Winter has finally arrived in Nova Scotia...

Well, parts of it have been snow bound for a while, Cape Breton and area mainly, but here in the Annapolis Valley it is our first real snow fall, we had a black Christmas...

Thru last nite and this morning we had our first share of snow, but I am pretty sure I am not going to get much sympathies from my family and friends in Ontario and Quebec, they had more than their share of snow already :-)
Ahhhh  I feel your pains, aches and I smell like gas ....

This is what greeted Rudy on the back deck for his morning ablutions....

There is more than 3ft of snow on the back deck

Yes there are two vehicles down there...

The back deck, I carried Rudy in my arms down to a spot I made for him

Yes, it look pretty and boohhahh but man, it is no fun to play in...

... Unless you are a young kid. To me the novelty wore off many years ago... 

Cleared a small spot with my boots to put down Rudy.

Heh, do you mind I'm trying to p... here

I had my snowblower serviced recently, as I do every year, filled the tank and away we go... Well not so fast sports fans, I still got these older metal swinging garage doors, so they won't open if they feel resistance from the snow outside....

So I must first shovel my way out the front door to the garage doors to clear enough of a space to open the doors to get the snowblower out. Ah the inhumanity of it all ! (say that while holding your arm over your eyes, it is more theatrical :-)

Oh, here are the vehicles. My car is now almost as tall as her pick up truck..

Having open the doors, down the driveway we go

Halfway there, looking back...

Looking forward...

My new girl friend jean cleaning up the vehicles.

Yes, she is a keeper, she has a pickup truck and shovel snow :-)

Almost done, both vehicles cleared, but I ran out of gas...

Well at least I ran out near the garage and not all the way down by the road ... 

has happened before, oh what joy to curse in both official languages :-)

So has I sit at the keyboard, warming up my fingers by typing, smelling gas and awaiting to go get some more, then going to rejoin her at her place and do it all over again, except that she has a school bus in her driveway, takes a while to cleared out :-)

School would probably be cancelled tomorrow, more snow coming our way overnite and in the morning, we still have to get her bus ready for the morning school's runs


Bob, getting Rudy to go out and rejoin his beloved Jean :-)

Sometimes you get lucky...

... on Kijiji.... (Sort of the Cdn equivalent to Craig list in the USA)

Its been a while I lurked on it, so in between house chores, I figured I had a look see.
You never know what you gonna find, it's a crap shot...

Yesterday, I got lucky, iI spied this enigmatic listing with no pictures, up from Nov 19th. No pics in your listing tend to do that... they linger without much interest...

Two things caught my attention: the fact that it comes with its own box, which means very low usage, and a Pat date of 1901. I already own a No 95 Stanley Butt gauge, but, for Cdn $35 with original box, turn of the century, Yah, I'll go have a look :-)

After making arrangements to see it, dressed up Rudy for the ride and made the drive over to Halls Harbour, famous for its lobsters and... its pirate's legend back into the US war of independence .

She brought me a small yellowish paste box with an old Stanley Level & Co label. Heart start racing... Then I opened the box, saw a Stanley No 45 cam rest with a few more tidbits resting atop the Butt gage. I quickly closed the box and said, I'll take it!

Back home after a white knuckle ride down the tortuous mountain snow covered, icy, dirt road down to the valley, stupid GPS is taking the shortest route direct, not necessarily the one I would take Grrr... (stupid technology trying to be helpful)

Anyway, back home this is what I found inside the box, I am very happy with my find :-)

There is some sort of literature at the bottom of the box. 

Instruction sheet?

No. it is a disclaimer note, explaining the label 

over the Stanley box label

Notice the label Made in Canada over the usual US location

The label reads:

PLEASE NOTE

This tool was made at the Canadian Branch of the STANLEY RULE & LEVEL COMPANY, at The Roxton Tool & Mill Company, Limited, Roxton Pond, Quebec, under the superintendence, ownership and trademarks of the said STANLEY COMPANY, and is fully warranted.  

Stanley started in Canada when they acquire the Roxton Pond Tool & Mill in Roxton Pond Quebec in 1907. Car loads of parts, equipment and tooling came to Roxton Pond along with Stanley personnel to start the Canadian operation. The tools produced were identical to the US production, pretty soon they would grow to manufactured almost the complete tool lines. This piece of paper explaining that it was made in Canada and the small label affixed over the US label, all point to the earliest days of Stanley production in Canada. That to me is priceless. Never came across any mention of that before. Ephemeras, the paper artifacts, never last long, most are thrown out or long lost. The rough box and that piece of paper are worth more to me than the price I paid for it all...

This is all I got for my Cdn $35...

Instruction on how to use it.

Scanned from my collection. Barely fit the scanner bed...

The other big part sitting on top was a Cam rest for a Stanley No 45. I just happened to own two with this piece missing... Bonus :-)
The two small screw contraptions, do you recognized them?
I'll give you a hint, look at the blades selection for the No 45 or 55... whenever missing they are worth more than the complete assembly... (they are depth stops)

The Stanley No 45 Cam rest is the second Type, 

and an early example of this type, as indicated 

by its patent date of 1901. And yes the small cylindrical piece

 bearing at the end of the screw is still present :-)

So all in all, a fun drive in snowy covered mountains roads to find a piece of Canadiana tool history. Does not get any better than this :-)

Bob, who took Rudy on an adventure

Joyeux Noel Merry Christmas

Around the world and peace on earth.... wouldn't that be nice for a change...

It started like promising to have a white Christmas, but then we got out of the Polar Vortex, temperature raised and melted all our snow...

I used that break in the temperature to set up more Christmas lights outside.

First I put on my strings of Bluetooth icicles, then added rotating spots over the garage and a bigger one for the other side of the house.

Then, I thought, hummm missing something so I added two more spots, a red and a green

Which left the midle looking a bit bare, So I replaced the front porch lite by a rotating blue spot bulb,

then added a laser projector. There that's more like it and  I did not had to drag the ladder out again, bonus :-)

Being close to an airport there are of course limitations to the uses of such a laser projector, it is after all a Class 3R device, it cannot be aimed up say under a tree for example, must ensure that the beams are not shooting up toward the sky. Would be distracting and potentially dangerous for pilots on final approach.
Yes, such usage is falling under Transport Canada rules for aviation, similarly the use of small drones is verboten in a 10 Kms radius of the airport.

I also put up my Christmas village this year, it did not made an appearance last year. This time I split it up in two parts since it is getting a tad too big to fit all in one space :-)

The other part of the village has the Santa train and the skating rink.
I put in some Sponge Bob characters in there mostly for the young kids :-)
It is always fun to watch them discover all the little hidden touches in it ..

My youngest son is home for the holidays and brought his two cats with him. Somehow Catzilla can walk in the villages without knocking anything over.
My friend's youngsters, two little girls aged 4 and 9, only have to look at the village for a few seconds and somehow the pieces moved around, without being touched... :-)

Christmas is all about the kids, so I tried to put myself in the spirit for them, hence the light show outside and the villages. This being my first Christmas without Heather in about 35 years, I am having some difficulties, read crying at times, but watching the little ones faces lite up is very therapeutic and helps a lots. Ruddy kisses helps too :-)

The scene this Christmas morning at my friend daughter and her little ones.

Yes Christmas is a bit hard this year, but between my sons, Rudy, friends and the  little ones, it helps a lot.

 Bob, glad for the support...