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The
Squamidian Report – Sept. 3 / 22
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Of This And Past Issues Issue
#1058 From Gail Nova Scotia Sus From Russ From Karin The Ontarion --------------------------------------------- Well Now, here we are again. And I truly thank each and ever one of you for showing your support for this sort-of extended-family newsletter. So, I guess I’ll kick things off by saying it’s good to be back. As much as a pain in the butt writing a weekly column is, it is also a nice challenge and tends to force some focus into an otherwise blur of passing days and weeks. However, I must admit to the fact that I actually kept up writing on a weekly basis as you can see by the issue number at the top of the page. I tend to use these weekly letters as a way of keeping track what was happening at various points in time. Using the online versions, I can look up a given date and get an idea of what was going on. So, I’ve kept writing and uploading to my web site, outlining what was happening in my life. These ‘unpublished’ issues are there on my site. They outline a rather frustrating summer that I’m quite happy to see come to an end. They outline a painful bout of kidney stones, a painful impacted tooth that required 2 rounds (so far) of antibiotics and a specialist to deal with. They describe being almost taken out while on my motorcycle by a driver who pulled a left turn right in front of me that was so close I still can’t believe I didn’t impact into the side of her car. I ended up with the bike laying in the center of the road but I was unhurt, very shook up but unhurt. I had a few word to say to her. I had a later issue with the bike where the rear wheel bearings failed. That shouldn’t have happened on a bike that’s only a year and a half old. All this over the backdrop of a bad hip joint. One of the few bright spots of this summer was doing some music with Nova Scotia Sus when she was out here visiting her brother Warren. We had the granddaughters here for pretty well all of July which was both wonderful and exhausting, as well as a good part of the last couple of weeks of August, equally exhausting. We’ve had a heat pump installed which is wonderful given how hot our summers tend to be now. And, it should be just as nice during cold weather as it works for extracting both hot and cold. (Thats technically not true as anything over absolute zero is just a degree of hot, hot, or ‘heat’, being simply a level of energy). But it works, and very efficiently. Enough about me, lets move on to everyone else who have much more interesting things to say.
doug **** *Gail Sent This In Several Weeks Ago* From Gail
I thought I would share an encounter I had at Woodland cemetary that might spark a few "flashbacks" for some of you. I was over weeding, trimming, planting at the Brubacher plot and, as usual, scooted across the way to do some tidying around the Cameron headstone. A man stopped and approached me saying "You must be Marg (Cameron)."I explained myself and learned that he goes to the same church as Roy and went to highschool with Claire. Then he said he grew up nearby and went to Howard Robertson school. I didn't recognize his name - Don Mc....something. He asked about Doug and also Ward and Warren whom he remembered from kindergarten because if one twin cried so would the other. He proceeded to remind me of so many families in the area at that time -the Arndts, Schnieders. Hills, Morrisons (but didn't recall Cathy), Linesmons (didn't recall Bobbette), several principals etc. Also, places like Fowler's store. the gas station, fire hall, Stahl's orchard, Blue Springs, old road names, Chicoppe, Willow Lake. He is Gary's age which explains why we had never run across each other because five years when you're a kid is like a generation gap. Perhaps some of you might recall this chap. I wonder if he was as chatty then as he is now but, in spite of having my ears talked off, it was an interesting walk down memory lane.
