Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?
I can remember when I gave up on professional hockey — The Buffalo Sabres, Dominic Hasek. I’d never seen a goalie lose his temper and attack other players. Yeah, he’s part of the NHL Hall Of Fame. And I’m sure he was an excellent player. It was his hot-headedness that I found repugnant. I expect my goalies to be cool characters like Ken Dryden. Or hockey players to be technically superior, like Wayne Gretzky (((I’m ignoring his later exploits, post-NHL))).
I don’t talk about my views with my family. They look at me as though I’m insane. Fair enough. Perhaps I’ll make the time to go and watch An OHL game (apparently, Owen Sound has a popular hockey team… that’s the farm team for the NHL). Meh, it’s entertainment and a way to spend money.
thursday, february 12/26 farm report.
I helped an acquaintance with cleaning up his workshop for a move down South (somewhere, near London, Ontario). After 2 sessions, I had to step away from it as I was getting too emotionally involved with it. The guy’s pace was maddeningly slow, it’s disrespecting the limited storage space they have for the rest of the move (2 shipping containers — for their home’s entire contents), and I suspect he doesn’t understand what it means when a house sale has a closing date. Closing date is a legal obligation. When we sold our condominium on Graydon Hall Drive, we had a closing date where we gave ALL of our house keys and access door FOBs to our real estate agent. The agent then forwarded them to the other buyer and/or their agent. Once that happened, we were forbidden from re-entering the home or the property. That’s the law. The acquaintance scoffed at my comment that closing dates are legally-binding dates and he cannot return to the property later to finish removing stuff. I’ve been up since about 03:30 this morning fretting about the consequences of my acquaintances actions. He’s 70 years old and should know better. He doesn’t. He’s set in his ways and appears to be ignoring his spouse. That. That adds an additional fear for me. Will his common-law spouse have the resources to read the man the War Measures Act? If the shit hits the fan, does she have other people that can help her move out? I don’t know. And I have to let it go. There’s an elderly housecat living on the premises. I fear for the cat’s safety (((how’s that for a view of my priorities. I put more value on non-human companion animals than the owners))). It’s now 08:45 and I’m sleep deprived. I must let it go.
Our home’s fire protection and monitoring system needs maintenance. A smoke and heat detector in the e-shed lost connection with the building’s sensing unit. The sensor was exposed to about a year of chronic dust, before it failed. We have the service manual and will attempt re-setting the sensor. We have to do these repairs while warning our monitoring company so that there will not be false-alarms. If this DiY fix doesn’t work out, it’ll mean a $100-200 service call from the locksmith. That’s now 3 different sensors that have failed on us: 2 hi/low pre-set temperature sensors and a smoke detector. Some of these errors were caused by me (I gave the installer incorrect temperature setpoints) and the smoke detector was the wrong choice for an outbuilding that stores fuel pellets.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY FEBRUARY 14-15/26 VALENTINES DAY MEAL MASACRE AND FARM UPDATE.
TS was successful at the Owen Sound Farmer’s Market today. And we went out to lunch with fellow vendors-friends-acquaintances (with me having a much better quality dessert than last time).
TS and I went to a special price fixed menu at a local restaurant yesterday. On the Ferndale Flats. We made TRACKS to it. And we BEARLY made our way through the event. The steak was from a local North Bruce supplier and despite marinating it, it was poor cut of beef. I’m glad we had our steaks “rare” as it was actually grilled to “medium”. Meh, grilling steak is difficult en mass. I can’t blame the kitchen for that part of me meal.
If I compare the price/person to what I’d have to pay in the GTA (greater Toronto area), We got exactly what we paid for = and yes, we supported a local business. Never again. The cheesy potatoes were not as advertised and the vegetables were steamed mush from a commercial supplier (carrots and beans never do well [why not use a winter-fall vegetable like kale?]). I could see this Valentine steak dinner was done on the cheap and aimed at the elderly crowd (who have degraded taste-buds). That crowd came between 4:30 p.m. until 6 p.m. Fair enough.
The elderly parties that left the restaurant while we waited in cue for the next sitting gave us the obligatory, age-specific cringeworthy bullshit comments, “we ate all the food”… “there’s nothing left”… “order your steak rare, it all tastes the same”. When I’m in my 70-90s, I fucking hope I don’t do this. And if I do, TS will press the neuralizer STFU button installed on her iWatch Model 696969. And then after I stop twitching, I blurt out, OOOOPS PLEASE IGNORE OLD MAN NEEM. I SLIPPED A GEAR AGAIN. OOOPSY DOODLES. Nice.
