Month: April 2025

Weeping painful eyes? Probably took several face fulls of ash and heat off of the fire you are keeping roaring for the evaporator. Not the most fun thing to have happen. Could be a whole lot worse. But after running all of our sap through the reverse osmosis machine we have far fewer buckets to boil down. Still have had the evaporator running full tilt for nearly twenty four hours with two full pails left to start boiling. This stuff is going to end up being espresso dark maple syrup because it’s real late in the year for this operation. Luckily we pulled out all the spials, and washed the buckets & hoses too. Looking forward to calling this job done, and leaving it alone for another year.

A cool compress to the eyes, a nice shower, and a splash in the hot tub kept my eyes from going to awful from the eye toke. A face shield would work wonders if I could just remember to find it when I need it!

Happy Easter Sunday.

This seems nuts, the 19th, now? Today! I can’t even with this place. So much to do, so much to see. Thankfully it is the weekend so maybe we can start to get some things done and it will stop feeling as though the month is rushing past with nothing to show for it beyond a tax bill, and an early voting euphoria.

I have gotten the lawn mower started and running for about 5-10 minutes, which is a good sign. I have uncovered the AC unit, and lubricated the fan, though I could not get the unit to turn on, might have been too cold a day to do so, or the old girl has finally died on us. Will likely need servicing or a whole new air conditioner. It took a wee bit of doing to get it going last year, so I might be jumping the gun by worrying about it now. We will see. I took a moment to bring out the patio furniture for the front porch and the back patio. I have left the deck clear so I can power wash the mildew off of it. Wanted a warmer day for that. I have also done a first pass on trimming the back patio hedge row so that all seats at the table are accessible, and we can use every square inch of patio stones that were laid down. I will need a scaffold or step ladder to Square off the tops, but that can wait until I have a free weekend in May, because it’s a real chore. I nearly tore a bicep doing it several years ago. Left me hurting for weeks afterward. Perhaps this time I’ll use a saw and not loppers. Save myself from the harmful struggle.

Back when we were still getting snow and ice storms I took the rotting potato box apart and delivered the old cedar boards to the farm burn barrel. I have damaged tree limbs that need to go out to the brush pile too. Get the grass all cleaned up ready for mowing in the next couple of weeks.

At some questionable fish last night for dinner. Have been paying for it ever since. Heart burn, upset guts, roiling belly, you know the full works. Not how I planned to spend my Friday night, but here’s to traditions! Yuck. Feeling kinda gross at the moment. I wonder if I can get away with not bending over a whole lot today? Fingers crossed.

Well, now what?

Time to just keep on keeping on or do I try to find some divine reason to keep things going. It’s not out of some desire to bloat my views counter because according to year over year analytics data, I’m currently in the toilet, but triple digits, so that’s cool. I don’t write for the views anyway, thankfully, as that would be most tragic. No, I write here to keep my head clear, my thoughts in a line, and to make a note of anything extraordinary, unless it has legal ramifications in which case I keep those sorts of things under my cap, as it were. No point poking a hornets nest if this go round it has decided to focus its interests elsewhere. But that’s beside the point, more an exception to the rule. I write everyday now, and have done so for a few years now because it’s a habit. I did it consistently enough every single day to make it a habit. The gamification of the daily writing streak helps to keep me interested, but ultimately that fact that I don’t care how long my posts are, or what they are about has gone a long way to keeping me coming back.

So, Friday of a long weekend. Though I will likely need to work on Monday due to some scheduling issues out of my control. But that is what the laptop purchase was for. So I can be nimble, and move around and still work when needed. However, after stacking several cords of wood I might not be so enamoured of my ability to work from anywhere with an internet connection. Sometimes being hard to access is a good thing.

Looks a bit grey and dingy outdoors. I was hoping for more sunshine and blue skies. At least I know that sort of weather is coming, eventually.

Once upon a time my writing streak was up to 831 consecutive days, when I attempted to fix a post that wasn’t uploading properly due to a higher than usual number of photos, and my streak was cut down to 130 days because that was how long I had left the post to languish before attempting to fix it, thus cutting my streak down to nothing. I was pissed. I was fuming. So took my last Florida/Disney trip off from writing as a vacation and came back and picked it up again. Now here i am a year later and my streak is going strong once more. Not that a year is anything to smirk at, but my last big stretch covered the May 2-4 Jericho storm & resulting 26 hour power outage, also having COVID, and various other difficult situations. I was trying to reach three years, and missed it by that much! Oh well. It honestly only really kicked off because COVID was here, we were all isolated, lonely, and scared and I started to write really short micro sized semi-fictional short stories. I had THE best year for readership and views during that time. I have not managed to come within 2/3rds of those numbers since. Mainly because I write drivel like this, and about the weather, instead of making new creative stories. I had one about some killers that I thought was interesting, but I can’t find it, and I think about adding to that story line a fair bit. But I also want to play my guitar more, and spend more time sculpting, and doing paid work, and making wood based projects in my garage shop, and cleaning slash purging junk from the house, and painting miniatures or building war gaming terrain from scratch. Instead I putter about on my phone while I wait for work emails, or I spend my time doing Domestic Duties around the house. I’m my own worst enemy.

