Issue #907
Including:

From Russ
From Lorne
The Ontarion

Hi All,

We went to a drive-in theatre last Friday evening. Aside from the fact that it’s not usual for us to go out, it’s not even remotely normal to go to a drive-in these days as there aren’t many left anywhere, and none in this part of the world. But we did and we had fun. One of the many ideas the gondola team has come up with is to run a drive-in theatre on Friday and Saturday evenings for the month of October. They need to find ways to give their workers hours, and find ways to connect with and keep that connection with the local community. It worked, it worked great, and it was pretty cool (no pun on the fact that it was actually quite chilly out, in fact we’ve been setting cold records all over the place out here for the past week). Friday evenings are aimed at kids, with movies meant for kids aged perhaps 7 to 14 or so, therefor it fit us nicely. Saturday evenings are aimed at older kids and younger adults. All the movies have been around for a few years but thats not important, it is the adventure that counts.

They laid out the parking area on the big parking lot at the base station and set up a 20x40 inflatable screen. Sound was broadcast over 89.5 FM radio so you simply used your car radio for sound. Rather than run down our car battery and put up with the lit-up radio shining in our eyes, we simply brought along a battery powered radio and that worked great. They had most of their staff on, so it was like a party. Many people in pickups and SUVs parked backward and sat in the back to watch. Those people certainly needed to be bundled up. Higher vehicles were parked at the back so they didn’t block the view of people in cars. And like I said, it worked great, we had a great time.

It would be nice to take the granddaughters. They have no idea what a drive-in is, and probably will never see one. Watching a movie from the comfort of a car would be quite a novel adventure for them. However, there isn’t much chance of them being able to be here for a Friday evening as they have school and given Lower Mainland traffic, it would be impossible to get here in time at the end of the day. Oh well.

*

Some of you may recall that I uploaded a song a couple of weeks ago and then realized I’d done it in a key that was too high and the results were not as nice as I had hoped for. Well, this past Monday was a dark dreary rainy day, and the house was quiet because ‘The Wife’ was baby sitting in Maple Ridge, so, I did the remake that I’d suggested I might do at some point in the future. I dropped the key by a full tone, made some on-the-spot changes to the arrangement, some intentional, some not. I’ve uploaded the revised version of “I Still Miss Someone”. It can be heard through the link below titled ‘New version’. As well, I’ve left the old version up for now for comparison should anyone be interested in comparing the two and to see why I wanted to redo it. It can be heard by clicking the ‘Old version’ link. I’m not all that sure why anyone would want to bother comparing two versions of the same song but the option is there. The differences are certainly of interest to me for obvious reasons but those differences may be meaningless to others. Both versions where fun to do so there’s that. Anyway, perhaps you’l enjoy one, or the other, or both. That us up to you.

New version

Old version

doug

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From Russ

WHAT NEXT?!!

CBC News first posted this concern July 14/19, but I first heard about it today on CBC Radio’s, “Ontario Morning”:

As wild pigs spread, Ontario braces for an ‘ecological train wreck’

The province is urging people to report sightings of the animals as they admit they have “no idea how many feral pigs there are in Ontario”

I wish I could show you a photo (submitted by Erin Koen) of wild pigs in a farmer’s field in Chatham, Ontario. Yes, they’re here, and they’re not pretty! Experts say wild pigs like these can devastate crops like corn and soybeans – both major cash crops all around us here in Bruce County.

Our government, clueless as to how many wild pigs have “taken over”, wants us to track the number and locations of wild pigs amid concerns they will decimate farm crops and damage sensitive wetlands.

How come we are overrun with wild pigs in some parts of Ontario and in our western provinces?

Answer: Some ‘smart ass’ placed our domestic swine into bed with a horny Eurasian wild boar – they made love and produced hybrid offspring we now call wild pigs. Others were illegally brought into US and Canada and sold as pets, and when they got too big and ugly to handle, they ‘dumped them’ into somebody’s bushland. Others were imported as ‘meat swine’, and some escaped into the ‘wide open spaces’!

Something else I didn’t know; in the 1980’s & 1990’s wild boars were legally imported to Ontario to “diversify livestock production” (which experiment was a failure). So, now some farmers are raising wild boar and making the “big bucks”, unfortunately some escape confinement.

Picture this: Farmer A raises wild boar; farmer B raises domestic sows, which we’ll call “Lady pigs”- it’s a nicer name. Somehow they communicate, let’s listen in;

Wild boar, “Let’s break out tonight – meet you down at the pond”

Lady pig, “I’m all ears – see you there – hope nobody squeals”. And, later at the pond the elopes are starting to snuggle - - -

Lady pig, “Go easy on me, I’m only 6 months old and this will be my first time “

Wild boar, “Don’t worry, I’ve done this lots of times; my first mate was only 4 months when we made love, and I never heard a complaint”.

