Monthly Archives: April 2005

Inspirational Rain

I was­n’t going to write today, but the rain out­side smells too good to go with­out being men­tioned. It’s been rain­ing all day, and as Trolley not­ed, the stench of Spring rot has been washed away. All that’s left is a refresh­ing chill, and I imag­ine myself on an café patio, dressed in lay­ers, shar­ing a warm drink with some­one on an iron wrought table. The con­ver­sa­tion would be heavy (with a light tone), and the music com­ing from the open glass doors could only be Anni Rose by Tulku.

Bancroft '05, Part 6/6


And so, the week­end had to come to an end. It was great to get away, and refresh­ing to hang out with some decent peo­ple. Adam most of all, who renews my ever wan­ing faith in human­i­ty every time I see him. I had a few songs in mind for the video, but the first song I thought of, and the one I even­tu­al­ly used, is by The Postal Service. Before I start­ed edit­ing, I could only recall the first few bars, but I knew that those notes would be able to per­fect­ly define the feel­ing I want­ed. Funny that it hap­pens to be named There’s Never Enough Time. There are so many things I could say, but the videos say it all.

Thumbnail: Atka in her house
Thumbnail: Cows
Thumbnail: Atka on the roam

One of the best things about the farm is that it’s a farm. There are the two large and loy­al dogs, Willow and Atka. There’s the chirpy house­cat, Femo, who likes to twist and turn her body for one to scratch. There are cows, who can jump real­ly high if fright­ened.

Thumbnail: Broad side of a barn
Thumbnail: Shotgun shells
Thumbnail: Woodpile
Thumbnail: Snowmobile treads
Thumbnail: Snowmobile tracks

Aside from the ani­mals, there are all oth­er sorts of lit­tle things that make the farm rus­tic and dif­fer­en­ti­ate it from the city life I’m so used to liv­ing. It’s not every place that I’ll find ran­dom 12-guage shot­gun shells on a cab­i­net, or piles of fire­wood that are big­ger than my house. It real­ly makes me feel like I’m away; away from com­put­ers, school, work, or traf­fic.

Thumbnail: Eric's flask

I’ll end off with a shot of the inscrip­tion on Eric’s flask.

Here’s to them.

Bancroft '05, Part 5/6


It was­n’t a great day for land­ings, but it was per­fect for hang­ing out on the hill, soak­ing up the win­ter sun, and goof­ing around.

If I’m intro­duced to a good song at a moment in time, I asso­ciate it with a spe­cif­ic mem­o­ry. At Sandbanks last year, it was Eric blast­ing Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam before the park war­den stopped by to gave warn­ing. This time it was 93 Till Infinity by Souls Of Mischief, a track with a true 90’s beat. It’s easy to deduce the gen­er­al age of the group from the music; the songs that Eric plays on his stereo are the ones that the Bancroft group grew up lis­ten­ing to.

Thumbnail: Thermometer
Thumbnail: Snow treads
Thumbnail: Snowboard bindings

It was the mid­dle of win­ter for us, but on that one week­end, it felt like the begin­ning of spring. We donned our vests, hood­ies, and sweaters for runs down the hill. The tem­per­a­ture was just under 10°C, and there was no need for heavy down-filled coats. The scenery is beau­ti­ful. No one around, no author­i­ty telling us what we can and can’t do. The per­fect week­end get­t­away.

Thumbnail: Aaron launches
Thumbnail: Matt airwalks
Thumbnail: Matt grabs
Thumbnail: Eric jumps

As Aaron not­ed, Matt’s abil­i­ty to jump on a board and nat­u­ral­ly carve up the hill after an extend­ed snow­board­ing hia­tus is telling of his board expe­ri­ence in gen­er­al. The one suc­cess­ful land­ing I got of Aaron seems tiny com­pared to the jumps that Matt and Eric do, but he assures me that it’s a lot steep­er (and scari­er) from the top of the hill than it looks at the bot­tom.

Bancroft '05, Part 4/6


Euchre has become uni­ver­sal for our group now. We must have played near­ly a dozen games that night, and I man­aged not to lose a sin­gle one, with the help of Aaron as my part­ner. For the last four points of one game (as seen in the video), I was dealt one of the best hands I’ve ever had: both bauers, an ace/jack trump, and an off king. I was lucky enough to make the trump suit too, since Aaron flipped over a red bauer. I seem to have tremen­dous luck when I’m on the farm. Last year, when I was part­nered up with Nick at the hunt­ing cab­in, we had an unde­feat­ed win­ning streak. It’s gen­er­al­ly nev­er a good idea to play against Trolley’s cousins, though. They grew up play­ing togeth­er, so it’s impos­si­ble to track the num­ber of sig­nals they use.

I’ll admit that this is me. Good times because of good peo­ple. One of the best nights of my life.

Bancroft '05, Part 3/6


Adam already has the best sto­ry of the year. I hap­pened to be car­ry­ing when we were stopped for a traf­fic check on the way up (which made me ner­vous enough), but it was­n’t any­where close to what Adam had on him. I did­n’t need a flam­ing shot to calm myself though.

Thumbnail: Adam's burned eyelashes

Isn’t it fun­ny that Matt talks about burn­ing his lash­es min­utes before Adam singes his own.