Another Monster has been released!!!! down on the farm

My last blog stirred something inside me, this happens every once in awhile and every time I fall back like a drunk off his booze I get drawn in again to telling stories from my life .So here goes a little story about a tiny fishing Village on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, Marie Joseph. A hop, skip and jump on the road to Cape Breton. Where as a child I spent one to three weeks every summer . My Mom's family had a working farm with a connecting general store where they sold their own milk ,butter, meat ,vegetables as well I remember barrels of molasses they would dip into for folk's ,they had fun nick knacks from China ,fishing gear for the neighboring fishermen ,who would trade at times fish/lobster for meat and veg. My mother ,God rest her soul, I think about her everyday ,I bet I'm not the only one. Well Mom would love to tell us the story about when she was a young girl in school and all her friend's would be eating Bologna for lunch while she hung her head with shame because she was stuck with Lobster Sandwiches again, we use to laugh and talk about this while she was cleaning her lobster and mine at the same time, even though she had it so much when she was a child she never lost the love of a good boiled Nova Scotia lobster as well I remember her cleaning all the bones out of my salt herring and still not miss a stroke in getting her share in, nothing better then boiled salt Herring and potatoes...oh ,do you not agree?

Back to the farm, my great Uncle Alex was the man of the farm and his wonderful wife Cora was just that my Aunt Cora, she was a very big woman and I can see her sitting right inside the kitchen door everytime we would arrive for our visit,looking out the side window for costumers , the arms on her rocking chair were sprung because of her weight . They had gas pumps as well ,the store was just a walk into another large side room off the upstairs steps. Her footwear always stuck in my mind ,I believe she was so large she could only be comfortable in moccasins and her shoes as with the chair arms bulged on the sides, interesting what we remember from when we were kid's .She always had an apron on and I remember her hair being salt and pepper in color and rather witchy looking now that I think about it all these years later. But no finer Lady would you want to meet, she had the most wonderful Eastern Shore drawl when she spoke which if you asked me to mimic it today I couldn't but I can hear it in my mind as I sit here. Don't you Love it when that happens? I can also smell the bread which was always cooling on the counter . Now that I hopefully have painted a picture of Aunt Cora ,lets talk about Uncle Alex for that is where you would find me ,up bright and early every morning to go to the barn with him , milk the cows, feed the chickens and take the cows out to pasture for the day to be brought back again at night. I can see in my minds eye the cobwebs on the barn windows.Uncle Alex was a fairly slim normal height of a man ,always with five o'clock shadow on his weathered face, his ball cap or actually it was more of a train conductors looking cap, see in above B/W photo , I remember it looking like it had seen many days of hard work and even when he was dressed in his Sunday best go to meeting cloths for a funeral or wedding,he still had that Heavenly smell of barn and livestock wafting from him. Over the years I have had some wonderful thoughts and moments regarding the smell of a barn, am I strange to love that smell so ? maybe, but I think not. When he and I would get back from taking the cows out to pasture I would then help Aunt Cora separate the milk,she would bake with fresh milk daily. I see the big cream separator in the side room off the porch and right outside the kitchen. I can smell the fresh milk , oh how nice that was. She used dish cloths for filtering the milk and then our next chore was to make butter...yes homemade butter. No wonder Chuck and I choose to try our hand at small scale hobby farming when we married and moved to the country...thank you Uncle Alex and Aunt Cora for that . I played on old hay wagons throughout the day, I was found once in the barn sound asleep laying with one of my many pet calves from over the years ,I always no matter what color they were, called them "Brownie". Making hay was fun ,I never had to work hard and I hope I wasn't in Uncle's Alex's way or under foot , I never did get that impression, actually we were pretty darn close ,we would lay on the old head ache couch at the end of the day in the kitchen with smells of Aunt Cora's delicious meals sending aromas throughout the house landing in our sleepy worn out from a hard days work nostrils and then before bed we would sit in the fancy parlor and watch TV with the old rabbit ears on top , maybe one channel. I remember Aunt Cora had a blanket on the fancy couch because of Alex's work cloths and she had a piece of clear plastic pinned across the back wall of the couch because his greasy hair might have stained her wall paper.

