Night Of The Wolves

I once lived on an Island called Porcher, in the south West inlet called Serpentine. Population 10, if everyone was home. It was an 8 hour boat ride in our little flat bottomed river boat, from the Port of Prince Rupert.

I lived with my second husband Bill, my four year old daughter Yolanda, and his 3 ½ year old daughter Song, who visited on occasion, and a cat named Goodie. We also had an occasional dog, who stayed with us when Richard Fish was not home.

We built a two story house on a large log float, we inhabited the top floor while we intended on working on the main floor. With a gambrel style roof or barn roof it gave us more living space upstairs. With two stories the house didn't float, that would be another story.

On a fall evening, Bill was off fishing, our neighbors were all out, Yolanda, Song, the dog, Goodie the cat and I were the only ones home. As we got into bed that dark night, I could hear wolves off in the distance. The girls fell fast asleep, and the dog was in his favorite spot under the house, on one of the logs. The sound of the wolves grew closer and I felt that we were surrounded by many wolves.

I was very worried about the dog, considering wolves will eat dogs. I went downstairs to get the dog in. I was stunned after opening up the door to call the dog, there just off of the porch stood a large long legged wolf, eating the fish we had left out for the dog. I was totally freaked when the dog came running from the other side of the house and ran circles around the wolf. The wolf payed little attention and continued to chew the fish with a little shuffle of his feet. The dog wouldn't come in. I ran back upstairs to get the shot gun. I couldn't find it. The girls were waking up. I ran back down stairs and managed to get the dog in the house. I ran back up the stairs muttering under my breath “Where did Bill put that gun?” The girls were wide awake by now and said. “We know where Bill hide the gun.” I throw up my hands. At lest it didn't have bullets in it. I got the gun ready and ran down the stairs. Walked to the other side of the room to the large unfinished open window. I was high above the ground, standing over the spot that the dog loved to sit. I could see the eye's of the wolves glowed in the dark off in the distance and two of them were running very fast up to the house. I aimed the gun above their heads, it wouldn't shoot. I tried again it wouldn't shoot. I could hear them as they hit full force on the log the dog loved to sit. They kept running going back the direction they came. I fiddled with the gun and aimed again, the gun fired and shot over their heads. I only wanted to scary them away.

We all went back to sleep safe inside the float house that didn't float, as the howls of the wolves grew quieter and farther away.

The next morning the tide was out and I noticed that our little fiberglass skiff was missing. We had it tied to an anchor further out in the inlet. I made breakfast for the girls and told them to stay in the house. Grabbed the gun, the dog wouldn't come with me, he watched the girls. I walked out to were the skiff should have been. It was the distance of about one and half city blocks. The anchor was there, the rope was there with a clean cut, and in the sand all around were many wolf prints. It gave me cold chills. I looked all around and couldn't see the skiff, so I walked another what would be 3 city blocks to Richard Fish's house to barrow his wooden skiff. I pulled it off the beach and into the water and rowed until I found our skiff floating with the tide water. I tied it to Richards boat and rowed back to Richards beach, since the tide was so far out I had to tie the two boats on Richards beach and walk back home. The girls were happy making paper hats for Goodie and all was well to my relief. The mystery was the rope. The four inches that was left of the rope on the boat was also cleanly cut as if with a sharp knife, and the only suspects were the wolves, or could it have been a bullet shot over their heads?

Enchanting Night Sky

Last night I wished to lay under the beautiful night sky. Surrounded by pink river mist with a full moon waning. The trees were thick with frosted snow, majestic against the clear night sky, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and stars bright, enchanting night sky. A sky to wish upon.
A new year is approaching, I wish for the best year yet, many milestones, anniversaries, birthdays, much to celebrate in 2013. Much to prepare.

2012

2012

It has been a year of visiting with family and friends, helping others, protesting, creative and destructive accomplishments.

I started out the year with a visit to Mom in Cincinnati, leaving the boys Steve and Mattie home to fend for themselves. Jessica was also visiting so Mom had a birthday with all her kids. I think Mom was the oldest kid at the restaurant in her pink, sketchers, with the white side walls, and plastic gems that light up with every stomp, a peace sign on the tongue and no shoe laces. She wore them everywhere we went and stomped in front of anyone till they noticed and she laughed. It was a lot of fun till she tried stomping her foot on the dash board of the car as we were over taking a police car, those shoes light up just like a police cruiser.

