The Squamidian Report – Aug. 3/19
 
Issue ==> #897<==

Including:

From Michelle in Switzerland
From Russ
From Carol
From Lorne
The Ontarion

Hi All,

I saw a two-toned bear. Front half was brown and back half was black. It looked like it was wearing a brown shirt and black pants. I was on my way back over the Duffy on the bike at the time. I was on my way back because I had been out for a ride with a friend and we ended up in Cache Creek on Tuesday evening and after riding a bit more on Wednesday morning he headed back to the Kootenays and I headed back out toward the coast. He used to live on our street but moved away about 10 years ago. We’ve kept in touch and have done a fair amount of riding together although this is the first time we’ve been out together in a couple of years or so. He’s just as old and grumpy as I remember.

Anyway, we had left here about noon on Tuesday and rode up through Whistler and Pemberton. That bit of riding had been on the wet side but thats how it goes. We crossed the Duffy with only a few sprinkles and by the time we dropped down into Lillooet it was warm, almost hot. The ride along the Fraser Canyon from there up to Fontain is always scenic as you hug the east edge of the canyon with the river a thousand feet below. There is one section of the highway that never stops slumping down, ever threatening to let go totally and slide all the way down into the river. ‘They’ have never figures out how to stabilize it, and they can’t move it up hill as there is a rail line in the way. Once past Fontain you’ve turned northeast and away from the Fraser, passing through Marble Canyon and on into rolling western cowboy type country. Interestingly, that whole area is usually crispy brown and dried out. In fact, the last several summers have seen out of control forest fires consume the vegetation around there. However, this year its all green and almost lush, we’ve been having summer rains, almost unheard of. There are a few places where flash floods had wiped out the roadway, but the road has been repaired. We ended up in Cache Creek about 5 in the afternoon and decided to get rooms and just enjoy the evening and the area.

On Wednesday morning, bright and early, we headed south on #1, down to Spence’s Bridge. This is where the Trans Canada highway meets up with the Thompson River again. This is also where my friend turned east on #8 toward Merritt for his ride home and I continued south to Lytton. I must say, this section is incredible. The geological forces that created the scenery are visible all around. Way back, when the last ice age was ending, vast glacial lakes would form and empty, often in the same spot, lasting for anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years. They’d form when ice jams would block the flow from the melting glaciers. Sediments would be laid down, often hundreds or thousands of feet deep. Thats what formed the valley bottoms. Then, the resulting rivers would cut down through the sediments, creating deep, steep canyons. As well, when an ice dam that was holding back a temporary lake of unimaginable size would let go, the flood would scour right down to and even into solid bed rock for hundreds of miles. There are some very vivid flood scouring scars down through Washington and Oregon and Idaho that are rather impressive but you would not have wanted to be there when they happened.

Anyway, I rode along the clear blue Thompson River, through that geologically beautiful country to Lytton where the clear Thompson empties into the muddy Fraser. From there I turned north, up the Fraser Canyon on #12. This is a narrow, twisty strip of pavement that  hangs onto the side of the canyon, every bit as challenging as the Duffy, a fantastic ride. This took me back to Lillooet. If any of you have a current version of Google Earth on your computer, check these area out. You can zoom right down low and the program goes into a 3D mode giving a sort of birds eye view as you ‘fly’ along. Kinda cool.

Generally I’d stop at the Lightfoot gas station in Lillooet, thats situated just before you start the climb back up onto the Duffy. Its a couple of single lane wooden bridges out of town but down off the mountainous section. This time I didn’t bother to stop, I was ‘in the groove’ riding wise, totally enjoying myself and didn’t want to interrupt the flow. Riding had been nicely on the cool side earlier and had warmed up quite a bit by the time I got to Lillooet but as I climbed up into the mountains it cooled right down to almost chilly which was fine, keeps it comfortable. Now, the biggest issue with riding or driving the Duffy is the wallowing Winnebagos, the rental RV things, the camper trailers being pulled by something not really meant for pulling. They all seem to be driven by drivers who are not equipped, mentally or skill wise, to be on that road. They either don’t notice or don’t care that they are crawling along while impeding half a kilometer of traffic, stuck behind them and unable to get by because those drivers simply won’t let anyone by. I lucked out and only had to put up with two, one just after I started up and the other about 3/4ths of the way across. In both cases I was able to get past but only because I was on a motorcycle.

