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Boy is it a hot one today, even at 9:00am the fields were heating up under the July sun. What was a sloppy soupy mess of mud on Friday is now rock hard, dried out concrete. Neither is really great for pulling up whole bulbs of garlic with their necks attached. I knew I should have stick to my guns and continue used on Saturday. Now it’s really slow going, hotter, and the ground has pulled my forks apart.

I’m going to have to wear steel toed boots with sole protectors in order to be able to put an appropriate amount of force on my forks to drive them into the ground. As my ceoc’s weren’t cutting it today. Great for easy clean up, terrible for stamping force on a localized spot. No wonder my soles hurt late yesterday, now I understand why.

With 18 rows, and nearly 300 bulbs per row we will likely be at this for quite some time if we can’t get the Plough figured out for this tightly spaced harvesting job. I need to repair my forks now too. They’ve pulled put of the handle. So a drill, and a bolt, and maybe some epoxy might be in order. I say that but I’ve just had a major project in, and I need to go start that after lunch is over. I could be at it for 3 or more days just to get my first rough pass at it completed. So I’ll need to pause my farm help to complete my paid day job.

Today is Tuesday July 23rd, 2024. A year ago today my friend and her daughter died in a tragic atv accident. It feels both very recent, and like it happened a life time ago. We celebrated what would have been a sixth birthday surreptitiously, so as to not draw too much attention to it with the kids in attendance. Striking the right balance between remembered and not dwelling in the past is rather more difficult than I care to elucidate right now. Grief is a terrible, all consuming thing. Survivors guilt is its own beast, and I would not wish that upon any nine year old child, ever.

But onwards and upwards. Lunch is done, time to get down to work. Ciao Bella!

Spent the weekend mostly alone with our new puppy, and you know what? I’m exhausted. No word of a lie. I must be sleeping like shit to feel this way. I think I can sense the puppy moving about in my room at night, and I’m not falling entirely to sleep. Looking forward to a time when he can be left unattended to sleep on the main floor, rather than at the foot of my bed where I can hear every yawn, stretch, scratch, harrumph, and puppy fart. The jingle jangle of the collar cuts right into my ears at night. Good thing he’s cute, because he is a whole lot of incidental bother.

In other news I got to watch a whole lot of The Grand Tour uninterrupted. Which was very pleasant. Seasons four got fewer episodes, but each one feels like a 90 minute movie. I had given some though to immediately rewatching Clarkson’s Farm, but I can give that a few weeks or a month.

I took my oldest daughter to a birthday party filled with her ten year old Male classmates and they were absolute savages. My kids are no angels, but this was madness. No wonder her former grade four teacher never took those boys on field trips. They were a menace. Scaling walls, jumping from balconies, fighting, screaming, disappearing out onto the grounds, putting their meals into their faces on a dare. It was bizzare. Gentle parenting gone awry, or is it so passive now that it’s borderline neglect? I was ready to burst at the seams. BUT, I remembered it’s not my circus, not my monkeys, and I could walk away and sit down in the shade, as I was there just to make my daughter feel safe, and not to police twelve ten year old boys. Went a lot smoother after that. For me at least. Ha.

Stay healthy out there.

My wife went north for the weekend with our children so that they could go to a paleontologist symposium at a library near the cottage. It’s the dream job my oldest is fixated on, digging up dinosaur bones, that is. The fellow from Drumheller out of Alberta brought physical samples which they could look at, examine & touch. My eldest daughter was thrilled, the youngest was bored about 30 minutes in. No surprise there. I hope it gave her some meaningful insights into the job, and the educational requirements needed to pursue that line of work. Scouting for bones out in the badlands sounds like fun, atleast initially. Perhaps not long term, atleast to me. But if she can forge her own happy path, do be it.

She has a sharp eye for finding pottery shards in the fields at the farm. Has a fairly large collection from just this summer alone. Still early weeks yet. We collect metal bits, like bolts, springs, ruined horse shoes, broken cultivator tines, tractor parts, you name it. Plus we are constantly pulling out fist sized rocks, and stones, and the occasional forearm length mini boulder. I don’t know how to classify the size of rocks/stones. That space above pebble/stone, but not quite into the 20lb rock/boulder(?) Category. Heavy enough but not yet back breaking, if that makes any kind of sense. But I digress.

