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...a glimpse into life on Vancouver Island, needle felting, photography, food, gardening, etcetera...etcetera
"Happiness always looks small when you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and at once you learn how big and precious it is."
Maxim Gorky

Friday, July 6, 2012

Song for Friday...hello summer!

My sister's girls are here for the month and with them they brought the sun!
We have been to the seashore, walking horses and riding bikes down country roads.
I've been telling them lot's of funny stories from when Tracy and I were girls like them.
Sisters who fought, did naughty things behind parents backs, did silly things
and always there was the AM radio...CHUM 1050 Toronto.
So for this week it's a summer song from those days.
Have a great weekend all!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

P.S...

This just in from Australia!
My second cousin, Ellie who lives there just sent me this email...

Did your Mom tell you that I've had my mitochondrial DNA identified by the National Geographic Genographic Project? I don't know that much about genetics, but from what I do understand, the female side of our family have the same mitochondrial DNA. So, Granny Cairns, her mother Melissa (Cusick) Oviatt, Marge and my Mom, your Mom, Therese(don't know how to spell her name) and her daughter, Maggie and me, you and Tracy, your daughter and Tracy's daughters all have the same mitochondrial DNA because it is passed through the female line. We all have Haplogroup U (subclade U4), 16356C, 16519C. You can do a google search on Haplogroup U4 and will probably find that one of the places where there are a lot of people with U4 is Finland and where our ancestors came from (Northern Ireland as well, but via Finland.)
I have just read in Wikipedia that most Sami are U5b and U5b1 but a small number are U4.

Who knew?!




Monday, July 2, 2012

My inner Sami, and then some...

A while ago I posted about the Sami people here.
It was their relationship with the reindeer, the land
and their Northern environment which inspired me
in a needle felting project.
The reindeer became more than I had planned and my imagination
blossomed...
Here sits Finn, a fox lies sleeping beneath his chair in the moss...
Perched above Finn, witness to his dreams, sits an owl...
The woodland birds making a home with the reindeer...
Silently, Finn has drifted off to the land of the Sami...
This piece was so much fun to do and probably my most elaborate to date.
As an added bonus, it will be one of the chosen pieces for the
Sooke Fine Arts Show this summer!
If you're in the area, the show runs from July 28th - August 6th.
For more info you can have a look here.




Sunday, July 1, 2012

ey!

Lacrosse
 winter
 lakes
touque
Kraft Dinner
toboggan
The Canadian Shield
Canada Goose
The railway
Hockey
cottages.

It's all about being Canadian.
Happy and proud.
Happy Canada Day!