Faced with adversity, Margaret Buller, looks for ways of coping.  She writes about her life in her recently-published book, Comfortable in my own Skin.*  She describes how life can present obstacles ~ obstacles that she defines as "do or die."

We will share some of Marg's experiences over the next week.  Meanwhile, mark Saturday, May 12, on your calendar.  Meet a lady who laughs at life.

~ * Virtue Press, 2012.  Available at The Neat Little Bookshop. $20 including tax.  Reserve your copy.

Visit the author's inspirational website  http://www.seekingspirit.ca/ or find her on Facebook, "Marg's Kitchen Table Chat."

Banks of Heritage Grand River ~ Indiana

Ruthven National Historic Site

Lock 1 Grand River Navigation Company ~ Indiana

135 Page History of The GRNC ~ Brant Historical Society
Bruce Emerson Hill

http://www.ruthvenpark.ca/

Photos:  lbwalker

Thought For Today ~

Many of us are already thinking of Mother's Day.  What can we do to show our Mum, Grandmother, Aunt, sister, that we appreciate them?

A thought from a surprising source:

"I would earnestly ask my sisters to keep clear of both the jargon now current everywhere. . .of the jargon, namely about the 'rights' of women, which urges women to do all that men do. . .merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do; and of the jargon which urges women to do nothing that men do, merely because they are women. . .
Woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is. . .without attending to either of these cries."

~ Florence Nightingale, English nurse (1820 - 1910)  The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Oxford Press, 2001, edited by Elizabeth Knowles.

Mother's Day is May 13 ~ the second Sunday of May each year. 

Banks of The Grand ~ Indiana



Graveyard Indiana ~ Restored







 "Spectral streets up grassy knolls,

A graveyard overgrown with brush,

Living houses gone to stone,

Experiences gone to dust. . ."

~ Lawrence Miller, "Indiana"

For historical information please visit http://www.ruthvenpark.ca/   Ruthven Historical National Park is the estate of the Thompsons, founding family of The Grand River Navigation Company.
Photos:  April 27 lbwalker

"Dare to care for things that are no longer there."

INDIANA, ONTARIO

Spectral streets up grassy knolls,

A graveyard overgrown with brush,

Living houses gone to stones,

Experiences gone to dust.

Dare to care

For things that are no longer there.

Read my poems in your voice,

Excite my senses with your tongue,

Think the thoughts as I did once,

Feel the weight that for me hung.

I pray I may

Live again with you some way.

~ Lawrence Miller

Indiana, Haldimand County, The Grand River

"Indiana, Ontario", Tower Poetry 53, no. 2 (Winter 2004 - 05)

~ Used with permission from Lawrence Miller. Author of Avro Arrow  A Picture History, Lorimer Publishing, 2011.

"It's a haunting place. . .So many people and so much going on there not very long ago, and now, nothing much;  just quiet, and that graveyard on the hill. . ."

"It was the year before they cleared the overgrowth from the cemetery;  one of the few times I was actually so moved by something that I_tried_to write down how it made me think.

"I even got thinking about what happens to_things_that people make, when both the people and the things are gone.  Hence, for the dozen or so people left on earth who may care about such stuff, the playing about with the "bob and wheel" rhyme format in the last two lines of both stanzas.  That's a technique that was hot stuff in the late medieval period and it, like the poems that used it, and the people who made them, is now pretty much forgotten." ~ L. Miller

For more on Indiana, please click on Label:  Heritage River.  Tomorrow:  Photos of the cemetery on the hill.

Cayuga & Ottawa Street

Ottawa Street  ~ April 25, 2012

Nature Seems to be Saying, STOP and look. . .

(For Larger Image, please click on Photo.)

Only In England ~  The world's last surviving tea clipper, The Cutty Sark, was officially re-opened this morning ~ the Queen of England presiding.  The importance of the ship Cutty Sark?  It was considered the fastest tall ship to carry tea from China to London in the 19th Century.

Severely Damaged in a Fire, 2007.  London, England.  The Cutty Sark has been completely restored.

The Cutty Sark was severely damaged in a fire in 2007.  It has been completely restored for the handsome sum of 50 million pounds.  London, England.


