Sad News

Last Friday, I went to the memorial service for my second cousin, Ken, who passed away of cancer at age 63.  At the service I met with his brother Bruce, who I have not seen since I was a school age boy.  It turns out that their mother had just passed away six weeks prior.  Both Ken and his mother had a genetic eye disease that left them with very limited vision, and essentially legally blind.  Ken had a difficult life as his condition really limited his career opportunities.  I understand he was a avid fan of both country music, and sports.  It was requested that those attending his memorial dress casual, preferably in western wear or a sports jersey.  I wore the Renegades jersey from my hockey team.

Then on Saturday, while Anna and I were out at Nordegg, I got a message that my friend Vince had passed away.  Vince was diagnosed with brain cancer earlier this year.  He is the only other original member of the Renegades Hockey Team besides me.  I posted previously on my blog about the team winning the championship this past spring in his honor.  Neither radiation treatment nor chemo-therapy was successful at stopping his brain tumor and eventually he was moved to hospice care.  I visited him a couple of weeks ago and at that point he was still relatively coherent and knew who I was.  We had a good visit and I also got to meet his parents at that time.  Another guy from the team had visited him last week and Vince had deteriorated significantly by then.  He passed away on Saturday morning.

Then on Saturday afternoon I got an e-mail from my long time friend Andy.  Andy has been involved in the Monochrome Guild since I started the group, and was also involved in some other camera clubs prior to that.  His son Matthew passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack last Monday... he was 37 years old.  An autopsy revealed that he had un-diagnosed heart disease.

It seems I will be going to a couple more funerals or memorial services in the coming days......

One of my former team mates shared these photos of Vince, with me and some of our other players.  This was following a championship that our team won back in 2008.

More Game Camera Photos

 A few weeks ago the batteries in my game camera died.  I discovered that two weeks ago when I was out there with my German relatives.  I changed the memory card at that time, and put in fresh batteries.  This past couple of weeks the camera has been recording images of the wildlife.  In the winter months I put out a salt block, and some oats for the deer.  About the time that the bears come out of hibernation, I stop the feedings.  We don't want to attract bears, and there is enough natural food around that the wildlife doesn't need the handout.  But so far the game animals keep coming around on a regular basis, I suppose hopeful that I will feed again.  I have not seen any elk out there since last February, but my camera captures them on a regular basis.  Seems they only come around when we are not out.  The deer are around all the time and the bucks now have nice antlers in velvet, and there are a couple of young fawns.  When I put fresh batteries in the camera I forgot to reset the date and time, so the information on these recent shots is incorrect.  I will have to fix that next time I go out.

Middle Daughter Weekend

My middle daughter Annelise came out to Nordegg with me for the weekend.  My oldest daughter Hailey had to work, and Margarit had to play chauffeur, so they stayed home in the city, along with youngest daughter Helena.  Anna and I headed out on Friday evening after work.  It rained most of the way there so we just unpacked, got the wood stove going, and settled down for the evening.  Our friend Eric was out at his place with his two sons, and the girlfriend of one of the boys.  They had been playing pool down at the bar in the hotel but stopped by for a visit that evening.  We ended up staying up until about 1:30 before we all called it a night.

Anna and I went out for an ATV ride on Saturday after a late morning.  We both ended up sleeping in until about 11:00AM, and then had a late breakfast of eggs and hash browns.  We rode around the subdivision, checking out how muddy things were from all the rain.  We saw a deer with a couple of spotted fawns, but they were too quick and we didn't get any photos.  According to the weather station in my yard we had around six inches of rain in June, and then about 2-1/2 more so far in July.  We stayed mostly to the roads as we didn't want a repeat of the incident down on the trail like last time.  We stopped over at one of the houses in the far end of the subdivision.  I recently learned that this home on Raven Rise is owned by an old acquaintance of mine.  Pawel used to belong to Images Alberta Camera Club.  I was in charge of competitions at the time, and he looked after the equipment.  Both of us left the club some time ago, and we hadn't seen each other for about 20 years.  Pawel has since retired and sold his home in Edmonton.  He now splits his time between his place here at Nordegg, and one in Vancouver.  We had a nice visit and Anna and I got a tour of his hewn log home that he built back in 2004.

