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The
Squamidian Report – July 31 / 21
Online
Versions
Of This And Past Issues Issue
#1001 From Russ From Nova Scotia Sus From
Lauren The Ontarion
Hi All, My thoughts on last week’s 1000th addition….. Firstly, thank you everyone for participating. You made it perhaps the best issue ever. Very nice, very cool. Everyone who contributed an article had something of interest to say, from Gale’s fireflies to Rosemary’s grand-parenting to Sus’s hundred year old customer to Karin’s lockdown life to Karl’s photography to Russ’s take on this news letter and how it could move forward to Beth’s dog to Carol & Al’s Squamidian history lesson to Wayne & Sylvia’s info and of course to Greg’s accounting of his history with this extended family and his incredible gift of music to all our readers. I refer to Greg’s musical offering as an incredible gift because that is what it was. Music has always, and for generations, played a very big part in all branches of this extended family. Be it secular or none secular, barbershop or folk, country or pop, it has always woven through the families, binding everyone together. For Greg and Carole and Adam to put in the work, the love, the determination to come up with a song, arrange it, put it together with their individual parts in order to make it ‘whole’, and to put themselves ‘out there’, to bare their hearts like that was incredible. I can not thank them enough. I know how much work recording a song is. I know how hard it can be to expose your creative side to the world. On behalf of all of us, thank you. And again, thank all of you for that memorable issue. In an Email conversation with Russ, he suggested and I quote: “We maybe should encourage more of this 'new kind of message' for the 'new kind' of newsletter? Hmm.” How great it would be if we could add to this newsletter more of the musical and artistic things that make this extended family so unique. There is so much talent in this group. This letter already keeps many of us in touch, we could make it better by sharing our voices and or pictures etc more often. We could be contributing the passions and hobbies more often in order to share with this group. Greg and family took a huge and brave step by giving us the gift of their song. All of us could be making this letter better in many ways, even in ways as simply the gift of their words telling about a their day or their adventure. * On a more local note, the Grand Wall of the Chief, that big world famous 2000 ft cliff at the south end of town, has been closed due to major rock falls as big slabs are popping loose and falling. The extreme heat has been causing more thermal expansion than the rock face can handle. The rock face basically explodes. The temp hit 37 or so here Friday after a week of temps in the low 30’s. I’d explode too if I were a rock face. * Sorry folks but all I’ve got for you this week, music wise, is another bare-bones video. It may be a while before I can do any more audio recordings as we have had the granddaughters most of the summer and will continue to have them here for a while yet so there is really no opportunity or possibility to have the kind of quiet house needed for recording. This time around it’s an early Kris Kristofferson song called ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’. This was the song that put Kristofferson on the map because Johnny Cash did a live cover of it on stage, and used the wording that Kristofferson had written. The concert organizers wanted the reference to drugs dropped but Cash insisted on doing it the right way. The song became a hit and Kristofferson’s career took off. This song represents the kind of poetry that Kristofferson is known for, as he is one of the best. Enjoy. Small
Size
Video doug **** From Russ Squamidian> 1001 Squamidian> 1001 has a pleasant ring! We sure got an excellent response for the 100th issue of the Great Squamidian! Again, I want to thank you all for your kind support. We who contribute weekly are given a "boost" when we hear from our readers. Doug has kept this 'family newsletter' alive, and interesting for one-quarter of his lifetime (average lifetime Canadian male is 80.2 years). Let's just consider what an accomplishment this is: Animals in the Wild Life Span Cicadas spend 2 to 17 years living under-ground as nymphs - - - - - - and only 3 to 6 weeks as adults. The queen honeybee, spends her whole life laying eggs - - - - - - - - - and may keep that up for 5 years. The "box turtle" or Painted Terrapene (if not hit by a car) - - - - - - - - may live more than 15 years. Some wild sheep (if they don't fall off a high cliff) - - - - - - - - - - - - -may make it to age 14. Few deer can hope for a long life in the wild (thanks to hunters) - - - - 10 years max. Whales were thought to live 150 to 200 years - not in Antarctic - - - - -none caught there was more than 60. Both workers and the queen in an ant colony have long lives for insects -queen=15-20, workers=as many as 10. Centipedes and Scorpians (and maybe Earwigs) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -unless 'squished', will live 5 to 6 years. Now, let's look at lives of animals in captivity (we might consider Doug is living in captivity - right Sue?) Name of Animal Life Span Antelope 15 years Badger also 15 Bat ditto Bear 34 Beaver (unless Mom needs a fur coat) 20 Buffalo 45 Cat (Domestic) 30 (not mine!) Mule deer 20 Whitetail deer 23 Dog (Domestic) 20 (not my Donny - only 10) Elephants African - 50. Indian - 70. Fox 14 Goat 10 (not mine - he went to the meat market) Horse 50 Mouse (unless caught in a trap, or lunch for kitty) 4 Opossum (unless they love chicken - and get shot 'licken') 8 Porcupine 20 (about as long as Doug's Squamidian) Rabbit (Mom couldn't cook a Rabbit - when skinned, looked like a baby) They live up to 10 years. Raccoon (unless road-killed) 13 Sheep Bighorn 15. Mouflon 19. Skunk 12 Squirrel (Grey) 18 Wolf 16 I also researched life span of birds, fish, and reptiles - but, you get the point - Doug and Greg have kept writing their columns in the Great Squamidian for as long, or longer than many of God's creatures have lived! Thank you guys. Uncle Russ. PS This is sent early, as I'm too busy later in the week. Honestly! **** From Nova Scotia Sus Finally things are starting to open up here. We hope the covid will be a thing of the past as the numbers are way down and most are getting vaccinated. Our summers were always filled with lots of festivals and tourists coming and going. The season started with the Pictou Lobster Carnival, a celebration to end the lobster season in our area. Stan Rogers festival in Canso came next and attracted musicians from all over the world. Louisburg in Cape Breton has the Crab Festival in early August and in September the Shellfish Festival in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. There are many more festivals each year but these were our favourite destinations and