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Issue #962
Including:

From Russ
From Carol
The Ontarion

Hi All,

We’ve had a ‘way too early’ taste of winter this past week or so. Record cold temps all over the place, record snowfall on the mountain passes, and so on. We’ve also had some pretty strong, howling winds blasting down from the north, the kind of winds that blow trees down. Also, the kind of winds that some birds like to play with. We were down at the grocery store, probably to gets some groceries, and noticed a pair of seagulls playing with the wind. They would seem almost stationary as they pointed into the wind. One would maneuver to one side and they’d ‘sit’ there almost wing tip to wing tip. Then one would move to a position just above the other and hold that position. It was almost like two kites except they were free flying. After a time they lost interest and let the wind blow them back toward the waterfront. Then, a small flock of Canada geese flew over, beating their wings but making only a small headway into the wind. It took them a fair amount of time to cross the parking lot. It was all pretty cool.

And then there are the stupid hummingbirds. We had intended to take all our hummingbird feeders down in September when the birds could still find lots of natural food. We took down all but one. We figured we’d keep an eye on it and when there no longer seemed to be any activity around it, we’d take it down. We didn’t want to be responsible for keeping a bunch of hummers alive through the winter. Last winter there were several that stayed and we had to keep the feeders available and had to keep them from freezing which meant rotating them hourly when the temperatures dropped way down. After one intensely cold blow in mid winter, no hummers turned up at the feeders. They had all froze or been blown away and froze somewhere else further down the street. The thing with hummers is, if they can’t get to a known feeder at first dawn, they do not have enough energy to get to or find an alternative.

So, with the intention of NOT having feeders out this winter, we figured we’d not have to be responsible for any hummer sticking around because once committed, there is no changing your mind, one must keep those feeders available. Unless the bird still using our remaining feeder simply disappears, we are stuck, committed to caring for it all winter. Oh well, maybe the neighbor's cat will get it and we’ll be off the hook.

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Here we are, back to the little videos again. If you are wondering why I bother to do these videos, well, there are two reasons. One, I’d like to leave something ‘of me’ for my granddaughters to remember me by and know who and what I was, way far in the future when I’m long gone, and two, it’s a way of practicing and hopefully improving my ‘live’ performances, not that there are any of those these days. You’d be surprised how hard it is for me to remember to smile once in a while. Oh, there’s a third reason, its fun. Just plain fun, and we all could us some fun these days. This song is one of the oldest ‘cowboy songs’ around, or perhaps still around, called ‘Cool Water’. I think Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers may have done it way back when old uncle Russ was a strapping young lad. They would have done it with that tight harmony they did so well. Marty Robins did this song too, as well as others as time went on. Unfortunately this is my video version so its bare bones, just me and my guitar. Sorry about that, but thats mostly what you get this week. It’s also what you would get if you were sitting in my living room when I was plunking away. So, check it out, you may just like it, or even remember it. Or not, thats up to you.

Cool Water

Bonus, 2 for 1 offer: Those of you who were paying attention last week may remember I included my audio recording cover of a song called Seven Bridges Road. I’d like to thank Rosy for her nice compliment, that was very much appreciated. I was however not really quite happy with how my rendition turned out. To my ear there was something just a bit lacking. To that end, I deleted the project and started over, from scratch. I had a chance to re-record the song as the wife was out shopping for a day down in the city. What I’ve done, or changed in this arrangement, is to bump up the tempo from 110 beats per minute to 116. Not much but enough to give it a better flow. Then I did 6 tracks of very close harmony which gave it a smoother sound, and the harmonies are tighter, and a lot of work to come up with but thats what I like to do. The result is a more cohesive sound, at least to my ear. So, the old version is gone from my web site but the new version is now there. Give the new version a listen if you like, you may or may not hear the difference but it is there.

Seven Bridges Road

doug

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From Russ

Book

Most of you know there is a book being written to honour/remember my parents, Wilbur and Emma Brubacher who would have been married 100 years this month. From it’s inception it has grown into a ‘major’ project. I’m finding it terrifyingly challenging and overwhelmingly exciting to be ‘at-the-centre’ of recording this event in the history of my family. (Wow! That was a ‘mouth-full’).

Some of you may be interested in a ‘progress report’. (or not). But, here goes: My sister, Evelyn had often told me she was going to write a book about growing up as the only girl in a family of four boys, and how she ‘survived’. She died before she could accomplish this. Our loss. But, now she ‘speaks from her grave’ from a little yellow book that lies open before me. It’s a “treasure-trove” of her hand-written stories that should not be forgotten. She also kept hundreds of family ‘snap-shots’, many of which will appear in “The Book”.

