No major issues this time around, simply here for the yearly teeth cleaning the dentist suggested on Tuesday. I of course am elbow deep into a report, but I have the flexibility to take the kids to appointments and adjust my work day to compensate. If I have too I will work late into the evening after taekwondo. I was going to give my report a third session last night, but I felt like resting my wrist would be of more use to me over the course of the month. I can work much later tomorrow evening if I absolutely have to to get this current report off for review.
The dentist is talking to me, so I need to cut this short. Seems my daughter has not been doing a very good job of brushing her teeth in the manner that I have instructed her. She is now going to have to endure the tooth pain, and gum tenderness because of it.byou can lead a child to the sink, tooth paste, and tooth brush, but you cannot make them brush properly on their honour alone it would seem.
The aftermath of ten 16 L pails of rocks pulled from the front field at the farm over the course of the last six weeks. (Fig 1.)
Ever since I started to split wood at the farm in mid September the dog and I have pulled armfuls of rocks out of the tilled field each weekday. Some days we found more than others, but I eventually wound up with eleven separate piles along the north/eastern edge of the front field where the apple orchard isn’t. Those are in the next field directly north, across the farm. I’m working closer to the peach trees hidden behind a hedge row out of the direct winds.
Anyway, I have been meaning to grab a bucket and haul them away, but I was more focused on the picking them out of the field portion, and not the hauling them off to the culvert to dump them. Less fun, more tiring work lugging 90 lbs buckets over to the ditch to pour them out.
But with yesterday dental issue I thought my outdoor time was going to be severely limited, but it was a quick fix (read inexpensive) and I had my child back to school before recess was over. This meant I could cut the grass one last time purposefully, and mulch the remaining leaves with the mower. We’d just had a big storm so the trees are fairly bare now. Which also means no more leaves to worry about until Spring time! At least on my property. I’m sure we have leaves to do at the inlaws, and the cottage too.
After that task was done I took the dog back to the farm and brought six buckets from my shed with me. I had previously filled two yellow pails conveniently left by the field already that morning when walking the dog. So not only did I move six buckets out of my shed, but I moved eight full buckets of rocks, then went back for two more full bucket loads, and voila! Rock job now done. Until I locate any more that is!
But I have paid work now. So no rocks, and no wood splitting to do until I complete this report. After this one there are only two more (that I know of) on the books for this year. I could get surprised with one additional random report, but given the current state of the economy both north and south of the border, I don’t hold out much hope for extra cash flow making its way into my pockets.
But I have paid work now, and that’s all that matters right this second. I had best hop to it then! Have a great Wednesday in early November 2025.
Eldest daughter has cracked a molar and needs an extraction on the affected baby tooth. Not much going to happen today as I need to be there at the dentist’s office instead of working around the house today. Good thing I got so much done here yesterday in the pouring rain. Now all I have left is the grass, and Christmas lights. Possibly one tree limb removal – but that has yet to be determined. May me please get another nice day for outdoor work in the near future!?!
Turns out, not so bad after all. Dentist removed fragment of cracked baby tooth (molar) after taking X-rays and having a look for herself. Found three other wiggly teeth that should come out sooner rather than later. Just in time for Christmas I’ll wager. No pain today luckily. Going back Thursday morning for her teeth cleaning, and an update to her files/notes etc…
Because we were done so quickly my daughter got back to school in time to enjoy recess, and more importantly she will be available, and not swollen or numbed up for Picture Day today. That’s a win in our book.
Moreover I was able to cut the grass today, and headed back to the farm with the doggo to gather up ten 16 litre pails of rocks that I had set off to the sides of the big field, and dumped those in the culvert out of everyone’s way. Took some doing as I filled all ten pails to the brim. Likely 95 lbs or there abouts in every pail. Now residing comfortably in the culvert away from the farm equipment, lawn mower blades, and mobility vehicles. Got more done today than I thought I was going to do. That’s great news! Did not get the Christmas lights up, so I still need to find the time for that in the next couple of weeks. Which means cleaning the gutters as I go, and maybe cutting one last limb out of the dying Maple on our front lawn. I can find things to occupy myself outside if I need to (should we have nice enough days where I’d want to be outside tinkering with no paid work to attend to that is.)
Time change still has me feeling a bit off lately. The dog is not a fan of the time difference and is trying to get me up before I want to be up. It’s a bit of a thing really. The sun goes down real fast now, so I don’t think 8 have enough sunlight to work on lights once I bring the kids home after school. I could try I suppose. Nah! I’ll leave it for another mild day.
Dried sunflowers in the early morning breeze, on a gloomy November day. (Fig 1.)
Halloween is over, the decorations have come down, dried off, cleaned and stored for the year. Leaves were raked, mulched and added to the garden beds. Nearly three hundred tulip bulbs were planted in those same beds. Last but not least the Dahlias were dug up, dried in the sun & breeze, and stored in the basement under a blanket for safe keeping.
Now we sit in the luminal spaces where we wait for Remembrance Day observances before the big gear up for Christmas. I DO NOT wish to hear Mariah Carey until after twelve noon on the eleventh. Let the vets have their time unmolested by billionaire divas nipping at their heels. Lay a wreath, take a quiet moment to reflect, then you can go whole hog into holidays of all shapes, sizes, and traditions.
I have blood work to do during mid day of the eleventh so I will wait until the twelfth to erect our tree, unless the kids want to help in which case we will assemble it on the Saturday of the fourteenth. We never celebrated Christmas until after my oldest brother’s birthday in early December, but my daughter likes the tree up, and the holiday themed gimmicks, so she wants the house done up well before. I find November to be bleak, and dreary, and so the lights and decorations are a welcome diversion from the grey, brown drabness of outdoors.
Soon I can dig up all the holiday classic movies so we can watch them all as a family, or independently. Likely I will watch a good chunk of them by myself while I wrap gifts, or clean up, or decorate the house. The next nice day we have (which could be as early as tomorrow) I will cut the grass one more time, and then put the Christmas lights up on the house. I won’t plug them in until after Remembrance Day, but I will put them up when the sun is shining, and the temperatures are above zero. I absolutely hate decorating in windy, sub zero conditions. Which is something my inlaws insist on doing. Waiting until the worst possible weather, and then spending fourteen hours getting next to nothing done because they want to argue about every cord, switch, and item position. Infuriating! So I get mine out of the way when it’s more pleasant out because I know the shit-show is coming along hot on my heels!
Today’s task, instead of splitting wood, was to dig up the last of the Dahlias at the farm for my mother in law. They are up out of the ground air drying in the cool breeze. Ready to be tagged, pruned, boxed up, and stored away wherever they decide to put their own flower bulbs.
One last row of Dahlias dug up to air dry. (Fig 2.)
I do not know what will become of all the left over peppers, and tomatoes, or any other vegetable still left in the patch. I imagine they will simply till them under. But it could go in the back of the trailer to head north and feed some deer by the cottage. I’m sure the last pumpkins, and squash will head north for that exact purpose.
They must have reworked the fields once more because I found another seventy five or so sizeable rocks and such which I picked up and enlarged my current standing piles. I have something like nine to eleven piles of rocks to dispose of. Could almost make a small chimney if I was one of those bush craft YouTubers. Make a tiny lunch time hibachi or stone BBQ for eating hot food out by the fields. Ha. Disaster waiting to happen!
Welcome back to Monday after what felt like the longest weekend I’ve had in a very long time. Halloween, two ball games, Wonderland, visiting extended family to trick or treat out of town, yard work, dog walks, five hours in a bar with friends, a time change, and the last moments of my wife’s week off of work. We were trying to do all of the things! I’m exhausted. Phew!
And get on with all of these leaves, and put the lawn to bed before the snow comes along to put a halt to everything for the rest of the year.
Things I did this morning; take down all seven inflatables, stakes, pins and all. Dry them, and drain them if rain water accumulation. Put them back up on the top of the metal rack. Our newest edition, the large green snake was boxed up, and all the sections, stakes and cords got filed away together over top of the garage door.
Dig up, prune, and dry all twelve Dahlias, which go into a box stuffed with towels and left in the basement for the winter.
Plant nearly three hundred tulip bulbs in various stages of decay, and disrepair in hopes at least a handful survive until the spring to add a pop of pizzazz to our front garden beds.
Take up, and mulch a month’s worth of fallen leaves from our fairly sizeable front yard. I hate doing leaves when the Halloween decorations are up because the guide wires are a tripping hazard. So I did the leaves and grass before erecting them all. And now it’s all torn down 8 can attempt a final grass cutting tomorrow if the weather holds. I want at least one more before the snow comes.
Now it’s after two, and I’m going to slake my thirst, eat some lunch, and crash from last night emotional roller coaster of a Game Seven of the World Series where the Jays lost by one run in extra innings. Damn. Double damn. Spent five hours in a bar with friends to watch it which was great. But not the outcome we were hoping for. Oh well, maybe next year!
The bullpen, and the pitchers kept us competitive, but the bars were soft and ineffectual. Barger once again cost us a precious extra out by being absent minded on, or near second base. D’oh! What a way to have to go to a game seven. Losing 3-1, at home. It was a stinker. But a round of applause for the pitching staff, they kept us in the fight, and made us competitive. I pray we don’t go 23 innings to lose by one run tonight, and have to give up the series after all this hard work! I don’t think my heart could take it! No! I will stay strong. Maintain the faith in this team. I believe!
In other news it’s Saturday, and last night was Halloween, and the game six of the world series. The kids had fun, got lots of candy. Handed some out to friends, and went to a friend’s house to watch a movie. Not only that but with all the driving 8 had to do I didn’t wind up with any sugar addled kids under my car. I hate driving after dark on Halloween, too many kids out on the streets being goofy.
We also had at least fifteen to twenty kids, teens, youths come by, which is great. It’s hard to gauge how many we will get because some years it’s only one or two, and other years it’s more than forty. So either the candy dries up before the kids do, or we are left with full boxes of candy to deal with for months after the holiday. With no rhyme or reason as to which quantity of kids we’ll get. Huh.
Now I need to air out & dry off all of the inflatables. Dump out the collected water, and gear up to store them for another year. Guide wire, stakes, extension cords and the timers all need to be sorted out and stored too. Somewhere close, because the Christmas Lights will need to go up on the next delightful day in November. There is no guarantee of how many of those we will get, so I have to jump on the first one available. My guess is it’ll be a day when work gets busy again, just to spite me! Ha. Life um… Finds a way.
Not going to fib, I am bummed the Jays weren’t able to dig deep for some runs last night. That’s going to sting a little, early on today until I can get past it. No matter, on to bigger and better things. Ciao Bella!
Costumes, candies, decorations and so much more…big yeah! Game six of the World Series where the Blue Jays could (potentially) take the whole damn thing! Best of luck carving pumpkins and navigating around town with so many additional pedestrians afoot.
Naturally all of the extended families junk was piled both on top of, and in front of the only object I needed to grab. Not going to lie I did swear a bit when the snowblower that only rolls backwards in neutral was facing the wrong direction to be easily moved. Trapped in place by a boat on a trailer, three rabbit hutches, a planter, and two wheel barrows and a buggy of some sort. All heavy. Not to mention the doors to the barn were a bitch to open with all of the frost, rain, debris and overgrown grasses. I was displeased. But! I did uncover the wheelchair, and get it to fit inside our van. So first problems solved. Chair was found, cleaned, and brought back to our neighbours for future use. It is now pouring with rain so I have the chair stashed in our garage. Not ideal, but should be fine for at least one day. Any longer and you risk the pests burrowing into the seat and ruining the foam.
Not going to lie, it was hard on my back, and it made my fingers go numb, but we did finish a new full row, plus plant a second half row to finish off the garlic for the year. Well, at least the hard neck stuff. Soft neck has to go in slightly differently, so I’m told, so we didn’t do any of that — yet.
I took the dog for a quick walk about after we finished with the planting. Which is always fun. I checked on my wood piles to see if any logs had dried up over the last four or five days. I had to turn some rounds to get them to drain, and hopefully dry out a bit better so that I can split them more easily. Wet wood is far too spongy. It absorbs the blows from the axe, and then the wood gets all chewed up, but doesn’t really come apart. So I took a few moments to turn a couple logs, make my life a bit easier.
The dog and I also walked the fields to pull up more stones, rocks and such. I got more than a handful of eight to ten pounders this morning. I have six or seven good piles to removed if I can locate a sturdy bucket, and a side by side with which to transport them all. Might take a number of trips to get all the piles relocated. Better in a culvert than in the fields banging up the farm equipment. I’d love to have a few hours to go through the whole field, but I’m ok walking a few strips on foot, and carrying out armfuls or rocks manually. I’m just trying to be nice. If nobody else wants to do it, I can leave it be, farm equipment be damned. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
I do believe it is Wednesday today. We took four days to go to Niagara Falls for a short family vacation. Did all of the things we wanted too. Had lovely (if cool) weather for it. No noticeable rain while we were out and about. That’s all one can hope for these days. Couldn’t go south to the US, as the weather in the Keys looks like it might dissolve into a category five hurricane. No thank you. I feel bad for the Caribbean, and Jamaica who’ve been hit hard by **Melissa already. Just ugly. (**Name edited from previously mentioned Marie, which was incorrect.)
But now I’m all washed, dried, and have had breakfast. I need to do some household chores, and return some items back to the garage. Happy Wednesday. Go Blue Jays!
It was a nice brief and quiet portion to our otherwise raucous vacation spent in Ontario. The girls loved the gift shop (as per usual) and we got a great family photo as well.
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