The Squamidian Report – Aug. 25 / 12

 

Issue #535

 

Including:

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

I guess summer is over. That hot sunny weather that lasted about a week must have been it, summer lasted a whole whopping week. Now we are back to daytime highs that reach all the way up to the mid teens and the occasional shower that lasts just long enough to make everything wet. But, I guess that’s a good thing. The forest fire just north of us is now under control and any smoke coming off of it is drifting off to the east. It has not spread much lately and isn’t expected to. However, there are some large fires further inland, in the Caribou section of BC, that are very big. Those areas could use some cooler temps and a bit of rain and they probably will get it. Once the weather changes in this part of the world, it tends to stay changed for quite a while.

 

My blueberry crop seems to have liked our summer-less summer. The crop was a full month late getting started, and a full month late ripening, but it was the biggest crop I’ve ever had and its still going strong. I’ve got a mix of early, mid and late baring plants. The early ones and the mid ones are pretty well finished now but the late baring plants are just getting started. Daily yield has slowed down. For a while there I was picking enough berries every day to fill a 6-inch bowl. This is the first year that there were more berries than I could eat fast enough to keep up with and so we have frozen a bunch. Now I’m only getting about a cup full or so. The late berries will probably last well into September which is quite incredible considering that most years the whole crop is finished and done with by the end of July. The most amazing thing of all is that the berries were able to ripen this year. Last year there was not enough sunshine to sweeten them up. This year started off worse, but eventually there were enough sunny days to allow them to slowly ripen.

 

I even have a tomato that is almost ripe. My tomato plants are in pots as there doesn’t seem to be any where on this property with enough sunlight for tomatoes to grow. So we left them in the pots and were moving them around until we found that the front flower beds seem to be the sunniest location as we can find. Problem with pots is I have to water them about 3 times per day but that’s easy enough to do. There are 6 pots with plants in them and some are loaded, the rest have a few tomatoes on them but most are still small, hard green things. Should be interesting to see how they do. If they do even a bit ok, I’ll plant next year’s tomatoes right in the front flower beds, but planting in the ground this past spring had been out of the question. It had stayed so cold and so wet that we couldn’t plant anything. So, next year we’ll just have to play it by ear.

 

I was even able to use my non-insulated summer leather riding jacket for a couple of weeks. Mind you, except for that one hot week I still needed a sweater on under it. Now its put away and I’m back to wearing my cold weather riding jacket when out on the bike, and the rain gear is back in the saddle bag. It looks and feels like early October around here and that’s just fine, early October can be quite nice. I sure don’t want or need the hot relentless heat that most of the country has had to endure. Maybe next week I’ll be able to come up with something a bit more interesting but that too will have to be played by ear.

 

doug

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

Today we, Carole, Bailey and I took a leisurely drive south to Port Dover on Lake Erie. We went specifically to enjoy an afternoon meal of Lake Erie Perch at one of the few food prep joints in the beach area of the Port. We usually have this meal once or twice a year at the Erie Beach Hotel but because we had our little poodle with us this time, we purchased our meal at a sidewalk eatery near the beach. This time the Perch was tasty but the batter used by this outlet wasn’t nearly as pleasing as that of the Erie Beach establishment. It was a common heavy batter usually found in most fish n chip joints and it was therefore nothing special. The Erie Beach Hotel Restaurant has what I believe to be a crushed “Corn Flake” breading on their Perch fillets and it’s very light and exceptionally tasty on the Perch. You can also enjoy a meal of Pickerel fillets if you so choose but we tend to stick with the Perch for which this town is famous! It’s tender, sweet and never fishy tasting. The cost of a Perch dinner at any of the establishments in Dover is not cheap but for a couple of times a year, it’s worth the cost and the drive south to this lakeshore fishing village! Of course, this is the same Port Dover that hosts the famous motorcycle events on every Friday The 13th each year and has done so for I believe the past 27 years. On this day in August it was sunny and hot and the town was filled with sun bathers and the beach which was only about 50m away from our eatery was crowed with late summer bathers and sun worshipers trying to get in the last few rays of tanning effect before it’s time for the kids to go back to school and the days to start cooling off too much to be swimwear enjoyable! With only one week left in the month of August I imagine the beaches of Ontario will be packed with sun worshipers taking in every last minute of beach blanket baking before cottage closing time!

 

When I retired, I had an acquaintance on the Waterloo Regional Police who was a detective in the “Ident” division and also retired within a month or so of my last day at the Fire Dept. He told me he had his house up for sale and as soon as it was gone, he and his wife were moving south to Port Dover. At the time, I thought “Who the hell would ever move to Port Dover?” but now that we’ve gotten in the habit of visiting this quaint village by the lake each year, I can see the appeal of living there year round. The town is clean and well laid out and has a nice but relatively small beach. There is pretty much every convenience you would need on the main street as well as a good-sized grocery store (No Frills). Port Dover is only about 10 minutes from the larger town of Simcoe which has a decent hospital and more shopping and service outlets of all kinds for Dover residents convenience. The pace of life is slower in this area and would lend itself to a more relaxing retirement time of life indeed! I haven’t spoken to my former police officer acquaintance more than a couple of times since his move to Dover but when I did bump into him, he said he was quit content living by the big lake and has always been into sailing his own boat so the move for he and his wife was definitely the right one! There are several new housing developments in Port Dover and the houses look to be quite nice in design and size.

 

The main advantage of having a cottage on Lake Erie as far as Carole and I can see is that it’s only an hours drive from Kitchener and there is virtually NO TRAFFIC to contend with when traveling in either direction to and from the Lake. We have friends that have cottages in the Muskoka area and they bitch about fighting the traffic every time they drive to their cottage and once again on the drive home. It’s a four hour drive through that mess to get to their cottage each weekend and a four hour drive through the same mess to get home! I guess there is some wilderness appeal to having a cottage “up North” but when it’s such a pleasant and short drive to head south to Lake Erie if you had a cottage on it’s north shore, why would anyone go through the hassle and expense of having a cottage up north? We have friends with cottages in the Lake Erie area and they wouldn’t trade their location for the world! With that in mind, if we ever decide to move to a lake location, it won’t be to the north!

 

If any of you would like to experience a wonderful Perch dinner, we highly recommend the Erie Beach Hotel in Port Dover! It’s worth the drive south.

 

That’s it for this week!

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>

When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

 

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Have a good one..

the doug

http://www.thedougsite.net

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