I've Been JOMB'd!

Andrea and Mark, the people who put together the fabulous resource that is Just One More Book, have posted an interview with me. How they made me sound like I sort of knew what I was talking about is surely a testament to their magic.

This is the link to the interview with me: http://www.justonemorebook.com/2008/04/14/interview-with-lizann-flatt/

Be sure to spend some time there listening to the wealth of material on authors, illustrators, and kids books. For anyone who loves books it's got to be at the top of your list of browser bookmarks.

Thank you Andrea and Mark!

The Melt Is On

I was out runnning errands when I drove by one of Bracebridge's many falls. It was a sight worth stopping for. All I can say is Wow. (And that I'm glad I live on high ground.)

This is the town's parking lot where I got out for a closer look at the Muskoka river. I have to confess to feeling rather nervous parking here. I had no desire for my Odyssey to go on, well, an odyssey. It looked like it would be fairly easy to set sail from this vantage point.



Yes, the town docks and walkway are completely submerged. River water would periodically splash up on the guard rails. Then I took some footage of the falls themselves. This is a still of the silver bridge in the background and the hydro generating station on the left:



I also took some movie footage with my digital camera. In an attempt to string together the clips into one movie I started playing with iMovie. I claim no expertise in any visual arena but I did come up with something that amused me in no more than about an hour (I had about a bazillion other things I should've been doing during that hour but let's put that time down to personal growth--har!).

Here is my iMovie debut:

Obviously I have a lot left to figure out...but it was fun fooling around with the software. And trust me: if I can do this so can you!

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!?!?