Photo:  Wikipedia

"A combination of fine tea, enchanting objects and soothing surroundings exerts a therapeutic effect by washing away the corrosive strains and stress of modern life. . . [it] induces a mood that is spiritually refreshing. . . [and produces] a genial state of mind."      ~John Blofeld

"The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy.  I like the crackling logs, the shaded lights, the scent of buttered toast, the general atmosphere of leisured coziness."  ~ P. G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
~ Henry James

"There is always a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The tea party is a spa for the soul.  You leave your cares and work behind. Busy people forget their business. Your stress melts away, your senses awaken. . ."
~ Alexandra Stoddard

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."
~ C. S. Lewis

~ The Art of Tea and Friendship, Savoring the Fragrance of Time Together, Sandy Lynam Clough, Harvest House Publishers, 2003

On Writing Poetry ~

". . .but I am not a poet.  I can't necessarily create the thing that I study, any more than a lepidopterist can create a butterfly.
Well, OK, it's not quite that extreme.  Because poetry is made up of words, and we all use words, and I've learned something about how words work to make poetry, I can put words together in ways that I know will be effective; but that's almost a mechanical thing.

To take a risky analogy, a poem by me is to poetry as an illustration by Norman Rockwell is to art.  It's technically competent and might be interesting, or tell a story, or even more the person thinking about it - but it isn't quite art.  It's craftsmanship.

And anyway. . ., a poet is supposed to be a gentle soul and fascinating.  I fail on both counts."
~  Laurie Miller

"The figure a poem makes.  It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.  The figure is the same as for love."
~ Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) American Poet. Collected Poems (1939) "The Figure a Poem Makes"

Debra McBride

Debbie McBride ~ Working With Clay on Earth Day

There may be something to that tiny angel sitting atop the finished plate.  Every new potter in Debbie's class produces a work of art worthy of display.  "I am not embarrassed to show it off," said one beginner about her first effort.  Plates, platters, mugs ~ even orbs! ~ are options for learners.  Take your pick.  Prefer a Christmas ornament, a pendant or a tiny clay figure to keep your brown sugar soft?  You may choose to start small.

Rolling pins and fancy tools of all descriptions appear while Debbie skillfully demonstrates various techniques.  Rolling, cutting, crimping, applying texture, patching (that may come in handy), all amazingly possible for the novice with Debbie's guidance.

Kimberly Wiens Jeffrey, owner of Grindstone Creek Gallery, works quietly on a commissioned piece ~ a fascinating bowl with foliage-like detail on which sits a single frog.  It becomes obvious to the observer that this is a circle of dedicated artists.

Classes available. Everyone welcome.  All in a perfect setting ~ Grindstone Creek Gallery on King Street.  Look for the historic, red-brick gallery opposite the gazebo in the Village Green, downtown Cayuga-on-the-Grand.

Visit http://www.grindstonecreekgallery.com/ for a virtual tour and more information.

Limited Only by Your Imagination

Creative Gardening

Flea market & yard-sale finds.  Limited only by your imagination. . .


Photos:  lbwalker

Planning Your Garden? ~

  Books on choosing plants, layout, pleasures of potting. . . 

Thought for Today ~


"So what is my point?  Quite simply that increasingly in the media today, truth is being sacrificed to art (or at least artfulness);  reporting to literature.  No, this is not a matter of dumbing down; rather its opposite, dumbing up.  Newspapers are far more sophisticated, for cleverer, far better written than they ever were before; incomparably more entertaining and readable.  A column in The Times by Matthew Parris has even deservedly earned a place in the New Oxford Book of English Prose ~ the first column by a hack ever to do so; and it is only a matter of time before a news story in The Times wins a place in the next Oxford Book of English Fiction.


But therein lies the danger:  the picture of the world presented by the media is both much more beautiful and much more ugly, both much more eye-catching and much more dramatic, both much more simple and much more complicated, than in actuality it ever is." ~ Peregrine Worsthorne.


[This appeared in a 1999 book. Is 2012 even more "dumbed up?"]
~ The Penguin Book of Journalism, Secrets of the Press edited by Stephen Glover. 1999.

ALL HAT, a novel by local author Brad Smith, was picked up by Penguin also made into a movie.  For horse-racing fans ~ Ray and Pete, two main characters come up with an audacious plan to exact revenge on a ruthless, wealthy Sonny Stanton.

