While various cultural hooptedoodles take place inside, Pete roto-tills the garden in an early October snowstorm.

The cafe is in darkness for the Third Annual Wilno Film & Video Festival. We premiered new videos by Edwin Echavarry,Adam Thompson and Andrew Brose as well as old favorites.

Gwen Woermke and a group of ladies gather for lunch and a few songs from the olden days.

Dee Dee Sanderson and the launch of her first book "If Heaven Can Wait: Finding Grace through Alzheimers....a memoir of life with her granny.

In the kitchen at Red Canoe Cafe

Tom and Jay behind the scenes at one of our events this year

Some of the creative people in our community.

Philosopher Stan and the Wilno thinkers.

The topic "Creative Space" was obviously of great interest to this community, as most of us live here because we are committed to some sort of creative endeavors. The group contemplated the signifigance of environment on the creative impulse...many interesting and different opinions..no final consensus but general agreement on the beneficial influence of nature, diversity, community support, tradition and discipline.

Philosopher's Cafe

On Sunday, Nov 12, we hosted another Philosopher's Cafe. Titled "Creative Space" the afternoon's discussion ranged far and wide, punctuated by musical interludes from Honest Frankie, Rev Ken and Natsuko. The black and white photos on the wall behind are from Barney McCaffrey's exhibition Film...Noir et Blanc.

a lively weekend

The snow is falling and the members of the Wilno Heritage Society are having a lively debate about all things Kashubian. Stan from Gdansk (Lesno) actually is telling us about his guesthouse in Kashuby...we will go there someday to visit. A great weekend here...we had the British Invasion...a band from southern Ontario staying here for two nights...they are playing at the tavern tonight...and tomorrow we have philosopher's cafe and so philosopher Stan and his wife are also here, as is Beatrix and her son so we are packed to the brim in this dull month.

First day of hunting season

Gray branches rattle

on a cold wintery morning.

Icy rains falling on dry dying grass.

Men dressed in orange

in mud-spattered pickups.

They're carrying shotguns.

They're carrying flasks.

They've come to drink whisky.

They've come to shoot deer.

Dealing cards by the fire

where wet socks hang steaming.

The fire needs feeding

The stew still needs stirring.

The socks still need drying.

The branches still rattle

And the bottle's still good.

That fire they're feeding

In their sock feet they're dealing

and pouring out whisky

while the fire still roars

By that great roaring fire

They're drinking and swearing

bare branches still rattle

on a cold wintery morning.

with snow pellets falling

they'll wake and shoot deer.

Neighbour Pete in hunting gear

hockey and the Geminis

This morning Mike came over to our house for coffee and we sat around for a while gossiping about Wilno life in general and various village renovations projects in particular. Rumour has it that the Craft Gallery may be going up for sale shortly...even in a small place like this, change inevitably occurs. We've just gotten used to Lillian being gone! A quiet day in the village. A couple of lads in for take out and a few desultory shoppers. Finished cleaning the pantry shelves, rearranged the gift shop to allow for Father Christmas and the Nutcrackers and set up some better spotlighting. It's a grey day outside. One can see the beginning of hunting season with the appearance of old truck campers heading into the hills. Mother said that Benji shot a deer with his bow but they can't find it. A good night to go home early and watch the Sens take on Carolina. First time Martin Gerber will play against his old team. Living here in the valley means that one begins to look for activities to amuse one during the long dull winter days. Hockey was our passion when we were children...so why not regain an interest in that most Canadian of pastimes. And to think...the Geminis are on tv tonight also. Will it be Corner Gas, Red Green or the Air Farce which walks off with all the accolades? Such a bucolic nation! Perhaps Gordon Lightfoot will hand out a statuette...or even Ann Murray. Too bad Lorne Greene is no longer with us. Oh yes, and the great rivallry for newscaster of the year.....Count Floyd, or Peter Mansbridge or Kevin Newman or Guy Caballero.

Two of our lovely, cheerful, enthusiastic and very competent servers with heaping plates for our "Vittles and Fiddles" summer dinners.

Our inn in mid-summer. I like to think of it as being this bright and green and blue all year round but of course, that's fantasy!

log-house moving day in Wilno

This morning's weather is typically November...some sun, some cloud, some cold snow flurries, a bit of rain, a lot of wind and in the midst of it all, the old Burchat homestead securely mounted on the old grey Valley Cottage Moving truck sailed majestically down the very steep hill into the village. A stationary log truck winch at the top of the hill was attached to the rear of the house, to hold it back in case of brake failure or some other sort of fiasco...which would have resulted in a heap of very old splinters in the valley. By the time the house...log walls and tin roof and all...reached Hwy 60, pretty much everyone in the village was out with cameras and video equipment and all work on the general store porch roof came to a dead halt. I rushed out with my video camera and got some good footage of them coming around the Stoppa Lake Parkway and on to the new house site. Some interesting maneuvering to get the building backed into a fairly narrow laneway and the added complications of overhead hydro wires and all that sort of thing. But the able men of Wilno did their usual best and when we drove home tonight, the house was sitting high and dry on its temporary foundation.

We had barely arrived at the cafe (via our own back road) when a contingent of local press and heritage society movers and shakers arrived hoping for hot coffee and muffins. Fed them a rich streusel coffee cake and also coffee for Pete, Henning and Ritsuko who had also been out watching the truck. That was it for the day's excitement. Spent the rest of the day cleaning out shelves in the kitchen, looking for paperwork for our liquour licence renewal and made a lovely apple crisp for dessert.

We were home early in our little Wilno hideaway, had a lovely supper of tarragon chicken stew and mashed potatoes and plan to do little or nothing on this chilly night. I see the temperature in Malaga is 27 today. Four years ago this day, we were in Spain for the first time...driving from Toledo to the Costa Blanca and our fabulous hilltop villa Alta Punta.