Musings from Lot 12

2007-01-10T06:28:00.000-05:00

Musings from Lot 12

I do not watch a lot of TV anymore as I find a lot of what passes for entertainment bores me. I tend to watch news and public affairs. A good historical documentary every now and then but not too much else. However, I do listen to the radio a lot, almost exclusively CBC. I pay attention to what CBC puts on the radio. Lately I listened to a lot of chatter on CBC shilling two new productions on CBC TV. The first was a 2 part movie called The Dragon Boys, a story about the "realities" of Chinese gangs on the Canadian west coast. I watched it Sunday and Monday night. I have no idea how realistic it is but it was, I thought, a good production. It held my attention, it had more twists and turns then the highway through the Rogers Pass. It covered bullying and racial stereotyping. It was violent, brutally violent. I liked the show.

Then there was "the other show", Little Mosque On The Prairies". Boy did they shill this one. Everybody, including the kid on the set who gets the coffee was interviewed earnestly on virtually every show that CBC radio produces. They have been playing clips on TV for weeks. They even covered CNN's coverage of the show as a news item the other day. Well last night I was parked in front of the tube at 8AM, Rick Mercer was on followed immediately by LMOTP. All through Mercer an annoying little box kept popping up telling us how long until LMOTP. Every commercial break showed the same trailer for LMOTP and ended with 16 minutes until LMOTP starts , 10 minutes etc etc). It was really getting up my nose. Well my expectations were, sadly, met. The only good laughs (?) are in the trailers. The set looked like the production company spent about $5.27 on it and the lines were so predictable and lame. This could have been a great one. But unless chapter two is immeasurably better than chapter one this one is a big dog, a piece of crap, a huge disappointment IMHO. I'll give it 5 minutes next week and thats it. Too bad.

2007-01-04T15:59:00.000-05:00

I have been musing about my blog for some time. Today the musing ended and I was ready for action. I'm at work and due to the time of year there is 4/5s of nothing going on. In other words - 12 hours of well paid boredom. So I decided that this was the day to get off my butt and actually reactivate the blog. I'm really good at musing but as you noticed crappy at recording said musings. Of course in order to create a new musing I had to log in, all my p'words and user names are at home and I'm not. So I called Dolly and she was kind enough to give them to me. But when I entered them I kept getting an error message. So I went to the "I can't remember my password page" and entered my user name which was correct and the computer said that my password would be emailed to my hotmail account and when I got the change your p'word page I changed it to what I thought it was! In other words I beat the computer.

On a totally unrelated note I was musing about environmental vs health issues the other night. I had what I thought was a very healthy meal, fish fillets, fresh asparagus, wild rice and strawberries for dessert. All good stuff and eaten in moderate portions. I then looked at my meal from an environmental perspective and all of a sudden my "good" meal was not so good. The fish fillets came from China, the asparagus from Chile, the strawberries from Florida and at least the wild rice was local, well from Ontario. You have to wonder about the fish, what was it fed, how was it handled, how are the workers who raised it treated and what about the fuel required to fly that fish to Canada. The same for the asparagus, what chemicals were used on it, how much do the workers who grow and pick it earn, what are their working conditions like? Strawberries grown in Florida probably on reclaimed native wetlands. Genetically altered? Trucked all way to SSM! What is a person to do. To eat locally means up here about 3 months of fresh green vegetables /year. It means perhaps two months of fresh fruit other than apples/year. A huge change.

Its time to go home so more musing later.

2006-06-09T11:15:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

I love sleeping in a tent. Around this time every year I get the urge to sleep in a tent. There is something very relaxing about sleeping in a tent. You are inside but not really because the sound damping capability of a tent wall in pretty well nil. You know without seeing what is going on around you. I remember on memorable night camped on the shore of Thieving Bear Lake. Val and I manged to erect our tent smack in the middle of a major mouse travel route and they spent all night going over the tent instead of around. The scratching of tiny claws on the nylon drove us crazy. A moose wandering through the campsite in the early morning hours sounds like a Mac Truck. The possibilty of a black bear dropping by the graze the picnic basket is always a possibilty. You are much more aware of the weather: the wind in the trees, those first few drops of rain and what the temperature is as you climb out of the sleeping bag. Oh ya and the buzz of mosquitoes. Those nasty little brutes know you are on the inside and they aren't. It drives them crazy.