"Well, we ain't quittin' now, Ray."  Pete nodded toward the barn.  "That Paulie ~ he's a damn good kid.  You see the change in him already?  Hell, he even walks different.  When he first got here, he'd walk into a room like he was apologizing for something.  And now he don't.  All I did was give him an old hat, and he thinks I'm the second coming.  He's been told his whole life he ain't worth nothin', by people like Sonny Stanton.  Calling him down and hitting on him.  His whole life.  Now maybe I done a few things I shouldn't have done, and maybe you done a few things you shouldn't have done, and maybe when the last steer is branded we ain't much better than Sonny.  But I gotta believe we're a little bit better than Sonny, and I'd like to show that kid that it's so.  I'd like to show him that the Sonny Stantons in the world don't always come out on top."

Smith tells a fast-paced story, well constructed, humourous with heart.  Read one of Brad's stories and be ready to look for more.

~ ALL HAT, Penguin Canada, 2003.   Brad's books are available at The Neat Little Bookshop.

Grand River Locks ~

Lock 1 at Indiana presented a difficult engineering job. There were two river-openings requiring locks ~ a large island in the middle.  Locks on the average raised the water nine feet.  Flooding and economic delays complicated completion.

Parish Hall, York

The York Historical Society has erected lock signs; Lock 1, Indiana, stands on the river side of The Gingerbread House Restaurant and Inn.   An outdoor billboard at the York Parish Hall Golden Horseshoe Antique Society, shows all canals, locks and dams in the lower Grand River. 

Hamlet of Indiana ~

Site of Several Mills on the Grand River, Indiana

Indiana grew from the saw and flour mills and distillery built by Director of the Grand River Navigation Company, David Thompson.

"The Towing-path from its commencement near Cayuga to Indiana is finished." ~ An Engineer's Report from 1835, included in Bruce Emerson Hill's book, The Grand River Navigation Company.

Remnants of the Canal & Towing Path Remain

"The inland cut from Indiana to Dam No. 1, is finished."  Indiana had a population of over two hundred and fifty people and was the site of seven mills, a lumber camp and saw mill, a stove factory, a pail factory, two distilleries as well as other businesses."  [As well as several pubs, we are told.]  A fire in the hamlet threateded its existence in July, 1857.

*Brant Historical Society, 1994, Image Quest, printing by Brant Service Press.

Mark Twain *~ "I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way:  by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else. . .
We have no permanent habits until we are forty.  Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins.  Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up ~ and that is one of the main things.  I have made it a rule to go to bed when there wasn't anybody left to sit up with; and I have made it a rule to get up when I had to.  This has resulted in an unswerving regularity of irregularity.  It has saved me sound, but it would injure another person.
In the matter of diet ~ which is another main thing ~ I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it."

~ * (1835 - 1910) "A Severely Moral Life," a speech at a dinner, Delmonico's Restaurant, N.Y., Dec. 5, 1905. Mark Twain, An Illustrated Biography, Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns, Knopf,2001.
Image:  Wikipedia

Jane Austen's books remain popular today.  Canadian author, Margaret Laurence, made the following observations in the 80s* ~

"Jane Austen, the more I read her and think about her, was such a subtle and strong feminist!  In them days!  But those days, apparently so far back, are not so very different from our own.  Is this not always the way?  I think so.  Strong women did always have the difficulties that Austen presents, and people like you and I have lived through that, too.  With, I may say, totable [sic] success.  We pass on a whole lot of things to the children, both female and male, or so I hope and pray and know. . ."

"How alike women writers are, or so it seems to me. . . we are sensible, amidst everything else, aren't we?  I think Jane Austen would have loved us, but I suspect she might have been a bit in awe of us, as well she might, we who have coped with having and rearing our children, writing our books, earning our livings, and not hiding the manuscripts under the desk blotter when the vicar came to tea."

~ A Very Large Soul  Selected Letters from Margaret Laurence to Canadian Writers.  J. A. WAINWRIGHT, Cormorant Books, 1995
* letters to Marian Engel
English novelist Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

Smile for Today ~

"My golden retriever has been trained, when ranging, to drop instantly in response to my whistle of three short notes.  On more than one occasion when walking near trees he has suddenly dropped without any prompting from me.

