A chill in the air-where did Summer go?
This is a novel, brace yourselves;)….that first chilly morning, when you can see your breath early and the mists are rising off the lake…is it an end to Summer? I hope not, it seems it just began! I seem to be working from today backwards in time this month:)
The Perth Fair is over, another year of photographing kids and adults enjoying themselves and it was a beautiful day. No thunderstorms to drown the mood or frost in the air that day:) Kristyn and her family did a wonderful job, prizes, judges, a familiar announcer, only about three feet taller than when we last saw her 12 years ago;)
The costume class is always one of my favourites and it did not disappoint this year, The bee and the spider were my favourites even after a few costume mishaps, with the legs falling off the spider;)
The ferris wheels in the background and a visit to the agricultural tent, always a must! Sadly every year it seems the Fair is a bit smaller, fewer people and horses, not sure why, it is such a wonderful venue. Where else can you see mini horses driving past their giant Clydesdale cousins!
It seems the Summer has gone by in a blur, ups and downs for me. Emotionally reeling at times, at times just asking myself if I can get over the sadness chronicles, a journal I started after my father died. We haven’t just been locked inside all Summer though. At the end of August we uprooted and went to to Starfest, an astronomy festival North of Toronto. It was a wonderful break from the routine of Airbnb cottage cleaning to a week filled with geeky friends and lots of laughter, a needed break after my Father’s memorial.
So, these guys sleep a lot during the day so I get to mosey about walking the creek at the River Place RV Park and looking for photography subjects as well as bringing them late night warm out of the pan muffins, will have to make that a tradition!
Going North to Owens Sound we stumbled across a field of sunflowers, what a glorious sight full of honey bees!
Mike finally got to meet a old Facebook friend and fellow solar photographer Alan Friedman, they call themselves Mr. Sun and Mr. Moon. What a lovely man! I pushed Mike to put some of his lunar photos into the Starfest Photography contest and he came away with some wonderful trophies for first place, my Milky Way on Otty Lake also won a prize:) Sweet! Mike’s work is truly astounding, he is quite humble but I think he considered one of the finest lunar photographers out there:)
Did I mention just prior to leaving for Starfest I greatly complicated our lives? I really am going from present to past here today! Ha! A kitten…yes, a kitten. I know, I know, what was I thinking, it’s not as if we don’t have cats. Groot is three this year, Gamora is two, Puffy will be 20 years old in a few weeks…the devil made me do it, and perhaps some kind spirit push from my Dad. It seems before every Starfest I am flying off to something, usually not planned, this being my Dad’s memorial service in Vancouver. While my amazing brother and I were there we went through a storage unit and took home several boxes of childhood photos and also of my father’s early and later life after my mother absconded with us. So may smiling pictures of my Dad with cats, I have to admit I was laughing and chuckling, showing my brother in the dim storage room light one shot after another of my Dad with a cat on his lap, in his arms…my Dad never had a cat. The neighbours cat, his beautiful wife Gloria told me would come over every afternoon and sit with him…We also discovered what a good hearted shit disturber he was with his friends with photo after photo showing a side we never much had the opportunity to see…well, this little kitten, is a shit disturber of the most glorious, kind and fabulous way. I knew as soon as I walked into Pet-Valu he was staring at me from the moment I saw the kitten box…he was mine, we had to drive home and then I made Mike drive back…..this is usually Mike’s job! Kitten collecting!
I was so worried someone else would have adopted him, Mike was speeding…We named him Rocket even before we signed our lives over to forever care for him, as if that will be an issue;) They didn’t even have his paperwork yet from the Welfare Society but there he was, driving home with us…Our latest member of Astrogypsies Guardians of the galaxy:) Two days later we hooked up the trailer and hit the road for Starfest, a 6 hour drive…he played, he explored, then fell asleep for the journey, a true traveler right from the start! How did the others react? Well, I was worried, mostly about Groot, he is a big jealous soft boy, doesn’t take kind to sharing…he loved him the moment he came in! “My kitten” he said, Gamora, well, she is a warrior princess and can’t give in easily, has finally started to play and cavort with him, as long as he doesn’t touch her tail! and Beezil…well, he has a wonderful new warm little friend to clean his face and love him.
So much for not being crazy cat people…sigh…I must come by it genetically, Mike has no excuse though;) Such a Summer, this little kitten is therapy. After flying across Canada on an early morning flight bound for Vancouver I wasn’t sure what to expect of a memorial, surrounded by people I did not know except my brother who was flying up as well. What a large country this is as you fly over! The lakes, the provinces, hey I even saw the Banff National Park campground, we flew over most of the roads we took to get here this Spring, but so quickly. I’d forgotten about the photos on the phone until today.
My Dad’s memorial was very touching. I wasn’t sure what to expect, how would it feel, to be a stranger in a room full of people I didn’t know sounded awkward but I was touched and left with my heart swelled in admiration for this man and his beautiful wife of nearly 40 years. She doesn’t remember anything you tell her after 15 minutes but I felt her love for my father, us and these friends as well. She is a treasure, as well as their many friends from high school to retirement. They were a sweet, kind, wonderful room of people. I felt so happy my father had surrounded himself with people like this. Going through his photos and memories, letters we had written as kids, all separated into different files by child, the emails printed out, including all the photos, lately has given me happiness, and grief at knowing how little I knew of this man, and how much more I came to know with these little bits of information. I did tell you this was going to be a novel;)…..
But it was good to be home…Mike and I are always together, hard to think of a time when we were not. From running our Equestrian Center in Canada to the building the house at the ranch in Baja and all points in between, we’re happiest when we are with each other, and the cats! Ha! It has been a long Summer full of ups and downs but when you can sit and watch the sun go down in a beautiful place full of nature, wherever you are in the world, I try to let my worries and grief sink with it, revel in it’s beauty and trust that tomorrow is a brand new day, full of beauty on this amazing planet we live on…Saludos amigos
Before you know it you will be heading south again! This summer has flown by so fast. Congratulations on the new Kitty I am sure you guys will love him and he seems to be fitting in real well. I am sad I missed out on seeing you at the Perth Fair. Wishing you Well. XO