Behind The Eight Ball

Sorry it took so long to do a blog posting, been a bit busy.  First thing first, I am so happy to say that my mom is doing great after her hip replacement.  She had a followup apt this past week and her doc is very pleased with her progress.  She says she feels better every day and of course that pain in her hip is no longer there.  Yippee!  

It was great to spend some time with one of my school day friends Angie, while I was in Carman.  We have always kept in touch and I think it must be about 35 years that we have been friends.  She took me and her grandson Ashton to Roseisle, Manitoba - a short drive from my mom's place.  I've been there many times but she took me to the back roads and to the Leary Brickyard.  Here's some pics of our adventure.

We first came up on this beauty of an old log house - love how it is nestled into the valley. 

This was a sign that was inside the house

Ashton who is one of Angie's grandsons and a great kid; polite, talkative and just a joy to be around. I thought I'd take the opportunity to take a couple of photographs of him. 

Yippee!

Ashton and Angie

The Leary Brickyard was a small brick factory tucked in the beautiful Pembina Valley. It opened its doors in 1901 and produced 12,000 bricks per day - not bad for a small factory. It was in the perfect spot, using shale from the river bank & water from the river to make the bricks, wood chopped for the kiln and a railroad for shipping the bricks. It closed it's doors for good in 1953. 

The brick house

I so wanted to take some of the tin siding but of

course I left it where it was

From left to right: the smokestack, the bee hive kiln, brick house

and the large storage shed.

This kiln was massive

Inside of the kiln

These next two pic are from the outside of the kiln

The sign just above the kiln entrance 

What a fabulous door!

I sure hope that they restore this piece of history

The fall colours were fading from the trees but we did come across a few spots where there was still some pretty colours.

When you first drive into Roseisle there are some horses in a pasture so of course we had to stop, feed them some fresh grass and take some pics of these beauties!  My mom comes from a family of horse people and we had a couple growing up and I forgot how much I adore these creatures and the smell of them...thanks Angie for bringing back these fond memories from my childhood. 

He was so handsome!

Such soulful eyes

Well hello there

Between visiting my mom in the hospital I managed to photograph some things around her yard and took a few pics of Molly and when Craig and Blitz arrived I had to take some of Blitz as well.  Through all this Molly had an angry looking lump that was removed and an ear infection - you could say that I had put a lot of miles on the rental without ever leaving the province, driving to and from Winkler where mom was and into Winnipeg for Molly.  I am VERY happy to report that the lump that was removed from Molly's neck was benign and I will be removing the sutures in a couple of days.  So glad these two old gals (Mom and Molly) are doing fab. 

Mom's neighbour grows giant pumpkins and here's a bit of 

a closeup of one of them

She had to get a tree removed this year so I thought

the stump made a cool pic...don't forget to count the rings

Mom has a few very colourful old birdhouses 

around her property

One of the final apples that fell from her tree.

Here's Molly with one of the neighbour's giant pumpkin

I'm the Queen (or should I say Princess) of this hay bale.

She's so darn cute!

The Princess in her chariot

A falling leaf caught her eye

My handsome boy

...then he shook his head and a big ole goober 

landed on his cheek.

I guess he thought if Molly could do it so can he

A pretty prairie sunset.

I will try to get another blog posting together tomorrow to share our 4 day adventure to our Southern Home.  Our friends Norma, Debbie and Art should be arriving soon and it will be good to see them again and to catch up since the last time we saw them. 

Talk soon!