And that brings me back to the two-toned bear. It was about half way across that I saw it as it crossed the road, down into the ditch and up into the forest. Pretty cool looking, black bear wearing a brown shirt or brown bear wearing black pants. Who know.

Once off the Duffy its an easy ride from Pemberton down through Whistler and home. I was home by early afternoon and thats about it. Bike ran great, always does, it and I are both looking forward to next time.
doug
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From Michelle

I thought I could contribute something about my visit here in Brookfield Il:
I'm visiting my half sister who lives nearby Chicago for 2 weeks. We both have the same dad, Gilbert, who traveled to Canada in the sixties. First arriving in Montreal by ship, he worked as a hairdresser for a year or so and then moved on on the hippie wave to Vancouver where he met my sister Jessy's mom. The relationship didn't last long and Jessy never got to meet Gilbert up until 18 years later. I was 12 when she first came to visit us in Switzerland. I was thrilled to find out that I have a sibling, for that I grew up as a single kid and also had lost my mother at the age of 8. We bonded right away and I even lived with her for six months in Chicago when I was 16.

Since then we always managed to visit each other frequently over the years like now.
Jessy and her son and husband just bought a house last year in the suburbs and her mom could buy the house right beside it this spring. She has to go to dialysis every second day, so living close to each other is beneficial on each side. Moving in to a house is usually combined with work. There is a shed in the backyard which was in quite bad conditions. On day two of my visit sitting on the porch, nipping on some rosé looking at the devastating situation of that shed, we decided to give it a facelift. The next day we got up at 7 and started with tarring off the moldy wood of the roof eaves, trimming the weeds around it and sandpapering. The eaves were fixed amateurishly with some boards and foam to keep critters out which it of course didn't: they were full with wasp and bird nests and maybe an opossums nest. Luckily all abandoned, so I didn't need to get in an unpleasant close in counter with anything. We boarded new eaves screwed them on and started with painting. Day two we were sick and tired with painting but we finished bevor noon with the second layer. I convinced my sister to plant around the shed to make it just look nicer. We went off to the next nursing and got a bunch of coneflowers, clematis, some decorative grasses and other stuff. On day three I made a mulchbed and planted the whole thing. Everybody was out on that day and when they came back they couldn't believe the change. I was exhausted because it was over 30 degrees and looked like a dirtbag but happy.

The day after we went for a trip to the Millennium Park in Chicago. Very beautiful and impressive park with a huge stage, the "Bean" and lots of flowers. We "stole" some flower seeds and were looking out so nobody would arrest us. We noticed a gardener, young handsome guy by the way and we made some sexist comments, he must have heard them because when I asked him if he by chance was clearing out some pretty flowers which we could take for our newly made flower bed, he had a certain grin on his face.. Unfortunately he didn't have any but he gave us a wheelbarrow of hostas instead! They changed the concept of the park and the hostas were going to land on the compost! He gave us plastic pots and trays so we could carry them to our car. It's incredible how robust these plants are: two days after we stuck them in the ground it didn't seem to bother them that their roots were out so long..

I'm enjoying this visit so much and everyone is so friendly and fun to hang out with. This Sunday Jessy and I are going for a couple of days to Saugatuck to relax and recover from all the work we did ;) After that it's soon to say goodbye again, sniff!
Hot weather greetings
Michelle













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From Russ

My good friend and neighbour (the man who drives me to church most Sundays) was raking leaves, and when he came into his house he noticed a tiny 6-legged “bug” on his arm. It turned out it was a “tick”. He tried to brush it off, but it was already imbedded, so he simply pulled it out, stepped on it, and tossed it in the garbage.
“Did you get the whole thing?” I asked.
“Don’t know - - why?” he replied.
“Because sometimes if the head of the tick is buried under the skin, and you pull it, you’re only getting the ‘belly’ – and it don’t care – it’ll just grow another” I explained.
“HOLY SHIT!” was his understandable response.
 
There are many kinds of ticks(tics); some are tiny as a grain of rice, others large as your ‘pinky’ fingernail.  Some carry Lyme disease and some (most) don’t - -you can’t tell by looking at them, and they ain’t talking! The only experience I’ve had with a tick was when I was petting my dog Donny (Standard Poodle) behind his floppy ears (which he loved) I felt something that wasn’t there before. It was soft and felt like a small skin tag or wart. Taking a close look at it, I recognized it was a tic, and rather than attempting to remove it myself I phoned my vet in Kincardine.

