Monday – June 30th: Flash! Rumble! Crash! Repeat…
Day 3 in Haliburton, day 1 at art camp – done – and what a storm! Somehow we managed to get out of the college locations (Steve’s in one, I’m in another), pick up a few items in Foodland and get into our apartment between downpours. Currently, the rain is coming down at a 45 degree angle, visibility is sketchy, and the parking lot is taking on the resemblance of a small pond.
I’d go with the typical “the rain is good for the grass/gardens/farmers, etc.” proclamation but we’ve had a deluge of deluges since the snow disappeared so I think all of the above are well watered to-date. Oh well, can’t do anything about it but complain.
This year, we’re staying in town at the Heritage House B&B. We are fortunate to have our own self-contained apartment and, unlike our accommodations last year, linens are provided as well as a daily (fabulous) breakfast and weekly housekeeping – all for a very, very reasonable price. I would have preferred to be in a cottage on a lake but I think we waited a bit too long to book. Regardless, here are the trade-off benefits: we are walking distance to restaurants, the LCBO, the pharmacy, the grocery store, and other shops. It is home for two weeks and we will love it!
Here are a few shots of the Heritage House B&B: our apartment is at the top of the second long flight of stairs going up at the back.
We are the top floor of the wing extending out towards where I’m standing; a closer shot of the backyard courtyard.
Yesterday, a scorching hot day, we went for a wee bit of a drive to Minden for a Kawartha Lakes ice cream. So did everyone else in a 100km radius! The lineup was so long, we agreed to buy ice cream with our groceries and have some later. On the way back, we checked out some other roads we hadn’t been on before and scoffed at the closely posted deer warning signs – as if, especially in the heat… until we almost ran one over! I think it was as curious as we were, which made for a pretty good photo op…
Like I said, day 1 of art camp is behind us, which is always the slow day while people sort out where they’re supposed to be, when the rules are shared, when the intros are done, when the teacher sets us up for the week, and so on…
This week, Steve is taking a refresher in drawing with coloured pencils. As for me, this is where the cheating part comes in. Do you remember last year when I spent two weeks learning stuff I’d never done before (large scale wire sculpture and Ukulele)? Do you remember how I struggled with keeping up both weeks? Do you remember when I thought it was too stressful to count as a vacation? This week I’m in a stained glass workshop! Thirty-five hours of creating – using patterns I already prepared and skills I already have! There will be no stress this week, my friends. Actually, today Wendy mentioned something about overlays, which I don’t know how to do, so I hope to add to my toolkit. Stay tuned for photos of my finished projects but, in the meantime, here’s our classroom environment…
… and some of the projects my classmates were working on…
Sunday – July 6th:
It’s hard to believe our first week is over and the second one is about to start tomorrow!
The most noteworthy news of this past week is the rain. We had so many storms, and such torrential rain, that many, many driveways and roads were washed out!!! It was so bad, the Canada Day celebrations were postponed to yesterday – Saturday (which, somehow, we missed). Steve had a bit of a challenge getting up to the college to pick me up on Wednesday night. But repairs have been made and all is well – so far… there is more rain in the forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday.
A trip to Haliburton would not be complete without a visit to my favourite local restaurant, the Corner Café in West Guilford – about 15 minutes northwest of Haliburton. It’s a little quirky, with a really good Italian menu for a very reasonable price. If you’re willing to engage in conversation with the owners, it’s a bit like a big family dinner (only you have to pay for it). We intend to visit it again before we leave.
Thursday evening’s entertainment at the college was Cindy Thompson, an award-winning fiddler and step-dancer. And, YES, she does both at the same time!!! That woman, who is slightly over 50, has more energy than she should. She was accompanied by her son, Jake, on piano and her new hubby came on stage with his fiddle to join her in a few numbers. What a great 90 minutes!
(I’m still trying to figure out how to compress the video of her playing and dancing at the same time)
I brought three stained glass patterns with me – all inserts for garden stakes – and was expecting to get two of them done. I did finish the tulips, which I’m very happy with, but I got delayed with the roses when the background glass kept breaking in places I didn’t want it to break. I think the glass is flawed – seriously, it’s not me! – as I used the same background glass on the tulips and didn’t have any problems at all. So, I still have half of the background left to cut (or re-cut) before I can solder it and finish it off. I will do so at home but, in the meantime, here’s the tulip one…
Yesterday was another full day but this time it was outdoors.
We visited the Sculpture Forest behind the college again, to check out the new additions since last year. Somehow, we missed the flock of ravens, but I will be back there this coming week and will snap a few pictures of them then. Here are the new ones we managed to capture, as well as a few oldies but goodies:
We took our chances with the ice cream thing again in Minden and were luckier this time. I’m not ashamed to report that I had two rather large scoops – chocolate chip cookie dough and gold medal ribbon – in a cup and I ate it all. No regrets.
While looking for a book store on the web the other evening, we discovered a blog post by someone who had visited The World’s Smallest Bookstore. It’s located a few kilometres east of Kinmount on route 503, which just happens to be between Minden and Haliburton (sort of). So, of course, we had to check it out and it was a real gem. It really is the tiniest of buildings located near the road on someone’s rather large property. There is quite the selection of new and used books and it works on the honour system – $3.00 per book to be deposited into the lockbox. And, if we didn’t like what we saw, there was a larger barn further in on the property beside an enclosure with small farm animals! It’s so easy to impress this city girl!!!
There hasn’t been a day go by since we got here that we haven’t seen a deer – or five!!! That is special in itself, as we are still awed by these graceful and elusive animals and haven’t been jaded as the locals have. But today was extra special. It is very rare to see a fox in the wild and today we saw three of them!!! It took five passes in the car to get these shots as they were skittish but still determined to protect whatever food it was they had by the roadside. A perfect ending to our week…
