Oh, Canada!

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Well, most of our national anthem, anyway. This is the version I sang in grade school, before they changed the morning routines to reflect that no one ever remembers the words because no one will ever leave the song alone - every once in awhile some politician or politically correct lobbyist group gets together and adds/deletes/changes our national anthem, so what I sung when I was 10 is not what they are singing now. Most Canadians get used to humming the national anthem after awhile. 
 
You might have guessed, it is Canada's birthday today - 146 years young! Well, 146 years since we officially signed the lease, anyway. My family has actually been in this country since the 1700's, and is counted amongst the the first settlers of New Brunswick. We liked it so much, we were determined to stay, even when the British decided to round us up and ship us south - something to do with us refusing to sign loyalty agreements or some such. Come to think of it, I still do that, and have gotten in trouble even now, so obviously being a real pain in the butt comes naturally to my genetic line. As you might have noticed, I am still here - apparently the British who locked up my ancestors overlooked the fact that a) their forts were built on fairly easily shifted dirt, and b) my ancestors were by and large farmers. You might have guessed, then, my ancestors tunneled out under the fort walls, headed up the river with the help a friendly native tribe, and settled in for the long run, to be Canadian and Canadian only.

As Canadians, we have a lot to be proud of, as we have contributed much to the world. Superman, for one - he is a Canadian invention, and that is the real reason he is the most polite superhero you are ever going to meet (I suspect his fortress of solitude, located "somewhere in the deep north", has a small hockey rink and he invites off duty super friends up there for the occasional pick up game). Also, the telephone - Bell was in Canada and it was patented in Canada first so technically Canadian it is  -  you don't see many without a phone of some sort plastered to the side of their face nowadays, which shows you what kind of contribution it really was (Our fault, folks, sorry.) Medical advances like Insulin (Banting and Best) changed the face of Diabetes into a somewhat treatable disease, instead of an automatic death sentence. This is but a few examples - we have lists and lists of things we invented -  we will also take under our wing other things as well if we can find proof that a Canadian was involved in some way (e.g. A Canadian helped develop the show Doctor Who, so ergo - we claim it, etc) , but that is a different discussion for a different day.  Also, about half of Hollywood seems to be populated by Canadians - Bill Shatner (Captain Kirk), Dan Akroyd, Jim Carrey, James Doohan - a small list, but the list goes on. We seem to drop a lot of comedians on the poor unsuspecting Americans as well - I say poor, because Canadians have a fairly strange sense of humor, if you haven't noticed. Like us unleashing a certain boy-man singers with the initials J.B.  on the world - Sorry for that.  Oh yes, the apology - we are big on those. However, it has been said that we are constantly saying we are sorry, but we never actually apologize.

Anyway, in the grand tradition of Canada, the great "tossed salad" of the North American Continent, I make you all honorary Canadians today and you are all invited for cake (which we probably invented ... )

  So, now that I have my yearly bout of country pride all said, what have I been up to this week? Well, I bought myself a pair of glasses. But not ordinary "hipster-looking" glasses - these are reading glasses with a surprise....

 Everyone sing! You...You light up my liiiiiifeee... Yes, they have little Borg lights! I have been wanting a pair for awhile, and I found some at the local drug store. My mag-eyes are great, but sometimes you need a little light on the subject. 

 Work continues on the Washtub. I have installed the upstairs partition in this picture. I did have to slightly trim it down, because it was too tall - I think a lot of that has to do with the way the walls were treated, and that there was some unexpected warping here and there. I have glued the back roof on as well.

Here is the wee beast, all put together. 

A top view with the front removable roof removed. Note I have put in the false door. 

Again, with the warpage I found the front of the house was not quite meeting up on the sides. I camouflaged it with a nice wooden trim. I quite like how it looks. 

 This is the removable front, on the back side. I have framed out my windows, to make it look a little neater. 

I have roughed things up a bit. I probably will add some curtains, and fix the odd paint splatter. Other than that, it is done and ready to be decorated! Too bad I am remaking a lot of the furniture because I thought most of this would be designed to go into the house anyway, but C'est La Vie, as they say.

Thought I would give the range cooker a little try. I wasn't fond of the look of these with the burner covers, though, so I said "tough for the mini-cops, I am leaving them off!" 

The usual start, drawing the pattern, scoring and cutting the thing out. 

The front oven doors are faux doors, glued while the whole thing is still flat. The metal doors are actually little eye rings that I had for beading, which I clipped carefully with my wire cutters. Next time I will leave these off until after painting, because they just kept pinging off and I couldn't keep them shiny. A wider tweezers is also recommended, the really fine ones couldn't seem to hold the thin wire well.

Once the stove was glued, then I was free free FREE to start adding the top and the bottom, which was the standard "glue to the sheet of paper, trim carefully around the box." There are other ways to get a more accurate look, I suppose, but after practice you can get pretty good at eyeballing things in this scale. 

There is the wee stove. It is starting to look like something at this point. Next was to add the eyelet to the top, and the chimney, and paint. 

The wee stove, painted up and ready to rumble. I am going to leave it simple, I think. I want to make a kitchen set to match this, and manipulate a few patterns so things look a bit more in scale. Hopefully by next week I will have a kitchen to show. I am anxious to get on to my next project, which will be a beach shack, or possibly whatever floats my boat. 

Either way, I think we need a fancy coffee after a job well done. I found this tutorial that uses various bits and bobs to create a rather interesting Cappucino machine. I do level the caveat, however, that this tutorial is done by a young mother, and her child is clamoring for attention in the background/leveling the place while mom is desperately trying to explain  how to make the coffee pot, so it is half tutorial, half crashes and screams -  if such things make your teeth itch, it is best to watch with the sound off as much as possible. 

Have a great Canada Day, and until next time, my friends, have a safe and careful week. 

PS: Happy Birthday to our Neighbors to the south, who will be celebrating shortly their birthday as well!