** Enter the Lamb Lady

**

We met a nice lady at Acorn Creek Farm’s Melon Fest and Pepper Pow Wow who ran a farm where she raised a different kind of livestock — yaks. We were more interested in the lamb she had for sale, but she was all out when we met her.

She did encourage us to come visit her at the Ottawa Farmers Market (www.ottawafarmersmarket.ca), where she promised to have some lamb. We dubbed her The Lamb Lady.

Genuine farmers markets

So we went to the Ottawa Farmers Market, at Lansdowne Park, the following Sunday (Sept. 13) and were almost overwhelmed by the number of booths, and the wide array of meat, vegetables, fruit and assorted other things. (See list of purchases below.)

Somehow in all this, we missed her booth and ended up getting our rather very fresh lamb from the Natural Lamb booth, run by a couple of local farms. The lamb may have been pricey, but in keeping with the concept of you get what you pay for, a lot of things are a little more expensive at this market. Ottawans, however, seem quite willing to pay the price for good quality.

A newspaper article a while back pointed out how, for example, some farmers charged $3 for a few tomatoes at the Parkdale Market in Ottawa’s near west end and $5 for the exact same amount and quality of tomatoes at the Ottawa Farmers Market, at Lansdowne Park.

It was explained that there were two main reasons for this price difference. At the other markets in the city, the Parkdale Market in the near west end and the legendary Byward Market downtown, farmers were competing with resellers, those who buy produce elsewhere — like bargain tomatoes from Montréal, for example — and truck them into town to sell at these markets. Local farmers say they can’t compete unless they match the bargain prices.

However, only producers — genuinely local farmers with truly local meat and produce and such — are allowed to sell at the Ottawa Farmers Market. So the farmers take it as an opportunity to sell at what they consider a fair price. And the customers, like ourselves, obviously agree in terms of getting fresh, local product of high quality and, at the same time, supporting local farmers.

The other stated factor is that the overhead — rental fees and such associated with leasing a stall — is much higher at the Ottawa Farmers Market. Again, customers are willing to pay for the convenience of having a truly local market right in the city.

Bye bye Byward

Many of these farmers don’t even bother trying to sell at the much bigger, more established Byward Market because it has become known as a home to resellers. Which creates other issues. Like out-of-town resellers setting up on the sidewalks right in front of establish fruit and vegetable stores who operate year round and obviously have a much bigger overhead.

As revealed in a recent newspaper article, at least one such fruit store owner says he has to actually lay off staff during the summer because business is so slow trying to compete with the temporary stand of the resellers parked right on his doorstep.

While the Byward Market was rich and vibrant with local farmers during my childhood, I do believe it has become more of a tourist attraction these days. It has even become almost better known for its robust night life, with all the bars, clubs and restaurants in that condensed, central area.

I know from experience that the addition of so many tourists can make the Byward Market far too crowded for comfortable shopping. Which is why I switched to the much smaller Parkdale Market years ago — before we got into true farmers markets featuring real local farmers and locally grown, raised or fabricated products.

Naturally delicious lamb

Now, back to the prices we paid for the lamb we got from Natural Lamb (www.NaturalLamb.ca), which also provides fresh lamb to local restaurants. (This idea of local restaurants obtaining ingredients from local farms is a growing, and quit pleasing trend. A number of chefs even visit and enter into contracts with specific farms, which assures the restaurant of fresh ingredients and gives the farmer a stable revenue source to aid in his business of running a farm.)

Note: 1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds    $1 Cdn. = $1.07 US

R****ack of lamb: $44.00 per kilogram ($20 per pound)   Bought: .366 k (small rack) for $16.10 Cdn.

Lamb chops: $36.60 per kilogram ($16.63 per pound)   Bought: .298 k (4 chops) for $11.80 Cdn.

Ground lamb: $18.15 per kilogram ($8.25 per pound)    Bought: .414 k for $7.51 Cdn.

