The Divine Mercy Mosaic Window

Four years ago - almost to the week - my order of glass tiles arrived from Italy and a few days ago I felt I could say that the window is finished. It still requires grouting of course, but we're considering grouting it in place - I may yet grout it as is but I need some more info about the flexibility of the grout.
Now is the exhilarating stage of having the anonymous contributor of the cost of materials see it, the church that is to receive it to view it, to stand it up and remove the paper backing - seeing light pass through the glass for the first time...and to have it installed, God-willing by next Summer in it's new location. What a joy! The whole process has been a blessing and while there's fulfillment in the finishing I will miss having it here; to work on and to be with. But it's going where it should be, where it always intended to be and I'm so grateful. :)

BIG plane !!

Today was a historical day for the our International airport. The Antonov-124 landed to deliver some helicopters for refurbishing and refitting. This is the largest aircraft to land at our airport todate.

Since this may be the the largest cargo plane (capable of transporting 300,000 lbs) that I'll ever see I had to go watch and of course take pictures. To imagine that a hulking beast such as this can fly is a marvel; sort of like a massive ship floating. I know the science behind it but to see trucks, cars and other planes dwarfed by this machine still makes you scratch your head.
It is only here for a short time. It leaves tonight at 10 PM and is reported to be extremely loud but you have to know I must be there to see it go, dark or not. It will have unloaded the payload, loaded 41,000 gals of fuel and is heading for Kansas City for it's next job.
WOW first a great trip to Newfoundland, then the Stanley Cup now one of the worlds largest transport plane this years been great!.

Autumn in our house

With one son still in Football this autumn will be like the past several. Driving to practise going to Saturday games, cheering and waiting to see if the BC provincal title is attainable. Our last football player is one of those that has huge potential but possibly not the built in career drive. I can appreciate this since I like playing hockey could of possibly made a career of it but decided early on I really didn't want that to be my life.







Here in the Okanagan for the majority of the summer we have clear sunny skies but come autumn there's more to look at, more to watch, more to admire. The many shapes, colours, levels and speed of the clouds makes for endless entertainment when one take the time to sit and just look.





Enjoy your autumn!!!!!!

Gromit the Moose Hunter

We were watching this program about Moose in Newfoundland - and Gromit was curled up in his customary place on the couch. Every few minutes when a moose would come on the screen, especially if they weren't close-ups, Gromit would start growling. Finally he couldn't hold back and went after the offending Moose...jumping up, growling, scratching at the screen and looking around the side and behind the tv when the beasties ran off the screen! We managed to stop laughing at him long enough to snap some photos! What a wonderfully silly pug!

Garlic Amigurumi

A couple of years ago when we first attended the Hills Garlic Festival in New Denver with our garlic-farming Brother and Sister-in-law I had the idea for a garlic doll of some sort. My silly little crochet hats always sell well and this year the two ideas melded into one really quite cute (I think!) little amigurumi garlic doll! This is the first three. I may list some on ETSY but otherwise I'll be saving them up til next year's garlic festival! :)

City Hearth

www.cityhearth.blogspot.com

A new little blog project for me (sorta)...about maintaining, living in and loving hearth and home. I hope to see you there! :)

New rug and lower prices in our ETSY

This morning I posted a new listing a folky sheep rug on ETSY - I also cut the prices of all my listed dolls, my own little economic stimulus action! ;) Here's hoping the Paypal fairy comes fluttering through the shop! I'll be sure to offer her a comfortable seat! :D

Welcome Sarah!

Today's welcome photo is my bunny with a 'tude, Malt (and his brother Barley in the background) - eating his way through a newspaper. I guess he didn't like what the columnist had to say!

Sarah I recognize from ATM! Thanks for following Sarah! Sarah has a sweet blog about 'cooking, home making, babies and everyday life' - (and her miniatures!) :)
http://spilledsweettea.blogspot.com/ Congratulations on your baby boy due in November Sarah!

Sandon ~ Boom to bust & buses

Located in the Slocan Valley of BC this town is a giant among ghost towns even though as it is right now you would never know. The silver that flowed from this town made many many rich people. It afford the town electricity before the City of Vancouver, it funded the first hospital in the interior of BC, it provided the first Xray machine in Canada, it supported many saloons and brothels of course. Now it has attracted a flock of buses.....extraordinary indeed.