Gail **** From Nova Scotia Sus
" Hey it's good to be back home again" Remember that song Doug? I had a wonderful trip out west for the past two weeks visiting with family. My sister, Michelle picked me up at the Edmonton airport and we spent the next week hiking and touring around parts of Alberta. I've never seen such straight roads that go on forever. Beautiful fields and a big sky. The weather was perfect, although they needed rain, everything looked like it was thriving. The next week I hopped on a plane from Calgary to Abbotsford, B.C. where my brother Warren picked me up in his Smart Car. Smallest car I've ever been in and the most traffic I've ever seen. I'm kind of spoiled living in Nova Scotia with our small populations. Warren lives up the Sea to Sky highway past Squamish and then up a mountain road where it is nice and peaceful. You can forget about the traffic and get back to nature. He has a chalet to rent with guests coming and going. His log home is beautiful and cozy. Doug and Sue came over for supper and some guitar playing and singing. We had so much fun they invited us to a beautiful dinner and more singing and guitar. It was just like old times. I will have wonderful memories of my trip for a long time. Sus **** From Russ
It's great to be back with you - really! How was your summer? Nothing goes faster than summer - maybe money comes to mind. I can't believe it's September already! Like me, you probably spent less time at the computer and more time outdoors. This was a good idea, Doug - taking a 'rest' away from writing our weekly report. It may catch on. I've been anxious to share a short, smelly story with you - I call it "What's that smell?" My #2 son, Greg has the reputation around these parts as somewhat of a good mechanic. He has his own shop in Ripley, complete with hoist, compressed air, welding equipment, plus every tool you can imagine. He does odd jobs for his friends, and never charges a cent - he works for peanuts and feeds them to his many chipmunks and expects nothing in return. If you've ever taken your car to a mechanic because of that noise, shimmy, or smell (and it won't do that when he tests it), you can picture Greg being very worried about the smell of burning rubber that is coming from his truck, and he can't find from where! "It doesn't smell 'till it's been running for a while" said Greg. "Smells like a V-belt is slipping" says I, proudly (I know absolutely nothing, compared to Greg about motors) Enter cousin Dickson who says, "Let's put 'er back up on your hoist" (Dickson knows much more than Greg about motors, having worked as a mechanic for years) After a close inspection, he says, "OK - let 'er down again" Now he crawls into the engine compartment and, reaching way down deep, grunting muchly, as he sports a Molson muscle - pulls an oily rag off the hot manifold. "Looks like somebodies old underwear" says Dickson. "Whaaat?!" exclaims Greg "They're mine!" All scorched and greasy - how could he recognize them? Seems he was working on the engine, and using a pair of his old underwear as a 'wiping rag', accidentaly dropped them and forgot them! Way-to-go, Greg Russ **** From Karin
Hi Doug, and everyone ! I hope I’m not too late to contribute. It’s an exciting time of year. Yes, it is the second day of spring ! We have had an extra long , cold and wet winter , and I’m not the only one complaining about the terrible weather we’ve been dealt in Melbourne. Not only that , but covid is still around, and people we know have had it, and some, recently, so Karl and I are still wearing masks when we go to the shops, and they are mandatory on public transport. We have had quite a lot going on. Karl has been going to the city regularly. He is meeting up with other photo enthusiasts in the city today. I will be keeping busy in the studio today. I have 3 paintings going in various stages of completion. I hope to enter them in the Bluethumb art prize, and just found out the deadline for entry is on Monday. There are many art exhibitions to enter in Spring; among them a portrait exhibition. This is good motivation to do a couple of new portraits. Thought I’d share a painting I did a while back for an exhibition. It was painted on an artist palette. Well, I am looking forward to hearing from everyone. Karin
**** ONTARION SEPT 01/2022
HELLO AND WELCOME BACK! It’s’ been so long that I’ve almost forgotten how to write my heading! Guess this will have to do for a start! LOL!
