Parliament Hill

While we were in Ontario, we did a few touristy things.  Meredith had a few places she wanted to see while we were there, and one of them was Parliament Hill.  These are the Parliament buildings above the Ottawa River.  

From Wikipedia.....

Parliament Hill (French: Colline du Parlement), colloquially known as The Hill, is an area ofCrown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in Downtown Ottawa, Ontario. ItsGothic revival suite of buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural elements of national symbolic importance. Parliament Hill attracts approximately 3 million visitors each year.^[1]

Originally the site of a military base in the 18th and early 19th centuries, development of the area into a governmental precinct began in 1859, after Queen Victoria chose Bytown as thecapital of the Province of Canada. Following a number of extensions to the parliament and departmental buildings and a fire in 1916 that destroyed the Centre Block, Parliament Hill took on its present form with the completion of the Peace Tower in 1927. Since 2002, an extensive $1 billion renovation and rehabilitation project has been underway throughout all of the precinct's buildings; work is not expected to be complete until after 2020.

Sorry for the quality of the photos, for some reason I hadn't taken the camera that day.(Slaps myself)  My phone works well on sunny days, but not so well in lower light conditions. We did have a lot of 'grey' days while we were in Ontario.

Parliament Hill above the Ottawa River.

That round building is the library.  When the rest of the block was burned, that building was saved by a brave soul who got the metal doors to the library closed in time.  The library is amazing inside, it makes me think of something out of a Harry Potter or hobbit movie.

We had parked under the National Gallery, which we also wanted to visit that day, and walked the 1 km or so to the Hill.  That is the back of the Fairmont Hotel Chateau Laurier.

The front of the hotel, taken from the car. No, I was not stood in the middle of the road.

Looking at the east side of the East Block of the Parliament Buildings.  That is a bridge in the foreground that passes over the Rideau Canal and it's many locks on it's way up the hill from the Ottawa River.

The locks are closed down for the season.  The canal above these locks becomes a huge skating rink in the winter if the weather cooperates .

Peeking through the fence at the south side of the East Block.

Cathy and Meredith on the walkway to Center Block, with the East Block in the background.  I'm not sure how many of my American readers were aware that we had a terrorist type incident at Parliament Hill in October.  A soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the War Memorial was killed.  The terrorist then drove to Parliament hill, and ran up in front of that East Block, where he hijacked a car and drove to Center Block.

The West Block was under wraps and being renovated.

Center Block with the Peace Tower.

The terrorist jumped out of the car to the left of the Peace Tower, and raced in through the center door, heading towards the library whose pointed roof is just visible behind and to the right of the tower.  Close to the library he was shot and killed by the Sergeant at Arms.

I have no idea what the security was like before that incident, this being Canada where we generally have few of those types of events.  When we were there we had to stop at that white tent to the right of the Peace Tower and allow our purses to be examined.  Just inside the door we were stopped again and informed that the next available English (French being the other national language) tour wasn't for nearly another two hours.  

We got our tickets and decided to head over to the War Memorial, which is just across the road and east a little bit.  It still has it's ceremonial guards.  They are there for one hour shifts.  We watched the next two being piped (bagpipes) in, and these two being piped out. I laid a poppy on the tomb in respect to Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, only 24, a father and dog lover.  Gunned down from behind.  It makes me feel sick.  

There was extra security there when we visited.

I have to admit I checked over my shoulder more than once while we were there and at the Parliament Buildings.

After the War Memorial we thought we would walk back to the National Gallery and look in there while waiting for our tour of the Parliament Buildings to start.  Well of all things, it was closed that day.  We couldn't believe it.  So we killed some time walking around, had a bit of lunch in an undesirable part of town, went in a store or two.  

This is the US Embassy. 

We saw that woman get a going over with the metal detector wand before she was allowed in.

We got back  to Parliament Hill in time for our tour, and had to do the regular airport type security check before we were allowed to continue.  The tour guide mentioned the terrorist incident, but said he wasn't allowed to discuss it since it was still under investigation, and wouldn't be answering any questions regarding it.  When we had come back out from the libary, one of our group did ask where the office of the Sergeant at Arms was.  It was the first door in a hallway right next to where we were stood.  The S at A came out of that office and shot the terrorist dead, probably about where we were stood.  A bit of a creepy feeling, definitely.

Then we walked back again to the National Gallery and the car, and through rush hour traffic back to Smith's Falls.

Here is a link to some really great pictures of the Parliament Buildings. Check out the library!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/parlcanada/

Back Home Again

It's always tough to write a post after you have been missing in action for a few weeks.  Where do you start?  I suppose it would be logical to start with the main reason I didn't blog.  Meredith and I went to Ontario for 10 days to visit my sister and her family.  We had a great time.  We did some sightseeing, lots of walking, and lots of laughing.

And it wasn't even a holiday away from dogs and cats, as my sister has three dogs, and one cat who thinks he is a dog.

