|
The
Squamidian Report – June 19 / 21
Online
Versions
Of This And Past Issues Issue
#995 From Russ From The Shores Of Lake Huron The Ontarion
Hi All, This has been a fairly busy week, at least relatively speaking. Monday started out with a dental appointment. I had broken a bridge that had been installed just under 20 years ago. At that time the dentist had said it would probably last a good 20 yeas so I didn’t have to worry about it at all, for years and years. That 20 years went by quickly and that bridge had failed. Well, actually it was one of the teeth it was anchored to that failed but that meant the bridge had to be removed and discarded in order to repair the tooth. The tooth was repaired back in March and a temporary bridge was installed. Now it was time for the preparation for the new, permanent bridge. That meant an hour and a half in the chair again. That part was fine, the payment part not so fine. The estimate for this engineering marvel is just under $4500 bucks. Yup, you heard right. A small fortune in anybody’s books. The new bridge doesn’t go in for another couple of weeks and at that time I will be expected to come up with the payment. That gives me lots of time to stew about it. Oh well, beats a big hole in the front of my face. Then, at 10:01 on Tuesday morning I had my second Covid vaccine shot. Very happy about that, good to have it over with, good to have that protection. I had been notified about 2 weeks ago that I could book my appointment, and this was the first available date. The actual clinic was at the local sports center and was run with clockwork precision. I got there about 10 minutes early, was 7th in line, and by 10:04 was done and sitting in the area where we mush wait for 15 minutes before leaving. Just like with my first shot, I barley felt it and there were really no side-effects at all. Now it we could get the anti-vaxers and none-believers to get vaccinated, we could all relax and move forward. On Tuesday afternoon I had a meeting with some people at the gondola to discuss how we could move forward from the incident of a year ago that turned us off from being the big supporters of that place that we had been. The one person is an upper manager, the boss of the manager who had told us he didn’t want us in ‘HIS’ restaurant and to get out and don’t come back. The other is kind of an HR / PR, good-will person who wants to get this resolved so we can all move forward. Interestingly, they will not admit that the food and beverage manager screwed up and want to write it off as a ‘misunderstanding’. They do want us to feel welcome and wanted again which we certainly also want, but it will be hard for us to get to that place. It is ridiculous that it has taken a full year for them to even address the issue but I guess no one there wanted to deal with it. So, we shall see. On somewhat of a gondola theme, Russ had asked about skunk cabbage, the stuff I mentioned in last week’s issue. So, we did a nice walk out the trail up at the gondola and I took this shot of a skunk cabbage. They grow in the wet areas. The usual first sign of them is a large bright yellow flower, very similar to a lily. Then the leaves come up. These plants are big, the leaves being a good 3 ft high. So, this is what they look like.
* Ok kids, I’ve got another double-header for you. An audio recording with all the music tracks that make it sound like there is 4 or 5 or 6 of me, and the video version that is just 1 of me, sitting there making a fool of myself as per usual. That is just what it is you know, an attempt to add some extra entertainment to this letter. Anyway, the song is called ‘The Sloop John B’. The first well known version was done way back in the very early days of the folk movement by a group called The Kingston Trio. This song was re-done as a rock number by the Beach Boy, with all their tight harmony's and intricate arrangement. I can’t do that so my version is closer to the Kingston Trio’s. It is however a fun song so give it a look or a listen, or both. Enjoy. The Sloop John B doug ****
From Russ
Go figure (Contd.) You may recall last week I told the tale of how we changed address without moving a stick of furniture or the “thunder mug”. Our Point Clark address was always ‘lake Side Trail’ until we made a driveway from the rear (Victoria Rd.), as the cottage was placed too close to the front road to allow parking. Without notification, or excuse, the Township of Huron-Kinloss changed our ‘mailing address’ to 881 Victoria Rd. “So mote it be”. We have been waiting with bated breath for ‘Natural Gas’ to be brought into Point Clark – finally it has come. Because it is cheaper than propane, and need not be ‘trucked-in’ (a problem during snowstorms), I applied. The Application required we indicate where, on my cottage, I’d like the gas meter to be located. It read; “Facing the front of your building, where would you prefer the gas meter be placed?” Answer: On the right side. There were a number of other questions, namely how I wish to pay for the gas. I indicated, by “Pre-authorized payment”. They wanted two voided cheques. They promptly got ‘em. Then came an email drawing showing the path to be taken for the gas-line – it stared on Victoria Rd., came partly under our driveway, across the front of our garage, ran over part of our ‘septic system’, and ended at a meter located on the left side – this being the farthest from the entry point of the existing propane system!! This long-distance route, over 190 feet would cost me an additional $700.00 Bummer! We, (our son, Greg) and I sent a message saying their plan was totally unacceptable. We said; “Why not bring the gas line into the Brubacher property from Lake Side Trail (the first 30 meters being free), a short distance of under 20 meters from their main to the proper side of our cottage? All other services come into our cottage from Lake Side trail”. They responded by sending a technician who promptly re-measured the distance from his would-be meter location out to their gas main on Victoria Rd. He obviously hadn’t been given our suggestion! Or our objections! I phoned the Tech. (Zeek) who said, “I can easily change the proposed meter location, but I have no authority to change the proposed incoming route of the gas line”. To which I replied, Who does have the authority to change it? He mumbled something about bringing another line from Lake side would, “Over-load the mains, reducing pressure to other users”. That we should “phone the office, and tell them – maybe they can come up with something satisfactory”. Lame. Our latest email stated, “we would cancel our application if they (EPCOR), could/would not accommodate us”. That was 7 business days ago. No response. I hope I haven’t bored you too much with the problems I’m having with EPCOR – but, I had to ‘give vent’ to someone. PS; Except for the final outcome of my problems, I’ll never mention this again. You’re welcome, Uncle Russ. ****
