Sunday, May 30th, 2021 – 7˚C / +39˚F & Dark @ 1:49 am – in Atlantic Canada – It’s my nephew Dave’s Birfday 🙂 –
– “A Clean Office is a sign of a very sick mind -” … or maybe just a symptom of somebody who has nothing much to do? –
— Okay – Right now I’m – um, maybe two yards to the right of the security camera monitor screen, { more like the “Deer Cam / Raccoon Cam / Critter Monitor – one of our most constant visitors is ‘Miss Kit’ – our neighbour’s tortise shell aging mighty hunter – } I can watch the garbage and recycling trucks roll up and down the little bit of road that is visible in Camera One and sometimes see the mail delivery person approaching or walking away if I’m looking up at the right moment – There were a couple times I looked up, yawned, and noticed a package delivered either by Canadian Post or UPS or — what are the other parcel / express companies? gaaaa —>
– That’s our Maritimes Cedar Tree on the left – the yard Cathi wants to turn into a garden in the middle, between the tree annd the driveway – with hints of some of our new plants Cathi planted on Sunday or Monday { May 23rd & 24th } of this year { 2021 } and our house – back center and a little bit of our Western ‘acreage’ with – I think – the steel shed partially hidden behind our van. –
— On Monday and Wednesday I took some photos, first of Cathi’s efforts over the long weekend – { “Victoria Day” – last Monday holiday up here – Memorial Day to celebrate Dave’s Birthday tomorrow – } On Tuesday I had a telephone interview with somebody in Maryland that had me so nervous before hand that I nearly threw up several times after talking to a very pleasant and professional gentleman in the Baltimore area. He did not make me nervous – I made me nervous – Then – on Wednesday – the 26th – Cathi had a heat pump installed –
– Our New Heat Pump – My brain tried to call it a Heat Sink after having too much computer stuff on the brain for the last – duh… 30 years? “Eek?” –
— So – um, the rumours are that Heat Pumps are more efficient and cost about half of what it might cost for a new furnace and air conditioner – That thing is about two feet wide and takes care of the whole house – Maybe not counting the basement which was fairly cool on the hottest days – the day that Heat Pump was installed it was +31˚C / more like +91˚F +Muggy – felt like 98˚F? So- for those of you who still believe that all Canadians live in igloos – well, it that was the case – we’d all be very wet and very homeless after that. 🙂
– That’s the outside part of the Heat Pump – I should probably give Cathi a lot of credit for reading about a decent sale on this thing and pouncing . yup, she’s sharp! –
— The thing is happily parked beneath the overhang – which dozens of spiders believe we put there just for them so they can eat up as many mosquitos as they can handle – some of them are um, silver dollar sized? None of them have tried to pick me up and carry me away, but they would have terrified my sister Diane, who wanted to jump backward out of her skin whenever a friendly neighbourhood spider singled her out to drop down and say hello – Extra plastic window insulation still up and after the one day with a ‘humidex in the high 90’s { ˚F } and mid 30’s { ˚C } we had a couple mornings that flirted with below the freezing mark here. So Cathi got a chance to run the new Heat Pump through its paces as both cooler and heater and is very happy with its performance.
– Cathi – the creative genius who made the green plaid masks for both of us and is wearing hers here – is admiring the outside part of the Heat Pump that was the main attraction in the photo above this one. 🙂 – While the installers were still here. –
— Please notice the apparent lack of snow here in our little corner of “the great white north” the snow and ice that usually hung around until Mothers’ Day in spots of the western part of our lot here – Cathi’s outdoors “Zen corner” – melted early. And the Fredericton area ofo New Brunswick did not have the devastating floods we experienced down the hill from us – around the Saint John River { Known as “Woolastook” {{{ English Spelling }}} to the First Nations People who technically {{ and probably legally }} still own the country – AND ALL ITS RESOURCES! }
– New Dwarf Lilac bush we got at Scott’s Nursery a week or so ago and transplanted into the ground when we thought there was no more chance of frost. –
— We did a little bit of shopping earlier today / er – yesterday? Saturday? And were amazed at how many Lila trees in ful bloom we drove past. I really like the aroma – even if it did drive my mother’s allergies crazy – & Oh – the ‘Save the Bees’ people were calling for a “No Mow May” and asking everybody who cared to leave as many dandelions and other wild flowers alive and alone so the bees had a fighting chance of survival after the die off crises they’ve had to contend with. I dodn’t think it’s been as bad around here as it was some other places, but I guess it was bad enough to have the morning guy on the local CBC radio/television news interview somebody about it.
