Digital Pen Pals

People of a certain age will remember having a pen pal or know of someone who had one. Growing up in Newfoundland, I had several pen pals when I was in school, teenagers in Alberta, Borneo and Taiwan. They opened the world to me at that time. We exchanged letters once a month, shared details of our lives and culture in words and photos via the postal service. We lost contact over the years but I have thought of them and wondered what they did in their lives.

In those days, I received a box of stationery for Christmas, matching paper and envelopes used to carry my teenage thoughts around the world. Today, I still like to have a nice box of stationery, though it is not used near as much these days. Today, an IPad and an app are all I need.

Now, blogging and following some other blogs, is like having modern day, digital pen pals. These new "pals" are all over the world, and blog on any variety of issues or topics, humourous, inspirational, political, arts/craft, genealogical, photographical, historical, cultural, and travel, to name a few. The only limit is one's imagination.

Now, leaving comments on other blogs, writing and responding to comments on my blog, let me communicate with people around the world. Blogging has helped me continue the writing begun in childhood, at a point in my life when I have time and more to say. These digital pen pals open the world to me today just as the traditional ones did years ago. The wonder of modern technology has made these "pals" easier to access than traditional mail ever made their predecessors. 

This era of mass communication enables us to have the world in our homes in an instant. However, there is nothing like communication with people yourself to give you the essence of their culture and who they are. Something old is improved for the times.

The Blogger Challenge

The blogger challenge

Another blogger nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger award. It comes with a challenge:

1. Link to the blogger who nominated you.

2. List seven random facts about you.

3. Nominate seven creative, beautiful bloggers, and let them know about the nomination.

I was nominated by Ginnie of http://goldendaze-ginnie.blogspot.com

Ginnie has been a blogger since 2006 and she writes about events from her life with humour and wisdom. Her blog can bring a laugh, a smile or a tear and I often learn something interesting from her.

Thank you for the nomination, Ginnie.

2.  Seven facts about me:

1.  I am a Canadian, and have always lived on islands off the east coast of Canada.

2.   Travel is one of my great pleasures in life.

3.   I love to read and I am a member of a book club. 

4.   Giving back to the community is important to me so I do volunteer work with two organizations.

5.   Gardening is one of my favourite things, especially growing vegetables in my little garden plot.

6.   My favourite exercise is walking, which I have done a lot of over the years, walking as much as 16 kilometers a day.

7.   I have one daughter and two granddaughters who fill my life with joy.

3.  I nominate the following Beautiful Bloggers:

http://mydarkcovepantry.blogspot.ca/

http://gotaminuteortwo.blogspot.ca/

http://ex-shammickite.blogspot.ca/

http://thesmittenimage.blogspot.ca/

http://bitstop-nfld.blogspot.ca/

http://northernhills.blogspot.ca/

http://fromrabbittown.blogspot.ca

Winter Sunset

That time of day, when the sun sinks lower in the sky, reaching for the horizon so as to shine on another part of the earth, is my favourite. A sunny day is necessary to observe the best effect of course.

So it was that one day last week, a walk planned for early morning was replaced with one approaching sunset. It had been overcast earlier in the day and by mid afternoon, the sky cleared and conditions were perfect. Off we went, also curious to see if our furry and feathery friends were still about. No wind that afternoon made for a pleasant experience.

Chickadees and crows were busy as usual but there was no sign of the squirrels around the feeders. 

We could hear them chatter in the trees though, letting us know they were still active.

Then we saw one, making her way over the snow by the boardwalk, unperturbed by the humans walking nearby. 

She was a big squirrel too, out and about on a sunset adventure. 

Evidence of an animal's work on a nearby trunk looked unusual in the way the bark was removed from the trunk. Woodpecker activity was evident at the top. We wondered if any of the squirrels lived in those holes.

The sunset became the focus as the last rays reflected off the ice on the bay,

making the city golden. 

The bare branches against the painted sky were glorious, creating interest with design. We had time to stop and soak in the scene. 

When the sun was almost gone, the Confederation Bridge, our link to the rest of Canada, looked like a line on the horizon supported by repetitive arches of ice.

 In the twilight, we headed home, amazed with another unique walk by the bay.

Bye Bye Baby

Our youngest granddaughter, Caitlin,

is finished with her booster seat for the table at our house. As she says, "I am a big girl now." She will be three next month.

We are sad to see the last of this seat. It is one of the last vestiges of our sweet baby, 

as she casts off early childhood and moves into that pre-schooler age.  

Caitlin is a more reserved and quiet child than her older sister, Sylvie. 

She absorbs everything, then says something profound. If you didn't hear it, tough luck because, unlike her sister, Caitlin does not have a repeat button.

She is funny and loves to tease. Her, "Don't tickle me," means to do just that. 

Caitlin loves to cuddle and give hugs, is loving and cute. She can play alone or with her sister and has a great attention span. Caitlin also loves to dress like a princess, sing and do ballet moves. 

She is full of life and, like all children, has such potential.

We lament the passage of this stage of Caitlin's life but we celebrate the Caitlin who is now and who will be.

This following song captures how we feel about our baby growing up.

Check out The Early Days by Old Man Luedecke.

