Someone gave us a teensy sample of maple syrup in a glass jug not more than 3” high.  It now sits on the bathroom vanity.  One of our hostas near the side door produces white, lily-type flowers with a delicate fragrance.  Each morning I pick one of its lilies and deposit it in the little jug.  Throughout the day, I pause to pick it up by its round handle and inhale the lily’s refreshing scent.  A sniff resets one’s core gently, pleasantly―aroma therapy!

False prairie sunflowers are blooming along the backyard fence.  I’m 5’5”.  How tall do you think they are?  Goldfinches enjoy pulling seeds from their golden centres.

Too many fires have been in the news lately―Fort McMurray, California, barn fires, and even a local field of wheat―unheard of to us.  A sunset recently enflamed the pines behind us―thankfully only with fiery colour!

Day is done

Gone the sun

From the lake

From the hills

From the sky.

All is well.

God is nigh.

Sweetly rest.

After the painting of Shorty and Diesel was shipped to Utah, the studio became a temporary workshop of sorts. Tables were cluttered with drills, screwdrivers, levels, and tools of all sorts.  The bathroom next to the studio was being renovated.  It was about time.

In opposite corners of the studio, two easels patiently hold canvases, waiting to be worked on.

2016 got off on its second day to a frustrating start!  Non-stop computer problems.

Did you know that computers have personalities? likes?  preferences?

Knowing I had signed up to take the introduction to the InDesign course from Conestoga College online, John’s Christmas gift was the installation of 16 GB of RAM to increase the speed at which the office computer performed.  It promptly went into pouting fits, freezing up every few hours!  Forcing it to shut off by holding down the ON button until the screen darkened was a scary business, a procedure that was a last resort, and one that was hard on a computer.

Its next antic was to scare the wits out of me!  Red, quivering, horizontal lines shimmied up the monitors in menacing columns, freezing the computer again!  Yikes!

It could be that it needs a new video card.  That was the consensus this time.

Lloyd became a whiz kid at unhooking the tower and hauling it up to the repair shop, not to just one, but now to a second shop!

$100 later and a new video card, the computer is as rebellious as ever!

It must need a new hard drive, was the next conclusion.  How could the hard drive be worn out?  It was only 16 months old!  Give me a break.

A 2-tarabyte hard drive was installed.  The greenbacks are flowing.

Computer carries on with its usual tantrums, freezing up!

The receptionist at the shop lamely said, “Your computer just doesn’t like the RAM.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I replied, incredulously.

Whoever heard of a computer not liking something?  It’s mechanical, isn’t it?  Just a bunch of metal, wires, chips, screws . . . all that electronic stuff, geek stuff!

When I informed John that I was ready to heave it out the window, he initiated a three-way call with the technician.  Surprise!  The technician assured John that the RAM he had purchased was perfectly good, and that the first repair shop had installed it properly.

I dug out a trusty magnifying glass, and read the puny–sized company name on my old RAM of 6 GB:  Kingston Technology. 

“Kingston is reliable.  That’s what I have in my computer at home,” the technician said.

Wheeler-dealer John asked if the technician would swap out the RAM he had bought, and exchange it with his shop for KINGSTON RAM.

“Sure.”

Nimble Lloyd pulled out the wires for the umpteenth time, and up to the shop we went again.  How many trips was this?  Who’s counting?

“Leave it with us overnight so we can see if it still freezes up.  We’ll call you in the morning.”

Next morning, no call.  Doesn’t this generation ever keep their word and have the courtesy to call back?

I pick up the phone again.  “It’s fixed,” was the reply.

So . . . the receptionist’s comments about my computer not liking the RAM weren’t so dimwit after all!  Computers do have personalities, likes and dislikes.   The fact is that there are no absolute standards when it comes to the manufacture of computer parts.  What works in one computer might not work in another brand’s tower.  (Thought you’d like to know that comforting tidbit.)

Back home once again, the question quickly became, “Where is everything?  Where is One Drive?”

