Month: July 2022

The youngest has asked me to draw the new extended family pet on a piece of cardboard from memory. A full front view at that, with all limbs showing! Yikes. I’m a tad rusty but I gave it a go. Not my best work, but it looks like a rabbit, so I’ll take that win today.

On a high note, a fair few projects for the ole day job came in this week. That’s always a plus these days. Some 3D rendering work, more can labels, a sixteen page brochure edit, and a new illustrated icon, plus the long form event report that I started last week. Not too shabby. Invoices out, means money coming in!

Otherwise it has been a slow week, seeing as how I’m working more than usual (summer rush and all). I’m happy to see events going on, even though I wouldn’t be in attendance during this period in time. Given what I’m hearing from Nurse friends and reading in the news BA 5 is as transmissible as measles, which is insane. So I think more outdoor distanced fun is in store. Really having to think hard about going indoors anywhere but home and the cottage. I think we had all hoped to have this SarsCov2 thing behind us after three years, but it’s here to stay for the mean time. Blargh! Talk about a downer on the mood!

The kids had a bon fire with their grandpa the other night, and we counted thirty nine bug bites on the legs of our oldest, and another seventeen on the legs of the youngest. Both had full length pants on, like those Roots onsie deals, and were eaten for lunch by mosquitoes. It’s horrific to look at. Makes me itch just thinking about it. And my skin crawl just a bit too. Yuck. Ah! Now my head and neck itches.

And prayed brazenly under the cold night stars, we were promised many things, but what we really need to know is, did the rains come, and in the quantities that were foretold? If not, we need but to start again swaying and flaunting ourselves before the sun asking it for a reprieve that the clouds may come and slowly pour themselves out upon us. For it is difficult and futile to work against the sun parched earth. The weeds feast upon the last vestiges of moisture, while the crops fade in the dusty cracked soil. Sun baked and dried. Soon the hoses will run dry, and the watering cans cob webbed and unused. If the rains don’t come as foretold. What if the rains don’t come? Which mysterious old magic will we be left to turn to in order to bring about the rains. So we dance, and prostrate ourselves under the darkening blue skies, seeking a boon from the looming darkness and all those million pin points of light. Surely one of them can send us the rains we were promised. Soon.

I don’t know how or why, but I managed to sleep in until 11:00am today, which is not so unlike me (at least in my youth) but not very much like me now that I have children. I’ll chalk it up to physical labour and the summer heat & sun. Those always do me in. I’m amazed that anyone can get anything done outdoors in the southern states and anywhere close to the equator. I guess you acclimate to it over the years, but my god man! I don’t envy you if you are a day labourer.

Work is filling in now that it is Monday, and we have a press release deadline looming soon. Glad I started as soon as I did, as that would be a tonne of pressure to contend with today. Best get back to the paid work!

Just moments after asking our kids to not bury their toys in unmarked spots our youngest walked out into the water with a highly favoured LOL Doll and promptly buried it about six inches down in the sand a foot or so deep in the water and then wandered away. Only to exclaim that the toy was now needed greatly, and Oops, I have no idea where I buried said toy! So after a brief stop back at the house for a hard rake and a long handled shovel I was back in the water digging. Where I remained for nearly an hour in a fruitless attempt to recover Queen Bee.

So no, at this particular moment I don’t suggest you have your small children bring along their favourite toys to a trip to the water front/beach area. It will only lead to anger and sadness, and I’m sure my youngest was deeply upset aswell.

In other news I pulled up about sixty, nine foot plus tall Thistles yesterday, and I’m still discovering embedded thistle needles in my hands, even with the heavy duty gloves I was wearing for that exact purpose. Nasty buggers, the lot of them. Pulled them up at the base of the stem by the root. For the most part I managed to get 6-8 inches of taproot, but rarely the whole thing. Good enough for a week or two without them coming back.

Isn’t that how the song goes? Perhaps it’s Mallory, or Margery. Oh no, I got it, Maria! Yes, that’s it, that’s the ticket.

Speaking of malaria, the mosquitoes are abysmal this time of year. Not as bad as May, but terrible just the same. Yuck.

Seems I have over slept a fair bit this morning. So I best get a move on.

