Stained glass panels- St Saviour's Church.

St. Saviour's Church, Nelson, BC, Canada

Recently I had the privilege of visiting

one of our treasured Heritage buildings,

the St. Saviours ProCathedral Church,

(in Nelson, BC.)

The numerous stained glass panels were amazing and the history interesting.

Here you can see more (and better) photos of the stained glass.

I hate to admit it, but, it's been a long time since I've been inside a church.

Sometimes it's fun to be a tourist in your own neighbourhood, Enjoy :)

*Note: the old chair has dog heads carved on the arms*

The salmon are swimming up streams and spawning.

Short version: I took some videos of the kokanee salmon spawning and have compiled them into a 7 minute video.

Question of the week:

"Is 7 minutes too long for a video?"

The rest of the story:

When I started this video, I just wanted to stitch together a group of short clips of the kokanee salmon swimming upstream in our nearby creeks. I managed to "catch the tail end" of this annual event (sorry about the pun...I couldn't resist)... but wanted a film to share a piece of "Kootenay time", with my relatives and friends, as most live very far away.

(Note: This photo, with lots of kokanee, was taken in 2006.)

With 12 minutes of video recording time available, I'm happy to have such a handy little digital camera- I take it everywhere! But rarely use the video. I have to practice being steady & stop moving the camera so quickly. I was up until the wee hours cutting out jerky parts. (Perhaps I could use a tripod, but my purse is already over-loaded. ) Besides it's hard to hold still when there's rustling in the bushes, or a mosquito bites... and I'm alone in the trees, surrounded by bear food.

I was going to add music too, since the creek sounds loud & quiet in different spots, but decided to leave it alone, so it's just the birds and water. Natures music...

My video may be quite amateur, but there's some good parts to it.

With practice, my next one should be much better :)

The video was too large to add here, so I've uploaded it to YouTube... here's the link.)

If you'd like to see some of my "fish" related creations, click here.

September... already?

Digital greeting card created with Smilebox

Summer's fading away

Tues. Sept 6/11

Well, we've had a late, but great summer.

But now the nights are getting colder, and our shadows grow long.

I used to feel very energetic this time of year, but since 2001

I mostly feel sad.

This is an emotional and tough time of year for me.

September 2nd marked 10 years since my dad unexpectedly left our world.

Hard to believe, time passes so quickly.

Our old dog Spike has been slowing down, and I wonder if he'll

still be with us by Christmas.

Reminds me when the Dr. told me that- about my mom… "Thanksgiving, yes,

Christmas, I don't think so." She was right.

And in the midst of that, was 9/11.

*sigh*

Anyhow, it's all part of life, and there's not much I can do about it.

Wed Sept 14/11

( I didn't want to end on a sad note.)

I took Spike for a short walk the other day, to Laird Creek, to see if the kokanee

salmon are spawning yet. Sure enough, they are. I took a couple of videos and want to

put them together into one clip ...

What's more fun than a bucket of baby toads?

Guess how long the oldest known toad lived?

36 years

Short version: I drove up to Summit Lake Park today (about 110km from my house).

A whole bunch of us collected baby toads in buckets, had them checked,

and counted, then we delivered them to the other side of the Highway,

so they can continue their migration safely.

NOTE: I thought that with all these little toads around, it would be easy to get

a good photo of just one... wrong!

They are adorable, but I couldn't get even one to hold still long enough

for a descent photo,

( we didn't want to handle them more than necessary).

If you're so inclined, they'll be doing it again on Thursday (Aug 25/11).

These little guys are free again, to continue their way up the mountain...

Good luck little dudes!

****************

So... "What's more fun than a bucket of toadlets?"

Well a tub of them... of course!

A little surprise on the bulletin board

While on my lunch break at work today, I stopped outside the Touchstones Museum -

to see what's on their bulletin board.

There was a lovely little surprise, and I had to take a closer look.

It was a little brown furry thing.

Yup a little bat, sleeping the day away in a cool shaded nook,

with a thumbtack for an anchor.

Sweet dreams cutie.

Finished my big painting

Today I finished a painting I've been obsessed with for the last month or so.

It's called "Sanctuary from the shadows" (click to see photos of it in progress).

It's the 1st really big painting I've done, and I'm quite pleased with it, so of course I want to show it off a bit.

Finishing this painting, is like finishing an engrossing novel. It's bittersweet. Glad

it's done, but now that it is, I miss the characters I've gotten to know so well. Guess it needs

a sequel.