But, hey, I’m not doing this project alone. Many friends and relatives have come forward, volunteering to use their particular expertise, ensuring the success of…..

A Memoir: A hill, a river, and a family.

Russ.

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From Carol

We have been dragging our feet about clearing out the Homestead for selling, partly because with Covid-19 no one came to choose items they wanted but mostly because we hated to see it go. Both Gale and I considered buying the place but we would have to had taken on a mortgage to buy out our siblings and we do not want mortgages at our age. On Thanksgiving we did get together (socially distant) to pick out pictures and keep sakes. That day Tim suggested to Beth that if I forgo my share then she and Jamie might be able to swing it. Beth went to the bank the next day and was told that if they sold their home with the equity in it they qualify for a mortgage for the lesser sale amount. With that everyone has gone into high gear. Had a developer bought the place they would have smashed down the house so we wouldn’t have had to clear any unwanted items out.

Beth and Jamie had a number of not yet finished projects ongoing at their place so getting it ready to sell has been monumental. Friends and family have been a boon for them. They had a storage pod delivered and they have been packing up items that need to be cleared out for the house staging. The pod will be moved to the Homestead on Monday. All the rooms are now painted, (Beth thanks Al, Gary S, Jim & Jackie) a new carpet for the rec room goes in Monday. Jamie had started building a gigantic deck to make their backyard area, overlooking green belt, more usable before they thought of purchasing the Homestead so it will be finished this weekend. Jackie and Jim came down to help for a few days. They also started cleaning out stuff at Dad’s. I have been searching the place for one of Dad’s pitch-pipes for Ryan, found 3 boxes but no pipe. Jim found 2 so Ryan will have his keepsake. They also helped us load up our vehicles with electronics to take for recycling.

The parents didn’t throw out broken items when they had to replace them. There were old speakers, turn tables, TVs, and many more items that went. Their old water softener was still sitting beside the new one. A number of interesting things turned up in Dad’s work shop. Old pictures that belonged to his father, a set of 36 large magazines called “Picturesque Canada” that seem to be from around 1875, a well hidden bottle of 12-year-old scotch that Dad must have forgotten about long ago (Jim found it so he claimed it). Also hidden in a brown paper bag in the shop was a copy of “The Joy Of Sex”. We will give Dad the benefit of the doubt and assume someone else left it there.

Gale has been working tirelessly but there is still a tremendous amount of work to do at the Homestead. No one in our extended family has room for the piano that once graced the home of Emma and Will so if any of you know someone wanting a piano please let us know. Also there is a chest freezer and a number of smaller items. We will be bringing in a dumpster soon. We will keep you updated on what is happening.

Carol

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THE ONTARION REPORT

Hello everyone:

It’s been a busy day for us here at home. Over the years we’ve accumulated thousands of pages of receipts, bills, tax information and what have you! Enough to fill two large four drawer file cabinets and several large boxes along with many bags of shredded other files. Last week, we decided to rid ourselves of all this unnecessary paper and began to shred it all. Well we got only a fraction of the way into the first box and burned out our second office shredder! After talking about it, mentioned taking it to a friend’s place who has a large burn bin out in his back yard and have him burn it all for us. Carole suggested we burn it ourselves, good idea, but where and how? Then, Adam looked on line and found a fellow that had steel barrels for sale for $20.00 each. He contacted the guy and went over to pick up one of the barrels yesterday. When he got it home we cut the top out of the barrel and mounted a screen in place of the top to prevent the sparks from flying out of the barrel. Then we move the barrel into the back yard and set it on some flag stones and commenced burning the files. We kept the fire low so as not to attract any attention from the neighbours. Burning the papers at a steady rate kept the flames hot and the smoke to minimum. After 4 hours, we had burned through about half of the Collection. We’ll have to finish the rest another day but for now we ran into a bit of rain that stopped us in our tracks. There is no open burning allowed in the city but with the advent of patio burners now allowed for pleasure this barrel is no worse than they are if kept to a small burn. So. We can now burn our own paper scraps etc and not have to transport them to a remote location for destruction. We just have to make sure the wind is blowing in the right direction and keep the smoke down! That’s about all I have to write about for this week. Not much else happening!

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now … Greg.

PS: Something To Write About>
How about this cold weather?

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