08 | September | 2013 | Mama Cormier

…..including cleaning out my inbox

Many of you gave me permission to delete my unread emails that I couldn’t get to over the summer. I fully intended to follow your advice but I started to read them, a few every day including the new ones that came in. Today I finally finished reading every single email and I’m glad I did. I would have missed a lot of great stories, wonderful photographs, beautiful works of art and delicious recipes if I had merely clicked the delete button.

I started my morning by giving the kitchen a good cleaning. I paid some bills and then sat down for breakfast. We were suppose to dog sit Lucy today but my daughter’s plans changed so after breakfast my husband and I discussed what we could do together. We agreed to work on the garden and start cleaning out the garage. We haven’t had a great vegetable garden this year so much of the vegetable boxes and planters were already cleared out but the flower beds needed some pruning, thinning and weeding. My husband cut the grass while I sorted through the plants.

After filling two large garden waste bags, K and I tackled the garage. We have wood in there from over 30 years ago. We started to pull things from the far corners of the garage and filled 4 garbage bags in no time. Some metal items we put on the curb right away. Even though it was a Sunday they miraculously disappeared within the hour. We have people in the neighbourhood who drive around looking for scrap metal to recycle.

We’ve decided to call in one of those junk retrieval companies to pick up the wood that we have stored in the rafters. I think if we haven’t used it after 30 years we’re not likely to start finding uses for it now. If anyone in the Toronto area wants free lumber you can post a comment here or email me.

After working about 4 hours in the garden I felt that we got a pretty good start on cleaning out the garage and the flower beds. Even if we don’t do anything else this season at least we have room in the garage to store our garden furniture.

I also gave my birds a nice clean cage tonight and before I go to bed I will transfer a load of laundry into to dryer.

Lunches are packed and ready for tomorrow. It always feels good when you can see the fruits of your labour……and I read all my emails. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

….not the best day to visit the McMichael Art Gallery

You might think that visiting an art gallery when it’s raining ‘cats and dogs’ is the best time to visit an art gallery. Not so, at least not when you go to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg. The gallery is situated on 100 acres of beautiful conservation land which you can explore through a network of paths and trails. One of the first things we noticed, even in the pouring rain, was the intoxicating scent of the trees that surround the gallery and line the pathways throughout the grounds.

After we had made plans to go to the gallery with A and J, my husband realized that this was also the weekend of the Binder Twine Festival in Kleinburg. Normally you can’t get near the place during the festival but because of the rain we were able to drive straight onto the McMichael property.

The gallery was featuring two of my favourite photographers, Ansel Adams and Edward Burtynsky.

http://www.tfaoi.com/cm/4cm/4cm227.jpg

http://www.modto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Edward-Burtynsky-Oil-Spill_4_oil_skimming_boat_near_ground_zero_gulf_of_mexico_2010_lg-e1284764201203.jpg

As in most galleries, I couldn’t photograph the actual works of these great photographers so I found a couple of pictures from the internet to share with you. Both these examples were at the show.

The gallery itself looks like a chalet set among the trees and as you walk in you are greeted by a large, high ceiling and very open lobby. On the far wall, large glass windows that go from the floor to the ceiling look over the thickly wooded conservation area. Tables and chairs welcome visitors to sit and relax while they contemplate whether to start their tour on the upper level where the featured artists are or stay on the main level to view the large permanent collection of the Group of Seven.

The gallery also houses beautiful Aboriginal and Inuit art on both levels.

On our way out and back to the parking lot we passed a couple of the sculptures that line the paths throughout the grounds and we stopped briefly at Tom Thomson’s Cabin which had been relocated to Kleinburg. The building originally came from the grounds of the Studio Building in Rosedale, Toronto where the Group of Seven worked from. Tom Thomson couldn’t afford the rent in the main building so he rented the refurbished workmen’s shed for $1.00 a month.