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The
Squamidian Report – Sept. 12 / 26
Online
Versions
Of This And Past Issues Issue #1268 Including:
Gale ****
From Gale On the Labour Day weekend,I hosted the 25 th annual Bocci Ball tournament / bbq. Right from the get-go 25 years ago, the tournament focused on having fun. Family, friends, all are welcome and no booci ball experience is needed and would probably be detrimental. The "playing field" is slanted and so full of lumps and bumps from tree roots that even the #1 player in the world wouldn't have any better chance of winning than the rest of us. In fact, we have had winners ranging in age from young teens to people in their 90's and even Cindy who is legally blind has her name on the trophy. This years winners were Vlad and Gloria. Vlad is a second time winner and has been coming to this event since he was a baby. Gloria is a visitor from Columbia and even though she doesn't speak English, she knows the trophy stays in Canada. For the first "games", I went to Value Village and bought two golf trophies, cut off the golf clubs and bought sticker letters at the dollar store to "engrave" the winner's names (Dad & Maggie). For this 25 th, I went to Value Village for glasses and mugs, got dish-washer safe paint markers and decorated them with dates etc. as well as slogans such as "I fought the lawn and the lawn won", "It's a latte fun playing bocci ball" (mug), "A perfect shot" (shot glass), "Sip Roll Repeat" (wine glass) (thanks Jessica). I encouraged everyone to use the markers to personalize their souvenir - Sandy excelled at this! To end the day, we have homemade bbqed hamburgers and picnic fare. Everyone helps with this (thank you!!!) and, this being a special year, we had a feast! Carol outdid herself by writing a golden 25 on top of each mini-cupcake and setting aloft a large golden 25 hellium balloon above the playing field. So, if you are ever in the area on future Labour Day weekends, this is the place to be. As I said, all are welcome. Be prepared for lots of chatting, eating, hooting, groaning and laughter. Gale ****
From Sus Summer is over and fall has arrived. Time sure flys by. We sure accomplished a lot on our property though. We had a big machine in and I mean BIG to create another pond behind our house. It dug down deep and it kind of looked like a bomb dropped and made a huge mud whole. Well it kept filling with water especially when we had a week of rain and water flowed in from everywhere. We managed to take control of the water by digging trenches....soon we will bury some pipes in the ground to take care of the water flow. I also want to thank Carol and Al for visiting us. I know that was a big trip for them but we sure appreciated them to come all that way. Sus ****
From Wayne Here is Wayne’s contribution in it’s original form. By doing it this way I don’t lose the intended formatting.
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From Gary Hello fellow Squamidians. Very busy week in Picton. Helping a friend build a small studio for his wife. It’s fun but the strangest building technique I’ve ever seen. Also harvesting a lot from our garden. Tried a melon I’d never heard of. Sweet freckle melon. It’s in the cantaloupe family. The bigger ones were about the size of a 10 pin bowling ball or slightly larger. Incredibly delicious and juicy. Definitely a fan favorite. Cut back from 24 tomato plants to 18 but the yield is about the same and very good flavor. Few of the beans grew but the ones that did are still producing. Broccoli are doing well again now that we’re having cooler nights. Still getting a few strawberries and raspberries. Potatoes are not bad but just starting to harvest them. The peppers are going to have a good yield but are behind. The big winner this year are the sweet potatoes. Lots of tops in the freezer and mostly dug. We got 3 that were more than 1 lb each. Should have entered them in our fall fair this weekend but Evy has already cut them up and cooked them. That’s it for now. Take care and stay safe everyone. Gary ****
From Beth We're looking forward to Doug's visit and the get together here on the 26th. Please come by the homestead any time after 2:00. 234 Old Chicopee Drive, Kitchener. Dinner is potluck. The homestead had a new paint job this summer, and our neighbour Bill made us a sign to hang on the mailbox. It looks a bit incongruous with the old mailbox. I love the history of the mailbox, though. It reminds me of my grandparents. A couple weeks ago we received a letter from Canada Post letting us know we will be moving to a community mailbox sometime next year. I get it comes down to cost savings, but I will certainly miss home delivery.
