Sunday 31 August 2014

Stacking wood, I had helpers!

Mostly moral support, but what can a woman do?
First job was to clear out the shed. As I went in, I spotted a snake. This was Friday afternoon.



The truck arrived!

Willows Farm in Balderson

Here is where the moral support comes in... Daisy. She was napping in the goldenrod. Then, very cat-like, parked herself right in my path.


Buster came by, but he was only passing through.

Then I had to stop and take a photo of a plane, then grab a drink of water.

Dorah was watching from the house. She was no help at all!
There was a dock spider supervising, too.

Saturday morning it was still there.
The wood fairy didn't help out at all!


No one worked on it during the night.
I began around 9 a.m., NO helpers until hubby began to help, having done his dishes.

 Saturday Morning

Be careful with your back, JB.
He was loading up the garage.
Things had to slow down, as I realized the wagon tires were flat. Nothing is ever straightforward, is it? Then I had to move the old wood to the back of the house to make room for the new wood in the shed.
Time out, while I had to pump out the tires in the trailer.


Hubby was helping by putting some old wood in the garage. He also went out and killed a caesar wrap for me for lunch, as well as scoring some boxes in town (for the debris that will be our kindling). Then he had to go back in to buy some groceries for his special diet.

I soldiered on!

I stopped for a moment to check out the Eastern Comma that morphed. More on that later. I'd been trying to film a Question mark, but accidentally deleted the video when I thought it hadn't emerged. I was pretty tired, I suppose.
Last week, an Eastern Comma broke free.
They are ubiquitous on my Hops.


 I stopped for lunch to watch the US Open Tennis, with Milos Raonic vs. Burgos (who played rather well!). We have two Canadians in it this year. Raonic and Bouchard. Both hard-working young people. 

We were watching for my cyberfriends, who were at the match!
Did you think I spotted them - it's a fuzzy shot from the TV?
This is his selfie. I love their t-shirts!
@SocialKeenan and wife Julie

This has to be Keenan trying for phone service!
He has lots of friends wanting selfies
for vicarious thrills!
Lots of photos of Raonic floating about.
Thank goodness, Raonic won. He didn't play his best, but he did win. @ITVTennis, they were showing it in TSN 5, were pretty harsh making fun of Milos' hair, several times. Really.

Back to work after the match, I found more friends. There was a honeybee right in the doorway, with a home in one of the mice tunnels. It went in, I covered up the hole, not wanting to be stung. I unburied it when I covered up the wood for the rain.

I'm about 3/4 done, but we had 20mm rain last night, and more this morning. I had to put away the boxes of kindling in the shed. I had a feeling... We shall see if I go out. I'm pretty achy!

Saturday 30 August 2014

Chipmunk wash up!



I was watching the chipmunks from the deck. They were so cute! They clean up under the bird feeder. This one was sitting on the bridge across our little ditch.


Bullfrog weigh-in – a challenge

Now, as a retired teacher, I love doing math problems. When I was tutoring young women in a home for single mothers in the fall, I had to go back over my high school math. Since our medical woes, I haven't had the time nor energy to do so. I quite enjoyed helping them with their schoolwork.

I loved teaching math. The discovery math, currently in vogue, has done nothing but harm our students. The recent EQAO test result seem to confirm this.

EQAO concerned about 'persistently low' test results in math, English

CTV News-Aug 27, 2014Share
TORONTO -- Ontario's education minister wants to examine how applied math and English are taught in the early high school years after ...

The brightest and the best of our students, with rich, stimulating backgrounds, have the ability to achieve in elementary school, where the foundation is laid. It's the rest of the kids who need to be taught times tables, and need didactic lessons in numeracy. This is the same for literacy. The kids whose parents have done a lot of pre-reading work and play with their kids do not need to be taught to read. They are thirsty for learning, especially if it is modelled. I taught too many special education students to think anything different. They're doing much harm to the high-risk students.

OK. Off my soapbox. Back to my personal challenge. I was incredibly curious about the weight of my two bullfrogs. They are quite happy in my hand-dug goldfish pond. Since Jeremiah moved in this month, I've realised how big Geraldine has become. She's quite used to me; I don't often catch her.

They eat leopard frogs, as well as the odd bug. You can see what likely amounts to leopard frog limbs sticking out of Jeremiah's belly giving him an odd look. It is a frog-eat-frog world!

