Trish is on the mend. Quinn tried to put the crutches in his mouth, all things are normal.

Graeme took Trish into the hospital in Cranbrook on Monday to get her knee fixed. That was a good thing (that Graeme went with her instead of Quinn and I) they didn't get home until after 9:00 at night and Trish was still very groggy from the anesthetic. She looked pretty rough, I have never seen her so pale, it was a bit scary seeing her like that. Apparently the surgery went really well and she has to go back in 2 weeks to have the doctor look at it. When you watch her try and move her leg to a comfortable position you realize how much pain she must be in and how truly uncomfortable she is. She is not a complainer though and says very little about how much it hurts, believe me, she gets that from her Dad.

While they were gone I saw 2 bears cavorting around on the pasture about 300 meters from the house. Trish figures they were last years cubs. They seemed to be getting on quite well with each other and I just loved watching them put their heads down and scooch under a rail fence, amazing. One stood on his/her hind legs and helped herself to something in the bushes and then they wandered up to the neighbors deck to check it out and then headed off, after boxing each others ears. I make sure I am talking loudly to someone whenever I head down the driveway and I went and picked all the apples off of the tree, maybe they will figure out they are gone and take us off their snack route.

Quinn experiencing '"solid" foods

Trish and I have been busy the last few days. We went to Radium Hot Springs and soaked away our troubles for the morning. Quinn really enjoyed the warm water and seemed quite happy to get his face wet and float around on his back. Yesterday we joined in a yogathon to raise money for people that plant trees around the world. Apparently people all over the world were doing "sun salutations" for 108 minutes to raise awareness about world peace and other stuff. The girl that organized it showed a video about this organization that has planted 50 milliion trees around the world, replanting a barren mountain slope in the Phillipines that had been deforested for over a 100 years. They planted 3 species of trees and over 30 other species started growing once the planted trees had taken root, that was a pretty awesome fact. Amazing that seeds could lay dormant for over 100 years and then florish!!

Blue Eyes Squared

We saw a bear hanging about the yard yesterday and when I went down to the bottom of the yard to put the composting in it's spot, the bear had broken the top off the crabapple tree and leaned ]on a branch of the tree with the MacIntosh apples and busted it, to get at those apples. He was a pretty good size, bigger than the 2 we saw on our drive from Yellowknife to Innisfail for the wedding.

Today we made 4 apple pies. The lady next door had given Trish some apples so we made a Dutch topping for one of the pies as she had requested, 2 were ordinary and we made a lattice top for the last one, as they say variety is the spice of life. We picked the potatoes yesterday so have to get them ready for storing today. I helped Trish plant them in May when I was here so it was very nice to be here to help her take them out of the ground. Trish goes in for her surgery tomorrow, so I hope that all goes as planned.

Quinn giving his Mom a kiss

I made it to Windermere by the skin of my teeth. I had left my luggage in Bob's office downtown and he said he would give me a ride to the bus station. Lovely idea, BUT, he got caught in traffic and when we got to the bus station I had to butt in line because the bus was scheduled to leave the moment we got there. The teller phoned and asked if the bus had left yet and the lovely people at Greyhound actually held the bus for me while Bob ran around lugging my truly voluminous luggage around the terminal for me while I got the ticket.

Trish left here at 0500 this morning in order to be at the hospital at 0630 for pre op to fix her Anterior Cruciate Ligament in her knee. When she was in the hospital bed waiting to go into surgery they told her that a machine that was necessary for her surgery wasn't there. They do not have a permanent machine so have to share with other hospitals. It was supposed to be flown in last night, someone went to the airport to get it and it wasn't there. Rather than sit around all day and starve, waiting to fit into the surgery schedule they decided to do her knee on Monday morning. Quinn and I got to know each other, I had so much fun blowing on his feet when I was changing his pants. Trish and Graeme had some time alone together to do some shopping and I had a good practise run for Monday.

Before I left Yellowknife I took Cassidy and Elijah to the store and Elijah chose racing cars on a little track as his treat. He kept me busy putting the track together and changing the tops of his cars. The electical connection did not always work the way it should so it made for a busy afternoon. He asked to take it to his Dad's house, so we dismantled it and packed it up for transportation, someone else can wrestle with it now!!

So I am in Calgary now, headed for Windermere later today. It had snowed in Yellowknife on Saturday so I was looking forward to some warmer weather the further south I got. So, today in Calgary it snowed. I have been accused by my brother and my nephew of bringing the weather with me and I probably did. Hopefully it will be a tad warmer in Windermere, I was counting on a lovely southern fall. Barry said it snowed all day on Sunday in Fort Simpson. He will stay in Simpson until the middle of October and then he will drive out to meet me at our daughter's place in Windermere. I see to have accumulated a lot of luggage in my travels and had to pay extra on the plane and on the bus. ON THE BUS, my goodness they have the whole bottom of the bus to fill up and there wasn't room to squeeze a couple of extra bags on, give me a break. Oh well, the extra baggage on the bus was a lot cheaper than what I had to pay on the plane. Must go and catch my bus now.

I had a simply marvelous September long weekend. I went to Moose Bay with our good friends Janet and George Diveky and thier granddaughter Jackie, on their 35 foot Ericson, YOLA. It is a 25 mile race out on Saturday, we stay over on Sunday and have a grand potluck supper and then on Monday we race back to Yellowknife. Well, let's not talk about the racing, on the way out the winds were very fickle, to put it kindly, and we motored after 5 hours of torture and then started again only to have the wind gods frown on us once more, causing the first leg to be scrubbed. On the way home we started off the day motoring again, although the wind did come up and we were able to tack our way slowly towards YK. When we were 4 miles from home we hit a dearth of wind in the dreaded Dettah wind hole. As it was getting to be late in the day the Captain, very correctly, made the call to take the sails down and surrender and we would have to register a very unsatisfying DNF. AWWWWWWW!!





While we were in Moose Bay we checked out the cranberry situation, took a side trip to Drybones to check out the forest fire and the old Dene settlement, watched Jackie and the birthday boy Julian negotiate a floating bridge and dregded up many wonderful September long weekend memories. I am so glad I was able to go, the only thing that could have made it any better would have been if I could have shared it with Barry. He is just being a busy beaver working as hard as he possibly can in Fort Simpson. I have two weeks until I leave Yellowknife and then I will return to Invermere to be my daughter's legs for a week or so while she gets her knee repaired.