Month: June 2021

Wednesday – The day after the day after…

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Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021 – +19˚C / 68˚F & not yet oppressively hot or humid – @ 4:00 pm in Atlantic Canada —

 

— I went out to check the mail – there wasn’t any – uhh no news is good news?

 

- Spot the tenant -

– “Let’s Play -‘Spot The Tenant’-” One of our ground hogs we’ve named Pippin and Merri – Peeking out from under the Wood Shed. –

— on the way to the mail box – I saw one of these guys peeking out at me, I pointed at him and said, “You don’t have to worry about me – I won’t eat you -” he { /she or it? } hurriedly backed up and either he or his buddy squeeked in protest – we’ve wondered if they’re either a pregnant couple or juveniles who’ve just been kicked out of their mother’s nest – they’re kind of small-

- Evidence of Yesterday's Road Work -

– “Evidence of yesterday’s road work.”

— A road crew showed up yesterday afternoon, blocked the end of our driveway and made a lot of noise digging and loading stuff into dump trucks – they worked past 8:00 pm. – They worked on the left side of our street, looking West here –

 

- Um... there's a blue line there -

– “Um – There’s this blue line from where they worked …” –

— That line looks a little like ‘Trouble” We’re wondering if they will have to come back and dig from where they left off, down and across out driveway – Don’t know exactly what they’re up to. –

- Yellow Flower -

– “Yellow Flower- ” –

— The bush to the left of that single yellow flower usually has dozens of yellow flowers all around its branches. This year I’ve only seen two single flowers, one facing the road and this one, trying to communicate with the Clematis plant that Cathi planted behind it?

— And today – two days after we got our Covid-19 second vaccinations Cathi – who had to take a couple tylenols yesterday – was so exhausted she couldn’t do more than get up and send email to the people she’s working with telling them she couldn’t keep her eyes open and explained about the second covid shots –

— I had minor aches yesterday and a lingering, nagging headache this morning – I went bac to sleep and got up around 1:30 pm – thinking I look like a poster guy for hangover cures. { And I haven’t had anything alcoholic since the 1970’s … }

