Joiner's Musings

 Every picture has a story. This was once a bar in a little way point called Charteris which is about 10 minutes north of Shawville Quebec. I have driven by it a hundred times and always thought, what is a little bar doing in the middle of nowhere. It seems it has a story. We stopped by to pick up some pumpkins across the street and the old guy we bought them from just had to tell the story of this little bar. It seems that this guy owned the bar and he had a pretty sketchy background. He provided young women for the locals around the area and I imagine most of the customers were "transient" types. In fact he had a couple of small huts back of the bar which served as areas for the customers to engage in a little fun. Well, he was clearly doing something illegal. The locals, the folks whose ethics did not include prostitution and gambling, decided to run this fellow out of town. They did so by felling some trees on the roof of the bar, late at night, thus scaring...

 We spent a stunning weekend at our summer cottage in Quebec. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The weather was quite something in that it was unusually warm for the year. In fact, on Saturday it must have risen to 24C. The rest of the weekend was T-shirt weather and although I was tempted to go for a swim, some neighbours braved the cold waters, nonetheless. We got in on the Thursday evening and stayed through till Monday morning. Yes, at this time of the year the nights are cold at +1C but we kept very cosy-warm with our wood stove. The first two photos show the lake in the morning mist. The third shows our deck perched nicely above the water. I especially like the shot of our dock in the early morning mist. Taken with an Olympus EPL-5 with 14-42mm lens.

A herd of pumpkins  We were driving along the highway from a shopping trip in the Quebec countryside when we came across a sign that said "Free Pumpkins". Naturally we thought it was a come-on but our curiosity got the better of us and we stopped to inquire. Sure enough they were free. Now, they are missing the top. Not a big deal for us but they are not commercially attractive without the stem. No worries, we were not greedy so we asked for two. We took them back to the cottage and decided to use them as props for our Thanksgiving turkey dinner (with wine and all the trimmings I might add - so, thanks Jim). Happy Face I carved the one you see in the middle photo. I am not the most creative person in the world but I thought - simple is best, and put the knife to the pumpkin. The bottom photo shows it lit up.I was in a happy space - the face of the pumpkin reflected that mood. I hope you enjoy. Comment if you like. Half lit like all of us that evening Olympus...