Dole Poneapple Plantation Nov. 21. 2009

Every time I use this handy-dandy tool to slice and core a pineapple it reminds me of our visit to the Dole Pineapple Plantation in the middle of Oahu, HI. We purchased the tool in the store there at the plantation. a lady demonstrated how to use it and we were sold on it right away. It is not fussy - it will slice and core any pineapple whether it is a "Dole" or a "Delmonte" grown in Hi or some where in central America.













These are pictures from the plantation. There was a little train which took us around the whole plantation with information all along the way about the cultivation of the pineapple.

We were impressed with the very colorful tree that I am standing next to. According to a book we have it might be the Bagras eucalyptus.

There are various types of pineapples but only one type is grown for market in HI. We had the opportunity to sample some and then we bought one right there and took it along to eat during the week that we were there. Bringing one back to Canada was not allowed.

The soil is so red because it is very rich in iron which is very good for the pineapple cultivation.

Trip with Pat continued

More pictures of our two days at Dyck's cabin at Spruce Bay and our outing to Hecla Island. the sea gulls were blocking the road near the old village of Hecla where the first Icelandic settlers lived. the little barn swallows were the first wild life that we observed. Except for the bugs that Pat tried to get rid of off the porch of the cabin.

Over-nighter at Lac Lu near Kenora, ON

I am sorry that the pictures are in reverse order to the text - these things seem to happen to me and I don't know how to fix them short of starting all over.



"and shall pitch it within and without with pitch" Gen. 6:14b.

Fri. May 30, '08 Hanna, Helmut & I arrived at Johnson Island, Lac Lu, (near Kenora), ON.

Unfortunately the boat hit a rock as we were landing at the dock and so a seam gave way causing a leak. First order of the afternoon when the rain stopped was to fix the leak so that the boat would not take on so much water as to sink. H & H were able to find some roofing tar in a tube left over from some previous patching of the roof. so Helmut pitched the boat corner ( leaky seam) within and without just like God told Noah to do on the ark.
the boat is on dry dock and Hanna is weighting it down while Helmut hangs over the end making the repair.











Sat. turned out to be a lovely sunny day. In the morning Helmut did various little repair jobs on the cabin and around the property. Hanna did some tidying up and all the cooking. I did some reading and knitting. Before lunch all three of us went hiking around the property to enjoy the spring growth, look for plants and animals and just get some exercise. We saw lots of wild flowers and in another post I will show you some of those pictures, there seemed to be about three deer on the island - sighted by one or the other of us at various times. After lunch Helmut & I went for a relaxing canoe trip to the west end of the lake - it took a little over an hour.

Hanna did the mowing and cleaning out some of the junk so that it could be removed back to the city to be disposed of.

After our canoe trip Helmut loaded all the "junk" in the boat in preparation for our return to the main land and the city in the evening.

We had a nice supper before leaving the cabin . We left the parking place for the two & a half hour trip to Winnipeg about 8:35 pm. Arrived at Hanna's home in Winnipeg about 11:15 unloaded her stuff and got on home before midnight. It was a very lovely over-nighter.

Southward Bound

This is the first installment of our trip to the U.S. - April 3 to 11, 2008

The trip was uneventful and the weather was very nice on that early spring day. These pictures were taken at an information/rest stop at Sioux City, Iowa. It was about five in the afternoon so the old ship -information place was closed. We walked around on the deck of this old boat this along the side of the Missouri River.

We arrived in Lincoln, NE about 8:15 pm. about 12 hours after we left home.

Some Folks I Know

When we were last in NE we stayed with Some Folks I Know --does anyone out there know them? Ha!

Thank you Sarah & Matt. These are early morning shots of the kids playing with U. H. & R. and one of the kids getting breakfast. U. H., R & J went to another place for breakfast.

Headed North From Dallas

Moving day for Ruth. Thurs. Dec. 20Th. On Wed. evening we packed as much of Ruth's belongings as we possibly could and had them lined up in the living room area ready to pack into the cars in the morning. After our fairly early breakfast Helmut took apart the bed and then started to pack our van. Ruth had to go on an errand to the post office and bank but it didn't take her too long. H. & R. carried all of the stuff down to the cars and got everything packed snugly in. I remained in the apartment until we were ready to leave because my knee and leg hurt so much from the fall and I just didn't feel like I could negotiate three flights of steps more the once.

I think we finally got away from Dallas about 10:30 in the morning. You can see Ruth's Honda entering the free way as she led us through the busy highway system of Dallas. Then you see some tall buildings behind a bit of highway as we left the city. The multilevel highways and interchanges are quite impressive but very difficult to photograph from the car window.

