Farmer irrigating rice paddy in Vietnam
My brother with pig farmers in China
Jamaican farmer with banana tree
My Dad with produce on his farmyard
Farmers milking cows in Ukraine
My great niece picking apples in southern Ontario
Kiwi farmer New Zealand
My sons gathering eggs on their grandparents’ farm
Fijji fruit and vegetable farmers selling their wares
Other posts……
At the Apple Orchard
On my Grandparents Farm
Fiji Inspiration
What food is associated with different people in your life? Bon Appetempt A Coming of Age Story by Amelia Morris is a memoir/food book I read not long ago. Each chapter of Amelia’s life and the important people in it are somehow linked to certain foods. Morris’ book got me thinking about what foods might have connections with my family members.
My Grandma and Grandpa Peters
My one grandma made wonderful chicken noodle soup. She prepared everything from scratch. Caught, killed and cooked the chicken, cut the noodles from dough she made, added her own special spices to the broth. I remember she brought me a jar of her chicken noodle soup when she came to visit me after I had given birth to her first great- grandson. My younger son was so enamored with his great grandmother’s soup when he was six he wrote and illustrated a story about how she made her soup.
My mother-in-law and father-in-law
My husband’s mother made the best beef roasts I’ve ever tasted. She also baked excellent zwiebach (a Mennonite bun that is really two buns in one) and her grandchildren loved her homemade donuts. My older son once wrote a book in school about all the things he loved in the world and on the last page he wrote “but most of all I love my Oma’s homemade donuts.”
Dave making tortillas in our home on the Hopi Indian Reservation in 1990
My husband Dave is very talented in the kitchen. He makes a great Pad Thai, a good taco casserole and is famous for his chili.
My son has made us many wonderful meals but he is an especially gifted barbeque chef. Whether he’s grilling salmon, steaks or farmer’s sausage the results are sure to be delicious.
My Mom baking bread with my school class
My mother was an excellent cook. Every year she would come to my school class to bake bread with my students and in December she came and helped them each make a bag full of peffernussen ( a German Christmas cookie) to take home to their families. Mom also baked and decorated beautiful birthday cakes, made delicious buns and great chocolate chip and white cookies with raisins inside.
I could go on and on because I have so many friends and family members that are excellent cooks. Many important times in my life are associated with meals and the memorable people who prepared them and shared them with me.
Other posts…….
This is The Countess of Dufferin locomotive at the Railroad Museum located in Winnipeg’s Via Rail Station. The Countess of Dufferin was built in Philadelphia and was the first steam locomotive in Canada’s north-west. It arrived in Winnipeg in 1877.
Did you know the locomotive was named after Hariot Rowan Hamilton Dufferin the wife of Canada’s Governor-General in 1877. Hariot was married at age 19 to the Earl of Dufferin who was 36.
The Countess of Dufferin in 1870 with her third son Terrance
Hariot would have seven children, the youngest two born in Canada.
Hariot was a good writer and her letters home to her mother in England were published later in a book.
Hariot regularly attended sessions of the Canadian Parliament so she could report back to her husband about what was going on. As Governor-General he couldn’t attend Parliament since he was supposed to be above political partisanship. Hariot, however, could go and she was politically savvy and an excellent observer. Later she would provide her husband with an insightful and lively commentary on the government proceedings of the day.
The Countess of Dufferin hosts a tobogganing party at Rideau Hall
Hariot was a vivacious hostess and during her tenure, Rideau Hall, (the official residence of the Governor-General in Canada) was home to amateur theatricals, in which she often performed herself. She hosted fancy dress balls, picnics, dinners, concerts, cricket matches and tobogganing and skating parties.
She travelled across Canada with her husband all the way to Prince Edward Island in the east and British Columbia in the west.
After their term in Canada was finished Hariot accompanied her husband to diplomatic postings in St. Petersburg, Constantinople, India, Italy and France. She became well-recognized as a travel writer and photographer during the time she lived abroad.
This is a book the countess wrote about the time she and her husband spent living in India
While her husband was in diplomatic service in India Hariot became very concerned about the lack of proper medical care for women whose husbands would not allow them to go to a hospital with male doctors or patients. Hariot started a charitable fund and raised money to build three hospitals in Pakistan and three in India. These hospitals were exclusively for women and children. 
Hariot’s family’s fortune was lost around the time her husband died in 1902 and she spent the last three decades of her life in a modest house in the Chelsea area of London. Sadly four of her sons preceded Hariot in death, one from pneumonia, one in a plane crash, another was killed in the Boer War and a fourth in World War I.
Hariot didn’t have an easy life but she set a new standard for society and culture in Canada’s capital. She engaged with Canadians from coast to coast as she travelled with her husband. 
There is a Dufferin School in Winnipeg, a Dufferin Street in Toronto and of course an iconic train named The Countess of Dufferin in the railroad museum in Winnipeg.
I took these photos of my husband Dave at the top of the Human Rights Museum. I think they actually reveal quite a bit about what kind of person he is.