The story of an incredibly uncomfortable night in Klotz Lake PP has to be included. We went to this quite remote park along Hwy 11 between Hearst and Longlac with our friends Wendy and Charlie for a weekend of fishing and some beer and relaxing. . The first thing I did was rip a hole in the tent by misplacing a pole as I set up. Did I mention that this was May24th weekend , the height of blackfly and mosquito season in our part of the world. This was also long before I routinely carried duct tape while camping. How bad can it be I thought and tried to convince Val. By about 11pm it was bad, in fact there were more damned mosquiotes inside the tent then there were outside. It was also a very hot weekend so as soon as you pulled your sleeping bag up over your head you broke into a major sweat and started to suffer early stage heat prostration. Die of heat stroke or have every single drop of blood sucked from your body. Not a pretty choice. Oh ya and Val was very uncomfortable and mumbling about taking the car back to Hearst and leaving me there- FOREVER. Around midnight feeling faint from loss of blood it seemed that the bugs were satiated and heading to bed when all of a sudden I heard the sound of an outboard motor chugging across the lake toward the park. A few minutes later the motor was shutoff, a generator started up and some asshole fired up a boom box to a volume that was loud eneough to be heard over his generator. AC-DC, Def Leppard or some other crap of the same ilk. Was I angry! I put up with it for about 2 minutes and then decided that I had to go and kill whoever was responsible. I jumped up and in my underwear and running shoes and cradling my favourite enforcement flashlight (club with a small light in the end) I headed for the noise. I was angry beyond belief and prepared to do someone bodily injury if that is what it took. Halfway through the campground I heard footsteps behind me and there came Charlie determined to see that I did not end up in jail. I didn't slow down or wait for him to catch up. When I got the shore of the lake there was a good sized house boat beached in the day use area. The generator was going on the main deck and the boombox and the partyers up top with large speakers hooked and the music blasting. I got their attention by using some very unprofessional language louder than the music. Suddenly one of them realized that I was there. The music stopped, then the generator stopped. In the silence I continued to swear up the top of my lungs, informing them that they were in the park illegally, I was a Conservation Officer and that if they did not leave 5 minutes ago I was going to come on board beat each and very one of them to death and then burn their houseboat to the water line. Charlie arrived just in time to hear the last bit and to point out that I was in only my underwear and that I might get arrested. Fortunately this bunch had the common sense, often lacking in half pissed teenagers, to realize that I might be serious and quickly started the motor and slunk back across the lake. I went back to my tent with my heart still punding and sleep poorly until the mosquito day shift came on duty just before dawn and started in on us again.

I spent lots of nights in tents while I was working as part of a fire crew or on many wildlife management and enforcement projects. When I worked at Moosonee my partner and I had a complete kit which we could pick up and go with that included an 8'X10' prospector tent. It was great. With a stove and a propane fueled tent heater we spent several winter nights along the James Bay coast and were very comfortable. We had lots of cups of tea and pieces of bannock in Cree hunting camps that always centered around a big canvas sidewall tent. I spent parts of three summers living in a tent on Cape Henrietta Maria while banding snow geese.

When the boys were small we went camping a few times. One memorable trip to Tidewater Provincial Park with a large group of friends on a May 24th weekend was cut short by a nasty snowfall! The summer before we moved out of Moosonee we went on a camping trip around southern Ontario and one great memory is of the tent pitched under the bridge to the US near Gananoque in a St. Lawrence Parks Commission campground.

In 2002 Val and I took a major holiday to the east coast and Newfoundland. We camped to save some money and had a great time. We bought an inflatable queen-sized mattress and an electric air pump and were very comfortable. The provincial parks in NF were great and inexpensive. We also hit one of the hottest sunniest summers in Newfoundland history which added to the experience. We got very efficient at setting up and taking down the tent and cooking supper on our propane stove. From the park near L'Anse Aux Meadows at the tip of the Great Northern Penninsula to Pippy Park in downtown St. John's we had a great holiday.

Early last week I gave in to the wish to sleep in a tent and set ours up in the backyard and for the last week have spent very relaxing nights sleeping peacefully like a kid. We are planning to go camping for a few days over the Canada Day weekend. I sure hope that it doesn't rain and bugs take the weekeknd off.

