A few posts back I reminisced about last years thanksgiving weekend and Chokecherry Festival and it worked out again that I was able to attend this year’s as well. History repeated itself in that I was too busy visiting and eating the delicious food so carefully prepared by both sides of the family on Saturday and Sunday for our Thanksgivings that I didn’t get any pictures of those great times but I did get a few shots of the parade for the Chokecherry Festival and a handful of the Lancer Museum – I am a sucker for a museum after all! We also managed to get in a nice visit with my friend Denise of DLB Handmade and her whole family including her mom who was in town visiting so that was a special treat! If you haven’t been by her blog to check out her crocheted animals I highly recommend it, she designs and makes them herself – they are fantastic. She presented me with a gift that she picked up from this shop called Modish Tones in Calgary, apparently the girl who runs the shop is originally from around Lancer/Abbey so that’s pretty neat. And it’s something I can use at work – it’s very cool. But enough product placement for now I suppose 
on to the pictures.
So here we have the parade starting off with the two horses and the flags. I was thrilled they had a paint because that has always been one of my favourite marking styles for a horse, it’s between that and a bay – they are just gorgeous!
The legion float with Shawn’s cousin’s son Owen throwing candy – you can sort of see their other son Kaiden on the other side in the red.
The Shriners, because you can’t have a parade without the Shriner band.
Pretty pretty draft horses. Of course I’m partial to Percherons, but these Clydesdales aren’t too shabby! The people on the cart in period clothing was a nice touch too!
This is a sheep dressed up for some reason, it appears to be wearing a wig. I’m not sure entirely what is going on – the banner says something about a school. Perhaps it is a mascot? I don’t know, the sheep looks nonplussed to me. But look! Airborne candy!
And then the cars began. I really liked the shade of green on this one.
A GTO with a Corvette on it’s butt.
One newer car for new measure – a Camero with a door mod that the owners were very proud of.
This old car was very chocolaty. There are pictures of more cars and other general parade pictures in my Flickr feed in the folder entitled October 2011 for any one who is interested – now I will switch to the museum pictures.
Sorry mom – it’s not real. I just love how the bird in the fore ground looks so nonchalant about the owl who is swooping down towards it, just like “Oh hi Mr.Owl, how are you today – just going for a little flight are you?” oh well, taxidermy must be a pretty humorous profession at times. This is one of the first sights you see when you walk into the Lancer museum.
Now most people probably wouldn’t stop to think one of these birds would be very nice to look at but here we can see how lovely their plumage really is. I also think this is a really striking setting to place one on top of the cow’s skull and then on the tree stump, it’s a very rustic aesthetic that pulls the colours together very nicely.
This was a nice little set up of some old fashioned wash up things all in very good shape.
This display of all of the different types of irons and how they have progressed throughout the years really caught my eye. I find stuff like this fascinating – I especially enjoyed how they used an ironing board to display them rather than just a regular display case, I think that’s clever.
What can I say? I get a kick out of taxidermy I guess! This pheasant seems very displeased indeed. I’m not sure why they felt the need to preserve it in such a way that it appears to be screaming almost hysterically, or maybe I’m just projecting. I’m not sure – but what is that black metal thing it is screaming at? Regardless, I just felt like I should share this pheasant with you all, because it’s nice to share.
Speaking of hysterical, seeing those old cameras in this display case made my heart just a little bit happy I do have an old Polaroid Land Camera from the 1960’s that I picked up for a couple of dollars at the garage sale because it is just so cool looking and I am planning on displaying it with the old 1980’s Polaroid whenever my mom tracks that down for me but these cameras were also very exciting to feast my eyes on. I just adore antiques and I guess it only makes sense that someone who enjoys photography and enjoys antiques would also enjoy antique cameras, so these were fun for me.
Torture device or beauty shop implement? You be the judge! Or – third option, a little from column A, a little from column B. The Helene Curtis stamp across the top might be a might of a give away but this thing just amused me – like 90% of the contents of the entire building but oh well. I guess going to a museum for me must be like what going to a carnival is like for normal people.
I had to take this picture because it made me giggle – someone put a hat on one of the horses. It reminded me of something that my dad, or my grandpa in his younger years, would have done. It’s so mischievous, yet harmless – and hilarious. I remember my mom telling me a story about my grandpa when he was younger going around a big department store in some big city and switching all of the heads on the bobble head dogs. It’s hard to picture your grandpa being such a prankster, but at the same time it’s so funny to imagine too!
The blacksmiths’ shop I think? I’m not sure – all I know is that there is a lot of stuff in there that you could seriously hurt yourself with. There are also a lot of things in there that I swear I’ve seen in the Restoration Hardware catalogue.
This looks like a fun kitchen doesn’t it? Some of you thought my old kitchen was small – well this one has even less counter space (although not much less) and I’m sure they some how managed and check out that wicked meat grinder! Oh but what’s that up on the top shelf?
Liniment! Sloan’s Liniment! Ok so I have no actual idea what that is but I thought the guy on the bottle looked very dapper so I took his picture thought that perhaps my friend Marit and I could formulate some stories about him because that seems to be a thing we do. He also has a very fine moustache. It also made me wonder if Sloan’s Liniment smelled worse than Absorbine Jr. – my guess was that it probably did. I concluded that it was pretty need how they had all of those vintage containers.
Here is a fine carriage that they had in the museum and the outfit of the person who would direct the horses who would pull the carriage. I suppose the person in the suit could the pull carriage themselves but that would be a little cruel as horses are generally much stronger than people and that is why we generally get them to do the carriage pulling, not people. I have even more pictures of all sorts of neat things in the museum in my Flickr feed in the folder entitled October 2011. I had another wonderful weekend down in the southwest corner and can’t wait to go back in December!
