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Issue #1070
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From Russ

From Nova Scotia Sus

The Ontarion

Hey There,

You may remember in past issues that I’ve written about the pair of crows that come around for handouts. They will turn up on a daily basis for a couple of weeks and then disappear for several weeks or even a couple of months. Then, out of the blue, they return. They had been around in the late summer during the heat and drought when their natural food was hard to come by. Then, when the weather changed, they disappeared for a while again. That corresponded to when the all the crows around here were flocking together. They seem to do that at given points throughout the year. The whole flock, or mob, or murder, or whatever a pack of crows is called could be heard and seen as they moved around the valley. It was when the flock started to disperse that ‘our’ crows came back again. They tend to like having fresh water and nutritious food at the disposal. All they need to do is perch on the deck rail and look in our windows to get our attention. Pretty convenient for them when you think about it.

It’s quite interesting how they seem to like certain things and how they like their free dinner presented to them. A favorite seems to be just plain old bread, cut into small pieces and presented with a bowl of clean water. They make a big show of picking up a piece of bread and dunking it in the water before swallowing it. They have now extended that to the bits of wiener and other meats that we might present them.

Our crow couple seems to consist of the one we call ‘Beaky’ and her partner. As described in past issues, she has a deformed beak and therefore a bit of a disability although she seems to be able to get along just fine. Each summer her and her partner will bring their current offspring along with them to the ‘fast food outlet’.

Beaky and friend stopped coming a few days ago and we figured that they had rejoined the mob of crows, and perhaps they did. They usually turn up about 8am or so as well as around noon but there was no sign of them for a few days. Then, one evening they turned up but there were other crows with them. Thats not good because there is no way we are going to start feeding the whole flock. I personally think that the other crows has caught on to the fact that Beaky and friend had a secret place they were going and Beaky had refrained from coming in hopes of keeping her secret place secret and when she tried to sneak back for something to eat, they followed her. This could get interesting.

*

The last of our renovations are finally done, over, finished. Pretty well everything had been finished up back in September or so but one small detail had yet to be dealt with… replacing the existing kitchen sink. We had ordered a new sink and new faucet and it had taken a month for the sink to come in. Then, when it did get here, it turned out to be damaged. So, it had to be sent back and a replacement brought in. That turned up a couple of weeks ago but then our contractor had trouble getting a plumber to come and finish the job. That finally happened on Wednesday and now everything is finished. We can relax, shake off the stress and so on. It’s over, it’s done, it’s over and done. Did I mention that it’s now over and done?

(Did you notice that I never once mentioned surgery or recovery or any related issues at all in this issue?)

doug

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From Russ

No bones.

John O'Shea is an Anthropology Professor University of Michigan, Ann Arbor - he's also a scuba diver. He and his team have been exploring the Alpena-Amberley Ridge we read about last week in my Column. I wish I were 45 years younger - I would love to dive 120 feet below the surface of Lake Huron and see some of these fascinating features that have been 'hidden' for 9000 years!

The AAR is a narrow strip of land running diagonally across Lake Huron, connecting modern-day northeast Michigan (Alpena) to Point Clark in Southern Ontario. Likely, Amberley Beach, and the community of Amberley are named after this Ridge.

"This land bridge was only 2 to 10 miles wide, giving a huge advantage to early hunters looking to ambush animals" says O'Shea. He goes on, "The real underwater stone sensation lies 120 feet below Lake Huron: an area the size of a football field, with dozens of 9,000 year-old artifacts and human-built stone structures that comprise the most complex prehistoric hunting structure ever found beneath the Great Lakes". Here, he describes some of the things they have found;

" Campfire rings with charcoal still in them; stone tools, and rings to stake-down the edges of a tent or tipi. Because these artifacts are so deep, they havn't been affected by waves and ice or covered by sand and algae"

I thought of this 'ridge' as being barren rock, with no vegetation - wrong, as usual - there was plenty of plant-life - trees, shrubs, grasses, and peat. I mention this moss-like growth as O'Shea was able to scrape quantities of peat (no longer live, of course) from the rocks below. But NO BONES! According to the 'experts', there is an acid in fresh water that will dissolve animal bones over eons of time.

I have tried in vain to find out if "The Point" or the "Ridge" or their combination, could be "splitting our off-lake storms" or if it's merely a rumor. What do you think?

Uncle Russ.

*

Fast forward to Point Clark at the present time: There is a persistent rumor that "The Point", as point Clark was formerly named, somehow causes in-coming storms off Lake Huron to veer North of us, or South of us, or even 'divide' a storm so we in Point Clark are spared the 'brunt' of many bad storms. Although we were badly hit by a Tornado last year. (There is always an exception to the 'Rule')

Similar hunting structures have been found throughout North America, particularly closer to the Arctic where they were used more recently by traditional native hunters.

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From Nova Scotia Sus

Out of the woods came this pretty orange cat looking lost and forlorn. It meowed as soon as it saw us and befriended us. Quite thin and hungry we took it to our house for a meal that he wolfed down and looked for more. Wondering where he belonged we checked with some neighbors and online missing pets. No one was missing an orange cat. Now a few days later he has become our house pet. We figure someone must have dropped it off going by not wanting it. This tends to happen in the country. We love it and it sure loves us. It's amazing how cats are so adaptable.

