Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

Playing a full eighteen holes today. Let us pray that it doesn’t get brain meltingly hot. I do not wish to sweat through my shorts, nor pass out on the fairway. Playing at a new (to me) course I have never been to. The last time I played through a full eighteen was a day or two before I got married, about fifteen years ago now. I have gone out to play some nine hole par threes since then, but that’s more akin to the driving range, followed by some mini putt. This will have some serious yardage to cover. Could be a real shit show!

I had hoped to warm up at the driving range first, but that seems very unlikely now. I should have gone out yesterday to do that sort of pregame warm up. Too late for that! We will just have to go in rusty, and dry. Should be a real show stopper when I pull a muscle, a limp home wounded. Ha!

I had best eat and find a bottled beverage to take with me to stay hydrated during this sun soaked adventure. Find a hat, and sun glasses too. Sun screen and maybe a fan, a portable AC unit, a pool, or a slip n’ slide, among other game day essentials. Wish us luck!

**UPDATE: it was incredibly hot today, and the humidex put the heat up into the high thirties Celsius. By hole three I had begun to sweat through both my socks, shoes, and shorts, as well as shirt. I was spectacularly bad as I knew I would be. I managed one par, for the 18th hole, which was a par three. I had the drive of my life, and a solid roll to get up onto the green, and a two putt to make me forget how awful I was on the prior seventeen holes. I gifted the course a half dozen balls, and the rough gave me back five other balls in return. I busted five tees, and drank four Gatorade zeros to finish no where near the course record. Fun time had by all. I seem to say this a lot but next time we should go when it’s cooler outside. I’d like to try a foursome and have my wife play along too. All in all it took us a hair shy of four hours in the blazing hot sun. Although the breeze was hot, it was welcome once shaded under the canopy of the courses trees.

My father in law rescued a beaten up trampoline from the side of the highway about three or four years ago and we have tried time and again to get it assembled. But parts were broken, it needed welding in places, and we couldn’t understand the design. Fast forward to yesterday and with some new parts, and a mitre saw and four of us bending, pulling, and reefing on these fiberglass rods we did finally manage to get it assembled,along with the safety netting, and positioned onto the sand pit. Where it will stay until it dies a heat death. That is all.

But it has long since been forgotten, or perhaps it will be repeated by the only other person listening; to a raucous round of applause, and laughter obviously. I don’t write punchlines, I live jests that carve deep. Hewn from the bone by a life lived, and felt, most deeply. Am I sensitive to it still? Yes. Do I make a meal of it all? Often. But only when alone with my thoughts. Just desserts you may wonder? A pun? In this economy, you must be madder than a shit house rat. More like a little known chess move aptly named “the elephant mans emission“. Loud, sloppy, and so much more than a person could handle. You feel that? Slipping through your fingers. That’s time, and you have a finite amount of it, and no one can see their own hour glass to know how exacting they should be when delegating their allotted time out. It’s rough out there for a cowboy. Ride a donkey. Or the neighbours wife I don’t recall how that idiom goes.

Absurdity is a pass time of mine. For brief injections of fun only. Used sparingly. Sprinkle on your breakfast, or mix it into your favourite drink. Not for use with existentialism or nihilism. May cause drowsiness or disdain in others. Sleep well.

Tuesday is upon us. That means library runs for both kids today. And on a more sombre note, Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of the passing of my friend and her daughter. I think of them both often. I still dread going into the summer months for fear of losing more friends, and their offspring. We did lose Great Grandma but at 97, and struggling with dementia it was all but a certainty. My friend was out of the blue, and had not been struggling in an LTC for nearly five years. They hit differently. Listen to me ramble, I need to eat. Ciao Bella!

He is just too cute for words. What a lovely puppers. At least when he is asleep that is. Ha!

Welcome to Monday, and guess what? I’m wearing a sweater if all things. At certain points so far this summer I never thought I would be cold ever again! The gear waves last longer, and longer, and longer. Who knew we could of had cool, nay, cold temperatures in July. I was starting to think that was a myth or a misremembered memory.

Woke up to a hot breakfast of toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs. Tight! That’s one way to start a Monday. Let us keep this groovy ball rolling somehow. I even partook of a brief work out this morning too. Haven’t run yet, but I’m building up to that.

Have a good day all.

