The Squamidian Report – Dec. 15 / 07
Issue #290
Also in this issue:
A Story From Russ & Barb
From the Shores of Lake Huron
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Some weeks it is even harder than usual to come up with something to write about. This week seems to be one of them. Oh well, if we can just keep this thing going until February 23rd, we will have reached 300 issues. Might have to re-evaluate after that. Oh, if Feb. 23rd sounds familiar, it is because it is Vivyan’s birthday. She’s been having one on that date for as long as pretty well anyone of us can remember.
Our local Horton’s has just come through a major renovation. I used to think of it as the holder of the ‘world’s worst Horton’s’ title until I heard from Carol and Al about their experience in one down east, somewhere in New Brunswick I think. But that’s another story, one that they should share.
Our Horton’s building was closed for over a month for a face-lift. During that time they still sold a limited number of items, most of which were either cold or stale from a temporary trailer set up on their parking lot. Everyone figured that the purpose of the renovation was to make the coffee shop more efficient. There had always been mass confusion at the counter, as customers would mill about waiting for their order making it impossible to tell who was ‘in line’ and who was not.
The renovation didn’t address that issue at all. There was no attempt made toward creating a more streamlined system. Instead, all the effort was put into giving the place a more ‘Whistler chalet’ feel, using fake stone and fake wood. The end result is more like a food court in a shopping mall. So we are back to having a poorly designed place run poorly by poorly trained staff, assuming they get any training at all. Oh well, at least they are fully open again. By the way, the entrance door wasn’t closing or opening correctly before the renovations, and its still not working right. They never thought to fix it I guess.
*
One day this week we had several hours of that heavy wet snow that comes down in giant clumps. Not really snow flakes, more like snow colonies. By the end of the day there was 2 or 3 inches of the stuff all over everything. Unfortunately, I didn’t get home from work before the local kids got home from school. Even though we keep asking them not to, they keep using our driveway as a toboggan run. It is steep enough to give them a bit of a thrill I guess. By the time I got home, the kids had moved on but our driveway was left packed and polished into one big sheet of white ice. I was a tad ticked to say the least, and would have liked to give the snot nosed little rats a piece of my mind but I didn’t. Instead I went to work trying to clean up the mess.
After using 4-wheel dive to get the truck into the garage I began breaking the packed snow up with a shovel. I found I could get under it and it would come away from the driveway surface, so I fired up the snowblower to give it a try. Never hurts to try, you know. Running it the normal way by letting the drive wheels push and the front glides slide along didn’t work, all that it did was slide up over the packed snow. So I tried lifting up on the handlebars taking the weight off the drive wheels and putting it all onto the gliders, forcing the cutting edge down. That worked. It dug under the snow and lifted it into the auger for discharge up the shoot. It was a lot of hard work, but a lot easier and faster than trying to scrape and shovel the drive. Sprinkle a bit of salt and I was done. And for a little while at least, the driveway was no longer a useful or attractive sliding hill for the &*%#@& kids.
doug
****
We’ve been blessed with having a cottage since before we were married 54 years ago. Bobbie (my wife, Barbara), owned the property on Lake Huron before we even met. It’s a large wooded lot with lots of wild life for our Standard Poodle, Donny, to chase or sometimes to just ponder. We built the cottage in sections ourselves, but that’s another story.
"Opening up" is quite simple, we just call the plumber and the next day or so, we have hot and cold running water. Over the years, we’ve had running water over the floors from frozen, burst water pipes!
The cottage, as was the case in those days, was not on a foundation, but merely placed on cement blocks, some of which, have sunk into the sand and some have not........which makes for wavy floors....after all it’s just a cottage.
So, opening last Spring was quite normal, except for a 6 inch hole gnawed out from the lattice and chicken wire which surrounds the entire cottage. I tried to indicate to whatever we were harbouring, that it was not welcome. I placed a 48-pound cement block smack-dab in front of his door, only to find it had made anew hole right beside it. I discouraged its use of the north wall only to find it had made another hole in the south wall!!! Need more cement blocks.
We played games for weeks plugging new holes. Yes, I thought about replacing the lattice and chicken wire with something more substantial but didn’t want to spoil the aesthetics of this half-century-old summer home!
What was this strong and determined houseguest? A fox? Yes, I’ve seen them around. One time, Donny and I actually saw a red fox run from under the cottage and was gone in a flash.....Donny shrugged it off as something too fast for him, and made no effort to chase it.
Could it be a skunk? I hope not, Donny had already tangled with one of them! How about a rabbit? I tried unsuccessfully to get an exterminator. And, one day while speaking with the By-law Enforcement Officer (who happened to be a former student of mine), he gave me the name of a professional trapper. The trapper was convinced we had a family of rabbits living under the cottage, and proceeded to set a live trap in the bushes nearby. Days, weeks, nothing.
Meanwhile, the smell of "dirty fur" or something dead had us looking at each other with suspicion. You? Me? Bobbie left me with a chilling thought: What if a family of critters had died under the cottage and had gone to Critter Heaven and left their smell behind??!!
