Gratefulness & Alpacas

Gratefulness produces good things. When our neighbours saw Shirley and me trying to take photos of their alpacas from the street, they invited us to come inside the fence so we could get closer to these lovable creatures and get better pictures.

Alpacas are grateful creatures. Here are 13 favorite grateful quotes.
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” -Cicero

Buttercup enjoys the attention. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” –John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Meet Shogun, Buttercup, Rudy and Robbie. “Each day offers us the gift of being a special occasion if we can simply learn that as well as giving, it is blessed to receive with grace and a grateful heart.” –Sarah Ban Breathnach

Shirley pauses taking pictures to feed Rudy.
“When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears.” –Anthony Robbins

“Talent is God given. Be humble.
Fame is man-given. Be grateful.
Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” –John Wooden

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.” –Edward Sandford Martin

“Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone.” –Gertrude Stein

“No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Jesus Christ.” –1 Thessalonians 5:18

"In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy." –Albert Clarke, photographer

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." – William Arthur Ward, author and teacher

One fur face to another...
“Reflect each day on what you have to be thankful for, and you will receive more to be thankful for.” –Chuck Danes


Buttercup thought we said, "turn the other cheek." We just wanted her to turn around. You have no idea how hard we tried to get these four lovable creatures to pose for the perfect photo.
"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily." – Gerald Good

Rudy eating out of Gary's hand. “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.” –Meister Eckhart

We wish to thank Gary and Diane Akey for allowing us to photograph their alpacas.

For more Thursday 13's go here.

Grateful List -April 9, 2010

We are enjoying having taken our Friday Evening Family Tradition to a new level. It means planning ahead earlier in the week in order to have all the elements on hand for the event... but it is so worth the effort. The one element that stands out above all the rest is sharing our Grateful List with each other.

Highlights of the past week for which we are most grateful include:

1. Shirley’s mother. She is like the EverReady Bunny... who just keeps on going. She has difficulty hearing everything, but I've noticed that the closer one gets to 100 some things just don’t work as good as they used to. We just celebrated her 91st birthday this past weekend. Amazing!

2. Safe travels and good roads. We were a day late leaving for Kelowna, due to storms and high winds that shut down the ferry system. But we had great roads and no problems once we could get going. Shirley just reminded me that I had a good sleep while she drove thru the slush and snow between Hope and the old toll booth area.

3. Catching up with old friends. After trying since last summer to golf with Marc Stickle, we finally connected. His father Roland and Marvyn Baker filled out our foursome. We had a great round at Black Mountain Golf Course, which according to Golf Digest was voted the Best New Course in Canada for 2010. It has become my favourite place to golf in Kelowna now.

4. Running with Shelby & Greg. It was great to go for a run with my son and nephew in Kelowna this past week. The Mission Creek Greenway Trail goes for about 20 miles from the Okanagan Lake... however I only ran about 8.5 km.

5. Having the truck back on the road. We let the truck registration and insurance lapse in mid-November when it came up for renewal. Since getting the car and knowing we would be taking it south for a couple of months, we saved five months insurance on the truck. It felt good to get our first load of sand this week, so I can now again make mortar and keep building rock walls.

6. Air Miles. We have a goal to use up our RBC Visa Air Miles this year... so we are starting to focus on how best to do that.

7. Travel Guides are arriving. This week we got our first travel guide... for Newfoundland. Why would we need to go to the other side of Canada to see another island? Hummmmm. I guess because it's there.

8. Our Adventure Book. Inspired by Carl and Elle Frederickson, the couple in the animated movie “Up,” we are making our list of places we want to visit and things we want to do. Our Adventure Book will be a place to consolidate our research as well as store some of the memories after.

9. Lights, power, internet & Satellite TV. There is nothing like losing these services to help you appreciate them and not take them for granted. We had two separate days of outages in the past week.

10. The birds are back. As a friendly robin hopped around on the hillside I was reminded of a quote by Warren Buffett on investing. He said, "If you wait for the robins, spring will be over."

11. Discovering Point Roberts. All the years we have gone back and forth from Tsawwassen on the ferry we have noticed Point Roberts but never gone there. This last week on our way home from Kelowna we had an extra hour to kill, so drove over the border into the USA. I look forward to going back to golf on what is apparently one of the six most unique golf courses in the world.

12. Smell of fresh bread & cookies. I love coming into the house after working outside and smelling fresh baked bread or cookies. Today was a double header... with both cookies and challah (Jewish Sabbath bread.) That is definitely the way to a man’s heart!

13. Fresh flowers. The Cyclamen has been without a doubt the flower of our marriage. I was 16 years old when I purchased my first cyclamen plant and gave it to Shirley for Valentines in Grade 11. In 47 years I cannot count how many times I have bought this potted plant, mostly in red, but sometimes in white or pink. This was the first time we have ever seen this pink model with larger white-edged ruffled petals. It is quite spectacular!

14. Another wonderful sunset. A great beginning of the Sabbath. Shirley captured this shot with the ferry just in the nick of time.

A Family Tradition

Family traditions help to bring families together and create family bonds. This past week we reviewed one of our family traditions and refined it adding a few new details to make the beginning of the Sabbath more special. It was wonderful.

1. Stop regular work one hour before sundown to get ready for this special occasion

2. Take turns picking special music CD’s

3. Light the candles

4. Bring out the white table cloth for the table

5. Wine or special equivalent

6. A bouquet of flowers

7. Crystal, silverware and the best dishes

8. A favourite food... for us we love artichokes when in season

9. Fresh baked bread or pastry

10. Each one share one “grateful moment” from the past week.

Inspired by our daughter Sherilee, we each made a list of a dozen things we were grateful for. Of all the elements in this list, this one provided the most lasting satisfaction. You'll probably not understand this until you do it yourself.