I did not dig up any garlic yesterday, and no real plans for it today either. I might get a jump on some projects that came in during the early evening on Friday. I said I’d start Monday morning, but I could get two of the three out of the way if I do an hour or two today. Why place all that strain on Monday morning, if I have the time now. It is, after all, just the pup and me at home. He’s a layabout, so it shouldn’t bother him if I work early today on a print ad for a client. He’s been a bit mopey since the kids went north. We still had two decent walks, and a lot of cuddle/vegetable/couch time while I watched The Grand Tour season 4 on tv yesterday evening. Graham, the puppy, will well know Jeremy Clarkson’s voice by now. He’s been present while I sat through all three seasons of Clarkson’s Farm, and now getting around to the last season and a bit of GT.

Sunday is here again. The family birthdays are all done for the moment. We have a children’s party this afternoon to attend over at the local Mini Putt, so that should be fun. Otherwise nothing much on the radar activity wise for another week or so.  This concludes week three of summer vacation. Nearly halfway through. Doesn’t take long to get the ball rolling, and then it barrels full steam ahead! Ciao Bella!

Right on the cusp of feeling as though I could throw up. I think we had a bad bit of rotisserie chicken last night, as my wife feels kinda off too. Not going to lie, I feel this way a lot, so I cannot pin point the chicken sandwich I made as the culprit, but it did sit on the top of my stomach for a long while, which I wasn’t to crazy about.

I think the garlic harvesting has done a number on my back. That or sitting on the curb at the park for nearly two hours to watch the symphony under the stars has done my body no favours. It was pleasant enough. We could pick out one very pitchy trumpet, and a lady singer whom is best served being part of a much larger choir rather than a soloist. Otherwise enjoyable. The alcoholic beverage sales by Muddy York should have been pretty good last night, thanks in part to the LCBO strike. Cornered the market with a captive audience.

I believe it is now Saturday. Yesterday was my sister in laws birthday, but she has Covid, so no celebration. And today is my brother in laws birthday, and he is either off to the cottage, or otherwise engaged downtown, so no celebration there either. Easy-peasy. I do need to take my daughter to a birthday party tomorrow evening, but otherwise we are free from obligation to attend just about anything. Whee!

We took the new puppy out for some people/dog exposure and he performed admirably. I’ll count that as a success. He whined a little as the kids left for the park, but was cool, calm and mostly collected for the 2 hours we were there to listen to orchestral music.

Still looking better than last years crop. Busy & hot in the sun though. Digging up 18 rows of 300 bulbs is tough on the back. Forks to the rescue! Would prefer to have a machine to help, but it’s not a huge patch, so we’ll live.

Doesn’t take long to get a number of days under your heels once summer kicks off. With the new puppy, life has gotten a bit hectic as of late. Getting skunked the other day added a level of panic I could have done without, but in relation to other people’s problems we are doing just fine. More of an inconvenience than anything else. I do have to take him to the vet tomorrow so I’m sure that will lighten my wallet a fair bit. I’m sure they’ll find something he needs, or “should” have beyond flea and tick meds, and a course of heart worm pills. Just you watch.

I think today is Thursday, if I’m not mistaken. Dog wanted out for a pee before six this morning, and it was positively cool outdoors. A sweater was required and everything. Funny as it was in the mid thirties not 12 hours ago when I cut the lawn – again. Having nearly 5 inches of rain in July has kept the grass green, and growing like mad. Usually by July 1st it’s this beige, tan, yellow crispy wispy tangle of crunchy stuff. Not so much these last two years anyway. Doing wonders for the grape vine though, I will say that much. Raspberries seem to like the humidity and rain a whole lot too. Maybe not if it continues, but they’ve soaked in a lot of rain, and hot sun for full effect.

Looking towards going to see Deadpool 3 with my wife at some point in the near future. I hope it is a fun time, and not just cameos and inside jokes. I do need dome kind of a story/plot to keep things moving along. I haven’t been to the movies in quite some time. Was going to take the kids to Inside Out 2, and Kung Fu Panda 4, and something else, but it never panned out. Plus my seven year old still won’t sit for 90-120 minutes to watch something new. So to pay nearly $100.00 for movie tickets and snacks for the four of us seems unreasonable. Not if the youngest will ask to leave 30 minutes in. Fun, fun, fun.

I think there should be a new Alien movie out sometime soon aswell. I have purposefully not followed the production, and trailers so that I can enjoy it as fresh as possible. Usually I follow along too closely, and hear all the inside hot gos, and then have no surprises left to experience. Trying to move away from that sort of thing. I’m also less, and less inclined to follow the Marvel cinematic output machine, in favour of just watching the few I really want to see. I think I have five or six tv series I have yet to look at, and atleast 3 Marvel tent pole movies I have not watched. And weirdly enough, no fomo. Growing up I guess.

I recently ordered a book called “The left hand of darkness” by an author that recently died. Supposed to be her best work, or one of anyway. Looking forward to it. Still dragging my feet on finishing the Don Winslow book. Waiting on another book to come in August or September.

