Wise Words.

How Much Wood?

Can you trust what they say?

During my long walk on Wednesday I spotted a ground hog or wood chuck beside the TVP (Thames Valley Parkway*).

I said, "When's Spring coming?"

"'Bout 3 pm on Thursday," it said.

Happy with that, I snapped a few photos ("Are you the same as a wart hog?" I asked. It turned away. I took it as a 'no').

I then walked a few more metres to the '4.5 Km. marker', did my turn-around and headed back home, past the ground hog one more time.

"Are you related to the wart hog?"

Stone cold silence.

The following photos are from my Thursday walk. I headed north on the TVP toward the university and after my turn around I headed back home and approached Wortley Village at 3 pm.

1:15 PM - Magnolia Blossoms On A Gray Day

2:05 PM - I Walk Under The UWO Bridge. I Soon Turn Around At '4 KM marker'

3:05 PM - Sun Shines, Temperatures Rise, Magnolias Bloom. That's One Smart Hog!

At 3 pm I began the last half mile of my walk.

I passed the western entrance to Thames Park, and soon saw Wortley Village ahead. The clouds parted, the sun lit my path, the temperature rose and by the time I got to Craig/Askin and Wortley I had opened my jacket.

I recalled the words of the groundhog. (Not to be confused with a wart hog).

Spring was in the air and I heard an unmistakable sound after a nearby dog barked and robin sang.... winter's back was breaking. I'm pretty sure I heard the final crack.

Oh, It might give one more toss of its hand in parting, but it's already out the door. The above photo (taken at 3:05 pm) reveals the magnolia tree at Askin/Wortley, in front of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon's real estate office.

More Photos from Along the Way:

"Not a wart hog"

Final Thots:

*the TVP is a multi-purpose path, and its many users include walkers, runners, cyclists, parents with children on small bikes or in strollers, couples holding hands, roller bladers, dog walkers (with one, two, three, four, five or more animals), skate boarders on manually- or battery-powered skateboards, bird watchers, photographers, the occasional ham-headed dork on an electric scooter, etc.

The TVP winds its way beside the Thames in several directions all at once and on the weekend it is a very busy place because it is not always wide enough to accommodate, for example, a cyclist zipping - oft-times much too quickly - past a group of pedestrians who are walking shoulder to shoulder and hogging all the space while a pair of speedy runners are making their way around a family that includes a slow-moving oldster and three kids on bikes or in strollers and a dog on a long leash - all coming from the opposite direction.

The TVP can be scary and entertaining and colourful and present lovely, photographic scenes around just about every corner just about every day. And that's where you'll find me 6 - 7 afternoons per week because it's so much cheaper, and a heck of a lot more fun, than Cable TV.

The TVP. "Get Fit and Be Entertained, All at The Same Time." That's my motto.

Please link to Photo Study: Gateways to Greenway Park

Photos GH

Avocado 29 "Crown of Leaves"

Lots Happening

"Just call me happy as peaches"

The newest section of the stem grows before my eyes, and is 1-inch longer in one week. Must be something in the water.

The crown displays five new leaves, more on the way. Even the little secondary leaves beneath the crown are getting bigger... before my very eyes.

Note - re fresh guacamole... I can taste it.

Link to Avocado 28

Photos GH

The Way We Roll 11

The Harter Chair

 ["Look at the leather and them lovely legs!"]

While in Fenelon Falls recently I discovered a few great finds at a flea market/antique store on the town's busy Main Street. I couldn't say no to this vintage Harter office chair.

["Thank you, Sturgis"]

As soon as I saw chair (the tag said '1930s') I admired its style and colour, the scores of brass tacks and durable, reliable under-carriage. As soon as I sat on it I declared it my writing chair... for life.

Link to The Way We Roll 10

Photos GH

My Morning Smile

Favourite Mug

I lied. It's not my favourite.

I will call this mug my 'preferred' one because 'favourite' seems too strong a word. I mean, I could surely live without it. Surely. My wife and I have 400 mugs. Drinking coffee from a suitable mug should not be a problem in my lifetime.

