The Squamidian Report – April 21 / 12

 

Issue #517

 

Including:

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

The deck repair is just about done now. All that’s left to do is put the railings back on and finish up a few loose ends. I guess we were lucky in that we dealt with it before any of the main structure suffered too much water damage. I had been concerned about some of the joists would need to be replaced but they are all still firm and in good shape. The guy who is doing most of the work tore up all the deck flooring plywood and replaced that but didn’t have to go any deeper. There was a time when I’d have done it all myself but that was when I was younger and more importantly, stronger. I no longer have the strength or stamina in my arms and shoulders to do much more than  pick up some of the debris that falls onto the lawn. Its probably just as well, what takes a professional carpenter a couple of days would have taken me half the summer. One thing they had to do was hang a tarp over the whole thing. Its been raining every second day here since forever and the plywood floor needed to be dry in order to glue down the new membrane. This kind of deck which is very common out here uses some sort of vinyl surface membrane that is tough enough to walk on and stays water proof for years. That’s quite handy because the area under the deck makes for great storage that is protected from the weather and stays nice and dry.

 

We were also lucky with our timing. The first years we lived here, no local contractors or businesses would even look at a job or project in Squamish. They all wanted to work in Whistler where they could gouge and basically plunder the customers for ridiculous sums of money. No one in Squamish could afford to hire local contractors, Squamish residents were simply the workers who worked in Whistler. We had to hire companies from the city to come up here to do the things we couldn’t do ourselves. Then during the lead-up to the Olympics it got even worse. You couldn’t get any one from anywhere, they were all busy milking Olympic projects to the point it was embarrassing. However, once the Olympics were over, all that juicy lucrative work dried up and all the companies that had made incredible amounts of money doing sloppy, incompetent work found themselves with no work and no customers. People who wouldn’t give you the time of day were starting to show up on your door step handing out business cards and brochures. They didn’t want us before and now we don’t want them. There are new contractors around now who are willing to do good work and reasonable prices. This time, finally, the laws of supply and demand are working in our favor.

 

By early next week the deck will be completely finished and all the stuff that had been under it will be back under. We had to move everything out of the way. The front entrance issue is still in need of attention but I think that will be dealt with pretty soon as well. We simply need to do some underpinning and then perhaps pour some short concrete walls and a small pad. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem but I sure wish my good buddy Mr. Lang of Lake Huron fame were out this way with his tools and knowledge. I’d be able to sleep a lot better.

 

Willow is sad. She is always sad when any of her ‘people’ are away and right now her main person is absent. ‘The Wife’ is back in Ontario visiting family. That means I might even find enough quiet time in this house to record the last two songs I need to finish up my ‘Volume 3’ of my CD project. That also means that Willow sticks to me like glue. Oh well, that’s life. She really likes Kyra but Kyra isn’t of much real use to her yet. The baby isn’t yet at the stage where she will be dropping nice globs of food on the floor for salvaging by an interested dog, or at the stage where that nice food is spread all over her hands and face, again for salvaging by an interested dog. She is however, at the stage where she can cry very loud and that gets Willow quit concerned. Willow knows that there is nothing she can do about whatever the problem is and so looks to us, literally, to fix the issue. Now, looking at me in hopes of dealing with whatever is wrong is not very productive as I wouldn’t have a clue and am usually beating a hasty retreat. However, we will all survive while ‘The Wife’ is absent. The bigger question is, can ‘The Wife’ survive a couple of weeks without the baby?

 

doug

****

 

 

****

THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

In this lovely summer like weather we’ve been having over the past few weeks you might have been sitting out in your back yards enjoying the sunshine with your cup o tea  or even your beer. If you’re gardens are anything like ours, they’ll be rapidly filling with buds on almost all of your flowers and bushes. While enjoying the early blooming of such plants you may have noticed the appearance of a mid sized butterfly with black wings accented by a red stripe across each one. This little critter is called a “Red Admiral”. Over the winter months it spends it’s time in the south-eastern United States and come spring it flies north back to eastern Canada. It’s a native of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime provinces and is usually appearing in these regions mid to late May each year. This year is an exception as the largest migration of these beauties ever seen is now in progress and it’s only mid April. With the appearance of such an early spring the little butterflies have multiplied by the millions and have flown north along with the warm winds that have come up from the southern US. Over the past week, millions of these little guys have arrived in eastern Canada and we’ve actually been watching them flit around in our back gardens. They seem to be friendly since they aren’t shy about landing on our colourful clothing as we sit on the back yard swing seat. I was wondering if they were moths or butterflies and had seen one or two other years out back. I happened to read the RECORD paper this morning and was surprised to find an article about their mass migration and a bit of their history. They are indeed Butterflies and this year as the article said they are more prolific than ever before. They have been monitored since the 60’s and this year are here in incredible numbers! There are literally many millions of them arriving in Canada every day. They can travel north at a rate of 300 miles per day or more. One fellow photographed an estimated 20,000 of them resting in the trees and shrubs of his back yard in London Ontario and posted the picture on line on a butterfly watch site.

 

I had known since I was a kid that the Monarch butterfly migrated to Mexico and back to Canada every year but wasn’t aware of any other species doing such an annual flight. It’s heartwarming to hear of such beautiful happenings in nature and to know that our polluted atmosphere hasn’t destroyed these creatures and done away with another of Mother Nature’s inhabitants! If you see these gentle flyers around your yard, take a moment to enjoy watching them. They use the nectar from your flowers as fuel for their little gas tanks to give them the energy to fly such great distances and will be refilling their tanks in your gardens! I hope all of you get the chance to see one or more of these Red Admirals up close so you can appreciate another one of God’s amazing creations!

 

I’m going to see if I can capture one of these beauties on my digital camera. If I succeed, I’ll make sure to send it to Doug so he can post it for all of you to see next week!

 

That’s it for this week folks!

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now ….  GREG

PS: Something To Think About>

Two silk worms had a race; they ended up in a tie!

 

****

 

Have a good one..

the doug

http://www.thedougsite.net

The Fine Print!

The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.