E T T Y - Q U E T T E

It is the very middle of May, an unseasonably cold and blustery day. From time to time snowflakes and apple blossoms ride tandem on the wind. But a dog must have its walk. So coonhound-named-after-a-central-European-president and I take a short drive to where the woods start, and then march along between forests and fields, trying to enjoy each other's company, even as I wish myself back indoors, and he searches for the most perfect spot to have a leisurely poo. As we get near where the road makes a sharp bend and a footpath emerges from the forest, a man is coming out of the woods and heading for his car, which sits parked at the side of the road. I judge him to be in his late thirties or early forties, and whatever it is about him, whether his average build or his unremarkable attire, he seems exactly the kind of man who would be out in the woods on a day like this walking his dog, So I am not surprised to find that he is in fact preceded by what I take to be a very smal...

We finally decided to paint the old farm house. It had some sort of stucco on it that was rough with little pinkish and beige sharp-edged pebbles I'd always disliked. The stucco had never been painted, and although it probably wasn't as old as the house itself (which was built around 1900), it was definitely old. In the 1970s a one-storey addition was built on, pointing the way further up the drive toward the old bank barn. It too had never been painted and was an unsightly brick.    We had sort of done what we could with the place, put in new windows, added a deck. But we had never considered just painting it. Until now. But what colour? In Ontario all houses, though they are wood-framed, have either a brick or a stone exterior, and they come in every shade of beige or mud brown imaginable. It is a strange thing that even the few houses with stucco or aluminum siding on them are beige or mud brown. In Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, as in many other p...