– – – – – Ack, I better go deal with the headache –

~~~~~ Jim

Tuesday – June 22nd – 2017 – Mercury’s gone direct – That explains a few things…

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Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021 — +23˚C / +76˚F { +31˚C / +92˚F = “Humidex” } — & cloudy and threatening rain @ 6:15 pm on Janet P. Gernat’s Birthday 🙂 – High Temperature today was +25˚C / +80˚F —> With a +33˚C / +96˚F “Temperature Humidity Index in the USA” / “Humidex” up here… } … Complicated enough for ya? —

 

- Roses and Stealth Gnnome -

– “Roses and Stealth Gnome by our Stone Wall.” { – Just coincidentally for Janet’s Birthday? – }

— Over night and at least into this morning we were supposed to get remnants from a nasty storm that sweapt through Maine yesterday. Either I slept through it or the storm thought this area was just too boring to visit.

— I forget where Cathi got that small rose bush earlier this warm season { We’ll ignore the fact that a lot of Canadians define ‘Summer’ as, “Two weeks of terrible hockey weather.” }

— My wonderful step daughter – Erin – called today and apologized for not calling on Sunday or even yesterday to wish me a Happy Father’s Day – I was just plain knocked out that she’s so thoughtful and warm that she’d think about me on Father’s Day – I thought she was an amazingly wonderful kid when I first met her and she was delighted to record a cheerful station ID for WPKN in Bridgerport while I was the *Director of Public Service there { *Screened PSA’s —> Public Service Announcements <— } and I also read a few minutes of Local News from the “Greater Bridgeport” area to go along with the National and World News we were getting from Pacifica at the time – supporting a news team that had been fired and/or quit in protest after a conspiracy of right wing-nuts { “Conservatives”/ “Beedy Grastards” } infiltrated the executive board of the Bi-Coastal Pacifica – Community Based – { “Left Leaning?” } organization and took over with a plan to sell the stations to other Beedy Grastards to rid themselves of the possibility that “left leaning truth nuts” might tell the kind of truth that would deflate their “Right Wing-Nut” propaganda into obscurity …  My soon to be step daughter had an amazingly clear and positive sounding voice as she finished the “You are listening to WPKN radio in Bridgeport Connecticut, 89.5 FM -” with “I wish we had a station like WPKN up here in the Toronto area-” or something very close to that.

— But then this amazing young woman who was in grade 8 at the time { eighth grade to those of you in the good old U.S. of A. } Burst into tears the first time she saw me hug her mother – we later guessed that she thought the idea of having two sets of parents – there was a lot of that going around at the time – would be a cool idea — but when she saw us hug she realized that her parents most likely would never get back together again. { They – Cathi – and Erin’s father – are still friends – and I like him – he was working on stuff that could be painted harmlessly on the inside of food packaging that would change colour if the food went bad, and when the US Government found out about that technology, they hired the company that Erin’s father worked for to develop badges for soldiers and other military types that would change colour and/or display symbols to warn soldiers that they’d walked into biological warfare hazards and stuff like that.  But then, when Katrina made a mess out of New Orleans – Good Old George W. and his gang didn’t think they had to honour contracts paying for research that might save US Military lives – especially if the company doing the work was in the ‘Socialist/Commie’ place north of their border – Erin’s father didn’t get paid for six months at a time and when he did get paid he had so many back bills he had a hard time catching up, almost lost the house he lived in. }

— And now that I’ve bored you half to death with idiotic politix and real life conspiracy stuff, let me tell you what we did – Yesterday –

 

- Covid-19 Vaccination Record - Colourfully redacted. -

– “Covid-19 Vaccination Records – Colourfully Redacted.” –

— After being told that we probably wouldn’t be able to get our second covid vaccine shots until August – The Provincial Governement here told us a couple weeks ago that anyone who qualified and had gotten their first shot during March this year could log in on-line and get their second shot. We logged in on the first day we could and got our second shots scheduled on the first day they were available. Which is freaking amazing, almost magical – and now we’re hearing that talks are underway, we might even be able to cross the border into the USA by sometime in July. Wow.

— But we’re not doing any happy dances just yet. Nova Scotia wants anybody from New Brunswick who wants to visit Nova Scotia to self isolate for at least a couple days and be tested positive for not having the virus —> IF they’re carrying acceptable proof that they’d had both shots at least 14 days before attempting to enter Nova Scotia – Anybody withe proof that they’ve been injected with the first dose of a two dose regiment might have to self isolate { And Pay a ridiculous hotel bill? } for maybe 7 days and be tested twice and cleared twice. { Anti-Vaxxers need not apply? }  …Because The Government of New Brunswick actually wants to allow people from outside the ‘Atlantic Bubble’ into New Brunswick. and Nova Scotian ‘Leader’ types gave up checking under their beds for Communist infiltrators a few years ago, but now they want to make damned sure that not evil outsiders are trying to bring nasty / scary viruses into their province to threaten the lives of their wonderful Government Fearing people. 😉 – Last summer they made the cast and crew of “The Curse of Oak Island” self isolate somewhere for 14 days and get tested a couple times, prove they were positively not carrying deadly viruses with them before they could walk about freely and pay good Nova Scotians to help them look for elusive treasure on their island.

— — — — — Sigh —

— If I don’t end now it won’t be Janet’s Birthday any longer when I hit the ‘Post’ button –

— Janet, Have a lifetime of wonderful amazing Happy days, not just one happy day bcause it’s your birthday – you deserve better than somebody wishing you one happy day every year…

~~~~~ Jim

I think our neighbour’s trees are being attacked by something

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Friday – June 18th, 2021 – 9:30 pm Atlantic Time-

 

- closeup on evergreen branch - discoloured -

– “Closeup on Evergreen branch – discoloured -“

— I took this photo at 8:55 pm on Friday, June 18th, 2021 – After first noticing signs that the needles on evergreens in our neighbour’s property were looking like some kind of disease or infestation was attacking them – the above is the fourth of four photos shot with my iPhone that I shrunk to fit into WordPress’s demanded size so I could upload it into this blog.

— I believe the neighbour who owns this strip of land bordering south of our property here on the North Side of Fredericton { the section originally known as Marysville } lives in the Halifax, Nova Scotia area – I’ve never met the guy, we moved here in September of 2013 and this is the first signs of anything attacking those trees. I am not a tree expert, but the branch turning colours here looks like a black or white pine. I think the trees in the following photo are spruce – but I’m not 1,000% sure of that – I don’t have a degree in Botany, my cousin does, but she lives in Colorado.

 

- Look At The Evergreen in the middle of this photo -

– “Look at the Evergreen in the middle of this photo -“

— This might not be painfully obvious from this photo but the tree almost dead centre here is showing quite brown needles – and the evergreen to the right of the thin white birch is looking devastated above its lower branches which are still bearing green needles. This photo was shot at about 8:53 pm on June 18th and the only modifications I made were I shrunk it down from 4032 pixels to 1024.

