The
Squamidian Report – Sept. 25 / 10
Issue #435
Including:
From Lorne
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Ha! I spared you last week, so this week I’ve got a couple of rides to talk about. Firstly, our September has not had an abundance of nice highway riding weather and that got the old rusty gears inside my head turning. Buried deeply under our back deck are our old dirt bikes, hidden behind a curtain of dust-covered cobwebs. I pulled mine out and pushed it around to the front and into the garage so I could work on it. Pushing it was not that easy as the tires were lacking in air and I didn’t think to pump them up before doing said pushing. After a good going-over and a few sweat inducing kicks, she fired up. Knowing that she could still run, I drained the very old oil and replaced it with new oil, lubed all the moving parts and loaded her into the back of my truck. Then I did the same with Ryan’s old dirt bike, got it running, did an oil change etc but then put her back under the deck. Ryan was working and not available to try a ride on the old machine.
Took mine up to Warren’s. He fired up his old bike and we headed up the logging road behind his place, the Swift Creek Access road. The bikes ran quite good and it was fun, I’d forgotten how different it is to ride a dirt bike compared to a highway cruiser. However, this is where this story changes direction. Here’s why… for two months this past summer there was some intensive logging happening up there. They took out seven hundred truckloads of logs. They left behind tear inducing devastation. Prime trees, many of them old growth were taken down leaving behind destroyed forest floor and an incredible amount of smashed and broken logs, branches and stumps. The untouched forest floor had been a park like moss-covered wonderland. It now looks like a war zone. These same steep slopes and ridges are where Warren had been picking world-class pine mushrooms. It’s all gone now.
To make it even worse, with the world and US economy down the toilet, the logs are barley worth enough to cover the wages of the loggers who hacked them down. The logs are not even used locally to create something, they are simply shipped out in their raw form for someone else to use. It has been proven time after time that these stands of trees are worth far more alive and standing from both a tourism and an environmental standpoint than they ever could be even under good economic conditions. The trees are gone forever, the scar on the mountains side will take decades to fade but will always be there.
Pictures at:
http://www.thedougsite.net/Swift%20Creek/SwiftCreek.htm
Now for the other ride. This one was on the big old Harley. Last Sunday was the Rumble To The Rock ride that goes from Burnaby to Squamish, and the Squamish Toy Run that goes from Britannia to Squamish. They were timed so that anyone riding in the Rumble ride could drop out at Britannia and join that ride. However, we were having a typical November rain event and the Rumble Ride was washed out so we didn’t bother to do the wet ride into the city to be in that one. We did ride down to Britannia and ride in the Toy Ride. There were only a couple of dozen bikes but that was ok. The local toy run does not enjoy any support from the local authorities so keeping the numbers down was a good thing. We were on our own for getting out onto the highway etc.
We rode from the staging point in Britannia up to Squamish and then stayed on the highway through town. Turned off and down into Brackendale, then took the back way back down to Squamish and into the down town where the main street was blocked off for the bikes and for the car club that was having it’s show and shine. There had been some lingering showers as we were staging but the sun broke through and the day turned quite nice. By the time we were parked in Squamish it was warm and dry. By late afternoon the torrential downpours had moved back in but by then the activities were over with.
Pictures at:
http://www.thedougsite.net/10-Rides/2010ToyRide.htm
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September is shaping up to be one of the coldest and wettest on record out here. Many of the field crops out in the Fraser Valley have been ruined from way too much rain and cold. Standing water in the fields has wiped out root crops like potatoes etc. Nothing can ripen and everything is rotting. All this after a similar spring where the rains would not stop and the air would not warm up, ruining all the berry crops. Our ‘summer’ was actually only about 6 weeks long. The only reason the forest fire season was as big as it was, was because of all the standing dead pine trees. Bottom line is, somebody owes us big time.
doug
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From Lorne
Somewhere in the Bible I remember a mention of 7 years of famine and then 7 years of plenty. We have actually had that sort of happening in gray old Ont. Consequently, the freezer is overflowing in anticipation of another 7 long years of poor or no crops. Lately, yields have been good so therefore no famine.