I had spent hours uploading things to One Drive after getting an upgrade with Rogers for unlimited bandwidth.

Where is the expensive InDesign software we put in that blew our budget, and that I couldn’t enrole in the course without?

Where is my email?  Where’s this?  Where’s that? Help!!!!!!

“Don’t worry,” John assured me.  “Let me come in on TeamViewer.”

Click.  Click.  Clickety click!  He pulled in things from who knows where, and old programs came alive once more!  What is he, a wizard?

“Call the technician and ask him where he put One Drive,” John instructed.

The technician had gone for the weekend, but he would call us Monday morning.

No such luck.

Three-way call once more.

Thank God for John’s Let’s get it done authoritative tone. I was no longer in a civil state of mind.  The tech agreed that if we brought up the old (ridiculous term) hard drive, he would put it in as a data disk, and at no extra fee.  Why hadn’t he done that in the first place?  Yes, we could come right up.

Yank.  Yank.  Yank.  You bet, Lloyd is a speed freak now at dismantling this box of junk.  My lack of a sense of direction can even tell you how to get to the repair shop without getting lost!  Why, we could get there blindfolded!

By this time, we’re no longer hauling the tower up the flight of stairs to the repair shop.  No, the receptionist can jolly well come out and carry it in, thank you very much.

When she began telling me about downloading everything into OneDrive, I must have looked like a veritable troll. (My oldest sister always told me she could read everything on my face!)  For once, it was an advantage. The receptionist quickly realized that I was not about to countenance any further delays, and trotted me back to the technician.  He agreed to download the 169 GB to OneDrive at no cost.

“Leave it with me, and I’ll start the download right now, and it will run overnight. It should be done sometime tomorrow.”

I’ve heard that line before.

Checking in the next morning, Friday, only a third had been downloaded, even though I was told the process ran all night. Yes, they are open on Saturday. . . . . .

By now, I am two weeks behind on the online course.  John leaves for his annual scuba diving vacation in one week. I had hoped to be well on the way in the course while he was still available to bail me out, should I get stuck.

When I was put together, I wasn’t wired with a sense of direction, and there is no way one can be installed.  The other wires that would equip me to be tech-savy didn’t get put in either.

I try to remind myself that at least my attempts to brush colour and shapes onto canvases – which those who view them often express a sense of wonder and joy at – is something to be thankful for . . . something not of my own doing.

Christine commissioned the painting of Diesel and Shorty in early February.  The carpenter installed it in the study of her new home on November 11^th.

“Thank you so much for this beautiful painting,” wrote Christine.  “It really means so much to me.  I cannot believe the content look in their eyes.  As I write this email, I am crying. How can an oil painting do this to me?”

When a friend in London saw Diesel and Shorty in the above photo, she emailed:

Can scarcely believe that in the short space of 8 months, the artwork moved from an “idea” to the “canvas,”  was “completed” by the Artist, “shipped” to the purchaser, and is now “gracing the fireplace” in their home!

And I’m still pinching myself that this whole experience really happened!

Spring, summer, fall . . . I checked them all, all of the local nurseries. I was hunting for the pink Obedient Plant, but they only had it in white.

Although it was November now, I couldn’t forget how lovely the spikes of pink flowers were that I photographed in one of Brantford’s public gardens two summers ago. Having never seen them before, I emailed the photo to a nursery, which identified them for me. Apparently the Obedient Plant is native to North America, where it is distributed from eastern Canada to northern Mexico, and blooms in late summer when most perennials are fading.  An amazing thing about these flowers, so they tell me, is that you can move or twist an individual floret(s) to whatever position you want them to be in, and they will stay put, which is why florists love them.

(Pink Obedient Plant)

Brainwave!  I’ll contact the Master Gardeners and see if one of them has such a perennial.

Through the library’s helpful Info Link service, I obtained a phone number, and left a message–my plea for a piece of the pink Obedient Plant.

Gwyn phoned, a master gardener, and, yes, she had the pink Obedient plant, and I would be welcome to come get some!  She was going out for lunch, but we could come by at four.