for the past 2 summers they have been shut down. Last Saturday to our delight we were invited to a concert hall to enjoy some downhome music. A group of musicians calling themselves "the Slo Pickers" put on a fun night of music and laughter. They all play many instruments and sing all the songs we know. The concert hall kept us seating at a good distance apart and only sold 70 seats out of the 200 were occupied. It sure felt good to be out and about. Thanks everyone for delivering a wonderful #1000. Thanks Doug for all your efforts and choosing Four Stong Winds. Also great job Greg that was a special treat. I love hearing from Beth and what is happening at the homestead. And Gale i just noticed the other night all the fire flies I guess i'm not out at night enough to see them. Rosemary you sure had a busy holiday. Always great to hear from Uncle Russell and what beautiful pictures from Australia! Keep up the good work. Sus **** From Lauren And, just like that… it’s Friday again! Ryan has been away for most of the summer doing pop-up vaccination clinics in the interior of BC, I have been working while the kids/dog have been staying with grandma & grandpa. I then pick them up on the morning of my first day off & bring them home for 5 days before returning them to Squamish again. It has been a weird summer with us split up like this, but it is kind of what we were used to when Ryan was traveling all the time. I hope that Ryan will be back next week, but if not, the kids will spend another week or so with their grandparents before coming home for the remainder of summer. We were going to go to Tofino (on Vancouver island) for our vacation, but ended up cancelling it for a few different reasons & now we are going to Whistler instead. There is a lot more to do in Whistler & the hotel we will be staying at has a decent pool, which was our only requirement other than a kitchen (most hotels in Whistler have kitchens too). Thereafter, it will be the end of summer & back to school for the girls in September, who knows whether they will still be required to wear masks & stay in cohorts, it seemed as if that was not going to be the case, but with the Delta variant now raging through Canada, things could definitely change. I hope the girls will have at least had their first shot by the end of this year (their age group is currently in the final stages of the trial phase). If all goes well, Health Canada will then need to do an emergency approval for use & then we can get them vaccinated & somewhat protected against Covid. Lauren **** THE ONTARION REPORT Hello everyone! Well, we’ve had a successful 1000th edition to the Squamidian thanks to all who sent in a story to be included. I doubt we’ll make it to number 2000 but if all goes well we’ll make one heck of a stab at it! LOL! Lets start with this weeks issue and see where it takes us this time! I’m going to do my part and hopefully I won’t run out of stories to write about. * This week has been another with a mixed bag of weather and I’m kind of getting tired of all the darned rain. It would be nice to see more rain out west to help with the extinguishment of all those BC forest fires. Of course right now, we have almost 200 wild fires of our own to worry about right here in northern Ontario. It seems that the more rain we get the more lightening we get and that in turn starts more and more forest fires to contend with. But, I guess that’s just Mother Nature at work! Luckily we don’t have that much in the way of forest covered land here in Southern Ontario that we have to worry about wild fires! Our problem is still dealing with the Covid virus and that will be an issue for many months to come, I’m afraid! I just don’t understand what PM Trudeau is thinking about when he’s intending to open the Canada US border. With the new strain of Covid running rampant in the USA at this very moment. In my opinion he shouldn’t be opening the border and allowing the Americans or other foreign nationals to enter Canada. He’s just asking for more trouble by doing so! Canada has finally gotten a handle on containing this virus and now he’s inviting the possibility of bringing in more infected people to enter our country! What kind of common sense is that? To me it doesn’t make sense at all! I guess he’s figuring that the only people that will enter Canada will be the ones that have had their second shots! Does he really think that every person trying to enter Canada can be trusted to be honest about their vaccination credentials? We all know that there is always a way around any such rules and this virus proof thing is no different! Any kind of document can be falsified and I’m sure this Covid one will be an easy one to duplicate or forge! Maybe we should all be contacting our MPs and telling them that we don’t want the border opened at such an early date! Will the politicians listen? I doubt it!!!!! * To change the subject to something a little more pleasant, our baby squirrels that we’ve been watching grow in the Birch tree on our front lawn have finally had to leave the nest! They really had no choice since the thunder storm we had this morning blew down their supporting branch and their nest fell along with it to the ground below the tree. I noticed it this morning after the storm had passed and went out to see what the mess was! As it turned out, the branch had been broken off in the storm and the entire nest, babies and all had fallen to the ground! The old lullaby tune “Rock-a-by Baby” suddenly came true for the four little guys that were steadily growing in that nest! They were getting pretty big anyway and I doubt they would have lived in that nest much longer! We at first thought there were only three little ones in that nest but after watching them on a daily basis, we realized that there were four baby squirrels up there. We had for the longest time seen only three gray babies milling about on the tree branches beside the nest on occasion but while taking some photos of them up there, we found that there was one more in the family so as it turned out, the three grey babies had a fourth brother and he was different in that his colouring was black! Of course, we have no way of knowing if they were boys or girls so I’m only guessing about the fourth one being a brother to the others! LOL! At least now we won’t have to consider removing the old nest once the family is gone. Since Mother Nature took care of that for us all I had to do was clean up her mess after the storm! I’ve attached a few pictures of the babies playing on the branch next to the nest for your viewing pleasure! I think the little squirrels made for cute photos and figured I’d share them with you! Enjoy! That’s about it for this week! 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> Please continue to write into the Squid when you get the urge to do so! We all enjoyed the new batch of stories in the 1000th issue so let’s have more of them!
**** Take
Care
And Be Safe |