FROM THE SHORES OF LAKE HURON
Greetings everyone , I am not sure about every where else but Bruce county is definitely in need of a much needed rainfall. I swear it has been well over a month since we have had a decent ground soaking rain. It seems every time they predict rain even as high as 80 percent chance, it appears for some reason it goes to the north and south of us. Last night about 2 am we had lots of lightning and a few claps of thunder but not a drop of rain. The storm knocked out the power in the Kincardine area and parts of Huron County. Hopefully Russ had no loss of power. I am positive I saw a robin with a jack hammer looking for worms. Hahaha
On brighter note the fishing seems to be picking up out here but is still slow . Each time out, when the wind isn’t creating rough waters we manage to get 1 or 2 so I can’t complain as I know a few out there are getting none. People tell the water at the beach is nice and warm Ha you can’t fool me. when I have a surface temperature of 56 degrees F that is enough to deter my beach going. I have no problem pool swimming but the beach just doesn't cut it. Well that's it for now everyone have a fantastic week and I really enjoy all your contributions. Stay safe Brian **** THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone! Well, after days and days of yard work and tree pruning etc etc, we finally managed to take a day to ourselves to relax and spend the day driving in the countryside in the MGB. It was all cleaned up and looking like it belongs on the dealership’s showroom floor! So after many months of being in storage in our garage, we decided to take it for a good long spin. Carole and I hopped in the B about noon and without a definite destination headed away from all the yard work and home duties on a bright sunny day. We wound up deciding to head toward Port Dover on lake Erie just for some place to head. The drive was a beautiful one and we couldn’t have asked for a better day to go driving in a convertible. We had packed a small cooler with some ice and water bottles and headed south. It’s an easy drive straight south from our area of Forest Heights on Trussler Rd for a total of 80 km from our house to Port Dover. We weren’t sure if the town of Port Dover was allowing outsiders to visit or not since they had been disallowing visitors during the pandemic. However once we got to the town, we found it was wide open. They even had a full capacity of visitors on their small beach. They seamed to be well spaced and properly distanced from blanket to blanket and person to person. We didn’t walk the beach, just parked next to it and people watched for about 10 minutes. Since it was about 2:00 pm on Thursday we decided to get something to eat. For many years, we’ve been visiting the Erie Beach Motel which had been renowned for their Lake Erie perch and chips dinners! We used to really enjoy that dinner but two years ago when we visited them the dinner was really sub-standard when compared to what we had experienced other years during our visits. So at that time we had vowed not to eat there again. Besides, that time we found they had doubled the price of their dinner from $9.95 each to $19.95 plus tax! So, today we thought we would try the Perch dinner from one of the street front fast food places literally beside the Erie Beach Motel. To our delight, we found a parking spot directly in front of the fast food place. I checked the menu and found that they offered a Two Piece Perch dinner with all the fixings for only $10.00 plus tax. I ordered two of these dinners and they came neatly packaged in containers and placed in a plastic bag to take out! We hopped back into the MG and drove back through town to find a parking spot, preferably in the shade! We found a parking spot on a side street directly under a spreading oak tree with plenty of shade. We parked there and sat in the car to enjoy our dinners! We were delighted to find that the Perch was beautifully done and the fries were some of the best we’d found from take out in a long time, definitely much better all round when compared to the dinners from the Erie Beach Motel! I guess we’ve found a new favourite place to eat a Perch dinner when in need of said treat again! The dinner also came with a lovely fresh dinner roll, butter, salt for the fries, two hefty portions of Perch and a delicious helping of coleslaw! We both said we would definitely make the drive to that location again for a dinner out! In fact, when we got home to tell Adam of our discovery, we all agreed that one day this summer, the three of us would venture to Port Dover for a day’s fishing from the wharf and then enjoy another Perch dinner while in the town for the day! After our delightful lunch, we simply turned around and headed home via the same route we had followed to get to Dover. While leaving the Port, the road out of town toward Simcoe has a few lovely new houses on it that have only been built over the past few years. There is one in particular that sits on a well manicured lot of about 10 acres of land! It’s a large full two story home with a large chimney on each corner of the house! It looks more like a castle than a normal house! I remember asking one of the town’s residents about two years ago on another of our day trips to Dover, who lived in that lovely mansion! That person told me that the house had been built by and was a summer home of Sir Elton John himself! It’s hard to believe that story but somewhere along the line since, I’ve seen that same house on a news story about Ontario’s famous residents and Elton John was said at that time to be the owner as well. So, I guess that’s who owns it and of course has the money to afford such a summer home! It would be cool to drive up it’s long driveway and see for myself just who would answer the door! However, there happens to be a large wrought iron fence surrounding the entire property and it has a giant iron gate at the road! So, that puts an end to any thought of invading the owners privacy, whoever he may be! The driveway itself is about a quarter mile long straight off the road to the front of the house and the lawn surrounding the house is flat beautiful and at least 10 acres in size! I’m sure the owner doesn’t mow that lawn with a push mower! In fact I doubt if he even looks after the lawn and maintenance himself! With that kind of a home I’m sure the owner has a full time staff to take care of both the outside and inside of the place! It’s a beauty to say the least! I
think this is about the end of things for this week
folks! Bye for now… Greg PS:
Something
to Think About> **** Take
Care
And Be Safe |
