What a difference a year makes !! Last year ... 2007 / this year 2008..... from the depths of the ravine to the heights of a high - rise ! Fluff and I wish you all the utmost happiness and the best of health......... and why not a wee bit of prosperity to boot during these tough economic times. Hugs to all our friends and passers by !
Poor Fluff !! Ths last month and a half her new office has been cluttered up with debris from my never - ending climb up the learning tree......... boxes full of books ! Before moving I gave away almost 80% of my personal library to various individuals and organizations and hardly realized that in spite of all that giving away I had still brought about 25 boxes of books and documents along here to Saint John ....the leftovers of a long career spreading the good news of wisdom and knowledge ...... much like a farmer spreads manure !!
So I went out the Kent Lumber and bought eight 8 - foot by 1 inch by 8 " knotty pine boards .... plus two lengths of 10 - foot 4"x 4" spruce ...... both cut up into 10 - inch long pieces .... which gave me a total of 24 blocks all told. It's a make - shift bookcase , simple to put up and dismantle...... like a bedouin tent in the desert. I have already emptied about 15 boxes .... and the smile on Fluff's face broadens with each new one I empty..... less clutter !! I left a one - block space under the bottom shelf so that she might "swiffer " more freely. It would be rather complicated to sand , stain and shellac my boards and blocks in our new lodgings.... so I shall simply put it off for now until next Spring when I can take the pieces down the street to my friend , Dick Scott's backyard ........ and do the whole shebang outdoors in one fell swoop in the same afternoon with no worry about spilling or splashing stain or varnish on apartment floors , walls , etc.
Weatherwise we have been living a topsy - turvy existence ..... up and down like a toilet seat in public places. Yesterday it was snowing .... then raining downpour style when we hit the hay around midnight,,,,,, followed by freezing rain overnight into the wee hours ...... with thermometer hovering around zero. About 4 in the morning I woke up to make a pit - stop and decided to check out traffic movement through our panoramic windows in the dining room........not knowing just how frozen the streets and parking lots had become while " visions of sugar plums " were dancing in my head. Unbespectacled in the darkness I made my way to the window and gazed out . Not ONE car was moving ....... just a lonely gritting lorry over near the Fairview Plaza. Then I looked downwards at our own parking lot below and could make out the rather fuzzy outline of a pick - up truck with its high beams illuminating the whole lot with silhouettes moving about in the shadows....... seemingly darting back and forth between the vehicule and the parked cars . Carthieves , says I to myself and I grab my handy three million candle - power spotlight ....... once feared by undesireables on Chemin du Ravin in my other life...... and I lit those suckers up from nine stories up like deer in the headlights.
It was a private contractor hired by the owners of our building to salt and sand our huge parking lot which is built on a major slope and deadly after freezing rain for fender benders , etc
Another first for me today on Canadian soil. I went out in shorts on December 12th to move my car to a better parking space. It was 15 C ... or 60 Fahrenheit !! Wake up weather tomorrow morn they are calling for - 10C !
I had a huge feast of quahogs .... above pic ... a type of hard - shell , short - necked clam which is quite popular in these parts...... more popular in Rhode Island though where it is highly revered by shellfish lovers.
This is for Bill !! Here I sit at my new Hampton pine philosopher's desk ..... striving , as always , to find better ways of rolling back the frontiers of human knowledge .... Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time "on my left and the New Jerusalem Bible on my right ( hidden ) . By the way , Bill , my new bookcase is made of "naughty "pine !!
Fluff and I drove by God's gift to the retail world this morning and cast an eye of dismay upon the above scenario. At - 14 Celcius and covered with ice and snow the wee pines are "frozen dead " !! Even Frosty the Snowman and poor old Saint Nick are flat on their "donkeys " along with most of the Norfolk Island flora !! W - M has lowered the price from $ 14.00 to $ 3.00 each but noone is taking the bait..... I buy my meat dead but I like my house plants alive !!