Thank the gods the weather has turned cool for a brief spell, because that heat was becoming untenable. The house was finally given a reprieve from the heat. We could once again rely solely on open windows, and screen doors to keep the house comfortable to be in from sun up to sun down. Makes me glad I took the time to build a window screen for the kitchen, and add a screen door to the back of the house. Oddly enough our home is particularly well situated to capitalize on most breezes that blow passed the house, but on occasion it is right on target, and woah! Chef’s kiss. It’s amazing. I know why it isn’t, because in the winter our house would freeze solid in the wind tunnel that is our neighbourhood.

I do need to go work for a bit today, try to stay on top of the latest report I’m charging through. Also I have multiple meetings this week to attend virtually. One tonight, and one on Tuesday evening. I think I will parley those evening hours into a round of golf on Thursday. Haven’t decided on whether that will be just none holes, or a full eighteen. We will see how the week progresses. I haven’t managed to get out to the driving range at all, so Lord knows how awful my game is going to be with no practice beforehand. Hell, I haven’t even done any mini putt to shore up my short game! It’s going to be chaos out on those greens! A blood bath of snowman after snowman on the score sheets. Pray you don’t get placed behind us.

I’m a driver, none iron, and putter sort of player. I’m solid on a course full of par threes, but I have no delusions of grandeur out on the fairway. Just as likely to crank my ball into a pond, as I am to connect straight up the middle. Consistent I am not, at least where golf is concerned.

I am currently eating a medley of Cinnamon toast crunch and Nestle Quick chocolate puff balls, and the flavour is…different. not in a bad way, but something my taste buds are having difficulty trying to parse. You see, I didn’t have enough of the Nestle puffs to make a decent breakfast, and so I opened a new box of CTC. Do I toss the unfulfilling quantity of puffs and start a new with the CTC, or just dump them both in, and give it a whirl? Yeah,cso cheapo me dumped them together and now my tongue is lost in left field of flavour town.

Making their own dam on the back lane to keep themselves out of harms way. Which is nice!

We ventured back here yesterday for a three hour rip through the last six or so rows of garlic in patch two. This time we used a tractor and a specially built plough to lift the bulbs mechanically, and then all we had to do was walk in afterwards and pick them up from where they lay. It still took us three hours because that was a tonne of garlic y’all. Couple thousand bulbs at least. Needless to say that both my back, and my hamstrings don’t feel so hot today. Rough night’s sleep also. Fetch my Voltaren! Stat!

So now I’m on water duty refilling the children’s dam so they can splash around with their odd little plastic toys. Plus they get to muck about with rocks, and get lots of fresh air all together. Cousins for the early Friday morning win!

I’m going to head home to begin my next report, so it’s good to get out early, walk the dog, and be active before I camp out in front of my computer for the rest of the day. I believe we have two more birthday parties this weekend. So more driving and festivities to attend on both Saturday, and on Sunday too. The dog is excited at least, even if I’m less enthused.

But to end on a high note, my interaction with the garlic patches has officially come to an end this year. Next up will be onions, sweet corn, apples, peaches and tomatoes, as well as peppers. There’s enough to make a variety of salsas if you were so inclined!

Speaking of which, I found a bunch of sealed jars of peach jam, and salsa from 2015 in a kitchen upper cupboard, and woof! Was that stuff ripe once opened. I poured it out into a green bin bag outside because the jams were pretty nasty. Smelled like old dirty feet. Salsa wasn’t too bad due to the acidity of the vinegar. But we can recycle at least ten glass jars, and I saved the pressure cooker resealable jars & tops. Made more room to organize the tupper ware, and get more minor items off the kitchen counter. I tossed some old kiddie drinking containers that were mouldy and beyond salvage. I’ve had a productive week with house organization. The purge lives on!

I rounded up a whole lot of busted household tech to go to the waste centre next week. Cleaning closets, and the basement for the next influx of “stuff & things“. I also cleared a couple bags of clothes too. I am on a roll. I can see the shelves once again in the laundry room too. If I could just get around to the paint cans under the basement stairs I would be nearly finished with the biggest offenders. I know we have a tonne of previous tenant junk in the attic that was just left behind, which I’ve never touched. Maybe that could be passed along with the house if we ever sell, or pass away. Too hot right now to be up in the rafters looking to move old carpets and shit. I’m sure there will always be something that bothers me in the house. Can’t get to everything, all at once. A slow steady drip has served me well thus far.

