Author: greatwallstudios

Serves me right for trying to beat the heat with an early morning walk, only to find it 36°C already, and the humidex above 65%. Not the environmental conditions I was hoping to find before 9:00 am, but here we are. Dogs got to stretch their legs and splash about in the river, but the overbearing heat kept things fairly light & airy between the two mutts. No big wrestling matches, not games of tag, nor follow the leader around the orchard. Just killing tongues and so much panting!

I somehow or other managed to pick up a five inch long twig that jammed itself up the tactical strap of my Crocs to run the inside of my heel/ankle and cut me until I bled. Thanks but no thanks. Itched the whole time we were walking around the woods. Cool. So that happened. Not a major upset, more of an annoyance.

So here we are, Thursday, the day after the holiday and I need to sort out a time to cut out grass. I don’t wish to do it under the full sun, so it looks like I start it around 7pm tonight, or I wake up early (yeah right!) tomorrow and cut it just after seven o’clock in the morning. I’d rather have it done than looming on my to-do list, so odds are tonight’s the night for that. I have twigs to tangle up off the grass too. No matter how many I snip out of the trees there’s always more after a storm waiting to get cleaned up. Brittle twigs are the bane of my lawn cutting career. Well, that and mowers/equipment that won’t start or run smoothly. That sucks too. Not going to lie.

Stay well in all of this unforgiving heat. My one brother in Ottawa is dealing with flooding, while we are counting every millilitre of rain that falls between the farm in Markham and the other bits located in Port Perry. Never seems to rain everywhere all at once. Always a wide variation geographically with the water distribution from the skies above.

I used the dehumidifier to water my fruit trees yesterday. The trap went off and I emptied it over all four little guys just trying to stay alive under these grueling conditions. I need to check the levels on the rain barrel. I have it out of direct sunlight for the majority of every day, so I hope to limit evaporation by having done so. We’ll see how that plays out.

Wish I’d have thought to try an capture some of the lightning last night because it was bright and extremely loud. Made everything shake as the strikes got closer to us. The initial sparks were many, many miles off, but within only a few minutes the flash and the boom were nearly instantaneous directly overhead or just across the way. Devastating to anyone or anything that got in the path of least resistance. The dog and the children didn’t care for it at all. I would just like to see if it has done anything to curb the heat or humidity. Given the forecast I don’t believe the storm has offered us a reprieve just yet. Two more storm days are coming on Friday and Saturday — apparently. Felt as though we got two or more inches of rain in the downpour though, so that’s good news. Slightly less afraid of major fires spreading with a good few inches of rain soaking through everything in sight.

Today is July 1st, or as we know it Canada Day! I of course have not set myself up with anything red. I’ve gotten too fat for my TFC jerseys, and my Team Canada rugby jersey is too heavy for this heat & humidity. I think I donated just about all of my red T-shirts because they were too small, or they just didn’t suit me at all. Red makes my eyes look blood shit and inflamed. I prefer blue or green personally. I have white tees, so I can do a partial Canadian Flag ensemble. Oh well, Oh Canada!

So I believe today is now Wednesday, or Hump Day! Just about everybody in the country should be off work and relaxing, so that’s cool. I was expecting to work today, but I won’t be upset about having time to be with my wife and kids. The oldest will be a teen soon enough. And will be sick of us before you know it. I’m sure the youngest will follow suit, just to be extra funny. It’s a new era we’re  entering. pretty quickly at that. We have really good kids, so we will have to learn to ride it out, and coach more so than parent once they start building some independence. Which means more spousal date nights and adventures for us sans kids. Whoop-whoop! I like it. I mean I’ll miss the little toads, but I like spending time with my wife.

I guess we should go inspect the storms aftermath to see if we had any damages, download limbs, or lightning strikes on the ground or trees nearby. Hopefully it is just the usual twigs that were shaken out of the tree tops. I have a pretty sizeable pile of twigs from just that all ready this season!

Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians young and old, or brand new to the country. Keep all your fingers by not being an idiot with fireworks! Don’t burn down your house with sparklers and misfired roman candles. Take care out there.