I love plants and at Christmas I usually make a point of having 4 or 5 poinsettias , a couple of flowering Christmas cacti and also a Norfolk pine .... all enhancing the house during the festive season. One brisk sunny day ( maybe 35 F ) shortly after moving here in early November Fluff and I drove by America's giant retailer and noticed they had received their Yuletide shipment of Norfolk pine ...... roughly 80 3 - foot high plants ....... all well - shaped and beaming with evergreen colour and good health !! That night the thermometer dipped to a hair below freezing so the following morning we headed out to W - M 's to check out the fate of the Norfolk pines.... and even buy one since they were selling for only $ 14.00 whereas elsewheres they were going for $ 25.00 and more.
As we pulled into the W - M lot that morning I was hoping that some "associate genius "had thought about the overnight frost and had either brought them inide .... or had , at least , covered the plants over. But no !!! They were still outdoors and all frost - bitten and browning ... the early stage of slow death. I started searching through the mess and finally came upon one that had toppled over and had been protected from Mother Nature's wintry touch by those standing over it. Fluff went in and paid for it and it now stands proudly in our new apartment .... the only one of that batch to survive that first heavy frost.The picture on right was taken some two weeks later and they are even browner and "deader "...... and nobody is buying them.
The Norfolk pine is native to Norfolk Island in the Pacific Southwest.... and is , therefore , a tropical plant and should be treated as such The top pic is of the Norfolk Island flag...... with the pine highlighted at its centre.
Just a wee word of heartfelt thanks for all the encouraging comments and kind thoughts you have been sending my way through Fluff's blog during these last four months. It was a rough 'n tumble ... uphill struggle all the way ..... right down to the wire ..... but we finally pulled it off !! Driving home yesterday I pulled into a gas-station about two hours north of here for a last fill up. I well know that I looked like the wrath of God but managed to squeeze off a few words of wisdom to the chirpy young lady's query , " And how are you today , sir ? "....... I answered , " Tired , my dear , very tired ........ but still in the game........ and the damnedest thing about it all is that I have the deep feeling I'm winning !" . I got back on the road and the closer I got to Fluff , McDuff and the ocean the lighter that big black gorilla I had been lugging around on my back these last few months became until it finally jumped out the back door and disappeared into the mists near the Geary Woods and Enniskillen . I HAD WON !! What relief !! It will still take me some time to get back to blogging and commenting as before sooooooo....... greetings and hugs to you all and a special word to my friend , Jim.... reassuring him that he'll soon have a back - up rooster in the barnyard !!
P.S. As souvenirs and memories of my snow - shovelling days back in the "ravine " and my bouts with the Yellow River ..... Rivière Jaune every Spring for 34 years ....... I brought back my favourite shovel and one of 20 sump pumps from my basement.... installing them on my 9th - floor , penthouse balcony to remind my of my smart decision to come home to Saint John. Let's just hope and pray that God does not decide to afflick the earth by sending another epic flood as in the days of Noah.........
Now that the Mother Country's finances are back on even keel ..... and Mother Earth back on her axes and rotating well......and faith restored in the democratic process ..... I feel that I can once again fly the flag of the happy blogger. To boot ....one hell of a big decision has been made since the last time I posted ..... followed up with life - altering practical moves in its wake as you are surely aware of since you are all avid readers of Fluff's diary. My brain and emotions made the decision ... Fluff was on board immediately since she had already fallen in love with Saint John and the locals but my old bones took a wee bit longer to convince .... however , they finally came around to seeing things my way..
Not only are we moving back to my home town but our apartment building is nextdoor to my old grade school with a magnificent view from our livingroom and balcony northwestward towards Pokiok Road where I grew up ...... In fact , in the top left picture you notice a hump on the horizon just left of centre...... and that green speck on the cliffs overlooking the lower reaches of the Saint John River is the house where I was born. Unfortunately .... in hindsight I guess... I sold the house in 1993 when my Mom died.