Also the results are never as stellar as I tell myself they will be once I actually follow through and remove an irritant object(s) from the house. I know in the long run it is better for us all, I just wish it felt more fulfilling to see the end result. Well, I guess it does feel good to see, and know it’s done, but I could do with a game-ified leveling up gold shimmer and new heightened stats or something. I don’t really know.

Any who, happy Friday. Ciao Bella!

Trying to do good deeds but the rains they follow me and pour all over the farm fields when I only have so much time to devote to farm work. One good thing is that these last few rains have been only four days apart so no need to water here for another four day stretch! And that’s a good thing.

Radar said rain at noon, then it was eleven, and by the time we got away from the house at 9:30 am it was already starting to drizzle, and drip-drop pretty consistently. All good for the farm vegetation. Makes pulling the garlic that much easier. Makes the deeper rooted weeds come up a whole lot easier too. Now we’re talking my love language, reduction of obstacles to achieve success. Booyah!

Unfortunately given the amount that has just fallen the ground will be far too mucky to work in. Yes, I work in a first world pace of my own making. This is unpaid labour at the family farm, so I help out, but I’m no hero. I’m not going full tilt in these temperatures for funsies. I don’t believe I would go full tilt even if being paid to work. I’d likely try to find a sustainable level of output, and do that for as long as possible in-between back aches, leg cramps, and muscle soreness.

The storm seems to have lowered the current temperature by a few degrees, it’s not much but it’s better than it was. Still not down into the low twenties yet where you could comfortably turn off the AC and have your windows & doors open to a cool breeze. This has been a very intensely warm early summer so far. By God has it been continuously hot for a while now with hardly any breaks.

The fields still have standing pools of water in them, so I think our time here is drawing to a close, at least for the morning. Maybe later this afternoon we can traverse these fields, and garlic patches. We do have to get it up and out of the ground before too much longer though. Can’t have 18,000 garlic bulbs left to rot.

I usually late to the game here as far as television programming is concerned, but I saw The Pitt, Murder Bot, Andor Season Two, and a few other items right as they came out. So I’m not that far behind the wave, but I do have to say I like the first season of Shrinking a good deal. I binge watched it over Monday & Tuesday this week. I did a lot of the cleaning & purging in the house while my wife, children, and dog were away, so I had the time and the television to myself for long stretches.

My problem is that some “great shows” are just too long. I want an exceptional 2 or 3 seasons and that’s it. Enough to become invested in, but not forget what’s happened from season to season. Ten to twelve episodes seasons, about forty two minutes long per episode, with likeable characters. Think Ted Lasso, rather than deeply problematic people cheating on one another, of fueling blood soaked revenge stories. I want heart, character growth, and relatable events. A single shed tear wouldn’t go amiss here either.

Although Murder Bot had some physical violence in it, it was still a sweet story at its core. Plus I really liked the Martha Wells book series, so I was ready for the murder portion, and the sarcasm. Well crafted. Waiting for seasons two & three! Excited.

Looks like we’re at Wednesday, middle of the week. Hump day even. I have more laundry on the go. I uncovered enough cardboard to fill another large blue bin, so I’m ready to empty that one day after recycling has all ready gone out for the week. Which sucks. I didn’t think of the cardboard hoard we had stashed away until I was cleaning in the basement, then it turned out we had far more than I was anticipating. Ready to go out now, so no harm no foul. Wish I’d have thought of it on Monday instead of late on Tuesday evening. No matter. Can’t change that now.

I have managed to clear some space on the laundry room shelves. Which is pretty nice. All I keep thinking about is how awful it’s going to be for our kids to have to empty this place out once we pass. Hopefully not for decades into the future, but still. I like to have ownership of what gets tossed.  At some point even “the good stuff” I keep will be little more than an added headache for my kids when they get into their 50’s and 60’s. But I don’t have it in me to get rid of everything I have spent my life collecting, curating, and crafting.

