Photography challenge

by

The Moore Sisters’ Answer to A Photo A Week Challenge: Sisters, Sisters (Siblings)

It is our turn to add two “sisters” photos to the Nancy Merrill Photography  A Photo a Week Challenge: Sisters, Sisters (Siblings).

Below are photos taken 42 years apart of Gayle and her two sisters, Doreen and Barbara. Gayle is the oldest and the one pictured on the left in both photos. They are very close in age. Doreen is 16 months younger than Gayle and Barbara is almost exactly a year younger than Doreen. The three of them haven’t been together for a few years so a recent photo will have to be taken next time that happens – perhaps later this year when they’ll be 72, 71 and 70. Barbara hits the big 7-0 on April 3, 2015.

Moore sisters 1945

The Moore sisters, 1945 – Gayle, 3, Barbara, not yet 1 and Doreen, almost 2.

The Moore sisters, 1987 –  Gayle, 44, Barbara, 42, Doreen, 43.

Moore Sisters 1987

by

Weekly Photo Challenge: Extra, Extra – Smiles Are Worth A Thousand Words

Facetiming with Eva Louise

This week’s WordPress’s Weekly Photo Challenge topic is “extra extra.” Gayle calls her submission:  “Facetiming with Eva Louise.” Instead of regretting the fact that her grandchildren are far away in Norway (we live in British Columbia, Canada), she regularly communicates on her I-pad with her grandchildren via her daughter’s I-phone. What a wonderful invention Facetime is for those of us who have family members that live far away. It is wonderful to be able to communicate with them electronically when you aren’t physically present with one another and also great to be able to watch a young child grow and develop. Our “extra” part of the smiling photo of 10-month-old granddaughter Eva Louise is the little insert at the lower right of grinning Grandma Gayle, slightly desheveled since she was awakened by daughter Gwynne’s call at 1 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. It was 10 a.m. Central European Time so, in contrast, Eva Louise was freshly washed and dressed for the occasion. Thanks to daughter Gwynne’s instructions, Grandma has learned how to snap a photo as she is talking and viewing on Facetime. A great invention!

One Word Photo Challenge: Grey
by

One Word Photo Challenge: Grey

image

Gayle is on a roll with photo challenges. Here is our contribution to Jennifer’s One-Word Photo Challenge. As in the previous blogged photo challenge, Gayle immediately thought of Norway, but this time the very creative encasing of a ruined medieval cathedral in a new steel and glass structure to protect it from the elements. In 2012 she toured the Cathedral in Hamar, Norway guided by her son-in-law Jørgen and accompanied by her then-13-month-old grandson, Gustav Sebastian.

The cathedral was originally built 1152-1200, demolished in 1567 through a siege by a Swedish Army and subsequent fire during the Northern Seven Years’ War and centuries later was enclosed in this modern protective structure designed by architect, Kjell Lund, completed in 1998. Besides being part of the very impressive Hamar Museum on the shores of Lake Mjösa, the structure now provides excellent acoustics for special religious services and for concerts.

Below are a few more photos we took during our tour of the cathedral, including that of a drawing of the cathedral before it was destroyed.

image
image

image

image

image

imageimage

A Norwegian Sheep Enjoying Summer in the Forest – Our Answer to Cee’s Photo Challenge, Nature Animals
by

A Norwegian Sheep Enjoying Summer in the Forest – Our Answer to Cee’s Photo Challenge, Nature Animals

Thanks to Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge -Nature Animals, Gayle is posting her favourite photo taken two summers ago when she was visiting her daughter who lives with her husband and children in Norway in the midst of a mountainous forest surrounded by sheep farms.

image

Gwynne had been telling of the local practice to put sheep out into the forest each summer to give the lambs a start in life, grazing on the lush foliage, enjoying the fresh air and following their mothers as they wandered and lived among the trees. Some of the sheep would be killed by wolves during their wandering time; however, most of them would survive and indeed flourish. All the neighbours would then participate in a roundup in the autumn to gather up the sheep and bring them back to their pens for the winter. The adult sheep could be found by listening for the tinkling sound of the bells around their necks as they moved around. The half grown lambs would stay close to their mothers.