Any time we go more than seven to ten days without rain it starts to fizzle the brain that we might, in fact, be in the midst of a drought. Not good. But it poured here last night, so that’s a good sign. I know we aren’t into July yet, just a single day shy, so it’s fantastic that we got some rain. The real dry season starts as of tomorrow, so that’s when things are going to get really tense around the farm. Though the corn loves heat, and the humidity. But everything still needs rain in order to flourish. No good growing stunted crops on next to no water. The fact the creek down behind the farm has a fair bit of water in it is a great sign. Means there’s rain further north, and we haven’t completely dried out — yet.

I’ve spent the last two days weed eating forgotten plots around the property, and then going back later on to mow it all down to 3.5 inches. The bugs have been biting. It is both hot, and humid. Add in the dust, pollen, bugs whizzing by, and then feasting upon us all, and you have yourself a pretty run of the mill farm experience I’d say.

At least we don’t have to break out the hoses to water the smaller plots by hand. That’s a mucky, thankless job. You’d have to nearly drown the whole plot to get enough water to seep down in to the soil to make it worth your while, and not immediately have to come back and water again 24-48 hours later. With a three quarter inch garden hose that would take you hours to flood a one acre plot fully, and have it all drain through the soil rather than evaporate off the top in the frying sunshine. Dragging hot muddy hoses around isn’t my idea of a good time, but at least when you get sweaty you can douse yourself in water right away. Soak your hair or your hat to stay cool for another couple of minutes. Wear sunscreen!

I missed Domestic Duties Monday because I’ve nearly lost all track of time, and which day it is. I’m pretty sure today is Tuesday, because Wednesday is going to be the holiday. Canada Day is here! The big summer fun kick off day to ring out the school year, and lean into the heat of the season. Full of sunshine, humidity, and a whole lot of heat. Woah!

Hope you are having a productive week.

Wiggly worms and a good casting arm seem to be the order of the day when fishing off the dock. Mere seconds later this little fella was cast back into the lake to continue on as the nothing happened. All that waiting under the hot sun for a three second snap shot, and then right back at it. This was the only fish caught. Glad I had my phone on me to capture the moment!

Instead of trying to think of things to do before hand, I’m going to attempt to be more open to individual or group requests for activities that are slightly out of the norm. In which case (provided I’m not in the middle of working) I will say YES! As much as I can, and allow the kids to determine how they will spend their time this summer. My only interjection will be adding reading for an hour at a time to eat day, and going to be no later than ten pm. Because, my lord, I need some time apart to love you like I do, and to watch shows with my spouse that aren’t geared towards kids.

Swimming, biking, scootering, playing with the hose, farm walks, dog walks, weeding the gardens, baking, painting, drawing, pattern making, sewing, creative writing, sculpting, making music with instruments, filming skits & writing plays to perform for those tablet cameras… All good to me. Live the good life my littles.

Or watch movies and lounge around as long as I don’t hear a chorus of “We’re bored!” Or “I’m bored!”. I’ll tell you “GOOD“, because the brain only really starts to process stuff when it’s bored and can build synapses to deal with that. Well worth the effort. Build those imaginations. Work on your hand writing. Read to your heart’s content. Work on those attention spans. Increase them thirty fold!

No sense making mountains where none exist, so I’m going to enjoy the first Sunday morning of the break. Take care out there. Have some fun.

This is the second or third time I have reached the milestone of an eight hundred day writing streak on this here blog, and you know what 8 have to show for it? A brand new habit that’s kinda hard to break if I’m being honest. I feel as though my day is incomplete if I don’t mosey on over here and write out at least a few sentences. I’m not defending my master’s thesis or a PHD over here so I can be a fruitless, and as frivolous with my words as I care to be. Sometimes, just maybe, I feel the extreme urge to be absurd and I do write literal and figurative nonsense just for the shits & giggles it gives me in the moment. It’s almost cathartic in a way.

I don’t impart any new knowledge, and I certainly don’t synthesize any data here, nor draw people in with my witty banter. This is a petty void where brain cells go to die. Possibly be mildly entertained whilst doing so. But unlikely to offer anything with any sort of lasting effect. Go figure! I’m a sugary treat with no nutritive value, a brief rush, and then a total crash out. Ha! I’m like social media that way! I’m an AI scrapping bot wet dream, a bear constant flow of written media to gobble up, but offer nothing of material value in return. It’s the perfect heist. I write crap, and your AI’s dribble out worse materials as a result. Win-win for me.

