This painting is one of two that I did from two different viewpoints. This separator was chained to a post beside a market stall that sold fruits and vegetables (in BC where my mother lived). The colours were gorgeous from the weathering and, of course, it brought back some memories of my teenage years.

When my brother and I were eleven and thirteen respectively, we went to Alberta to live with my aunt and to do the farm chores. We looked after many chickens, a few pigs, and milked about 8 cows twice a day. We fed all the animals, sometimes made churned butter, separated the milk from the cream, cleaned up everything (including sterializing the separator which is quite a job as there are lots of disks to clean between). We also did the inside work, emptying the honey buckets, cleaning, washing and waxing floors, liming and washing out the outhouse, pumping the water from the well and carrying in buckets of water by hand, washing and hanging out clothes, chopping and carrying in wood, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, it is a memory from a year's very hard work (for no pay!)

That's my nostagia with this piece.

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