2006-06-01T18:02:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12
A good pair of shoes is oh so hard to get rid of. I am not a shoe collector in the true sense of the word like say my sister or my about to give birth daughter-in-law. They both COLLECT shoes. I on the other hand get a pair of shoes and if they are great shoes love (wear) them to death. My Doc Martins are such a pair of shoes. Hugh sent them to me when he lived in England in the '90s. I don't think that I had ever heard of Docs before that but as soon as I put them on I knew that I had a keeper. They were a pair of 4 hole dress shoes, not the up to your knee Docs that you see from time to time. They were so comfortable! I could go to a DU banquet, spend on evening on my feet and not have sore tired feet when I got home. They looked good, held a shine and above all they were comfortable. Did I mention tha it seemed like they would last forever? A couple of years ago I looked for a new pair at Val's urging but the new ones were not the same. The company had almost doubled the thickness of the sole and they did not look or feel right on these late middle-aged feet so I hung on. Sunday when I went to change my shoes after church I discovered that the leather on the outside of the left shoe right at the sole has split for probably 5 or 6 cm. I mean I could stick a finger right through. Not good, in fact they are terminal. But I couldn't just throw them in the garbage in London so I packed them up and brought them home. I still have not decided how to dispose of them in a dignified manner that befits their loyalty and long service. Just as worrisome is what am I going to replace them with. I have tried twice this week to get up my nerve and drop in to a shoe store but I'm not ready yet. I need a little more time to mourn the demise of a very faithful and comfortable pair of shoes! A good pair of shoes is something to be treasured!

2006-05-12T10:22:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

It is common knowledge that the health care system in this country is a bit of a mess. One huge problem is a shortage of doctors. Our medical schools can't produce enough new docs to replace the ones that are retiring especially given lifestyle changes. Lots of new doctors have decided that as well as practicing medicine they would like to have a life - vacations, time with family, hobbies. You get the picture.

One source of new docs is foreign trained docs who decide to immigrate here for a better life. Trouble is that as with masny other foreign trained professionals their qualifications are not recognized and they have to spend large amounts of money and sometimes years requalifying to practice their profession in Canada. In the meantime they drive taxis, clean buildings or work in factories. What a waste!

The day before yesterday I caught a news story from Halifax on my beloved CBC. A European trained doc who has come to Canada was being profiled. Before coming here he was a certified rheumatologist and taught family medicine in a medical school. Because of the time and cost of qualifying to be a doctor here this person has decided to go to nursing school. How stupid are we as a society. Here we have a highly trained individual who wants to practice his profession here in a field where we could certainly use his skills and we won't help him come up to our standards! This seems incredibly stupid to me. Some provincial Ministry of Health should grab this person and offer, in return for a promise to practice in a mutually agreed location to support him or her during the retraining period. Given the need for more docs I believe that this would be money well spent.

I know from my involvement with the local hospital board of directors that we have a critical shortage of both family docs and specialists. We have a local doctor recruitment program that has a huge annual budget and a less than stellar track record. Why can't they invest some of their budget in a doctor like this.

This seems so simple to me but then I'm a fairly simple person!

2006-05-04T22:16:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

So there I was watching an old Bruce Willis movie when I decided I needed a little nosh to get me through to bedtime. I bet some nice roasted almonds would be good. I happen to know where there is about 500 gm of raw almonds. Turn on the oven and set the timer. When the timer goes off pull the almonds out, a little overdone but not ruined until.............. as I go to set the cookie sheet down it slips and the almonds go all over the floor. Now the almonds are not only burnt but they are lightly dressed with a hint of cat hair and a thin layer of kitchen floor. I didn't really want those almonds!

2006-04-28T16:17:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12
Musings from Lot 12

Musing on blessings.

The other morning I encountered a very good friend (lets call her Ann) and asked her how things are. She replied that her whole world was collapsing in and there was nothing she could do about it. As she is not given to hyperbole I asked her to explain.

First some background
Ann got out of a BAD marriage several years ago with two good kids and her sanity pretty well in tact. She is as resiliant as they come. After a year or so of licking her wounds and trying the dating game she met a guy, newly widowed and although he looks a little rough he is a gem. Stan was just what Ann needed, someone with a steady job and who respects her and treats her very well. They have been living together for a couple of years and plan to marry in 2007. I have known her for over ten years and have never seen her happier. Things are working out. Oh ya, she about 45 and Stan is 58.

Now the story - Tom came into the relationship with 3 children including a daughter who has addictions to alcohol and intervenous drugs. She also has an 8 YO son who has fetal alcohol syndrome and has been in and out of foster care for a good part of his life. His Mom has lately fallen off the wagon in a huge way and what low grade parenting instincts she had have pretty well evaporated. The CAS stepped in a couple of weeks ago and took the boy. This is the last time. So now Ann and Stan have to choose between taking in their grandson or see him put up for adoption and perhaps lose all contact with him. Stan's health is not the best, he has a physically very demanding job and they both work shift work. Stan is looking forward to retiring in a couple of years. As she said they don't know if they have the strength to deal with a child who has the problems that this young lad does. But they are going to take their grandson and as she said to me "I'm going to be a mother before I'm a bride!"

