SUMMER PROJECT

     This summer I had a small project which ended up being a summer project. The project started on one fine day at the end of April and lasted until one  hot day at the end of July. 

     My project was to paint 3/4 of my fence. A few good days should have been enough to complete the project. The piece of fence was 86 feet long and done both sides, It is 6 feet high. Painting fences isn't  high tech job. 

    However, weather and many other issues got in the way. When it was a good day I had something else to do. When you clean off a fence and get it ready for painting and then have to wait, you end up cleaning the fence off again. So preparation of the fence took a long time.

    I even thought of Tom Sawyer and the story Tom Sawyer and the fence. Could I talk someone into helping me? 

   So you see one project turned into a long project. 

   So here's the result.

GOOSEBERRY

     Last Sunday afternoon the Micro Manager and I began talking about our gooseberry bush. The gooseberry bush that I said that I would never pick any more gooseberries. The micro manager talked about the nice gooseberry jam she used to make . And yes, gooseberry pies? 

Gooseberry bushes are rather sprawly things with lots of very sharp thorns.

       The Micro Manager's gooseberry jam.

     Well, it didn't take very long and my cold heart melted and I was picking gooseberries. Did I say I hated picking gooseberries? Well, you would hate picking gooseberries too. Gooseberry bushes are liberally covered with thorns. The foliage is thick and you have to part it to get the berries.

     So it was agreed that I would pick a few cupfuls. I think I picked six cups. Then comes more work with gooseberries. You have to "top and tail them" So there you sit taking off the stem and flower end. So I even melted and agreed to clean up the gooseberries. The Micro Manager was in a hurry to make jam so we had jam made before supper time.

     Now the gooseberry bush has been there since we moved to the place. In the past I picked everyone of those little berries and had my hands ripped to shreds.

    We had some slave labor in those days. The kids were set up to get the berries ready for cooking. One of the slaves wasn't keen about his job so he would clean up one berry and throw two over the fence until the micro manager became suspicious of something and found the berries that were thrown over the fence. ( This is one of those family stories that won't go away but now everybody laughs,

     So how many of you like gooseberry jam? How many of you have had the pleasure of  picking gooseberries?

    So there you have it. We have gooseberry jam one more time.

GARDENS

       I like gardening. But when I think of gardening it only means vegetables not flowers. Now I know that in most cases when garden is used it's to include a whole yard and how it's landscaped. Here, for some reason garden refers to vegetables.

     So this year for some reason or other I have a very good vegetable garden . It will have something to do with the weather. We've had lots of rainfall. Now I don't have a huge vegetable garden. I just have enough so that I can experience the freshness of vegetables that come directly from the soil.

An overgrown raspberry bush 

                  I do grow some perennials. Could someone tell me what this one is?

                 I have an excellent crop of onions.

                   Peas are just about ready

                   I love beets  

A black current

MY LAWN MOWER WORKS

      Some people wanted to know how my lawn mower  repair job ended. I immediately saw that as a topic for another post!

      So my repair job was to simply replace a rewind spring on my lawn mower.

     Okay I'll back up. In pioneer days , to start a small engine, you would wind a rope around a pulley and pull. If the engine started great! If the engine didn't start you wound the rope around the pulley and pulled again. Sometimes you had to pull 10 times for the engine to start.

     So some wise guy thought, "Why don't we have something to rewind the cord automatically and make things easier?" Well the gizmo was invented and was part of small engines. 

     Now I know some people's eyes are starting to glaze over and look for the end of this post. My eyes are glazing over too. 

     Okay back to my repair. The "unit" consists of a housing to hold the spring, a pulley with a rope, a worm gear and small plastic gear. The housing and pulley are on a shaft. The housing doesn't turn but the pulley does turn.

     Much of this you can't see because it's enclosed. Much of it you can't see because it's underneath whatever. Your hands have to feel things to put them back together. 

    The spring is a challenge to wind. First discover which way to wind it. It is wound opposite to the pulley with the rope. The rope is to turn the pulley counter clockwise. Too complicated for me. It took me four tries to get this right, but I did get it. I'm not going to tell about my dumb mistakes. 

     I'm not going to give details because who cares? Today most lawn mowers start by turning a switch!

CLOUDS

    We had a few thunder showers go through around 6 Pm and they left some towering clouds...my favorite.

       On some of the blogger chatter someone complained about putting pictures on the new blog so I decided to try putting photos on the blog tonight. It was a bit of a run around. I will probably not remember next time so I'll do the whole thing over again.

    Finding labels was also a bit of experimentation.

JUNKYARD DOG

      I have a lawn mower that is 50 years old. Every once in a while it needs to be repaired. I've written about this before and even showed photos.

     Now it's very hard to find parts for something that is that old. I needed  rewind spring. That's the spring that pulls the cord back in and winds it so that you can pull again if the motor doesn't start.

     So to find parts one has to do some searching. I found the part but they wanted 50 bucks. Well what do you do? You can't just run out and buy a 50 year old mower! Well, he said he would order the spring in a week or two so that gave me time to shop around some more. We did find one guy who said he could make us an air filter filament.

    We went to see about the air filter. What a junkyard! The guy had about 100 old mowers. There were many roto tillers, snow blowers and  other small engine machines. These were spread over the whole yard.The guy had a shirt that hadn't been washed for a week and pants to match. He thought he was God's gift to comedy. He had a dozen vehicles stored there and I knew who owned them. .He took me back to see if a mower like mine was there. I had been expecting a place with new things.