One thing that always amused me and I thought about it years later was the fact they sold toilet paper in their store but choose to have catalogs to use instead of TP in the outhouse. Mom ,Dad and I would sleep upstairs in the front guest room and we at night would use the most beautiful blue willow chamber pot and bowl and pitcher set for morning grooming. We had real toilet paper in our room but not outside. Mom was a bad one for Pepsi and every night on our way upstairs to bed she would pop into the store and get a bottle ,remember the inside door to the store was at the the right of the stairs , that was a kid's dream to have a store right in your house. I would work in the store at times with Aunt Cora, you know I get the feeling Aunt Cora and Uncle Alex must have been stuck baby sitting me a lot because I was always with one or the other of them, while Mom and Dad would visit old friend's and really only remember Mom at bed time . I was kept very busy down on the farm . I would Love to work in the store, not doing much of anything but enjoying feeling very special ,being behind the counter , it seems every Summer I would get one of those special nick knacks I told you about and I would always pick a ceramic horse,I had this horse collection for years.

Sometimes when Mom and Dad were out late I would sleep in the what I want to call the nursery because it was a very tiny room off of Aunt Cora's room,something we today would make into a dressing room. In this tiny room was a sleigh bed with a down filled mattress,comforter and pillow, I would just sink in this bed and sleep like a baby.

One day when I was in the outhouse which was out back down a path past Uncle Alex's woodshed, I got stuck there for awhile, he had a Goose and Gander and I guess the Gander was on her nest and Daddy Goose was in a mood or protecting Momma because everytime I would attempt to leave that outhouse this guy would chase me back in. Finally I heard uncle Alex in the wood shed and cried for help, and was eventually rescued from that little adventure.

Making hay was a fun time for me, my job was easy ,I would ride on top of the hay wagon and stomp it down, my favorite work horse's name was "Billy". One Summer arriving there on the farm just after being at the Bridgewater Big Ex. I had a couple pieces of that cheap jewelry ,remember they would engrave it for you right there at the Ex.? I tied a piece of jewelry to his bridle. This picture above is of me in Uncle Alex's hay wagon with Billy the horse. This image is so small maybe I can figure out how to make it bigger.I think I was about ten in this shot.

My sister ,rather then stay with us on the farm would always continue on to where our Father was from Goldenville where there were two cousin's near her age.Goldenville is just a couple of miles from today (Historic Sherbrook Village) Guysbough County . When I knew it ,it was literally a side road ,you could go straight to our dad's homestead on the way to some old mine shafts or veer to the left which would take you back to the highway. In it's day Goldenville was a bombing place . You can imagine back then during the old Gold mining days . Our Father luckily missed out going to war because as a young teen he worked in the Gold mines driving dynamite trucks which was a very much needed job back then . Most of the able bodied men were over seas and only the young men and women were left for these jobs.

Of course when I was there the older girl's would rather not have me tag along with them ,so I would bake biscuits with Aunt Rene (Irene) her biscuits were some of the best tea biscuits I have ever had in my 57 years . She had a big shallow metal sink with the old time hand pump and I remember washing my hair in it, you had to heat the water on the wood stove and be creative as to how you rinsed trying to get the temperature just right with the mix of heated water from the stove and fresh cold well water from the hand pump. Something else I recall was in every bedroom there was a center ceiling light and there would be a string tied to the light switch and coming down tied to the bed headboard and you would crawl into bed at night after a great day in a super place and reach up and pull the string to turn the light off to then fall into a blissfull sleep.
Mom and Dad lived In Goldenville when they first married ,after a couple years Dad took a job in the Goldmines in Lunenburg County and eventually ended up in Liverpool.

