Solberg House

I've been working on another watercolor.  Like the previous one, this one is also based on one of my photographs.  I'm beginning to enjoy working this way, from my black and white images.  It gives me the luxury of having an image to work from while also letting me use whatever colors I choose.  As with the last one I did the basic painting in watercolor, and then accented it with some pen work and some pencil rendering.  I am really beginning to like this technique, and I think I'm getting a little better at it.  

20th Anniversary

June 23rd was Margarit and my 20th Anniversary.  It's hard to believe that 20 years have passed already.  Seems like just a few years ago we were living together in an apartment.  I have a T-shirt that says "I thought growing old would take longer".  On milestone days like this it really feels true.

Restaurants just re-opened a couple of days ago and Covid restrictions are not fully removed yet.  Plus we both just got our second vaccination on the 22nd.  So, we decided not to go out for a big celebratory dinner.  Instead we went out for lunch at a small nearby restaurant that we knew would be fairly quiet.  We enjoyed a nice relaxed lunch together and will have a bigger celebration on another day in the not too distant future.

In the evening I went to the rink and played the third game of the summer hockey season.

Water Tank

I picked up the water tank for the guest cottage on June 24th, from the manufacturer out in Morinville.  It seems rather precarious standing up on the back of my truck.  I hope there is no cross wind when I drive out to Nordegg on the 25th.  It will definitely be a slower drive, and I will no doubt have to stop a few times to check the load and tighten the straps.  The tank measures 80" wide by 91" long by 25" high and has a capacity of 635 Imperial Gallons.  I'm told it weighs about 200 Lbs.

We arrived safe and sound with no issues.  It was a slower drive as we were bucking a headwind most of the way.  I got my neighbor Dan to give me a hand to offload the tank.  Now we are ready to proceed with foundation and subfloor at the guest cottage.

Prints Ready for the Beehive

I've spent that last few days preparing my prints for display at the Beehive Artisan Market in Nordegg.  They are having their Grand Opening on June 26th, and I'll be ready.  Before my last visit to the cottage I made 34 prints, 11" x 14", from eight different large format negatives.  The past couple of days I have been cutting mounts and over mats, flattening the prints, and dry mounting them.  I'll take them along with me when I return to Nordegg.

I never cease to be amazed at how much better a print looks once you get a mat around it.  A nice crisp white mat really makes the print stand out.  I hope these are well received and that some of them sell.  I prepared a total of 16 finished prints, two copies of each.  If any of them sell I have extra copies that I can replenish with.  I also intend to print a few more in the next couple of weeks.

Interior

This is the interior of the Our Lady of Savoy Church in Paintearth County.  Like the exterior shot I recently posted, this one was taken on Kodak T-Max 100 film with my Chamonix 8x10 Camera.  Unfortunately I didn't pay enough attention when I was composing the image, and I managed to include the front bed of the camera in the foreground of this shot.  I was using an ultra wide Nikkor 120mm lens for this shot.  This focal length in 8x10 format is roughly equivalent to a 20mm wide angle lens on 135 film or full frame digital.  I had to crop the image to almost square in order to make it work.  That works out OK for display on line, or if I eventually set up my 8x10 enlarger and make a larger print.  Unfortunately the image is ruined for any type of alternative process contact printing.

Notre Dame du Savoie

This old church has sat unused for many years.  I photographed this when I was out with my friends Court, Arturo and Fred on a daytrip down to Paintearth County.  We were trying to get a few more images for our "Coal in Alberta" project.  I shot this on 8" x 10" T-Max 100 film with my new Chamonix view camera.

Father's Day Trip to Wagner and Clifford Lee

A couple of evenings before Fathers Day, Annelise and I went for walk down by the river.  It was just getting dark when we parked down behind Fort Edmonton Park and walked over to the nearby foot bridge.  We crossed the river and took a nice walk through the trees along the shore.  There were a bunch of bats flitting around above us, catching mosquitoes.

A couple of days later, the whole family went out for a walk on Father's Day.  Much to my delight, the girls did not get me any gifts this year.  Instead we spent a wonderful afternoon together.  We started out at Wagner Natural Area, west of the city, near Spruce Grove.  It was kind of hard to get into the mood of a nature walk with the noise of the nearby highway.  Traffic was very busy heading back into the city on this Sunday afternoon and the drone of tires on pavement was not very calming.  There were lots of Lady's Slippers blooming here, much like there had been at Faraway, a few days earlier.  But, the Marl Ponds were mostly dried up, and there were no frogs and very little wildlife.

We wrapped up our walk in short order, after I had taken a couple of photos with the big camera.  Then we headed south to Clifford Lee Natural Area near Devon.  It seemed as though the water levels here were higher.  Both Natural Areas were busy with a lot of people walking, and the parking areas were full.  At Clifford Lee there were a lot of ducks and coots on the pond, and they were very tame.  They were right up beside the boardwalk with their new hatchlings, and weren't frightened of people in the slightest.  We enjoyed watching them and managed to get a few snapshots.  

After our stroll at Clifford Lee we headed back into the city and went over to Mimi's Pub.  We had a nice dinner together, and ended up visiting with some of our neighbors that were also there.  It was a great way to spend a beautiful June afternoon and Father's Day.