I was at a loss to understand why he did this until, on two recent occasions, I saw him drop at the same time as I heard the triple notes of the nuthatch.   I wonder if other dogs have been known to respond to the call of a bird?"
~ Jean Summers


~ The Second FIELD bedside book, Edited by Wilson Stephens.  The Harmsworth Press Ltd., 1969.

History Disappearing ~

Along The Grand



Some of the Last Vestiges of the Towpath



Mark Twain on Story-Telling ~

"If you attempt to create & build a wholly imaginary incident, adventure or situation, you will go astray, & the artificiality of the thing will be detectable.  But if you found on a fact in your personal experience, it is an acorn, a root, & every created adornment that grows up out of it & spreads its foliage & blossoms to the sun will seem realities, not inventions.  You will not be likely to grow astray; your compass of fact is there to keep you on the right course."

~ Mark Twain, written in a scribbler

Mark Twain An Illustrated Biography, Geoffrey Ward, Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns. Knopf, 2001.



Whiskey looking for Outdoor/Nature & not in books!



"Of course you should talk to your dogs.  But talk sense!"  J. M. Wilson

"The love of a well-chosen dog can transcend life itself." ~ Stanley Coren, Why We Love The Dogs We do, Simon & Shuster, 1998

"Dogs work their way into mens' lives.  They are a source of solace and companionship."*

~ The Pawprints of History, Stanley Coren, Simon & Shuster, Free Press, 2002.

Reminder:  Community Info Open House ~ Today 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
in York at the Golden Horseshoe Antique Society Hall, corner of Hwy #54 & 9.


The Day of 1000 Canoes Festival, 2011, brought hundreds of visitors to Haldimand County.  Please visit the website http://www.1000canoes.ca/

"Stress is all about control, or a lack of it,
so if you do something to regain control, your anxiety will disappear."

~ Louise Atkinson, Secrets of the stress busters.

"CHIN LIFTERS"

Smile For Today ~

"Of all the excuses there are

By which this old world is accursed

This 'haven't got time' is by far

The poorest, the feeblest, the worst.

A delusion it is, and a snare;

If the habit is yours, you should shake it,

For if you want to do what is offered to you

You'll either find time or you'll make it!"

~ Detroit Free Press

"Chin Lifters" were originally published in pamphlet form in the early 1930's ~ a project initiated by Richardson, Bond & Wright.  Submitted entries ~ "Chin Lifters" ~ were to give a 'lift' to spirits weighted by the anxieties, discouragements and despairs of a great depression."

The above excerpt is one entry in a resulting book, 100 CHIN LETTERS, published in 1954.
Note:  Thank you to D. Young for submitting 'chin-lifting' photo of Bella.

"I had six honest serving men ~ they taught me all I know.  Their names were WHERE and WHAT and WHEN ~ and WHY and HOW and WHO."

~ Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) English author, poet.

"It was on Easter Monday, April 9, 1917, and not on any other date, that Canada Became a nation."

~ Captain D. J. Goodspeed, The Road Past Vimy





Please visit the Military Section at The Neat Little Bookshop

*At Vimy Ridge, Canada's Greatest World War I Victory by Hugh Brewster, SCHOLASTIC CANADA LTD, 2006.

1910 Postcard

Happy Easter ~

A Good Day for Fishin' 

Dan Pineault & Josh Risidore

York on The Grand River

"We did a little fishing, saw a beaver dam.  There is a stream over there. . ."
~ early morning on the Grand, Saturday, April 7



(for larger image, click on photo.)

Smile for Today ~

"Strange to see how a good dinner and  feasting reconciles everybody."
~ Samuel Pepys

"I never see any home cooking.  All I get is fancy stuff."
~ Prince Phillip

"When baking, follow directions.  When cooking, go by your own taste."
~ Laiko Bahrs

"Cooking is like love.  It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."
~ Harriet Van Horne
~ Kitchen Wit, Jane Brook, Summerdale Publishers, 2009

The Neat L'l Bookshop is Open on Saturday 10:30 'til 3:00 p.m.
Wishing You a Safe and Happy Long Weekend.



Promoter Shane Carmichael

The first of several information sessions ~ Canoeists, kayakers gathered in The Neat Little Bookshop to hear plans for the second annual Day of 1000 Canoes.

http://www.1000canoes.com/