Later that evening we got dinner going.  Had some baked potatoes, I had steak and Anna had some veggie hot dogs.  My cousin Vic and his wife Susanne dropped by as we were sitting around the fire.  They were out camping nearby and dropped by for a visit.  Leonard, the guy that did all my plumbing and mechanical work in the cottage was out as well, with his wife Leanne and two grandaughters.  We all sat around the fire for while and visited until it got dark. At that point they had to head back to their RV's and we called it a night.

Anna must have stayed up really late that evening because at 1:30 in the morning my phone received a notification that my data plan was nearly used up.  I managed to get Anna up for breakfast at about 9:30, and we did go out for a morning ATV ride, but after that she went back to bed and fell asleep until about 2:00.  She never did admit to me exactly how late it was when she actually went to sleep on Saturday.  

Later in the day I managed to get Anna somewhat upright, and we went out for another ATV ride.  We saw a red fox on that ride, and managed to get a couple of snapshots of it on our phones.  We stopped up on the big rock pile at the edge of the subdivision and got some good views of the surrounding area.  Although it rained a lot on Friday, Saturday was mostly just overcast with only a couple of millimeters of rain.  Sunday dawned clear and sunny and it stayed that way for the entire day, with the temperature peaking at about 24.  Finally some summer weather...!

I didn't really do any work to speak of all weekend and mostly just spent my time with Anna and visiting a bit with friends and neighbors.  While she napped on Sunday afternoon I did finish splitting the pile of firewood that I cut up a couple weeks ago, but that was the extent of my work.

On Sunday evening we tidied up and packed up and hit the road for home.  When we got home we realized that we had left behind a cooler full of food.  Anna and I had emptied the fridge together and put all the stuff in the cooler for the ride home.  We each assumed that the other had taken it out to the truck but when we got back home we realized that neither of us had.  Fortunately it only had a few things in it, and if we head back out next weekend, hopefully it isn't too rotten and doesn't stink too bad.  There was about 1/4 of a liter of milk left, a tub of sour cream chip dip, some bananas, part of a red pepper, and a few mushrooms...... Yuck...!

Down to the Badlands

I just returned from a great weekend down in the badlands.  My cousin Roswitha, visiting from Germany with her husband Gunnar and their two daughters, met me down there.  I was really tired last Friday after work and didn't attempt to make the three hour drive.  I was still catching up from the lack of sleep due to the late hockey game the night before.  Instead I headed down first thing on Saturday morning.  I left home at about 8:30AM and was down at the shop in East Coulee around noon.

Roswitha and family were visiting my brother Wes and his family in Calgary on Thursday.  I guess they had a chance to check out the Calgary Stampede before traveling to the town of Rosebud on Friday.  They stayed there at a B&B on Friday night, and then met me in East Coulee on Saturday afternoon.  I traveled down by myself as Hailey had to work all three days over the weekend, and Margarit stayed home... again... to play chauffeur...  My two younger girls decided to stay home as well.

For most of the trip Roswitha and family were tenting, but they took a hotel or B&B from time to time during their travels.  For this weekend we were all staying at my shop in East Coulee.  Our trailer is still there, and the shop served as a home base for all of us for the weekend. We wandered over to the old timber bridge in East Coulee on Saturday afternoon and then took a walk around town.  In the early evening we headed back over to the shop and put together a big pasta dinner.  We planned to go for a hike up into the hills after dinner and actually started out to do that.  Just as we started to climb the hills behind town a big prairie thunderstorm rolled in.  It was pretty cool as we watched the lightning start to flash all around us.  But with the rain coming we decided against climbing up into the hills and made our way back to the shop.  Just as we got back the clouds opened up with a heavy downpour that lasted for an hour or two.  We did get out for an evening walk around town after the rain quit, but it was too late and too wet to consider hiking up into the hills.

