Animal Stories ~

Part chihuahua, part pincher, Uno prefers the classics; however, when pressed he will read Animal Stories.

"It is only with the heart that one can see right;
what is essential is invisible to the eye." *

We pass on to you today the above Daily Quote from
Johnathan Huie. www.dreamthisday.com sent to us by a friend.

* Antoine de Saint Exupery (1900 - 1944) French writer, aviator.

Saint Exupery vanished in a plane over the Mediterranean. For photos of bracelet discovered at the bottom of the sea in 1998 go to Wikepedia; search Antoine de Saint Exupery. Best known for his books The Little Prince and Wind, Sand and Stars.
http://www.wikipedia.org/

Our thoughts and prayers are with Barbara and family, Michael, Ann and Sue in the loss of their husband, father, grandfather and brother, David Harvey Wase. Our sincere condolences to Dave's sister, Mary.

Condolences to the family may be expressed at http://www.cooperfuneralhome.ca/

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." ~ Guilda Radner, quotation on website Cooper Funeral Home, Jarvis, Ontario.

Photo: November Sunset on Lake Erie, Ontario ~ Lorna

MURRAY & ME ~ A rare look back at the thirties in rural Ontario.

Author and historian Harry B. Barrett relates the historic installation of the controversial new hydro-electric power lines. He tells the story of travelling in a cutter and upsetting on a hill. "I remember our upsetting in the ditch. . . Suddenly I seemed smothered in snow from beneath and by the fur of my Grandfather's coon-skin coat."
The reader learns the origin and tales connected with such places as "Dog's Nest" and Port Dover. The author reflects on earlier days -- his conversations with old neighbours and friends -- to explain the financing and hardship in building the Hamilton-to-Port Dover Plank Road.
One can imagine Harry Barrett sitting around the kitchen table with his childhood friend, Murray Hammond, sharing the stories that eventually became the book, MURRAY & ME.

The book is dedicated to "the hardy pioneers of the Long Point County, many of whom were ancestors to Murray and Me, who toiled to turn the Carolinian Forests into the smiling farmlands and orderly communities that we enjoy today."

* Harry B. Barrett, MURRAY & ME, 1999, Patterson's Creek Press, Morris Printing, Simcoe, Ontario. Photo: Cutter circa early 1900's. Family photo album, Lorna

CAYUGA LIGHT-UP NIGHT Friday Dec. 3, 6pm. at the Village Green. Followed by a candlelight walk to the Kinsmen Hall where Santa will host dancing and a magic show.
Free hot dogs and hot chocolate provided by the Cayuga & District Chamber of Commerce.

Photo: Santa in the Back 40, Cayuga St., 2009.

"Addressed Christmas cards tonight. There was a time when I used to hunt for the most suitable card for everyone on my list. I chose cards covered with lambs and reindeer for children, snow-scenes for friends who were wintering in Florida, High Church cards for friends of a ritualistic tendency. Low Church cards for evangelicals, Thick Church cards for those whose religion impressed me as a bit thick, cards with coaches and jolly drunken Englishmen on them for my jolly drunken American friends, and so forth. It was a lot of work, and I gave it up long ago. Now I buy cards in large inexpensive bundles, and send them out in whatever order they happen to come. . . . Like everybody else I am sending cards this year to people who sent me cards last year, but whom I forgot last year, and who will not send me cards this year. This desperate game goes on for decades, and there seems to be no way of stopping it. . . . On several cards I put messages such as, "Why don't you write?" or "am writing soon," which is a lie. I have no intention of writing them, but in an excess of Christmas spirit I pretend that serious illness, or the press of affairs, is the only thing which keeps me from sending them a long letter every week."

Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, a series which appeared in the Peterborough Examiner and later published in book form.