However, the thought of why I reach for it every morning entered my mind as soon as it was in my hand. I prefer to wrap my hand around this mug rather than grip a handle. Might have something to do with the size of my fingers or hands in relation to the lost handle or other handles I've handled. Might have something to do with the day the handle fell off and I refused to throw out the mug on that account. I sanded the rough spots and thought the mug would still last for years and get lots of use, if only we'd give it a chance.

Might be for a lot of other reasons too. Got any ideas?

Enjoy your coffee.

Link to My Morning Smile

Photo GH

"all I need is Adil's jacket"

Friend Adil will be a doctor one day and I'm convinced he'll work very hard for his many grateful patients. I know he's a hard worker because I've watched him earn a living for the last few years. While so doing, I noticed he wore a durable blue jean jacket almost down to its last threads. One day I told him to save it for posterity.

["That jacket should be hanging on a wall," I said]

["I'll build a shadow box for it," I said]

[The shadow box is now all set to go]

[Pine frame. Cedar backboard. 

Trim - pine strips w black paint]

All I need is Adil's old jean jacket.

photos gah

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Please click here to view sunset on shop floor

From the Workshop: favourite photo of the week

It doesn't happen often and when it does I say, "Thumbs up."

['GAH' birdhouse, made in the shop, found in Pt. Stanley]

I'm not sure if this is the farthest south one of my birdhouses has travelled. I've heard (but not seen) one of my houses is nailed to a tree in Florida. Whatever the case, it felt good to see one wearing well yesterday on the north shore of Lake Erie.

Photo by GH

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Please click here to read rewarding road trip to Port Stanley

Hammers 2 "out of the bag"

["Hammer 2 has a life and story of its own"]

A week or two ago, the first used hammer I purchased from a vendor told me quite a story when I rolled it in my hands and examined it closely inside my workshop. Something about "hard work doesn't hurt you, Gordie boy. It builds muscle, improves your appearance and, while you're busy on one project, it fosters creativity and leads you to a second, and more." The words inspired three projects, i.e., one shadow box for each hammer I purchased or have as extras in my shop. After Hammer 1 was resting securely inside a suitable shadowbox I started looking closely at Hammer 2.

["What a beauty," I thought]

What a big, heavy, well-worn, well-travelled beauty it is. After a few swings I knew that any workman who used it for even a few minutes would soon wear sweat upon his brow. The things it can build or repair are countless, but only with a worker behind it and the right hands upon it. Without human muscle, strength and energy multitudes of hammers will only sit idle upon work benches and gather dust.

["your strength and creativity enlivens a

simple hammer with power and production"]

I know, I'm busy building boxes for hammers, in which they will sit idle as 'retired hammers'. However, I think their future lives as story tellers will be as valuable a vocation as their past work.

What say you?

Photos by GAH

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Please click here to read 'Hammers 1 out of the bag'

favourite photo of the week

"one man's trash is another man's birdhouse"

photo by gah

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Please click here for more 'things I like'

Birdhouses: Favourite photos

Yesterday, a bit of rain

made the sawhorse kinda slippy.

Inside, the cubbies were all dry

but the shelves were kinda tippy.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more from the workshop

Gordie Boy: "Sing us a tune"

I didn't learn to play the guitar at a very early age, I was no child prodigy in any musical department, and I struggle to thumb a few chords to this day on my Norman acoustic. But still, I like to sing - alone in my study is best for all concerned - and I've written scores of campfire songs. One day I'll likely put out a CD that will send shivers down the spine of all unsuspecting listeners.

["I am too young here to recall this musical memory"]

The guitar in this black and white photo from about 1953 belonged to my father and he occasionally played a few tunes for his family, Hawaiian-style, with the guitar flat on his lap and with a steel in his left hand. I liked listening to him sing, at least while I was quite young, before The Beatles and Bob Dylan came along. Perhaps because of Dad's influence, I purchased my first guitar (electric) from an Eaton's catalogue and bought my first amp and speaker from the town barber when I was about sixteen. My favourite song to play was 'The House of the Rising Son' and after I figured out the chords I played it about 400 times a day for two years.

As far as I know, my dad was self-taught, learned a few chords in his teens as I did, bought one guitar while in the Navy circa 1943 and another - perhaps the one in the photo - from a small shop in his hometown, Norwich as a young man.