Now this lamb is considered organic because it is declared pasture-reared, hormone-free, antibiotic-free and pesticide-free. It also contains Omega-3. It is described as being from Katahdin lambs which are said to produce “a high-quality, well-muscled (meat) that is naturally quite lean and consistently of a very delicate flavour.”

Now I confess I really don’t know lamb prices. I do sometimes order lamb in restaurants and enjoyed a very delicious rack of lamb at Fitzgerald’s Restaurant (www.fitzgeraldsrestaurant.ca) in Almonte, late this summer. But until now, for home consumption we’ve bought legs of lamb, usually frozen and from New Zealand, at the grocery store.

As Mariette does the shopping and even if I did later check a label, I have no idea how much they cost. I do know the lamb was usually very good and quite plentiful at mealtime — which is why we preferred a whole leg of lamb.

But however the prices above check out, all we know is that the lamb we enjoyed was worth every darn penny. I’ve never had lamb this good outside of a restaurant. It was everything it was said to be and more.

I was able to do the rack of lamb more rare than medium, just as we like it, and it was exquisite. As were the chops on the BBQ.

Even the ground lamb was superb. I mixed it with a lesser amount of butcher-shop quality lean ground beef for use with basmati rice as the filling in my stuffed peppers. Even mixed with the beef, the lamb was so distinctive and so very darn tasty. I made far too much filling — and probably didn’t need the beef — but we reheated the excess filling (meat and rice) the next day and it was still superb.

**T-bone steaks to yak about

**

But of course the title of this article doesn’t even refer to lamb. So back to the woman we’d dubbed The Lamb Lady.

In one last look around the market that Sunday morning we finally noticed The Lamb Lady. (Her friends at Natural Lamb had said they hadn’t seen her but confessed they’d been confined to their booth since before the market opened.)

We felt we had spent enough for lamb but decided we’d try her yak meat. I knew yak to be a bit dry, so I opted for T-bone steaks. We bought two for $30. (The package was hand-labelled so I don’t recall any weight or price-per-weight information.)

Early yesterday afternoon, running short of items to BBQ, I took these steaks out of the freezer and left them in the fridge to thaw overnight. Tonight, with the potatoes and cauliflower already in the steamers, and the BBQ warming up, I took them out of the fridge, unwrapped the brown paper and discovered two things — the steaks were THICK (2″ thick with only a slight taper at the end furthest from the bone) and they were still PARTIALLY FROZEN!

So on they went right away and I mentally cancelled the planned salad as I had to keep close watch on these monsters, leaving no time for chopping and dicing or anything.

They actually came out not too bad. Not burnt but fairly well cooked on the outsides and what we call medium-rare (slightly more rare than medium) at the centre. And the centre, fortunately, was as hot as the outside.

I confess that each of these monsters darn near overwhelmed our plates.

The verdict

So, how was it?

Better than I feared but not good enough that we’d buy more.

It’s not as gamy as say, venison, but it certainly is different.

As I said to Mariette: “At least if we ever went to Mongolia and they served us yak, we’d know we could eat it without a problem.” However, at home, the problem was we didn’t like it anywhere near as much as we like all our traditional meats, the ones our palates are familiar with and enjoy.

Now I confess I had a late breakfast — two eggs, fried potatoes, two slices of excellent pea meal bacon (from the Pork Guy at the OFM) and toast — at around 3:30 p.m. or so. (I’d gotten up late and then distracted on the computer and wouldn’t have bothered, but I’d been looking forward to this breakfast so long, I couldn’t resist.) So I didn’t have a lot of room. I made sure that I tasted enough of the monster T-bone to form my opinions, then concentrated on the potatoes and cauliflower. I didn’t even finish a normal serving of those.

Mariette also didn’t eat much of her steak. She’d forgotten the steaks were yak meat and was wondering why they tasted strange. Until she thought to ask me. In the end, we agreed it was an interesting experiment but we’ll pass on yak from now on.