Having an animated discussion with Ivan, a former student from Hong Kong who was visiting us in Winnipeg.
Chatting with a woman he and Ivan met, another visitor to Winnipeg. 
Helping a family from England find some landmarks on the Winnipeg horizon.
Checking out the Goldeyes baseball game being played way down below in their stadium. Can he see who is winning?
Looking out over the city and thinking.
Other posts……..
Looking at Stuff in a Different Way
After spending a couple hours meandering through the farmer’s market and gift shop at Pine Ridge Hollow the T-4’s, a group of my friends that meets every month, headed into the restaurant for a late lunch.
We were given a lovely spot on the patio and enjoyed visiting over our wonderful meal with a bunch of delicious shared dishes.
Rosemary and sea salt beet chips served with a house made goat cheese ranch dipping sauce.
Pineridge House Salad. Mixed greens with smoked Gouda, crisp apple, candied pecans, and fig baslamic vinaigrette.
Lemon Meringue Torte. Frozen layers of crisp and light meringue with house made lemon curd and whipped cream.
A decadent nutella brownie served with Cornell Creme vanilla bean ice cream. Topped with toasted hazelnuts and chocolate sauce.
And as party favors chocolate bars our friend Glenys bought us in Kew Gardens on her recent trip to London. I got to take the Lime and Lavendar one home and Dave and I polished it off that very evening.
A delicious and delightful afternoon.
Other posts………
Chocogasm
Filed under Food, Restaurants, T-4s
“Dad you are teaching us how to die.”
There is a scene in the book Inside the O’ Briens by Lisa Genova I won’t forget. Joe, a Boston police officer, has been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease and is beginning to experience some of the more devastating effects of this terminal illness which has no known cure. He is feeling angry and hopeless and expresses those emotions in a violent way. His youngest daughter Katie has a heart to heart talk with him. Since Huntington’s is hereditary Joe’s four children all have a fifty/fifty chance of having the disease too and like their father may begin to experience symptoms in their mid-forties. Katie tells her Dad to remember he has taught all his children by his example what was right and wrong, the importance of integrity, the value of having a work ethic, the need to respect others and the importance of loving your family. Now he is teaching them how to die by the way he faces his own death.
I know I have often considered what kind of example I am being to my children and that has been a powerful motivation to me as I try to make good choices. But I had never thought about the fact that even in the way we face death we act as a role model for our children. I watched both my mother-in-law and mother face illness and death with courage and more concern for others than themselves. They have been role models for me and someday I will be called upon to be a role model for my own children in how I face death.
It is a sobering thought but an important one. We can teach our children many things. We can also teach them how to die.
Other posts…….
Happy Birthday to my husband Dave. Dave is almost always smiling so I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures where he is not smiling just to show that he is capable of taking life seriously at times.
Here’s to you Dave ! Glad to have spent another year together with you.
Other posts……
Filed under Family
Woman marketing clothing in Bali
Dave with manager of his favourite bakery in Kowloon City Hong Kong
Okonomiyaki pancake restaurant owner in Hiroshima Japan
Two T-shirt entrepreneurs in a market in Saigon
Artist in Rome
Spicy meat salesman in Agra India
Calligrapher in Stanley Market Hong Kong
Pearl merchant near Beijing
Fruit sellers in Halong Bay Vietnam
Vegetable stall operator Bangkok Thailand
Other posts……..
Filed under Photo Collections, Travel
I was at Pine Ridge Hollow with friends for lunch yesterday and saw this quote of George Bernard Shaw’s over a door.
Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.
I like the idea that who we are isn’t pre- determined that we have the opportunity till the day we die to create new opportunities for ourselves, learn new things, and continue to cultivate our talents and abilities.
Other posts………..
Filed under Inspiration
Selkirk Settlers 1813 by Gerald Laing
This statue called Selkirk Settlers 1813 stands at the end of Bannatyne, the street where I live. I did a blog post about the statue and received a message from a blog reader named Michael Forbes who told me an identical sculpture stands in Helmsdale Scotland. Michael was kind enough to send me a photo of the sculpture in Helmsdale.
In the early 1800s, many Scottish tenant crofters were evicted from their homes by rich lairds who wanted their property as grazing land for livestock. Some of those exiled crofters immigrated to Winnipeg. They left Scotland for Canada from Helmsdale a village on the east coast in northern Scotland.
Photo by Michael Forbes of the Selkirk Settlers sculpture in Helmsdale Scotland
The sculpture in Scotland was created by artist Gerald Laing, the same artist that made the sculpture in Winnipeg. I found out that Laing is Scottish and both the sculptures in Winnipeg and Helmsdale were cast at Black Isle Bronzes in Nairn Scotland.
I’d love to visit Scotland someday to see the matching Selkirk Settler statue for myself.
Other posts………
Matching the Nelson Atkin’s Museum in Kansas City and the Winnipeg Art Gallery
What Next? 