If we weren’t lucky enough to work on multiple communications providers, my streak really could have been cut short, no fault of my own! But no worries, Day 206 is here and we’re all good. Not that I have much of anything specific to say today, but I’m glad my streak is still ongoing! I think that when I do end it, I want to be by choice, and for a reason, other than a communications outage which is still affecting my Cell phone.

In other news, I am able to keep working because of our family using multiple service providers (thankfully!). We took a gamble on working through the data without any of the new (possible) changes, and it sort of back fired on me. But On the plus side, the first draft of the report is done, and going back to change out five or six graphs isn’t that big a deal at this point. I felt waiting on the data to start with was likely to be foolish, and that played out, with the Rogers Cable/Internet/Cell Service outage across Canada today. So Bully for me. Why put off until tomorrow that which can be ignored today, or something to that effect.

In yesterday’s post, I said it was Day three of the battle with the fridge, when it was most clearly Day 4! Which makes me complicit and an unreliable witness in the trenches of this mechanized culinary warfare. I was discombobulated by the fog of war. The constant back and forth of will it work, why won’t this work, left me dazed, and confused. I misspoke and I apologize for injecting my own bias into a narrative fraught with tension and so many unknowables. It is, however, with a sigh of relief that the total defrost has eliminated the ice build up, and damming of the freezer vents which cuts of the exchange of cool air with the fridge. At least until it catches a whiff of moisture and condenses again. The moisture alarm failed to sound, and the gradual raising of the freezer temperature to bust the frosting process failed to produce any meaningful results. So a complete shut down, and the movement of vital supplies was our only actionable plan. Though it took almost ten hours, and several soaked towels I believe we were successful yet again. Though for how long, is anybody’s guess.

In other news today is Thursday, and the James Webb Space Telescope is about to present us with its first images after being deployed all of those many weeks ago. I am excited to see what they have discovered, or have rediscovered with far clearer higher resolution images. Happy to read about it all if they write a book about it like the New Horizons book about the satellite they sent to Pluto. That was a great book. Photos were incredible aswell.

The first batch of summer tie dye t-shirts are ready to rinse and dry before wearing. That took up about 30 minutes of time yesterday while I was working on various paid projects.

Simple measures that worked before are no longer useful. We’ve had to go full defrost mode. Stripping out all of the valuable food stuffs and sending them to the battered old unit in the basement, and stuffing what’s left into a cooler with freezer packs. The milk and dairy have been evacuated to a safe place far away from the front lines. Towels will soon be placed to soak up the mess from the frosty innards of the lower freezer. The trap is set, now we watch – and wait.

Can we once again best this unit in a battle of wits, or will we be forced to call in a repair man or – Gasp!, purchase a new unit in this, the time of heightened prices, and major supply line issues. Shoulders are tense, and nerves are starting to fray. The set of the jaw aches through the teeth and down into the top of the chest. Who will buckle under the pressure first? We just won’t know.

In other news the break is on to Day Six, and everyone is alive and well. Though for how long is anybody’s guess at this point. The rain came through yesterday, but it did not deliver as much as was forecasted. The grass is parched, and we continue to need to water the crops by hand canister and hose. This is July 6th of 2022.

The uneasy truce has been breached – yet again. First by a reluctant attempt to create ice for a birthday party set in the mid day sun. The second seems to be from the new groceries that went in the freezer yesterday. Must have mad excess moisture on them, as the whole freezer has crusted over with ice & frost. Once again we will slightly warm the space to eliminate the frost/ice, without spoiling the contents of either the fridge or freezer portions. It is a delicate task. One I usually undertake when no one else is home. But now we are in the midst of the first week of summer holidays and I can’t escape them for more than an hour or so at a time. This could prove to be very difficult. I don’t wish to purchase a new fridge at this time, but having to defrost it every single week to ten days will wind up being too tedious a task for us. But for the sake of saving a thousand bucks or more I might be able to deal with it for a bit longer.

The front lines of summer holidays are strewn with the discarded bodies of toys, markers and slips of paper. Plastercine lumps cover the ground, mashed into the cracks between floor boards. Old snacks and juice boxes litter the living room. All has gone to hell. We held the washing line for as long as we could. Bashing out two loads on cheaper Sunday, but we did not fold it, nor put it away. I fear the clothes are lost in the tides. Scattered about like the silhouettes of children run amok. Pray for us.