Purchased at the Ottawa Farmers Market (Sept. 13)

Chamomile, catnip, calendula and orange peel tea

(Very good, very relaxing. Came with two tiny quartz crystals “charged with the healing intention of each tea blend.”)

Almond-coconut “hand-crafted” granola

(Delicious. I tended to sprinkle it over my regular healthy cereals so it would last longer.)

Elk smoked sausage

(Another “experiment” due to be eaten in the not-too-distant future.)

Homemade salsa, with sun-dried tomatoes.

(Very good. I even used some instead of ketchup on my BBQ hamburgers.)

Sun-dried garlic and feta dip.

(That’s according to my scribbled notes. This was for Mariette and she said it too was very good.)

Pea meal bacon.

(Had it today for the first time. Some of the absolute best I’ve ever tasted.)

One duck leg.

(Made the mistake of throwing it on the BBQ with the hamburgers at dusk. The burgers were finished much sooner and the duck leg half forgotten in the dark. It ended up rather burnt on the outside and dry in the inside. One quick taste and I ditched it. Will try again another time.)

Apple and date oatmeal cookies.

(Tried to stay away from baked goods but these looked every bit as mouthwatering as they turned out to be.)

Raspberries.

(I prefer my faves, blueberries, on my cereal but these fresh raspberries — so delicate they have to be eaten quickly — were pretty darn good.)

Blue and green grapes.

(The small basket was half-full with blue grapes, half-full with green. The blue grapes were delicious. The green ones were far too sour, even for Mariette, so we ended up tossing them. For me, the blue grapes alone were worth the price of the whole basket.)

One candy apple.

(A dee-licious bit of nostalgia. See the article Candy-coated memories further down in this blog.)

Assorted plums.

(From small yellow ones to large-egg-sized blue ones. The yellow ones were too squishy, and a little sour for my tastes. But the larger yellow, and red, and especially the blue were quite tasty, if eaten almost right away — like over two days or so.)

Broccoli.

(By far the very best we’ve had all year.)

Califlower.

(About the size of a bowling ball. I kid you not. So fresh and white and perfect it was almost too bright to look at. Took three meals to finish it off and it was beautiful each and every time.)

Brussel sprouts.

(I have always loved Brussel sprouts, but these were disappointing. Too much dirt. Also, bruises that needed cutting out, giving them a flat side, which tends to burn when sautéeing as they tend to roll on to the same side every time. I agree with Mariette that they were still quite tasty. But I’d have liked them to cook a little more evenly. BTW, Mariette only learned to like Brussel sprouts when I learned to sautée them, instead of boiling or steaming them. I kind of like them better in a hot frying pan as well.)

New small potatoes.

(Varied in size, from marble-size to slightly smaller than a ping pong ball. I intended to roast them with the rack of lamb. Unfortunately my potato cupboard was full and the cupboard I did store them in, well it was higher — above the kitchen counter — and the door was opened a few times every day. Meaning the potatoes were too warm and ended up too soft and had to be trashed  when I went to use them.)

Spinach.

(This summer we learned all over again to really love a good, fresh, spinach salad, especially with our favourite mango-poppyseed vinaigrette — which we no longer buy one bottle at a time. I do do a mean spinach salad and a good fresh bunch of spinach usually provides for three nights of salad. It ain’t soup but it sure is Mmm-mm good!)

Support your local farmer

** **So hopefully this will give area residents an idea of what’s available and where. For others, perhaps it will encourage them to check out what’s available in their area.

Despite the mention of crystals and granola above — the crystals were like a surprise in a box of Cracker Jacks — we’re not hippies (though I am still proud of my ’60s heritage as at least a semi-hippy). Nor are we health fanatics. And we still shop at grocery stores between visits to farmers markets. But it’s just something we found fun, probably good for us, and worthy in terms of supporting local farmers.

