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The
Squamidian Report – Jan. 13 / 24
Online Versions Of This And Past Issues (Choose the year and then the date for the online issue you want) Issue #1129 Including: The Ontarion Olivia Kyra Sus Russ Me ************************ ****
The Ontarion
Hello everyone It’s been over a month since I’ve been able to write! I’ve been in hospital trying to recover from a heart attack! It happened on a Friday afternoon and I went into the hospital on Saturday! I was in shock when they told me it was a heart attack! Nobody thinks they will have a heart attack but it was for real! I was in with two other people in the cardiac floor! My food was restricted and they put me through test. After test everyday of the month! I can’t even tell you what all they did to me! The big thing was to try to drain all the fluid from my lungs and that was through giving me drugs to make me pee it all out but they just couldn’t dry me out! Luckily I had Carole and Adam to visit me almost every day or I’d have gone nuts! They even rented me a TV but with all the tests I hardly had time to watch it! The tv was so close to my face, i had to wear my reading glasses to see it clearly! LOL! I. Finally got out after two weeks and came home on the Saturday but that night they took me back in be ambulance for the second time! I was in cardiac failure for that week again and they finally had to stick a huge needle in through my back and into my chest cavity to manually drain the rest of the fluid off my left lung! That seemed to have worked! I spent another three days in bed and they finally let me go home again. I’m feeling better but have to really watch everything I do and eat! Luckily I have Carole and Adam here to help me through this at home or I’d never handle this myself!
To change the subject a little bit, we finally took delivery of our third new fridge today! Whirlpool finally sent what looks to be a good one! It’s a better model than the first two so hopefully this one will be a good one! Carole and Adam are busy filling it tonight but they had to wait for three hours before plugging it in after the move into place! Fingers crossed it will not be another lemon!
Well it’s good to be back home and writing again and I have to live day to day! Its touch and go to keep my fluid out of my chest so please wish me luck from here on in for at least the next month my friends! That’s about all I have to say for now! Take care. And God willing I’ll be here again in the weeks to come!
Bye for now….Greg ****
From Olivia
On new years eve my mom’s friends from California, Tammie and Guillermo and Imogen came to celebrate new years 2024!!!!!!. I also had a sleepover with my friend Stella. Today I get waffles for breakfast. I go back to school tomorrow and it is going to be very cold this week on Thursday (-12), but in Squamish it is going to be even colder and in Whistler -20!!!! It is Kyra’s birthday on Tuesday, she turns 12.
Olivia ****
From Kyra
Hi, this is my week
Today (Friday)we went to a bike show in Abbotsford and saw lots of cool bikes, we even rode electric bicycles! We didn’t buy anything but wished we could have. We went with my parents and grandparents. It was super fun! We have photos! My birthday was also this week! I had a sleepover with my friend Clara and I went to dinner with Clara and my other friend Maddie. I hope this is enough!
Kyra
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From Nova Scotia Sus
It's Tuesday January the 9nth and I'm back to work after a nice 2 weeks off over Christmas and New Years. It sure is great to be a semi retired person where I can call the shots on when to work and when to have time off. My clients are mostly retired too so it works good both ways.
For Christmas I received a $100 dollars gift certificate at Scotiagold from Zane. I'm sure he thought we would buy our meatbirds with that money but what I needed most was a pair of good insulated rubber boots for looking after our flock. I have been complaining of cold feet going back and forth to the chicken barn with regular rubber boots. You don't want to wear your good winter boots after walking in to the coop.
So I took the plunge and spent the money and more for Muck boots that will last me a lifetime...cost $275.00 plus tax. I will never regret it my feet are warm and cosy now. I will also love them for our hikes over and through the woods. Also at maple syrup time in the spring. I'm sure not many people get this excited about a pair of boots ...I sure am.
Today we are having a beautiful sunny day. The trees are still loaded with snow and ice from our last storm. One is coming tomorrow with snow changing to rain so that should be messy. I'm late wishing Doug a Happy Birthday and wondering what it's like to be 75. Looks good to me with those pictures of him with his motorcycle. Keep doing what you are doing Doug!
Sus ****
From Russ
What happened to winter?
