The Squamidian Report – Oct. 1 / 16
 
Issue #749

Including:
The Ontarion

Hi All,

Our normal daily routine starts off by us getting up (obviously), having breakfast and then taking Willow for her walk which is more of a sniff and a drag than an actual walk. And most of this tends to happen at about the same time each day. The other morning as we were about to take Willow for her walk, we heard a scratch at the front door. It was Zoe, her young chocolate Lab friend from down the street. Zoe is still less than a year old, has endless boundless energy, and has always looked on Willow as being her mother, or at least her fill-in mother. Willow has always looked on Zoe as being her puppy and Willow just loves puppies. Whenever Zoe gets out of her yard or house she heads straight for our place which is good because her owner knows where she's gone if she has escaped. So that morning her owner was heading out to take Zoe for her walk at about the time we would be heading out for ours and simply let Zoe go and told her to 'get' Willow. Which she did, she ran to our door and banged on it with her front paws.

When we answered the door she shot in like a bullet, greeted Willow and then did her usual dash all over the house looking for who knows what. Her owner wasn't far behind and we leashed both dogs and did our walk. Once Zoe's initial exuberance has warn off a bit she settles down and once Willow has used her 'mother' voice on her a few times to tell her to behave, they walk along happily. Willow shows the puppy what and where to sniff, how to eat grass and so on. We walk down to the dog park which is about a klick from here, down hill all the way which means up hill all the way back, and let them loose in the fenced area. Willow tries her best to ignore the puppy and the puppy tries her best to prod Willow into playing, which she eventually does. Problem is, a few moments of playing leaves poor old Willow pretty tired and she ends up sleeping the rest of the day, which she would do whether she was tired or not as thats one of her favorite hobbies. We often run into other dogs along the way that are being taken out for their morning walk and most of them are Willows friends, creating a pack of dogs. Willow is the undisputed matriarch, ruling all and in charge of all. Its a dog's life, and a dog's life is pretty good.

Once we have returned home we often but not always go out for a coffee. Willow doesn't drink coffee but she likes the outing and car ride, as do most dogs. Its quite incredible how of all the animals we interact with, dogs have so totally embraced riding if our vehicles. If we don't go out for coffee she pouts a bit. On most mornings and whether or not she goes out for coffee, she ends up out on the back deck where she can sleep in a sun beam, if there is one, and keep an ear open for squirrels etc. Thats another of her favorite hobbies, keeping our back yard free of those pesky critters. She can spend hours sitting under the ornamental maple keeping guard over a squirrel she has treed. It jabbers at her and she licks her lips, trying to will it to jump into her waiting mouth. That never happens of course. No squirrel would willingly accommodate a big old dog that would like to swallow said squirrel whole. But it makes for a pretty good day, dog wise.

Once she's busy either chasing squirrels or napping in the sun we head for the gondola to do 'our' morning walk. On nice days we go on the bike because its enjoyable, and because we can park on the motorcycle pad rather than out in the parking lot along with the tourists and other locals. We've been having some incredibly nice mid October weather for the last half of September making for some rather nice riding. Only thing is, we head for the gondola shortly after 9 and its still about +5 here. Its been getting up to about +16 or 18 during the day but dropping down to +5 or less at night and during the early mornings. So, the ride is rather refreshing. We can't bundle up because we intend to go hiking out the trails. Its all fun, and the ride home will have warmed up a bit making it even better. Occasionally we will pop on up to Whistler for lunch but when we do, we stop in at home and grab our cold weather riding gear. Otherwise we'd be popsicles by the time we got there. Its a hard life.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

     Guess you all know by now that it’s only a little over 11 weeks till Christmas! Well, I’m sure if you didn’t know this, all you have to do is take a walk through Costco. I was there today and it’s just a start but they actually have a few Christmas decorations on their shelves already! Of course Halloween is the big thing at the moment but it won’t be long before the artificial Christmas Trees are overshadowing the isles of Costco and other stores. They’ll all be eager to snatch up their unfair share of holiday profits and most people will be sucked into the old “impulse purchases” over sentimentality of the mid winter season. Kids will be pulling at their parent’s heartstrings every time they pass the Seasonal Department in any money grubbing retailer. Toys are no longer the fave of the young generation! They start at such a young age these days to crave the latest electronic gadget and of course most of today’s young parents can’t say no because they know that they too will benefit from their “too young” a child’s mesmerization with such mind bending items. The more the kids become attached to their cell phones and games, the less their parents have to act like real grown ups and actually put some effort into raising their children! It’s a fact that today’s very young children are falling behind in real life social skills such as meaningful conversation and the ability to actually communicate without the aid of a texting device. The other night I watched a short blurb on TV about the thousands of young children that are of age but not developed socially enough to be admitted into Pre School, let alone kindergarten! This is due to the fact that today’s early childhood education is being left up to electronics! This is a sad commentary on today’s parenting skills and I hate to think what will become of the civilized world of the near future if there’s ever a major computer network failure! There won’t be anyone with enough personal intellectual or mechanical savvy to right the problem. They’ll all be looking to the person next to them to fix the situation and there won’t be a single one of them with the knowhow because they’ll all figure that somehow there should be a button to push to do so and with the world network broken down, how can it fix itself? Guess somewhere along the line there will have to be a good old-fashioned Apprenticeship program to teach the mechanical end of things! On the other hand, with today’s push to develop vehicles that can drive themselves, who’s to say they can’t develop a system of computerization that will repair itself and then, what the hell will it need people for? Guess we’re very quickly outsmarting ourselves here on earth!

So parents out there, instead of buying your young children the latest i-pad or cell phone, see if you can’t find them a good old fashioned “Mechano Set” and maybe sit down with them and read the “Instruction Booklet” together so you can join them in actually doing more than spend your “family” time typing and ignoring each other!

     Short and sweet for this week but I’m sure if you try real hard, the preceding couple of pages will give you lots to think about!  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 Else To Think About>
As a wise farmer once said, “Most times, it just gets down to common sense!                                     

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Have a good one..
the doug
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