We’ll still hit some of the markets for fall stuff. And now that we’re hooked on fresh, local produce, fruit and meat, we’ll probably be making a lot more visits next year to some of our favourites sources — the Carp Farmers Market, in Carp; the Acorn Creek Vegetable Farm, near Carp; the Ottawa Farmers Market, at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa. And probably a few new ones, like the Chelsea Farmers Market at Chelsea on the Quebec side of the river and who knows what others we might discover here in the Ottawa Valley.

Not only has shopping for fresh ingredients become a lot more fun, but the meals are also far more dee-licious! 😀

An Irish breakfast

Mariette and I just got back from a great Sunday morning. We started off with an Irish breakfast at our local pub, Greenfields (www.greenfieldspub.ca), with my brother Gerry and his wife Arlene, our son Tyler and his wife Miche and our darling granddaughter Rachel.

I was especially pleased to see Rachel as I haven’t seen her for a while now. I was ill the last couple of times Mariette provided babysitting services.

I hadn’t seen the others for a while now either, so it was great to finally get together again. As usual, there was much catching up, as well as the almost mandatory stories and jokes. There was much laughter between mouthfuls, which is just as we like it.

Rachel was, as usual, on good behaviour and feasted on fruit — mostly grapes — and sausages that her mom cut up and placed on her plate. She’s still at the “no utensils” stage and greeted each handful with a wide grin.

I even managed to describe some of our train trip to Gaspé and back without getting lost too often or talking too long. (At least it didn’t seem too long to me.)

Eventually we were all pleasantly full and looking for our waitress to bring our bills. As planned, we were taking Tyler, Miche and Rachel for a visit to the Canadian Museum of Nature, housed in a landmark stone building down on Metcalfe Street here in Ottawa. It’s the building that looks a bit like a castle.

We invited Gerry and Arlene to come along but unfortunately they had other commitments.

The Canadian Museum of Nature

The museum — http://nature.ca — is an old favourite. On the drive downtown, it struck me that as kids, and even as teens, my brothers and I, and our friends, would regularly hop a bus downtown to hang out and explore this, our favourite museum.

It seems funny now, the idea of kids regularly and voluntarily going to a museum, without any parental or adult influence.

Looking back, I kind of like the idea that amidst the host of our boys-will-be-boys activities, a love of museums blossomed all on its own. I also look back and wonder at how independent we were. How readily we’d take buses downtown to attend movies — Disney films played exclusively at the Elgin Theatre and the lineups were always around the block — sporting events — stock car races at Lansdowne Park — and cultural sites — like museums.

We never asked our parents for rides, even when we lived in what was then known as the near-west — first near Carling Avenue and Bayswater Avenue, and later near Richmond Road and Island Park Drive. For us, drives were what we gladly took with our parents on Sundays, most often in the country.

The Museum of Nature, formerly the Museum of Man and Nature, has changed over the years. In fact half the museum has been renovated and the other half is closed for renovations until next year. (The entire museum closes on Monday, Oct. 5, for a month for further construction.)

Fortunately for us the half still open on Sunday housed the sections we most wanted to see — the mammal displays, the bird displays and of course the dinosaur displays.

**Mammals

**

I chose first and we took the only working elevator — large but slow — to the Mammal Gallery (2nd floor). Despite the more modern look all around, the dioramas featuring mammals of all sizes, from the largest moose to the smallest vole, are much as they were, just cleaned up, freshened up and repainted.

Rachel, who loves her book about Brown Bear — “bwown burr” — was a little intimidated by the two stuffed grizzlies on display, but the more I referred to them as “brown bears, brown bears,” the more she got into them. Of course the huge polar bear, and her cub, were “white bear and her baby.”

Though the musk ox and the bison and the caribou were all rather large, she quickly learned to take them in stride. It was cute to see her walk up to the glassed-in dioramas and give a little reassuring shout to see if any of the animals actually moved.

It was good to see all my favourites still in their favourite surroundings.