11. Share a spiritual insight or special Bible text.

Shirley shared Revelation 3:20. Jesus said, "Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

This ties into her recent photo study on "Doors & Inspiration in Cartagena" posted March 9, 2010.

12. Have a Sabbath prayer

13. Watch the sunset. When at home we love to watch the sunset from our special bottom deck that overhangs the cliff.

Today there was no visible sunset in the wind storm... but I just happen to have a favorite sunset photo taken a few summers ago.

If you are inspired to make or refine some of your family traditions, there are many resources online.


If you'd like to see more Thursday 13 participants, go here.

Bad Friday

Most of this part of the world calls it "Good Friday." But this year we called today "Bad Friday." It was "Bad" because the ferries were not running today. It was bad because we had lost our power.

We wanted to go to Kelowna to celebrate a couple of birthdays, but storms with high winds shut down the ferry system, leaving many people waiting in long lines, hoping the winds would subside. We at least had the choice of coming home to wait out the storm, in comfort without power.

High winds mean high probability of power outage. The score at the end of the day was BC Hydro "1" Stormy Winds "3". When the winds are so strong they blow over trees, which bring down the power lines. Most days BC Hydro wins... but today the Stormy Winds won.

So we entertained ourselves taking a few pictures of winds that gusted up to 100 mph.

We were amazed how resilient most of the branches were to withstand the pressure of the wind and not break off.

From 600 feet above sea level it is hard to show the depth of these waves using a telephoto lens... but there were lots of whitecaps.

We went for a walk down the hill to check for fallen trees across power lines, and in the midst of the storm Shirley found some beauty in our neighbours driveway.

You can tell I had reached the bottom of the barrel if you saw all the photos I took in my office of raindrops on the window. Since I couldn't use my computer very much, it was a really horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.

I had saved a little battery so I could check emails before going to bed. It was after 10 PM when the power finally came back on. Equilibrium had been restored to our part of the world.

My Friday Gratefulness List

My daughter Sherilee has been such an inspiration to me. Every Friday evening she faithfully posts her Gratefulness list on her blog; may her tribe increase. This is my first posting of many such reflections of thankfulness.

Tonight as we reflect on the events of the past week, I am grateful...

1. For Shirley’s hugs. It is not uncommon to stop several times a day and say, “I need a hug...” and share kind words and kisses.

For the most wonderful children. I am so grateful for their openness and constantly keeping in touch with us. It is not uncommon for Sherilee to call once a day... some days more... and some days not at all... but many emails go back and forth between us in a week. She has been a real help for me in problem solving with blogging.

3. For Shelby. Happy Birthday son, on your 43rd birthday. You are a good son, a good husband and a great father. What an inspiration and positive leader you are.


4. For our grandchildren. They are such a joy to be with and have such potential for a promising future.

5. For ferries that we too often take for granted, until a stormy day shuts them down.

6. For a kind salesman at Campus Infiniti. When we had our car serviced, this salesman came over to visit as we were looking at the new cars on the lot. He offered to help us with some of our questions about the features... like how to connect the I-pod... and he gave us the right cord to hook it up.

7. For my new computer system. We could walk over to Future Shop while the car was being serviced and I finally made the decision to go back to a desktop computer for stock trading. Bought an HP Pavilion Elite with 8 processors and two 24-inch monitors... sweet!

8. For the joy of rock work. I look at it as solving a rock puzzle where I have to find the best piece to fit into the wall. This was a very productive week in the “Sunken Garden wall.”

9. For good walks and runs. I went for an 11.5 km run this week and had absolutely no pain. The time off from running these past two months was good for me.

10. For good food. It seems like since we are home from our holiday it is easier to be happier with eating less. Something about cruise ships makes that harder!

11. For spring flowers. One sunny morning we decided to take our cameras with us to the village when we ran some errands. The daffodils were out in all their splendour... but we couldn’t get it all done before lunch. Between us we took about 700 photos.

12. For my new Nikon D-300s. Another learning curve, but I really want to master this camera. It has so many features... it’s like our car. Our equipment is way smarter than we are.

13. For the alpacas. As we stopped on the road this week to shoot some photos of our neighbour’s pets, they came over and invited us to come inside the fence to get some better shots. What a delightful session we had capturing these fun and furry creatures. It was our first experience with these animals.

Spring Fever... Love It!

As the sun warmed the morning, we felt a need to let our cameras have a little fun. So many wonderful photos waiting to be captured, so little time. Work will have wait. Shirley and I took over 700 shots of spring on Mayne Island. Three hours later, here are 13 pics with 13 verses.

At the Japanese Garden

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
~Robert Frost

Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;
To-day the glint of green is there;
Tomorrow will be leaflets spare;
I know no thing so wondrous fair,
No miracle so strangely rare.
I wonder what will next be there!
~L.H. Bailey

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. ~William Shakespeare

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!" ~Robin Williams

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

In springtime, love is carried on the breeze. Watch out for flying passion or kisses whizzing by your head. ~Terri Guillemets

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase. ~E.B. White, "Hot Weather," One Man's Meat, 1944

First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus -
Crocus. ~Lilja Rogers

The gem of the day was not a crocus... but a tulip. Great photo, Shirley!