A Return Visit To The Old Stone ‘Butter Church’

Yesterday afternoon as Paulette, Molly, Rylie and I were walking back along the Cowichan Estuary trail, Paulette looked off to the right and said “hey, isn’t that the old Butter Church?”  Sure enough, it was.  Normally, it’s not visible from the trail but with most of the leaves off the trees now it was clear as a bell.

The Butter Church as seen from the Cowichan River Estuary Trail

Paulette had never visited this old landmark and wanted to take a look up close.  I was game for that as my first, and only, visit to the old ‘Butter Church’ was back in September, 2009 when I wrote a blog about my visit.  The official name of this church is simply ‘The Stone Church’ but it is more commonly called the Butter Church as the priest who built it, Father Rondeault, paid his helpers with funds raised from the sale of butter from his dairy herd on the church farm.

Front of the Stone Church built in 1870

Father Peter Rondeault was a 33-year-old Quebecois who arrived in Fort Victoria in June 1858 and later set out for Cowichan with just a sack of flour, a gun and his breviary. After hiking to Brentwood Bay he paddled a canoe to Comiaken where, in the words of Father Joseph J. Cyr, nothing awaited him: “no house, no furniture, no church, and often no food.”

Back in the 1800’s, the Cowichan Indians were considered a rather murderous lot.  History tells of many skirmishes both with other natives and white settlers so Father Rondeault’s mission was not taken without great personal risk.  He was apparently a friendly fellow and quickly made friends with Chief John Baptiste.  Before long, the hard working priest had built a house, cleared the land and established a grist mill and a small farm as well as building a small log church.

Although graffiti covers the walls, it’s not in bad shape for its age

The Stone Church was built in 1870 by Fr. Rondeault, with native helpers who quarried the large blocks of limestone right from Comiaken Hill.  The limestone blocks were broken with the aid of a cast iron canon ball that had been fired at the Indians by the British in one of many previous dust-ups.  Again, the native helpers were paid with the proceeds of butter sold by Father Rondeault.

The roof beams and timbers still seem good

When it was built, the Butter Church had ornate doors and beautiful stained glass windows – but, no pews.  It was traditional for the local natives to sit on straw mats on the floor.  To his complete dismay, Father Rondeault’s church was only used for ten years as the Catholic diocese, led by Bishop Demers, ordered a new church built on land with a clear title. The verbal agreement authorizing the construction of the church on Indian land was not sufficient for the bishop.

View of the Cowichan River Estuary and Bay from the Church

The new church, St. Ann’s, was built just down the road in 1880.  It was made of wood, consecrated in 1880 and burned to the ground in 1900. They rebuilt St. Ann's and it is largely as it was then today. The Stone Church, meanwhile, survived but fell into disrepair. Later, the doors and and stain glass windows were removed and installed in St. Paul's Church on Saltspring Island.

The Butter Church has had a very rich history since its creation on the Comiaken Indian Reserve.

“Over the years I have heard the whispers about the Butter Church that have given it the Spiritual respect that it deserves. Night time visits to the Butter Church on dark cloudy nights have echoed stories of strange sounds, eerie feelings, cold spots, and feelings of being watched, and even still to this very day, those stories of unexplained and supernatural occurrences at the Old Stone Church continue to echo in new voices.” Cowichan Artist Joe Jack.

Was I cursed by the Spirits of the Butter Church?  Maybe….

On our way back down to the car, I had just finished saying to Paulette “watch out for these stones, they’re wet and slippery” when ka-boom – I slipped!  After I hit the deck and it was apparent I had once again escaped any broken bones, Paulette added insult to injury by grabbing my camera and insisting I lay on the wet stones so she could capture the above photo for my blog.  Paulette still thinks I’m trying to smash my camera but not doing a very good job of it.

Have a great Friday, and thanks again for visiting!

A Free Download – Customizable Photo Calendar

Here's a little Christmas Stocking Stuffer idea for members of your family or maybe even close friends.  It’s a 2013 Photo Calendar that allows you to insert your own RV travel photos showing where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to this year.  This is especially good for kids who never read our blogs!  Below is an example of the format of the calendar showing January, 2013.

2013 Photo Calendar format

Downloading this calendar in MS Word format should be easy (I hope) but I’m doing this kind of late this evening as Paulette’s Sorority Ladies just left – after 10pm.  Anyway, I did a real quick test and it seemed o.k. but no rock solid guarantees from me this time.  Just follow the steps below by first clicking anywhere on the calendar on the left.  In the new window (see image on right), click the Download button as indicated.