This got me to thinking how blessed I am in the child department (although neither of my sons have been children for a long time. Both are holding down good responsible jobs and both are in strong loving relationships. Both of our daughters-in-law are smart, witty, determined, beautiful and a joy to be around. We are truly so blessed. They keep us involved in their lives even though they are physically a long way away. They call, they email, they send gifts and they come to visit when they can. Depending on the topic they ask for or offer advice. It is so reassuring to have your own personal computer advisor even if he is half a continent away!

I miss having my sons close to me but I accept that this is part of life. I am so proud of them and what they have accomplished. God has truly blessed me and my family.

Have a happy weekend everyone.

2006-04-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12
Early this morning just after daylight I stepped out onto the back porch to survey the morning. It was quiet and just as I turned to go back inside I heard the distinctive sound of a wild turkey gobbling. About 75 were introduced to the island in two lots, the second in 2004. They have done well and the population is increasing. Our area is not prime turkey habitat but they are obviously here. By the time of day this bird was probably still in or just out of a tree it had roosted in overnight. Almost certainly on our property. A first for Lot 12!

2006-04-23T09:17:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

This morning I am not a "mused". Heres the story.
Friday night I had a night shift, 7pm to 7am Saturday morning. I enjoy these night shifts less and less all the time. I am not as young and resiliant as I used to be hence the recovery time is getting longer. Yesterday my relief arrived about 6.40Am and away I went but before I could head for bed I had to go to Sault MI to pick up some mail and get a tank of gas for the truck. According to the conversion tables I used the price difference is C$0.99/US gal, or C$0.26/L. Significant when the tank is almost empty and holds just over 100L! But I digress.

After arming myself with a medium TH I headed for the border and since the traffic was light crossed quickly into Bushland after an intensive 12 second grilling. Got the gas, stopped at the PO and was back at Canada Customs about 20 minutes later. As I drove home the caffeine was wearing off and fatigue was taking over. By about 8.45 I was safely tucked into bed and drifting off. I got up about 2.30 feeling a little punchy but awake. It was raining so I spent the afternoon just shlepping around the house and listening to Val. After supper we had to go to Richards Landing so off we went. Had a visit withe Vans and returned home about 9pm with fatigue looming large. I retreated to my recliner and rested for the climb upstairs. A good 7 or 8 hours of sleep and I should be recovered. At 10 pm I was horizontal. At exactly 0043 hr. (Fifteen minutes before 1am in English) the phone started to ring. We have a phone beside our bed(on Val's side) and it is loud. When I wake up to a ringing phone I come instantly awake with my heart pounding! Ran around the bed and pushed the button to hear absolutly nothing , dead air!!! The call display said "private name, private number". Didn't who to be mad at. I laid in bed for a fifteen minutes or so but I was wide awake. Downstairs, let the cat outside for a few minutes and into the recliner to try and watch something. There is a lot of trash on the tv early on a Sunday morning. 20 minutes later the damned phone started to ring again. I headed to the kitchen and picked it up just as Val said hello. Same "private name, private number" as before. This time whoever it was stayed on the line for probably 20 seconds, nothing, dead air again and then they hung up. I then tried something I have not done before. I pushed *69 only to hear "this service is not available for this call". Naturally!
I sat in my chair for another half hour or so and then headed back upstairs. By this time the cat had taken over my side of the bed so I had to put up with her grumbling as I tried to slide under the covers. I read for a while and finally turned out the light around 3AM. By 7.30 I was awake again with that same punchy feeling that 2 cups of good coffe have not so far erased.

I am glad that the calls were nothing because with two elderly, very ill Moms such a call could be very serious but at the same time I do not appreciate having my sleep interrupted - hence my lack of a "muse" ment.