In his Navy memoirs he shares a few enlightening lines about his musical interests while aboard the SS Silver Walnut and on his way from Scotland to D-Day Sicily, 1943: 

The Walnut remained in Cape Town for two weeks. We all enjoyed ourselves and I purchased a guitar and brushed up on some chords that I knew so my friends could share time singing navy ditties and other songs. (pg. 66 "Dad, Well Done")

Later Dad writes that all his WW2 souvenirs, including shrapnel from the first German bombing raid he experienced, and I assume the guitar, were stolen shortly after he arrived in Egypt a few weeks later. I'm sure that was a sad loss for him.

Two years ago, while passing through a small town not far from London, Ontario I saw a familiar looking piece of steel (or guitar slide as I call it) at an antique shop and I was happy to part with ten dollars in order to have it.

["This is a concrete (and steel) link to my father's musical past"]

Somewhere I have a story Dad wrote in the 1990s about his early memories concerning a music store in his hometown and it may touch on the purchase of his last guitar. Until I find it all I have are a few faint thoughts about the instrument and Dad's love for music, including one about how I secretly changed the height of the bridge so that I could more easily practise playing his guitar.

I'll look for the story now, sing you a song later.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more Gordie Boy

Photo Poser 20: "What is it?"

As soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it. And for ten dollars the man in the antique store in Belgrave (NW of London) parted company with it.

Can you tell what it is?

Photo by GH

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Please click here for Photo Poser 19

Zoom w a View: "It's a sign"

I don't want to give too much away, but this pile of lumber is very special, at least to me.

It's definitely a sign of things to come.

What things? Stay tuned.

Photo by GH

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Any guesses?

Please click here for a 'Favourite Photo'

Favourite Photo: Soon, the shop will shine

A batch of log cabin birdhouses has been assembled and sorted onto tidy shelves inside the house. There's no room to store them in the workshop and it is such a dusty mess. I could really use a strong westerly wind to blow through the shop door!

Today I complete the shop's semi-annual clean up and by end of day every corner will be tidy, everything back in its proper place.

As of this moment, only one corner is fully dusted and sorted. The bottle opener, mallet (a gift from my mother), Dad's model of the Bluenose 1, decoy carved by a great-uncle (Hank Catton), metal box that once belonged to my father-in-law (for receipts), very pricey paint brush, and old DH birdhouse (built by my dad) all shine - thanks to my hard work and the help of some magical buttons supplied by iPhoto.

By 6 p.m. the entire room will shine!

Where's the broom?

Photo by GH 

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Please click here for another Favourite Photo

Gordie Boy: "Score me a cake"

Yesterday (if you can believe what I said in a related post), I was the life of my sister's birthday party.

Today I see I'm celebrating my third birthday. Maybe it's my fourth. I was known to eat the candles.

That being said, lookit the big grin. That's me all over, smiling through the trials of life. Whereas my sister was allowed four guests at her party I was allowed one, i.e., my little brother Kim, and he doesn't even appear in the photo with me because he was afraid of the lit candles and ran to the far end of the playpen. Or maybe I pinched his little chubby fingers.

"Gitouttahere'causeit'smycake!Takemypicturetakemypicture!" I likely said to Ma.

Score one cake for Gordie Boy.

Photo of old photo by GH

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59 years later I'm not as excited about birthdays. Why is that?

Please click here for more Gordie Boy

Rare Family Photos: Edith Catton on Tidey Steet, Norwich

My mother was a lovely lady with deep roots in the Norwich and Oxford County area. And though from a poor family she lived in a very neat house on Tidey Street, almost directly underneath the town's water tower.

Mother’s close up (at about 20 years of age, circa 1943) reveals she had a charming smile. The smile lives on upon my younger brother's face. 

And about her mother's house, I notice a certain type of white trim on the front porch. It can be seen on the back side porch as well. 

Today the house remains near Norwich’s new water tower but the front porch (and all its lovely trim) is long gone.

Photos by GH

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Please click here for more Family Photos

  

Favourite Photo: “Find Waldo”

There's King Crow. He owns the top of a tall spruce outside my workshop door.

Find Waldo Crow, who patiently waits his turn.

Photo by GH

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Do you like tall tree tops?

Please click here to see an ancient, tall, water tower

Rare Family Photos: Spotlight on Tidey St., Norwich

Several years ago an uncle took a photo of a photo and caught quite a bit of glare. So, when I took a photo of his photo last Friday - a very sunny day - I only added to the problem.