Click on Calendar (Left) and in new window ‘Download’ as shown

When you click download, the screen below will open up and it will probably have the PDF circle checked.  Click DOCX instead and the blue bar will change from PDF to DOCX.  Click to download the file.

Once the calendar file has been downloaded, you can open it in MS Word.  If you don’t have MS Word on your computer then perhaps you could try Open Office or even Google Docs as both of those free utilities should be able to open this file.  You will be able to change the photos and add text (i.e. Birthdays, Anniversaries, Holidays and Special Events) to any of the Date boxes.  The photos you insert should have a height measurement no more than 4.1”.

To replace an existing Calendar photo with one of your own, open the Calendar in MS Word and follow these steps:

1. Click on existing photo and hit ‘Delete’
2. On the Word Toolbar click Insert > Picture
3. Navigate to the Folder where your photo is stored
4. Double-click your new photo to insert it in the Calendar
5. Right-click the new photo and in the Pop-up click ‘Size’
6. Set ‘Height’ to a maximum 4.1” and click ‘Close

Wetland Conservation Area at the Cowichan River Estuary

Other than messing around with Photo Calendars and getting ready for the big Sorority Meeting last night it was a fairly quiet day.  I think that was our last social event scheduled for home prior to the family mob arriving for Christmas.  So, we’ve got a little over 3 weeks to relax – the calm before the storm.

We’re in for a few days of heavy rain according to the weather guessers but we did manage to squeeze in a walk Wednesday afternoon.  It was drizzling a bit so we just headed for the Mill Bay Nature Park so we could at least get cover from the huge Douglas Fir trees stretching out over the trail.

Have a great Thursday, and thanks again for visiting!

Booked On The MV Coho & A Garbage Verdict

As the end of November approaches fast we are getting ready for at least 2 big events – Christmas and, right after that, our departure for Palm Springs.  Christmas will happen by itself as it always does, but I took one action today to guarantee we will be able to get off of Vancouver Island on our planned date of December 29th.  I made a reservation on the MV Coho Ferry to take us to Port Angeles.

Today’s photos were taken Tuesday at Cobble Hill Quarry Lake

So, with our reservation in hand we only have to show up at the ferry terminal in downtown Victoria about 90 minutes before the sailing time of 10:30am.  Then it’s a 90 minute ferry ride to Port Angeles, hopefully get through Customs without any delays or problems and we’ll be on our way to our first night’s stop at the Midway RV Park in beautiful, downtown Centralia, WA.  But, that’s a month away!

Back here at home, there’s another big event happening Wednesday night to close out November.  It’s Paulette’s turn to host her Sorority meeting and as I mentioned a few days ago the cleaning frenzy continues.  I’ve been trying to stay out of the way so as not to get caught up in the whirlwind but I couldn’t escape yesterday.

It was noted that our driveway was kind of a mess what with leaves, pine needles and stuff being blown across it during last week’s big storm.  That was my cue to ‘volunteer’ to power wash it before our guests arrived to see our leaf covered driveway.  Oh, the shame of it!   My power washer, however, was buried deep in the back of the garden shed behind all the lawn furniture.  Why not?  Who in their right mind would want to power wash a driveway in late November?

I don’t own a leaf blower as most of the trees nearby are evergreens so there’s not much need for one.  What I ended up using was an old steel bristle broom to sweep the entire driveway.  What a job.  it was pretty much like shoveling snow.  That’s pretty much how I spent my morning.  I hope the Sorority ladies are impressed. In the afternoon, we went for a pleasant hike around Quarry Lake.

A slide show showing 21 of my dozens of Bald Eagle photos

A group opposed to the idea of our local government taking over the job of collecting trash and recyclables failed to get the required signatures necessary to force a district wide referendum.  They had until November 24th to sign-up 10% of eligible voters but only got 5%.  This means that contracts with private contractors will not be renewed and instead garbage collection will be handled by the CVRD local government.

I wrote about this garbage collection fight in my November 24th blog and there was quite a bit of feedback about it. One comment, in particular, stuck in my mind and it was from a reader who is a local resident.  It read in part: “then we have to employ more government workers with good pay, benefit packages and pensions.”

