The Morning After

means lots of leftovers at the house ( not ours )
however, they have a big built in jobbie of a fridge

The last family re-union was in 1997 in Edmonton.
I encouraged an Uncle w/ some experience in organizing company events to work out the details.
We from a distance, provided seed money and contacted the relatives. Success - or wildly unexpected attendance. 125 showed up.

And it was the last. Til now.
Yesterday, 20 aunts / uncles / cousins / second cousins arrived. And the mood was positive and upbeat.

Creature Feature

the relatives will gather

And there is some animosity possible. The Aunts and Uncles are older and some are wheelchair mobile.
As always the intent is good but people being people - 
well, We shall see said the Zen Master

And here, in this blog the posts were supposedly good news.
Thus, I re-start

The man reached 100 years of age . Friends and family are gathering and several have flown in for this day.
Cousins long sundered by distance and circumstance will renew old ties.

There will be sushi ( on order ) and delectable desserts ( home made tarts, for sure )
and I've already had the cookies.

I brought an 8 x 10 photo of 9 of ten sibs gathered some years ago. According to my searches, I can find nothing comparable. Unfortunately, the original was over 40 years old and of course, in the process of enlargement - a little fuzziness appeared.
However, the truth is that the uncles have fuzzy eyesight anyway.

We will expect a glorious day. The event is an 11 AM to 6 PM time frame
I hope that I last til 6 PM b/c I will help clean up.

And I lied. The photo of my father and his sibs including the birthday boy contained all the brothers and sisters.

No body blows were landed at the birthday party.
Some snide little things were said in private but all ended smoothly.

A family story involving the internment was straightened out. I've been repeating a slightly doctored version but I've got it right now. And the errors were small and don't / didn't affect the story.

Meet the Creature

or parents night interviews

That was our slogan as teachers

We are meeting a whole slew of relatives w/ the same last name - always interesting. In fact, one cousin is making a special effort to drive the 10 minutes from his house. Its his father's 100 th birthday.
See, good news. Everyone is praying that his wife is a no show - she lives closer.

Really, folks are making a special effort to attend.
Our host is a cousin and she smashed her knee a week ago. Plans were adapted and things will go on. We'll help too.

Good News

alive and walking

See just the good

Born on the 4th

of July

" he's a Yankee Doodle dandy " James Cagney, dancing and singing

Weather is definitely H / H

And will stay that way for a few days
broken up by rain, in this high humidity

Happy 4 th to you all !

The Season Starts

for me - this was my 5 th and 6 th outing

Got a bass, both days Tues & Wed
Wed bass shown here

And Lucky , really - should have escaped 4 times
But rather lucky than skilled

H / H has settled in 
sauna as you go outside

The fishing technique is ' fish the wood '.
The first largemouth bass hit a spinnerbait flashing past a stump. Very fundamental bassing. A spinnerbait is great b/c if the bass hits and you set - well , normally he's done like toast.

The pictured ' pig ' of a bass took a 6 inch stick bait in glow in the dark and colour changing white - ishness
plastic - also basic bass strategy.
However, I felt the weight and tried to go around a branch by stepping to the stern - and kept stepping only to realize as I went back, the boat was drifting forward in the wind. I had left the trolling motor to step backward. Thus, I was way out of position by the time the bass got close. And the line was running through a piece of bark on the branch and wouldn't move.
Of course, the drag was set too loose and the porky pig ran all over the woodlot.
Excitement up the wazoo. Anxious and cursing for all the simple and avoidable problems.
A maxim of fishing : some fish were meant to be caught - or  " idiots catch fish too "
Now, understand that ' fish the wood ' is exactly what I've doing all along.
I guess the bass are in summer mode or in the wood where I can catch them.

On the topic of bites and seasons starting - an army of deer flies was waiting for me to park the car at the Q.
The little buggers < literally > were using me as their  sole source of food. One bite on the wrist threatened to make a second thumb on my right hand.

Canada Day July 1

A sunny start for our Birthday of the country

Born in 1867 to the anguish of Grt Britain or not
as the ' colonies ' were becoming a bit of a drag.
I mean Canada pumped out furs and wood for years making Britain wealthy.

Now, she is our Queen symbolically but we are a Dominion w/ elected gov't.

Oh ! Canada

We are staying home