Issue #950
Including:

From Russ

From Karl

The Ontarion

Hi All,

I’ve complained about this before, but the way I see it, if something is worth complaining about, its worth complaining about several times. And this is something that seems to be age related, the older you get the more it happens…. Nose and ear hair that pops out of no where, growing at explosive rates. Its annoying. Be nice and trimmed up one day and all is well. Look in a mirror a day or so later and one looks like some sort of cartoon character with tufts of bristles sticking out of all the facial cavities. Its just such a waist of bodily energy and resources. Nature should have done us better, in my opinion.

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It is very hard to remember that we are in the midst of a pandemic. Ever since the weather changed a few weeks ago and suddenly summer was upon us, our highway through the area (the ONLY highway through the area) has been nuts. Total nuts. Bumper to bumper morons all in a hurry to get to who knows where. People are supposed to be hard up these days. You’d never know it by the amount of traffic. People should really have no where to go but you’d never know it. There should be very little out-of-province traffic but somehow there is. We’ve had to go down to Maple Ridge several times over the last couple of weeks but to do so we have to time our traveling to miss the masses. If we are on the road at the wrong time, we could spend hours in grid locked traffic. Luckily for us, we do have to ability to pick and choose our timing. With the kids having moved in to a ‘new-to-them’ house, there always seems to be stuff, truckloads of stuff, to take down, or to take away. I guess that's normal. Anyway, life was easier back when everything was in a tight lockdown. At least for us it was. Life was slower and easier.

I know I’m starting to ramble but have you tried to get a doctor appointment these days? It’s different. For us out here, once doctor offices were again willing to answer their phones, when we call we end up making a phone appointment. You are given a date and time, and A, not necessarily YOUR, doctor will call you. You have 10 minutes to make your case, so to speak. For run of the mill things like needing a prescription renewed, he or she asks questions, you answer the questions, then the doctor forwards the prescription to the pharmacy of your choice. That seems to work out fine. For something a bit more intense where you might actually NEED to see someone in person, it gets more involved. After pleading your case over the phone during the phone interview, they decide if they will or will not see you. Then, assuming you will be seen, you must go through all the steps of filling out forms and having your temp taken to prove you probably don’t have the virus. That's fine but it does extend the time frame. If you end up being seen, masks are part of the process. No problem there of course. And so on.

Seeing a dentist is similar, and, if it qualifies as something that can’t wait a year or so, you find yourself in an almost vacant dentist office and the only others there besides you are the dentist and her assistant. Both are dressed in hazmat suits. Tends to make one feel a bit self conscious. Oh well, $1500 later and with a new crown, all is well. Life goes on but it is a bit strange at times. Also makes one wonder how many medical situations are going unattended to and will end up being much worse if not very much worse before there is intervention. Again, we now live in different times.

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Oh, I don’t know how I almost forgot this as it should have stood out well during our days of constant sameness, but I climbed over the neighbor’s fence and stole some of his blueberries. Mine are doing very well this year after a spring and early summer of constant rain, followed by the last few weeks being hot and sunny. I’m using mine as fast as they ripen. The neighbor has several bushes that are ripening at the same rate. But, they are away a lot (part of that endless traffic on the highway). I had to choose between swiping some of his or watch them get over ripe and fall off. Being the concerned person I am, I chose to salvage some of the ripe berries. I just won’t tell him. And as an aside, climbing over a fence at my age is no small feat!

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Just for you guys, to give that little extra for your weekly entertainment, I’ve posted another little music video. I’m just in the midst of trying to learn this one and I did in fact bungle a couple of lines but no one is likely to notice. I intend to do an audio version should the opportunity come along at some point, the kind I’ve been doing for years where I do multiple harmonies and instrumentation, and where I’ll get the words right. For now this is all you get, a raw, one take vid. The song is Neon Moon, first done by Brooks & Dunn a few decades ago, I think. I was never a fan of their so I’m not actually sure. Anyway, follow the link as usual to play the vid.

Neon Moon

doug

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From Russ

Popping pens, and disappearing dreams.

While boiling some corn-on -the-cob the other day, I decided to make some notes but couldn’t find a ball-point pen that worked. I had accumulated a ‘fist-full’ and one-by-one kept trying them but each one had ‘gone dry’. Then I remembered something about dipping ‘dry pens’ into hot water to make them work again. How timely, I thought, here’s some hot water on the stove. Dipping a dry specimen into the boiling water (for maybe too long) the pen exploded right in my hand! I wasn’t hurt, but my nice yellow corn began to turn blue! What to do? I don’t know if ink is poisonous, I quickly plucked the corn from the pot, shut the heat off under the pot, and poured its contents into a sieve. There it was – all the parts except for the empty ‘tube’ which I’d been so lovingly- stupidly – holding! You learn something every day, or you ‘should’.

Yup, here’s what I learned so far; If you don’t milk your cow every day she’ll ‘go dry’; and if you don’t use your ball-point pens every day they’ll go dry!

