My father used to have a large lumbering Irish setter called Thora. Sad to say she was equipped with a brain the size of one lonely canned pea.Thora would spend the lazy hazy days of summer lying out in the middle of the country dirt road just snoozing her life away. No one could get that dog to move and it's a wonder that she never got run over. On car rally Sundays drivers were advised on their maps that they had to maneuver around one big red dog lying in the middle of the road.…

"I'm going to buy this kind of mustard, okay?" she asked.

 

"Are you nuts, it's way too expensive!" he screams at the top of his voice.

Jarred by the sheer anger in his voice, I straddled the side of the aisle next to the peanut butter.  I made a mental note that the huge value size…

Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first.  ~Ernestine Ulmer…

Seven days after my birth I was placed in a quilt my grandmother had made and brought immediately to her home. My mother suddenly had no idea who anyone was including her brand new daughter. Doctors hospitalized her, blamed it on postpartum depression and said it would be over in a few…

"Wild Wings Sign"

" In the back country you need to take special care: Bears don't like surprises!…

This morning my friend Peggy sent me a card with a bagpiper on the front complete with a tune to match. There is nothing that makes me weep more than the strains of a bagpipe in heat. My late father introduced me to military music when I was still in diapers. Every Sunday morning he would be crouched…

This is Bill and he has a hobby that some might not understand. You see Bill collects early folk art that some not in the know might just call junk. The word "folk," according to etymological dictionary, means "of the people", and one would say Bill is "of the people" more than anyone knows. Not only is he the Reeve…

Today I am doing something different. All my photos are at the end of this blog because I feel this is important and should be carefully digested.

                 What Happens if the Kings and Queens of the Furrow Disappear?

Once upon a time farms were founded and generations carried on the task of sowing the fields and milking the cows. No one ever questioned what they…

                                               Please play while reading

The most significant automotive news of this century seems to have slipped under the radar. A ratty, busted-to-hell Citroën completed the 24 Hours…

We met one day in the sunshine while we were both picking raspberries from bushes so tall they seemed to touch the sky.  I had just turned seven and he was barely eight. His body was hidden on the other side of the shrubberies but his voice hit me like a ton of rocks.  The high volume of his vocals insisted I was not to pick from 'his' raspberry bush.  He kept insisting that he needed…

In July MacLean’s magazine had an article saying that there never has been a better time to be a Canadian. At 144 years old Canada is in better shape than the United States and a lot of other countries. Of course we have our problems and last year was not as they said the best of years. There is some uncertainty in Canada’s economic future but our country came out stronger than the year before, and that my fellow Americans is a feat in itself.

While the United States has yet…

When I was a small child I sometimes used to sleep in my grandmother's bedroom on weekends.  One night through the open window a lone bat flew in and started to create havoc. My grandmother being no “Shrinking Susie” like her granddaughter immediately took a broom and started swatting at it. Somehow in the…

Every Friday night as a young child, we would walk up Albert Street to make our way to the Main Street of Cowansville, Quebec. Everyone was there with smiles on their faces and you could hear the sounds of a jazz band playing from the Hotel. There were clothing stores filled to capacity with people…

Dickens was an obsessive- compulsive and combed his hair hundreds of times a day. He rearranged furniture in his home - if it wasn't in the exact "correct" position, he couldn't concentrate. He was obsessed with tidiness and cleaned friend’s homes as well as his own.

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I started this story after I took pictures of homes that were red and yellow tagged and about to slide down one of the hills in San Pablo, CA. For 21 days it had rained and anyone living on a precarious slope in the Bay Area knows the dangers. One of the homes that is red tagged was actually built on the same spot that a former residence in 1973 tumbled down to its final fate. How people can build on hills or on fault lines just for a view in this area boggles my mind.

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                                  The Story of Oliver’s Ferry

There is a legend told at Rideau Ferry, Ontario of murder most foul, where travelers disappear,  and of human bones found. In the early 1800s, a…

An artist cannot do anything slovenly and therefore the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers from Maine can do no wrong in my mind - and how quick come the reasons for approving what we like!

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                Behind the falls of the Canadian Mississippi River and around the bend,

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Charlie the cocker spaniel has aged one more year, to the ripe old age of 13. I notice he does not hear as well nor move as fast as he once used to. Once a chaser of anything that was small and furry, he just lays there now and seldom lifts his head.

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