November 2011

Dear readers,

We have been enjoying the autumn weather of late. The beautiful cobalt blue skies of autumn behind the rusty orange and yellows of the season never fail to impress residents when  out for a walk. We have a walking club and we try to get out every fine day that we have.

The hills around Crapaud are fit for a poem. We will start up the writing club again in winter. We can't get out as much in winter and writing is something any resident can do with assistance.As you know the Haiku employs five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and the third line uses five syllables also.  Here is one of the Haikus from last year.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Crows

Appear from nowhere

Noisy, huge and black as night.

Geedy crows swoop down. 

Eileen MacLean
age 88

This poem is  in the haiku format and was  written by Eileen MacLean last year recalling how when she would step outside her appartment to feed the birds a few crumbs, crows would suddenly fly in to grab all of the spoils.

Winter

Winter is on its way out,

The trees are naked.

thanks to the good Lord.

http://web.mac.com/zenbird/Site/Welcome.html 

This was a residents first  winter haiku and she certainly got her point across. The Haiku is a national passtime in Japan. Haiku clubs are common throughout that  country and have a competive spirit. If you are interested in trying your own check out this useful and friendly  site at http://blinkhaiku.blogspot.com/

We also recorded stories from times past and we got some really good material recorded. This is an ongoing project and over time we will have enough to put together a little jounal with recipes and photos.

Of course we did Halloween and the staff got into the spirit. Here is Rachel M and Kelly S being good sports and setting a fine example.

Director of Nursing at work

Residents aren't the only creative ones at the Villa

Regards,

Julia 

Autumn has arrived

Hi dear readers,

Well I see that it's ages in blog time since I made a post. I was keeping things up to date until I fell off the blog path. Last time I wrote, was in July. Well I am happy to say we had a nice number of family make visits at the Villa over the summer. We could use more though. There is no subsitute for family or old friends coming in to visit. We do have a few regulars and it is much appreciated by all.

 Above you see one of the two  wonderful old cars  that the PEI Antique Car Society brought  up for us to view and admire. It was a first meeting of the Old Boys Club, which we hope to get going. This was a fun afternoon an  enjoyed by all.

 Above is Elma Birt which two of her seven  brothers. One is Ollie Birt who lives down in the US and hadn't seem Elma for ten years. Welcome home Ollie.

That's all for now. We are still having lots of wonderful entertainment and try to keep busy and make the most of each day.

Regards,
Julia

July entertainment

Well we did have a spectacular month of entertainment. We had our own version of "So You Think You Can Dance"  www.fox.com/dance/ except ours would be called " So You Love To Dance".

We had Scottish Country Dancers from Charlottetown

and then we had a Belly Dancing Troupe from Summerside and then

the following week we had the Dancing Sweethearts from Charlottetown. It was wonderful and much enjoyed by all. Thankyou so much to everyone who came out here to share their talents.

JMP

A good night's rest

Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together." We are following the person- centered care approach  at the South Shore Villa and  if a resident is sound asleep at the usual wake up time, we now have the option of leaving them sleeping. Later in the morning, when their natural circadian rhythm cycle causes them to wake up and want their breakfast, staff will prepare them for the day and feed them their breakfast if needed.

The toast of the Villa and Person Centred Care

The Villa is moving forward with our version of person centred care and it is demonstrated in all sorts of ways.The girls on the floor decided that fresh toast in the mornings would be popular with the residents. So every morning the Villa wafts with the scent of fresh toast. In a new four slice toaster, the staff go through two loaves of bread!!!Hot toast, freshly buttered is one of lifes' great comfort foods. The little things add up to  make a big difference.

Regards,
Julia

Royal Watchers at the South Shore Villa

We put on a longish but enjoyable day watching the young royals visiting PEI between all of the usual activities. It would have been grand if we could have gone to see the action in person but that wasn't really feasible. We all agreed we saw more and in comfort by watching TV than if we had been there. What a great day it was inspite of the rain and wonderful exposure for our beloved PEI. Priscilla Myers hosted the viewing in her handsome sitting room.
Regards,
Julia

Fun and laughter and Seniors

 South Shore Villa, Crapaud, June 2011

 

Well some days, we have hint of summer weather and we get outside for walks  to enjoy the beautiful setting of the Villa. The residents never take it for granted and enjoy our nature walks and the ease with which we can get out among the trees and birds sounds of summer.  And then we have rain and cold and we stay inside.  We are still having a grand time with our ball games. We call it Boomerang Ball. We have graduated from tossing one ball back and forth to having three balls in play and today we had at least six balls flying around. It looks like fun and it is fun, even the staff come in to join us and get in the action

 

Once a month we have arts and crafts on the calendar. This mostly involves paint and paper and an idea. We are fortunate to have some nice brushes which we acquired when we had a LEAP grant  here a few years back. This week we did a simple tree study with reflections. It is accomplished by folding the paper in half length wise, painting an image in the top section and then while the paint is still wet folding it over to make a mono print on the lower part of the fold. And voila you have a nice suggestion of the trees reflected on water. Last month we painted mandalas. I down loaded a mandala from the internet and printed them off onto heavy paper using our photocopier. The residents found it relaxing and enjoyed the colourful product. That photocopier is a wonderful tool for facilitating art projects. It’s amazing what the seniors can do in spite of their self doubt.

 We have continued on with our rhythm band project. Originally I thought we would acquire some drums but now we are playing around with spoons. It’s an instrument the residents are familiar with and I think they can do it. It’s just a question of breaking it down into simple steps.  Enjoying rhythm must be a fundamental pleasure like laughter and sunlight. We did the ground work over the winter by learning a few simple paradiddles and we can now incorporate them into playing the spoons.  Wish us luck

.