A forward thinking person has been buying, storing and restoring these old electric public transit buses. What an awesome undertaking and my hat is off to the folks who had the foresight to buy and save these marvelous units. Most of them are from Vancouver but a few are from other cities such as Calgary and Winnipeg I think. All of them are fantastic and all were made in Canada.



Now those same cities that sold them to go to diesel buses are returning to electric buses to try and clear the air.

If you're in the area drop in and visit this amazing chunk of BC history. The people are warm, the hills are rugged and the ghosts impressive.......

Dave

All Things Mini MAKE Announced!

It's a bed! Completely decked out! How exciting is that?! (Excellent theme Marie!) Even more exciting is that Ara is MAKE'ing for me and I'm MAKE'ing for Karin!
Karin, I can't wait to learn who in your little world could use a bed! :)

I really hate these bugs...

Oh yes, there are some photos of development in the Casa there too. But each year at about this time, these nasty little beetles; Chinese Elm Beetles I think they are - come out in the thousands...this is just the beginning I'm afraid. We're working at trying to keep them OUT of the shop. I don't think they improve the Casa at all. Stinking lousy bugs.

Inspired by Blogs!!

This morning while loading some picture to http://www.panoramio.com/ I got wandering around looking at other pictures and then blogs, blogs of Newfoundland to be exact.







Then the guilt of being remis about sharing this wonderful, beautiful place with the world started to grow until I had to sit down and face the monster head on and get posting.













We were only there for 2 weeks, I'm not sure if it was the people, the salt air, the history, the beauty or all of the above that has been embedded in to our very being.





God willing we will be fortunate enough to visit again and again.







I know the winters are famously harsh, especial for us soft BC folks but the time we spent in May was simply good for the soul. The rugged coast was an incredile contrast to the soft fauna, the bogs, the grass, the pebbled beaches. The cold sea water and iceberg filled bays and coves such a 180 degrees from the warm welcoming people we met everywhere we went.













Thank you to those who blog about Newfoundland and share your time and energy with those of us who "wish" we could live there one day and inspiring me to re-commit to posting our pics.

Forever "Re" committed,
Dave

Back from the library...

I love books and libraries - I thought it might be fun to share what I'm reading and such as a documentation of inspiration. :)

I just finished reading Drood - a fictional tale woven with some biographic facts; about the strange last few years of Charles Dickens' life. A weird story written by a rather dis-likable character - I don't quite know what to say about it, but it was entertaining.

I'm still listening to the Forsyte Saga on my mp3 (I have a subscription at audible.com -love it! - it's the only way to make housework and dishes palatable!) I can't say enough good things about this book (3 actually) by John Galsworthy. It's my second listen and I just love it.

Today I picked up Living with Pigs which looks just great. The main objective of the book is 'to encourage you to discover the joys, and delights and simplicity of living with pigs.' And I need precious-little encouragement as it is! I really don't know if I can squeeze pig-raising into this lifetime though!

And four copies of Dollhouse Miniatures that I haven't read yet: July/August 09, May/June 09, Jan/Feb 09 and March/April 09. I didn't even know that they had switched to an every-two-month format! That's not cool!

And lastly I renewed The Victorian House Book by Robin Guild, what a great resource for dreaming about my take on the Rowhouse kit soon to be debuted by Heritage Dollhomes!

Ah...love my books....
:)

Welcome MiniAlev!

Following today is MiniAlev! Welcome! :)

http://minialev.blogspot.com/
http://minialevpremios.blogspot.com/
http://premiosalever.blogspot.com/

(today's welcome picture is my dear little bun Winnie; now passed)

Debbie's Surprise Package

Nikki at Witch and Wizard Miniatures is overseeing the collection of items to send to our friend Debbie who is undergoing heart surgery. Having a package of goodies to open from all the bloggers that she is so generous and warm to - seems like a beautiful idea to me after such an ordeal. If you'd like to participate please email Nikki as quickly as possible:
rnikkij72@aol.com
We all send Debbie and her family our love and prayers for healing and strength during this difficult time.