I found out that Geraldine is about 460 gm (~16oz.) and Jeremiah is about 200gm, although it was tricky reading the scale! I laughed so hard, hubby watched, too.



Geraldine wasn't thrilled! I set up the camera with the video running. She did a cameo appearance for me. You have to laugh! She hopped over to the camera when we were done and glared!


frog weigh-in from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
How do you weigh a bullfrog? Carefully! She was 460gm (~16 oz.); he was 200gm.
Saturday's Critters #39

Friday 29 August 2014

Paint Party Friday!

While my client naps, I draw, sometimes sew, sometimes do crosswords or embroidery!
Week 25: yr 4

Eastern Comma Butterfly


Comma from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Another Eastern Comma broke free from its cocoon!

Another driving incident

Who do you suppose is at fault?

  • The woman who parked in a no-stopping/fire route zone (just beside a crosswalk), 
  • or the person who backed up into her? 
People stop here all the time. Tons of parking spaces, but they can't be bothered to park in a legal parking spot. I'm sure you see it where you live!

Cars running, wasting energy, important people who cannot park and cannot walk 50'.  Now, I'm a hospice volunteer and I empathise with those who have physical issues, but there are very few medical issues where mild exercise, say walking 50', is precluded or unwise. More often than not it isn't someone with a physical issue, but just lazy!

Either way, what a sad incident. So needless.

Thursday 28 August 2014

Swallowtail on phlox!

We're approaching the end of the gardening season. The phlox are in bloom and the birds, butterflies and bees are amazing. This is an interesting species. Their wings are so delicate, and all you really see is the yellow as they fly. I'm so grateful to see this one visiting my garden beside the goldfish pond.

Book Review: PRIMUS, Over the electric grapevine

This was a tough book to read. I couldn't figure it out, until I began reading, why it was an 'oral' history. I think, if you want to create an oral history you simply do an audiotape or video. It seems to be a lazy way to put together a book. Good authors do research, they support their anecdotes, edit them for clarity, and provide back up information to improve the understanding of the spoken word, organize the book by timelines or themes. We know that musicians are not ones for prose, and they do tell fantastic stories, but this was difficult to make any sense of, since I don't know this California-based band created in 1988.

Written by journalist/author Greg Prato, I can understand question and answer interviews, but the questions aren't even written down. This Rolling Stone contributor may be more familiar with short articles, but I would have liked to have read something about the impact of the band, what the band means to Prato, and some conclusions about their contributions to the music industry.
by Greg Prato

An Oral History of a Legendary Band

Insight into Primus and the World of Les Claypool
by Primus and Greg Prato


Suck on ThisFrizzle FrySailing the Seas of CheesePork SodaTales from the Punchbowl. Revolutionary for their time, Primus’s albums are now considered seminal alt-rock classics, all from a group that refused to be pigeonholed—one that merged metal, funk, alternative, punk, country, roots rock, and experimental music to create a sound distinctly their own. Now, the history of the band is fully explored and revealed in a fascinating and beautifully curated oral history, featuring nearly fifty interviews from Trey Anastasio to Hank Williams III, a full-color photo insert of rare and never-before-seen images, and more.

They have had their share of awards and/or nominations:

  1. Rock band
  2. Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Tim "Herb" Alexander. Wikipedia
Primus, Over the Electric Grapevine is compiled from nearly fifty all-new interviews conducted by journalist/author Greg Prato. This star-studded cast of contributors includes: Tim Alexander, Trey Anastasio (Phish), Matthew Bellamy (Muse), Les Claypool, Stewart Copeland (The Police), Chuck D (Public Enemy), Kirk Hammet (Metallica), Larry Lalonde, Geddy Lee (Rush), Mickey Melchiondo (Ween), Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine), Chad Smith (RHCP), Matt Stone (South Park), Tom Waits, and many more.
ISBN 9781617753220


WWW.ROLLINGSTONE.COM
He also has an Oysterhead itch

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Book review: COPYCAT by David Yow

It's a lovely book for a gift for a cat lover. The visual puns are merciless.

David Yow's press photo (see below) is a bit scary, kind of reminds me of the debate around Trivago Guy (Tim Williams), who people claim looks like a middle-aged ruffian in the ad. #TrivagoGuy was roughly bearded (for the concurrent gig he was in), and the shoot had a dresser with several wardrobe changes, but the client chose this messy look.

