The
Squamidian Report – July 10 / 10
Issue #424
Including:
Our Week from Carol
Note from Lorne
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Yes this is the Squamidian Report but
since Doug isn’t actually in Squamish this week Al & I are
undertaking the job of sending out this week’s edition. Carol
****
Update from the Road
Perhaps some background about getting ready for a road trip on a
motorcycle.... unlike traveling in a car, there is almost NO room for
luggage. And given that the leather riding gear we wear takes up at
least half of the room we do have there is not much left for day to day
clothing. We need to bring along jackets and chaps as well as
riding boots and gloves. But we also must bring rain protection
and something to ride in if it gets hot. You can not ride in
leathers when it is hot out. You would cook. So, we must
find room for that rain gear and our spiffy mesh jackets that block the
sun but let the wind through. Need to bring several pairs of
gloves, cold weather, warm weather and hot weather, and then find room
for the pairs we are not wearing at a given moment. Then there is
walking shoes. Riding boots work well for riding but are not
worth a darn for walking once we are off the bike. So walking
shoes must be brought along. They take up valuable space.
Now comes the actual clothing. That has to be kept to a bare
(pardon the pun) minimum. Many motels have laundry facilities so
we really only need a couple of days worth of clothes with us.
The rule of thumb for traveling on a bike is bring one quarter the
amount of clothing you think you will need and bring four times the
amount of money you think you will need. That seems to fit quite
well with my own experiences.
So now everything gets gathered together and loaded into the luggage
bags that fit in the saddle bags and tour-pack. The stuff gets moved
around and shuffled until the weight of the luggage is loaded as low as
possible. It is very important to keep the center of gravity low
on a bike. Then, when it is time to leave, you gear up, saddle
up, climb aboard and away you go.
I've heard rumors of a myth about some hot weather somewhere but we
sure have not seen such a creature. Our first 3 days on the road
were brass monkey cold. Add to that some rather unwanted rain and
it became almost impossible to keep warm. As an example, we
pulled out of Golden BC bright and early on Tuesday morning and the
ambient temperature gauge on the bike read in the single digit
range. It did not climb until we were east of Calgary. Then
we were dodging wild prairie thunderstorms. However, we are out
on the bike and that’s what its all about. We spent Thursday at
Tim's in Winnipeg where we hooked up with Gary. From there it’s
head on east.
More to come next time.
The doug
****
Our
Week
It was decided at church that the carpet in the Sunday School room
needed to replaced and the room painted. Because Al was drafted
into the position of head of the Property Committee he was stuck with
the jobs of finding the best carpeting deal and painting the large room
& hall. The carpet choice was approved at Official Board so
Al ordered the carpet and brought a sample of the carpet and paint
chips in to church for the Sunday School teachers and parents to pick
the colours. Mauve and purple would not have been our choice but
those colours did go well with the carpet sample. We were going
to wait until August for this project but the installer called and said
he could start work today, July 9th. Al and his buddy Brad spent
3 days of this heat wave (and it has been very, very hot around here)
moving things out, priming and painting. Today, two weeks after
Al ordered, and paid for, the carpet the dealer called to say he can’t
get that particular carpet after all! The installer and Al have
picked out an alternate carpet but it certainly won’t match the walls
the same and it won’t be in before next week. I’m sure Al is
going to face a barrage of complaints from people at the church; I
think he will tell them if they don’t like it then they can repaint it
themselves.
We have two beautiful daughters. Beth has supplied us with four
wonderful grandchildren. Jackie has made it clear that all we
will have from her is “grand-pets”. Al was still rather stupefied
when Jackie called earlier this week and told him he now has four new
grandchildren, pardon me, that was “grand-chickens”. Jackie has
pictures of the chickens on facebook, frankly I can’t see any
resemblance to either Jackie or Jim; but to her uncle Doug?
Maybe. Judge for yourself the next time you check out the Fern
Glen Inn web page. Jackie was the one who could hardly wait to
move from little Kitchener to Toronto and now she and Jim are more and
more back to the land. We had chickens when I was growing up,
didn’t like the pecked fingers but enjoyed the fresh eggs. There
is a push on in Waterloo for “urban farming”. Some people with
backyard coops are pushing for a change in the city by-laws to
accommodate such efforts. Would any of you object to urban
farming in your neighbour’s backyard?
Carol
****
Note From Lorne
Finally, a new roof over our heads. Don't tell Gary, I want to tell him
myself because he was going to do it but never had the time.
A crew of 3 started at 7 A.M. removed all the old shingles, laid a
membrane over the sun-room part and up to the peak then applied the new
shingles, cleaned up the yard and drive-way with a magnet on wheels and
all done by 2.30 P.M. One of the crew was the wife of
another of them.
After they finished, we sat in the shade and had a beer. They
said you now have a 30 year roof and we may still be in business then,
I told them if it needs to be done in 30 years, I'll keep you in mind
as you did a good job.