You know Living that type of life is hard ,I have done it ,not only back then when I was visiting these wonderful places as a child but before our son was born, we chose to live like this, we went inshore fishing for a bit and lived in a little place called Feltzen South in Lunenburg County. We had no running water or electricity, no convinces of today's world but I believe everyone should experience this way of life if only for a short time, whenever I flush I'm Thankful.
Our time in Feltzen South is a story in itself, to be told another day.

the old days of home milk delivery

We were sitting here last evening and I got to thinking about the days as in my title "home milk delivery". Lets go way back to when I was a kid growing up in the prefabs in Liverpool Nova Scotia in the 1950's when our milk man arrived in our neighborhood each morning to seeing empty milk bottles with money in them on the doorsteps of each house . I don't recall ever hearing about any money being stolen. Not only did he deliver our milk but he did it in a horse drawn wagon. Each morning I would hear the horses tack ,a sound that if heard today floods my mind with visual memories, might even make my mouth water at the thought of those lovely little glass bottles full of the best chocolate milk any little chubby girl could ever want. And I see still the paper caps on the bottles . My birthday is in February and I remember every party I had Mom would order a case of this Chocolate milk for my friend's and I and we would suck up our delicious Chocolate treat with a straw.
Those memories I treasure but there is more I want to share with you regarding the milk wagon and that would be what the horse left behind to be scooped up fresh daily by many households , but one very dear lady "Pearl" a few doors up from us. She would run out every morning to collect the fresh still warm horse waste for her garden. But, something I don't remember is what happened to any waste that didn't get scooped up by gardeners, I don't ever recall stepping in any and I don't remember the town getting rid of it back then so I guess we just stepped around it. Those were the days my friends, those were the days. Try and leave an empty bottle with money in it on your doorstep and see what would happen today. Sad to say but the milk bottle would be broken probably into the street and the money would be gone. The sad thing is ,this act would most likely be done by young adults not children these days.
Now, let me share another fond memory from the early ,mid sixties again here in Liverpool, The "ice cream truck" owned by a family friend of ours back then. He had a gold mine with that rig, it played a tune as he drove along and we kid's would hear him coming and run to get our few pennies for ice cream, beaming with excitement as he turned the corner unto our street. The kid's would run along behind him with joy and laughter, oh so good and tasty those treats were as well yummy memories.
When we moved to Charleston in 1985 I was thrilled to see that we had home milk delivery from a truck not horse drawn wagon, but it was still the same in the way we would leave a note and money for him, this milk man became a friend of ours ,we bought our first cow from him and I am thankful our son got to see a world when these simple little things like home milk delivery was a way of life. Of course when we got cows and goats ,we no longer needed our milk man ,we would then instead go to the barn and get our own to then make cheese ,yogurt all that good stuff as well as homemade ice cream. I remember there was a gentleman who dug graves when needed up the road in the cemetery which the land was once owned and donated to the community by our Tom ,he today has a place of honor there, to rest near his homestead.This grave digger use to stop by our house and ask for a jar of fresh milk for his lunch break, so I guess we were kind of milk men ourselves.
I remember we went to see Tom many times when he lived in the nursing home in Middlefield after he had to leave his homestead because of his health, he thought the world of us and we of him. I often would say to him that the old house and farm was still his to visit and stay whenever he liked and that we were just kind of looking after it for him. The Nursing home he lived in would at times take the residents on a road trip to see the sites and what they would do is drop Tom off at our/his house to spend the day with us and he would lie on the sofa when he got tired and pet the dog and tell us wonderful stories about when he was a boy living there on our /his farm. Stories referring to his Mom as "Mother" Tom was the baby and stayed unmarried on the farm and took care of his Mom and Dad until their death to remain there for years by himself. He told us about his memory of two black men who came ,slept in the barn for a couple days while they plastered the walls in the house,his sister ,Mom and Dad slept in the L-chamber while the work was being done. His sister lived just down the road around the corner from us and we use to visit her a lot to hear great stories from her as well. We were putting our bathroom in upstairs ,in fact we found out this room was her bedroom, we had to take up a few floor boards and to our surprise we found pieces of a little tea set, yes I took this little tea set to her , she teared and told me the story of how her tea set went missing during the plastering of the walls, the tea set was missing for all those years to be found by us then to be returned to it's elderly owner. She was thrilled. Over the years we found a few interesting things in and around this 20 acre property but another special item I remember is one day Chuck was down in the cellar where there were stone walls and dirt floor. He was down there working when he came to me with a very dirty something ,after washing it off I discovered a wonderful tortoise shell hair pin, it was absolutely beautiful and was real tortoise shell and very old . I took this treasure down to "Alwilda" what a beautiful name she had. I heard about the day that "Mother and Father" were in the cellar digging it out and "Mother" lost her hair pin in the dirt. Alwilda was tickled pink to be given her Mother's hair pin back, but sadly I believe her returned treasures may have not been kept by anyone after her death, I didn't have the heart to ask for these things back after she died thinking and hoping that someone very close to her might want to keep them and their memories but I don't believe it was the case.I am heart broken to have lost these things but well things happen and I do still have my memories to take the place of the physical things. One day Chuck and our son Clay were in the cellar doing something and they came up with a gleam in their eyes and what they found were two very old American pennies dated 1854 , we still have them ,they were buried in the dirt near the stone walls. Tom then told us how he remembered two men who were hired to put the stone walls up, I believe these pennies may have been lost from one of their pockets . I laughed and I told Clay and Chuck to go back down and stay until they found the rest of the money , but , they only found two cents .Funny you know ,how things happen, when we moved into the farm there was not a lot left behind, an old organ which we tried to keep but it simply took up too much room and a couple of old trunks that I still have today. It seemed whenever we were working around and needed something ...sure enough that something we needed would mysteriously appear somewhere hanging in the barn , which we must have overlooked before. One day we were putting up cattle fence and Chuck needed something to put his nails in and wow!!in the far shop was hanging an old white canvas carpenters apron filled with nails, where did this come from we asked? We had never seen it before, a lot of times stuff like this would happen. We believe River Bend Farm was there waiting for us with it's toilet in the kitchen because Tom did not want to spend too much money putting it anywhere else only a cold water tape in the kitchen, he had a drilled well put in a couple years before we came but before that he carried water from the dug well across the road from the house. We had a great 23 years there in that community to then in 2007 sell it to people we believe were sent to us by maybe Tom and Alwilda , for the people who bought from us are perfect for our old homestead and Love it as much as we did and do still. Over those years all that we found in and around the property ,old tools anything connected to the farm that was there waiting for us ,we left for the new owners. You know we were for sale for three years ,that is a long time but I believe we were waiting for our new third owners . I wrote a long letter to them ,telling them where Tom was buried and all the history we knew about the property, the four little graves on blueberry hill for instance where you can still see the old picket fence which surrounded it half buried amongst the blueberry bushes. Our new owner's have been up to the Charleston Cemetery to visit with our Tom, how sweet of them, I told you they were meant to own our little piece of Heaven. They are very spiritual people.
My goodness,back to the blueberries , I would pick and pick and one day I was cleaning my berries on my back deck when a bird flew over my head and dropped believe it or not...dropped blueberry droppings on my head, I think i was being told that day to save some berries for them. Tom use to make his living by cutting pulp wood from his at that time couple hundred acres and we actually found the remains of his old wooden wheel barrow in the woods on the side of the barn., too broken up to save unfortunately.
But the memories live on.