Birds

We coloured and cut out paper birds in a craft area near the Bird Gallery (4th floor). Some rather cheerful assistants put them together for us so that they hung from a piece of yarn and the wings flapped as the yarn was pulled up and down. Rachel’s bird, coloured by her and her dad, was most energetic in flight as Rachel moved her arm up and down rather rapidly. But the smile on her face as she “flapped” about was priceless.

And when that one got a little mushed up, I gave her mine.

The birds on display were so abundant, we fairly zipped through this area. Rachel continued to alternate between running around and being pushed in the stroller. Good thing it came with a seatbelt, her dad being such a speed demon at times. 😉

Dinosaurs

In Miche’s favourite area, the Fossil Gallery (1st floor), there were the usual displays of full-sized skeletons of various dinosaurs, plus fossils and hands-on stuff, including, as on other floors, a lot of touch screens on which to check out all kinds of related information.

I actually didn’t like this new gallery; too bright and white, and somewhat sterile. I preferred the old rooms that were darker. One could stand among the towering skeletons and let one’s imagination generate a certain awe.

Still a new section, filled with several full-sized replicas — dinosaurs with bodies and colourful skin, and eyes and tongues and such — was fairly cool. I had Miche take a picture of me holding the end of one dinosaur’s rather large and long tail. Of course with limited room in which to back up, all she got was me and the tail. Viewers will have to imagine the rest of the dinosaur.

What was neat though was that in the picture I seemed to be standing in a mist or light fog.

I later joked about getting a picture of me bent down looking up under a horse-sized dinosaur to see if it was male or female. I was just kidding but when Miche raised her camera, I figured, what the heck, why not. Unfortunately the angle didn’t work as well as hoped. The flash on my bald spot created a distracting white glare. 😆

There was so much to see and hear that we had to move fairly briskly through most of the areas — trying to do a quick visit to the three floors we wanted to see before Rachel or I tired too much. (I didn’t fade first, but in the end I faded the most.)

We all agreed there’d be many more visits in the months and years ahead and that as Rachel gets older, we’ll probably be able to take our time a bit more. As for Grampa, well he’ll probably end up being the one who gets pushed around — in a wheelchair rather than the free strollers provided by the museum.

Of course our final visit was to the Gift Shop where the grandparents got to slightly spoil their granddaughter. I kept seeing such cute stuffed toys but the rule is no more stuffed toys, or other large items, as even though they’ve just moved into their first house this summer, space is still at a premium and they’re still feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the toys and stuff.

I did find a grizzly bear about 3¹/₂ inches long, “sculpted” in that hard rubber. I quickly got permission to buy Rachel this brown bear and got to experience the joy of seeing her eyes light up when I gave it to her.

I also spotted something for me. A grey T-shirt with the silhouette of raven in black, beneath which were two words in black: Raven Lunatic. I told Mariette it was so appropriate for me, I just had to have it. While picking up my T-shirt I spotted a kid’s T-shirt with a funky (aka cute, cartoonish) dinosaur on the front. The thing was the dinosaur was kind of quilted and its face was attached in such a way that you could lift it, like a flap, and reveal the mouth and teeth underneath.

It happened to be in orange, one of Rachel’s favourite colours, and a size 2, slightly large but still small enough to fit. So Oma (grandmother in Dutch) got to buy that for Rachel.

In the end, we all went home quite tired,  and quite happy.

And now that I’ve finished this, I can go for a much needed nap. 😉

WHY is everything last minute when getting ready to leave? Oh yeah, guess I COULD have saved myself MANY hours if I HAD NOT started this humongous Playlist thing with all these train songs. (g) Ain’t finished yet.

Took a while to search the iTunes Store online for train-related songs. Stopped listing them at 200. Merely added a few more from the 200-to-600 list. NOT that I selected 200 from the list. Just that I listed the first 200 I found at the iTunes Store, then skimmed through the next 400. The purpose was to highlight the ones I want. One star for “Would be nice.” ** **** **Two stars for “Want this.” Three stars for “Need this.” And four stars for “Must have.”