Now if I had a good quality photo to share this would be where I’d put it. But I don’t wish to share images from a recent birthday party, nor have I gotten out to take anything new recently, beyond some small ornamental roses that opened up in our front garden.

Doesn’t it feel better to be here alongside a high quality photograph? Yes, yes it does. In other news I was able to get my first draft done by Friday afternoon, so that has been a load off my shoulders. My original assessment placed me in the office all weekend, including Monday morning just to get the first draft done. But I wasn’t reviewing the data with a clear enough mind, and I missed some key bits of information, which actually worked in my favour. Where I thought I was heading into Thursday, and Friday about thirty pages behind schedule due to my daughter’s party taking up all of Tuesday, and the kids half day of school eating into my Thursday productivity, I WAS ultimately on schedule, if not slightly ahead. Funny how things work out.  I was prepared to work through the weekend and try to get this off for review for Monday. Turns out I didn’t have to worry about it. Found my groove after a day or two, and it all flowed together smoothly. Nice.

So now it’s Saturday morning, the Strawberry Festival is going on in town, we have one last Taekwondo event today with my eldest daughters belt promotion and accompanying testing. She’ll do great. Always does. Board breaking gets tougher with these new kicks and punches, but she’s tough, and will middle through like everybody else. I’ll put the old belt up on her display, and come September she will go back to class at a new level ready to try for the first degree Black Belt in the new year. We are very proud of her sticking with it and having such great success with taekwondo. I highly recommend it.

The dog doesn’t know what the hell is going on.btoo many of us are home, but not all of us. Our walk was moved back about a half hour, and the weather is still cool, cloudy, and potentially rainy. The house is now weekend chaos but on a week day. His poor little puppy mind is scrambled because of it. Usually after our walks he retires to the bed in the primary bedroom for a lengthy nap, but since the kids are home he’s out here in the living room at attention like he expects we’re going to gather up our things and leave (albeit very late) for school. He didn’t get to say hello to the other school bound dogs, or pee in his usual spots along the way. Poor poochie.

I need to get to work as I still have twenty or more pages left to construct, and then background images to update for the new brand guidelines. So I’m not out of the woods yet. A full eight hour day awaits! I best be about my business sooner rather than later.

Also — w00t-w00t it’s another day 800 for the writing streak. No, I haven’t done anything with my children’s book in more than a year. I know, I know, I need to complete the artwork and release the full colour pdf here, but I have almost completely forgotten about it. I started it when my eldest was four, she’s well on her way to twelve now, so more delays won’t hurt anybody! Ha. I also haven’t really written any new fiction in a long time, and I’m ok with that. I’m a terrible writer, so the world isn’t missing out because I’ve become gun shy. The pandemic just helped me to focus, because I needed something, anything to help me through it. And now we’re mostly past it, and on to bird flu, ebola, monkeypox and any number of issues waiting to spring up on us. Oh joy!

If I can beat my former high score of 831 days straight I’ll be really pleased with myself. There’s no end game here. No new money to be earned. My ad revenue is sat comfortably at .15$ and has been that way for about a year or so. Which means I’m certainly not doing all of this for the money, because there is none. And it isn’t for fame or notoriety, because there is none of that available either. Just shear love of the game. Getting jumbled thoughts out on paper to make more sense of my daily life is about the pinnacle of my writing career. Helpful internally, not so much for any other type of external rewards. Though, I say that, there was this one random day in July of last summer when I hit 1,500 plus views in a single day, and that set my heart a flutter. It was a wild rush. I was pleased as punch with that. All out of Germany. Never found out what caused the spike. Just the home page & archives. Neat!

I’m having the second best year ever here this year, so that’s felt kind of rewarding in and of itself. Maybe because I publish every single day, it’s more free content for the web, and my posts stay on/ or come up on the reader daily. I don’t know much about it. I just blog nonsense here most days. Ruminations on daily suburban life. Dishes and laundry. Tree planting and lawn care. Sometimes if I am doing a wood working project I will chronicle that, but those episodes are rare. I used to sculpt a whole lot more, but it seems to escape me now. I don’t play my guitar as much as I used to either. Getting older, and losing the desire I suppose.