It’s been a long resting three months and I am happy that enough members have shown a desire to continue the Squid and to promise to participate to make it worth starting up again for Doug Russ and myself! We’ve had and interesting and hard work summer here at our house. We had so many projects to work on and complete by fall that we have hardly had a moment to enjoy the sunshine and warmth of this past lovely summer. To start things off, we had a bad storm at the beginning of July that knocked down a large part of our back fence. So that started the summer off with a bang. Adam and I spent a few days in the middle of July rebuilding the back fence. Luckily he was able to find a fencing company in Stratford that was giving away a load of old fence boards that matched our fence exactly so he took a run up to Stratford in his truck and picked up a load that happened to be enough to rebuild our damaged fence and that was a savings indeed! If he hadn’t come across that free load, the fence repair would have been very costly! As it was, we had to rent a large post hole digger that you tow behind your vehicle. The back yard fence posts were mounted in heavy clay soil and had broken off at ground level so we had to re-space them and of course dig new holes for the posts! We started with a man held post hole digger and that was a disaster to try to hold in place! It just would not dig through the heavy soil so we went to A to Z rental in Waterloo to bring home the heavy duty industrial style digger and use that! It finally managed to dig the holes we needed and with that we finally got the new sections of fence finished. It took us two whole days to get that repair completed but we finally managed to finish it! With the rest of the boards, we rebuilt the top three feet of the fence between our house and the neighbour’s beside us. Now we finally have some privacy from “Prying Eyes”! The second challenge of the summer was to remove several huge tree-like shrubs that were growing along the inside of the fence that lines the Driftwood Dr side of our yard. They were so over grown that they were encroaching on the entire side yard lawn and made it very difficult to mow the lawn! So Carole decided that she would like us to remove them from along the fence. That project took us about three days to remove. Then, all of the creeping vines that were growing as ground cover under those shrubs had to be removed. Adam purchased a saw blade that fit on his wipper-snipper and had a chain saw like set of teeth on it so that we could use it to cut through all of the heavy vines growing on the ground. We tried to pull them out by hand but they were just too well rooted. With the new saw blade, we were able to clear most of those out of the garden. Now all we have to do is use a roto-tiller on that section of garden next spring and figure out what to plant next. I’m pretty sure we’ll be replacing that mess with new grass to make it simple and pleasant to look at and mow next year! To top things off for this year, our air conditioning system that I installed when we moved here back in 1998 kicked the bucket and had to be replaced! Since I no longer have a refrigeration and Air conditioning licence I can no longer purchase AC systems from a wholesale outlet. Consequently, we had to pay a commercial AC company to come and install a new system for us and it just happened to take place in the middle of a late August heat wave! Luckily, we managed to find a company in Waterloo that gave us a decent price for the system and installation! Of course it was still much more expensive that back in 1998 when I could pay wholesale price and do the installation myself! I guess that’s one of the costs of getting old! LOL! It seemed that we are getting hit with several costly items that need repair and or replacing all at the same time. Our 12 year old fridge has begun to have a bad chemical smell emitted every time we open the door on either the fridge or freezer side of the fridge. And nobody has been able to find the source of the bad odour! We have emptied and cleaned the fridge and freezer twice over the last two weeks and it still emits the chemical smell! I even paid an appliance technician to come over to service it and find and correct the source of the odour! He opened the freezer door and immediately said in his foreign accent “Smells like fridge!” and then told us to clean the mouse poop out of the condensate tray beneath the fridge. There was some small mouse poop in the tray. He than proceeded to hand me a bill for $85.00 for looking in and smelling the fridge! What a useless rip off!!! We have done everything possible to find the source but have been unable to clear it up so, we have decided to replace the fridge! We even bought on line a refrigerant leak detector and have been unable to detect a leak in the refrigerant lines. I guess it’s now going to be a new fridge for the Payne family kitchen after all the other expenses! The only other expense we are now facing is paying a brick layer to come over and replace the bricks that are falling apart from the western facing wall of our house and that’ll be another big costly item for sure! Who said getting older means “The Golden Years”! I am beginning to think one needs to own a ton of gold to be able to afford these retirement expenses! LOL! Speaking of which, I have just celebrated my 20th year of retirement from the Fire Service yesterday with Carole and Adam! Carole and Adam baked me my favourite chocolate cake for a retirement treat! After all that’s been hitting our bank account lately it’s a wonder we could still afford a cake! God bless my loving family for remembering to celebrate my 20th year of retirement! Thank you so much Carole and Adam! Here’s looking forward to another 20 years of retirement living! Lotsa Love…. Greg/dad. That’s about it for a first effort back at the Ontarion! I sincerely hope you all enjoyed being back at the Squid once again! See you again next week!
Bye for now…. Greg ****
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