One lovely afternoon Gayle and her daughter Gwynne drove further up into the forest hoping to “hunt” sheep with a camera. Gayle was disappointed that they didn’t see any sheep as they drove along the narrow forest roads, but Gwynne urged her to be patient. Soon she pulled over to the side of the road and told her mother to listen. Gayle and her camera were out in a flash, plunging into the moss-covered ground and following the sound of bells. She soon captured the curious ewe pictured above, peeking out from the green woods, just like a model posing for her first photo op. As soon as the photo was snapped, the ewe disappeared. Gayle figured that would be her one and only glimpse until she heard a steady tinkling of bells and a lot of scrambling sounds. The ewe returned and again posed in a clearing, this time with two sweet lambs in tow. What a fantastic opportunity to fulfill a photo challenge!

image

by

Another Campbeltown Story Inspired by James Collett’s Photography

campbeltown-from-beinn-ghuilean-pano-bw-wm-web

Thanks again to Photographer James Collett for this terrific picture of Ian’s hometown as seen from Ben Guillion, the mountain pictured in our previous post. We have made the following comments on James Collett’s Photography page where we found this photo:

“Another beautiful view of my hometown, Campbeltown, from Beinn Ghuilean (Ben Guillion mountain). I have a story in my memoir “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada” which takes place after World War II when I, as a boy, “salvaged” a machine gun from the wreck of an aircraft on Ben Guillion and lugged it to a hiding place in the middle of some whin bushes, much like those shown on this picture. I never was able to find it again (probably just as well.) Here’s the story which happened around 1946:

I think I was about twelve when the following happened. Just to the south of the town, and bordering on it, is Ben Ghuilean (the Gaelic spelling; normally now it is referred to as Ben Gullion. The word “Ben” in Scot’s English means “mountain.”) This is a reasonably-sized mountain. I have already referred to a small airfield five miles from town. This airfield was still used after the war to some extent for training Royal Air Force pilots. One foggy day a two-seater aircraft plunged into the side of that mountain, killing both airmen.

It was quite a climb to the crash site and, needless to say, there were lots of (morbid-minded) townsfolk who just had to make the climb, though they would never have considered doing so at any other time. Apart from the strenuous effort, it was well known that there were adders on the mountain. (Adders are a type of viper, a little over two feet long. The bite of this snake, while it wouldn’t kill you, would make you very ill for some time.) This thought didn’t bother us brave (or stupid) lads, as we spent quite a lot of time on various faces of the mountain. (I had killed an adder some time before and preserved it in alcohol in a glass jar to keep in the house. No one objected at first, but later I had to keep it where we kept our coal.)

No one was allowed anywhere near the crash site until the bodies of the two airmen were removed. People were collecting bits of this and bits of that—stuff that probably went into the rubbish bin (garbage) a few weeks down the road after they had lost interest in the incident. Not so with “yours truly.” I noticed that there were two machine guns, one on each wing, and I set about removing one. What did I want a machine gun for? Maybe I was going to take it to class for “show and tell.” Na, we didn’t have that silly exercise in those days. I really had no idea why I was taking it. I guess it is what the modern kids would call “cool.”

Anyway, I struggled with it for ages and finally got it free. Even today, I still marvel at the fact that I got a machine gun from an aircraft without having a spanner (wrench) or even a pry-bar. I carried the heavy thing down the mountainside on my shoulder to the foothills, where I hid it by throwing it into the middle of some “whin bushes” (furze or gorse). These bushes were evergreen, covered all over with long, sharp dark green needles, standing three or four feet high and at least that across, with nice yellow flowers. (They grow wild in Scotland, but I don’t believe they grow in North America, unless maybe on the east coast.)

I hid the gun because it was still daylight and I didn’t want anyone to see me walking into town with a machine gun over my shoulder. Besides, I had to walk past the police station! I would probably have been arrested (or worse still, maybe even talked about). So, what did I do when it was time to retrieve it? Well, I got hold of some old potato sacks (gunnysacks), my friend Ian McKenzie and his four-wheeled cart, and the two of us headed back up to where I had hidden the gun.

What do you know? It wasn’t there! Did I have the correct bush? “Look over there …. No … try this one … .” There were lots of clumps of bushes. We just about went crazy! I was quite sure that I had taken note of where I had hidden it so that I would find it again. It should still have been there. Well, the two of us searched for ages, all around where I thought it should be, but with no luck. Since the bush was very prickly, I had to get flat on my belly, as low as possible to try to avoid the needles and crawl into the bushes at every place I thought the gun might be. It was awful! We got all scratched and thoroughly disgusted before we decided that it wasn’t there. Remember that during this “carry-on” we little boys were wearing short trousers that came only to our knees.

What I finally figured was that someone had seen me hide the gun and, after I had gone, removed it and took it to the proper authorities. Either that, or I had got really screwed up and there is still a machine gun hidden among some bushes for future archaeologists to find a long time down the road. Anyway, it was a very stupid thing to do and I don’t know what my mother would have said if I had walked into the house carrying a great big machine gun. One thing’s for sure—I would have got a thick ear!

Quoted from “From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada” by Ian Moore-Morrans, copyright © 2012. Friesen Press.