In closing this blog I might add that I feel a kindred spirit with the Queen Mary 2 in background....... both our bows ( noses ) pointed in the same direction..... seaward towards new horizons. Best wishes to you all.......Mona and Timmy , Cindy in her new house on stilts , Julie - Ann , Jim , Chris , Pat over in Switzerland , Raenie in Mass., Barb who's voting Green Party.... as well as anyone else who might wander onto this site.
The above pic gives a "close up of the "hump on the horizon" which Raenie sweetly refers to as the "bump ". The drop off behind the house is roughly 600 feet over jagged rocks directly into the river below. Back in the 1940s two runaway horses dragged a delivery wagon and driver over the cliff . During a stag party back in the 1980s the groom's friends and brothers took him up to the cliffs to scare the living daylights out of him..... and they did just that !!! While trying to avoid being caught .... and being likewise very drunk......the poor fellow lost his footing and plummetted to certain death on the rocks below. Even my dear old Dad .......in his early 70s went over. Luckily for him and all of us the sturdy mountain cedars which grow profusedly there broke his fall and he managed to crawl back up to the top in spite of having broken his left arm.
In a small pond in a far off land there once lived a big - mouth frog. She had the biggest mouth for miles around. Rumour has it that she could put both feet in her mouth at the same time and still keep on talking !!
Fluff snapped off this memorable picture of three behemoths rising from the fogs at slack tide as they are being berthed by harbour runabout sheepherders , Biff and Buck.
Picture taken from our room.
Just a few words about where I am taking Fluff tomorrow. First of all I want her to see the world - famous Hopewell Rocks on Hopewell Cape at the far end of the Bay of Fundy.... between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These sandstone rocks have been sculptured into artistic masterpieces by the highest tides in the world over zillions of millennia.... so it is written !! I think she will thoroughly enjoy seeing them up close.
Then on to Saint John , my hometown. Samuel de Champlain sailed into the above harbour some 404 years ago last June 24th , four years BEFORE he founded Quebec City .... local joke !! In both pictures you can see Fort Howe Hotel where I organized my parents' 50th wedding anniversary back in 1983.... overlooking the harbour and surrounding area. That whole waterfront tract below was formerly the Shanty Irish part of town ..... full of old tenement buildings. The Fort Howe Hotel 's address reads : 10 Portland Street. My greatgrandparents . my grandparents and my own dear Dad used to live at 14 Portland Street back in the late 1800s and early 1900s........ on the very site where the hotel now stands. I have booked us in here for the weekend so I guess ..... in an odd sort of way ..... I'm simply taking Fluff back to the old homestead.
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I went out one sunny morning in July and there he was......hunkered down on one of my red pompom dahlias......... such a fine - looking wee "sauterelle "or grasshopper. I didn't think any more of him until I came out the following morning and found him still squatting on the same dahlia...????? The third morning I named him Raoul... pronounced with a long , drawn - out Texas drawl ! Wondering whether Raoul had simply landed there , liked the surroundings and view and pitched his tent OR had chosen that specific dahlia because of the colour....... sooo I grabbed him and set him gently on the neighbouring white dahlia named Sterling Silver ( my Dad's nickname for a big white dahlia ) , stepped back to see what Raoul would do .... if anything. At first mio piccolo cavaletto... my wee horsie..... seemed dazed..... but within ten minutes he had flown back to the nearby red pompom dahlia.... but not to the same flower.. I grabbed him again and placed him on an adjacent cluster of green leaves. Five minutes later Raoul was back on his red dahlia.
About one week later I went out one morning and my pet grasshopper was nowhere to be found. Maybe Raoul had finally decided to break camp ..... when I looked across the lawn to the roof of my greenhouse and spotted a smiling robin.........and high above him three undertaker birds in a dead tamarack looking pretty smug......... ????????
