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The
Squamidian Report – Jan. 8/22
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Of This And Past Issues Issue
#1024 From Russ The Ontarion
Hi All, Just like the rain that wouldn’t stop during the last weeks of summer and pretty well all fall, the winter snow doesn’t seem to want to stop either. We are literally buried in the stuff. There have been very few days when we didn’t have to clear at least 4 or 5 inches off the driveway. Those are the easy days. Many more days start off with anywhere from 8 to 12 inches of snow to clear and end up with that amount again by evening. We had one morning (Tuesday) where we looked out and saw that all we had to deal with was a miserly 2 inches or so. However, just as we sat down to breakfast, it started to snow harder than I’ve ever seen. Within half an hour we had received another 6 inches or more. It snowed so hard it would have knocked me over if I’d tried to go outside. Wow. Our street looks like a narrow goat trail thanks to the morons who won’t park in their own driveways and a town that couldn’t care less. My old Toro snowblower has been on the verge of being warn out for a couple of years now and I’m pretty sure this winter will finish the job and do it in. Hopefully it will last through the winter. I will definitely replace it with another Toro. As for blowing the snow, I can avoid having the high, hand shoveled snow piles along my driveway like many of the neighbors do but even at that, I’m running out of room to blow the snow. The piles just keep piling up higher and higher. On the south side of our driveway is a 10ft high hedge that I like to blow the snow into and over (onto the neighbor’s lawn:). There isn’t much of that hedge sticking out of the snow anymore. Something we almost never get up our way is ice storms. However, the whole south coast, Fraser Valley, VGA and right on up past Squamish got a hit hard with one Thursday afternoon and night. Ice all over everything. Our steep driveway became a steep ice hill. Snowblowers aren’t much help when dealing with that kind of thing. Power was out, local radio station was off the air (no one cared), even the local cell towers were knocked out for a few hours. Oh well, this is actually the first real ice storm we’ve had here in the 20 years we’ve lived here. An interesting side to all this snow and ice is that I’ve had a chance to compare how our 2 vehicles handle on winter roads. My Tacoma 4X4 pickup is just coming up on 2 years old and Sue’s Rav4 is coming up on 1 year old. Due to the fact that we didn’t really get any winter last winter or the winter before, this has been the first time either has driven in much snow or ice. Four-wheel-drive systems lend themselves to brute pushing or pulling, handle deep snow easily etc. But they don’t have the finesse of a more finely tuned ‘intelligent’ all-wheel-drive systems. The Rav4 has the AWD with computer vectoring torque drive, and several drive modes. The truck can power through, up and over, and so on. The Rav4 is probably the most sure-footed vehicle we’ve ever owned (also the first AWD we’ve ever owned). Bottom line is, for rock solid handling on ice and snow, no slipping under almost any conditions, the AWD wins easily. Mind you, we have new mountain rated ice tires on it. The pickup is equipped with big heavy snow tires and can plow through snow that would be blocking the Rav4’s bumper. So, best of both worlds because we have both and each is meant for a different job. The hardest part is deciding which vehicle to use on a give day. If the roads are unplowed and deep, the truck wins. If the roads are plowed but icy, or covered with several inches of slush and ice, the AWD wins. Its all fun. Morning coffee up at the gondola has been fun too. They are buried, the trees are loaded with snow-bombs that are the size of refrigerators. (Be very careful walking under them). Its too deep to snowshoe and we are too old to try snowshoeing through snow so deep we’d sink out of sight. The gondola is so short staffed (their own fault) that they can’t keep up with the clearing of their decks. The picnic tables are totally buried and look like gigantic mushrooms. The scenery is however spectacular. Here’s a pic I took with my phone from the upper deck, looking eastward up the Upper Shannon Valley toward Sky Pilot Mt with the rising sun poking through the overcast.
