It’s Victoria Day tomorrow.
Ms Soapbox is taking a break this weekend to celebrate the occasion with her family.
So far I’ve visited with those in our bubble, ordered in from a local restaurant, played Rummikub, cribbage and a weird Hungarian card game that no one knows the rules to, walked the dog and hung around in my garden in the rain (see below).
I’m very lucky to be able to do this.
I hope your Victoria Day is just as peaceful.
Happy Victoria Day.
Tell me, what did you do to celebrate?
Susan on the Soapbox 
Pretty tree, you must have a lovely garden! It is not raining here. The sun is shining on my back, although I am happy I am inside as the wind from the ocean is cold. Glad you are taking a well deserved break … those politicians will always be there … unfortunately! I am, like I said, enjoying the sunny view from my home office set up editing YouTube videos. Kind of a fun pastime actually! Have a lovely rest of your weekend!
Linda, the garden greened up with a bang over the last 2 weeks. But that’s how it goes here on the prairies. Nothing for months and then everything is green and in bloom.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the sun. Can’t wait to see your YouTube videos.
Have a lovely weekend!
Enjoyed a pancake breakfast; walked the dog in a neighbourhood park; reading my NYT online; and starting to prep for a BBQ tomorrow where we are allowed to host our son and his gf outdoors here FINALLY!! Looking so forward to this! Wishing the Soapbox family Happy Victoria Day over there in Alberta from over here in Ontario!
Liane, yum, pancakes, one of my favorite holiday breakfasts.
How wonderful for you; celebrating Victoria Day with your son and his girl friend.
Take care and pass along our good wishes to your entire family (including the dog 🙂 )
beautiful Linda McFarlane
Thanks Linda, I understand you’re spending part of the weekend packing.
At least the weather is right for it.
Have a lovely weekend!
Linda probably didn’t intend to post her phone #.
Here in the beautiful Rockies, we watched it snow, watched it melt and now we’re watching it rain. Normal Victoria weekend. Oh, now it’s snowing again.
Thanks Keith, I edited out Linda’s phone number.
Snow on the May long weekend? Surely you jest!! 🙂
Wishing you the best Victoria Day ever ….. Watching the buds and blooms and doing just exactly what fits your fancy at the moment. I am off out to my yard to plant my annuals and get my garage arranged for organized lawn care and summer activities …. my grandboys do the muscle work now!
These are the days I miss having a dog …. excitement as we take in every inch of the yard. Best wishes, Susan! Enjoy!!
Jane, it sounds like you have a glorious long weekend planned.
Don’t you love having “the young ‘uns” around to do the heavy lifting.
Wishing you and yours a wonderful Victoria Day…after that we’ll be back at it, but for a couple of days at least we’ll just breathe and enjoy our gardens.
Hello Susan,
I haven’t visited in awhile, but follow your blog religiously. If I was still farming I would be finishing up seeding this weekend. However I have bought 50 tree seedlings which hopefully I will plant on spare land in the yard and the old pasture. I just need a bit warmer weather. I will see which ones work and then make that an annual tradition (of course until I run out of land). Benefits, first I get some much needed exercise and hopefully shed some pandemic pounds (Kenney kilos?), I plant some trees which will make my “homeland” more beautiful. I take some carbon out of the atmosphere for what I have put in (not making any statements, I like trees and they just happen to do many good things) and provide some more homes for the local bird population. I had a Merlin Falcon residing here a few years back but the tree was so close to the house I suspect I annoyed the poor thing every time I went out the door. Merlin Falcons are very beautiful to look at and I’m hoping to entice a few more to live here.
This morning I watched Formula 1 Racing and movies this evening. That’s about that.
I’m hoping everyone gets their vaccinations so we can all get back to normal and enjoy life again. I agree with Linda. Politics will still be there after the long weekend. So have a great long weekend and I look forward to what you write next.
Cheers
Einar
Einar, how lovely to hear from you. I”m glad you’re doing well.
It sounds like you have an ambitious and beautiful project on the go. And a very pleasant Victoria long weekend to boot.
I googled Merlin Falcons to see what they looked like. You’re right. They are beautiful birds. According to Google they’re small, fierce and adept at surprise attacks.