“Bring him in right away!” was the vet’s excited response.
“But don’t bring him into the office, we’ll meet you out on the (paved) parking lot”.
They wanted a “live capture” of the tick so they could have a lab test to see if it carried the ‘dreaded’ Lyme disease. The vet, a pretty young thing, came out carrying a small device which resembled a “melon baller”, but instead of a ‘cup’ on the end, it had a V-shaped ‘foot’ specially made to remove an “embedded tic”. Having taken my ‘hungry’ eyes off her for a moment, I watched as she carefully slid the V under the only ‘available’ part – the large, blood-filled “belly”, and began to slowly turn the device round & round until the tic ‘let go’, and the living “bug” fell to the pavement and began scurrying away.
“Don’t let it escape!” she cried – so I was about to dispatch it with my Size 10 when she again cried, only louder,
“NO – DON’T! – we need it “live” to be sent out”. She then scooped it up and carefully placed it into a clear plastic “evidence” envelope.
Weeks went by; all the while I feared for the worst. Finally the vet called,
“You can stop worrying” – It turned out to be non-Lyme-carrying.
What a relief!!
 
I did some research (I ‘Googled it’), and learned:
“There may be no “bug” creepier than a tick. These blood-sucking parasites crawl up our bodies, embed their mouthparts in our skin, and then casually drink their fill of our blood until their bodies expand like tiny water balloons. Ticks carry and transmit a variety of diseases to people and pets, from Lyme disease to (some word a mile long and impossible to pronounce -  ‘anaplasmosis’).
Feeding ticks can paralyze livestock, and large tick infestations can kill the host animal”.
Picture this: You get a tick on your ankle (but you didn’t feel the
 bite – you never do), so you pluck it from your skin. Yuck! Are you sure you got it all out? You ask yourself; what purpose could these horrible ‘bugs’ serve?
 
Next week we’ll see if we can find some Earthly use for these ancient ‘arthropods’.
By Your old Uncle Russ.
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From Carol

I can’t believe summer is half over already.  The fact that we still needed jackets into late June has shortened summer for me.  When we were up at the Wiarton house for Canada Day weekend the water was too cold at the beach for swimming.  Al, Nick & I are heading back up today, we should finally be able to swim.  Al, Jamie & Gary had framed in a room in the basement when up last & we had a drywaller there this week so we will be painting, among the many other jobs needed to care for a house.  Nick & I will be coming back on Tuesday while we leave Al there to work.  We have plenty of beds in Wiarton to accommodate how ever many come up for Summerefolk but thought more privacy was needed.  Speaking of Owen Sound’s Summerfolk festival, Al Nick & I will be helping with construction & destruction again this summer.

Gary has been volunteering for over 40 years and he is the one that enlisted us.  Nick & I will head back up on the 11th to work.  We will send in some pictures after the event and tell everyone all about it this year’s edition.  Summerfolk is a Friday evening to Sunday music festival held each year at Kelso Park.  There are many stages and intimate gathering places featuring many performers from all over North America and beyond.  I encourage all of you to go to their web page and check it out.  We still have room in Wiarton to put you up.  Have a great civic holiday weekend.
Carol
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From Lorne

No strawberries on the West Coast?  I purchased 3 flats, that's 18  liters, ate about 2 and froze the rest. Very good crop this year. Blueberries? Gale and I went picking at a pick your own farm. They are growing abundantly. We each picked a 4 liter basket in very short order. Again froze most and ate some. Hope to go again. There is some compensation for living in the grey old East.

