt
* the sound of a woodpecker calling and hammering
* the call of the redwing blackbird! Love those guys.
* mud
* a pair of great blue herons flying overhead
* the mallards are back

And personally, as the highway snowbanks shrink, I find it fascinating to see how many guardrail posts the snowplows took out over the winter. This year they hardly demolished any. Good job!

Counting Cars

A train! This is always cause for stopping and rolling down the window, if at all possible, in my family. Everywhere. Even in Pickering.


So to park safely I missed getting a picture of the engines. But what's a train without CN boxcars?

And tankers, flatbed cars, hopper cars.... This train was terrific!





But when it had passed we encountered a serious disagreement. My daughter said there were 146 cars while my son insisted there were 165.

There is no winning for a parent in this situation.

Of Pickering, Power, and Parking Lots

This past weekend I found myself in Pickering, Ontario (last minor hockey event of the year). Being in the Greater Toronto Area in the last few days has made me realize that there are things I am not used to having to deal with. They are:

* Lack of parking spaces--everywhere!
* Lineups--everywhere!
* People running yellow lights--all the time!

At our hotel one night we couldn't find a parking space anywhere so we, being the savvy country survivalists that we are, spotted a space where a snow pile was preventing its use, got out of our car, kicked the snow mound to flatten it out, and proceeded to park over top of it. Hah!

The parking lot to the arena was under huge electrical power towers. The lines hummed in a most eerie way.



I have to confess, though, that it was more eerie to find out that those four dome shapes just visible in the haze in the lower left were the nuclear power plant. I knew it was around but didn't realize I would actually be able to see it!

The power towers marched on as far as I could see in both directions.



Most fascinating to me, though, was being close to the huge windmill (and one of those nuclear domes is slightly more visible in the lower left).



We wanted to get a closer look at this windmill so we asked a local for directions. He happily provided them (and possibly looked at us like we were weird seeing as he admitted he'd lived there his whole life and had never seen it closer himself).



The size of it is difficult to believe. Those are not evergreen bushes, they're full blown trees. Of course, at this location I was steps from the nuclear power plant. Time to leave.

It's great to be a tourist!

Fun at the Feast

It was great to be in Toronto at the Feast of Authors. The food was good and it was wonderful to see so many people interested in books and writing. Thanks to all the organizers for such a terrific opportunity.

But when will I ever learn that bringing shoes out of hibernation that I haven't worn in over 10 years will only result in blisters!?!?

Come Feast With Me

April 3, 2008 is the Feast of Authors in Toronto. If you love books, over 80 authors (including myself) are appearing at the St Lawrence Market North in support of books, reading, this April’s 10th anniversary as National Poetry Month, and the Toronto Dollar’s 10th Anniversary.

Acclaimed author Joy Kogawa talks about the event in this article from The Toronto Star. More too at The Toronto Dollar Project or the Facebook Event Page:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=843630703&k=Z4FX44V3326M5CB1UCW6SS


The Particulars:

Date: Thursday, April 3, 2008
Time: 6:00 to 9:30 p.m.
Location: St. Lawrence Market North
Northwest corner of Front & Jarvis
92 Front St. E., Toronto
Admission: Free


For more information here are the Media Contacts:

Marilyn Hotta, Author Liaison
moolyn@hotmail.com
Joan Campbell, Publicity Coordinator
joancampbell@sympatico.ca
416-363-2164

The Snowman Cure

A simple snowman.

Cure for the seasonal blues, writing rejections, writer's block, whatever ails your soul.

Never underestimate the power of playing like a kid.

(Even if you've had to have one coerce you into making this discovery!)