On occasion I have been known to get introspective or morose, but that’s few and far between. Welp! Onwards & upwards. I have work to do.

The greenery portion of it, like the stem and leaves is unappealing, and somewhat hideous, but the purple flower is rather pretty. The weed is sparsely populated with the tiny little flowers. Only a handful on each four foot tall fibrous stalk. Not much of a looker as a whole package, but I am given to understand that it has medicinal properties, though what those are has not been elaborated on, at least to me by those that spoke up regarding my post on Threads.

The rain has not yet come, and it is now more than a day overdue. The school term has ended, and the clouds hang heavy, and lie low upon the horizon. The wind has picked up slightly, and the ambient temperature has dropped. All signs lead to rain, and yet. No rain has come. Will this be the story of summer break 2026 I wonder? Quite possibly so. I have left the rain barrel untouched, and instead watered my fruit trees from the dehumidifier catchment tray. Might have to hold on to the rain barrel water for a little longer than I had hoped. Perhaps 200-300L was not enough, and I should have incorporated two! We shall see.

It’s my youngest daughter’s birthday today, and she is now nine years old, and I feel like time has started to move faster than ever. Soon both children will be double digits as my eldest becomes a fully fledged tween, on her way to being an outright teenager. Where are my tiny toddlers at? Those two that wanted a hug, or a kissed knee when they fell over. Needed help to open jars, bottles, packages of all types. I love them as independent people, but I also miss the year old, just walking while babbling stage. They were, and are still adorable. Pretty good kids, both of them. Their report cards came in yesterday and both were excellent.

Happiest of birthdays to my schmoo! She was exhausted after her party on Tuesday, so I know it went well in her opinion. They swam, had water fights, played with water guns, and about 200 water balloons. It was warm & sunny without being stifling. Thirteen kids was a lot, but four were family, and one a neighbour who is always around, so just a small group of classmates this year.

Pretty soon these kids will be driving, and going off on adventures with their friends and peers from all the extracurriculars that they participate in. Good kids. Well natured.

Happy birthday to you all whom are born on this day.

If I look I bet I’m about one more day away from hitting 800 days on my current writing streak. Not too shabby I think. School ends at noon today, so let us pray that these kids start to sleep in starting tomorrow morning. Nothing crazy, but until 7:45 – 8:00 am would be greatly appreciated. My wife’s last day of work is tomorrow, so I know she’ll appreciate it a lot if they could stay in bed asleep, or just stay quiet in the morning. We will have to wait and see. My guess is no. Well, I say that but the oldest might sleep in a little, but my younger one will likely be up with the sun now that schools out. Unfair! She’s the harder one of the two to wake up during the week from September until June! D’oh!

Spent much of yesterday preparing both a new data sheet & report, as well as cleaning up for a 9th birthday pool party that lasted more than three hours. I was cutting grass, weed eating, cleaning up the patio stones, moving furniture, and I pulled up patio stones to fill in some washed away spots, and attempt to level it out again with some crushed dustless stone. Then we prepped all the food, snacks, and beverages, sorted out the gift bags, and then spent three hours on high alert with thirteen kids of various ages playing wildly in the pool. By seven o’clock I was exhausted. I didn’t even make it to ten pm last night. Poof! Out like a light. Hotter than a MF from four hours of straight afternoon sun to my face. Don’t forget to add in all the laps around the outer edge with the skimmer to pull out leaves, grass, And courful water balloon shards.

Now I’m having breakfast ready to start the next 16-24 hours of work on my next report. It’s comparative so it’ll be longer, and more challenging than a single year version. I have my eye glasses, and soon a full belly. Best get working!

School year ends at noon tomorrow. Then we will be diving headlong into summer break. It’s here, it’s here! Can you believe it? This month has rocketed passed us with nary a glance in the rear view mirror. I have wind burn from the speed at which it blew right by us all. My spouse has grad tonight, so it’s just the three of us until bedtime tonight. I hope for an early night. Fingers are crossed.