So here we are 365 days completed once again. It feels good. Sun is out, and I think we have seen the very last of the snow and flurries for the season. Pretty soon I will have to break out the lawn mower, and the hoses, and patio furniture and get to living life outdoors again. I can also pack away the long johns for a few months! Even better.

Thursday before the ultra long weekend. Girls are going to a Frog Symposium tonight so they should really enjoy that. It’s an hour away, and then 90 minutes long, so that should occupy them for nearly four hours this evening. Just me and the dog here tonight then. I foresee more long walks in my near future. Perhaps into the cemetery? Or over to the school? I don’t know, the world is my oyster.

Next week is a short week for the kids too. Here’s hoping we have enough activities available to keep them occupied, and engaged so as to not fight constantly the whole time. I had hoped to take a daddy daughter day and walk them through Square One and have lunch, and maybe catch a movie on Friday, but those plans were squashed in favour of helping the farm clean up after all the maple syruping done earlier this spring. I’m sure my youngest will love that. Washing buckets, spials, lids and hoses for the weekend. Washing, drying, stacking, and putting them up into the rafters on their shelves. It’s a long and tedious process. All hands on deck!

I need to check some emails, so happy Thursday. Ciao Bella!

Welp it looks like I might finally get my Black Spire miniatures ordered in 2020, there’s about 195 of them to arrive by years end, if all goes well. However, I didn’t learn of this until AFTER I had signed onto a different crowd funding project from Archon, for their latest Dungeons & Lazers release of Posthaven. Not a problem. The more the merrier I suppose. Looks like the kids and I will have a fair number of miniature painting sessions to undertake together. I can give them a bunch of fun items to paint up how they see fit, and I can focus on the ones that I am most excited about. Now, some items will need to be assembled, so that work will fall to me, but once glued up, and primed ready for paint, then the kids and I can have at it. Should keep us busy all next winter. I hope! Ha.

When it rains, it pours – no? Five years I’ve waited for the first block of nearly 200 28 mm figures. I have a hard time believing that they might actually show up in 2025. I will not be surprised if it gets pushed to late first quarter of 2026, that’s just how little faith I have in some of these people. But i digress.

It is now Wednesday, with snow accumulation on both the ground, and my car. Man oh man am I sick to death of snow at this point. Double digit dates in April, this shit show should be behind us by now. I don’t mind the April rains, but I could do without the constant temperature drops, flurries, and flat out snow fall we continue to get. I’m over it! G’ah.

The weekend at least looks to be on the northern side of zero degrees Celsius, so that’s a plus. Most likely rain, but a couple of days up into the early teens might turn out moods around. Easter is right here upon us, later than usual. Funny how that is. Anyway, my wife has the kids stuff planned out for this year. I typically handle Christmas, and Valentine’s Day, and at least one of the kids birthdays. Halloween we all go all out, so nobody has to pick up slack for that, and our Thanksgiving is in October and besides the meal, there is no “special extras” to consider. That’s a plus. This year my wife wanted less candy so she sourced some neat little trinket things for the kids. I said have at it. We aren’t particularly churchy people, I mean we go at Christmas, for funerals and weddings, but that’s pretty much it. So I’m not all wrapped up in the lore for this holiday of sorts. I do appreciate the four day weekend though.

Tomorrow is the kids last day of school this week. I had planned to take them to Square One for a full day outing, but now it seems I need to go vote early on the Friday, and trek back and forth from the farm to retrieve my in-laws patio & pool things from the farm, as well as clean up after the syrup operation, and stack all of the fire wood they cut last week. So a weekend of manual labour it will be then. Plus Ham! And onion heavy Hash Browns. Such fun.

Had an impromptu call from the school yesterday as my youngest randomly had a pretty righteous ear ache that left her in tears, and a good deal of pain. So I rushed over to the school to grab her. Fed her some kids Motrin for the pain, and administered over the counter ear drops, 2 sets over a couple of hours. It did not seem to help, so I called the doctor’s office and they had one last appointment for the day so we zipped over there, and as soon as we stepped foot inside the office either the pain meds kicked in, or the drops did because she was mostly fine by that point. A touch of redness in the ear, but that was either the start or the end of whatever her issue was. I gave her more Motrin to get to sleep with, and some to last the day at school, and we will see what is what then. Fingers crossed it was just a last push from the cough & cold working its way out of her system! One can hope

Looks both windy, and rainy outside now. Glad we do our daily walk when we did as it would be most unpleasant to be out there in the thick of it now. Tomorrow is to be a waste of a day with both rain, and snow on the forecast. Fun times. I just hope my youngest is well enough to go climbing this afternoon. I really did miss it last week when both kids stayed home sick on Tuesday. This constant up and down with the weather is not playing very nice with our bodies. I could do with no more snow, and a gentle rise in temperatures to about 10°C or more for the next couple weeks, instead of the sudden May jump from cold in the morning to nearly 30°C in the afternoons. That’s not spring, that’s a dirty, dirty trick.