An inspiration to us all 🙂
We’re halfway through the vaccination process. Can’t wait to get our second shots and get that much closer to normal life.
Take care,
Susan
Well, I am having a wonderful weekend. I have attacked the balance of the weeds in the backyard because Langley is supposed to have rain next week. This will be my excuse to do nothing. Hope everyone has a great Victoria Day.
Rose, good on you for getting ahead of the rain. There’s nothing worse than a weedy garden. It’s raining here which gives me a good excuse not to go outside to nip those weeds in the bud while they’re still small. But it will get hot by the end of next week. Then I’ll be doomed.
Wishing you and your family (including that weed whacker guy) a wonderful Victoria Day.
🙂
What a great idea to take a weekend off. We planted the garden and the flower pots. It is great digging in dirt! The blossoms are gorgeous.
Dawn, everyone seems to be planting this weekend. Now I’m feeling the need to get out there and do something. We haven’t purchased our annuals yet. I’m looking forward to what’s on offer in the way of petunias. I love petunias, they’re beautiful and can be pounded into the ground by hail and come back looking as lovely as ever.
Great idea to take the weekend off. Garden and yard work – digging in the dirt!
Susan: I’m trying to do the best I can. Here’s a fitting tune for this long weekend. It’s from The Kinks, and is from 1970.
Thanks Dwayne, I don’t think I ever really listened to the lyrics of that song…
Susan: Victoria is a great song. I do like The Kinks.
Susan: It’s Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday on May 24. He is my favorite songwriter of all time, (followed by Leonard Cohen). I did see Bob Dylan live, long ago. Here is one of his country songs, from Nashville Skyline, released in 1969. Lay Lady Lay.
I like how Bob Dylan does different genres of music so well. Bob Dylan is such an amazing lyricist. I hope everyone enjoys this song. I do like country music very much, and like this song and album.
This is one of my favourite Dylan songs. Thanks Dwayne.
I hope you had a lovely Victoria Day.
Visited the Kids bubble outdoors, with masks at safe distance. Good to see them in person!
Glad you had a great weekend.
Mike I’m glad you had a chance to visit with the kids. We’re all working hard to follow the rules. It’s heartening to hear so many people who follow this blog do so as well, not that I’m surprised. 🙂
Happy Victoria Day everyone and thank you for participating, it is wonderful
Happy Victoria Day to you to Carlos. I hope you had a peaceful weekend.
We’re all resting up for whatever Kenney will throw at us next.
It’s nice the legislature is returning tomorrow isn’t it. Nothing like a 3 week break in the middle of a pandemic. (Sorry, that was sarcastic, I was supposed to be rainbows and unicorns today).
🙂 🙂 one cannot avoid laughing a bit about all that is going on. Today of course is the tweet about young people and Covid. Now we have our eminence saying ‘I am sorry teachers are 99% against LaGrange but she is right of course’. Chosen by God to be the minister of Education is what matters, the rest is just a waste of time. She is in the UCP and so she deserves to be respected, the teachers are just people, incapable of any serious discussion with her highness. PTSD is the minimum we will all get and not from the pandemic.
Carlos, I can’t recall a time when so many of a government’s ministers were reviled by so many of its citizens. It’s not a good look for the premier who promised to save us from the NDP who are now doing better in the polls than he is.
You make an interesting observation when you say the view seems to be LaGrange is UCP and therefore she deserves respect. If there’s one thing we’ve learned over time it’s that it doesn’t matter who you are, a cabinet minister or the janitor, respect is earned. not given.
We went on a hike with family yesterday, nice day for it; and I only had to pull one nephew from the whitemud he’d managed to get himself hip deep into in about 3 seconds.
Respectfully, I’ll refrain from commenting on the origins of this holiday to simply wish that you all enjoy it.
Goinfawr. I haven’t heard about “whitemud” other than as the name of a street in Edmonton. Sounds nasty.
And bless you for not commenting on the origins of the holiday. As you can tell by my sarcastic comment above, it’s only Monday afternoon and already my rose-coloured glasses are slipping of my nose!