2006-04-20T11:29:00.001-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

Wednesday morning dawned sunny and warm, the 3rd day in a row of this. After checking email and the headlines while having a tasty breakfast I decided that it was time to force myself to start walking again. I don't enjoy walking alone or walking the same route all the time. But since Val was till safely tucked up in bed and her RA precludes long walks I don't have much choice. The option of tomorrow has already been used to death and brought to my curent state of health and since there is no cure for diabetes or obesity except to get off my arse and do something and it is a lovely sunny warm morning I got dressed and dragged myself out. I also do not enjoy walking up and down hills (Good Friday cemented that into my brain for all time) so I drove to the back of the lot and walked from there down to the big lake where I turned around and walked back to the truck. About 2 km in 25 minutes or so. Not a pavement scorching pace but a pleasant walk and I am trying to convnce myself that I got some cardio benefit. Along the way though, that was the really great part. The birds are back and doing their springtime thing with a passion (pun intended). Robins, flickers, cranes and assorted little dickie birds that I can not identify but which flit and warble and posture in search of that perfect mate. I couldn't see them but could hear a snipe winnowing - climbing high into the sky and then spiralling steeply towards the ground as the wind through the wing feathers makes a distinctive sound that can be heard from long distances and says "look at me, good genes here." Along the road there is a field of perhaps 10 ha. that has gone fallow and is growing a fine crop of willow. This species of willow has bright red bark but because it is spring and there is new growth starting the red has a layer of green in it that I am not sure a camera could capture but which is very striking. Pussy willows are out and it won't be long until the poplar and birch buds begin to swell and produce another crop of green leaves. After getting back to the truck I drove towards the house and decided to swing through my neighbours place to see if any of their daffodils which have gone wild were blooming and sure enough the first few clumps are in blossom. I harvested a nice bunch and brought them into the house just as Val came downstairs.

All this to say that I truly love the place where we live. Its not perfect but it is peaceful and private and comfortable. We are nowhere near our sons and their wives and I miss being close to them. I could list lots of other things to complain about but when I go for a walk like this morning then I know why I love this place. Lot 12 is our little piece of paradise.

2006-04-20T11:29:00.000-04:00

2006-04-19T22:00:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

I have been working last night and tonight. We have a TV that we can watch when things are slow. Last night the two people I was working with, Inga and Natalie announced that 8pm we were going to watch American Idol. I had never seen this show and only had a vague idea what it was about. I thought that it was some kind of a talent show but I discovered that I was wrong. In true 21st Century American fashion this show is about celebrating loosers. I have always thought that if you watch a talent show then you try to pick a winner. Not this time. The trick is not to win, it is not to lose. You don't have to be the best merely not the worst. Not only did I get to watch the one hour show last night, tonight I had to watch them take 30 minutes to announce the loser! I know that this is supposed to be a musing but this is in fact a flat out rant. This to me is a stupid and cruel show as are so many of the "reality" shows that are about exposing people's basest nature and most nasty traits. This kind of TV I really don't like.

2006-04-18T21:22:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

I was just reading that our new PM has decided to make the vote on childcare a confidence vote. With any luck at all he will pull a Joe Clark and get his arse booted out of office. As much as I don't like the idea of another federal election tout de suite Harper is too scary to leave in place for very long. I see no evidence that he understands how a minority government works. He and his bunch of puppets are going merrily along as if they had every member in the house on the government side. It will be interesting to see if the opposition parties have the strength of their convictions. Stay tuned.

2006-04-17T20:17:00.000-04:00

Musings from Lot 12

Sometimes things happen, things you wish wouldn't but they do. This afternoon we were downstairs and Val was taking a few pictures when I heard a bang and then a harsh word or two. Our dependable Fuji digital camera had hit the floor and was no more! We will start looking for a new one in the next day or so.

2006-04-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

Monday morning and I rec'd a couple of encouraging emails about launching my blog so I thought I'll just go and post something profound or witty or perhaps just wordy. Wait a minute how do I even log on? Set up was incredibly fast and easy last night, instructions were somewhat lacking and I was tired.

I fumbled around for a few minutes and hit on the log in button and there I was but....... what was the username and password I selected. Damned good question. At my age writing down important things like the 734th password I have is getting to be more important all the time. Son1 constantly lectures on security matters and not letting nasty viruses or people have access to the 'puter so I have taken him seriously and have 734 different passwords, each more complicated and obscure than the one before. Fortunately I appear not to be the first person with a blog who has run into these problems so there is a fairly complete help section with one very simple solution. Give us your email and we will email you the correct information. Now which email address did I use last night. Got that sorted out as you can see after resetting the p'word (and this time writing it on a post-it note which I stuck on the desk door beside the monitor) here I am back in the game.

2006-04-16T21:43:00.000-04:00

It has been a most pleasant Easter Sunday. The church service this morning was well attended. The sun shone and it was quite warm this afternoon. We went over to RL for supper with the Vans. My scalloped potatoes were popular and the rest of the supper was delicious also.

After supper Wayne and I were out in the yard and could hear a grouse drumming.
On the way home we saw a pair of geese out for an evening stroll and had a not too close encounter with a deer between the village and home. On the way over we saw the first dead skunk of the season, a sure sign that winter has gone north for another year. There is almost no ice left between Bruce Mines and the village, another good sign.

2006-04-16T21:36:00.000-04:00

I am starting this blog to put down some of my thoughts and to try and keep pace with changing ways of doing things.