Home Sweet Home and other Stuff

It is so good to be home.

So many things to be grateful for.

Just ate a garden fresh quiche.

We have a stack of veggies.

I am going to say goodbye to meat for a while

No statement....

just dont feel like it.

I look at that garden,

so full and bursting at the seams,

meat just seams boring to me right now

my budgie loves the crystal gem glass on my desk

he is singing and dancing and chirping

and getting a little birdie hardon.

At least thats what I think its all about for him right now.

he loves to dance on Sues shoulder

and we caught him looking down her top.

The neighbours are having their annual "pool party" today

There are 40 people in inner tubes/air matresses

and anything floaty. 

They have a pontoon boat escort and

its a beautiful sunny day!

My mom is coming for a visit

and our friend Roseanne is coming for next weekend.

hahahahha

the bird has started to lie down.

Its the funniest thing

At first when I saw him lying on his side with his eyes closed

I thought he was dead.

When I poked him

he stood at attention

and told me to go &*^% myself.

He didnt use those words.

He has his own birdie representation.

It the same sound he makes when I poke him

while he is trying to sleep or manicure his feathers.

The air conditioning works well in my office

thank goodness

as I said

I have much to be grateful for.

I am looking forward to a weekend

with my smokin hot companion

perhaps we will garden

perhaps a canoe ride

hhhmmmm maybe I can take her for sushi

we like that

I wonder how the cranberries are doing.

Maybe we need to go for a scout walk.

Noisette...tres bon

mon ami Pierre m'a montre

peace, love and gratitude

don

Rest in Peace Judy

I got "the call" this morning that my business aquaintance and friend Judy passed away on the weekend. Judy was always bright and cheerful. We worked well together. Rest in peace Judy, you are a wonderful woman. Thank you for sharing with me over the years. I am sad today.

Current Fire Situation in Ontario - Out Fires

Hats off to our fire fighting crews!!! After reading a comment on my blog about the out fires, I thought I might just take a peak myself. Its pretty astounding to say the least. I spoke to a fire fighter who was part of a team that would be dropped to the site. They bring the fire under control and then move to the next. Crews work all over the country, being deployed where needed the most.

Current Fire Situation in Ontario

Here is a snapshot of current Ontario forest fires taken from

http://forest.lrc.gov.on.ca/AFFM/fire/interactivemap/firemap_English.htm

Here is a blow up of Northwest Ontario

The fire crews have been busy.

Rain is a double edged sword, as lightning is a major cause of forest fires.

Check out the link to the government web site http://forest.lrc.gov.on.ca/AFFM/fire/interactivemap/firemap_English.htm

It is interactive. Each fire is assigned a number and geographical area. You can see how big the fire is, when it started and the probable cause. Quite a fascinating network of information. Some fires are left to burn, while others are contained or put out. Crews work around the clock in teams. My hats off to the dedicated fire fighters.

Garden Art

We returned home from camp to find a potato bush beginning to dry up. For the heck of it we harvested. We had been told to expect low yield because we just used standard potato, rather than seed potato. We allowed our potato bushes to fully mature and did not cut off the flowers or the "seed". This may also be a cause of low yield. We thought we might experiment a bit. We will eat the three red potatoes tonight with our

.......Fresh pulled Beets. 

Sue did some thinning  and got us a nice feed of beets. Truthfully, and hopefully, until now, I have hated beets. Tonight I will enjoy or learn to enjoy the beet. Sue downloaded a nice looking recipe that also utilizes the greens. My bet is that I will like it, because for the first time in the history of Don, I will try it with an open mind. I am grateful for the food in that garden......what time is it?..it must be near supper time!

Friends

Friends at Camp

I am grateful for my friends. Rob was my best man and Ron is my best friend. They took the journey to visit us. While Ron kept commenting about how I live in paradise, I really wanted them to see my other paradise. We journeyed from our house on Friday after work, and 2 hours later we were fishing at Emerald Lake. Rob caught a couple nice Lakers and we had those for dinner. We laughed at the apparent absurdity of trading in our beautiful house for a mosquito infested bus. Nonetheless, we swam with mermaids and ate blueberries from the rainbow. Could it get any better than that?

S'Mores - Dessert Art

Eating from the Rainbow....