While I certainly respect the right of anyone to hold and express such an opinion, it is probably the worst argument to use with me.  I’m glad to see more “workers with good pay, benefit packages and pensions.”  I’m tired of reading about ultra-rich business owners with their huge mansions, luxurious yachts and exotic cars while they pay their workers minimum wage and no benefits.

Have a great Wednesday, and thanks again for visiting!

Up Close With A Young Bald Eagle On The Estuary

We had the good fortune yesterday to get within 25 ft. of a young, beautiful and apparently healthy Bald Eagle while going for a walk along the Cowichan River Estuary Trail.  The Bald Eagle was sitting in a fir tree, only 25 ft. above us, right at the extreme end of the trail where the Cowichan River flowed into the bay.

This is the closest either Paulette or I have been to a Bald Eagle

It was kind of amazing as our presence, including Molly and Rylie, didn’t seem to faze the Eagle one bit.  At one point Rylie started barking at a log in the water (bad log!) and even then the Eagle didn’t flinch.  We were able to walk right to the base of the tree, point the camera up, and snap away.

The Eagle seemed to be looking directly at us unconcerned

Paulette and I couldn’t believe it.  We must have spent a good 30 minutes taking photos and just watching this majestic bird.  At one point Paulette even tried talking to the bird (how do you talk to an Eagle?) and it looked directly at the both of us but still just moved its head and wings a touch but seemed completely unperturbed.

When we first arrived at the Estuary, a group was just leaving and told us about the “Bald Eagle in the tree down at the end of the trail”.  Of course, we figured it was just our luck to have missed it never thinking there was any chance the Eagle would still be there by the time we walked the one mile to the trail’s end.

Our first view of the Bald Eagle from a few hundred yards

But, as we turned the last bend on the pathway, we looked up and sure enough, there was the Bald Eagle still calmly sitting in the tree just a few hundred yards away.  I took the above telephoto shot thinking for sure it would fly away as we got closer but it just stayed in the tree calm as could be.  It was our lucky day!

Molly and Rylie meeting up with friends on the trail

Just entering the Estuary Trail, we met a group of hikers with 5 or 6 small dogs so that got things off to a good start for Molly and Rylie.  These were the folks who told us about the Eagle down by the water.  It was sure a nice way to spend another sunny afternoon.  I think we have one more coming before the rains are forecast to return.

Not long after we got home from the Estuary I received an email from Elaine (E & R Travels) asking about a photo problem she was having with her blog.

Google was telling Elaine she had used up her 1GB allotment of free storage and would not be able to post more photos unless she paid for more GB’s.

Right away, I thought this was odd because Elaine is a member of Google+ and that comes with unlimited photo storage for all photos less than 2048 pixels at the widest measurement.  I also knew that Google crunches down the size of photos uploaded at more than 2048 pixels to the 2048 maximum.  So, what gives?

The nasty message from Google

A bit of checking revealed a little ‘catch-22’ that may be of help to others who happen to run across this problem.  A lot of folks want to post photos larger than 2048 pixels in width just to maintain the original resolution so they can produce large prints.  I emailed Elaine back and asked her what size photos she was uploading.  It turns out Elaine was loading her photos direct from her camera at 4320x3240.

This is what Google Storage costs without a Google+ membership

Somehow, the GoogleMeister keeps track of these oversized photos and after you’ve uploaded 1GB of these they will no longer resize them automatically and therefore you are check-mated.  This was news to me and the explanations for this were anything but crystal clear but that is in fact what was happening with Elaine’s photos.

Free photo storage is reason enough for most to join Google+

A mere human cannot argue with the Google Gods, so the solution for Elaine was to simply re-size all future blog photos to less than 2048px (i.e. 1600 x 1200) and that would ensure that she would get unlimited photo storage on G+.  Happy to say that worked and Elaine is now able to post photos to her blog again.

Have a great Tuesday, and thanks again for visiting!

Live Writer Lives On And A Nice, Quiet Sunday

When Microsoft announced Windows 8 and their Surface Tablet back in October it was with a full blast of fanfare and publicity.  At the same time, very quietly, they also released a new 2012 version of Live Writer – a favourite blogging program for so many of us.  The good news is that Microsoft didn’t kill off Live Writer as so many feared.  The bad news is the 2012 version offers no changes other than being upgraded to Windows 8 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Photos in this post are from our Thetis Lake hike on Saturday

I guess I shouldn’t say ‘no changes’ is necessarily bad news as there are a few bloggers who’d be quite happy if nothing ever changed.  Still, it would be nice to see some improvements or enhancements once in a while.  It’s still the best blogging platform on the planet.  The 2012 Live Writer can be downloaded by itself or as a complete update of existing Windows Live Essentials. 

