Oh Canada

So this happened….

I don’t know, is there anything more Canadian than two RCMP officers dressed in red serge mounted on magnificent black horses in a Starbucks drive through? Well yeah, they maybe should have picked a Tim Hortons, but still. Lots of weird stuff happening during our country’s 150th birthday year.  This was in June (click on pic for link).

The only reason I know about it is because I looked it up on Monday morning after I was walking through my living room on my way to somewhere else and heard the clippity clop of big horse feet, and thought that’s pretty weird shit for this or any random little residential street.  So I looked out my front window as two mounted police went by my house.

This is the kind of thing that makes you wonder if you’re hallucinating, insane, deluded, dreaming, or all of the above.  I could so easily have missed it.  There was no time to grab my phone to take a picture because although they were going at a very leisurely pace, they were there and then they were gone in the time it took for me to pick my jaw up off the floor.

The only thing I could find online was this coffee run picture from a month ago.  I guess they may very well be doing these patrols intermittently all summer around here.  And I would have been oblivious to this news if it hadn’t walked by my front yard.

So, here’s a list of things I have seen this summer although I don’t live in a rural setting or by a pond or in a forest:

1. A big black and white cat.
2. Many dogs on leashes walking their humans
3. A coyote
4. A pair of mallard ducks checking out the neighbors driveway mud puddle
5. Two jack rabbits. Or could be more, they all look alike.
6. The resident squirrel and the encroaching squirrels he chatters at and chases away
7. Many big black crows
8. Lots of gorgeous magpies
9. A few bluejays
10. HORSES for the love of God.

So what’s next, elephants and UFOs?  I’ll keep you posted.

Hey, speaking of posted, I read in the local paper that postal workers want to bring back door to door mail delivery here.  Maybe not-so-disgruntled mail carriers will be the next thing I see from my very own front door.  Not holding my breath for that one though.

Changes

No words today, just pictures worth three thousand.

Art du Jour 77

For something that started out looking very much like a baby quilt, this turned out okay in the end.
First there was the design and drawing. Look at me being all precise and disciplined and using a ruler.

All those little squares were boring so I changed a few of them, added random colours from my box of acrylic tubes, realized my sail boat is impressionistic rather than realistic, and then sat back and looked at this for a long time.

Then it was cut and paste time, with this result.

This morning I finally finished it, adding layers and some shading and bits of chaos here and there lest anyone think this might be meant to depict smooth sailing.  It was much too clean and organized.  There will be none of that in this house.
It’s a lovely sunny warm Monday here. It’s also my daughter’s birthday which means another July is winding down. Hope your day is beautiful.

Before and After

A few hot days ago I took pictures in my backyard of bushes sadly in need of a trim.  I’m here to tell you my crazy slash-and-burn mad trimmer-from-hell of a husband would be very proud of me for making this valiant attempt at tree taming if he were here.  Although of course if he were here this would have been done a month ago and the trees would still be trying to recover.  He once trimmed a tree at our front door into oblivion.  All that remains is a decorative stump.

But enough yard history.  Today the heat is pleasant and bearable, so I ventured out amongst the squabbling magpies and got it done.

Before:

After:

Note the top of the fence for reference.

Before:

After:

Note the bottom of the kitchen window. Please do not note the dead grass. I’m not watering it, it’s only grass and it’s in the backyard and the magpies don’t care and neither do I.

I was hoping these picture would be more indicative of what a difference all my hard work filling TWO green bins with branches made.  I guess you will just have to take my word for it because I’m not sharing pics of my scratched up arms.  Now I will be spending the rest of the day brushing imaginary twigs and bugs off my body.

Happy 4th of July to all my American friends! I imagine your day has been slightly more interesting than mine because fireworks.  Yea!  Don’t set the grass on fire.

Art du Jour 69

It’s too hot to breathe. I am tucking the memory of these scorched summer days deep in my brain so I can pop them up for perusal next January.

See, that wasn’t really complaining, was it? And I drummed up sufficient ambition to complete this big canvas using my ripped up book as a base. Even though the temperature in my house has climbed to 26 and it feels like well over 30 outside.

The interesting thing about this mixed media piece is how the ink bled up through the white texture paste, so I just let it be.  Happy accident, pulling the base colours up to the surface.

Anyway, it’s too hot to talk about it.  I need more ice.  And I would like to get back to watching a documentary about Nina Simone.  It could never be too hot for that.

Art du Jour 68

This is what happens when you take a photo in low light at the end of the day and your pencils cast shadows on the white page. As if you would ever wonder about that. Just saying, now you don’t have to.

This morning I went grocery shopping. On my return, I immediately made myself a very creamy cup of coffee with my stockpile of coffee cream.  Running out of cream was more brutal than anticipated.  This is how you learn how addicted you are to something.  Shopping before coffee sure speeds up the process but doesn’t necessarily make it pleasant.

The day turned out to be very hot and I turned out to be very lethargic. But it finally cooled off enough for me to draw something once the light was more or less useless for art.

Considering how little time I spent on this, I’m very happy with it.  My mind might change with the daylight.

This is the start of Canada Day long weekend!   Flags are flying.  Hope you have a good one.

Art du Jour 7

Here’s a little touch of summer for the first of November.   It rained on Halloween night,  so what snow there was has disappeared from the dead brown grass and the half-naked trees.  The sun is shining and the magpies are flying.  Actually some of them are dive-bombing our house for whatever reason magpies have for doing their particular brand of weird stuff.

As our neighborhood ages along with the rest of us,  we have fewer and fewer kids trick or treating every year.  Today the people next door will dismantle their front yard scene of ghostly horror.  I will take down my boogie man door decoration and put the witch plates away.  Yep, I go all out.

This month I am participating in Nano Poblano 2014 as a Team Pepper person.  All that’s required is a post a day.  Compared to writing a gazillion words for a novel, that should be a piece of cake, right?  Right.  It’s all about pursuing new blogging relationships. That is an excellent goal.  I probably should work harder on the content and purpose of my posts to make a good impression.  But I have never been about hard work, so if you don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen, none of us should be too disappointed.  I will just carry on being me.

Happy Saturday!  Clean up that Halloween loot!  See you post-sugar-shock tomorrow.

Just Jazzy 297

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 84

Happiness is flipping all the calendars to a brand new month. Hello September, where the season flips from summer to fall. It’s just a flipping time of year.

Just Jazzy 279

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 66

Happiness is getting over a summer cold. I’m not there yet, but when it’s done, happy won’t even come close to describing how that feels.

 

Just Jazzy 247

Jazzy Does 100 Days of Happiness 34

Happiness is adding up all those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer to remember on some distant far away January night.