 

- Wider shot of the large pine tree on the hill -

– “Wider angle shot of the large pine tree on the hill.” –

— The ‘lead’ photo in this article or post is the shot I took when I zoomed in on the low branch just to the right of centre – This is the tree I think is a White Pine or maybe Black Pine – Somebody tried to tell me the difference between those two species in the 1970’s – but the details became a bit foggy over the years. – The lowest branches of this tree are the ones showing signs of trouble here – This is brand new this summer – Or, at least, I didn’t notice anything until a couple days ago.

 

- Slightly closer shot of the whole pine tree's lowest branches =

– “Slightly closer shot of the pine tree’s lowest branches.” –

— This is the big pine tree again – photo taken at 8:55 pm on June 18th, 2021 – in the Marysville section of Fredericton, New Brunswick – if any tree doctors want to get in touch with me – I don’t allow comments on this blog since way too many spammers tried to sell counterfeit purses and sunglasses etc.  You can reach me at “jimwellington at aerendel dot net”.

— My spouse tells me she doesn’t think there’s anything that can be done for these trees – I’m hoping there just might be something that can save them without poisoning everybody’s water or killing all their flowers and food plants.

– – – – – That’s probably enough for now – this is depressing.

– – – – – Jim

 

* * * * * Update: Thursday, June 24th, 2021 –

The CBC New Brunswick News ran a story today —> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/glyphosate-hearings-day-two-nb-1.6076561 <—

— Apparently – there is a safe, non toxic, biological cure for spruce budworm infestations / outbreaks —> Whoever it is that wants to stop the spread of that stuff, if that’s what is attacking the trees here – try to get in touch with me at the semi – cryptic email address above.

– – – – – Thank you,

– – – – – Jim { on the North Side of Fredericton }

Sunday! & This is not a commercial for national speedway –

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Sunday, Jun3 6th – 18˚C/+65˚F & ‘pleasant’ @ 6:45 am New Brunswick time – on Bev Newell’s Birthday 🙂 & D-Day’s 77th { ? } Anniversary ? —

- bush with white flowers in full bloom -

– duh… Baby’s Breath? Bridal Wreath? Something Else? –

— Whatever the above bush calls itself – it’s in full bloom and showing off – I think it has a right to…

— Um – So I got an alert from an Astrology site yesterday, “Mercury is Square Neptune -” and it went on to say that most people would feel like they shouldda stayed in bed. It also said that nobody should trust their thoughts and impressions – confusion and inability to tell reality from illusion would be the order of the day -But then the bottom line was, the astrologer advised everybody to click on a link and pay handsomely for a Tarot card reading.

 

- East Yard -

– Our Eastern Yard –

— Um, I think of this as the front yard – it faces Canada Street – Cathi calls it the back yard, we come in from the North off of Wellington Court – {{ Named after somebody who’s last name was Pond and middle name was Wellington… }} Canada Street is East of us – pretty much on a right angle to the beginning of Wellington Court, which bends slightly to the north as it rises up a hill that is impressive when covered with ice. Impressive too, is the fact that we must be way down on the list of priorities – the sanding truck comes around after everybody who had to go to work before noon had to rely on the kind of driving skills you hear announcers describe as “Don’t try this at home, kids -”

 

- 'Unexpected Sunset' -

– “Unexpected Sunset” —> while I’m working on prettying up my game world before it just might eventually go public on-line – the sun sets every 6 hours of Earth time –

— So I should have expected a sunset in the west – what I didn’t expect was how shockingly gorgeous in unexpected colours this one was. Cathi wants to see New Mexico. Maybe the colour scheme from a lot of New Mexico’s art work had filtered into my semi-conscious ‘unconscious mind’ here – to give her a preview of what she expects to find if we ever get there? I gave the saturation slider a nudge or five higher to make it look the way it does on a gaming monitor. 🙂

— So today’s temperature only rose to about 27˚C / 81˚F – and wasn’t as muggy as the last couple days – Tomorrow might reach 33˚C / 94˚F and probably muggier?

— This afternoon Cathi was raving about how cool the house gets when she sets the Heat Pump on ‘Dehumidify’ – and then she thought she’d probably have to crank up its air conditioning { cooling } function tomorrow.

– – – – – And that’s probably more than enough damage for today –

– – – – – Everybody – Have a nice lifetime-

~~~~~ Jim