We enjoyed another clear, crisp fall day here on Vancouver Island yesterday.  There was a slight frost early in the morning but a few hours later it was quite warm and sunny.  I spent the morning just catching up on a few odd jobs in between reading the overnight blog postings and emails.  It’s Paulette’s turn to host her Sorority group for a meeting this Wednesday night at our house so the cleaning frenzy has begun in earnest.  I just try and stay out of the way!

That’s Paulette lurking amongst the trees

After lunch, we took Molly and Rylie down to the Cowichan River Estuary to hike the 2 mile trail.  It was just perfect for walking as it was still quite cool but walking briskly made it just right.  There were quite a few folks along the shore of the estuary with binoculars and big lens cameras looking for birds.  We could sure hear the birds but all I saw were seagulls, swans, ducks and Canada Geese.  I guess you have to know what you’re looking for – a bird’s a bird to me!

For dinner Sunday, we finished off the last of our Thanksgiving Turkey – that’s our Canadian Thanksgiving way back in October.  Paulette had put quite a bit in different freezer packs as it was only the 2 of us here on Thanksgiving.  The turkey dinner last night tasted every bit as good as the original.  Not surprisingly, no pie had a chance to ever make it to the freezer!

Have a great Monday, and thanks again for visiting.

iPad Speech Recognition For Comments, Email Etc.

Just yesterday while playing around with the onscreen keyboard on my new iPad, I noticed a small microphone icon so I thought I’d check it out.  When I clicked on it, the mic lit up and began to flash, so I spoke a few words and clicked it again.  Some dots appeared in the comment box and in just a few seconds the words I spoke into the mic were converted perfectly into text on the display – amazing!

This video is shaky as I was holding my iPhone in one hand

Excited about this find, I quickly turned to other text entry screens like Gmail and Blogger comments and found the same thing – I can simply speak using the mic and my words are translated into text with an amazing degree of speed and accuracy.  The more I use and explore the capabilities of the iPad the more impressed I am with its versatility and unique ability to make mundane tasks simple and fun.

The message the iPad system converted from voice to text

Whenever the microphone is visible, voice recognition is available

This voice recognition on the iPad can be used for composing emails as well.  I composed a few in Gmail and was amazed at how accurate this system is.  Next, I opened up a new post in Blogsy and once again it was the same thing – extremely accurate. 

Just speak the punctuation and comments, iPad does the rest

To use voice recognition on the iPad you must be connected to the Internet either with WiFi or Cellular.  This is because the software that does the actual conversion is located on a server somewhere off in cyberland.  It’s incredibly fast though.  If you have an iPad 3 or higher and haven’t tried voice recognition, then give it a try the next time you want to leave a comment on a blog – it’s fun!

A picture perfect day for a walk around Thetis Lake Park

In non-computer and iPad news, it was a crisp, cool fall day so we took advantage of it by going for a hike clear around Thetis Lake Saturday afternoon.  A lot of folks with their dogs had the same idea so Molly and Rylie had fun meeting up with ‘friends’ around every bend on the trail.  There were a lot of Labs and Retrievers jumping into the ice cold water to chase sticks and stuff – I still don’t know how they can do that.

Rylie and Molly (Paulette, too) will look but never jump in 

Last night I watched #1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish defeat the USC Trojans 22-13 to finish their season undefeated with a record of 12-0.

This means Notre Dame will remain at #1 in the BCS rankings and are headed for the National Championship game in Miami on January 7, 2013.

A week ago, I mentioned Notre Dame in my blog and usually that’s a sure kiss of death for any sports team I happen to say is having a good year or it’s especially bad if I ever happen to predict a win.  It was a close game for most of the way and a nice way to spend a Saturday evening at home.

Have a great Sunday, and thanks again for visiting!

Canada’s New Black Friday Puts Us In The Red

Of all the great and wonderful things that the U.S. has exported to Canada, I’m sorry to say that Black Friday isn’t one of them.  This is the first year that retail stores have actively promoted Black Friday sales here.  The good news is that Paulette and I took advantage of some very good deals and put a massive dent in our Christmas shopping list.  The bad news is we’ve gone from ‘black to red’!!

Black Friday door openings in Toronto – crazy, crazy people!