I keep coming back to this because my parents recently moved — again. I think for the 23rd of 24th time or perhaps more than that now. But they continue to lug around boxes, and cases of things. Stuff they rarely ever unpack. By their seventies they need kitchen wares, a suitcase of clothes each, a handful of knick knacks , and a shelf full of books, and a tv, and only the most essential physical media items they can’t live without. It shouldn’t be a 53 footer full to the rafters with every considerable item under the sun. International travel is out for them (health reasons, and no chance of getting travel insurance) so you can ditch the Hawaii wear, and anything related to the tropics. My dad has early vascular dementia so he won’t need power tools and any major equipment anymore. Besides DVD’s and dog stuff they should be able to fit in a cube van quite comfortably at this point. Bed & mattress should be the largest item they own. No need for a ten seater dining room table, and a kitchen table, and all that jazz. Pare it down while it’s still your choice.vsell items if you can to fund a new skimmer, lighter television. That’s my advice.

Every time I look in my closet I think of items I never wear, and should donate to friends or strangers who would actually benefit from it. I do not know if I will ever return to an office again. For client meetings, certainly. But not to go work day in, and day out. I need a suitable set of clothes for an occasional wedding, and for funerals. I gave up on the corporate ladder climbing rat race more than a decade ago. I don’t know much of anything that could get me to go back to commuting four hours a day, and working seventy hours a week, plus weekends once more.

Maybe if my book(s) got optioned for a TV mini series or an anthology movie by multiple directors I could snag an office to be on site to help answer questions, and see how the sausage gets made. But beyond that, I don’t see much beyond a threat of destitution and poverty leading me back into that lifestyle ever again.

But look at me, rambling and being introspective. Damn you Shrinking!

So yesterday I jumped right out of the gates as the girls left, to go find one additional bag of trash to go out to the curb for garbage day. I did a big one by filling a colossal construction bag full of old curtains I was keeping (of my mother’s from the 90’s), a broken chest, two busted back packs, and ripped gift bags, shredded gift tissue packing paper, and some old Christmas cards from about five years ago or more. Plus some random litter from the main floor to round out the bag. Which was a terrific start.

I cleaned various metal scraps from out of the shed, and the garage which was gone before I finished shutting the garage, and then the shed too. Some industrious fellow swung by in an Aztec and swooped it all up. Nice. I get more space, they get my junk, we are all happy.

Then I turned my eye towards a basement closet with two massive bags of clothes. Some of which was size 6, and 7 so nobody here can wear those, immediately expelled from the premises. Then I had to sort for larger 7/8 items for the fall and winter. I kept anything that was an 8/9 or above, provided it wasn’t ripped, torn, perma-dirty with stains, or not to my kids taste. Though, that is evolving as they grow, so I might need to take a keener eye to what they gravitate towards, and that which they avoid. Might need to recalibrate! Potentially. Either way, I mulled it all over and kept one much smaller, albeit overflowing bag of clothes for the youngest. The rest I drove to the donation boxes first thing this morning.

I took a detour to the inlaws and their neighbours to walk the trash & recycling down to the curb for them. Now that I have eaten I will go try some garlic removal for a short while.

I did some last minute edits on my report, and sent that off this morning as well. All in all a successful hour has gone by already. I might need to nap later today. I’m off to the garlic patch to try to finish the last row, and a bit before the sun peaks overhead. Ciao Bella!

**UPDATE:  I managed to get down to the garlic patch for 8:30 am, and it was already nearing 30°C on its way to feeling more like forty with the humidex added in on top. I started from the bottom, and did 60% of two rows side by side. Same variety of garlic so it didn’t really matter that I crossed multiple rows. The ground has begun to dry out after the last 1.5″ of rainfall we had on Sunday morning. So I did the lower lying stuff that I could pull up more easily. I left the top 40% of each row for my brother in-law to do himself later on today when he goes down to rota-till his old strawberry patch. As you can see from the photo, the weeds outshine the garlic by about 36 inches over and above. A tad prickly! The mosquitoes seem to love being in there as well. I left my bug spray in the other vehicle, so my 90 minutes of pulling was unpleasant. I did not go swim afterwards, I showered instead.

***UPDATE TWO:  in keeping with my desire to get rid of busted crap and replacing it with already purchased items, still in the box, but currently in storage. I am going to tackle our plates & bowls shortage. The set we got for our wedding has seen a number of breaks over the last fifteen years. So now I will open up, wash, and rotate in a new set of four, and rotate out my old bachelor sets,band out those back in the basement kitchen as part of our emergency reserve, along with all the bottled water, safety kits, and long term dry goods storage. It won’t be a readily noticeable improvement, but I’ll know about it, and will be pleased. Moving on!