The
Squamidian Report – Oct. 13 / 12
Issue #542
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
First off, the kids are back from South Africa. They had been over there visiting Lauren’s father and some of her relatives. They flew back in to Seattle on Monday, recuperated from 18 hours or so of flying and then drove back up here on Tuesday. Little Kyra is still totally confused by the fact that its daylight when she wants to be asleep and dark when she wants to be awake. Quite a trip for someone who just turned 9 months old.
It is spring there, being in the southern hemisphere. And there are lots of exotic animals walking around, so it would have been pretty interesting. One of the bothersome things about that part of the world is how dangerous it is, the danger coming from other people. The places they stayed were all gated, with bars, locks and security systems designed to repel unwanted visitors. I’m hoping Ryan will do a story for us but I won’t hold my breath, he is off to Mexico if a few days for the next Adam’s tour.
*
‘The Wife’ and I did an enjoyable ride to Horseshoe Bay the other day. The mild sunny days have made riding along Howe Sound about as spectacular as it can get. However, those days seem to be over now and we are getting some very badly needed rain. But, I digress… we sat in an outdoor patio area that over looks the water as we drank our west coast coffee which tends to be way too strong but they don’t know any better here. As we gazed out over the boats and the mountains and the water we noticed some movement in the water. It was a pair of seals playfully swimming around. They would come up and spend some time with their heads out of the water, then dive down and cruise around before surfacing again. This time of year the water is so clear we could watch them the whole time they were submerged. Pretty cool way to spend part of the afternoon.
This riding season is coming to and end and unfortunately, its almost time to put the bike away. This has been an incredible summer and early fall for riding (once the rains finally stopped in the second week of July). There will still be a day or two here and there where I can get out for a nice toot but the season is pretty well over. My riding friends who live in the city can ride all year round as long as the sun comes out. Here in Squamish the rains of late October and then November will keep me off the road, it can get quite chilly when riding in the rain. When the sun does come out here in the winter, the local roads will have too much sand and salt on them for safe riding so my bike will soon be put away till spring. That’s a pretty sad thought. Bummer.
*
Remember that airplane ride I was on a couple of weeks ago? Well, as well as taking pictures, I was using my motorcycle helmet cam to take some video. I’ve edited it down to about 10 minutes of watchable stuff. So, If you are interested, click the link below and enjoy the flight I was on. By the way, that plane is now out of commission and will be for a while. Poor Scotty (the owner) had a brain fart and did some rather expensive damage to the engine. He had used his metal hand tow bar to pull the plane to the compass rose so he could calibrate his on-board magnetic compass. When he was done he decide to simply taxi back to the parking area, so hit the starter to start the engine. Unfortunately, the metal tow bar was still attached to the front wheel and the propeller hit the bar. That’s a prop strike and prop strikes are very serious things. The prop is damaged, probably needs to be replaced, but even worse, because the prop hit something, the engine must be taken apart and every part checked and balanced. So, basically he is looking at a total engine overhaul which will cost 15 to 20 THOUSAND dollars. Ouch, it might be a while before he’s airborne again. Anyway, enjoy the flight, I even put in some narration so you’d know what was going on.
doug
****
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
I gather you’ve all had time to recover from gorging yourselves with turkey and all the fixins’ last weekend!
We had a wonderful meal here at our place and we still have quite a bit of turkey left over’s stashed in the new fridge. In fact, Carole whipped up a lovely turkey salad sandwich for each of us at noon today and it was delicious!
I always find the “left over” meals to be just as good as the original one and the sandwiches in the following days yummy too! This year we purchased a “Drug Free” turkey from a place called Brady’s Meats as I might have mentioned last week. We were interested to see if there was any difference in taste when compared with the usual store bought frozen pre stuffed ones that we’ve always enjoyed other years. As it turned out, since the Drug Free one was a fresh off the farm turkey, we all noticed that it tasted very flavourful and indeed very fresh! The big thing that we did find was that none of us was falling asleep in the hours after the meal was finished. I usually would find myself conked out in front of the TV after a meal of the conventional “Hormone Pumped” bird but not with this “Drug Free” turkey. There is only one reason we can think of that we felt wide awake after this meal and that is the complete lack of modern chemistry in this beautiful bird!
We all enjoyed the taste and felt much better after finishing a big meal with this new “healthy” style of turkey.
I’d recommend going Drug Free in your food selections to anybody after giving it a try this Thanksgiving!
We have also switched to Grass Fed and drug free Beef from Brady’s Meat’s and we can’t believe the difference in the taste of their hamburger patties! Nothing compares to the fresh taste of their meats and I can say that we have officially switched for good! If you’re falling asleep after your Turkey Dinners, give Brady’s a try next time!
*
Well, I took the insurance off the MGB today at Carole’s suggestion since it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting any more cruising with the top down weather this year! I can usually push it till November before dropping the insurance to just Fire and Theft for winter storage but for the number of warm days we’ll likely have left this fall, it’s hardly worth leaving full insurance on the convertible any longer. It’s hard to believe we’ve had the MGB for 23 years already! We’ve had a lot of fun with it and we’ll likely keep it for another 23 years if we last that long ourselves! LOL!
Over the next week or two I’ll winterize the MG and the motorcycle as well and hope for an early Spring so we can get them back on the road again! I’ll also have to put conditioner in the gas in the lawnmower, Whipper-Snipper and leaf blower so they’ll be ready to start come Spring!
I’ve already shut down the pond but still have to pack away all the outdoor summer furniture before the big freeze of winter hits. That only takes one full day to get it all stashed in the shed so I can do that anytime over the next few weeks.
I hate to say it but winters on its way!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report.
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
I stayed up all night to see where the moon went and then it dawned on me!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.