Most of the walking was to exercise the dogs.  Cathy walks fast.  I have a hip or two that bother me at times, and a knee that doesn't like to be left out, so after the first day and it's long, very fast walk, I was limping.  I think I passed on the walks the next day, and after that the speed was dropped a notch, and I did alright from then on.

Here we are walking along the Rideau River.  Two mothers and their daughters, and from left to right....Dasher, Harlow aka Brutus aka Moose, and Toby.

Dasher is a 12 year old border collie/something or other mix, Harlow is a black lab/golden retriever cross who started out as a future guide dog for the blind. She is now destined to be a brood bitch, eventually producing puppies who will go on to be guide dogs or assistance dogs.  Cathy has raised two previous pups, one who is now guiding a visually impaired man in Toronto, and the other is trained as an assistance dog and is waiting to be matched up with the right person.

Last but not least is Toby, a border collie/bernese mix, who has lost most of his hearing and some of his sight, and is a grand 14 1/2.  I've got to admit, they all walk better on leashes than my dogs.

Harlow and Leroy waiting at the screen door

Leroy thinks Harlow's bed is his.

He is quite the character.

He and Meredith seemed to hit it off.  He may think he is a dog, but he can certainly recognize a cat person when he is laying on one.

A post under construction part 2

'Rocky' Mountain High

This has become post from the hot place underground where the not very nice people are supposed to roast in eternity.

First trying to email the photos from my phone to blogger, had to do it in multiple parts, multiple times, which meant multiple posts.  Then when trying to get those multiple posts into one, the computer in the library kept on freezing up on me when I tried to move the photos with the 'photos from this blog' option, so I finally ended up copying and pasting the photos over into one.  I tried to make the photos the usual size, but they aren't coming through very focused, so I've left them smaller.  Could be the computer monitor here, which seems to have a faint double shadow to all the text.

Now I only have four minutes left on the computer here at the library.  So to cut it short and sweet, Larry, Jake, Luna and I went for an amazing hike yesterday, we were gone three hours.  We did the killer climb up to the radio tower on top of one peak, and then did some exploring once we had rested at the top. We saw a few deer and a bear plop, had a great time, were pretty darn tired by the time we were done.  Here are some pictures and I'd better hit publish before the computer boots me out.

I'll be back tomorrow to try and sort some things out
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From the 'You learn something every day' Category

We walk through our bush most mornings.  I've always been interested in nature, so am always 'looking'.  Every once in a while I see something that I haven't seen before. I saw this on Wednesday morning, and remembered to take the camera back with me yesterday.  This is what it looked like on the bottom.

And this is what it looked like on the top.  The ball thingy was soft and squishy, but would bounce back into shape once you stopped poking it.

 I kind of thought it must be a mushroom, but in my 50 odd years of wandering the woods of B.C., I don't remember ever seeing this before.  I spent some time looking at pictures of edible mushrooms of B.C., which happened to be the site I ended up on first.  There were a lot of mushrooms there that I know I haven't seen either.  I can't imagine ever forgetting seeing this. It can get up to 12" across.

Bear's Head Tooth Mushroom  Hericium Americanum

Photo from northernbushcraft.com

I didn't see any pictures of my mushroom.  So yesterday after taking the photos, I got back on the computer and searched for images of 'mushrooms with a ball on top'.  There were loads and loads of pictures of puffballs, but as I scrolled down I finally found what I was looking for.  This is what it is, Geastrum Saccatum, commonly known as the rounded earthstar.  There are lots more amazing pictures of them here 

There were a few other mushrooms/fungi out there, but nothing as exciting as the earthstar.

On a rotting birch stump

Way up on a dying alder tree.  I remember writing on the bottom of these when I was a child. The writing would turn dark.

And finally some ink caps? busting out of the horse manure pile.

T

Thanksgiving Weekend

Here in Canada, the second Monday of October is Thanksgiving.  That's always a big weekend for us, as it marks the end of the summer season for the two farmers markets we attend.  Saturday started out fair, and we had decided that Larry would sell at Abbotsford on Saturday, so that I had more time and energy to get all the flowers and vegetables picked in the limited amount of daylight we have now, for Sunday's market.

I went with him to the market to help set up, and then not long after it started to rain.  And rain it did, hard.  We have two market tents, one set up behind the other.  The front tent is over what we have to sell, and the back tent is over the utility trailer we use to haul everything there, and which also holds all the extra jam.  When it rains, we have stop the rain from running off where the two tents join.  The easiest thing is to grab both little sidewall parts and turn them up and clamp them to form a little gutter that sends the water off to each side.  We had a bit of a puddle forming at one corner of the back tent, near the gutter.  We used a board to push it to the edge where it would gush over the side.  One particular time I got a little enthusiastic, and pushed the water too fast.  Instead of going over the side, it went 90 degrees the other way, and into the gutter. It was too much water too fast for the gutter to hold, so it came shooting out.  Larry just so happened to be bent over looking into the egg cooler at that moment, and ended up with his hair washed.  I've got to give him a lot of credit though, he had the sense to just hold his head down, instead of straightening up with the shock of that cold water hitting him, which would have sent it all pouring down his neck.  Thankfully we had a big towel with us. Thankfully he was still speaking to me afterwards....well it was Thanksgiving after all!

