Ottawa and Easton's Corners

I’m recently back in Iqaluit again after a lovely, but far too short Ontario visit. The main reason that I headed south was to attend the Federation of Law Societies Criminal Law Program in Ottawa.  Increasingly, lawyers across all of the provinces and territories are required (or, at a minimum encouraged) to spend a number of hours each year engaged in continuing legal education. I support this completely - even if it meant that in order to accomplish this, I had to spend an entire week enduring Ottawa’s gorgeous summer lushness, navigating the unfamiliar comfort of a room at the Westin with a king-size bed and no random roommates, being distracted by beautiful views of the canal, and having evenings disappear far too quickly on Byward Market patios enjoying the company of friends and delicious draught beer. No sacrifice is too great to keep this criminal defence lawyer at the top of her game.

Seriously though, it was a great conference and I did actually learn a lot.

But since I had to be in Ontario for educational purposes anyway, I decided to add on an extra week of vacation before the conference so that I could spend time with family and friends. I probably won't be able to go home again until mid-December so it was really important to me to try to cram in as much at-home happiness as I could in a pretty small amount of time.

My first stop after I arrived in Ottawa on June 30^th was my mom’s place near the tiny hamlet of Easton’s Corners.

Chez Mom

Mom's garden. The handsome grey fellow with the
white boots is my cat Peter.

Two of my brothers were at Mom’s when I arrived, getting everything set up for the annual Fairchildren Canada Day Explodorama and Hillbilly Hoedown.  As he does every year, my brother Rob bought a shit-ton of fireworks (to use the proper Ottawa Valley terminology for such a quantity). To add to the pyro happiness, my brother Mike managed to get his hands on two huge piles of wood for the annual massive mosquito-annihilating bonfire. Both Rob and Mike also spent many hours getting Mom’s place beautifully lit with colourful Christmas lights in the trees and solar lamps along the paths and the laneway.

This is what most of a shit-ton of fireworks looks like.  They didn't get set out like this until July 1st but I'm including this photo here to illustrate the kind of quantity we're talking about. Making the show ever more spectacular each year is a point of pride for my brother Rob.

Unlike my hard-working brothers, my time at Mom's was spent feeling a little bit travel-worn and being quite a bit lazy. My contribution consisted pretty much of just getting there, and stopping to pick up some beer. I did devote some time to checking the sturdiness of one of the picnic tables by sitting on it. During my picnic table inspection, I chatted with Mom and took this picture of some birds.

Shortly after, the sun began to set set through the trees.

The evening ended with good conversation and the sound of crickets on Mom’s porch.

Songs:
Mountain Sound - Of Monsters and Men
Ho Hey - The Lumineers