wetfelting weekend

what a weekend I had ,Thanks to my Cuz. Lynn Sponagle from "Decretive Kindling" check her out ,she is one of my followers. Her work is wonderful!!Must be in the blood...LOL

Lynn and I have been needle felting for sometime now and are both obsessed. I have done a little bit of wet felting before and like Lynn wanted to do more so she dove into bangles and now I am doing them and what a weekend I had ,to the point my darling husband was concerned I would burn myself out , as long as he has been living with me and this concerns him? Hmmmm... I don't think so, but I did rub my hands almost raw.I love to create ,something like this I call relaxing, I made 14 bracelets and 20 rings since I think last Thursday, Lynn was the first to do the bracelets, she adds wonderful bead work to hers . I wanted to make my first for me and I am a drummer so really can't have beads or wear regular jewelry while I drum so my bangle is just wool. I added one stone, shell or bead to my rings ,just to give them a little bling.

This process is so fun. Watching the wool shrink and felt, like magic.I wore my ring and bangle to bed last night just to see how it "felt" get it...it felt fine :-) and no concern getting it wet, why that is how you felt with water, just always make sure you let it dry out before putting it away.

a busy yesterday

Yesterday was a beautiful warm busy day.

I had work on my mind , painting but not art. I duck taped my paint brush as well as my scraper to broom handles and went to work on the white house trim. May I suggest to you all never paint above your head on a day when the wind at times would gust to 50, lets say our driveway has blobs of white paint on it, could have been worse.

