Bert Bird

Brother Dave and Large Fish

We have an alegre budgie named Bert Bird. He sits beside the computer and looks at himself in his little round mirror. Sometimes he sings. Jane has gone to London to go shopping with Gabriela, and I am home with Bert and the cat paying bills. The daylight hours seem incredibly short. We feel blessed to have a nice home and lots of food to eat. Thank you God.

The Linton Christmas

Gabriela and Santa Paul and Adam

We had a busy weekend with a gig for the band at Embro on Saturday night, church with the first Advent service on Sunday morning and the Linton Christmas on Sunday afternoon! Everyone was in fine form at the party, and there was a record number of aunts and uncles, in-laws, lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, grandparents and even the odd black-sheep. A feast was presented followed by a visit by St. Nick. We all went swimming after in the warm waters of the Festival Inn's pool. Nice.

First Winter Storm!

Our Backyard

It had to happen sooner or later. We woke up today to a raging blizzard. It's nice to have a good furnace and an unlimited supply of natural gas (when it works). We would prefer to have wood heat and a nice pile of dried firewood in the backyard, but that may come sooner or later. The wind is very high and our old house is really catching the cold air. It's been a good week here, and we are looking forward to a busy weekend including a band performance in Embro on Saturday and a Family Christmas party in Stratford at the Festival Inn. Santa has hinted that he plans to attend, represented by moi...wish me luck! Hopefully, I will have some photos to post of these events.

Sunny Sunday

The Century: One of my favourite old cameras: Lots of shiny brass!

To all our good-looking readers: another bright sunny day in the Stonetown. We enjoyed the outdoors today, putting the snow tires on the car and taking Linda's dog, Molly for a walk in the country. We went to the closed section of the River Road, and were really happy to see the old iron bridge being repaired properly by Kelly Construction of Mitchell. The workers have removed all the rusted pieces of metal and replaced them with new metal and bolts. Can't wait to tour out that road once again! We thank God and give all praises to Him who has given us so much here! The Benz is sick this month with a sore transmission and is doing a lot of whining about it. Hopefully she'll feel better as soon as we feed her some new parts. Lizzy is learning to stay out of the attic. She was sleeping on some fiberglass insulation and inhaled too much of it, causing her to wheeze.


A view of the Century with it's bellows extended

Otra Semana

Turner Art Gallery, Bayfield

It's Friday again. Just a quick note to say hi to you. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment!

Bonita

The Clinton and Goderich Cloggers

Just waiting for Jane to get back from London with Gabriela. We are having a curry for supper tonight and I have peeled the potatoes and am presently boiling them. Exciting, eh? The wind is high and the forecast is for lake effect flurries. I love a good storm.
Bud and Large Fish

Rainy Day, Dream Away

Santa visits Bayfield in November


Well it's mid-November and all the leaves are gone and the sky is grey...I was excited to see the full moon tonight but it's overcast. I played a little with the settings on this blogger template and now you can leave your comments with ease! Please try it. My brother Kim sent me some powerful lines from Joel 2 including "The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil." This is exciting.

Lake Huron in November

Bayfield

Turner's Art Gallery, Bayfield

Jane and I decided to get Bud's old white van fired up today and head to the beach. Once again it was a gorgeous day. We put some salsa on the player and headed to Bayfield. When we arrived, the town was buzzing with a Christmas parade and town-wide celebration. My boss was in the parade with the Lions, and he gave me a big handful of candy. We headed south down the coastal highway, stopping at the Zehr's country market to load up on their incredible pecan tarts, eggs, organic blue corn nacho chips, cornmeal and pepperettes. Chilled at lake. A November bare tree

November 11th

Gabriela and her bf Adam
It's great to work for the Social Services...today was a holiday for Armistice Day. We stayed close to home and did some work around the house...cleaned the car. Finally got a DVD player last night and watched the new Bob Dylan movie Chris loaned us. It was interesting to learn that his influences were Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger...that he felt out of place in his hometown...had to go to the Big Apple. Tonight we will go to see Plum Loco at Foster's Inn in Stratford...a band with a lineage straight back to Janis Joplin! (John Till on guitar).

NO-vember

A lovely trio of dentally challenged dogs. It's been an unusually warm November here in Pleasant Valley, and we're not sure why. Last night we had a very smooth church council meeting. Our pastor, Richard, is exhorting us (in his laid-back way) to be more vocal about our faith. Thank you Jesus! I've felt all along that we just need to do what God is asking us to do in the scriptures...not lean on our own understanding. We had a productive band practice as well, and things are progressing well musically. We have a few gigs coming up in November and December. Jane and I have built a large deluxe hamster cage from a rubbermaid storage bin and hardware cloth from instructions she found online. Hammy loves it! Today at work some of the tenants decided to cash in their empties. One fellow acts as a repository for the project and buys everyone's empties and stores them in his apartment (kind of like a bank). They ended up with 72 cases. You had to be there