The devastating Aftermath

The devastating aftermath.  This isn’t my usual way of working in my sketchbook; I was watching Studio Bloknote on U-tube and smooshing paint around.  Not my usual colour palette either.  

So saddened by the loss of so many cedar trees out back from the recent ice storm earlier this month.  We lost a huge maple out back as well and some willows have fallen on to the farmers field at the side.  Our friendly neighbourhood arbourist is busy with many other customers in our township.   We will have to wait our turn.  Our township is still in a “state of emergency” until all roads have been cleared of fallen trees and debris. 

I’ll put a photo of our young deer that has come to visit the bird feeder with his mother.  You can see some of the mess in behind. 

Acrylic paint and inks, traditional gouache and markers. 

Day 8 and 9

The “no hydro” saga continues since we are living through the aftermath of no heat.  There are more pages but I’m so “over them”.  Here are my final two. 

We have signed a contract for a new furnace but it can’t be installed for several weeks.  Supply and demand and all that rot.  I hope the heater in the basement will help.  We have little space heaters on the main floor but they aren’t really sufficient when the temps are below 0C.  It was -5C when I woke up this morning which was warmer than it has been. 

You just can’t believe how excited I got when I saw a hydro truck pulling a green hydro pole pass by the laneway.  Thankful that we have a rain barrel so we could flush the toilet.  Especially good that we also had our ice chipper within easy reach. 

I’m so happy that so many regions in Canada came to our aid by sending their trucks and personnel.  Timmins, in northern Ontario, is a 6 hour drive.  I expect that Alberta and Manitoba is several days, New Brunswick a day at least; Quebec could be almost a day depending where they were sent from.  I’m probably missing some others but this is what I can recall. 

We had some branches on the hydro line, the crew stopped to cut them down.  The young fella I was talking to was from Orangeville, a smaller city bit over an hour’s drive southwest.  He said they were working 16 hour days! Yikes!  We told him a big thank you and told him we appreciated his/their work.  

I have a love/hate relationship with Hydro One, our only electricity provider in this rural area.  Our power is out-frequently, a few hours to a part day at a time, it is ridiculous.   Many years ago it was out for 4 days but it was in May when the spring thaw is over.  The last big outage goes back to August 2003 when it was out for what seemed like forever too.  

Today is my last day for the antibiotic eye drops.  Amazing that such a tiny bottle could hold enough meds for 14 days (X3).  Wearing the shield at night was no biggie really, just a minor annoyance.  Regardless, I’m happy that I don’t need it anymore! 

Day 4 and 5

Just so I won’t bore you all to tears about our “no hydro” saga, I’m posting two days pages.  They might be a bit entertaining.  

The Ever ready battery (bunny) company makes rechargeable batteries that I bought (boy they aren’t cheap) but I quickly learned that I need hydro to charge them back up! 

When Day 5 rolled around, I was still hopeful and hadn’t lost my sense of humour yet.  So what would a generator say to a gas can?!?

Cataract surgery

We had a horrible ice storm that took out our hydro the night before my cataract surgery.  I was surprised to be told that my surgery was still a go since the hospital was on auxiliary power supply.  Yippee for me! 

So I’ll be posting my sketchbook journal pages from the beginning of last week.  No hydro means no wifi.  I didn’t want to use up the power on my phone for social media.

Happy St Paddy’s Day

It pelted down rain yesterday and then would stop for a bit then did that over and over again.  We lost a lot of snow which is good but that switches to not so great when considering the soggy ground.  Thank goodness for my new clodhoppers, they will come in handy now. 

You can barely see my 3 red-winged black birds in my photo here but you can almost see them if you really look.  They are a whole flock under the feeder right now.  They aren’t showing their red wings quite yet since it is still early in the season and chilly (-3C) but the temperatures are rising today. 