Then I came inside for a bit and made an open flag for the gallery, my idea was to make the flag from an old canvas coat ,painted it bright colors,both sides with open painted on it, I always strive to recycle or reuse as much as I can and have been when I think of it this way since before it became the thing to do. I guess you could say I am cheap? or , as I like to think of myself as creative ,knowing that if I can reuse something today and save money and Earth then I will be ahead in the long run,works for me.While I was doing this Chuck mowed the back forty...just a joke, but still way too much to mow, I either want to cover all the grass with flowers or shrubs or pave the back yard.

When the work was done we sat under our pergola and exercised with our drums. It is exercise for the mind and body. Here is a shot of our Mr. Ed enjoying a tune from Dad.

Our large boat piece was hung in the driveway ,my plan is to do more work on this piece in the coming days. I will be working on it outside of course so if you are in Town drop by.

I am waiting on someone to pick up a few consignment pieces for our local hospital gift shop.

Then I am thinking of maybe doing something for me...will see,how that goes.

back after a couple days

I 'm back, it has been busy this past couple of days since I wrote here in my blog, Spring does that to one, sneaks up with much work, getting out on the bike , seeing old friend's who were held up inside all Winter, yard sales to visit and buy more stuff to replace the junk you put out for Spring cleanup, my, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Yesterday we went to our friend's Mom's 97th Birthday gathering, she is such a Dear . When I was in my early preteen years she was my solo teacher, I remember going to her house after Christmas year after year once a week to practice for the music festival. I see in my mind the room in the front of her house with the piano , the room is as clear as if I were standing in it right now. There was a closed door to the rest of the house and I use to hear Kate my friend now but at the time I didn't know her on the other side of the door talking with her since passed Dad. Years later when I knew Kate and hung around with her, I remember going to her home and waiting for her to get ready for us to go out.I would sit in the other front room where her Mom would wait with me while she pressed her beautiful flowers in between the pages of her book. she was and is a very classy, wonderful person a special lady indeed and I am happy to still have her here and she being a friend of mine today.

Above is a shot of my blank greeting cards I offer ,there are a few more not on the rack yet to be added. Some like to choose 4 or 5 same theme and put them in a multiple mated frame. Also there is a shot of some of the product which is waiting to be taken to our various local Tourist spots for the Summer.

As well take notice of the shot of the Theatre Masks, this sign will be on our house to welcome Actors and the like from all over the world and nearby who will be here in our wonderful Little friendly town for our Biannual Theatre Festival . Every second year a local artist is chosen to make the awards for these Actor's, it is an honor which I proudly have had my turn at.

Our Town will come alive on May 19-23 and be a bustle with People from all over the Maritime provinces and World. There is music entertainment ,plays ,socializing with interesting people and stories and lives to share. My hope God willing, I have a nap first, is to join in on the late night,early morning jam sessions ,my plan is to make one for sure, I would do all three evenings at Lanes late night Thurs. Fri. and Sat. if I were about 20 years younger :-( I plan to take my Tongue drum and if Chuck joins me, more drums and maybe rhythm instruments. Of course even though I will be with Adults possibly drinking, I will have to remind them if they use a drum to respect the drum , like I tell children a drum has skin just like our fragile skin and can be cut, so we must be very careful Kid's :-) if you can...join in ,visit our Town on the long weekend in May,look me up.

Tomorrow I will post a picture and story about the huge boat piece we just hung outside on our fence in the Gallery driveway ,this piece is so big I have no where for it inside this Summer, so it is out there in a shady spot waiting for someone , maybe you ? to buy it and take it home to hang inside your high ceiling home ,it is about 10 Feet long. These pieces are very hard to find , I have been fortunate to have over the years found all in all that size about 4 pieces like this, I know where two of them are hanging today and I have been there and have seen them, what a wonderful feeling to see where one's art is hanging, yes every piece I do has a whole lot of me ,of course in it. And most times I can tell you where the piece came from as I can with this particular boat piece.

rain ,April and Eddie

Today it is raining again, my birdhouse boots still without roofs. But I have been very busy with a few things such as my blank greeting cards, chuck cut them taking him at least a whole day and I have been folding and gearing up with envelopes. All done ,so that was a job done not to be worried about again.