Sunday dawned clear and sunny and after breakfast we headed over to the Atlas Coal Mine.  We paid the admission and wandered around the historic site for a while.  I took my big view camera along and set up for a couple of shots.  After that we headed back to town and went to the East Coulee School Museum.  Just as we were finishing up there another prairie thunderstorm rolled in.  We packed up and decided to head into Drumheller for something to eat.  Just as we were leaving East Coulee the brunt of the storm hit us and it was a very heavy downpour with dime size hail.  It was coming down so hard that I could barely see to drive the truck.  I had the windshield wipers on high, the headlights on, the hazard lights flashing and we were slowed right down to just about a crawl.  Despite all that I could barely see beyond the hood of the truck.  By the time we got up the valley to the Hoodoos it had let up a bit and once we got closer to Drumheller it had quit altogether.  But water was running everywhere and it was extremely wet.  Just before that storm hit it had been a very hot and humid afternoon with the temperature peaking at +28C.  After the storm had rolled through the thermometer on my truck indicated a temperature of +15C.  A drop of 13 degrees over a period of about 20 minutes.

We went to Boston Pizza in town and had an early dinner together.  After that we went back out to the shop in East Coulee.  I had to pack up and head back to Edmonton that evening but Roswitha and family stayed behind and spent one more night at the shop.  They were planning to head to Banff on Monday, and then on to the Okanagan valley in British Columbia by the middle of the week.  They have to return their rental car in Vancouver at the end of the week and catch a flight back home to Germany on Saturday.

It was great to see them all again and I really enjoyed the time that I spent with them.  Its too bad that Margarit and the other girls were not able to join us, but at least they all managed to get together up in Nordegg on the previous weekend.

3-D

Not as in Three Dimensions.... but as in Three Defense... again...!  The Renegades played a hockey game last night against the Mugslingers.  We had our backup goalie and only nine skaters.  Once again, that meant we had to play the game with only three defense.  As two are on the ice at all times, it meant that as one of the three defense, I was on the ice for approx. two-thirds of the game.  And... it was a really late ice time, with puck drop at 10:30PM.  All in all, a little much for an old guy like me....   But, we won the game....!   The Mugslingers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead but we battled back to tie and eventually took the lead.  They tied it up at one point but then we pushed ahead and hung on for a 6-4 victory.  It was 1:00AM before we got out of the rink and 2:00 before I got to bed so needless to say I am very sore and tired for the last day of the work week.

We were tied in the standings for second place with these guys going into the game.  This victory now sees us leapfrog them into sole possession of second place with a record of nine wins and five losses.  Four regular season games left and then the summer playoffs will start in late July.

Family Visiting from Germany

I only have one cousin on my mother's side of the family.  By comparison, on my father's side of the family there are 17 in my generation... 14 cousins, my two brothers, and me.  

My cousin Roswitha is almost the same age as me.  She and her husband Gunnar and their daughters Melanie and Vivien are visiting Canada this year from their home in Germany.  Margarit and I stopped in briefly at their place 11 years ago, on our way home from Austria.  Roswitha and her family visited Canada six years ago, and we spent some time together then.  The two daughters were here last year, staying with my Mom.

This time around they flew in to Vancouver, rented a car, and then camped their way across British Columbia to Alberta.  Unfortunately this has been one of the wettest summers in recent memory, and it has not been ideal for tenting.  They were in Canmore at a hotel on Friday, and caught up on some laundry on Saturday morning before heading up to Nordegg to meet with us.  The girls and my Mom and I had all headed out on Friday evening.  On Saturday it was pretty cozy in the cottage with ten of us sleeping in there... not to mention all the pets.