Happy St Patrick’s Day to all!  I’ll be having a wee beverage to celebrate later.  Memories of visiting Ireland with my parents as a kid.  My father was trying to find my great grandfathers grave while we were there. 

Walking on water

Some years ago I took a sketchbook class with Karen Stamper, a UK artist.  I made this spread in my Seawhite of Brighton accordion sketchbook.  It made me think of Lake Simcoe  in the winter (3 mins by car, 20 or more minutes if we walk through the bush).  The year I did this, it was too warm and the ice was unstable so we didn’t go out.  The next year, my knee was killing me so I didn’t go out again.  This year, this past Monday, it was a beautiful sunny day, so I went out.  I finally got to “walk on water”!!  Yay me! 

There is about 7 - 10 inches of ice covered by loads of snow.  That makes me happy because the last time I was out there was a lot of “black ice” on the lake.  It creeps me out to look into the abyss like that.  Yes, black ice is a scary thing especially when you’re driving too! Ugh! When you start sliding, there is nothing you can do but keep calm and hope you can slide through it without damaging your car. 

As you can see there are a lot of thin layers: line work, stamping, stencilling, paint, napkin, gluing and a silk tie for the landscape and clouds.  Yup, this isn’t something I normally do.  I had loads of fun making this and I have lots of pages to work on yet. It isn’t the type of project that is necessarily finished, I even tweaked this page.

My first robin for 2025

I was thrilled to see my first robin who is our harbinger of spring.  After this horrible winter, I am more than happy to know spring is around the corner.  The red wing black birds are back too (although it is too soon for them to show their colours).  I love hearing their twittering at the bird feeder.  This page is from a photo I took.

I’ve added a photo of the wild turkeys who continue to stop by for a snack. 

Stitching on paper

I’ve been creating outside of my sketchbook. 

This year I started watching Lisbeth Degn, a Danish artist, on U-tube.  I wanted to document this week’s project so I wouldn’t forget just how much I love stitching on paper. 

To make this, I just had to remind myself to go slowly and take even more thread than I thought necessary.  I didn’t quite make it  on my prototype (missed it by one).  I used Perle cotton size 12.  It’s a white on white pice so I found a dark paper to put behind it. 

My final project is below in the comments.  I used different sized holes and threads and I increased the aperture.  Personally I prefer the larger circle with a small aperture.  I backed it with a piece of brown paper that had some paint and marks on it. 

I made an error that couldn’t figure out where exactly I went wrong,  so I left it.  I’m living by the old maxim; “done is better than perfect”. 

New clodhoppers

My old “clodhoppers” bit the dust so I’ve been looking and looking for a replacement. Crappy Tire for the win! Oh yes, I say Crappy Tire fondly for Canadian Tire; I’ve always called it that!  Outbound is a CTC store brand that we have bought many times as the products have been great so far.  These are men’s and after I put the new insoles in, I was checking to see how they felt and thought I should document them. 

January Thaw in February

We had a day of sunshine (on Wednesday) that brought me hope!  However, it was short lived but I made this double paged spread because of it!  I found some previously painted flowers on a sheet of thin watercolour paper, added ink lines and cut them out.  Wasn’t “in love” with them so it took me a bit to think of how to use them.  Made a vase from the left over paper; covered the vase with fancy duct tape and stuck it all down on a page in my sketchbook!  Perfectly acceptable flowers in a vase. They are glued down in the vase but loose above so they are casting a shadow. 

With help from a friend

This 2 page spread is all about documenting the SNOW!  I started digging the path out for the oil delivery dude 4 days ago (it took me 2 days as I had other commitments).  Delivery was yesterday- finally!!! I didn’t want it to snow again and then I would have to do this work all over again. The snow fall this year has surpassed all expectations and the most seen for about a 100 years! We have never had to have the garage roof or kitchen cleared in all the years we have lived here! Anyway, here is a little map of our front yard. 

