Roots & Blues

First stop of the weekend: Log Barn, just outside of Enderby, where we stocked up on fruit, veggies and cinnamon buns .... and the guys scorched themselves posing on the metal tractor in the zillion degree heat we drove thru.....

We camped in a field right next to the festival and parked Shaggy beside another group of four eager festivalgoers (one of whom serenaded us & also gave us his CD of blues ukelele tunes --- which is actually really good!)

Gorf liked to mellow out in the incense dish back at the campsite --- he behaved himself very well!

The boys were banished behind these bars (to have some beers) during a reggae workshop ... But they didn't stay 'fenced in' for long.......

The bands were insane! .... Last act on Sunday night was the Neville Brothers .... so ridiculously good!

Bearly There

So.... this summer's shagtastic campsite is up at Bear Lake ... home to (small) lake trout, many ducks and loons and sandpipers and wild rabbits and wildflowers and all manner of flora and fauna to keep us and our doggies busy but relaxed.

Morning coffees and evening wines are enjoyed lakeside .... Sometimes we tune into the "duck channel"....

We frequently watch the "flower and butterfly" show....

There's always some loud "Sandpiper Concert" right around twilight....

And if we really search through the channels we can watch the "frog show" from time to time.

And... now that we have a generator (!) we can catch all these channels all the time... whenever we want! Shagtastical!

Too Much Fun (almost......!)

Oh goodness.... apparently it is possible ("M" says so) to have 'too much good music' --- is it possible to have too much fun?

Look who we found while we were in Victoria visiting the Organic Island Festival!!

She (Z) is staying at O.U.R. Ecovillage ---- which is full of these fascinating and fabulous Cob Houses!

So.... guess who wants to build with Cob now.....

We met Elke Cole --- inspiring amazing woman who is building these wonderful earth-formed homes. Time for more learning!

Also spent good times in Victoria, eating, touring, hugging "Plastermen" and....

Marvelling at the absolutely massive cruise ships that arrived in the harbor (this photo taken from the balcony of our hotel). We thought they'd constructed a new building overnight! Until we noticed the building was pulling into the harbor....

Scoot-a-Root

Zzzzzzzzzip!

Shaky Animation

Aye Caramba.... another one.....

Limited Fertility

The more you limit yourself,

the more fertile you become

in invention.

-- S.Kierkegaard

Yeah, but Soren didn't go to all the effort to borrow a killer camera, read the whole *&%$ manual, go to a garden show, set up perfect shots.... BUT neglect to check if the camera was set to shoot in RAW at maximum quality. Limited photos below. Thank gawd for photoshop or these would look disposably over-exposed. There should be an entire subsection of Murphy's Laws devoted to me. *$&%! Ah well.................

Mathimation

Were it not for the "mathy-ness" of animation (the measuring, the counting, the pacing, the timing, the exactitude, etc), I don't think I'd put up with how *&$^% much time & effort it takes. Here's a little three second wonder that only took about three weeks to draw!

Life and Arts

Kelowna had an outdoor festival (Life and Arts) and ... we went!

There was this amazing troupe of vertical dancers called Aeriosa Ballet --- who danced on the side of the library building --- the troupe is headed by this upside-down chick, Julia, who used to go out with one of my friends back in the Winnipeg days. She looks exactly the same as she did when she was 20 (she was always upside-down back then, too!)

Dread-locks + Stilts = awesome

Tim enjoyed the stilted goddesses who were walking around, blessing us with their ribboned wands......

Jamination

Press play ... view cartoons.... revere me... yup!

Tiny Cartoon

Another four second cartoon that took about six painstaking hours to create. No wonder animators are raving maniacs.

It's title: "Mighty Mask".

It was a class assignment. Honestly.

Flowers in February

Valentine's Day, for all its hype and commercially-driven crap, is still one helluvan excuse for flowers in February. Ahhhhhhh.....

After ten years, the best husbands understand how gorgeous a bird-of-paradise bloom looks beside a sunny sunflower.

Hatching of a Cartoon

Here's my first offocial six seconds of animation. Zippity doo dah....

What Condo?

So... Christmas at the condo (Cove Lakeside at this link here), was quite nice.

Lotsa relaxing in hot tub, watching movies, eating massive amounts of gouda, chevre, brie, and every other kinda cheese one can name...

Worked a little in my "office" (the extra bedroom, at right) - getting some drawings ready for my cartooning class!

We found a massive hill to climb and almost made it to the top. Our condo is the far away building that's atop Bailey's head in photo above.

We discovered, tho, that it will still be a little while before Tim can thoroughly enjoy spending time at this all inclusive type retreat. We didn't need to cook (restaurant downstairs), no driveway to shovel, no wood to chop, no house to clean .... in other words: bored husband. He needs to be cellared a little while longer before he's ready to just sit around & be mellow!! But, when the time comes, this is probably where we'll be relaxing.....

Yes but, can he stack it?

I guess if you chop 'em down, you might as well cut 'em up! For those keeping track ---> this is the new log splitter! ... timmmmmmberrrrrrr!

TIM...brrrrrrrr.....!!!!

We went tree hunting this weekend and..... we found a big one!



This massive pine was standing dead (and lovely!) about 80 feet up a hill, above the access road. Tim spotted it and sprung into action!

The video below documents "the kill"! Too bad our camera doesn't have sound. Suffice to say... it went BOOM!



Here's the trunk of the tree. We estimate it to be about 3/4 of the length of a "Red Dog" in Diameter. That's a lotta wood in these parts....

Luckily, the father-in-law/father believed us when we yelled TIMBER since the tip of the tree did, in fact, hit the road .... look out~!!