Tag Archives: Ontario

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happy

Ok, this is a weird little poem to my sister Chris, who died a decade ago. My father died thirteen months later. My mother was already dead. Mother and sister of cancer and father of emphysema, damn the Camels. There was no family slaughter, unless it was by cancer. There was a family meltdown on my mother’s side. Sometimes you have to let people go.

Sister sister mister miss her
look, Chris, I’m happy

Cancer cancer crabby dancer
look, Chris, I’m singing

Daughter daughter family slaughter
look, Chris, I’m healing

Healer healer wheeler dealer
look, Chris, no drama

Wombing wombing quiet blooming
look, Chris, I’m growing

The photograph is of a family cabin in Ontario. It is called “The New Cabin”, “Helen’s Cabin” (after my mother) or “Chris’s Cabin” after my sister. As you can see, it is suffering through neglect worsened by Covid-19. I put those screens up a decade ago, but they are not surviving the winters and the porch roof has a hole. It was a lovely porch to sleep on. I was last there in 2018, and up on that roof trying to tar holes as a temporary fix. We did not dare go on the porch roof, too late for that. Things change and fall away and sometimes we have to let them go. Especially if they are beyond repair. The photograph is taken earlier this year by the people who care for the cabins when we are not there.

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Q for quiet

I am blogging A to Z about artists, particularly women artists and mostly about my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.

Landscapes can be so quiet. This watercolor is of Lake Matinenda, in Ontario, Canada, where my family has summer cabins. They are one room cabins and old and very beloved. I love the rocks at the lake and the reflections in the water. I spend every minute that I can outdoors there. If it is pouring rain or I am cooking, I am in the cabin. I sleep in a tent, because we slept in tents when I was growing up there. I like to feel the earth under the tent and the sound of the water on the rocks and the wind in the trees.

ATOZBLOGGINGCHALLENGE2022 #art #Women artists #Helen Burling Ottaway #ATOZCHALLENGE #Christine Robbins Ottaway #APRILATOZ

For more information about the #AtoZChallenge, check out this link.

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pleasures

I put up the picture of my friends canoeing under simple pleasures.

Yet it isn’t that simple, right?

We have to get to the lake. My friends live in Virginia, I live in Washington State. I fly to Sault St Marie, US and they fly to Sault St Marie, Canada. I take a taxi across the border and meet them with their rental car. We drive to the Lake, after stopping for supplies. The motor boat is ready for us. There is no road to the cabin, we go by boat.

The canoe is a Penn Yan that belongs to my family. I don’t know how old it is. It is treasured and cared for carefully.

The family needs life jackets, paddles and instructions on getting in and out of the canoe. One friend is a very experienced kayaker, so he doesn’t need help. The other two are less experienced. Sun hats are found and put on.

We are not going that far. I will be in a second canoe, a very tippy small one. We have lunch with us and water.

Not so simple after all, but definitely pleasurable.

https://woodencanoemuseum.org/builder-history/penn-yan-boat-company

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Kitchen skills

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cook.

I really do like to cook. Eating is a pleasure too and I am blessed with children, now young adults, who always liked to eat. No fussy eaters in our house! I wouldn’t allow sodas in the house and when we went to restaurants, they could choose soda as a dessert or a dessert but not both. I harped on the evils of sugar and television, at least, too much of either. We did and do eat chocolate.

This is my cousin’s cabin, at Lake Matinenda, from 2012. The earliest cabin is from the late 1930s and they all have pretty basic kitchens. We filter the lake water now but used to drink it straight from the lake. My family stayed in a tent mostly and my parents, mostly my mother, cooked on a single burner camp stove. Bless her! A lot of work! We all took part in the cabin work. Trash taken out by boat, filling water buckets, working with hand tools and cooking on burners. The propane refrigerator is much better than trying to function out of a cooler! It taught all of us good camping kitchen skills and we have family recipes for the lake stay.

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Mundane Monday #174: water color

For Mundane Monday #174, my prompt is: water color.

I have missed two Mundane Mondays! Mea culpa! But…. I was really and truly unplugged. Nine days at a cabin from the 1930s on a lake with no outlet, no electricity. I did have batteries and so could take pictures.

Lake Matinenda has moods and colors: when it is calm it reflects the sky. I was up in the early morning a lot for the sunrise and here is a pink and blue lake. I love the moods of the water and the sky and nearly living outdoors.

For my last Mundane Monday #173: skies:

KL Allendorfer: skies.