Lorne
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Wow! We sure are having a humdinger of a summer so far! I love
the heat and although I, like most others, get exhausted from it I
really don’t want to complain at all about the temps. Being
retired I can take my time doing whatever it is I have to do in this
heat and that makes it quite bearable. The only complaint I have
so far is that the heat and blistering sun are making a bit of a mess
of my precious lawn. I guess I’ll just have to water it when
legally allowed and hope for the best. I’ll have to go into the
Waterloo Region website and find out what day or days I’m allowed to
water. Hopefully they won’t ban watering altogether like they have
other years.
****
I’ve received a couple of quick notes from Doug as they progress across
this great country of ours on “Big Blue” and it sounds like they’re
having a variety of weather to ride in. I’m sure they’ll get a
good share of nice weather as well as some rain and cold but Doug
assures me that they are smart enough not to ride in the rain any more
than necessary. That means they’ll only ride wet if they are
already on the road when it starts to pour. I’m like Doug and Sue
I don’t like to ride in shitty weather either! Biking is most fun
when it’s nice out but there are times when you can’t avoid the rain
and cold. The best thing you can do is get to shelter as soon as
possible and wait it out! I’m sure Doug will be telling us all the good
and not so good details of their trip in the weeks to come.
****
I just read an interesting story about a fellow metal detecting
enthusiast in England who made the find of a lifetime. It seems
that he was hunting with his detector on a farm in southwest England
and heard a strange sounding beep from his machine. Usually when
you are passing your machine over something worthwhile, it will make a
good solid beep signal. At that point you make a pass over the
same spot from left to right and then once again in a top to bottom
direction to in effect make a set of cross hairs over the target.
This allows you to zero in on the location in which to dig. Most
targets are less than a foot below the surface so they are relatively
easy to locate. When you get a rough or broken signal from your
device it means you’ve either passed over something quite decayed or
something very tiny or very deep in the ground. Many detectorists
don’t bother to dig such junk signals but in this case, the Englishman
decided to dig. He dug to approximately one foot in depth and
found a tiny coin about the size of his fingernail. He removed
another hand full of clay and found a total of 20 old Roman
coins. After clearing away a little more soil, he noticed that
the coins were in the mouth of a large pottery jug. Once he
discovered the jug was the source of the coins he decided to leave them
alone and call for help from the archeological society of the local
town. The find was his and there was no mistaking that so
allowing the professionals to excavate the ancient find was the right
thing to do. As it turned out, he had discovered a jug of pottery
that weighed in at just over 350 lbs. Once they had moved the pot
to a safe location they discovered that it contained more than 52,500
3rd century Roman coins with many of them stamped in the likeness of
Marcus Aurelius Carausius. He had seized power in Britain and
Northern France in the late third century and declared himself
Emperor. This makes the coin find even more valuable because of
the traceability of the history of the find. The pot was discovered in
Somerset County SW England. This find took place back in April of
this year but was kept secret until all the leg work had been done into
it's background. The Authority in England that takes control of
such discoveries places a value on it and then it is offered for sale
to all museums in the British Isles. At this point, the finder is
awarded whatever amount the purchasing museum is willing to pay.
It usually amounts to at least 75% of the appraised value of the
find. In this case, the coins are worth 3 million pounds or 5
million dollars. I'd say the finder is in for a big pay day for
sure! From what I've read in other British situations of this
type, the finder usually splits the payoff with the owner of the land
on which the treasure was found. Either way, they will both be
very rich men after the booty is sold to a museum. If more than
one museum wants the coins they bid on the find until the treasure is
sold. This usually is to the benefit of the seller and the payoff
is sometimes many times greater than originally figured. It'll be
interesting to find out just what this treasure nets the finder.
However it winds up, he is one lucky metal detecting hobbyist.
It would be great if we here in Canada had such treasures to be found
but this North American continent is much too young to have that sort
of history. The best detectorists here in Canada can hope for is
finding a lost diamond ring or Rolex in the sands of one of our lovely
beaches! I'd settle for that for sure since my "big" find from
Pensacola Beach last winter turned out to be worth about $22.00 in
light weight 10k gold and a dozen cracked and chipped diamonds!
LOL! I found out that diamonds may be the hardest natural
substance known to man but they can still chip and crack! Who knew?
Hahhahahahaa..!
After all is said and done, just hearing about finds like this one in
England gives hope to those of us who like to dabble in metal detecting
for a hobby. It's not necessarily the find that's the reward but
the thrill of the hunt! I'll be hitting the beaches throughout
the summer in hopes of at least finding something more to write about
in my Ontarion Reports.
That's it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again
next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now. GREG.
PS: Something To Think About
Be sure to move your car out of range when you're whipper snipping
around your driveway! Guess why?
****