– We’ve planted Pansies for my Mother almost every year – sadly, in her memory – and this is a terrible shot but that’s my fault, not the pansies… some of them grow back whether they’re supposed to or not and the smaller guys are new this year. { got ’em on sale- } –
— Yeah, I was in a hurry when I took the above photo and in the bright sun I can’t see how well the shot came out, decent sized iPhone screen or not –
– “Purple Smoke Tree” – The first plant nursery people I asked about smoke trees up here looked at me like I had to be from another planet – But the people at Scott’s Nursery in Lincoln, New Brunswick, know better and this is our second Smoke Tree – the other one is more like green leaves and subtle smoke coloured ‘smoke’ { blossums? } –
— I will have to take another photo when this guy { or woman? I mean – if I’m going to go full anthropomorphic here – I should probably get their gender right? If they have genders? – I can pretty much tell when a plant is happy, but I have not mastered the ability to actually communicate with them and know what they might be trying to tell me – I can usually try to get messages through to them through guardian angels – and get a hint of a response from somewhere – or someone or something … Did I tell you that I once sent a spiritual message to a bat’s guardian angel when I had a helper one night a week on the cleaning job that was the first job I could legally get after becoming a permanent resident up here – and there was a bat flying around inside the building we were cleaning – the helper called the boss and the boss said, “Kill it-” and I ‘called out to the bat’s guardian angel and with a small brown bag – told the guardian angel that if the bat didn’t crawl into that bag one of us would have to kill it. Ya know what? That bat crawled right into that bag – and we carried it outside and put the open bag down by a large potted evergreen shrub and scared the heck out of a woman who curiously asked up what we were up to – and the bat flew out and up and away and pretty much sent the youngish woman running – I have witnesses! I will never doubt the existance of guardian angels for every living creature after that – { Thank you , Doreen Virtue, PhD – for cluing me onto that – }
– Cathi – reading the operating manual for the Heat Pump while we had electricians outside and Heat Pump guy inside putting the finishing touches on the installation. –
— If I had any sense I would make this the last photo here – Cathi looked up and wondered what I was doing pointing my iPhone at her while she was reading about how to operate the new Heat Pump.
– Cathi { The Avatar } on a desert hill in South Shamrock Island – in “Aerendel” the Game World I’ve been building since August of 2011 – after I was writing stories about Aerendel since 1973 when my concept of the place became a quasi-mythic place founded by compassionate Half-Elves with access to a sentient Anomaly that opened wild portalss to save all kinds of creatures in danger and ferry them to new lands. –
— She looks a lot better on a 4K gaming monitor. The ‘sentient Anomaly’ leads a lot of defenseless creatures to the Principality of Aerendel and captures a lot of ‘Adventurers’ who might have been bored with their lives – in dangerous abusive relationships – or in need of a quick getaway from over zealous constables in their home worlds – Those ‘Adventurers’ have a lot of options from nurtuing wild plants to defending innocents from bloodthirsty bad guys and rogue helper appliances from a very weird future.
— So – “No!”- of course I don’t have enough sense to leave things with a photo of my favourite life partner wearing a Covid-19 mask and reading up on how to use her marvelous new – and very efficient – heating and cooling device.
~~~~~ Jim