Currently there are 40 with one star (Would be nice) and that was after some heart wrenching pruning.

No Railroad Bill , by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.

No Wreck of the Old ‘97, by Johnny Cash.

No Hobo Bill’s Last Ride, by Hank Snow.

Tell me it ain’t so.

Sadly, it is. And you should see some of the more familiar names on the one-star list. I don’t want to mention any others, as none of these will make it for obvious financial reasons. (sigh)

There are 23 with two stars ** ** (Want this) and these were supposed to automatically make it. (To make it, they, like all the songs on this particular list, have to be downloaded from the iTunes Store, usually for .99 cents each. So you can  see why it may only be a few, if any, of these two-star songs that do make it.)

There are about 15 with three stars (Need this) and four with four stars (Must have). In fact one of the four-star songs is Gordon Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy, which I already have on CD and have imported it to my iTunes Library. So, as Vic Rauter would say, make that only three four-star songs: Chatanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra; On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, by Johnny Mercer and Mule Train, by Frankie Lane.

Can anyone argue with these three songs?

I also just realized I already have on CD Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash. (I also have his Blue Train, which I don’t recall seeing on the iTunes Store list. So I’m adding it for free.) So that means only 14 three-star songs and three four-star songs (See how confusing it can get?) so maybe a two-star song like Midnight Special by CCR or It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, by Bob Dylan or Trans Europe Express by my favourite German band, Kraftwerk, might make it after all. Maybe even all three.

I still have a little bit of credit left on the $50 iTunes credit card Travis gave me almost two years ago. (Took me a while to get up the nerve to use it, though it proved sooo easy.) And I had Mariette pick up a new one ($25) today while she was out shopping.

(I’ve learned that buying these special cards, which are only good at the iTunes Store site, pays off by letting me download a song or two I like instead of buying a whole album, either online, or as a CD. It’s how I got to choose which of Arlo Guthrie’s versions of City of New Orleans I wanted to download/buy a week or so ago.)

So the shopping list has been compiled and I’ll have to see what ends up being bought/downloaded when the crunch comes. It’s late and I still have to try to buy/download as many as I can without using up all my credit at the iTunes Store.

I’ve also gathered together on one machine the train-related songs I already had in my iTunes libraries, plus the songs I had on CD — yeah Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull, the aforementioned Canadian Railroad Trilogy and even Rod Stewart’s rendition of Downtown Train. As happened with the latter song, and others, the iTunes Store search turned up several versions of some songs. I have to confess Tom Waits rendition of Downtown Train was very tempting. But then you see the limitations I was facing.

At the same time, I wasn’t the least bit tempted to buy the Pocket Songs Karaoke version of Train In Vain, even though I can’t find my Annie Lennox or Clash CDs, which are packed away some place. I KNOW my London Calling CD is lying around somewhere, but I’m far too tired to go look.

The search at the iTunes Store site for train songs didn’t even turn up Train In Vain by the Clash, or Lennox or even Dwight Yoakum’s version, for that matter. These three, plus Toxic Sloth, and a number of other names, cropped up when I just did a search by song title.

Oh well, it’s far too late, and there’s too far to go this night, for me to worry now about all that.

In fact I’d better get busy buying/downloading from the iTunes store so I can put all my selected train-related songs on my iPod with one special playlist.

I WILL publish complete lists when I get back from my train trip. And again, thanks to my dear friends who took the time to post such worthy suggestions.

Dang-blast-it, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Last week it was the discomfort of badly sunburned arms, which have finally faded and stopped hurting. This week it’s some kind of flu bug or something that’s given me an upset stomach, to go along with the regular aches and pains.

During the first half of the week, I was pretty tired, which I figured was from enjoyable but tiring babysitting endeavours Sunday — lots of playing on the floor with granddaughter Rachel, carrying her around (and she is getting big), pushing her in her cart and other stuff.