Now I will get to the point of all this. All things need a bit of understanding and background. Gary and I go fishing now and then, more often then. One of the occasions produced a bass. [Please note the spelling of 'BASS'] In the freezer is a wrapper marked 'BASS'. I am very found of fish. Never tire of it. Look forward to it all the time. For weeks now we must have that 'BASS'. To -day Sept. 18th is the day to enjoy the fish feed, I went to the freezer, lifted the lid and pulled out my long anticipated soon to be feast. Brought it up to the kitchen, placed it on the counter to thaw, went about preparing other compatible foods, checking now and on the thawing, WHAT IS ALL THIS WHITE JUICE ?
I don't like the taste, odd smell, what is going on? I pick the wrapped up, now near melted parcel, take another look, it now reads 'BASS MENT WALL PAINT'.
It contained a paint roller that was used on the cellar walls 5 years ago. Don't try this at your home.
Lorne
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Geeze, another week gone by! I sure hope this fall doesn’t speed by too quickly. The leaves here in Kitchener are just starting to turn colour and the squirrels are busy as heck gathering nuts for the winter. Adam bought a house back in June and we’ve been busy all summer painting and decorating it so he can move in and not have to be an acrobat to do all the décor while living in it. I was over the other day to do a little work and spotted a couple of squirrels on the front lawn. I went onto the front porch to enjoy a cup of tea for a break and watched them scampering around under the huge chestnut tree that borders his front lawn from the neighbours lot. Its trunk is about three feet thick and the tree is a good 40’ high. The branches reach approximately fifteen feet out in any direction from the trunk and they are loaded down with very big very spiny chestnuts. The squirrels seem to love the challenge of opening the thorny covers on the nuts. It’s amazing how adept they are at skinning them. I remember when we were kids how difficult it was to crack open the shells without breaking the chestnuts inside. We used to pound them with a rock on the sidewalk or stomp on them with the heel of our shoes. Most times you could get the casing to crack without destroying the nut inside but on occasion we’d squish one. These squirrels were amazingly skilled at opening them up. The big thing is that they leave such a mess after they’ve stuffed themselves.
The chestnuts are not quite at the point of ripeness where they fall off the tree easily but I’m sure they soon will be. The squirrels have to climb the tree and jump from branch to branch nipping them off their stems. They are very good at this as well. I guess their teeth are like little razors as they instantly nip the stem and the nuts drop to the ground. Once they’ve nipped off a couple of chestnuts they scurry back down the tree and head for their bounty. It was funny to see that the two of them working at this harvest at the same time didn’t seem to bother them. They would both head straight to the chestnuts that they themselves had dropped. Even if they had to pass directly by a chestnut dropped by the other squirrel they would only pick up their own harvest. You’d think that a chestnut is a chestnut and it wouldn’t matter which one they picked up but not to these guys or girls.
They picked up the exact one they had just dropped. It was interesting to watch for sure. It was taking about 10 seconds for them to remove the outer covering from the nut and then about 30 seconds to devour the nut. With the size of the chestnuts the little cheeks of the squirrels were stuffed to capacity after only two chestnuts each. Then they’d disappear into the back yard and it would take them about three of four minutes to reappear and start all over. I wasn’t sure if they were chewing up the nuts before stuffing their cheeks or if they were stuffing them in whole. I think they were going in whole so they could stash them in their winter storage places intact. It only makes sense that they’d keep them intact for later consumption. Anyway, after about half a dozen trips each I decided to get back to work. The lawn has been scattered with shells for about a week now and I’m sure it’ll continue for a few weeks yet. I’ll have to gather up a basket of chestnuts to bring home before they’re all gone. I’d like to flash back to when I was a kid by stringing a few and coaxing Carole into a game of Cheesers before winter sets in. Apparently she was a “champion” chestnut player back in Belfast Northern Ireland when she was a youngster. So I’ll have to test her skills at the game after all these years and see which one of us still has what it takes! LOL! It should be fun! I’ll be sure to let you know the outcome in a future Ontarion.
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>
“Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul!”
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Have a good one..
the doug
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