Fires, rain, indoor games

🔥Well the fires are still firing across Canada. Our smoke has gone. Thankfully. The numbers are slowly evolving. There are some fires they simply do not fight, as they have to prioritize them, with limited crews. 

 "Canada lost 30,000 firefighters over the past six years, according to a national survey."

Canada is a nation of volunteer firefighters🚒. Apparently 70% are volunteers. The big cities have permanent, paid staff, but our rural areas rely on men and women to drop everything and go fight a fire. They've gone from 156,000 firefighters (2016) across Canada to 126,000 (2022), as the economy and the nature of the work evolves. Most calls are NOT for fires (medical, environmental, accidents): only 10% were actual fires. There are shortages in budgets, affecting equipment, and training.🧯

Our PM visited Ukraine. More money, more sanctions. Something needs to be done. Perhaps Ukraine joining NATO will make a difference. 

PM Trudeau, Freeland in Ukraine

🌧 We had 4.8 mm (0.19") rain yesterday afternoon. Praise Be!  That is only 7mm this month, so far. We need a long day of rain. In 2020 we only had 29mm rain, whereas there were two years we had 150+ mm.

During the smoky days we've spent our time indoors, although the last couple of days have been cloudy and cooler. I was happy to get outdoors Saturday and Sunday.

Fred has been gathering nesting materials:

On Friday we went into Perth and had our booster shots for COVID. I booked it online. Our last shots were October. 

When we came out of the store, I spotted this car, licence plate: PLAINFUN! Snazzy car, for someone!

Friday, June 9th Phoebe has fledged! I went to check on them and two flew away. There were none left, so I am going to assume we had at least survive. They have been checking the nest for remainders! I was going to be able to load up the wood, but I forgot about the cardinal nest in the lilac tree. I checked it Saturday, all gone. I guess I should have been more vigilant. 

The cardinals are gone!

Nutmeg has been out. She caught herself a rodent, and threw up some guts on the front sidewalk. At first I couldn't figure out why the crow was flying by and/or perching in the tree. They must have a good sense of smell. Here she was checking out a bedside table.

On a happier note: I've been having fun figuring out the panoramic setting on the phone. I took a regular photo of the most recent Bears, but you can see how good the panorama is showing 🧸Snuggle Bears🐻!

This is a regular photo:

The panoramic image is far better↓. The signage says, BEARVILLE ANNUAL ART SHOW! (Grampa was inspired by the art show at the Ottawa girls' high school, they put photos on the family photo stream!)