The Squamidian Report – Mar. 8 / 14
Issue #615
Including:
Kyra's Snow
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Well hey, I brought some winter back with me from Ontario. We had been
enjoying an open, dry winter. We had also been wishing that little
2-year old Kyra would have an opportunity to play in some snow. Yes, we
could 'see' snow up in the mountains all along but that didn't mean
much to a kid her age. She had never actually had a chance to play in
or experience snow. On the weekend while I was away, the coast got hit
by a bit of snow. 'The Wife' had to shovel the drive a few times. Then,
last weekend we had Kyra here and we got hit by a snowstorm. We weren't
supposed to get any. The Lower Mainland was placed under a heavy
snowfall warning, as was the whole Fraser Valley. But, the western
Fraser Valley and the Vancouver area missed it all together. Eastern
Fraser Valley got nailed and up here at our place we received about 14
or 15 inches from Saturday night through Monday morning. Kyra was
finally able to see and play in snow. She had a great time. We even
made a snowman, something she had heard about and was fascinated with
but had never actually seen in real life. And, I was able to use the
snowblower a few times which is good because if I don't use up the
2-year old gas that is in the tank, I will have to drain that gas and
dispose of it before putting the blower back into storage.
Last Sunday was also supposed to be our annual CMC officer's meeting
over in Nanaimo. After consultations the day before with our
Provincial Officer, who lives over on the Island, we decided to
postpone the meeting. If the storm hit as forecast, no one from the
mainland would have been able to get to the ferry, at least not safely.
As it turned out, while the snow missed Vancouver, the rest of the area
got hit hard and so did the east side of Vancouver Island including
Nanaimo. That whole area was not forecast to get any snow. Our roads
and highways become a mess when it snows. Unlike 'back east' snow that
often comes down dry and fluffy, our snow is heavy and wet. It does not
blow off the road. It does not pack into a crunchy texture. As soon as
anyone walks or drives on it, it becomes white ice, very slippery white
ice. Add to that the fact that all our roads including the ones in the
city are steep ups and downs with tight mountain curves and you have
dangerous driving conditions, be it out on the highways or in the
cities. Ryan and family had intended to go home Sunday evening but
wisely waited until Monday afternoon. On Sunday evening the highway
back to Vancouver was blocked in numerous places due to crashes from
vehicles that hadn't made it up a hill, or down a hill, or around a
curve.
It was nice to have some 'winter' here for a few days. The snow was
followed by several days of heavy rains so its pretty well gone now and
we are back to normal but while I had intended to put the bike back on
the road shortly after getting back, it looks like it could be a couple
of weeks yet. We don't have any really nice weather in our long range
forecast so I'll just have to wait a little while longer for spring to
come back.
Greg had sent some prototype wooded toys home with me to give to Kyra.
He had made a really cool airplane and helicopter, both bright blue and
yellow. They are very well built and rugged although the airline
baggage handlers did manage to damage the airplane a little bit but I
was able to fix it back up. Luggage tends to get abused pretty bad by
those people. Anyway, Kyra was quite delighted with the two toys.
However, at 2-years old she is not quite ready for them and was content
to have me 'play' with them while she watched. She wanted me to fly
them the way I fly my R/C units. I guess that makes sense, she can't
really tell the difference and she knows I fly my units. She likes me
to hold them up and pretend they were flying, the way a slightly older
kid would do it. And she carefully carries them around, then hands them
to me to make them fly. I'm pretty sure that as she gets a few months
older and starts to understand that they are for her to play with she
will figure out how to play with them. She will 'grow' into them.
Oh, here's something, actually it's more of a rant than a 'something'.
I've reached that state in life where I find it very hard to put up
with idiots, morons and stupid people. Well, I reached that point long
ago. I've now reached the point where I no longer feel obligated to
even try anymore. It's easier just to ignore and avoid them. Anyway,
sometimes you run into a moron in an unexpected place. We were watching
a documentary on the BC equivalent of TVO, out here its called
Knowledge Network. There is a series about the Canadian coast line. The
episodes are usually staged on the east coast but this one was done on
the west coast and covered Vancouver Island from Nanaimo to Campbell
River. They had an arrogant idiot babbling about the native history and
culture on Quadra Island. He showed large rocks to the camera, rocks
along the shoreline that have the high tide line about half way up them
and hieroglyphic markings on them. He explained that the markings were
done by some prehistoric native artist who must have endured standing
up to his knees in the cold salt water to work on his artwork. What a
crock! Those rocks are on the shoreline NOW because NOW is when sea
level is where it is NOW. In prehistoric times sea level was lower than
today and those rocks would have been high and dry, perhaps hundreds of
meters inland. I don't know what his definition of 'prehistoric' is but
a thousand years ago sea level may have been as much as 20 or 30 meters
lower than now, and ten thousand years ago it was perhaps 100 meters
lower. That has been proven by geologists, and archaeological studies
of ancient native habitat that is now well below sea level. That
ancient artist was not up to his knees in cold water, he or she was
chipping away on those rocks in some sunny glad or shady wooded
location well inland from the sea.
doug
****
Kyra's Snow
Well, we finally had snow to play in while Kyra and her Mommy &
Daddy were here. It started snowing last Saturday night so Kyra got to
play with her little friend from across the street on Sunday morning.