That is a real thing along the banks of the North Saskatchewan, clay + silt + water = whitemud… and the wrong mixture becomes quicksand, apparently. Otherwise it was a very enjoyable walk.
“Future’s so bright, you gotta wear shades!” – Timbuk 3
GoinFawr, you made me smile…other than the quicksand, it was an enjoyable walk. Spoken like a true Albertan. 🙂
We went on a long drive on Saturday morning. As you know FMM continues to have a very high rate of spread so caution is still the rule. But it was lovely to get out of the city for a bit, listen to birdsong and enjoy the beauty of nature. Happy Victoria Day!
Carol, you’re absolutely right about the healing effect of nature. My youngest daughter has become a birder. I’m hopeless at it, I can’t spot the little suckers in the trees, but I really just wandering around outside listening to their chirping.
Yes, we’ve heard the rate of spread is high in your neck of the woods.
Stay safe and we’ll be through this (hopefully) soon.
Thank you, Susan. Hubby has several major health issues so we continue to hunker down and self isolate by choice. All will be well, eventually. We just have to be patient.
I am no good for birding either but I love to walk the trails and listen to birdsong.
Hi Susan, I am glad to see that you have attracted such a warm and bountiful response to your long weekend greeting. I discovered your blog on Ryan Jespersen’s podcast and have been receiving it since and I am honestly grateful that folks like you are standing up for what is right and truthful. Congratulations and well done, I truly mean this.
I am a retired Canadian and living in Prince George, B.C.; my wife and I moved back for family reasons and certainly not the weather, here to The Great White North in October 2018. We did so after spending nearly 14 years in Melbourne AUS. Please trust me when I say their politics is a gong show compared to ours (It has a lot to do with a two party system only similar to the U.S., which must be recognized as the most dysfunctional political system in the world). I have a blog as well – it’s called hereandnowblog.com
My wife and I have spent a terrific weekend working in the yard and garden and after much toil everything looks simply fantastic, not to mention awesome. We are going camping later this week with our pup and looking forward to it. It has been so good for our hearts and minds and souls to feel the Springtime sun after our Covid winter and to see the burst of foliage everywhere. The air is sweet, too.
Please take care and stay well, Susan. Cheers.
Thank you Greg. I was particularly interested in your comment that politics in Australia are even worse than here. I agree with you that a good part of the problem is the two party system which tends to exacerbate polarization which feeds on itself and makes things that much worse. I popped over to your blog, I see you have a very wide range of interests. Makes for fascinating reading.
You mentioned going camping with your pup, I assume that’s the little dog you’re holding in your cover photo. He (she?) looks like he’s more than ready for a few days out in the wilderness with his favourite people.
All the best,
Susan
Hi Susan, thank you for your reply, I really appreciate it. Our pup is Basil, an eight year old Maltese/Westie cross we brought back with us from Oz. As info, his airfare, Melbourne to Prince George, was $3600 AUD but I adore the boy and would have paid it manyfold. He is a free spirit and feisty character, all 20 pounds of him and he even treed a black bear here in PG last year. He likes camping with Mum and Dad and enjoys mud holes and creeks.
Btw, I posted a item on Mr. Kenney on Feb. 9 when the Rocky Mtn coal fiasco was in full steam. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. The cheek of it is quite breathtaking if not a little scary. If it ever comes to pass just look for yours truly on the blockade when the bulldozers make an appearance.
Belated long-weekend greetings to everyone who reads and/or contributes to this blog. I hope you all had a peaceful and enjoyable weekend. A special shout-out to Susan for maintaining this space that allows us to meet virtually and share our views, hopes and sometimes even our fears. It is truly a special place.
Our garden is only half planted since the rain on the weekend prevented us from finishing it. That remains a project for later in the week. Instead I attended an online guitar workshop on Saturday morning and spent most of the rest of the weekend contorting the fingers of my left hand into positions they were clearly never designed for. Challenging, at times frustrating, but always great fun.
My best to all and many thanks to those who share their thoughts with the rest of us in these pages. It is always gratifying to realize that there are so many thoughtful and intelligent people in our society. Keep well.
Thank you Guy!