In the song, Stanfield is the name of the airport at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Superstore is a Canadian grocery chain.

Pancakes and the Laundry

Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday, and this occasion reminds my husband, Rick and me of our early years teaching. The memories even  go further back though, to our own childhoods and before, when the day before Ash Wednesday was also known as pancake day.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the six weeks before Easter, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the focus of Christianity. The Lenten period is a time of preparation for this event. During that time, people often do good works and deny themselves certain items or pleasures in reparation for their sins and to be worthy. In our youth, people gave up sweets, cigarettes, alcohol, to name a few, and went to church more often.

Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday were initially a British tradition. They used the eggs, flour, and such other luxuries as would not be consumed during the Lenten season. In Newfoundland however, pancakes contained other ingredients as well.

                                                                                          Photo courtesy of Aunt Marie Smith

Newfoundland mothers put coins, buttons, or rings in their pancakes, then watched and warned their children as they ate the tasty treats. If you had a pancake with money, it signified wealth in your future, a ring signified marriage and a button, a life as a single person. Mothers often put their own wedding rings in the pancakes. 

Some families also put string and nails in them though our mothers feared these items. The nail signified approaching death and string, one's destiny to become or to marry a fisherman. Who would want a nail? String was soft and harder to detect in the pancake, causing a health hazard if eaten. 

A dime or a nickel made children wealthy immediately, regardless of what the future would bring. A movie cost 10 cents, a chocolate bar, bag of chips, or a drink, 5 cents each, treats not common in their everyday lives. Children looked forward to pancake day, and the money and treats to come.

When I worked as principal in Buchans, Newfoundland, Rick kept the accounts, and counted the canteen money. Imagine the coins on Ash Wednesday! Rick washed them to remove the dried pancake batter. Because the children had more coins than usual, the money cleansing took some time, often requiring a brush. It was a Newfoundland version of money laundering.

 

A Fox Tale

Shortly after we moved to Summerside, Prince Edward Island, we had an unusual visitor. My husband, an early riser at 4 a.m., coming up from the basement saw a red fox looking in through the side light of the front door. We had never seen foxes in our neighbourhood in Newfoundland. Here, they are common in our area and all around the province. 

While coyotes are new to the island, foxes have been here a long time. In the 1890s, two enterprising men refined the process for raising silver foxes, resulting in a lucrative fox fur industry in Prince Edward Island. Fur was exported all over the world; the silver fox, a mutation of the red fox,

was highly prized in eastern European markets. 

An article on the silver fox industry is here.

Speculators became involved, buying breeding pairs of foxes 

from the island breeders with small deposits and selling them for sometimes double the price they eventually paid the farmers. They sold shares in their speculations to people in Ontario, Prince Edward Island and the eastern United States. Not mentioned in the above article, were the shares sold to Newfoundlanders.

The Moultons of Burgeo, Newfoundland, my husband's ancestors on his mother's paternal side, bought these shares too. In the will of Albert Edgar Moulton, 

                                                                                                       Partial will of Edgar Moulton

who died in World War I, he left shares in Raynor International Fox Company of Summerside, PEI and Glenaladale Silver Fox Company of Glenaladale, PEI to various family members.

It also appears that Edgar's father, Thomas Moulton,  a merchant, was part of a fox breeding business in Burgeo, Newfoundland. In the same will, Edgar left his shares in the Burgeo Co-operative Fox Breeders Company* to his father, who had given them to Edgar. The inspiration for this co-operative may have been the Prince Edward Island fox breeding business.

Meanwhile, in PEI, the peak of the industry occurred between 1932-1937 when there were 1215 fox farms on the island. The farms disappeared decades ago with only wild foxes left to roam the island now.

I imagine these foxy descendants have inscribed in their DNA the details of their survival of the fur farming industry and subsequent return to the wild. Our visitor, one of those foxes, looked in on one of the descendants of the stakeholders of the industry. Peering in through the window at my husband, the fox barked, "Nah nah, na nah nah."

* The word breeders as in Burgeo Co-operative Fox Breeders Company is spelled two ways in Edgar's will, one as stated previously and another as Bruders. I used the word breeders in the story since it appears to be the correct word rather than bruder.

Winter Shadows

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and we waited to see if the rodent saw its shadow. Then the groundhog which forecasts for eastern Canada did not see his shadow, so we will have an early spring, or so folklore assures us. These ceremonies attract many people to the communities where they occur, providing an economic boost in the dead of winter. While thousands waited for the groundhogs' predictions, we took a walk again by the bay in Prince Edward Island, on that beautiful winter day. This time of year, the environment and the animals create an inspiring combination, the appearance of which changes every day. In spite of the groundhog's predictions, yesterday, the shadows here were striking.

The bare trees against the winter blue sky and the light, 

shaded or peeking through in places, 

create a glorious scene. I love this play of light

 and stop numerous times just to capture the moments.

 Of course this suits my injured knee just fine.

With my husband, as well as the cold air, brilliant sun, snow, blue sky, frozen sea, boardwalk, trees, and the shadows, it was a great winter experience. One day, a cup of tea whilst sat on the bench would be perfect.

I wonder, what happens when the squirrel sees its shadow?