I love going to auctions. Went to my first one about ten years ago to buy some old tools for my workshop, got'em and was hooked. Over the years I've got some great deals, a General table saw for forty five bucks was one of my better ones. Some of the stuff you buy comes in a box with a bunch of other stuff and this other stuff occasionally yields some pleasant little surprises. I have an old manual telling farmers about the dangers of those new fangled inventions like electricity and automobiles. I have a Christmas toy flyer circa 1953 with toys I remember my parents buying for me. There's pill boxes for morphine, yard sticks with two number telephone numbers and old glass bottles from a century ago. Last weekend I bought that light pictured above. I thought, when I was bidding on it, that it was an old railroad light but once I looked at it I knew it just didn't fit that genre. So I looked it up. Turned out it's a tail light for a car, a model T car, model A car but a car before they had the electrical system fully worked out. One side is red, facing rear; clear, facing the licence plate and blue/green facing out. The picture below is courtesy of Shorpy.com - one of the best web sites for old photos. Check out the rear of the car. There's my light. Then look at the cat facing, it has the same light on the passenger side front window.
Got it home, filled it with kerosene and fired it up. Works, but then why wouldn't it. It doesn't get much lower tec than this. Now if only I could get a car to go along with it.

Well here it is, another February, another entry. Surely to god you would think I could manage more than one little note a year. Seems not though. But anyway here I am on yet another somewhat uninspiring winters day. The sun is trying valiantly to shine through the clouds but the wind and the cold are succeeding in keeping me indoors.
What a change from yesterday when it was a shoes and sweater day, coffee on the porch and a brilliant blue sky. Then came the snow, then the wind. Mid way through the evening the lights flickered, flickered again and died. So for a little more than half an hour we sat by the light of the fire, lit a lamp and tried to think of what we would have done if we were pioneers. I suggested listening to fiddle music on the ipod but that somehow didn't feel like something our log cabin dwelling fore fathers would have done. Before we had a chance to actually get desperate enough to figure out what we could do by lamp light the power came back on and we went back to watching TV. In our defence though we do have an old TV. No big flat screen with Hi Def and surround sound for us. Nope, we still have our old tube technology, state of the art circa 1990 Zenith. You gotta admit that having that old thing is sort of pioneer like, almost akin to churning your own butter or reading the catalogue for amusement. Will probably be carting it off with me to "the home" when I go. These damned things never seem to die and I'm not one for tossing a perfectly good thing just because it's old or there is a newer version. Except for computers that is.
The big kerfuffle around the valley these days is our member of Parliament has once again spoken a thought in public and has for a moment taken her head out of her ass just long enough to stick a foot in her mouth. Cheryl Gallant, remember that name because when you look up redneck, ineffectual, ignorant or homophobic you will see her picture as a perfect example of the type. The first thing she did as an MP was to utter some redneck idiocy that had her censured, told to shut up by the caucus and placed forever in the backbenches. She then yelled homophobic comments during a parliamentary debate which sealed her fate as a person to be ignored. She is, I'm sure, barely tolerated by her party but she fills for them the function of occupying a much needed seat in a minority government. Now if she would only keep what passes as thought, to herself.
Her latest pearl of wisdom is to tell the men and women who work on the ocean that the government should not be responsible for trying to rescue them should a tragedy occur. This of course was said in front of an audience of people who had been rescued and the loved ones of those that had been lost at sea. The stupidity of the woman is mind boggling. And the bright lights of the valley keep electing this do nothing who's biggest accomplishment is doing photo ops for things she has no involvement in but are a benefit to the area. Speaks volumes about the locals and their commitment to quality representation.
Posted by Albedo Effect at 10:54 AM 0 comments

Well here it is, getting on towards the end of February and this is the first time I've been inclined to get back onto this blog. This has been a good winter, little snow, not too cold but still winter and all that winter entails. If it wasn't for work there are days and days, weeks and weeks maybe, that I would not leave the house. The one high point was at the end of January Jenny and I went out for supper to celebrate her birthday. One of our favourite "dressing up to go out" restaurants is the Saffron Bistro in Pembroke. The decor is nice the food is wonderful and for a couple of hours you can get out of this small town and be in some other local that is a bit more up-scale and bit more "city". Of course at the end you step out into the cold of an Ottawa Valley winter and drive through the same old streets and back to the reality of life here. Not that I'm complaining, I am here because I want to and not for any other reason. Our other place that is our fav. to eat is the Creperie, a little French style place that serves only crepes but what good food. Lots and lots of garlic and so delish. that I could eat there every week.
Then there is Cafe Ole, the coffee house of choice for those that think Timmy's serves mediocre coffee and crap snacks. Timmy's has that sterile, fast food environment that has zero ambiance and is designed to get you in and out with as little lingering as passable. Ole is a place you can take your lap top, buy a really good coffee and sit for a hour or more sipping coffee, surfing the web and listening to good music. Christine and her staff chat and joke and occasionally dance to the music and make this place a treat on a cold winters day.
Working again is also fun and although I call it work it's more fun that work. You spend the day driving around people who are so grateful that this service is being offered that you can not be anything but happy at your job. Some of the old guys are full of stories about the old days and all the gossip from sixty, seventy years ago. It's a shame really that all these memories can't be gathered up and preserved because all of this is being lost, one death at a time and can never be brought back.
One of the weekly drives I do is taking some old person from the hospital, where they have been waiting for a bed in an old age home, to the near by home for the aged. I wheel some frail old person into the back of the van, strap them in and set off. As I do the short drive I'll look in the rear view mirror at this old lady, clutching a plant, usually in need of water, and I wonder at her life, what she's done, her joys, her heart aches and all that made up her life. We often don't see seniors as real people anymore but simply as some old person with nothing to offer. But I see a story wrapped up in a coat with a fur collar and a hat that is built for warmth. Now on her way to her last home and a little fearful of what's to come and dependent on others for her needs. Kindness is what she needs, what all of us need.

What a difference a day makes

Cue Shirley Bassie or whoever it was that sang that....Well I wrote yesterday that we had no snow, how much I was liking that scenario and wishing it would go on and on but realizing our day was coming. Well last night it came. Snow, just a hint of the stuff, an inch on the ground and staying. As much as I like the no snow Ottawa Valley version of things this is almost a relief. It's here, things are as they should be, the world is turning on it's axis and god is in his heaven. I'd like to say it looks pretty but it just looks normal. Pretty will be later on, just before it morphs into the white hell that never ends. I started this yesterday with an idea of what I wanted to say and beleive me these weather reports are not it. But! But I cannot figure our how to access this and so I am just writing this strain of thought until I can figure out how to get it on the web. Then it may become a bit pithier or I may leave this one as is and start another.
Cur the pretty snow picture..

A Rare November

It's almost the end of the month, the end of November and here in this part of the world we are having a rare occurrence. We can walk out doors without boots, without coats done up to the neck and scarves to keep us from the chill of a Canadian winter.

I wear a sweater and stand by the side of the road taking these pictures. A blue jay, unseen, screeches as he flies from tree to tree and the ubiquitous crow calls from a nearby pine. The scent of autumn is in the air. It smells of cold and fallen leaves turning to mulch and the hint of acorns on the forest trail. Take a deep breath in through your nose, turn, look at the field glowing golden in the late afternoon sun.