It sounds like you had your hands full gardening and playing the guitar. Admirable pursuits. I continue to look out the window at the soggy mess that is my garden, knowing that when the warm weather comes it will be overrun by weeds. Maybe next week when the temperature is supposed to soar to 28C I’ll get out there and start gardening in earnest. It always takes me a while to get at it but when I finally get out there I love it.
Take care.
Well this was supposed to be a reply to Susan’s comment on my post but it is Wednesday and Word press does not allow replies today so here it is
That is very true Susan but Jason Kenney just marches on as if nothing has happened at all. He continues with possibly the most hated ministers in Alberta history the famous enlightened environment minister Nixon who seems to hate anything about nature, genius education minister LaGrange that seems ready to destroy what we consider good education, the light at the end of the well minister of health Shandro which only concern is waiting for privatization to happen so he can become a millionaire and of course our omni intelligent premier Kenney who should go to Alabama where there are way more people that will welcome him with their arms opened and will help him build his evangelical paradise. By the way they just approved Yoga again after decades of bans because of course the connection with Hinduism was profoundly affecting their dear children. Never mind calling the Theory of Evolution as very controversial especially in comparison with a way more common sense and clearer Creationism where God made the earth in 7 days and much more interesting stuff. I am not sure why he did not stay in California where he was so proud of having helped approve a law that would not allow gays dying of AIDS have their families with them. An amazing accomplishment for a dropout who considers himself a good and devoted Christian. Just a miracle man indeed. We are so blessed of having to put up with this brainless show of brilliant people.
“I am not sure why he did not stay in California where he was so proud of having helped approve a law that would not allow gays dying of AIDS have their families with them.”
Man does it churn my stomach when Lip-servicing anti-Christ Christians do things that would make a monster weep, let alone their Jesus.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/28/remains-of-215-children-found-at-indigenous-school-site-in-canada
And so Kenney’s elected position as Alberta’s Premier, a position granted him regardless (or worse: as a consequence) of his past reprehensible behaviour, proves without a shadow of a doubting Thomas that such horrific “Babbitts” still dominate that demographic.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/02/13/opinion/wheres-kenneys-war-room-money-really-going
This almost sounds like the systems in third world countries to enrich the leaders.
Interesting question?
This is our money but we do not have access to the details – that is even more interesting – this should be illegal
Can you imagine if this was done by the NDP?
The lunatic Conservatives would create a major offensive on the Legislature
Carlos: That’s exactly what would happen. The UCP is going to even newer levels of absurdity and foolishness. Look at their reopening plans, which includes the Calgary Stampede getting the green light to proceed. I heard that this was in the works since March. This isn’t going to end well, from what I can see. Dr. Deena Hinshaw thinks it’s perfectly okay. I don’t know how she came to that conclusion, other than somebody has been pulling her strings, or perhaps some level of kickback is happening. If Alberta’s per capita rate of covid was at the top of the list in North America, very recently, reopening like this is treading on dangerous grounds. Who will the UCP try and blame when things get ugly? Who?
Well maybe this time we will stop pointing fingers and play the moral roles around the world when it comes to human rights.
This is as far as one can go with faked smiles and claims of democratic rule of law.
Now suddenly everyone from Cities to Universities to blogs are so indignant as to the discovery of the 215 bodies we know about. Where were all of them when these schools were still operating in 1997 when Jean Chretien was prime Minister. No one knew anything of course.
I would say no one even cared.
Now there is the day of this and the day of that and our treaty lands and on and on. These people have been mistreated not to say tortured and mentally hunted since at least 1867 and no one knew anything about all of this.
What a bunch of baloney.
If these were not Christian schools they would have been banned and closed down for good but the big problem is that they have been under contracts with our Federal Government until 1997 and they are of course Christian. As such they will continue having their harems and torture chambers for as long as they want it. They will now prey on our children because there is no longer second class citizens available.
This has happened all over the world and in places where there is no knowledge it is well and alive I am sure maybe subsidized by the Vatican or the other churches top echelons involved.
So much for atheists having no morals.
When is it that someone with balls is going to take this issue by the horns? Never I presume, after all we need the Church Moral compass. What a compass this is.