Lake Trout and Peppers

Blueberry Dessert

VARIABLE LEXICAL USAGE IN THE FRENCH OF NORTHERN ONTARIO

I have some old and formal training in French. This would be Parisian French or High French as spoke in France. I have come to learn that Quebec french is quite variant from the mother tongue. I have since learned that Northern Ontarion French is even more variant. I am now receiving "street" language tutorage. I am learning the Northern Ontario way. Our new friends have been instructed not to coddle us, but to make us learn. This means we are going to learn "slang". We are concentrating right now on just understanding...speaking will come.

"Abstract: The province of Ontario, Canada is home to a small yet well-studied group of francophones. Although fewer than 3% of Ontarians speak French at home (1996), in some locations, French is provided strong institutional support. One robust feature of Ontarian French that has been noted in other contact language communities as well (e.g. Highfield 1979: 134 for St. Thomas French) and referred to here as 'Variable lexical usage' (VLU) is a type of synonymy that involves the borrowing and use of lexical items from another contact speech variety for which equivalents already exist in the local variety (cf. Mougeon & Beniak, 1991: chapter 11). The following study focuses on the Northern Ontarian community of Hearst, population 6000, where over 90% of residents speak French at home in a context of French language maintenance. VLU is shown to be socially significant in the Hearst community; in particular, the use of certain lexical items--those associated with local speech--are symbolic of self-identification with the local community, bilingualism, and the working class. "

Dan Golembeski
http://www.indiana.edu/~iulc/WP2-golembeski.pdf

Sue and I learned Vien ici means come here. However, when we used that in language we were not understood. We kept hearing viencitte and thought it was a differant word. We have now clued in. We kept hearing people say to dogs "icitte, icitte" and now know it means "come here". We had learned "ici" in high French but will use "icitte" of Northern Ontario French. My buddy leaned over and said "paradis icitte!" It is paradise here......it sure is.....and we will learn yet another way to express it.

.....a la prochaine

White Clouds - waabaanakwad's playground

Canada Day Weekend at Emerald Lake - Blueberries

Pete called to us from the top of the cliff.......Blueberries.....Come!!!! I just ate my fist Blueberry of the season!!! 

By the time we climbed to the top, Pete had already picked a handful, which he surrendered to me wife. Chivalry is alive and well in Northern Ontario!

You can see the blueberries beginning to ripen. I think it will be a bumper harvest this year!

We were all picking berries and eating like a kid in a candy store!

Pete found a massive patch right at the foot of the rock on which he sat. We laughed because he remarked that he had front row seating!

We pigged on Blueberries but we did leave some for the bears.

wOw...natures bounties!!!..such provisions!!!!

No wonder the sparrows dont fear.

Canada Day Weekend at Emerald Lake - Swimming

There were some beautiful cliffs beside where we were fishing. Pete remarked that he would love to dive off one of those cliffs. We depth sounded the water below and it was 80 feet deep!

Pete took his first dive off the lower cliff.

He then jumped off the taller cliff.

I took a few jumps myself...very exhilarating!

Sue floated in the deep blue water

That is the number of fish we had caught...

Pete went to the taller cliff and then anounced he would dive. I told him no way, but he was intent. So he took the dive. He had fine form! As it turns out, Pete was a high diver at the pool with plenty of experience. It scared the crap out of us! Pete said it was a rush.

Canada Day Weekend at Emerald Lake - Fishing

This Canada Day weekend, my wife Sue and our buddy Pete went to camp. This is the view from the dock at at Emerald Lake Lodge. I finally brought my boat to camp and we were intent on finally catching a fish.

I dug out my downriggers which havnt been used in 15 years! 

Within 15 minutes we had our first Lake Trout. We were silly with joy!

Every day was better than the last!

This is the largest fish we caught.

Here is Pete and Sue with an afternoon catch

Here is only the 2nd fish that Sue has ever touched!

She has now touched a Walleye and a Lake Trout. 

She is getting braver and braver!

Here is a days catch ready to eat. 

and here are Fillets ready for the pan...

and here they are cooking.....

......and now they are ready to eat. Needless to say, we brought a lot of food home. We were saying that next time, we wont bring food. I remarked that that would be one way to insure that we dont catch anything!