Tax bill is soon going to come along and hurl insults at me. So that’s fun. Plus this month’s credit card bill will come at virtually the same time. Always a painful time of year. At least this go around I have my HST paid upfront, and might even get some of it back. That would be a nice little treat. Eh? I think so.

Is it only Tuesday? Feels later on in the week than that. I need a nap. And my nose to stop running. I haven’t sneezed this much in the whole of the last year. Craziness.

The kids illnesses have caught up to me over the weekend. I lasted eight days without getting sick, and then woke up with a sore throat on Saturday, then a runny nose on Sunday, and that’s where I’m at on Monday morning. If I’m not blocked up at the nasal passage I’m runny like a faucet. Just lovely. Not really, but you get the gist of how I feel. I think that my youngest coughing in my face on Thursday night most likely sealed the deal, but I’ll never really know. Could be from picking up dirty Kleenex all over the house and not adequately washing my hands after doing so. Or myriad other things that contributed to it. Best to just roll with it now.

This weekend was very nice, at least Sunday was a beautiful day. Got lots done, and the weather was fabulous. I had been waiting for such a nice day to go take the lights down. No breeze to pull me off the ladder until well into the evening when I had been done for several hours by that point.

Let me answer some work emails and have breakfast. Have a nice day.

Hung the kids tire swing using a length of chain that’ll hold 1,300 lbs, and used a padded tree wrap to protect the tree for a change. It’s now a tad higher than usual but the kids are bigger, and it’ll allow the grass underneath to see sunlight, and rain fall. So a win all around I think.

Next up was the slack line with all of the monkey knots, trapeze bars, and rings for dangling on. That was no problem to put up. I was smart enough to grease the ratchet portion in the fall when I put it away, so no problems here.

I have not put up the spalted maple swing I made as the rope is too badly damaged from UV rays, and stretching over a few years of use. I left it up for a fairly long time. Like, think of several years of hot-hot summers, and ice cold winters doing a number on some cheap nylon rope. It was ugly. It cracked into pieces in my hands.

Then the coup de grace was taking down the exterior Christmas lights from up on the house. It wasn’t so bad. Gave me a chance to triple check the gutters, and the downspouts too. I fixed a squashed gutter in just a few moments worth of work. Glad to get that done. All completed and squared away. Nice.

I haven’t been this excited for a tv show since Reacher Season One. I missed the medical drama type shows more than I guessed. And not the soap opera “Grey’s Anatomy” type either. This seems somewhat more grounded. Like welcome to the worst day of somebody’s life, and it’s not even ten am yet sort of thing. The chaos is almost unbearable. Yet gripping! I binged the first nine episodes. I was up until 2:00 am. I am exhausted. Worth it!

Isn’t life grand, isn’t life glorious? Doesn’t all this chaos make you just want to stand up, stretch, touch grass, and smell some pretty flowers. It’s currently snowing and zero degrees Celsius here, but you catch my drift. There is no order in the chaos, it is a bitter illusion. So you might as well fail fast doing things exactly how you want them, so that you can live with the aftermath, rather than dying on the vine because a committee diluted your idea down to completely transparent, and killed the project anyway. Even with all of their “helpful notes” incorporated. Pssh. Forget that. Flame out on your own merits, or lack thereof. Die trying. It’s a way of life.

I’m not sure how many cliches I hit back there, but it felt like at least a few. Possibly a handful. Would you say it was a plethora? No? Then there’s no need to rape ze horses. That’s a tiny little Three Amigos reference for you. Clutch, or Fetch as they say.

So here it is — Friday. The big day. The big deal. The one last bastion left holding the door closed on the weekend. At least until five pm hits and then the flood gates open and the beers begin to flow like the salmon of Capistrano. I like it. I like it a lot!

It has been a trying week with both kids sick with a matching set of coughs, and colds. It’s a bit gooey around here. I should have invested in Kleenex before I had kids, would have made 3%. Oh well, it was the friends we made along the way the whole time. The whole time!?! Oh! I’m melting like a snow cone in Phoenix. It was a drive by fruiting. Stew? Sounds more like a thick soup.

I could go on. I spent the vast majority of my youth communicating in movie references, and silly quotes. I have them all neatly stacked away ready to pull at a moment’s notice. But being in my mid forties my references go over the heads of many. Too bad. It was a riot when I was eighteen.

I have found out that I missed the season to offload all of our winter sports gear, and now need to stow it until October when the Care & Share groups would gladly take it in and resell it. Almost made it! I don’t need items that my kids have both grown out of, and that my youngest niece has no interest in. The Purge almost got underway. So close! I snatched defeat out of the hands of victory once again. Go team!

Have a lovely weekend all. Ciao Bella!