High and Dry

Someone pulled the plug of the swimming hole. Or perhaps someone forgot to pay the water bill?

Nothing as drastic as that. The town pool has been closed for it's annual 3 week makeover and maintenance shutdown. Just when I felt confident enough to start going to the aquafit classes too.
This week the water went back in and all the water activities started up again.
This indoor pool has been in use for about 12 years, replacing an outdoor pool built in the 1950s. And it's well used, with swimming lessons for all ages, an active competitive swim club, therapy jets pool, and leisure swim times.
A great place to spend some time in the middle of the winter, swimming in the warmth and watching the snowflakes fall outside!

Eckhardt's Corners

The original Eckhardt family probably arrived to set up home in Ontario in the early 1800s, although I haven't found any written proof of this. They may have come from Pennsylvania, as many Mennonite settlers did. If anyone has Eckhardt history, let me know! Some of them rest in the local graveyard.

This corner was first settled by an Eckhardt family member, I don't know who, but was owned by Sam Burkholder from 1853 to 1904. He built this building, which operated as a garage and a store. It's been empty for some time. And ugly new houses are going up all around it, chewing up some of Ontario's best farmland. 

So I decided to record the building at Eckardt's Corners before it disappears, like so many forgotten buildings that nobody has use for any more.

It's not a pretty building, but definitely a landmark.

Pen and ink, with a watercolour wash... possibly destined for next year's Art Show.

Rain

Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day.

This is the first really rainy morning for a long time. I woke to the sound of raindrops pounding on the roof and the swish of tires on wet roads.. I sat out on the covered part of the deck, staying dry, drinking my morning coffee, and watching the raindrops fall. It's been a hot, hot summer, and a cool damp morning is so welcome.

It's raining, it's pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed
And bumped his head
And couldn't get up in the morning.

Sinkholes

Our local art gallery changes it's exhibitions on a monthly basis, currently featuring drawings by Jenna Faye Powell from London, Ontario. 

According to the gallery's website: Her beautiful and playful drawings and paintings present smooth rounded out voids in the earth: x-ray visions of what lie beneath the surface, revealing to us the sinkholes’ topography and geology. Layers of earth are stylized in warm and golden hues reminiscent of old and fading photographs, and fill us with a warm nostalgic feeling. Nothing threatening here, just lovely and quirky depictions of the earth rounded out and sliced and diced to show us what’s inside. 

Mostly done in coloured pencils I think. Some of the other works are done on black paper and more ominous and gloomy, but these are the ones I liked best.

Sky Show

Did you miss me? Awwww, thanks! I've been a wayward blogger for a few weeks, partly due to extreme laziness, and partly due to the fact that I have spent too many air-conditioned days hiding from the hottest July and August recorded, and recovering from hip surgery at the same time, therefore not being inspired to blog.
But now I'm out and about and determined to mend my ways.
The sky..... a couple of evenings ago.
First this:

 Then this:

 And three minutes later, this: