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Only a day or so ago the Lilacs looked miles away from flowering, and today BAM! Purple flowers at the ready. In another day or two those should be fully formed, and very aromatic. I wonder if that means we will get some Jasmine and Russian Olive scents in the coming weeks too. The Russian Olive is a horrific barbed, spiked nuisance of a tree, but by the gods do they ever smell good, at least to me. When I spent my summers cutting grass in Brampton, and Mississauga, you’d find them everywhere, and they’d stick you really badly in the eyes, face, shoulder, neck, whatever you failed to secure when around them, but it smells so good. Kinda sick. Ha.

Unfortunately the Lilacs at our house never last long enough for my wife or youngest daughter to enjoy them on their birthdays. They come, and go so fast on our property. Other places we see them for weeks after ours have dried, and crumpled to dust. Maybe the other houses have irrigation and a regular watering schedule? I don’t know. Besides cutting the grass, and watering the Dahlias we plant every spring I don’t much bother with our lawn or vegetation. I’m not altogether bothered by weeds in the grass, and I don’t see the point in dependent trees or shrubs that have to be watered, but can’t survive on their own. I’m not opposed to watering once or twice over the course of the whole summer. I don’t want to see the trees suffer when it gets really dry in late July, and into August. A good drink from the hose isn’t unwarranted during that time, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to water every single item multiple times a week whether we have rain or we don’t. That’s ludicrous.

The apple trees, and the Cherry tree all look lovely right now too, with their fresh blooms blowing around in the breeze. I don’t get any sort of scent off of those, but they certainly do look great. Of course the puppy chewed all of my raspberry stalks so who knows if we will even get any berries this year. Fucking mutt chewed through half of my grape vine too. Little shit head. I had to pull meters and meters of severed, newly budding vine out of the fence line because he has nibbled through the main vine body. That’s cost me about twelve kilograms worth of grapes if not more. I’d wager he has stomped all of my strawberries to death too. Cute puppy, but he is a menace to our backyard. Chewed trees, vines, hedges, and he walks all over the berry patches, and digs huge holes against the side of the house. Dick head.

It’s warm out so my neighbour is once again going to spend ever waking moment he isn’t fire fighting, running a tile saw, or cutting bricks, or manning a jack hammer, concrete drill, or planing table tops from sun up to sun down. It’s awesome. Can’t enjoy the breezes without deafening noise too. Brick dust coats just about everything in a 25 m radius. Can’t wait for them to finish remodeling so I don’t have to hear this shit any more.

Sounds like I’m in a sour mood. I’m not. Not really. Just sounding off on some current challenges we’ve come up against with the dog, kids, mother nature etc… I’m generally quite pleasant, I think. Ha.

Put my garage to good use yesterday, and Sunday by opting to swap out my own sets of winter/summer tires. My wife’s GMC is by far the easier of the two vehicles to switch tires on. I have them all labelled so I know where I got them from, and where to rotate them to. Her tires are unidirectional so I have to follow the arrows in order to obtain all of the benefits from their design. The new vans tires are omnidirectional, and had no labels from the dealership, so I put them where I felt like it. No arrows, triangles, or wear patterns present to denote an orientation specific to best performance. I looked it up.

The nice thing about my wife’s car is that it has a long rail from wheel well to wheel well where 8 can place my jack. The new van only has four six inch wide spots available to put your jack. The rail is deep, and angled too. I had to switch over to my bottle jack, as my floor jack is too wide at the lift point, and the 2×4, or 2×4 I use to distribute the weight over a broader area isn’t deep enough to touch the interior of the rail and contact the jack, which deforms the body panels. But my bottle jack works just fine for that vehicle. It’s just annoying to have to switch between the two types of jack. I’d love to see how a shop would lift this type of vehicle with such a limited lift area to use. Must have a small/tall adapter of some sort. Like a hockey puck stack or urethane block to go up into the space. Seems needlessly limiting in my opinion.

The locking lug nut wasn’t too bad to work with. Seems our new van lugs are the same size as the old van, so I didn’t need to bring all my sockets out to test them to find the correct size. That was a relief at least. Which means I knew I had the correct size for both my breaker bar, torque wrench, and impact wrench sockets. Nice!

But I did do a number on my shoulder and my back, to one side anyway. Voltaren to the rescue. I took the time to power wash all of the tires, the new summer ones, and the winter ones as well. I’m just going to wait another day or two before I move them to let my back rest a bit. Tires on rims get heavy. For a lump of a man like myself, whom isn’t used to slinging weights like that around, I get pretty sore afterwards. Lifting tires with one arm to locate a stud and swing the tires into place required an awful lot of bending, twisting, and patience in yesterday’s early afternoon sun. I was sweating like a pig. I had thought about using my crowbar to help me lift the tire into place but I would get very angry if I poked a hole in brand new, never used summer tires trying to wrangle the damn things into the van.

No matter, I managed to get them all on, and torqued down to the correct spec’s per vehicle. 140 ft lbs for the GMC, and a mere 104 ft lbs for the van. Weirdly specific I think. But I’m no engineer.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be less achy and I can run the tires down to  storage for the summer months. I will see them again in late October or early November, weather depending.

In total my wife got a whooping six hours of peaceful time to herself on Mother’s Day, if you don’t count the presence of our dog. We spent five hours or so at Canada’s Wonderland enjoying the beautiful weather, including the drive there and back, and finding a parking spot and you get roughly six hours of uninterrupted alone time to read, watch a movie, eat a warm meal unbothered by anyone. Glorious.

Turns out my youngest is a mere hairs breadth from being able to start riding some of the giga coasters in the park. I’m excited, she is petrified. My eldest and I took a moment to ride Yukon Striker, so at least we got one big ride in yesterday. We tackled many of the smaller rides, and introductory coasters at my youngest’s request. If she’s not ready to go massive, I’m not going to force it. I would like them all to enjoy the park freely, not have it forced upon them.

It was sunny and warm when our of the path of the breezes, and almost chilly when exposed to unfettered wind. My face got a little rosy from the sun, but I didn’t burn. Thank the gods for the February base coat we earned in the Florida Keys. I think that ore-exposure saved us from getting actual burns yesterday.

After all that walking I came home and swapped out my wife’s tires. Winters were washed, and ready to be put away in storage until November. Now I have the van tires to either do myself, or pay a professional to do. I guess it depends on how busy I get this week. I at least have the tires on hand, so I’m agile, nimble, able to do whatever. Cool.

Welp, it’s Monday. Best be about my business. Ciao Bella!

Get the kids out of the house for a few hours of peace for mum. Feed them, entertain them, but most of all keep them from climbing on mum, and asking for drinks & snacks once she sits down. Ha. Kids. Gotta love’em!

Happy Mother’s Day to all whom fill the role. Take it easy on the mimosas and steer clear of the thirty dollar egg breakfasts today. Cheers!

One particular issue that my garage shop has is power, or the lack thereof. So once we did some remodeling upstairs I paid an electrician to add a new small sub panel to the garage, in hopes I could land several 115v outlets, and hopefully at least one 240v. I got four 115v outlets and a 220v. Not bad, but it meant my dreams of welding at home were lowered a fair bit. Had to find a small unit that could run 115v, instead of a regular sized unit on a 240v. But, concurrent to this lack of outlets, is the fact that they are all located on one side of the garage, and clustered together. So unless I wanted to stack machines on top of each other and forever more be moving tools around on wheelie carts, I did the second best thing I know of and draped extension cords all over the show. It was unsightly, and most likely not very safe. It’s a short term fix for a long term problem.

But now that I have cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned up the shop. Moved tools all around, and eliminated a lot of the space wasting items I finally decided to clean up the cords. Now I cannot eliminate them entirely, I did however consolidate them down, and managed to unplug, and recapture five cords. I think that’s pretty great. It now means I have open outlets once again, so I can put a tool directly into the wall socket (if that works) and not rely almost entirely on chains of cords strung together. I feel safer. It looks better. And my stock pile of usable cords has grown considerably.

So that was what I did to occupy myself after rock climbing, and throwing a ball around in the street with my oldest daughter today.

While the OT winning goal wasn’t ours, that was a very entertaining game three to watch. I like that level of intensity. It was a real nail biter right up until the buzzer sounded. Whoo wee that was nearly 80 minutes of electric play. Serve it directly into my veins! Would have loved to be up 3 – 0 in round two against Florida, but I think it is still achievable to win this series. Fingers, arms, legs, and toes crossed. Hell I’ll cross my eyes too if it means an entry into round three of the Stanley cup play offs.

I have rock climbing earlier than usual this session of Saturdays, so I’ll need to make sure I cut the grass on Fridays or Sundays because we won’t get home until the full heat of the day is Upon us. High UV days can really land you in some trouble around here. My base tan is pretty faded from February in the Keys. No desire to get badly burned ever again. It’s not all that warm here but the UV index is really high, so odds are I wouldn’t even have any sun screen on, or an SPF shirt to protect my arms and neck. Just straight star radiation to the exposed skin for a hot coal glow all evening, and night sweats to go along with it . No thanks.

The gym is starting to get really hot inside, so I should probably find suitable shorts that I can wear so I don’t immediately sweat through my clothes once I walk through the door. It also has that stale sweat stink most gyms suffer from which I’m not very keen on. Yuck. Smells like unwashed ore teen kids coming out of gym class to sit in front of you for the whole rest of the day in junior high. Ugh! Horrendous.

Anyway, it is officially Saturday, and it should be around 19°C today. Perhaps I will tackle some outdoor chores today since last week it was so cool outside. We could ride our bikes, or take a spin on our skateboards. That might be fun! Now that the weather is turning we can be outdoors more often. Throw a ball around and play catch. Kick a soccer ball. Take the sparring pass outside and really give them shit in preparation for next month’s tournament. That just might be the ticket!

And other such fun pass times, like eating bees, digging up hornets nests, playing slap tag with wasps, and getting high off centipedes. It’s all fun and games until you get stung on the cornea, then it’s war!

Friday is here and the lawn could do with a good mow right about now. Our extracurricular schedules are heating up as we draw close to the end of the session. Timing, and time management are going to play a very real part of our lives over the next two to three weeks. That, and open communication will help us mitigate stress and anger. So, good luck with all of that! To us, and all of you out there whom happen to be in a similar boat. Things will settle down after the first week of June. I mean that does lead us into summer break and the kids being home 24/7 for nine weeks, but we love them, so we make it work.

The farm is set to plant some five hundred native apple trees this weekend. From what I understand three hundred forty of them have gone in the ground all ready, so not too much farther to go. They are more widely spaced than the previous orchard of some twelve hundred fifty trees of eight or so varieties. I made signs for those several Christmas’s ago using my router and four ten foot lengths of cedar planking. It took me a while to do.

We will have to make a cider press to deal with all of these apples before too much longer. Could be a fun project to build. Speaking of which, I think we decided on making a dog bed with a pull out drawer as our next wood working project for the house. The current dog crate is gigantic, and we never lock him in it any more. He has proven himself fairly trust worthy, at least when the kids bedroom doors are shut and he can’t chew their stuffed animals to pieces. No accidents in the house, or furniture damages. So to reclaim the space his stuff will go on a low rise bedframe, and the crate can go back to my inlaws. Should make the front hall more open, and easier to navigate. I hope. I’ll likely make a furniture build post or two about it when I get to it. It requires a lower frame, a drawer, and an upper frame to hold the bedding. Nothing too crazy fancy. I’m thinking; box joints with the router. Half inch plywood interior, floating inside the upper frame rails. Pretty easy. Two boxes that fit inside one another, and one that sits on top. Bam. Golden! Just need to draw it up, and build it.

Gearing up for a family trip out west in a couple of weeks. Nothing too crazy, just an extended weekend, with flights to and from British Columbia. The end of this month, and the first week of June are going to be all sorts of hectic chaos, so I need to be both healthy, and in a good spot mentally to deal with all of what will be going on. Birthdays plural, prom, dance recitals, taekwondo tournament, the end of this session of Girl Guides for both age groups, and school spirit days leading into the end of the school term. The build up to summer break. Oh my it will be a lot. Trough in more than 14 hours of flights, and a brief cross country trek with my kids, and no wife or dog, and you have a recipe for some fun!

I both look forward to it, and fear for my safety. Ha. I’m not that worried. I took these kids to Florida for five days by myself, fed them, washed them, and saw that they slept a reasonable amount. We can do this! Traveling with kids is so much easier with two involved parents though. Especially when it comes to bathroom usage in public spaces. I worry.

Just the other day I cancelled an order for 195 minis that I tried to buy on Kickstarter in 2020. A different company bought out the IP license, moulds etc, and were set to deliver on it in early 2026, but it was going to cost more money to go ahead and buy the figures I had already bought, plus pay to ship them here via the US, and who knows what the tariff situation will be like then. I have mourned those minis a few times over the last five years. Not only that but the new owners altered the count, by replacing some unique figures with others from the same moulds. I’d rather not have them at this point. 75$ USD from 2020 isn’t too crazy a loss to take. Not if it’s going to cost me 3x that just to have them in hand next February. I’m sanguine about it because I know that the Dungeons and Lasers crowd sourcing I just backed is legit, and will provide me, and my kids with lots of cool things to both assemble, and paint. Now 2026 won’t be a total cluster of minis, but a reasonable quantity will show up. I’m good with that. We can paint for multiple afternoons, instead of months, and months. I’m good with that.

Have spent much of the morning drive all across Stouffville, and parts of north Markham running errands, meeting with my Gastroenterologist, grocery shopping, and walking the dog among other things. Food is out away ready to finish out the week good, and strong. Plus I have the appropriate forms in hand to complete some much needed blood work that I have been putting off because, of course I’ve been sick, and life gets in the way. Plus travel, the kids extracurriculars, busy work schedules from out of the blue, and let us not forget I allowed my requisition forms to go out of date. So my bad, ultimately. But I have rectified it now, and at the end of the month once I was able to land an appointment I booked myself in for some needles. Yeah! Poke, poke, poke, stab, jab, blood draw. The fun never stops around here.

Our quick trip to BC is rushing at us head on. We all need to stay healthy for that. Then right after that we will start to see the kids programming close out for the summer break. We will still have climbing, and Taekwondo right up until the very end of June though. So not entirely free of evening obligations. But once done my oldest will have obtained her Red Stripe belt. That’s pretty great. Very proud of her for sticking with it, and moving upwards. She has a tournament coming up the first weekend of June, so that’s exciting. I’m pumped.

Of course my youngest has her dance recital that very same day. So I might miss her performance taking my eldest to her tournament at the Pan Am arena in Markham. Hopefully we can make the 2:30 pm show. But the studio does videotape it, so I will get to see it at some point. Possibly just not live, and in person.

It is Wednesday, and this week has felt like a month in, and of itself. That Leafs game aged me a year all in one go. These play off games are so stressful. Ugh. Great hockey to watch, but I hate it — deeply. Almost ready for another go around. Thankfully tonight’s game starts a full hour earlier at seven o’clock, so I can be in bed before eleven if there is no overtime played. Yay!

A gift I was given many years into my time working for Moosehead Breweries Ltd, has finally given up the ghost. My famously stylish Clancy’s Brown Ale umbrella, the envy of all Easter Coasters around these parts. A true staple in our patio styling. The corner stone of our vibe. The foundational piece upon which all the rest was laid. Died. The top cover shattered and the fabric drawn down to its ankles. I might keep the teak wood bits, and toss the rest in pieces over the summer. I’ll pour one out in its name. A proper send off.

I have the boring one which came with the set somewhere in the shed. I’ll want to find that out some day soon. The weather is starting to turn for the warmer. A flat green replacement will suit just fine – for now. Besides a contest I don’t really know how I would go about getting a new branded patio umbrella. I’m not in a position to worry about it right this second, but I should give it some thought.

Welcome to Tuesday, eh? The Leafs won a real nail biter last night. The starting goalie is out with a concussion. Will kept us alive, just barely. We can not be swept! We have a win!