The directions were unusual.  Two miles west of a small village on the opposite side of Kitchener, we were to look for a lane which cut through the middle of a woods on the left, its number posted on the roadside.  There were two other homes in the woods which we would pass, but we were to keep going until we reached their place at the top of the hill.

The weather was balmy, in fact, record-breaking with temperatures in the 20s.  We found the lane that cut through the woods all right, but as we continued to wend our way around the trees, we could hardly tell if we were on the lane or not because of the thick bronze carpet of fallen leaves.  Soon we saw a building through the trees up ahead.

There was no one at home in the large board-and-batten house.  Two white poodle-mixes barked valiantly behind a big window. Presently, the master gardener and her husband drove up. He invited Lloyd into the house while Gwyn took me on a tour of the spacious grounds. Before setting off, I gave her a clump of cala lily that originally came from Guatemala, and produced white, leather-like blooms often seen in wedding bouquets.  It was ready for its winter nap indoors.

Gwyn explained that she once had perennial beds galore, a large greenhouse, and a swimming pool.  As time went on, however, outdoor work had to be pared down, and the greenhouse was dismantled.  The swimming pool was changed into two individual, curved ponds looking so natural with some cattails and water lilies in them.  Someone still comes in to help her with the large vegetable garden.  Carrots and parsnips lay in a wheel barrel by the door.  From this hilltop perch one could see the surrounding farmlands stretching out to the horizon field by fence post, stream and woodlot.

As Gwyn identified the spent stalks of a clump of pink Obedient Plants in a flowerbed by the house, she asked sisterly-like, “Are you a digger?”

“Yes!” I replied without hesitating.  “I LOVE digging!!”

No one had ever asked me such a question.  Only a master gardener fully understands the energizing, creative surge one experiences when powering a garden shovel into the earth by means of one’s foot. Repeated pushes might create a curved flowerbed, or prepare a hole in which to plant some fragrant rose bush–some green wonder to bless the world for years to come!

In no time, the two of us had a large clump of the sought-after perennials bagged and stowed in the cargo area of the Smart car.

Entering the house for a cup of hot tea which she proffered, we found the men engrossed in conversation in the living room.  And what a room!  Designed by two architects 40 years ago, and built from timber on the property, it featured massive maple beams, a stone floor-to-ceiling fireplace, an end wall filled with books, a cherry-sided dining room with the largest harvest table I have ever seen, a balcony overlooking the great room where vibrant greenery hung from the high ceiling, and, off the kitchen, a cold room to store produce and jars of fruit. The tiled floor of the window-studded kitchen was heated by hot water pipes, as were the bathroom floors.

Sitting there, I verbalized the thought that because they had become so accustomed to these surroundings of mellowed wood and stone, they could not possibly realize how relaxing and beautiful the home truly was.

Our conversations covered the gamut of the recent federal elections, the exotic flowers and fungi of Australia, where one of their sons live, the challenge of aging (experienced by each of us), their two-year stint in Nigeria where he was sent to build a school of engineering under the auspices of the University of Waterloo, and the miracle of a recent kidney transplant which he was grateful for.

At last, Lloyd and I reluctantly took our leave, but not before getting their phone number. Time had flown, and supper  was long overdue,

As I gave Gwyn a hug and kiss good bye, her husband asked where his kiss was.

“Give him a kiss,” Gwyn coaxed.  This was also a first for me. No wife has ever asked me to kiss their husband before!  I planted a kiss on both of his friendly, bearded cheeks.

Thanking them again, we began our descent from the enchanted home in the woods and its hospitable owners.

As soon as the rains tapered off the next morning, I happily dug in the clump of pink Obedient Plants in the garden by the sidewalk.

(Stalks of pink Obedient Plant safely dug in)

The weather forecast said that the record-breaking warm temperatures we had experienced would plunge, and in a few days would fall below zero, with possibly some snow.