Still, it is the first photo I've seen of my Grandmother Ida Belle Catton’s house sitting under the Norwich water tower. It is also the first time I viewed a photo capturing not only the full front porch of Ida's house but the back-side porch as well.

Uncle Fred Catton knows his childhood home still stands but admits “too many changes have been made” and they don’t sit right with him.

I notice other things too. The bell tower (lower left) is a mystery to me. Is it part of the 'vinegar works'?

And who are the three fellows standing upon wooden slats directly under the water reservoir? The Flying Melendez Brothers?

Photo by GH

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Vinegar works? Let me know.

Please click here for more Family Photos

Gord’s Top Ten: "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" (Don’t mess with the navvies PT 1)

Many years ago for Christmas my older son compiled some of my favourite songs onto a CD. "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" by Gord Lightfoot starts it off, and because the CD is in my workshop and this is birdhouse-building season - one of a few - I listen to the song almost everyday. I never tire of it. After a ‘shed night’ (when friends and I sip ‘Pepsis’ for an hour or two in my shop) I’ll listen to it, sometimes repeatedly) while I put chairs away and sweep fallen peanuts out the door.

Here are some of my favourite lines:

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun
Living on stew and drinking bad whiskey
Bending our backs til the long days are done.

[“We are the navvies... swingin’ our hammers”: Photo link]

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun
Laying down track and building the bridges
Bending our backs til the railroad is done. 

(Listen to the full 1967 version here; above photo appears with many others)

In my mind it is a magnificent song from beginning to end, It takes me across Canada upon iron rails and a fine melody. And all along the way I see and hear and feel the work done by the navvies with their heavy, swingin’ hammers.

At wikipedia I read the following:

The "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" is a song by Gordon Lightfoot that describes the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This song was commissioned by the CBC for a special broadcast on January 1, 1967, to start Canada's Centennial year... In the first section, the song picks up speed like a locomotive building up a head of steam.

[“Canadian Prairies fly by, April 2012”: Photo by GH]

While Lightfoot's song echoes the optimism of the railroad age, it also chronicles the cost in sweat and blood of building "an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea." The slow middle section of the song is especially poignant, vividly describing the efforts and sorrows of the nameless and forgotten navvies whose manual labour actually built the railway. (Wikipedia)

[“Sunset on the Prairies”: Photo by GH]

And who are the navvies?

More to follow. Go listen to the song.

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Please click here for more about Hit Songs and Prose

Rare Family Photos: “Old maple trees at the Birch house”

Norm Birch took the photo above of his shiplap-sided house in 1917. It is surrounded by several maple trees, only one of which - as far as I can recall - survived until 1955.

In 1955 the Harrison family moved into the house (I was 6-years old and Miss Walker, my Gr. 1 teacher, soon whipped me into shape). The house was cedar-sided by then, the front porch had been closed in, and one large maple stood tall in the backyard, the one directly behind the house (directly behind the chimney and peaked roof in photo).

On June 2, 1998, a tornado whipped through Norwich and almost all of the old, mature trees around the house were severely damaged and destroyed. (See “Norwich tornado, June 1998”) The 80 ft. tall spruce tree that stood beside the porch, and against which I daily parked my 1959 CCM bicycle for many years, had been twisted from the ground and deposited 50 meters away onto South Court St. The century old maple that had protected the back of the house from rain and snow and the sun’s heat for decades was ripped to shreds. My Dad barely recovered from its loss, if he ever did at all.

Somewhere in my photo albums I have one reminder of the maple tree that almost completely covered our house each fall with an expansive red, yellow and orange canopy. The colours in the photo have faded, but that’s all.

[Photo by N. Birch and GH]

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Trees (poem) by Joyce Kilmer

Please click here for more Family Photos

Favourite Photo: “Red Dept. 2”

Even on a rainy day my neighbour’s Japanese maple draws eyes - and lenses - toward it.

I’m happy the previous owner to the one before that and the one before that planted the tree near the end of my driveway, my lovely lane.

[Photo by G.Harrison]

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Do you have an attractive tree nearby?

Please click here for another Favourite Photo from the “Red Dept.”