Roughing it While You're Camping

So this past weekend we went camping with Gryper and the Missus. Some may argue that this style of camping stretches the idea of roughing it, but ho-old on thar! It ain't always a picnic setting these rigs up.

This campsite in Emily Provincial Park was listed as being able to accomodate less than 32 foot trailers. Grypers' Doll House is less than 32 feet, much less. They lucked out with campsites as far as world record for the funniest parking jobs, but you all know Gryper ... it was perfectly level.. the Missus stated that the Doll House was the most level they have ever had it.

You be the judge.

What's Granny been up to?

I've been accused of not blogging enough, so I thought I'd do a quick post before work this morning.

As you know, Gryper & the Missus just got back from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. The gave me a bag of ground musk ox to try. So last night we had company for dinner, and in my spirit of treating company like guinea pigs, I tested another new recipe on them. I made a tourtiere (Quebecois meat pie) and used the musk ox. Grandpa said "I knew it would be good, but I didn't know it would be that good". It was a success, thanks Grypers!

While our company was here, I had to show of my violin-in-progress ... I was astounded when I put the three parts together .. for some unknown reason, I hadn't done it before. It blew my mind. This thing is actually starting to look like a violin!!















I've had a knitting pattern in my head for a while and decided to make some "knucks". You know, fingerless gloves. I wanted to do them on one long circular needle. So I made the fingers and thimbs, and put them on double pointed needles, then started assembling them. Here's my progress on that project.


















Next month, I'm once again going on the canopy tour "Walk in The Clouds" at the Haliburton Forest, but this time my partner will be Grandson the second. You'll recall we took Grandson the first for his 13th birthday a couple of years ago. I'm so excited about doing it with him. Speaking of the grandkids, since Lexiphage is going to a wedding the end of the month, I'll own Grandson the third and Granddaughter the first for a whole weekend. That'll be really cool, we're going on a trip to the zoo one of the days. Yahoo!

Here is a picture of a sunrise that I took out in front of the house a few days ago. Early autumn in Haliburton ... I'm really pleased with how this pic turned out. There's nothing like watching the sunrise from the dock - maybe I'll go and stand down there now, although I've missed the sunrise this morning, the water is sparkling..

African Grey Parrots

We have an African Grey Timneh (parrot), and I'm always amazed by how bright she is. We've had her for eleven years, since she was 10 weeks old. We are constantly amazed by how aware she is of everything going on in the house, how funny she is, and how she can contribute to any discussion with her comments or her laughter. She is very definitely opinionated and makes her opinions known. She was part of the gang on our recent tour of Newfoundland and adapted to life in the truck and the trailer just fine.

So, I was saddened to hear that Alex had died on Monday. Most people who have parrots for companions know of Alex, the African Grey Congo parrot. He was a brilliant 31 year old, who had worked with Dr. Irene Pepperberg at Harvard University for 30 years. He was known to correct other parrots being trained by saying "Speak clearly!"

From the website:





"Dr. Pepperberg’s pioneering research resulted in Alex learning elements of English speech to identify 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities up to and including 6 and a zero-like concept. He used phrases such as “I want X” and “Wanna go Y”, where X and Y were appropriate object and location labels. He acquired concepts of categories, bigger and smaller, same-different, and absence. Alex combined his labels to identify, request, refuse, and categorize more than 100 different items demonstrating a level and scope of cognitive abilities never expected in an avian species. Pepperberg says that Alex showed the emotional equivalent of a 2 year-old child and intellectual equivalent of a 5 year-old. Her research with Alex shattered the generally held notion that parrots are only capable of mindless vocal mimicry."


Alex's Website

Trip to Newfoundland

Well we just got back from our trip to beautiful Newfoundland. I can't say enough good about this province, it's heaven right here on Earth. The scenery on "The Rock" is unbelievable. The people are beyond friendly. There is so much to see and do, that you only skim the surface.

When we got off the ferry and were checking into our campsite, I was telling someone there that two weeks wasn't nearly enough, another woman said "Well, we've been there two months and it wasn't enough". To use her words, "It's magical".

I took almost 300 pictures and I've been trying to narrow it down to a reasonable number to post on my blog, so I've reluctantly narrowed it down. I'll try to line up the descriptions with the pictures before I get myself all frustrated and pissed at blogger's layout glitches.

This is sunset inthe town of Rocky Harbour, right in the middle of Gros Morne National Park.

















This is part of Bonne Bay in Grose Morne Park.




















Ken & Muggins walking at the Lobster Head Cove lighthouse ... (okay they call them lightstations now .. but I like lighthouse better).



















Right up at the northern tip of the west side of the island is L'Anse aux Meadows which is the site of where the Vikings landed and set up a settlement some 500 years before Columbus and Cabot and all those guys came over. Although you can see where the original sod and wood buildings were, these are replicas rebuilt in the same meadow.








































This is Moreton's Harbour. You know, the line from the song "I'se The B'y" ...Fogo, Twillingate, Moreton's Harbour ... We'll this be 'er b'y.




















We were just outside a village called Trinity and found a huge blueberry patch. The blueberries are huge ... way bigger than the ones that grow here. Muggins was picking her own.























Down the road from Bonavista is Dungeons Provincial Park. The sea, over 600 million years has eroded the shoreline in really interesting ways. There was a really bad storm once and a boat went into this little sheltered area to wait out the storm.



















Here is Quidi Vidi, pronounced "kiddy viddy", it's a lovely little cove that is part of St John's now. Back many years ago it was the "red light district" now it's just a pretty little area with a micro-brewery and fishing boats.























Our last morning on "The Rock" ... sunrise in in Codroy Valley.