O Canada ... You Are An Awesome Place To Live

Howdy!

July 1 is a big holiday in Canada. It's Canada Day, the day we celebrate the birthday of our country, and this year Canada is 149 years old. Next year is probably going to involve a lot more celebrating than usual, because it'll be the 150th. Nevertheless, we will still celebrate tomorrow no matter what the number is.

Some of us will celebrate by watching a small-town parade, some will get to watch fireworks, some will go to the beach, some will eat strawberry shortcake and some will just sit and veg out because they've been working hard for the past four months and they're TIRED. Ahem.

We might do the shortcake thing, too. If I'm not too tired to make the shortcake, hull, wash and mash the strawberries, and whip the cream. Strange ... when it comes to strawberry shortcake, I feel a little more energetic.

Thank you Pixabay for this incredibly delicious picture. My energy levels just went up another notch. This looks pretty much like the ones I make, except I put only one dollop of whipped cream on it. That might have to change after seeing this.

Anyway, for the most part we are extremely fortunate here in our big beautiful country. We are so lucky that we very often forget how lucky we are and start arguing over things like changing the words in our national anthem from “all thy sons command” to “all of us command.” Yes, we are extraordinarily lucky that this is one of the biggest things we can find to fight about.

And by "we" I mean our politicians, mostly.

Anyway, for those of you who can't - or don't want to - play the next two videos, you can skip right to the bottom photo now.

The first video is of our Canadian flag, also called the Maple Leaf, because ... it's a maple leaf. I happen to like our flag a lot. It's bright and cheerful and while it's terribly hard to draw the maple leaf in school when you are eight years old (oh, my kingdom for a scanner so I could show you!), it's a pretty cool flag. And I must say, the wind was cooperating really well the day I filmed this:

And here is another kind of maple leaf with several of its friends, waving in the wind:

Friendly little things, eh? (And while we do not say "oot and aboot", a good lot of us do say "eh".)

Finally, here is a still-life version of the Maple Leaf, taken before the leaves came out. The wind was behaving well that day also. It almost looks like an invisible thread is holding the flag out at the corner, doesn't it?

For this one, you will have to use your imagination to get waved at. I think you all have pretty sturdy imaginations, so that shouldn't be a problem.

If you'd like, leave a comment telling me about your country's special day and/or flag, and a typical activity you do, or a treat you have, to celebrate.

Have a good weekend, everyone.