The German-based company is having a Dress the Trivago Guy contest, with a free trip to Berlin to watch the update commercial shoot. Apparently, the target demographic wasn't me.

SAVVYSTEWS.COM
Gailen David | Trending in Travel


But back to David Yow. I've never heard of the bands he was in, but the 90s wasn't my decade! For those with disposable incomes, and an ability to spend it on fun, this is a cute book. Seriously, though, the photo is very off-putting!

They are cute drawings mixed with photos, very creatively crafted, with an endearing little face on each one.

  A Hilarious Book of Cat Cartoon Portraits

   and a Litter of Other Cats
by David Yow

I love cats. Always have. The only time I didn’t have a cat was a brief hell in Chicago where I lived in an apartment whose landlord didn’t allow them. At that place, I had a life-sized cardboard cutout of a cat which I named Toody. I also love wordplay. I’m the only adult I hang out with who still gets a kick out of puns. I make up palindromes. I used to write songs and poems (these days, I leave that for the songwriters and poets); in this book of cat-pun drawings, I have made a concerted effort to come up with ideas that range from really funny to really amusing. The entire litter of animals in this book are line drawings that are ‘colored in’ with photographic textures, and each cat is dropped into a photographic setting. Yep, that’s the truth.
—David Yow on Copycat

DAVID YOW is an artist, actor, and musician who is best known as the singer of the bands the Jesus Lizard—arguably the best and most popular indie rock band of the 1990s—and Scratch Acid. He lives in Los Angeles. He is the creator of Copycat: And a Litter of Other Cats.

Tuesday 26 August 2014

Jeremiah was a bullfrog


Geraldine and Jeremiah bullfrogs from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
Geraldine and Jeremiah bullfrog in my goldfish pond. With 3 dozen goldfish, they seem to eat the leopard frogs. He is a new addition. She's been hanging out in our pond for 2 years, leaving only in spring to go down to the frog pond, a vernal pool, to mate.

Eastern Ontario Bass Anglers Sportsman Society tournie at Rideau Ferry

Parking is at a premium!





Great excitement down at the Rideau Ferry Public docks August 23rd. I was curious, as I went down to do some shopping at Sew Crafty for my girls' dresses and spotted the cars on the highway. (Dresses are nearly done!)

Fishing tournaments are big bucks events! The websites are slick, the sponsors are serious and the prizes amazing.

There were cars parked everywhere, and it was difficult to find a spot to park. It turns out it was the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (B.A.S.S.!) qualifying tournament. They are trying to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic.

The SuperBowl of fishing tournies. The big winner is the person who catches the most fish weight.
The first prize: $300,000!

There was much jolly bantering as the men were joking on the docks with obvious long-time rivals and/or buddies. The kids were having fun, too. Friday was the junior tournie, and they went out with guides to teach them the finer points. It is a catch and release tournament.
Ontario B.A.S.S. Nation
 Anglers from over 20 B.A.S.S. Clubs in the Ontario Bass Nation will compete in the two-day event vying for one of 12 positions available to form “Team Ontario”. 
In the fall of 2015, that team will advance to the next level and fish in the U.S. against other Teams from Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Spain in the Eastern Divisional. The top angler from each of these Teams moves on to the Nationals…with the ultimate goal being a berth in the Bassmaster Classic.  
The live release boat contains the most up-to-date technology in alignment with the best standards in live release systems. In fact, it is a fish management and rehabilitation center, which will expedite the weigh-in process and return the fish back to the water more quickly. 

Eastern Ontario Bass Open’s stage shore crew
 The OVSB planning committee is using the Eastern Ontario Bass Open’s stage shore crew, in-water weigh-in scales and live release boat. They are very efficient, with different containers for the fish as they are brought from the boats to the weigh-in to keep them cool and hydrated.



Poor shoppers are having a
tough time parking.
I love our
Rideau Ferry Grocery store!
Big Rideau is a beautiful lake
A few folks watching the weigh-in
These are the brand new Rideau Ferry docks! In the morning it's usually covered in Canada Goose poo, which is duly cleaned off.
The fishermen all line up at their appointed times, 3:30 or 4:30, to have their catch weighed. They have sophisticated technology, with a large flat-screen showing the individual's weigh-in results.

I went back on Sunday, and there were still quite a few trailers there.