Looking back, I marvel at the master gardener’s prompt reply to my late-in-the-season plea for the pink Obedient Plant. Just 48 hours later, and I wouldn’t have been able to dig the plants out of Gwyn’s flowerbed.  The ground would be frozen, unable to release the gorgeous plant I had fallen so in love with . . . but could not buy anywhere!

UPS picked up the crate containing the painting of the stallions, Diesel and Shorty, early in the afternoon of October 6^th.  Their scheduled arrival time at the Grants’ home in Ogden, Utah, was one week later, October 13^th.   From points 3000 kilometres apart, Christine Grant and I were regularly checking its progress on UPS’s online tracking system. I was relieved to note when it had cleared U.S. Customs, but why did it stall in Chicago for two days?  It wasn’t surprising then when the shipping company posted a notice that its arrival in Utah would be two days later than scheduled, October 15^th.

Christine stayed home that day, eagerly awaiting its arrival, but instead received a notice that they had attempted delivery, and would try again on the 16^th.

It turned out that for some inexplicable reason, the house number she gave us, which was clearly printed on the crate and on the affixed paperwork, was one digit out! She phoned UPS in Ogden, and fetched Diesel and Shorty home herself, letting us know by email.  The stallions were safely home, and we could relax!

The Grants’ response on seeing their commissioned piece was a joy to read, and will be posted shortly on our website in the TESTIMONIAL pages under the HOME drop-downs .

The carpenter came out the following day to take measurements for making a large moulding to frame the painting in the panel above the fireplace.  It will take about two weeks to have the staining done and everything put in place.  Once the stallions are installed, and Christine sends me a photo of them in their new paddock, I’ll share that in another blog.

Saturday afternoon, October 3^rd, was set aside for readying Diesel and Shorty for the journey to their owners in Utah.  Not quite three weeks after his right knee replacement, Lloyd’s walker steadied him as he stood to spray four light coats of ultra-violet protection over the canvas. When the last coat was dry, John and I taped a protective sheet of paper over the painting’s surface.  I could see the stallions through the paper, and felt my first pangs of parting with the beloved horses that I had been striving to bring to life with light and dark pigments for the past seven months.

Yesterday, a family visiting from church carried the crate up from the basement rec room for us.  Lloyd built it last spring before his knee surgery was postponed to the fall.  After John and I got the long wooden box onto the dining table, we placed the canvas inside the inner cardboard box, and secured its lid with cord.

Lloyd had prepared sheets of bubble wrap to swaddle the cardboard box in and cushion it during shipment. 

“This is how you do it, John,” coached Lloyd, setting the drill’s ratchet before he started screwing the top down on the crate with drywall screws.

Our enabler and webmaster, John, puts in the last screw!  He made sure that none of the screw tops stuck above the surface where they would catch on things.

The crate weighing 48.4 lb. stands on its end, waiting for pickup on Tuesday afternoon by UPS.

A previous visitor from church calculated the weight for us by holding the canvas and standing on the scales, and then standing on the scales by himself . . .  teasing us that we just wanted to find out how much he weighed!  He then sat the crate on the scales and determined the total weight of the canvas and crate, essential information to have as we contacted courier companies for shipping rates.

I put my back out trying to get a slipper onto Lloyd’s swollen foot when he came home from the hospital, so neither of us were into a weight-lifting mode.  Although we can’t lift heavy objects right now, there is something we can exercise . . . and that is giving thanks: thanksgiving for our son’s web-mastering skills that enabled Christine Grant to enlarge my painting of Secretariat, which is why she contacted me about painting stallions for her; thanksgiving that this lady possessed huge reserves of trust to commission a painting from thousands of miles away; thanksgiving for the honest (to be truthful, brave) critiquing from both my husband and son; and thanksgiving to my Heavenly Father for enabling me to complete the work before Lloyd’s mid-September surgery.

Diesel and Shorty should arrive in Utah around the time of our Canadian Thanksgiving, and be installed by the contractor above the library’s stone fireplace in the Grant’s new home before the American Thanksgiving!