After a mid evening walk with the new puppy taken later than usual because of our family photos on the beach in Keswick we finally returned home, to which I left the puppy in the backyard. Innocently – at that. To immediately hear barking, and see the pesky black & white stink weasel up against our house. I called to Graham, but he was enchanted. Sprayed square in his dumb little black fuzzy puppy face at point blank range. Whole house smells of it. After a 90 mi ute bath, with soaps, shampoos, and finally a hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap mixture he was bearable to be around without watering eyes. One of his ears is still pretty rank where I’ve missed a spot, but he made out ok, for a dog that doesn’t like water or bathing that is. Now we start the long process of making the rest of the house not stink to high heaven. Ugh!

We didn’t even have him for a full week yet, and he got skunked. So smelly. Burns the nostrils and throat. On the wind is one thing. Driving by road kill is one thing. To have it full throated inside your home unendingly is another thing entirely. My room, bathroom combo just stinks where I bathed him repeatedly last night. Washed a fair few loose hairs off of him too. We didn’t think he was much of a shedder. That was a silly thing to think.

Although on the plus side, he did well in his crate, seems to like it. Goes in to lie down unprompted, and has a good chew session with toys in there by himself. So that was good to see. And I think we will have some lovely family photos for our Christmas cards this year. Because we were on a beach we didn’t bring Graham (the dog) as we didn’t want locals getting huffy about a dog on the beach. Keswick locals, especially where we were, have been known to be vocal about such things. So we felt it best to be avoided. Turned out fine for all of us. Happily.

On the note of the crate, I do not recall it feeling quite so large. Now I realize the new pup is smaller than our old dog, but the house feels tiny around the cage. My only thought is, is that we used the crate before we had kids, so our house wasn’t nearly as cluttered, and we were out at work for 9-12 hours a day, and didn’t see it nearly as much. Now I work from home, we have two more little humans in the house with us, plus all of their stuff. Feels a bit cramped in here now! The crate is easily 2ft wide, 3ft tall, and 4ft long. The fact it’s a white cage means you can see through it, so not a major visual block, but it takes up considerable real estate. Good thing is it’s large enough for four of our current dog to lie down in it comfortably all together. So very roomy for Graham. It was much tighter for our previous dog I can tell you that much.

Yeeees…. more power! Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm has been on in my home the last few nights, and I for one am having a blast with it. Funny, and informative. The presence of the pandemic, and the EU Brexit fiasco are both brought into sharp relief and the local farms all suffer from those events. Illuminating.

As of today I am most of the way through season two, with perhaps two episodes left, possibly three to round out season two. Once I get through the third season we will have to find something g else to watch. Could try going back to the Grand Tour, also on Prime. Or find something else entirely. I find my attention wavers quite a bit as of late if I am not 100% interested in the content I am watching. I could more easily watch some chosen by me YouTubers whom build things I’m more interested in.

Clarkson’s Farm hits because with my wife’s uncle now dead, the farming itself has become more close to us. So good to know an item or two, if only in passing. Not that I would be able to do more than shuffle a tractor about, or pull a trailer from one place on the farm to another while those more knowledgeable did the actual work. I’ll help where and how I can.

A very rainy Tuesday around these parts today. I slept poorly with some intestinal distress which woke the puppy up, who then decided he wanted to be up and awake at 3:00am and would not settle, nor stop whining, nor stop barking at shadows like an idiot. Not at my best today. Bit of a grump if I’m being honest. And on that bomb shell, ciao bella!

Although our new puppy likes to get up before seven. Actually today he tried to get up before six am and I said “Hell no!”, and immediately fell back to sleep. But, rather than have him mess on my bedroom floor I took him out for a pee, and a walk before seven am just in case. And I wish he could sleep until atleast 8:00am, because now I feel miserable, and tired, and most of all grumpy. Bah!

It could also be that I was out of the house yesterday from 9:45am, until almost 7:00pm before I got home again. I took my kids to a three hour long indoor play place play date. I ended up taking a friends child home with us, plus one other to try and swim before the weather turned. We were able to paddle about for 30 minutes before it became too precarious over top of us, so all of the children went into the basement to play with all of the Nerf guns and such. I had the other parents around for pick-up and chats over pizza too. So my social battery was cooked after all that.

I am however glad that the kids were able to play, and left us to chat and sit in relative peace for a couple of hours throughout the day. That I did like. The kids ran, screamed for joy, shouted in unison, and made themselves play all sorts of games. Very happy to see them smile.

But now, I very much want to sleep the day away. But, I can’t.  I need to work in order to prepare for tonights meeting. Oh well. Happy Monday.