Seen below ..........there are many species of goldenrod in North America and we are lucky enough to have two of them represented in our backyard : lance - leaved goldenrod on right and showy goldenrod on left...... not quite in full blossom yet though. The showy variety can easily grow 7-foot tall as seen in pic below.
Above : Yellow hawkweed : cluster and loner up close
Brown - / black-eyed Susans ..... varieties of rubeckia everywhere along forest edge.
A wall of evening primrose adorns the forest edge behind the pool. They are essentially an August wildflower here and are just starting to bloom.
A while ago I was just sitting around here minding my own business and trying my damnedest to keep out of trouble .... so I grabbed Fluff's camera......after asking her permission , of course ............and went outside to snap off a picture or two of some of God's and Mother Nature's herbaceous creatures ........ then comment on them. What follows here is the pure , unadulterated fruit of my endeavours.
Outside the front door under the spreading cedar tree I found these two subspeciesof baneberry growing almost side by side like next - door neighbours...... both red and white ( also named Doll's Eyes ). So much for my walk in the woods !! Now the word " bane " is not a common utterance in everyday speech. I had often seen it used back in Shakespearean times or even in modern times with Churchill wondering whether Mussolini would prove to be a " bane or a boon " to Hitler's war effort. My father often referred jokingly to my mother as being "the bane of his life "!! I always thought he was alluding to an anglicized pronunciation of the Irish Gaelic word for a woman.... "bean "..... but this was not the case !
The noun "bane " is an Old English word connoting "that which causes death , which causes ruin , poisonous , etc . Since Old English , Dutch , German , Icelandic , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish are all related German languages I asked my brilliant partner , Fluff , whether the root "bane " meant anything to her in modern - day Swedish ..... to which she answered , "Why yes , in the word " baneman "...... assassin or slayer. " I told her she had made my day !! Moral of the story , therefore...... eat strawberries , blueberries , raspberries and leave the baneberries to the birds as they are not toxic to our fine - feathered friends.
When Fluff and I drove into Presque Isle last week and saw the signboard hanging outside the above building I thought that Pat Robertson had opened a branch office of his 700 Club way up here in Maine's "Back Forties "................ and then I thought of the other meaning of the verb " redeem ". Yes, folks ... even empty bottles are worthy of redemption in the States !!
Greetings from Raccoon Hollow............ see you all in Maine !
America cetainly has talent...... less though maybe in choosing those who judge the talented ones !!
By way of a follow - up to what I wrote two days ago I would like to take you along with me as I do a wee bit of linguistic "sleuthing "..... something you won't find in the history or the geography books.
The bottom map above shows the territorial extension of the Algonkian linguistic family offfset in RED. Some 25 to 30 separate languages were / still are spoken within its boundaries...... Micmac , Maliseet , Montagnais ( Innu ) , Atikamekw , Cree , Abenaki , Illinois , Ojibway , Algonquin , Penobscot , Mohican , Natick , Shawnee , Sauk and Fox , Cheyenne , Arapaho , Blackfoot , Menominee , Powahatan , Miami , Delaware , Naskapi , Passamaquoddy etc . I was privileged to teach one of these tongues for roughly 33 years as part of my workload.... the fun part , at Université Laval here In QC where both non - native and native students received university credits for their endeavours. Needless to say , the native folks were overjoyed.
The top map shows a slice of the Trans - Canada Highway between my old hometown of Saint John , New Brunswick and the province of Québec where we now reside. The northeastern corner of the USA.... State of Maine more precisely .... is presented on the left in grey while New Brunswick to the right is somewhat pinkish in colour. Please enlarge map for better visioning.
