Why the Chicken Crossed the Vineyard, and Other Weekend Activities
The chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. ― G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World
It's a holiday here today. It's mostly known as "the August long weekend," but it has different names in different provinces. I think it's called "BC Day" here, but whatever it's called, I was grateful for it. It was a good time to have a day off.
It's funny how everything slows down just before a long weekend in the summer. Things at work suddenly got a lot quieter: my phone didn't ring so much, my inbox wasn't filling up, and the office became gradually quieter until Thursday afternoon, when I decided to give myself an extra long weekend and took the Friday off. It's best to take these opportunities while you can...
I've been gloating over my latest vintage find this week: a set of mugs from the 1950's, printed with ads from the 1800's. They're from a company called Ceramique de Beauce Inc., and these pieces are a part of the Abenakis collection. I got them from a local vintage group I joined on Facebook. The hubby had been talking about getting some new mugs at some point, and, lo and behold, these popped up:
I paid $10 for all four - almost the same price as the factory-churned out versions out of Walmart... but way more interesting:
I say, if you're gonna buy a mug, get one with with an ad for a pail factory.
Or a pump factory, for that matter.
And if you're going to get coal, you may as well pick up some groceries while you're there.
Another reason I wanted to take Friday off was to give myself time to get my act together to attend a wedding on Saturday. After a couple of years of running, my toes were in no state for public viewing, and I knew it was going to take me a few tries to make them presentable. I felt like a 5 year old trying nail polish for the first time: it took me three tries to get it looking halfway decent. Fortunately, the venue was far more distracting then my toes were:
This is the wedding that I made my 2Hundert Shawl for a couple of months ago. It was perfect for keeping the cool air off my back as the sun set during dinner time. The dress was from a consignment store here in town, made from knitted cotton. When I saw it, I thought to myself, "I could probably knit that," but I knew that it would be easier if I just bought it and took it home. I would probably never get the fit right:
Yes, that's me taking selfies during a wedding. The hubby thought I was actually taking photos of his shoulder. I blame the champagne and the jelly beans:
On Sunday, I met up with my friends, Linette and Dee, who were visiting from Winnipeg on a last-minute vacation. It was so nice to meet up with them. We had a lovely, relaxing day, driving around the Cowichan Valley, getting lunch at Duncan Garage, and then heading over to the Teafarm to enjoy some tea-infused treats during their monthly Jazzy Tea Sunday event:
Photo from Teafarm's Facebook page
We also stopped off at Unsworth Vineyards, which I knew Dee would love, because not only is it a vineyard, but there are chickens there. Dee has an ambition to hug a chicken. And well, if you're going to have dreams, what better place to have them come true?
They chickens keep the bug population down, and, if you look carefully at the left side of the photo, they like to perch on the lower vines and eat the low-hanging fruit. This concentrates the sugars in the fruit growing higher up. Very helpful chickens, I think.
One of the fellows working there saw us crawling outside the fence, trying to take photos of them, and he said, "If you had breadsticks, they'd love you!"
To which Dee said, "Where do I get breadsticks?!"
And he said, "I'll be right back."
And when he came back, he opened the gate to let us in, and then he dashed away, breadsticks waving, gathering the birds. We were in tears with laughter:
Yeah, we went to a vineyard and hung out with the chickens. A better sentence has never been written:
Of course, we eventually found our way inside and tasted a few samples, which is, ahem, what the rest of the adults were doing. It was a struggle, but we persevered:
Linette and Dee were busy ordering a case when I got distracted by this doggie. I was furtively trying to get him to look at me so I could get a photo. Luckily, Linette's whistling skills are very good... or maybe we still smelled enough like chickens to make us interesting enough to be around:
I drove home thinking how fortunate I was to have such a lovely weekend. Tonight, I finished spinning the last of my merino-silk pencil roving. I slid the cop off the spindle onto a second double pointed needle, and sat and admired it for a while:
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