By the way, the trapper said we could use copious amounts of mothballs to cover up the smell, and mothballs would discourage mice and other vermin from making their home with us. So, we gathered several boxes of mothballs and two Great Grandchildren who took great delight in "flipping" the mothballs through the chicken wire around the entire perimeter. We have a trap door in the center of the floor where the water shut-off is located. This small area gave the boys a shooting platform to launch more mothballs. Don’t know if it kept the varmints away but it sure drove us away! Pee-uh!!!
Well, the smell finally dissipated and the trapper caught one, count `em ONE rabbit in his trap that was set all summer and fall......still don’t have the trappers bill!
The cottage is all closed up for the winter, we paid the plumbers bill, which gets larger each season....only hope our downstairs guests don’t.
****
Greetings everyone,
It is Saturday morning at 12:15 am and I just got back from Kitchener after the Rangers hockey game. We added another win to our record against the Soo Greyhounds. A great game for both sides. Well Mister weatherman is forecasting another large snowstorm starting this evening and into Sunday with most of the snow from the Kitchener area south. From the sounds of this our area up here will get very little. Now that the gravel driveway at the house has frozen it's much easier to clean up the snow with the Bobcat. The last week or so there have very large flocks of wild turkeys around our area. Some of these flocks are as large as 80 to 100 birds. I am hoping to be able to convince some of them to come around my feeder area as I have been told once they find it they become regular visitors.
A friend of mine up here can't believe there are so many around now but when spring hunting season arrives he can't seem to find any. Maybe the old saying about them being stupid birds doesn't apply, who knows. Last week we had a bit of a disaster at the fish hatchery. In about a 12-hour period we lost around 2500 to 3000 young fish fry. No one seems to know why but it was only in 2 rows of trays out of 6 rows. The problem seems to have disappeared for now and we are hoping it doesn't arrive back again.
Well it's getting late or early depends how you look at it so I'm going to sign off for another week. Everyone have a safe and happy week.
****
Hello
everyone!
I know
that shopping is a big thing this time of year and even the men get into it in
one way or another. Most of the time guys wouldn’t thank you for a trip to the
hustle and bustle of the local malls but pretty much any time of the year, I am
up for a run to my favourite store. I like to spend time checking out the
amazing abundance of STUFF that can be found in your local Princess Auto store.
Now the name suggests that the stock in this store is to do with automotive
repairs and accessories but it has a whole lot more on the shelves than car
stuff. You can find anything from camping stuff to cooking stuff on display.
You can buy yourself a 75 lb anvil for pounding the heck out of anything metal
on it in your garage or workshop and you can also pick up a pair of gloves
specific for handling fish or plants. If you want to build a trailer to pull
behind your car or truck, well, they have all the parts for that as well. You
can pick up a book that tells you in detail how to build yourself a dune buggy.
They even sell the engines there right off the shelf for such a vehicle. This
store sells it all! If it’s a cell phone pouch you need, it’s there! If you
need some stainless steel cook ware or a new sump pump, they’ve got those too!
In fact, I have managed to build a large collection of air powered tools for my
garage from the sales this terrific “Guys” store has on every two weeks.
They’ll even send you a bi-weekly catalogue showing you the bargains they’re
going to have available in their upcoming sale. Every second Tuesday of every
month they have a new sale with different items featured each time. Like I said
earlier, the variety of items they sell in this store can keep a guy busy and
interested for a long time. I think they should rename this store the
“Everything A Man Could Want” store! I think it even beats the heck out of
Doug’s favourite store CTC. Too bad I don’t have a string of men to buy for or
it’d be easy to do all my shopping in one place “Princess Auto”. Oh well, I
guess I’ll just have to reserve Princess Auto’s offerings for me and Adam and
it doesn’t have to be Christmas to pay them a visit. It’s like Christmas all
year round when we visit my favourite store. From welders to any kind of tool
they’ve got it and they’ve got my patronage!
*
One of my
favourite things about this time of year is the variety of delicious cookies
that Carole makes. Our kitchen is filled with the aromas of such things as
vanilla, chocolate, almonds and peanuts. The counter is covered with containers
of all the good ingredients it takes to make these wonderful once a year treats
and it’s hard to resist picking through them before they are in their final
state of delicious amalgamation. I somehow manage to contain myself every year
and wait until Carole has the many full trays and Tupperware containers spread
out on the dining room table. Once they are there, they are fair game to me and
anyone else that appreciates the results of her many hours of hard work. I
don’t know how she does it but she truly enjoys making these goodies and the
love she puts into each batch is evident in the flavour of every bite. If there
wasn’t a gift to be had under the tree Christmas morning I’d be ok with that as
long as the cookies were there on the dining room table. If all wives and
mothers could bake like this, what a wonderful Christmas every kid both young
and old would have!
*
Gotta go
for now!
Thanks
for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next week in The
Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… Greg.
PS:
Something To Think About>
Real tree
or artificial and why?
****
The Family Site:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/
The Squamidian Site:
The Biking And Stuff Site:
Have a good one..
the
doug
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