Buckingham Palace posted on Twitter, "And We're Off! The #diamondjubilee weekend begins."  (That says it all in fewer than 140 characters!)

It was 1953.  The fashion magazines were featuring the new rayon fabric.  A British expedition under Edmund Hillary conquered Mount Everest.  An armistice was signed in the Korean War. Winston Churchill was preparing his Coronation speech.

~ Long Live The Queen! Britain in 1953, Peter Street, Sutton Publishing, 2003.

Annual Dog Show ~



Must be something in This For Me . . .



Caledonia, Ontario

Alice Guthrie of Hagersville, Ontario

The Red & White Irish Setter

Visit http://www.newhopecrossfire.com/
Wayne and Alice Guthrie, Haldimand, Ontario


Photos:  lbwalker

Thought for Today ~

"Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of."

~ Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 - 1909) American writer

Thought for Today ~


"I reckon I need:  a cook-housekeeper, a daily woman twice a week for cleaning, and a gardener, all loyal unpaid slaves.  However, in their absence, I try to juggle all these things with a minimum of time and effort ... Also, I would like a secretary to cope with all my business letters.  The only writers I've ever heard of who had all these various helpmates were invariable members of the Eng upper classes.  We soldier on, cussing somewhat.
"All well here, really.  Odd, though.  I love this place. . ."  ~ Margaret Laurence

A Very Large Soul, Selected letters from Margaret Laurence, edited by J.A. Wainwright, Cormorant Books,1995.

"No Time to Stand and Stare. . ."

"What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows?"

~ Wm. Henry Davies, "Leisure" (1871 - 1940)  Welsh poet and writer

Photo:  Riverside Park, Cayuga.  lbwalker

Under the Walnut Tree Among the Willows~

We cherish a relationship with Mary and Joyce Martindale, sister and daughter of Herb Martindale, founder of the Neat Little Bookshop.



Willows on The Grand

In the early eighties, Mary wrote historical "vignettes" for The Grand River Sachem and many of these articles were published in a couple small booklets.*  As well as the historical, Mary often shared personal stories.  At a teachers' meeting, a Dr. Wendy Weaver spoke on how to cope with stress.  "One way is to have a special place where you can relax in your mind and get away from it all.

"To my surprise I found myself by the Grand River under the walnut tree among the willows. 

"I forgot my surroundings as I enjoyed again with my mind the stillness, the shale rock of the river bank, the blossoming water plants along the shore and the blue sky dotted with banks of white fluffy clouds.  This way of relieving stress really works."

* Historical Vignettes, Historical Vignettes II. Grand River Sachem, 1983 & 1988.
Photo:  Riverside Park, Cayuga.  lbwalker

"Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls"

"Pied Beauty"

Glory be to God for dappled things ~

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced ~fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

Thank you to Laurie Miller for introducing us to the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 1889) and the poem, "Pied Beauty."

Quoting Laurie Miller ~ "Longfellow's poem ["The Village Blacksmith"] uses the strength of the tree and the extent of its shade, probably as emblems of the blacksmith's strength, etc., but the one [poem] I think of ["Pied Beauty"] goes to the transient heart of the blossoms themselves."

*Pied/ Parti-coloured;

  Stipple/ w/dots, small spots or flecks.

~ Canadian Oxford Dictionary

"Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls"