Ice Fishing In Merritt

On January 18th I attended an ice fishing derby on Mamette Lake just north of Merritt, B.C.
The morning started off very cold and dreary but not too surprisingly ( for Merritt ) the sun came blazing up over the tree line at 10:25 a.m.
Overall I would say there were over 300 people in attendance- lots of families with young kids as well as the usual suspects, and around 30 fish were logged in as contenders for the prizes. Nice prizes too, from hand crafted knives to an auger ( to drill holes through lake ice for the purpose of- naturally- ice fishing! ). There was money to be won for largest fish as well, and also a 50/50 draw which netted the winner over 300 dollars- nice.
Free hot drinks and prizes for the kids too.



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It was a bit freaky for a first timer like me- walking on an iced-over lake. This just doesn't happen where I grew up on the coast but here it is evidently common to drive your 1 ton truck loaded with gear into the middle of it to get a good location to drill your hole and drop your line into the cold water. There were about 100 trucks and 100 cars on the lake!
I had to get used to the sounds of cracking ice as well...I should mention that this is not a deep lake and the ice was ( I believe ) 15 inches at some points. ( I parked on the shore all the same! )



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It was quite fun and impressive to see children bringing in large trout and coarse fish like suckers. It seems with ice fishing chances are a lot better to catch a good fish ( or any at all ) since there is no casting involved nor the need for a boat. Of course you need an auger! I took loads of photos of people with their winning fish and hope to make them available through my web site for those people who are interested in getting them as well as for an article my husband is writing for the paper.

On that note I should mention that I'm entering some photos and art into our local art exhibition at the end of the month and today will finish with the framing. It's nice to finally see some of my best stuff printed out and ready to hang on the wall! I will post pictures of this later on.

On a different subject I want to share what I got for Christmas from my sister: the series Deep Space 9 seasons 1-7 on DVD ( a phenomenal gift in itself that is going to cost me dearly next Christmas! lol ) and as an amazing bonus, she off-loaded almost her entire VHS collection on me which I pounced on! She is moving house and had been collecting for 2 decades but now only buys DVDs so wanted to give her collection to a good home- ME!!! I have never bought a VHS cassette in my life- all the ones I ever had were gifts so you can imagine what a huge bonus this in itself was!



I also want to share a picture I took on the last day of 2008: the planet Venus in line with the moon which was taken with a tripod and my little Olympus camera:



as well as Rekar, a Romulan who I was interested in drawing ( from a u-tube screen cap ). Yes, I obviously still enjoy drawing the aliens! Hope everyone is doing as well as I feel these days!

Tattoo and the Tulameen

I watched another artist recently; a tattoo artist applied his skills to my sister's arm and she's now proudly sporting a gigantic leafy haired woman's head on her right shoulder.
Quite a pretty job the artist did:


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I'm drawing more and more myself as well- trying not to let anything stop the roll I'm currently on...I've moved away from Trek-land for a bit and am working on the Lost Crew...I'm giving 'cross-hatching' a fair try!


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And finally, yesterday being such a stellar day albeit a cold one, we decided to do a little road trip out to Princeton- about an hour south east of Merritt. Surprisingly Princeton seems to be about the same size as Merritt; I always thought it was considerably smaller.
We also headed out to the ghost town of Coalmont which hasn't changed much in the last hundred years I imagine.
The very first road trip I ever took in my own car was to Princeton and Coalmont with the intention of getting out to Tulameen as well although I never went that far back then- I was a new driver and it was snowing horribly...
Anyway, there is virtually nothing left of the ghost town of Tulameen- it appears to exist as a retirement community for people who obviously have money to spend on nice log houses in the back of beyond. It was a very scenic drive and probably the last decent one till spring- it's getting cold these days.


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Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving...and Christmas if I don't write till the new year! lol

On Drawing, Television and the Coquihalla

On September 27th the Coquihalla toll booth workers were told to go home- their job was done. After 20 years the toll has ended and the booths are being torn down. Quite a historic day! Evidently all the money brought in paid for the cost of the Coquihalla Highway and the government decided to take advantage of the election fever/interest to make themselves look generous! lolThis is a link to the highway web cam which must still be up.
I had driven out last week to visit my sister and remember rummaging in my purse for 10 dollars before I remembered that it's free now! I pulled along side the highway to take a few photos of Merritt in the early morning light:


This is a LARGE version of the panorama at my art account


Also, I should mention a bit about my husband's hunting/fishing successes: He's brought home 4 grouse and 6 ducks recently and 2 days ago 3 beautiful fish- one of them was over a foot and a half in length which shocked me; I didn't think they got that big in Nicola Lake!


Of course It's bigger here!

I mentioned in my last post that I'm drawing again, mostly celebrity portraits. I've actually drawn more pictures in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 2 years...I was discouraged for the longest time whenever I tried to do a portrait but thank God that's changed. Also, for the longest time I did not watch cable t.v. Like, nearly a decade till last year. I got kind of hooked on first Law and Order and then CSI. I'm sure a lot of people think "oh those are crap shows!" and I would have to agree that some of the episodes are crappy but I don't watch shows like that to pick apart the plot- I watch them to be entertained. Nowadays it's the Star Trek shows, documentaries, still some of the crime dramas, and also the idiotically funny kitchen shows ( Gordon Ramsey Rocks! ). Gord's Home Page where I'm certain he's not quite as psychotic! What I can't stand are the so called 'reality shows'. There is this plethora of useless people ( and I say useless because they obviously have nothing better to do than sit in a room with a bunch of other useless people ) being filmed in meaningless situations...but of course there are exceptions! Mantracker is pure entertainment- a very competent outdoors man stalks his human targets who get a head start and 36 hours to make it to the finish line before Mantracker catches him- or her!
The only show I would say that I truly hate is Family Guy- it's disgusting the things that it condones and makes me cringe when I think that kids watch it. But I'm babbling now! I wanted to post some of the portraits I finished recently:



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This is "Q" from Star Trek: Next Generation.


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This is Doctor Beverley Crusher from Star Trek: Next Generation.


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This is Patrick Stewart who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: Next Generation.


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For anyone interested, here are some of the preliminary steps for the Patrick Stewart picture. :)