In other happenings, drove the new car to Lake Simcoe. This one is only a 4 banger and used less gas.  Haven't owned a car with only 4 cylinders since my 1951 A40 Austin. Somehow, they found a way to put more guts in to-day's 4s than they offered in the mid 1900s. Up till now all my cars were V8s, then down to a V6 with the last one. At first I was very humiliated and did not admit my downturn, but went in to denial.  Now who do you know that is so proud that they lie about their horsepower? However, the more saved on gas, the more the descendants will end up with. Oh, did I mention that it brought us back as well?
Lorne
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!
Carole and I were out doing some shopping for groceries the other day and decided to try shopping at Hurley’s farm store on Erb St just outside Waterloo. They have a wonderful produce store on their farm property in which they carry many of the products they grow on their own farm. They also carry several products that they source from other farms around southern Ontario. It’s really terrific to know that they sell only Ontario grown vegetables and that they don’t import any American products! This was the first time we’d shopped at their market and we were quite impressed with their array of vegetables and with the fact that they’re mostly locally grown items. Their prices were also very reasonable indeed! I’m sure we’ll be shopping there again in the near future. They also sell nylon mesh bags in which to place whatever you purchase from them instead of one time use plastic like most other grocery stores sell. With the world being over burdened with plastic waste, it’s good to know that some food stores are beginning to do away with plastic bags to try to combat this problem. We talked about the article on the news last night about Sobeys Food Chain banning all plastic bag use within the next couple of years. They are the first to make an effort to stop the plastic problem by doing their share with regards to such a polluting item. The problem is as Carole pointed out, if these large grocery chains really wanted to help with the plastic problem worldwide, they’d stop using and selling one time use plastic bags immediately after using up their current supply and not make claims of banning their use two to five years from now! What’s wrong with going back to paper or switching to having customers bring in their own nylon or fabric bags every time they come to shop? Carole and I have been using our own fabric and heavy plastic reusable bags for 10 or more years now and very seldom will we make use of the plastic bags that stores now charge 5 cents a piece for! We both agree that stopping the use of one time plastic bags would not only help save the environment but would save the food chains millions of dollars each year when they don’t have to supply bags to their customers! What a mess the big chain stores have created by using one-time plastics all these years. I remember when we were kids in the 50’s and 60’s that grocery stores used large paper bags and even then my mother used to save those bags and reuse them several times when shopping for groceries. She used to work a few blocks from our house on Floyd St in the North Ward of Kitchener at a store called The Grand Union and later renamed Steinberg’s Grocery. That store is still in existence on Margaret Ave and is now a “Giant Tiger” store. We shop there occasionally and each time we do it brings back memories of my walking up from home to meet my mother after she was done work for the day. Of course the store now looks much different but just the fact that it’s still the same structure in the same location is quite nostalgic to visit. I also remember back in 1969 when I was leaving for work as an apprentice at Zehr’s Markets one morning and saw a battalion of fire trucks and fire fighters battling a large fire in that same Steinberg’s store on Margaret Ave. I think that was when that store was converted from a grocery store into a multi product general store. Luckily they didn’t demolish that structure and repurposed it for future use! I’m sure it’ll be in existence for many years to come!

I get that same nostalgic feeling every time I visit the Giant Tiger Store in the Forest Hill Plaza on Greenbrook Dr in Kitchener near our house. It used to be a Zehr’s store and I spent many an hour and day in the basement of that store repairing the refrigeration equipment that kept the food products fresh and cooled back in the late 60’s and early 70’s as an apprentice! I can remember the location of all of the Zehr’s Stores that existed back when I worked for that chain and although most of them were located in Kitchener Waterloo, they also had stores in Preston, Hespeler, Stratford, Elmira, Guelph and Fergus at the time. They sure kept the two of us busy! By the two of us I mean the one licensed journeyman refrigeration mechanic and myself as the only apprentice at the time. We were run off our feet keeping up with the repairs to all that equipment! That was a very good job but as you all know by now, there came a time when I decided to switch careers and become a Fire Fighter! I think I made the right move when it comes right down to it! LOL!

Oh well, after completing 30 years on the Waterloo Fire Dept I made the move to full time retirement and as of the 31st of this month, I’ll be retired a total so far of 17 years with many more to come I’m sure! I think it’s time to celebrate that fact by having another party on the occasion! Good idea! I’ll have to mention that fact to Carole and see what she thinks. She did a good job of organizing the party on the eve of my original retirement and maybe she’ll be willing to do the same this year to mark my 17th anniversary! It’s hard to believe that I’ve been retired that many years already! Of course I was a youngster when I retired and now I’m an oldster I guess you might say! Hahahaha…..!
I’m like a Timex watch; I take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’!
That’s about all I have for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Alcohol is like death; it makes no friends and plays no favourites!

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Have a good one..
the doug
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