Beth
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From Carol I think many are thinking about the 25th anniversary of 9/11. What brought it home to many of us at the time was the graphic images on tv. Also the attacks happened in North America. About 3,000 died during the attacks or through smoke inhalation later. Yet since the Russians attacked Ukrainian in 2022 there has been an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 deaths between both sides and a couple of million injuries. I do not understand man’s inhumanity to man. On a brighter note, we had a very relaxing summer, spending much time in Wiarton. In July Tim’s girls threw him a birthday party. It wasn’t a special number but, if he hadn’t had his lung transplant he would not have lived until Christmas. That was worth celebrating. I wasn’t going to volunteer at Summerfolk again since Gary was no longer involved but Beth decided she wanted to volunteer. I opted for an easier crew and volunteered with her. Al and Nick decided to attend but not volunteer. The weather was not the best but I am glad we decided to go. A lot of people asked after Gary as he was missed. Al is in Wiarton right now for his annual guys weekend. Carol **** From Doug For any number of reasons, we have been over run with bears this year. They seem to be everywhere. There are about (hard to tell) six of them that work our neighborhood on a constant basis. Its pretty well impossible to go for a walk without having to keep an eye open and if you’ve got your window open at night you can hear them checking out everyones back yards. One morning early this week I headed out for my usual walk which consists of several laps around the ‘loop’. By about 7am I’m starting to get bored so the best thing is to just start walking. As I headed up the street a woman from further up was coming my way with her dog. The dog was focused on my because of the treats I carry and the woman was focused on her dog. I pointed past her at the moma and cub that was crossing the street right behind them but they didn’t understand what I meant until I closer. As she turned around the bear headed into a side yard with cub in tow. As we talked, we noticed that several of the parked vehicles had open doors. Then, the two bears popped back out onto the street where the moma tried to open another car door. It was locked and wouldn’t open so she moved on to this woman’s car. It was not locked and the bear opened it’s door as easily as you or I would. Then, moma bear and baby bear simply climbed in. She rooted through any loose items and then came back out. The cub followed shortly after. She had not done any damage to the car’s interior, just made a big mess. Had the car door closed behind her, she probably would have torn it to pieces. Good entertainment while on a morning stroll. * There are many aspects to adjusting to living alone and I’ll probably touch on them as we go forward. The one thing that has probably done more to help me through this and keep me relatively sane has been and continues to be my music. Jane comes here, or I go to her place just down the street, and we sing our songs, and we work on our songs, and we learn new songs. I can lose myself in the music and in doing so forget about my troubles for a few wonderful minutes. Our harmonies keep getting tighter and cleaner and we both experience a level of joy that I can’t articulate. When we do our music here we play in my living room where the sound system is set up. When we do our music at her place we do it in her dance studio. She teaches dance, a subject that is totally alien to me. Somehow, we both get ‘something’ out of the music that we each find vital in our own ways. And, we love to share our music with anyone who wants to listen. To that end we are doing another one of our little garage concerts next week, Sept 20. This will be our 3rd one, and is open to all friends and neighbors. We get a lot of requests to do another garage concert so I guess it’s ‘back by popular demand’. It will be fun. Did I mention that we played on Canada Day up at the gondola? No? Well, we did. We had a great time doing that. During the winter, spring and early summer I had been taking Sue to a day program for Alzheimer victims. It was on Wednesdays and only lasted for a couple of hours each time but that gave me time to record some of our music. A short window but enough to get by. You may remember back before we shut down for the summer that I was posting the occasional song. We’ve added several more songs to the list and they can be found on our web page. There is a picture of us on the page that was taken at a private event we played at. Its not a very good picture of her or me but its a great picture of my guitar. Anyway, a left click of any of the linked songs will play the song, or a right click will give the opportunity to download it.
Doug ****
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