Snow and purple things

I have been thinking about other things that I like that are purple.  Here are a few others.  I’m sick of snow, yes it is beautiful and all that but I’m tired of shovelling and my body is sore.  But it seems there is more coming. Ugh! 

We had to cancel travelling to visit our family for the Family Day long weekend.  What a bummer! 

You can see our snow blower dude plastering my Bertha with snow. 

Our porcupine Neighbour

The first time we saw the porcupine in this cedar tree he/she was about 30 feet up, today he was only 10 feet up.  He wasn’t bothered by me at all.   Bertha is parked farther out from the tree.  I had to put her back in her normally parking spot because our snow blower dude will be coming by early in the morning.  We are waiting for another major snow dumping by Mother Nature.  I’ve put a photo down in the comments. You can see his eye and paw!! 

A delicious libation

I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed my favourite tipple!  I’ve saved this one for a special occasion and this is definitely a most special time in my life.  The botanical flavours are certainly unique.  The purple colouring in the bottle turns a pale pink with the addition of the tonic water.  I love the fact that the tonic has some maple syrup in it!!  Delicious! Cheers!! 

 

I’m in remission

On Tuesday evening, I received a call from my oncologist who told be he had good news: I’M IN REMISSION!!   Yippee!  Yesterday, we went to town and I saw my surgeon.  He told me the same; my scan last month was clear, no regrowth of the tumour. 

Tonight, I will be enjoying an “adult” beverage to celebrate! 

This is the lights in the stairwell at the cancer centre at the Royal Victoria Hospital!  

Butter Fudge

I had forgotten all about butter fudge until I saw this on the grocery store shelf.  Happy that I like it too!  What first caught my eye was the colours in the packaging.  Then I was reminded of the confection that my mother made once in awhile for a treat.   It wasn’t my favourite but it was really nice to try a piece and compare it to my taste buds as a child.  I’m glad my husband loves it too so he can finish it.

Keys and wild turkeys

I know that this page may seem ridiculous to some people but it’s a fact.  I needed to get my own key for the house.  In fact, we don’t ordinarily lock up unless we are going away for many days.  I thought I should record the fact that the wild turkeys have returned.  We never saw them last year.  

If you’re wondering, I took this photo on the snow bank beside the house 

Polar Vortex

I am so grateful that this POLAR VORTEX is finally leaving the area.  It has been just so horribly cold!   I dug out my super warm winter coat; rated for -30C.  The wind was so nasty I didn’t spend much time outside.  Grateful too that Bertha’s engine turned over so I could get to physio in town. 

The Tomato and the Strawberry

I bought this ages ago because there was a “going out of business” sale happening.  It wasn’t until recently that I found out that what the little “red paper” was used for.   I must have missed the memo somehow.  I truly wish I had been enlightened so much earlier.  I’ve used needles (hand stitching) with an irritating barb on the tip.  I’ve had to discard them and that annoys me too.  Now I’m looking forward to my next problem needle to give the “strawberry” a go. 

What I Wore

It’s taken me a few days to get back to this page.  We have to go out and take the snow off the roof of our porch as it is over a foot thick. That means I’ll be wearing my long underwear (AKA a base layer), wool socks and snow pants again.  It’s -18C and with the wind chill-25C so we will let it warm up a bit first.  I won’t be wearing anything fancy today because it will be more hard work out there. 

Just wanted to mention the SLEEPING BEAUTY stone earrings I picked up at the Royal Ontario Museum when we were in Toronto at Christmas.  I’ve always wanted a tube of the watercolour paint by Daniel Smith but couldn’t justify the cost (30.00-61.00 CDN$ depending where you bought it).  It turns out I could mix up something very close to the colour with the paint I have. I was happy to pull out this warm shirt and find that it was almost exactly the same colour too. 

We had to go to town to buy a new sump pump as ours quit.  Not going to be an issue right now with this cold spell but we need to be ready for a possible January thaw (there usually is one)! 

SNOW-MAGEDDON