Canadian Eh!

Folks who follow my blog probably know a couple things about me. One I do like the fact that our good friends to the south share their warm winters with me and the other is I do love my own country. It is a beautiful country that has a lot going for it and although I do like to escape those long winters there is no better place to return to along with those Canada Geese in the spring.

I along with half the world stumbled on the following video after the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Tom Brokaw ran this as part of NBC’s coverage of those opening ceremonies.

Tom Brokaw Explains Canada to Americans

For my friends both at home and to the south enjoy the video and you might even learn something, I know I did.

Saddling Up

Nope we are not heading south, but Brenda is now prepared for a summer of riding in the foothillls and mountains of Sunny Alberta. Although she has been riding with me for over ten years it has always been with a collection of borrowed equipment. So I thought what better gift for Valentines Day than something you can use all the time and doesn’t necessitate wearing sunglasses to look at it. Although I have always liked good stuff, jewellery has never been my style. Yesterday we took off on a quest for the perfect seat. We ended up at K&K Livestock near Strathmore, Alberta and started looking at the same kind of saddle that my niece Caron bought there last summer. It wasn’t long until that penchant for good stuff led us to a Vic Bennett saddle that Brenda fell in love with as soon as she tried it on.

Nice saddle and a pretty girl to boot. Brenda’s dog Meg is pretty interested in the new tack also.

Now I wouldn’t want you to think that I was left out in all this gift giving so I thought I would throw in a pic of my Valentines Day prize also.

And below a couple of shots of the neighbours up here in the True North.

Winter Wonderland

   

Yesterday we took a little drive around the countryside and tried to catch a few photo’s of the countryside surrounding Fort St. John. Now it ain’t quite the desert but it has a beauty all of its own. And just like Arizona there is a blue sky around much of the time, although recently it has been a little scarce. The photo below is across a field towards a farm laneway. There is a lot of snow in this country right now so moisture shouldn’t be a problem for the crops in the spring.

Proof that there is blue sky in this country and it really does go with all that white background..lol.

Now this looks a little like a desert or maybe I have forgotten what the desert looks like.

Just to prove that we actually know what we are missing out on I will pop in a shot we took last year about this same time.

So what are we doing here in the frozen north, well you might have heard the rumours but they are more than that the roads really are paved with diamonds, and if you double click on the shot below you will see them in many different colours scattered around like gravel on the ice.

Heading North

Sunday morning Ella was still on the job entertaining us until her folks came to relieve her and take her home to entertain them. She is pretty tough to look after, never cries, and is content to just hang out for the most part. We had a few long conversations and solved a lot of the worlds issues.

Sunday about noon we got on the road and headed north towards Fort St. John. We stopped for the night in Valleyview and gave my cousin Mike a call so we could meet for dinner. We had a nice visit with him but he was off to do the month end books at his Fountain Tire store and had a trailer full of horses that were anxious to get back home after a day of team roping.

Monday we resumed our trip north, with a stop in Grande Prairie at the Costco for some supplies. Looks like my steady diet of crackers and cheese is about to come to an end. With Brenda along we will probably be eating a few more regular meals and I am looking forward to it. But to come north with me Brenda had to leave Meg behind so she is keeping Montana company with Brenda’s friend Karen.

Tuesday we got a call from our son Matt, he is working on a well just north of Fort St. John 80 or 90 miles, and they were on casing break so he was coming into town. We decided to meet for supper, after watching all our friends in Texas running from restaurant to restaurant and chowing down on all those yummy appetizers every night we thought we should take some photo’s just to let folks know although we are missing the warmer weather we are not starving up here on the Northern Ranges. Brenda had the Indian Butter Chicken and although it came highly recommended by a lot of the other folks I have gone to this restaurant with, it was not to Brenda’s or my liking. Looked good though.

Now my Curried Seafood Pasta was pretty good.

Matt had the Steak Sandwich, real adventuresome there but it was pretty good from all accounts. The desserts now they were all top notch in fact they were so good they were gone long before we could get the camera working.