We in Southern Ontario were wondering what happened to winter? It's been unusually mild and wet so far, and we are well into January! The Weather girls and boys said we could expect 2 to 3 C of snow today - they were generous, we got at least 6 C of the heavy, wet stuff! The roads are slippery, and slushy, and unless our vehicles are equipped with 4-wheel drive and good snow tires - we aint goin' nowhere but into the ditch!!
Just looked over my left shoulder toward the lake, and it's snowing again! No doubt it will turn to rain shortly as the temp. is resting at 0 C.
To quote the weather people, "Winter to finally show up in January as El Nino bested by Polar Vortex". This is certainly true where my No.1 son lives in Calgary where they are basking in -40 C. New Brunswick, where my kid brother lives is getting hit with plenty of winter, while Nova Scotia, where my Niece lives has no shortage either.
The weather people are threatening us in Ontario with a bad winter storm about to numb us in a few days.
Anyone going to Hawaii? Better pack earmuffs, as they are to get snow!
The people who bring us the weather reports like to come up with 'new words' to describe extreme weather events: "snownadoes" ; "snowmageddon"; "watermelon snow". New research sheds light on the threat "snow algae" poses to shrinking glaciers. And speaking of glaciers, bet you never heard of the word, "firn snow" (nor had I, so I researched it). "firn snow is recrystallized snow nearly as dense as glacial ice. Its density ranges from 34LB's/cu ft to 52LB's/cu ft." If you're looking for some, it can often be found underneath the snow that accumulates at the head of a glacier. "The minimum altitude that firn accumulates on a glacier is called, firn limit, firn line or snowline".
Now that I've bored the pants off you, let's have a change of pace in the form of a Quizz - it has to do with weather, but usually not in winter: Canada has the _________ highest tornado occurrence rate in the world, behind _________.
In Canada, tornadoes occur mostly, on the Prairies and in __________ _________with a peak frequency in late June and July. References for am The Weather Network, Canada, and WikipediA (The Free Encyclopedia "snow")
Uncle Russ. ****
From Me
Hi Guys, like so many places across the country, we finally have winter. It started last Friday night when just shy of 2 feet of snow fell on the local mountains and up at the gondola. What had been two and a half months of dull overcast and rain turned into a winter wonderland. We didn’t get snow down and our elevation until Monday when about half a foot carpeted our driveway and streets. I was intending to wait until Tuesday morning before getting out the snow blower and clearing the drive but the temperature started to rise so I figured it would be shortly turning to rain which would mean the snow would become heavy and wet. So, out we headed and while Sue cleared the steps etc with a shovel, I blew out the driveway. The old snow blower worked just fine. You may remember that I’d had a fair amount of work done to it in the fall, and this was the first real test of how it would do.
During that night I could hear the rain pounding on the roof and when dawn broke it was still pouring. It poured rain all day down here but it snowed hard all day higher up, up in the higher hills etc. There was probably two inched of slop on the driveway which needed to be removed so out came the blower again. It did managed to clear the drive but the big pile of wet snow that the snowplow left in the front of the drive was too wet and too sticky to blow so we had to clear that the old fashion way, by hand.
By mid week we decided to hike the Panorama trail at the gondola after we’d finished having our morning coffee by the fireplace. We’d brung our crampons along with us for traction as we knew that hikers on snowshoes would have packed the trail over the last few days. Our hike was great. We took a few pics.
Here is Sue on one of the foot bridges up there. Someone had made a tiny little snowman on the hand rail and it caught her attention.
Here she is out at the main lookout with Garibaldi in the background.
This is of course me. I still like to use my walking sticks when out for a hike. 
And, then the arctic outflow hit near the end of the week and the temperature plunged like a rock and the wind chills hit a frigged minus 25. For around here, that is very cold. The gondola had to shut down on Thursday and stay closed for a few days.
*** Something I’d been intending to do for a couple of years is replace both our old computers. Hers and mine had long since reached to point where they would no longer update, and some programs were no longer working all that well. Our web browsers could no longer access secure web sites such and web banking etc. So, after Christmas I ordered a new Mac Mini for each of us. They came a few days apart as mine would include an up-to-date copy of Logic, the sound recording program I use for recording my music project. The few days apart was good because hers too me a few days to get set up and reconfigured the way her old one was, with all her old data in place. Mine again too up a few days of restoring and configuring. Both are now up and running. If however, you don’t get your copy of this letter, let me know. I might have missed something.
Doug ****
Have
a
Good One ****
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