In southern Oklahoma we came through some interesting landscape I think is is the Ardach (or something similar) Wilderness. It is very rocky and hilly with lots of forest.

Further north in Oklahoma we noticed a lot of red soil so we also had to take a picture or two of it.

Our traveling was uneventful with clear dry roads the usual pit stops and food breaks. Ma & Pa need a few more of these stops than Ruth does but she cooperated and stopped when we did.

As we were approaching the Kansas City area Ruth signaled us to stop. When we found a parking lot where we could pull in she told us that Aunt Pat had phoned and wanted us to come to Lincoln for the night. We settled the arrangements and headed to Lincoln. We would have gone a different route if we had known earlier but at this point it was only a little back tracking.

We arrived in Lincoln pretty close to midnight. Matt & Sarah kindly put us up for the night with the understanding that we would have breakfast at Pat & John's as Val & Dennis & girls were there. this way we got to see everyone.

FRONTIERS OF FLIGHT MUSEUM - DALLAS LOVE FIELD

The last point of interest that we visited was the Flight museum. We were rather late in the day arriving there and it wasn't very busy. The guide was anxious to tell us all about everything - even though the place had nice texts explaining in minute detail. Ruth enjoyed learning about the history of flight as well as the history of the two World Wars - she was a very attentive listener to the elderly gentleman who was the guide. Helmut went along on his own reading and investigating all the displays. I tried to listen to part of the guide's talk and read some of the stuff and generally show some interest in this place. I sure wouldn't fancy flying in some of those early aircraft that were wide open to the sky - of course those brave pilots & machines were needed to bring us to what we have today.

Dallas Tour Cont.

Ruth decided to show us this outstanding group of sculptures that reside in a little park in the downtown area of Dallas. First Ruth and Helmut admired the cowboy on his horse driving the cattle over the little bluff and down a stream. Ruth figured that we could have a better advantage by going to the other side of the stream to view the herd and another cowboy on a horse. So Helmut crossed over on the stones in the stream followed by Ruth who offered to help me - I said I could make it alone as the stones appeared quite flat and not far apart. Ruth made some comment about me being careful with the camera or that it was a good thing I didn't have it ( I never heard the comment). Actually Helmut had the camera which was a very good thing. I stood on the first stone and put my foot to the second stone and some how missed or slipped off the side of it and fell into what looked like a shallow stream - it turned out to be enough water to soak me from head to foot even getting my face wet even though it was facing the sky. Both Helmut and Ruth rushed to my rescue and helped to pull me out - quite a task because I hurt my knee and shin and had trouble getting my footing again in the water. Finally you see me standing on the pavement soaking wet with the herd of cattle looking quite undisturbed.

It was a good thing that the weather was warm - at first the water seemed quite chilly but once I was out of it I warmed up quite quickly. ( No worse than a swim in Lake Winnipeg in June) We changed our tour plans and went back to Ruth's apartment so that I could get dry and have a change of clothes.

We continued our tour and the pictures and details will be on the next post.

Dallas Tour - Wed. Dec. 19, 2007

Day Three of our trip will be spread out over several posts because we did so many different things that I want to share. The first thing after breakfast Helmut and Ruth took Ruth's car to the Honda dealer because she needed the brake shoes changed. They returned to the apartment for me and we set out to tour Dallas.

First stop was the Dallas Theological Seminary campus part of which you can view in these pictures. It is close to the down town area of the city. We also went inside the library of DTS but didn't look around in too many buildings.

The grass was still green, many trees were green and many flowers were blooming through out Dallas. Pansies were prevalent and made a bright spot every where. It is hard to think that Christmas is just around the corner (six days) when everything is so lush and green. It was also a nice warm day in the sixties and perhaps even seventy by afternoon.

Trip to Dallas - Day Two

Snow and ice - why would Manitobans want to take pictures of snow and ice? We were asked such a question when one of the family was looking at the pictures that we took on our trip to Texas. Snow & ice are not so strange to us but finding it where these pictures were taken was unexpected. This herd of cattle were grazing on a north central Kansas field. The trees were delicately trimmed in ice as well as the grass and the snow likely had an icy crust. Thankfully the roads were as dry "as a bone".

One of the points of taking these pictures was to capture the beauty of the ice covered trees in the sunshine. I do not think that this goal was achieved.

We left Lincoln, NE right after breakfast Dec. 18Th. there was snow on the ground but the roads were very dry. It had been well below freezing when we left Winnipeg and remained that way until we were in the southern part of Kansas.

We reached Dallas by 8:30 or so in the evening - it wasn't too difficult to negotiate the super highway system and eventually find Ruth's apartment according to the directions from Google.

We were happy to spend the remainder of the evening relaxing with Ruth and planning our sight seeing for the next day.