In the spring we had a great deal of flooding in BC. Steve and I are volunteers with North Okanagan Emergency Social Services or ESS. We were called to help the team in Sicamous an hours drive north of Enderby. Whole neighborhoods were evacuated. People vacationing on rented house boats lost their cars and had no way to return home; pet’s had to be cared for. ESS gives people care for three days, hotel, food, clothing if need be. Steve filled out forms and I took care of pets as they arrived. People came in bus loads all day. We have been on call through out the year. Last week all the teams and volunteers were honored at a dinner and given certificates of recognition.

To our ever annoyance our large back deck had to go. (Destructive accomplishment) As Steve removed it in stages we saw just how bad it was and how the rot was covered up making the porch unsafe to walk on. It was a big job, now we have a much smaller but safe porch built properly , it just needs the rails . Steve works on the porch when he doesn’t have work that pays, it so happened that when the weather was beautiful for working outside Steve had work (He works in the basement using his computer to design roof trusses) but when the weather was rainy and gross he had no paying work.

Another project of Steve’s was the gate made out of branches from trimming the trees in our yard, he also built a small fence of branches. This inspired me to built a deer of branches for the front yard , it goes nicely with the fence and gate.

It took two years to repair and paint our large straw bale fences. To me they are an open canvas and it took the two years to decide on what to paint on the wall. Wanting to bring awareness to the declining wild Salmon, due to fish farms, I painted life size wild Salmon on the fences. Don’t eat farmed fish please, unless they are raised in-land and not on the ocean.

I finished my first Competent communication Manuel in Toastmasters, giving 11 speeches. I now have two advanced manuals, I chose “The Entertaining Speaker” and “Humorously Speaking” . I have now given 13 speeches.

I hope this finds you well. May the new year be happy, healthy and prosperous for you and yours.

All our best to you 

I just ran out of free storage space for my photo's, I must consider how I am going to proceed. This isn't something I do just for me and I do not make money off of the post's for other people, there-fore I do not want to spend money to store photo's.

Primordial Soup At The Gypsy Bazaar

Susan Fleming The Treasure and the Orca's.

The Gypsy Bazaar has been rearranged to make way for their first art show, "Primordial Soup". The show is in two stages, today November 16TH 2012 was the start of Susan Fleming's acrylic on canvas, "Impressions From Minus 40 Feet" Susan lived on Vancouver Island and did some scuba diving. Some of the paintings are from her memories of the deep underwater weightlessness. She also has a greeting card collection of five Enderby buildings or homes, all snowy for Christmas. Ben Fulton was proud of her rendition of the Gypsy Bazaar.  I liked the pencil crayon Mandala  that sold, it was very earthy. The art work will be up till December 8TH. The Second part of the art show will be a book launching on November 30TH from 3 to 7 PM for Susan's cook book "Button Soup" Drop in on Ben, Sarah and Susan at the Gypsy Bazaar on Mill Ave in Enderby on the 30th and have a taste of soup. 

Susan, Ben and his Mom Sarah. Ben is holding the card of the Gypsy Bazaar.

For more information on Susan Fleming's art and her book go to cook book and  Susan's art

Hats, Hats and Hats

Hats have been on my mind lately,  they are much smaller to work with and fit in a big box to be transported to and from home and markets. I had fun with Steve's old worn out jeans designing a landscape around the worn knee. My next project is for the ARTBEAT of Enderby, for more information on the art show fundraiser click on Artbeat. 

Cloche with Garlic scape detail.

Medieval inspired with bleached and painted cotton knit and a rocket on top.

The Bee.

Floppy patchy.

Aviators helmet.

This was a special order for The Healthy Chocolate Company.  This symbol is the Mayan symbol for Chocolate.

The symbol on this side is the Mayan symbol for Healthy.

All together, in the foreground are Celtic belt/headbands, and the big dragonfly hat in the back I am still working on.

Had to have something for the Red Hat Ladies.

Cloche with grape vine tendrils. The fabric was dyed and painted by Anne DeVerteuil.

If you have any hat ideas for your own head let me know..............

NO Pipeline, NO Tankers, NO Harper

I like to stick to Art and Culture in this blog but we will have no Art and No Culture if we do not stand up for democracy and get ride of the H man. Today I drove to Salmon Arm for the pipeline protest, across the street from MLA George Abbott's office. 200 people stood in the cold with signs on this Wednesday at noon. We sang a protest song with too may words, even with song sheets. Kids were running through the crowd unaware of what their future will be. My fear is that human nature is so greedy, our children do not have a future.