What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
Rewind time by 10 minutes. Once a year. It’s not so much that I get myself into a paradox. When I make a BAAAAAD decision, I can stop the madness or insane storyline. Oddly specific answer? Yep. August 2025 has been a very complicated and stressful month here on the rock farm. I, PRN, made some big errors on the farm. I hurt people’s feelings and I take responsibility for it. Thankfully, the only item broken was a chainsaw bar… and those items are readily available at Hastie Small Engine Repair (in Springmount, Ontario [~5 minutes north of Owen Sound]). Now, I’m living with the consequences of a damaged relationship with a neighbour in my community. It’s a painful dynamic. My written apologies to the family were inadequate. They’re telling TS that I’m solely to blame for all the August drama. Well, fuck. I can’t abide that position.
A wonderful ex-colleague (now full-time, long-distance friend [you rock, DAG, and have a standing invitation to our farm]) C.Y.W. …reminded me: “peopling is exhausting”. 100% fucking amen to that.
MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2025.
Despite that tempest, I’m enjoying my time on the North Bruce Peninsula. TS has 10 Ha of space to do some heavy-duty forest gardening. I have 25 acres (~10 Ha) of land to remediate and make more resilient to future extreme weather events. TS took time off from selling dog biscuits and focused on other hobbies and passions. There’s only 2.5 more stacks of construction waste and 2024-era unsplit firewood to be removed and then the ShelterLogic can be assembled.
I have to figure out what to do with a small mountain of water-logged, painted particle board. It’s damaged IKEA and CALIFORNIA CLOSET hardware.
- Reuse it? Nope, too late for its original use. The fibers soaked up the water and are now warped.
- Microplastics, microscopic latex paint pieces – fate? Some of the painted surface is peeling off. These paint chips are contaminating local soil. I was going to lay it down as a foundation for wood-chip beds. I’d then entomb the paint chips and let microbiological action digest it. This paint is latex, not marine paint so there’s no anti-fouling agents embedded within it. Will dry paint decompose? If I’m adding additional polymers (microplastics) to the environment. That’s wrong.
- Entomb it on my own land? I won’t pass-the-buck nor kick the problem down the line. Do something!
- Burn it? Well, that is a possibility. It’ll be releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I’m already releasing too many carbon-compounds into the environment. Which is worse:
- burn it and release it right away.
- Entomb it: sequester it and let it be released slowly into the biosphere.
- Send it to the dump and let my municipality bury it? I pay for its disposal… cradle-to-grave, yes?
- I have no idea whether the North Bruce is doing cutting edge effluent management practices.
- The dumps I’ve seen have no sludge collection systems nor methane processing.
- They just cover it with a dome of water-impermeable clay, hope it doesn’t burp, and move on.
TS & PN spent the morning repurposing the construction crates for firewood sales. I got stung several times by an angry wasp. TS had to hustle away from a pile of metal roofing — as there was a fist-size hornest test suspended under a sheet. 1 particularly heavy shipping crate was moved to the forest garden. We’ll use scrap lumber to enclose its sides and make it deeper. The crate can become a large raised bed and be modified to accept 1-2 metre root balls.
We were able to get on a physician’s wait list in Lion’s Head — and we were told it will be a long wait. In the meantime, we were advised to visit the Lion’s Head hospital for urgent care and keep our existing doctor back in Toronto (thank you Taddle Creek Health Team).
Despite me having an EXCELLENT credit report on Equifax Canada, my credit card company slashed my credit limit from $11500 to $700. Zero defaults. >30 year customers with BMO. Balances paid in full. Line of Credit. Free title on our rock farm. RRSP, teacher’s pension, and a portfolio. I’m an independent contractor with TS’ company. And now this insult?!
The credit card call centre agent did her best to support me. But now, the case gets escalated to a more senior agent. We’re waiting for a call centre manager to return our phone call to figure out what the hell’s going on. TS is backing me up and will go nuclear on them if they still can’t give specific reasons why my credit card was slashed like that. I have a printout of my credit report and can send it to the lending institution. I value my credit rating, and have spent decades building it up.The credit card company kneecapped me. Why? Stay tuned…
TS is doing hand-to-CriCut combat while we wait for our 2005 Toyota Echo to be towed to the service centre. Unfortunately, we downgraded our CAA membership while in the city and are now having to pay ~$200 (plus tax) to get it towed to the Wiarton Service Centre. Our basic CAA coverage is for 10 km of towing… and then $4.50/km thereafter. We’re 64 km from the garage! The garage predicts a $300 job to see whether this car can be made roadworthy again. As long as the total repair costs are less than new car payments, we’ll proceed with the clown-car-repairs. I love my Echo and it’s fun to drive.
CriCut… what’s that, you say? This is a robotic flat-sheet cutter that can be used to make vinyl labels, thermal stickers, or stencils. They’re sold at Michael’s Arts & Crafts Centre and take a certain finesse to successfully run. Or swearing at the bulky and heavy device. And there is a great deal of foul language being slung at that CriCut right now. When it works, it produces impressive results. It doesn’t have a user manual. The unit relies on subscription-services, YouTube video presentations, and influencers to showcase all the artsy-craftsy kookyness one can do with DA CRICUT.
The peninsula is on a HIGH forest fire alert. Here’s a link to our local AQI. We have 4 rain-barrels ready for firefighting. And we discovered an unintended consequence of having an all metal roof!
Our 2 floor indoor dehumidifiers produce ~100 pints (57 litres?!) of liquid water during a heatwave… in 12 hours (at most).
We’re okay today.
BCB&B, neemtree, bdb, and blog 