Lady pig, “Just so you know, I’d like to have a large family”

Wild boar, ”Don’t sweat your sweet bacon, honey, I can guarantee you 8 wee ones per litter twice a year”.

Now, most babies are cute, but have you seen what these critters look like when they’re all grown up and weigh up to 200 pounds? In Ontario there are no natural predators (only some hunters).

Like many newlyweds, Lady pig is a worrier - - - “where will we live? What will we eat? A family of eight needs a bushel of scraps at each meal, and we never stop eating!”

Wild boar, “We can live ANYWHERE we want to, we’ve relatives all over Canada, except for Atlantic Canada and the Territories. And about mealtime, Canada is ‘ripe for the root-in’’ – we’re built like rotor- tillers and can uproot food literally EVERYWHERE!”

Lady pig, “Sounds too good to be true”.

Wild boar, “Believe me, it’s true – have I ever lied to you? Hope you’re not afraid of the dark, we’re nocturnal you know”.

Yes, that makes them very hard to exterminate; they’re too smart for hunters, and they don’t fall for traps. They currently range over more than 750,000 Sq. Km’s – an area larger than Chile, and between 2011 and 2017 their territory increased by 88,000 Sq. Km’s per year!!

Tune in again next week, when we hear Lady pig ask her ‘hubby’;

“We’ll have to go south for the winter, won’t we?”

By your old Uncle Russ.

****

From Lorne

Continued from last week...

some more boring hospital life? Not on your life. I've said already too much.

Feeling better a bit each day and doing a little more. I even mowed some lawn Thursday. Not pushing a walk behind but riding my Harley- Ferguson. And attended 2 music practices as well. Driving short trips on secondary roads at low traffic times. The required 5 days wait before sex has crept to a dozen or more and likely will continue to creep.

Sunny warm weather all week, but this Saturday, rain, cold with an east wind is forecast for the day planned for the annual Thanksgiving 'wood chop'. Just our luck!

So far, no one has

To be continued…

Lorne

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

We’re getting closer and closer to the election of a new federal government and it’s hard to decide who to vote for again! I do think the Liberals have seen their last kick at the can for a while. It’s time for someone else to try to gain the confidence of the people of Canada and show that they can do better than this last government has done. Maybe it’s time for a complete change in government like maybe giving the Green Party a chance to prove they can improve things in this beautiful giant of a country of ours. I don’t think they could do much worse than the two big parties we’ve been tossing back and forth for the past twenty or so years. Even Jagmeet Singh has been sounding better than the two top runners during the televised debates we’ve been watching and hearing about. I guess we’ll soon find out who made the better impression on the Canadian voters won’t we?

*

Ok, that’s enough political talk for this week folks!

I’ve been bugged out of my mind over the event that took place in Hamilton where the 14-year-old boy was murdered by another lad of the same age. I can only go by what I’ve heard on the news but it seems there are several people that need to be brought to task over his whole event. For one, the principal of the boy’s school that failed to do anything about the bullying that has been going on before the murder took place. It’s documented by the school that the bullies involved were reported many times for the nasty things they’ve been doing not only to the boy who lost his life this week but the times they’ve picked on many other school kids in the same school. With all this on the record at the school, the principal should have done a lot more to curb the problem long before now! I think when all is said and done; the principal should be fired for incompetence! It’s going to be interesting to see the outcome of the trial of the boy who committed the murder. I’m sure with our lax justice system that he’ll only get a 6-month term in a juvenile detention center and then maybe also a year’s probation for his act of violence! When a young offender commits a murder they should be given a much stiffer sentence than the average young offender. I would say that they should at least receive a 10-year jail term for their violent and senseless act, with an additional 5-year probation tacked on for good measure!

Maybe I’m being too lenient with my suggested sentence but we’ll soon find out once it comes to trial! What a shame that an act of bullying should continue to this extent before anything gets done about it. When watching the news today they showed a vigil that was held in front of the high school that the boys attended and there were hundreds of people in attendance. My thought was, where were all these people who showed up to support the boy’s family at this vigil when the young lad needed the support while being bullied over the past year? There has to be some method of curbing the bullying that goes on in our schools! Suspending the bully and forgetting about him just isn’t enough to make it go away! Something legal has to be set up to control the bullies after they’ve been slapped on the wrist by the school principal! I am at a loss as to what can be done about this but surely our governing body’s can come up with a better plan and solution than we have now! Maybe keeping the offender in school and putting him in a special supervised classroom setup is the answer rather than kicking his ass out and letting him wander wherever he likes to possibly reoffend would work? Like I say, someone has to come up with a better way of handling these violent kids!

Guess maybe this trial will bring about a better solution to the problem! We’ll just have to wait and see!

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 small boy is a pain in the neck when he is around and a pain in the heart when he is not!