Now, for something totally unrelated, but equally mind-boggling; do you have dreams? If so do you remember if you dream in colour or tones of black and white? Most will not remember. And here’s what boggles my mind; I’m able to solve all my problems while dreaming, but the moment I awaken they begin quickly disappearing until they’ve ‘gone, like snow on the hot desert sands’.

Question: Do any of you Squamidians ever have a dream so vital you get out of bed and make notes before they completely disappear? Welcome to my world.

Question: Do you know why cows have long faces?

Answer: They get their teets pulled twice each day, but only get to visit the bull once a year.

Keep on pull’en. Uncle Russ.

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From Karl

HI everyone from Australia I hope everyone is Fine and safe I thought I better add some news from Australia, here in Melbourne we are in stage 4 restrictions so that means cant go out from 8-till 5am nonessential work is shut down for 6 weeks you can only go out for 1hr for walks or riding your bike within 5 k from your house and you need a permit to go to work if you must and you MUST wear a mask if you don’t you get a $1600 fine, I still get out for my walk and take my camera with me I will add some photos too as you know its WINTER here we actually had snow the other day IN Melbourne you can have 4 seasons in ONE day you get the crazy weather from the SOUTHERN Ocean "Antarctica “ I would like to thank ALL who contribute to the Squamidian report which I love to here about what is going on in Canada especially from Greg in Kitchener because I lived there for 23 years and 15 of them where at 314 OLD CHICOPEE Rd and I got to meet the Brubacher family and the Schneider family ,Well folks that is it for now Stay safe and BIG hugs from Australia..

Karl

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone!

The Ontario heat wave has finally let up to a comfortable level! The past few days and nights have been much less humid let alone hot! It’s nice to be able to sit outside in the cooler air and enjoy the moderate sunshine and nice gentle breezes that have come along with it! It’s just too bad we still have the Covid-19 problem on our doorsteps! Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to put up with that situation for another couple of years until someone somewhere in the world develops a cure that they can share with the rest of the world! We’re all learning to live with the way the new world is coping and hopefully there will come an end to it sooner than later!

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Over the past several months we’ve enjoyed watching the gathering of different birds on the large bird feeder that Adam gave Carole for mother’s day. They have been feasting on the seeds that we’ve been loading the feeder with. Adam has been buying large bags of mixed seed from Costco and the birds and squirrels have been feasting at the feeder since I mounted it on a bracket about 8 feet up our flag pole out in the garden. The pole is in the garden at the back of our property and we can see it from the kitchen window. It’s fun and interesting to watch the different breeds of birds that are attracted to the feeder for sure. The only problem is that it also attracts the squirrels in the area and they tend to hang onto the bottom tray of the feeder and reach in with their paws and drag the seed out by the pawfull. They have found that there is an ideal time of day to do so where they won’t get chased away by one of us humans! They tend to sit and eat until there’s nothing left in the feeder for the birds that the feeder is intended to feed! If that makes sense? To keep the squirrels away from the feeder is nearly impossible. We’ve chased them away every day since the feeder was placed on the pole but they keep on coming back! The squirrels like to walk along the top of our fence which is only about 3 feet away from the flagpole that supports the feeder so it’s an easy jump from the fence to the feeder for the nimble squirrels. I finally decided to do something to try to deter the squirrels from making the daily stop at the feeder. I bought some wire fencing that has ½ inch square holes in it and when I cut strips of the wire mesh about 6” wide it left the one edge of the wire with sharp prongs sticking up from the cut side. I decided to fasten this strip of wire mesh along a 6 foot strip of the top of the wooden fence behind the flagpole and hope that this would stop the squirrels from walking the fence to access the feeder from there. The first day I had the squirrel proofing on the fence, there was a large grey squirrel that was smart enough to drop to the ground at the foot of the flagpole and then climb the pole to the feeder! Pretty smart until Adam went out to scare him away and when he jumped from the feeder onto the fence which was his usual mode of escape, he landed on the sharp barbs of my squirrel deterrent wire mesh! Apparently this was enough to scare him away and I’m sure he’s spread the word to other squirrels in the area because we haven’t seen a squirrel on the feeder since and it’s been about a week now since that first incident. To prevent them from climbing the pole from the ground, Carole suggested that I grease the bottom of the flagpole with Vaseline so the ground attackers would not be able to climb the greasy/slippery pole! Good idea! So today I took a jar of Vaseline and greased the pole! It should be interesting to see if any of the squirrels get there little paws all greasy when they attempt to climb the slippery pole! Hopefully they won’t come back and the feeder will be left solely to the use of the birds from now on! Not that we want the squirrels to starve but I say let them find their supply of food in a more natural way! Maybe they can shop at Costco like everyone else! LOL!

Well, that’s about all I have 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>

There’s only three months left before the USA hopefully gets a new President in the White House! What a relief that will be for the American people. Hopefully they won’t be foolish enough to put Trump back into power! That is, if there are enough American citizens still alive when it comes time to vote! I say, “Let’s keep the border closed for another year at least!”

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