When driving home northbound we get to quaint town on the banks of the Saint John River named Perth - Andover with the well - known Maliseet village on its outskirts almost. It is a crossroads where we may turn either west and end up in Fort Fairfield / Presque Isle , Maine ( USA ) , cut east along Highway 190 to Plaster Rock or keep on heading north towards Aroostook and Limestone , both in New Brunswick ... of course ! Once in Limestone , New Brunswick you will notice that a bit further north on the Maine side of the border there is another Limestone!! Now back to Plaster Rock ..... and more especally to the wee village just south of it which bears a Maliseet placename , Wapiske. To make a long story shorter and less complicated.......... limestone is used to make plaster and the Maliseet word means simply "white rock ". In the language I taught the corresponding term is "wapiskaw ". I wonder whether the natives stole our placenames .... limestone and plaster rock.....then translated them into Maliseet ? Just kidding !!
Driving around Lake Michigan some time back I had a fieldday...... Kenosha , Milwaukee , Michigan., Chicago .... illinois ( eelinwa ) simply means Indian , native human being with Indiana nextdoor ??? .... and South Bend , Indiana ( Notre Dame ) with it almost suburb , Mishawaka which really means Big Bend !! These two BENDS are referring to the huge "bend "or "curve " of Lake Michigan .... or two bends along the Saint Joe River which flows through both cities ??? And many more fun - filled questions !
.P.S. Fluff and I are leaving for Limestone and Presque Isle , Maine this coming Sunday for about four days.
When I asked Fluff to kindly dipnet my old blogs in Yahoo 360 and repatriate them to Multiply I did not realize it would flood all your inboxes. Sorry about that , my friends ! However , it gave my buddy , Jim ( X- Chips ) a second run through the old stuff and I wish to thank him for his generosity and great courage since he commented and "lolled "his way through the first ten !
Prelude : The above map gives a "very general yet unprecise " picture of the territorial extensions of North American aboriginal language families..... blue ( Siouan languages ) , Grey ( Algonkian languages ) , Red ( Iroquoian languages ) , Light green ( Uto - Aztecan languages ) etc.I have a better one from the Smithsonian that covers a wall..... far too big and complex to post here.
At the moment of first contacts some 500 native languages were being spoken throughout North America and these tongues can be regrouped into roughly 50 - 55 linguistic families showing ( at least for the present moment ) NO LINGUISTICALLY GENETIC RELATIONSHIP among them.....each family represented by at least one language ( an isolate such as Zuni , Karankawa , Kootenay ) or by as many as 25 or more sister languages ..... each decended from a common ancestor or proto - language.....a few of which have been recorded historically in written form such as Latin which gave birth to French , Italian , Spanish , Italian , Roumanian and Romanch...... whereas most , such as Proto - Celtique which mothered Irish and Scottish Gaelic , Cornish , Welsh , Breton , etc , was never attested to in writing. I might add that both Central and South America present an even more puzzling enigma with some 70 - 75 linguistic families . In fact more than half of all known languages .......roughly 6000 worldwide........were once spoken in our own Western Hemisphere !! Why so many of homo sapiens' greatest masterpieces ( or the fruit of God's creation as be your personal belief ) have washed up on the foggy shores of oblivion since 1492 I shall leave to your own private surmise , reflexions and readings. However , one tidbit worthy of thought might conjure up opinions as to whether mankind's origins were mono- or plurilinguistic ????? The Tower of Babel would be an easy answer for many. The science of linguistics is not yet certain................... although it does affirm with certitude that , given the time lapse necessary for language change ( sounds and structures of organized speech ) ,to evolve , it would take MUCH MORE TIME than 6000 years for ONE language to beget and differentiate into the colossal diversity we observe on our planet today !
Foreplay with supper........
Swedish Bombshell with begonia backup......
Québec triangular garden......
Neighbour drops by for midday snack
Ever watchful eyes of McDuff
Long live the home of the free et la terre de nos aïeux !!
Snookums just showed up for late supper so I thought I would let you kind folks in on just how I know she's a SHE without grabbing her by the hind legs and lifting her up for a spot check.... and take risk of getting rabies too..... You will notice that Snookums is wearing her sporty new white bobby socks