    I asked if he had the spring I was looking for. He went to look for one and told me not to go in his shop. Five minutes later he came out with a new spring in the original package! How much did he want for it? 10 bucks! I took it in a heartbeat. So the Micro Manager only had a twenty. So he says I'll take the ten for a tip!  What a card!

     Every once in a while you stumble into a very odd place. This was a very different business practise.

     So this was the typical junk yard without the mean dog.

MISTAKE-APOLOGY

   I made a mistake this morning by clicking delete for your comments instead of publish. My apologies to you. I feel badly because I value every comment.

A LONG TIME TO MAKE A DEDUCTION

     Something popped into my head yesterday and it should have been in my head about 75 years ago. Swift I am not. 

     I wrote about the pattern of naming for my brother and I. A German , as well as others had a tradition  for naming children. So me being the first born son was given my paternal grandfather's name for my middle name. My brother was the second son and he was given the maternal grandfather's name for  his middle name.

    What popped into my head yesterday was that this naming pattern was the same for girls. I had not realized that my sister's middle name was taken from our maternal grandmother! I make no excuse for not knowing this but if I ever heard my maternal grandmother called by any name, it was Lizzie.  It just hit me yesterday. I remember lots of chat in the family about my name and my brother's name. I don't remember any chat about my sister's name.

    So it took me a long time to clue in that the naming pattern also applied to my sister. Now my third and fourth brothers were named without consideration of ancestors. I wonder if I had a second sister , would she have been named after her paternal grandmother?

  
     Doreen Elizabeth between her two older brothers. I'm the cute one on the right! The dog was old Rex.  

NEW NEIGHBOR IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

     Yes, there's an unrecognizable person in our neighborhood today. Or should I say there's a neighbor who became unrecognizable?

      Well, the neighbor is me!

     In March when things were closed down , I needed a haircut very badly. So things closed down and I was left without a haircut. Barber shops opened May 17 but I didn't want to go. Finally, things got so bad I just had to get a haircut. Hair had grown to below the ears and was curled up on my neck. It was sticking out ll over the place from under my cap. My hair is not straight but it is badly behaved. In other words there are a few " cow licks" and they change daily. So you can understand that I needed a haircut.

    Now the micro Manager offered to cut my hair but I said , "No thanks!"  The Micro Manager had cut my hair for two years in the Arctic...never again!

    So yesterday I got a haircut and I'm sure the neighbors would have a hard time recognizing me.

     So here is my new haircut 

 Mid May and hair was sticking out.

MELT DOWN

      The micro manager loses things once in a while and she gets very upset. She has a humungous black purse which probably has more than 123 items in it. So what usually happens is that she puts something in the purse  when we are out shopping or doing business and then she can't find it. She gets very excited and thinks back to where she had the said item last. There's a lot of frantic digging in the black monster . Usually sooner or later she comes across the item she's looking for. I don't think she has actually lost anything but she spends a lot of time looking for things. 

    Now Friday , I had my opportunity for a melt down. I had to call at five different places to do business. 

    First, I had to call at a bank. Since I rarely enter this bank, as the micro manager does all banking, they asked me for identification. They wanted my driver's license. I'm very careful with that piece of identification. They took it and gave it back and I put it back in my wallet. 

    When I got to business number 4 , another bank, I was asked for identification and I couldn't find my license. I frantically went through my wallet again as it should have been obvious. No luck. By this time I was tearing everything apart. 

    Even though I knew I had put my license back in the first bank , I went back to the first bank. They had not found it.

    Well go to the next business. By this time I had cooled down a bit and decided to become sane and look in my wallet again. I checked in the pocket where I keep my license. I could feel something different between two other pieces of paper. There was my plastic driver's license. 

    Now this was a very upsetting incident which doesn't usually happen to me. If it's a small item I don't worry..

   So how about you. What do you fear losing most? What happens to you when you lose something?

HAPPY CANADA DAY.

     I wish everyone a Happy Canada Day. It's been different this year with covid 19 keeping us tied down.

     I'm happy with my country. We have many different people here and for the most part they are very well accepted and can join in our celebrations and daily life. We work hard and have many resources to use to our advantage. 

     At one time this was called Dominion Day. That came from a time when we were still a colony and part colony. In other words we belonged to another country. They took advantage of us and used our resources . They didn't pay very much for the resources. In 1867 we were classified as an independent country but not quite. Our High court was still in England. Foreign affairs were controlled by the mother country.

    Colonialism was an awful thing. Many of the world's problems are a result of colonialism,. European countries stole the resources or else got them very cheaply. When the colonizers left they left many problems. Problems in Africa and the Middle East result from colonial rulers leaving and leaving different borders than the  aboriginals had. The African people have been fighting ever since. 

    Here in Canada, the land was taken from the aboriginals. Trinkets were given or the aboriginals were treated  badly in many ways that the colonizers hoped the aboriginals would die . 

    I find it difficult to celebrate when our history is full of misdeeds. We are trying to make amends but I don't think it will ever happen. We are still offering beads for a solution. 

    In many places aboriginals are dressed in their regallia to celebrate Canada Day. I feel badly that the land was taken and now the aboriginals join in the celebration.

    So my apologies for raining on your party but I feel we have to acknowledge some serious issues with our history.