When I was a child I always thought I would love to be Veterinarian as an adult, I found out over the years that I would never make a good Vet, how could I see to help them with tears welling in my eyes all the time. I do donate to our local SPCA , always being asked to donate art to various organizations I finally choose for myself who I want to give to and that is the Animals. Above is a photo of one of my paintings I donated to the SPCA.

We had a scare with our Little Papillon Dog Eddie, he is 12 years old, blind and deaf and we thought not doing well . He had been messing in the house and I say had because he hasn't the last couple of days. I invited all his people and doggy friends as well as his boy our Clay to visit on Sunday thinking that his days were numbered. Well, you should have seen him perk up and he had a great day, after seeing and watching this all Sunday , I knew in my heart that he was to be with us a while longer and kept it to myself to wake Monday morning to a new day and fresh thinking. Eddie is still with us and will be until he stops eating ,and I see that he is uncomfortable .

We are all relieved especially his boy Clay and his girlfriend Kate :-) we are happy to still have our sweet little friend with us and what can I say but these things are so ,so hard , our hearts ache for our little fur friend's. Here he is ,this is an older picture , his eyes are more cloudy these days but he can get around just fine and is eating well and when his dog girlfriend Laura above photo is here he still has Love on his mind so he is fine I am happy to say.

Milton School Art/Math projects

I am back from the school and because i will be out tomorrow and Chuck is at a meeting I decided to write this evening.

It was an honor and treat to be there, to see Teacher's and children I have known for years .

There was so much , they worked so hard and were so proud . There was a great turn out and it was so nice to see all the young parents and Grandparents I was thrilled to be there, Thank you for the invite.

Mobiles hung in all the doorways.

Here we have Haily from a below photo and her Friend's, to think these young Ladies may continue growing and going to school with each other for years to come, to have their ups and downs , to share laughs and secrets with friend's who someday may be standing with them on their wedding days, oh to be young, I wish you all the best girl's ,become great in all you do, be happy , safe and have fun learning.

This one I really Loved ...gumdrops....yum!!! I wonder how many they ate building this?
Now that was a great way to learn.

Here we have a lovely young lady Hailey Saulnier standing proudly infront of her art work.
It was so cute as I was walking the hall ways looking at this great colorful work, I saw Hailey pointing to the butterflies, I asked her if this was her work, then looked up to see that I knew her parents , the last time I saw Hailey I believe I was face painting her and that was a few years back now. My you feed these little munchkins and they grow like weeds. Which reminds me, speaking of growing like weeds , I either grew like a little weed this past Winter or my cloths shrunk over these past Months with all this dampness..I made a funny...

I was having a time trying to find something decent to wear this evening.

Milton school is primary and one then they head into town to Dr John C. Wickwire where I have had the privilege of doing drum workshops and art projects with the students over the years,our Clay came into town from where we lived then in Charleston for grade 6, there was talk of the Mill village school closing so we sent him to town to be in the first grade six graduating class at Wickwire, we started doing workshops at that school if seems so long ago ,Clay is 25 now, where does the time fly?

So back to the art work, what they did was combine art and math in many different ways,I did try and get as many shots as I could there was so much to choose from so hopefully you will get the idea from these photos.

Now to share with you something I thought was very sad, all this great ,beautiful art work will have to be removed from these walls by the end of this week, there is a fire regulation as of just two years ago that no paper of any kind can be hung anywhere in hallways or classrooms unless it is on a bulletin board, so why not put up more bulletin boards you ask as did the Teacher's when first they heard of this new law ,to find out they can't do that either because they are only allowed so many bulletin boards so many feet apart, well yes there are rules and rules are made for a reason but we all know children learn a great deal from visual and I remember classrooms with so much stimulating information around them now this is no longer the case, all their wonderful work , what will happen to it? too bad it could not be left up for awhile longer at least . The times they are changing and sometimes you really must wonder if for the best?

So time to veg and watch TV ,while I wait for Chuck to return.
Do you not agree Earth Day was beautiful? lets make everyday "Earth Day"