The server asked us how our steaks were done — and she was earnest about it. How was it prepared? UNLESS entrees were GROSSLY MIS-PREPARED, WE SAY “FINE”. Honesty? Um… no. I’ve learned to NEVER GIVE FEEDBACK AT A LOCAL RESTAURANT AND NEVER EVER GIVE IT TO THE OWNER ON THE public DINING FLOOR. This is a tight-knit community and I’d get doxxed and shunned for being brutally honest with local businesses.
We paid for our meal. I bought a glass of wine (profit for them). And we tipped 20% on the meal. I won’t return to that restaurant. 1 and done.
If I can afford to eat out, I tip. If a meal was a shitshow, I tip ~15% and complain PRIVATELY TO THE OWNER… IN LOW VOLUME… away from other patrons… USUALLY F2F FOLLOWED BY A PRIVATE EMAIL. I chose this strategy at the Ferndale Hungry Hiker and it gets results! Nobody loses face. All parties get respected. Next year, it’ll be 2027 HH-Ferndale for us!
PN’s journey with lucifer lettuce… oh yeah.
PN is trying some micro-dosing cannabis to see how that can affect his sleep patterns and get some quality rest. This is definitely as self-medication scheme and I’m treating it like a science experiment.
I documented my descent into mellowness, with more success than when I just blaze up a bowl. The flower I get from neighbours, friends, and former pedagogical-colleagues is significantly more powerful than this product. Last night, l let 1 (one) jelly dissolve in my mouth containing 10 mg of active ingredient. In about an hour, I was relaxed. I pumped headphone music into my kopff. Niiiiiice Alan Parsons Project, blue-eyed soul, and some obligatory Pink Floyd. I regret having to go to bed by 10:30 p.m.; however, my dreams and restfulness were much improved from baseline. Today, I’m trying out 1/4 a jelly losange.
Right now, I’m going to take an 11 a.m. break from bloggings, breakfast up, and then get outside to de-ice the fucking lower parking lot. We parked up the hill last night to prevent muck-stuck.
That was fucking miserable — deicing the lower parking lot. Tobey did most of the scraping, double-shoveling, and ice removal. I dug into the sand pile assuming it’d be somewhat thawed out. Nope, the sand pile was a solid rock that could be shaved away with a pickaxe. The eastern house skirt was cleared away and the treacherous ice domes removed. I’m trying to use as little salt as possible. Neither of us are in good shape after that session. The municipality buried us in again at the our driveway entrance and Lindsay Road 40 with a big fucking berm put back in front of the mailbox.
Next year = tractor-reinforced front loader-snowblower or we pay for snow removal.
Update from Lucifer Lettuce trials: 1/2 a jelly (5 mg THC) gives me the mellowness I’m looking for, and still allows me to wake up a proper time to do things around the farm. 1/4 pieces did nothing for me. 5 mg THC = My dreams are pleasant. I’m not stoned out of my gourd at the breakfast table. The different edibles may have identical 10mg THC content, but I suspect the particular cannabinoids are different. The Purple Grape edible was milder tasting and had a gentle-mild dissociative effect. Glenn’s No. 10 smelled like pot the moment I opened the packaging. And it made the apparent effect more pronounced to me.
february 16-17/26 there’s a thaw outside!
February 16th. 11 a.m. Tobey’s being a beast right now on the front entrance. She’s slicing away ice from the mailbox and smashed down the ice berm dividing our driveway from the municipal road.
On February 17th, we found a book delivery perched in a snowdrift, by our green farm gate. Yay… it wasn’t tossed into a snowbank. And yay… the paper crumple wicked away the moisture from the books.
(((…you’ll need to click on the above thumbnails for details))). And yes, I got a bit grumpy from UPS STANDARD’s delivery practice:
In an effort to make the pathway around the house less treacherous, TS led a scraping-down and digging away event about the building skirts.
By the end of the day, TS had made it SIGNIFICANTLY safer to maneuver around the west bank of our rock farm. As shown by the following video:
FEBRUARY 18TH = Another snow-sleet storm blasted across the North Bruce Peninsula. Well, fuck. Out comes the snow blower tomorrow to re-edge the driveway.
BCB&B, neemtree, bdb, and blog 