We had a big meal on Saturday night and spent most of the weekend just visiting.  On Saturday evening the girls went out for a ride in the ATV and Hailey managed to bury it in a big mudhole.  We got a phone call asking for help.  Margarit and I headed out with the second ATV and tried to pull them out but we couldn't do it.  Eventually we had to call my neighbor Rob to come and give us a hand.  With his quad and my second Side-by-Side pulling, we managed to yank them out, just as it was getting dark.  At this point I had been up to my knees in mud and everyone was very wet and dirty.  We headed back to the cottage and cleaned up a bit before eventually turning in.

The next morning Margarit took all the young girls over to McKenzie's and they went for a trail ride.

By mid afternoon the Germans had to carry on and they packed up and headed down to Kananaskis.  They were meeting my brother Greg and his wife Barb down there for a couple of days of hiking.  

It was cool and showering for most of the weekend and we didn't get as much rain as the forecast was calling for.  But it wasn't the greatest weekend for being outside.  We did get some of our wet firewood going in the firepit... though only briefly.  Before the relatives arrived I managed to cut up all the old logs piled beside our driveway and we got a bunch of them split.  That was the extent of my work for this weekend, but we are slowly getting our yard tidied up.
I didn't even bother to take my big camera with me this weekend as I knew there would be no time to go shooting.  Turns out I didn't take any photographs with my digital camera either.  And the batteries died in my trail camera, so there weren't even any images from that.  This one was taken with a cell phone camera....

More Springfest Film Shots

Here are three more scans from the Springfest down in East Coulee in early May.  These were taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan film with my Contax S2 35mm SLR.  I was switching back and forth between two different lenses..... a Zeiss Planar 85mm F1.4, and a Zeiss Sonnar 135mm F2.8.  I didn't keep a record of which lens was used for which image.

The first image is Black Cherry Perry, lead singer of Black Cherry Perry's Mississippi Medicine Show.   The second image is Glen Brown, lead singer and bassist for Glen Brown and Spur Crazy.  The last one is Victor, the bassist for Black Cherry Perry.

Summer Hockey

My Renegades hockey team is now 13 games in to the Summer regular season.  There are a total of 18 games in the regular season, so we have five left to go.  The season wraps up in late July and then we roll into summer playoffs.  Technically we are playing in Division 8.  But the league just calls it Division 8 because most of the teams played at that level last winter.  The are four divisions playing above us, and eight divisions below.  I suppose you could consider us to be division five... but what's in a name.  We are currently tied for second place, out of the seven teams in our division, with a record of 8 wins and 5 losses.

It's been a challenge to fill the roster this summer.  With the slower economy some of our guys can't afford to play winter and summer.  Some have work commitments and can only play part time.  My long time team mate Vince, who has played with me for 15 years, has terminal brain cancer and can no longer play.  A full bench consists of 9 forwards [3 lines] 6 defense [3 pairs] and a goaltender.  I think we only played with a full bench once this summer.  Most of the time we have been playing with 8 to 10 skaters. 

Last night we played a game at Castledowns Arena verses the Tropics.  We only had six forwards and three defense.  This has been the norm for most of the summer.  Fortunately the other team had similar numbers so we were evenly matched.  I can easily play with four defense, but three is a real struggle for an old guy like me.  Two defense are on the ice at all times so when there are only three, there is not much time to rest.  I ended up playing the entire game with 5 to 6 minutes shifts, then a quick break of 2 to 3 minutes, and then back on the ice.  To make matters worse, conditions inside the arenas in the summer are very hot and extremely humid.

We jumped out to an early 4-0 lead.  They got a couple of lucky goals to make things close in the second, but then we rallied for a 7-3 victory.

Canada Day 2019

The girls and I headed out to Nordegg right after work on Friday.  There was a traffic jam on Highway 2 just south of Leduc due to some guy with a big RV that got a flat tire.  This backed up traffic for several miles, but not nearly as badly as the northbound lanes.  They were also backed up, near the same spot, due to a serious collision between a large RV and a big truck.  We arrived out at Nordegg, a little later than expected, but safe and sound.