However, while resting to overcome the fatigue, I noticed my stomach was slightly unsettled.

And then came the surprise. The other night I was just sitting there, shortly after dinner, and I was hit with a sudden wave of nausea. Which actually wasn’t the surprise. One of the many lovely side effects of the cornucopia of medicine I take is occasional sudden waves of nausea in which I feel like I’m going to throw up. But I never do. I just have the fun of constantly feeling like I am about to. If it goes on long enough, it leaves me wishing I WOULD throw up, just to get it over with. But the best thing is to just sit very still, or lie down very quietly, until it passes.

But there was something different this time. The feeling was more intense. And suddenly I realized that for once it was the real thing and if I moved a muscle, things could get messy.

Fortunately Mariette noticed me sitting there frozen in place, staring straight ahead, afraid to move even an eyeball. I forget what she asked but I somehow mumbled, without moving my lips, “I eed a ay-sin.” Being a nurse she understood my medical shorthand and scooted out to the kitchen and returned with a plastic basin. And non too soon. The mere act of taking it and placing it in front of me was enough to trigger …

Well, you’ve been there. You don’t need a description.

I was quite relieved to discover that though violent it wasn’t voluminous, and thus quite easy to control and confine to the basin which made clean-up a snap. The round of dry heaves was no fun but at least everything that did come out came out just the one hole — if you “nose” what I mean. 😉

After the quick cleanup I drank some water which triggered a second round — again one of the least unpleasant and least messy episodes of barfing I’ve ever endured.

But I’ve been existing on dried crackers and toast ever since, though I think I am about to try some soup.

Now don’t worry. Not every post is going to make reference to health issues, or why I’ve taken a whole week to get around to posting again. But there’s a certain reality to all this, a context that not only may help people understand factors at work here, but also prove to be something they can relate to. I may be the only one crazy enough to talk in public about puking, but I bet I’m sure not the only one who has been through something like this. 🙂

Rachel in push cart.

One thing about this great kid, she likes playing as much as grampa does. Which reminds me. Right from the start we were all given our choice of what we wanted to be called as grandparents. Now Miche’s mom chose Ma Mere in honour of their French ancestry. Forgive me if I can’t remember for sure, but I think her dad chose Pa Pere or perhaps it was simply Poppa. I’ll have to check on that.

With her French ancestry on her father’s side, Mariette qualified for Ma Mere as well, but chose instead to honour her Dutch ancestry on her mother’s side and chose Oma. I have some French ancestry, as well as Scottish and Ukraine, so I went with the simple Canadian mongrel style of Grampa. It seemed much shorter and easier to pronounce than my other choice, Oh Wise And Omnipotent Elder.

Anyway, here are a few more recent pictures:

NOTE: Had to drop a couple of captions for technical reasons,

then gave up when next caption kept altering its style and layout,

as in the no-sunscreen pic below. (sigh)

Those who know me know that brevity is not my forté. Knowing how to get letters with French accents is a forté. Knowing exactly when to use them, not so much.

But I digress. As usual.

It’s obvious my philosophy is why use one word when several will do. Why use one sentence when many can be more fun. After all, who wants to go to all the trouble of getting online to read only one sentence? Those in the back shouting “I do! I do!” — get thee to Twitter!

Of course I’m also on Twitter, which is quite funny when you think of it. Mr. Motormouth limiting himself to 140 characters? Heck, I have burps than run longer than that. Besides, for me, Twitter is a bit of a chicken/egg thing — nobody follows me because I don’t go anywhere and why should I go anywhere if no one is following me?

There. That’s it. A brief thought that came to me moments ago while lying in bed and since I was getting up anyway, I decided to come down and dump it here while it’s fresh. Needless to say, a few words, even an extra thought or two, got added along the way. But this is still pretty brief for me, right? I hope you’re not disappointed coming all this way just for this. For those who packed a snack, hoping to perhaps settle back for another long one, sorry. Maybe next time.