We call him Tigger. He doesn't know his name yet and maybe never will. Cats are very useful too keeping the mice and rat population down. Only once did we have a rat problem. A property down the road had raised pigs and had rats move in. When they moved away the rats moved over to us. Zane shot many of them and we trapped the rest. We knew we were getting down to the last of them because they were smaller and smaller. Country life!

Sus

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The Ontarion

Hello everyone!

It’s Friday morning and I almost forgot to write my Squid submission for this week! Things got a tad busy this week and you know how time passes you by if you’re not paying attention to it directly! Oh well, I’m getting at it now so that’s all that matters!

Fortunately, we’ve gotten rid of all the snow that hit our region about a week ago and the green grass is showing once again. Heck, I even saw my neighbour two doors away mowing his lawn yesterday. I don’t think our lawn has grown over the past two weeks so our lawn mower is well packed away in the shed for the impending winter months and it’s going to stay there now until spring! The other week I commented about the city not coming around to clean up the leaves piled on the sides of the road. Well, lo and behold, they finally showed up the day before our big snow fall and cleared up the mess. It was one of the largest front end loaders I’ve ever seen and two huge dump trucks that slowly made their way along our streets! It was hard to believe the amount of leaves the loader was pushing into a pile before lifting it into each truck. The two dump trucks were filled in less than a block and then the loader had to sit while they left and disposed of the leaves. There should be huge amounts of free compost at the dump next spring! I’m surprised the region doesn’t decide to charge for the compost but so far it’s free as in other years.

Speaking of composting items, to add to the pile the region collects Christmas trees after the season is over and done. I’m sure they’ll have a lot of those to add to the pile as well. we’ve switched to an artificial tree many years ago and I think we’ve worn out a few of them! With the needles falling all over the place and having to water a real tree twice a day ad recommended by the nurseries, we got tired of all that and made the switch! You just pull it our of the box and spread the branches, put the decorations on the tree and voila, you’re done! No mess no fuss and it looks just as real as a real tree! You can even buy a can of spray to make it smell like a real tree if you want! I think it’s the looks and not the smell of a tree that has the Christmas appeal so why go to the trouble of buying spray etc to make it more realistic? I don’t think it matters to Santa whether the tree is real or not. In fact, he most likely appreciates that fact that we’ve preserved Mother Nature by not cutting down another real tree for a few days of celebration! I know that the Christmas tree farmers won’t like what I’m saying but if not, they could always purchase a load of artificial trees at a wholesale price and resell them for more than they charge for real trees! What do they charge for a real tree these days anyway? I’m sure the cost of a real tree is almost as much as an artificial one anyways! It’s just struck me that I should calculate how much money we’ve saved over all the years we’ve gone without buying a real tree! I’m sure it’s in the many hundreds of dollars! So, there’s another benefit to having an artificial tree! The only drawback to an artificial tree is the fact that you have to box and store it for the rest of the year. However, that’s not a big deal, we just put it up in the mezzanine in the garage with the rest of the plastic tubs filled with seasonal decorations! We’ve got decorations for all occasions stored up there and once they’ve been placed up there, we don’t have to give them another thought until each occasion rolls around!

*

On another note, we’ve been putting up with the constant noise from a Cable company drilling and digging along all of the streets in our neighbourhood for over 6 months now. They have been contracted by the huge broadcasting companies to install a new cable system under our boulevards to accommodate a better form of cables than were installed some 30 or more years ago. It’s taken them like I say 6 months to even get the holes dug for the new system. They did all the digging and drilling first and then had to come back and pull the piping through the drilled system so they could then pull the new cables through the piping from one house to the next! What a heck of a mess they’ve made on everybody’s boulevard and in some cases they’ve even dug up people’s lawn’s to do the job! The hammering and drilling and digging has been an annoying constant buzz for months and I don’t think they’ll finish the job before winter sets in. Maybe they’ll even work through the winter but I doubt it. That means we’ll have to put up with the mess and noise again throughout next spring and most likely the summer months as well before the job will be finished. It is a big job but surely to heck If they worked steady at it they could have finished it in the 6 month period they’ve been at it so far! There were weeks at a time where they left the holes in the boulevards and done nothing else. Then they’d come back and do a little more work. I don’t know whey they delayed the work when if they’d worked steady at it the job would most likely have been done by now! Oh well there’s no rushing progress as the saying goes!

I’m just glad it’s not me that’s working in the upcoming cold weather! I had enough of that working with extreme cold during my fire fighting days, not to mention the heat at times as well! The gear we wore was too heavy in the summer and not warm enough in the winter! If not for the heat our own bodies generated, we would have frozen in winter but shedding the heavy gear during recovery breaks in the hot summer months was the only thing that kept us going. Where would we be without our memories to look back on? I shouldn’t complain about my working days and nights, it was a wonderful career and just look at all the cool memories that career gave me to remember! I have hundreds of stories I could tell about my years on the fire department and could definitely write a book about them. Maybe I should take a page out of Uncle Russ’s book and sit down and do just that, write a book! I’ll have to give that some thought while I can still sit and use this keyboard!

Well, that’s a project for another time so I think I’ll call it quits for this week!

Thant’s about all 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

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