Regards

 

Spring in the hills of Crapaud PEI

 The hills are a smoky cerulean blue and the trees are a warm raw umber brown. It's April and the spring bulbs are coming up and the snow is  only in patches on the red clay fields. Yes the birch tree woodland surrounding the South Shore  Villa is sheltering snow drifts but that is typical for our Maritime spring.We kept well at the Villa with very little sickness this long winter. Winter passed quickly with plenty of entertainment and activities. We continue to play ball everyday and are making progress with our rythmn band.

 We got a little silly around St. Patricks Day. We are lucky enough to have several large hand puppets. The residents get a big kick out of these muppet style puppets. Several are child- like and are the favourites and then there is an older man in a cap and an old lady with a bun. We used them at the St Patty's Day party as  pretend  visitors from Ireland who told jokes and stories for us. And then on March 18 we set them up on display as if they were suffering the after effects of too much Irish beer.We thought we were very amusing.

Coming up is the royal wedding at the end of the month. We don't have royal wedding  fever yet but we are working on  building up some excitement on  the big day. Since we aren't on the official invitation list we will have to make our own event. We will have a nice English tea party on April 29th with scones and cream and a fancy cake and hot tea served in a tea cup. We will need to decorate some hats too. A tea hat is an important fashion statement. Then of course, we will bring in a wedding dress to help set the scene with bouquets of flowers. And then we will watch the wedding on our big screen TV. So it should be a nice afternoon. We wish the young couple well. If you are reading this consider it an invitation to join us on April 29,2011 at 2pm at the South Shore Villa in Crapaud, PEI. and what better time to celebrate the long marriages of our three resident married couples Garth and Alma Birt, Ralph and Phyllis Josey and Eddie and Linda Robbins.
Julia
Activites Director

May at last

May 2011

Well, here it is finally Spring and we are so glad. The grass is green and the white birch woodland out front is no longer sheltering pockets of snow. It was a long winter with lots of snow ----just like the old days. The flower beds out front are bravely challenging the cool weather. The pearly grey bark of the shrubs, make a nice color complement to the yellow daffodils and the cobalt blue, cream and pale pink hyacinths. Their perfume is the fragrance of spring.

We spent some nice weeks preparing for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate. Of course we needed tea hats to dress up in. So the summer straw hats were decorated with head bands and silk flowers. And the ladies were very pleased with their head gear. Of course they wore hats all the time in the old days and enjoyed having an excuse to wear a hat again.  I finally found a use for the upholstery fabric sample book I had sitting in a closet taking up space. It was a book of shiny satins perfect for the hand bands.  With a seam or two on a sewing machine and the hot glue gun we were in business.

 Of course we needed decorations. We had a gorgeous full length satin brocade wedding dress displayed on a dress dummy with a long veil. We had a nice framed portrait of the young couple on display also.  Then we had our party.  We drank hot tea poured from our new to us silver tea pot and out of fine china tea cups. We served slices of a jam layer cake with marzipan frosting the looked as good, as it tasted.

So the ball game continues to be very popular. The residents all have fun with our toss and throw game. We call it boomerang- fumble ball. Because it always seems to come back to the thrower and the fumbles are spectacular and lots of fun. Recently we acquired 18 additional balls .We are  learning a series of isometric exercises and a ball each makes it more pleasurable. Of course no one can resist the fun a new bouncy ball and a healthy chaos ensued the first time we brought the balls out. We look forward to a Chi Te demonstration in the new future. The sky is the limit.

With the fine weather here we can get outside for walks as often as we wish. We have such a nice setting here and always praise the forethought that kept the natural woodland in place here for all to enjoy.

Keep checking in on us. We never run out of ideas to share and like to hear from all of you.

Julia

Activities Director

Fabulous February 2011

It’s been a busy winter so far and we haven’t had time to write. We had lots and lots of visitors over the Christmas season. Many kind people came into share their musical talents and entertain. The residents look forward to the music and enjoy familiar songs.  Thank you so much. Family came through in groups large and small with treats and gifts. We are lucky that way here.

Our newest favourite activity is Seniorsize which we have enlivened with a small ball. The residents are pleased and surprised at how well they can toss and throw the ball. I am too. It didn’t take long for all of them to rediscover their love and skill with a ball. Many of them have fond memories as girls and boys at school playing baseball. There wasn’t much else to do after all.

It’s just a small inflatable ball. Tossing back and forth across the circle of 15 or 17 people takes skill and concentration. We get lots of laughs when someone does an outstanding save or does a powerful toss reminiscent of a volleyball serve. Or funnier still is a comical fumble. We clap for the successful catches and cheer each other on. When catching a ball, even a wheelchair bound resident springs into action and uses muscles they forgot about and reflexes too. It’s all about hand eye coordination.We have our own GoPEI.

Once I saw the progress the group made with the ball, I thought there may be other skills that could be developed. I think residents  believe  me now when I say they can learn new skills. So after the group exercise class I incorporate  a rhythm session. We stared by clapping out the syllables   of their names and have now progressed to short rhythmic patterns slapping out the pattern on their laps.

We clap to mississippihotdog and downwiggleupwiggle and geeIwantamotorcycle and pizzaandpopcorn. The easiest it mississippehotdog. When these four are internalized through practise they will be able to switch back and forth and tap out a rhymic  phrase of interest. And then we will ask if we can buy a few drums and we will set up a rythmn band.

So there's plenty to do to keep busy and lots of ideas for new activities. The next project will be to start a chapter of the Red Hat Society and an Old Boys Club. Talk to you soon and come by for a visit.

Activites Director