doug **** From Russ
The Mother-in-law She was half Irish, and half Pennsylvania- German hence, she had good reason for being both superstitious and stubborn. She believed in Irish 'fairies' and 'elves' - 'Leprechaun's', she preferred to call the 'Wee People'. She also inherited some Pennsylvania-German, 'unlucky omens': Don't throw anything out from Christmas Day to New Year's Day - examples; don't throw out the garbage, empty the dish-water, take a bath, do a laundry, or change your clothes, (not even your underwear, as doing so caused boils!). Another Pennsylvania-German superstition - "If your first visitor on New Years Day is a woman, you'll have bad luckall year-long. If your visitor is a man - you'll have good luck" Of course, she also had these common unlucky omens: Break a mirror - seven years bad luck; step under a ladder and you'll soon suffer a fall; black cats are 'demons', don't let one cross your path; and here's one Imust believe - every time I spill salt, I pour a shake into my hand and toss it over my left shoulder! She also claimed she heard the eerie cry of a 'Banshee' which foretells someone in your household will soon die. Her husband Fred, died of cancer soon after. An Irish 'wake' was held after his death. It was a great party! To counteract all her bad omens, she had some fool-proof 'Magical cures': she always carried a rabbit's foot as protection against bad luck; Holy objects, like St. Christopher, or a Cross were vital objects to ward off bad luck; if you can peel a complete apple without breaking the skin- it's good luck, especially if you are a 'maiden' looking for romance - you'd throw the long apple-peel over your shoulder, and when it lands, an alphabetical letter appears - that letter will be the first letter in the name of the man who'll come along and romance you! My Mother-in-law passed down some of her omens and superstitions to my wee wife Bobbie and, being a good husband, I helped her with the dishes - clumsy, I often dropped cutlery: a fork meant a female visitor, a spoon meant a male. A dropped knife, meant you had to wash & dry it over again! And I was never allowed to bring an open umbrella into the house, or open an umbrella inside. Finally, if you were going on a trip, and some distance away you remembered something you forgot - something you had to have, and you returned home – you must count backwards from 7 to 0 - otherwise, you are tempting fate!! This has been fun for me - hope you found it interesting. Russ. **** THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone! Here we are once again in lockdown with this dreaded Covid resurgence! I was listening to the talk radio here in Kitchener today and there was a doctor and the Minister of Health talking about the problem the hospitals are having keeping up with the number of new covid admissions. The doctor said she didn’t like to deny anyone help when they need it but she felt that the government has to immediately do something to have the non-vaxers get their shots because 80 % of the admissions to hospitals are these people that refuse to get vaccinated. The minister of health agreed that they must do more to encourage the non vaxers to have the shots as soon as possible. I say, just put them to the back of the health care line if they don’t want to be vaccinated! The other day I listened to a PHD professional talk and he said he wonders how many non-vaccinated people have millions of dollars worth of lab equipment in their basements that they know better than the top educated professionals about the details of the Covid problem and also know what’s in the vaccines that makes them able to choose not to have the shots due to the ill effects of having the shots! He’s absolutely correct when he asks that! He said he hasn’t heard one PHD holding professional state that the contents of the vaccine are not healthy to take by anyone! Of course there are a few exceptions that are allergic to some of the contents but for the majority of people there is nothing harmful in the make up of the vaccines! SO, I say get off your uneducated lazy asses and get the vaccine before you destroy the world! Australia is the only country I’ve heard of that won’t allow non vaccinated people into their lovely country! They have the right idea and I think Canada should follow suit! Our government is too damned soft hearted to deny anyone access and this is going to do nothing but prolong the fight against Crovid-19! At the current rate we will be fighting this virus for another two or more years, I’m sure! I think it’s time to mandate people to have the shots so we can finally get a handle on beating this virus! We have only 17% of our population that’s not vaccinated and they are holding the rest of the country hostage to their foolish attitude! It’s time to hit them where it hurts, right in their bank books! Heavy fines just might start them thinking more in line with what’s sensible rather than being so damned selfish! If they don’t like being told what to do that’s just too darned bad! They didn’t like being told to wear a seatbelt but they finally did it didn’t they? The smokers didn’t like being told they could no longer smoke wherever they felt like lighting up but they finally followed the law in that instance as well so what’s keeping the government from telling them they have to be vaccinated? I’ll tell you what it is, Trudeau and his Liberal government don’t want to offend them by making a hard decision in case they lose votes in the next election! Too bad Justin! Keep your stubborn attitude and you’ll ruin this beautiful country of ours for your own selfish reasons! You’re too much like your old man and it’s time you realized that you are in office to do what’s best for the Canadian voters and not just what serves your career needs! The anti-vaxers say they don’t know what’s in the vaccines so they don’t trust taking the shots. However they don’t think twice about munching on a hotdog while bitching about the vaccines and I’m sure thy have no idea what’s in their wiener’s either! But they’ll keep on shoving them down their foolish guts! * OK, I’ll get off my soapbox for this week! Something amazing finally happened yesterday! Remember the problem I mentioned about the bus stopping and idling beside our house rather than at their proper stop? Well, I got a note from the head of Grand River Transit a couple of weeks ago telling me that he will be retiring in January but he was still working on solving the bus problem near our house. He said the drivers were stopping before the official bus stop sign because they didn’t like their back end of the bus hanging over and blocking the pathway that crosses Driftwood Dr from the Hydro right of way. Well, I told him that if the bus stop was moved a minimum of ten feet further up from where it was on the light post then the ass end of the busses wouldn’t be blocking the pathway. About a week later Carole saw someone taking measurements of the pathway! Yesterday a transit truck was sitting with it’s flashing lights beside the light standard and two workers got out and removed the Bus Stop sign from the post. They then hand dug a hole about 10 feet further north of that pole and installed a new post with a new bus stop sign on it! Since then, the buses have been stopping at the proper new stop sign and they no longer think they need to sit beside our house while idling to make up time on their route without blocking the pathway. It’s nice to know that if you are persistent when dealing with bureaucrats you can finally get things done the proper way! This GRT manager was good enough to finally keep his word before retiring and that finally put a smile on my face! Let’s hope the bus drivers keep doing the right thing and don’t revert back to their old “Improper” stopping habit! It only took two years of nagging to get something so easy done about this problem! I guess the wheels of government at any level turn slowly and GRT is no exception! Thanks to their now retired leader the problem is finally solved! 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 Something To Think About> Spring is just around the corner! I’ll be 73 on Tuesday and then spring can come at any moment as I race to catch up to Uncle Russ in age! LOL! ****
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