Our normal ‘Black Friday’ shopping day here in Canada has always been Boxing Day – the day after Christmas.  Judging by the number of stores that were promoting Black Friday, it looks like Boxing Day will still be #1 in Canada as far as shopping days go.  However, for what we were looking for in gifts for our family, it turned out to be a pretty good deal.  Let’s just say we got all the major items finished!

Future Shop’s sale on iPads netted me a $45 refund!

I even managed to get a $45 rebate on the iPad 4 I bought the other day at Future Shop.  I paid $499 for mine and they were on sale yesterday at Future Shop for $455.  I took my bill in and they gladly refunded me $45 under their 30 day price protection program.  Apple normally doesn’t put iPads on sale so out of curiosity I checked their site and found they did have a sale with a savings of $41.

While at Future Shop I happened to pick up a couple of pretty good deals myself.  One was a 32GB Lexar Flash Drive (V10) for less than half-price at $15. 

Why do I need a 32GB Flash Drive?  Lots of good uses for this but one is it will hold 6 full DVD movies.

The other real bargain was a SanDisk Ultra 16GB Class 10 SDHC Memory Card for just $10 – this card normally sells for around $40. 

Back to Canada’s Black Friday for a minute and the reason why retailers here have decided to give it a go.  The Bank of Montreal (BMO) estimates that Canadians spend as much as $20 billion at American retailers annually. As much as $5 billion of that is in November and December with a good chunk of that being spent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Last year, in Palm Springs on Black Friday, Paulette tried single-handedly to restore the entire U.S. economy!

With the Loonie at or near par with the U.S. dollar and recent significant increases in the amount of goods we are allowed to bring in from the U.S. after just 24 hours, Canadian retailers are anxious to keep as much money here at home as they can.  Hey, I’ve got news for them – after our shopping was done yesterday, it felt like we’d contributed about a billion dollars to the Canadian economy!

Have a great Saturday, and thanks again for visiting!

My U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday & Apple Photo Stuff

Although I didn’t get to have an American Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner this year like we did at the Sands RV Resort in Palm Springs last year, I did celebrate the holiday by taking a day off chores while watching some great NFL games on TV and playing around with my new iPad.  It was cold and wet outside for most of the day so I’d say I had a pretty good holiday even without a Turkey Dinner!

This was our Thanksgiving Dinner at the Sands Resort last year

One of the reasons why I think I’ll always be a confirmed Windows PC user and not an Apple Fanboy (even though I own an iPhone and iPad) is because of Apple’s proprietary ways.  They want to force everyone to do things Apple’s way – like having to use iTunes!  It’s a miserable, pathetic piece of software and is totally confusing to both new and experienced users alike.  Who understands their syncing?

Photo Transfer App allows for easy exchange of photos

Yesterday, while experimenting with photo transfer on my iPad, I was reminded again of how much I don’t like iTunes.  A simple task like transferring photos to or from an iPad to my desktop computer is needlessly difficult.  iTunes is hopeless.  iTunes is to me a symbol of why I’ll never switch to Apple Macs (the very dark side) from Windows PC’s. 

Transferring photos from computer to iPad and clicking upload

I know I could have spent $30 to buy an iPad Connector Kit that allows you to attach your camera or insert an SD Card to transfer photos.  That seemed like too much money and it still wouldn’t really solve the issue of easily and quickly transferring a group of photos from my desktop computer to my iPad or vice-versa.

This brings up a screen on my computer where I select photos

After selecting photos, the upload begins with a progress screen

Luckily, I found a really good app called Photo Transfer App and it’s worth every penny of its $2.99 cost.  This software does exactly what it says it will do:

Photo Transfer App allows you to easily download photos from your iPhone or iPad to your computer as well as exchange photos from and to your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. Transfer photos over WiFi, no cables or extra software required.

While testing this last night, I found it to be simple and incredibly fast too.  I transferred 10 large photos (1600 x 1200) from my computer to my iPad in less than 10 seconds.  This sure beats messing around with iTunes.

Here are the 10 photos showing in my iPad Photos after transfer

The reverse process of transferring photos from my iPad to my computer worked just as easily.  It’s all handled wirelessly with no fuss or muss and no confusion about syncing.  What you see is what you get.  It’s proprietary stuff like iTunes by Apple that has always made me shy away from Mac computers.  That’s one ‘dark side’ of the street I don’t ever see crossing over to.  Apple makes great iPhones and iPads for entertainment and communication though!!

Have a great Friday, and thanks again for visiting!