That play involved sliding down Grampa’s driveway on her new red sled
with Alex(andra) on her toboggan until to snow was packed down on the
drive and Grampa came out with the snowblower. The girls
then moved into the backyard where the snow was up to their mid thighs.
They made paths all over the backyard and got “stuck” whenever they
fell down. Kyra didn’t want to make snow angels so I think that will be
a next year thing. Mommy made the girls, a snack of grilled cheese
sandwiches and juice after all the mitts were soaking wet and they has
come inside to play.
Kyra loves snowmen ever since seeing them as lighted ornaments on our
neighbourhood lawns at Christmas time. Kyra has talked about
snowmen constantly since then and orders Grampa to draw them in crayon
or chalk at every opportunity so that she can colour them in. With a
pile of snow readily available on Sunday morning, Grampa, Daddy &
Kyra built a snowman on the deck!
Her snowman had potato eyes, a carrot nose and some cherry tomato lips
and Gramma found a scarf & hat for him to wear. She will be really
disappointed next week when she comes because the snowman has currently
melted to about 10 inches. Good fun while it lasted!
This link will take you to some pictures of her playing in the snow. Pictures!
Gramma Sue
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, the clocks are about to spring ahead on Sunday but it still
doesn’t feel that much closer to spring does it! With this past Friday
having been the first day the temperature in our area of Southern
Ontario was above 0c it’s hard to trust Mother Nature to let us have a
few more of those “warm” sunny days. She’s kept us in the cold for
quite a string of shivering days and nights. We’ve had 26 days of below
-20c temps in a row and many of them dropped as low as the low -30’s
over night! Wow, we haven’t hit temps like that since the late 70’s. I
think it was 1978 that we last had this much snow as well. The weather
report on CTV Kitchener tonight said we’ve had 78cm of snow this winter
and that very little of it has melted. Guess that’s why the roadsides
are like driving through tunnels in most places but hopefully this next
couple of weeks will start the thaw and it’ll be good if it’s a gentle
thaw at that! We sure don’t want all this snow to melt in one big
sloppy gush! Can you imagine how the low-lying areas would flood if it
did? We’d be in a mess for sure! Let’s keep our fingers crossed that
it’ll be a gentle but sunny melting period that will lead to a
beautiful spring.
The spring break started Friday and the exodus to the southern states
is well under way. The drive down I-75 is supposed to be clear
according to the weather reports so at least it’ll be a safer drive
than worrying about hitting snow and ice storms all the way down. I
remember Carole, Adam and I getting in the car and starting out for
Florida and not stopping other than for gas and food for a 24 hr
straight drive! We’d leave on a Friday morning at 5am and arrive in
Clearwater Beach around 8am the next morning. I’d have to sleep for a
good 12 or so hours after driving all that way. I usually did all the
driving and to this day I don’t know how the heck I managed to do it
without any misshaps or driving incidents all the way to Florida! I do
remember fighting the sleeps and finally pulling into a truck stop to
try to sleep for an hour or so but once we stopped I’d snap out of it
and couldn’t sleep anyway so we’d just get some food and hit the road
again for another few hours till we needed gas again. It was an
adventure but at least Carole and Adam were able to sleep most of the
way once nightfall hit. Carole would do her best to stay awake and help
me do the same but eventually she’d lose the battle too and fall off to
sleep. I remember singing and whistling and cranking up the radio to
keep myself going and they’d just keep on a snoring right through it
all! I guess when you’re tired enough you can sleep through most
anything. We made that trip to Florida many times from the late 70’s to
the early 90’s and once we had done it so many times we decided to
start taking two or three days to make the drive. I think the last few
times we drove down we spent two nights in motels because I was getting
too old or maybe I was just less foolish, to drive while sleeping with
my eyes open! LOL! I guess we were just lucky I managed not to hit
anything all those miles in the early years. When I think of the
thousands of people that drive I-75 to Florida every March it brings
back a lot of good memories. We had a lot of fun in Florida and even
went to Myrtle Beach SC once or twice. I preferred the vacations in
Florida and so did Carole and Adam. We just found that Florida
was warmer than Myrtle Beach that time of year. Myrtle just wasn’t far
enough south to be dependably warm! However after a winter like we’ve
had anything warmer than what we have here in Southern Ontario sounds
good to me!
Well, that’s about 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>
A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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