I left about 10, and as I drove west I could see that it was going to clear up, and so figured that if that was the case, I might as well give the dahlias a bit of time to dry off before I cut them, so stopped at a couple of thrift stores on my way home:)

There were lots of dahlias to pick, although it doesn't really look it in the first two pictures. It seemed to take me ages to get them all cut.

About 16 buckets full.  Luna was the only one that hung out with me.

I only take flowers to the Sunday market, as there is a vendor at the Saturday one that only sells bouquets.  I knew flowers would be in high demand on Sunday, since it was Thankgiving, and I had wanted to have lots made up.  Usually I have about 12 bouquets done, and then take the rest of the flowers with me and make up more bouquets at the market.  Sunday morning the alarm didn't go off as planned, when I checked to see that it was set, I must have actually turned it off.  Thankfully though, I woke up only 40 minutes late, at 5:40 instead of 5am.  I got 10 bouquets put together, and we headed off about 7:30.  We quite often have a little mini lineup in front of our booth, as we don't start selling anything until we are all set up.  We learned the hard way that if you start selling things before you are all ready, sometimes you never really get it all done.  So at first I felt really uncomfortable with the little audience out there, but now it doesn't bother me, and sometimes I have a bit of conversation with one or two.  We were all set to go at 8:55.  By 9:05, all 10 bouquets had sold, so for the next couple of hours I put more bouquets together, another 12 or 14 of them.  As I was trimming the stems on the first one, I got a little enthusiastic and cut into my wrist with the pruners at the same time.  Our First Aid box only had mini band aids left, but our neighbour vendors were better equipped.  I wasn't bleeding much yet, but I knew it was coming.  In the end it took 3 bandaids to keep the bleeding under control.  Between making bouquets, and wrapping them up for customers, and helping Larry out a bit, it was a busy morning.  It wasn't a really heavy day for jam sales, but Larry was kept busy with the veggie sales and wrapping jam in newspaper and trying to get the shelves restocked.  I was sure glad when the last flower went into a bouquet, and I only had the mess to clean up.  I meant to take photos of the actual bouquets, but forgot.

After the market we went for lunch with a friend and fellow vendor, and then Larry headed home with the dogs.  I went to the care home where my mum lives.  The plan was that Meredith was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday for us all in her new place.  I took my mum out there, a 45 minute drive.  I remember when I used to drive my mum places, and she never stopped talking, and I would be in heavy traffic and I would wish she would just be quiet for a bit so I could concentrate on my driving.  Now it is just the opposite, she really has nothing to say, and I struggle with things to come up with that she can understand, and try to get a bit of conversation going.

Meredith did a wonderful job of the meal.  All homemade...turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce.  Roasted yams and squash and a vegetable medley.  Homemade apple pie for dessert.  I told her that I had taught her well!:)

Meredith has turned into a real thrifter too now that she has her own place.  Notice the unmatched blue and white plates she is collecting, and the dark blue table cloth topped by the white lacy one, they are a few of the things she has found.  Her paternal grandma (deceased) would be happy to see Meredith using her dining room table and chairs.

 David was there too and he took my mum back home, as it was also the direction he had to head.  We came home with a doggy bag that fed us on Monday, and had a relatively relaxing day off.

The markets are still continuing, but there will be less vendors now, and the Abbotsford one has the option for some vendors to move into the basement of the church.  I will go to two or three of those between now and Christmas.  White Rock changes location, we will be outside for a few weeks and then will move inside the hall when the weather gets really miserable.  We will go to every one of those, nine Sundays until the middle of December.

Suzanne asked how the coyotes were doing.  They are still out there, we don't see a lot of them, but we know they are there, the dogs let us know.  Yesterday afternoon one was near the property fence next to the north chickens.  Today the chickens were squawking and dogs were barking, and there were two coyotes in the field just north of the fence when we went out there.  We don't have any bigger fire power than a pellet gun or an airsoft pistol.  We went in and finally managed to find the pellet gun, and then some pellets.  By the time we got back out there, the coyotes were no longer to be seen.  We took a couple of practice shots, hey, I managed to hit the broad side of a round bale at about 250 ft.!  A bit later, I was at the chicken coop and glanced at the field next door, and there was a coyote again.  I ran and got the pellet gun and managed to get three shots off.  The second one sent it running, although I know I didn't hit it.  Oh how I wished at that moment I had a couple of wolf hounds to let loose on it.