We got unpacked and the girls set up all the cages and supplies for all their pets.  Two small dogs, three rabbits and two hairless guinea pigs...!  It was cool and wet due to all the rain we experienced through the month of June.  We just settled down in the cottage and turned in fairly early.

I had planned for a relaxing weekend without much work, and mostly stuck to that.  The only things that I really did was to screw on the upper railing of our interior stairs, and to work on some fire wood.  There was a small pile of logs near our fire pit that I had started cutting up a couple of weeks ago.  I cut up the rest of this pile with my chain saw and set to work splitting it all.  It was early afternoon on Saturday as I was working on this that our friends Jon and Marg showed up with their camper.  Jon and I have been friends for many years and have a common passion in photography.  Many times we went out for day trips and weekends together with our cameras over the years.  Jon and Marg are now both retired so they were off for a few days of camping and hiking in the National Parks.  But, they decided to spend a couple of days at our place, over the busy long weekend, before pushing on further west.

We spent most of the weekend relaxing and had a couple of BBQ's went for a couple short walks, and rode around a bit on our ATV's.  At one point we took a ride over to the old pump house and Shunda Falls.  Everything is very lush and green right now due to all the rain.  I found two different kinds of orchids and some lady's slippers starting to bloom down by the pump house.  As we were heading back we got caught in a heavy rain shower and had to retreat to the General Store in town for a bit while it blew over.  We had a nice fire for a while on Saturday evening.

On Sunday afternoon Margarit had to head home early.  She had tickets to see Pentatonix, a vocal group, back in Edmonton.  We had taken two vehicles to facilitate this and she and Helena hit the road shortly after lunch.  The other two girls stayed with me and we hung out with Jon and Marg for the rest of the weekend.

On Monday afternoon Jon and Marg packed up their camper and headed west towards the Parks.  It had been a beautiful sunny morning, very clear and warm, but by afternoon was getting quite cloudy and cool.  The forecast was calling for a 100% chance of rain and by mid afternoon that proved correct.  The girls went out for one last ATV ride while I tidied up a few things and got ready to leave.  I pulled out the log spiltter and finished up the last of the firewood, then did dishes and cleaned up.

We have been having a few issues with a slight amount of moisture in our basement.  Fortunately it is more of a crawl space than a basement, and is unfinished, with a gravel floor.  All of the mechanical stuff that is down there including our water pump, hot water heater, furnace, etc. is all raised up off of the floor.  I have an exterior sump at one corner of the cottage that accumulates water from the weeping tile and I pumped this out several times over the weekend.  This has not been an issue in the past and I attribute it to all the rain we've had this June.  My weather station has recorded nearly six inches of rain over the past four weeks.  Our foundation is built right on a rock slab that is only about 2 feet below the original grade.  Groundwater follows this surface and a certain amount of it has dampened the gravel floor in our basement.

It was about 5:30 on Canada Day, Monday afternoon, when the two girls and I hit the road for home.  We saw a couple of wild horses near Harlech, and stopped for something to eat in Rimbey, but otherwise it was a pretty uneventful drive.  It rained most of the way home and as the weekend weather was less than ideal, traffic back into the city, particularly at this late stage of the weekend, was quite light.  

It occurred to me as I was driving home, that it was Canada Day in 2016 that we took possession of our lot out at Nordegg, and took our trailer out for the first time.  At that point we had to park the trailer on the gravel approach, as the lot was still solid bush.  Here we are, three years later to the day, and our building permit has been closed and we are essentially complete.  The most pressing thing left to do is finish up the kitchen cabinets so that we can get a counter top and kitchen sink put in.  It is rather annoying to have to continue to get water from the bathroom sink for all the cooking, dishes and cleaning chores.  But that day will come soon...!