Old Store

This is one of the first shots I took with my new Chamonix 8" x 10" view camera.  The new owners, that bought my company when I retired, gave me a retirement gift.  It was a gift card to a camera store.  I used that money, and added a bunch of my own, and bought a new view camera.  

This is a shot of the old abandoned store in Nordegg.  This is one of the last original buildings that remains.  The County foolishly demolished the Bighorn Trading Company, Shanks Garage, a small warehouse, and the last remaining miners houses.  I took this shot in December of 2020 with a 240mm lens [slightly wide] on Kodak T-Max 100 film.  The film was processed in 510 Pyro Developer.

I just recently processed a batch of this film, and scanned the big negatives...

Summer Hockey

The last time I played hockey was back in November of 2020.  Our winter season was attempted under Covid protocols but quickly got shut down within about 6 weeks or so.  I haven't been on skates since....

With the recent relaxation of restrictions here in Alberta, adult group sports were allowed to commence again about a week ago.  The league that I play in has initiated an abbreviated summer season.

My team mates and I decided to sign up and play, just to try to get ourselves back into game shape for the upcoming winter season.  Winter hockey is taken much more seriously and the season is a lot longer.  The Renegades first game was on June 17th.  We played a team called the Raiders at the Meadows Recreation Center.  We know this team quite well as a couple of their guys are friends that used to play on our team.  They are mostly native players, a fantastic bunch of guys, and were really in game shape.  They were able to continue skating through the pandemic, as they had access to the arena ice at the River Cree Casino.  Needless to say they gave us an absolute shellacking, and beat us by a score of about 15-0.  I lost track of all the goals, it may have even been worse than that.

None of the guys and girls on our team really cared.  We were just so glad to get back out on the ice and reconnect as a team.  Once we play a few more games we will no doubt blow off some of the rust, and the results will improve.  We have two games coming up in the week of June 21 to 25 and I'm expecting the team will be a lot more competitive.

Far Faraway

On the way home from Nordegg on June 16th, Anna and I stopped at the site of the former Faraway School.  I was getting a little drowsy driving and needed to stretch my legs.  Quinn the dog also needed a break.  We stopped at the Faraway School site.  The sign indicates that the school was closed fifty years ago in 1971.  The building was burnt down many years ago and not much remains.  Just some charred sections of some of the walls, and two old outhouses.

As we wandered around in the former school yard we found a whole bunch Yellow Ladies Slippers.  These are beautiful flowers that I have only seen in the wild a few times in the past.  One of the other times was in the yard of another abandoned school.....

Concrete Pour

Originally the footings of our cottage were supposed to be poured on Tuesday June 15th.  But that morning started with rain, beginning about 6:00AM and lasting until around lunchtime.  At times it came down heavily, and we ended up with almost half an inch.  It was far too wet to consider a concrete pour even though the sun came out and the wind picked up for the rest of the day.  We re-scheduled for the next day.

Scott and his two men, Basil and Dave, showed up first thing in the morning and started installing rebar into all of the forms.  It took a couple of hours to get everything pinned and wired into place.  The first of two mixer trucks showed up at around 10:30AM.  We used a total of 8 cubic meters of concrete.  We filled all of the forms and had enough left to make two small pads for teleposts, and to fill in a bit of the uneven rock in what will become the crawl space.

The trucks were able to shoot concrete into about 40 per cent of the forms.  The rest had to be manhandled with wheelbarrows.  Scott and Dave mostly ran the wheelbarrows while Basil and I shovelled everything into place.  By shortly after lunch we were done, and had all the rebar hooks placed into the footings.  I checked the concrete later in the afternoon before Anna and I headed back home to the city and it had already set.

Seven Days in Nordegg

I headed out to Nordegg, by myself, on June 10th.  The septic tank was just being placed in the excavation at our property next door, when I arrived.

On Friday June 11th, my brother-in-law Shawn arrived in the early afternoon.  We had a couple of beers together and relaxed and caught up.  Later that evening Margarit and Anna arrived with our dog Quinn.  We all hung out together over the weekend.  The weather was pretty nice and we went out for some ATV rides, and puttered on a few things around the cottage.  I painted the two entrance doors with a yellow paint, on the interior and exterior.  A proper wash with TSP and then two coats of paint should provide a durable surface for some time to come.  I think it looks pretty good against the blue grey siding.  I never did get around to painting the man door on the garage, but still have lots of paint left for next time.  I also split and stacked some more firewood.

On Sunday evening Margarit headed back to the city.  On Monday morning Shawn had to return as well.  Anna and I stayed out for a few extra days.  We were supposed to pour the footings at our property next door on Tuesday, but it rained heavily all morning and forced us to postpone for a day.  We did eventually get that done on Wednesday, just before Anna and I headed back to the city.

We also spent some time working on Anna's bunk bed.  We previously built the box that will support her mattress.  This time around we made two wall panels that will support that mattress frame.  We got them sanded out and stained.  We still have more work to go to build the rest of the supports, and a ladder, as well as to get everything finished with several coats of lacquer.

Anna and I went out for a number of evening walks with Quinn and had lots of time to just hang out together.  We found some Blue Columbines blooming in the ditch in a few places near our property.  We also found a new footpath down to Shunda Creek.  We had a take out lunch from the Miner's Cafe in town and also stopped in at the new Nordegg Canteen for ice cream.  It was a pretty relaxing week and both Anna and I were somewhat reluctant and saddened to have to head back home on Wednesday.