February 21st, 2010:
Another nice, warm day; a bit of fresh snow but not enought to shovel. Aren't you glad we live in a temperate climate?
We got a very newsy and interesting e-mail from Margaret Shuya of Greenwater the other day:
“Can't really say I know much of what is new around here, other than with the big dump of snow we got at the end of January the snowmobilers are certainly happy and busy enjoying the trails and the landscape.
We have had a lot of funerals in Porcupine Plain and area this fall/winter. Our latest loss of course being Iver Dalke. My mom (Katy Miller) passed away in November, Elton Soll lost his dad just before Christmas, and Marlene Norton lost her mom (Lina Renneberg) just before New Years.
 On a better note, Ryan and Wendy had a baby girl at the end of November, so now we have two grandchildren to get to spoil.
Our birds have been keeping Brian busy filling up the feeders. We have both the Evening and Pine Grosbeaks, Common Redpolls, Pine Siskins, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers, Nuthatches and Chickadees.
I thought I would send you a picture of the snow carving Brian has done this year. We decided to change from the 'castle' theme”.
Thanks for keeping us up to date, Margaret.
We had an interesting day yesterday. After breakfast with our Sunseeker friends, we went to Prairieland Park, where the Nutana Lions' Club had their annual Giant Flea Market. It completely filled Hall D. Doreen can have a ball at a flea market; can browse happily for hours yet rarely buys anything. I covered the whole place in twenty minutes, then bought some candied nuts and coffee and shared a table with a man from Abbey. He must have been an exhibitor – he had a red ribbon on but said he wasn't a Lion.
Laurie and Jenny were coming in for the Flea Market; they were supposed to phone us when to expect them; by noon we hadn't heard from them so we went to the Western Development Museum for lunch. There we shared a table with Ellen and Harvey Ross, formerly of Wynyard. We also swapped a few words with Jim and Jean Berg, friends of ours from one of our bus tours, and with Walter, Doreen and Doug Goodyear, also formerly of Wynyard.
There was a model railroad display on at the Museum; that is what attracted the Goodyears and Rosses, as Walter and Harvey were both railroad engineers. It was a very good display, with about twenty different layouts, scattered in three different areas of the Museum. My favorite was a very large layout built entirely of Lego blocks, from a huge elevator to the engines and cars, and even the cross-ties. It was built by a couple of teenagers and must have taken years to build. I have no idea how they transported it and set it up, unless the blocks were glued in place. I had brought my camera, so took lots of pictures of the layouts.
Doreen finally got hold of Laurie and Jenny and they were at the Flea Market. I dropped Doreen off there, hoping they would eventually give her a ride home. I went home and had a nice, long nap.
We got wind of a book launch and reading by author Mary Harelkin Bishop, at McNally Robinson book store, so we went there after supper on Wednesday. Her book was called “Moving Forward” and it was about Porcupine Plain's own Paralympian, Colette Bourgonje (pronounced “Begonia”). It covered her early childhood, dwelt on her horrific accident in 1980 at the age of 18 that left her paralysed from the chest down and the long recovery and healing process, and went on to her astonishing successes as a Paralympic athlete.
By 2009, 47-year old Colette Bourgonje had competed in eight Paralympic Games – three in wheelchair racing and five in cross-country skiing – and won eight Paralympic medals.” And now she is training for the March Paralympics in Vancouver.
In the nineties, we had an annual bike ride to Chelan and back from Greenwater, and one time Colette rode with us in her racing wheelchair. I think Rob Howse was the only one able to keep up with her, especially on those awful hills. What a gal!
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