Dinner on the patio

 I sat out on the back deck, Sept. 4th, feeling a bit low. The birds are leaving. Flowers are dying off. I am happy not to have the pressure of gardening. I was so sick for the better part of a month this summer. I hope we can both stay well this winter. That said, someone was wheezing in his sleep overnight. 

😷  COVID–19 According to the most recent data from Ottawa Public Health. (Our health unit doesn't have data!)

• 6 Ottawa residents died of COVID-19 during the first part of August, 
• 7 people died in July. 
• The week of Aug. 18, 44 people were admitted to local hospitals with COVID-19, 
• 15 new and 11 ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks in Ottawa long-term care homes, retirement homes and hospitals.
• 82% of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 were over the age of 60. 

There are surges in Whooping Cough, what with the poor uptake in childhood vaccines. Measles is another issue. Oh, sigh. 

I looked up to the skies from the safety of my deck. This plane was strange. I spotted it, couldn't see it on the radar, it did a circle, and came back around. There it was on radar. What is up with this/?

This dude was doing something just weird on both sides of the border.

Joe came outside and suggested we go out for dinner. What the heck! Off we went. I noticed a chair on top of the old silo! ???? 

The Osprey was a bit difficult to film. Can you see it? Soon they will migrate south as this water will freeze over.

Lots of boat action.

I ordered wine, he ordered a virgin caesar. He took a few sips, and said it tasted peculiar. Joe has not had a drink in 22 years. The server thought it was because he didn't stir it up properly to mix the spices. Guess what? She'd put in alcohol, as a matter of habit. She made him a new one, but didn't give him a discount. That was disappointing. It really didn't taste any better, either! 

The last patio selfie for the season:

This is the forecast for Saturday night: snow (pink) in Northern Ontario. Oh yuck.

The arthropod and the gutter!

 We had one lay eggs in November, 2022. They hatched into little teeny caterpillars in June, 2023. 

. 

They lay their eggs on the white-marked tussock moth cocoon. 

 

arthropod from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

☔The Aug. 11th rainstorm was heavy at times. I took a video of the rainfall, to remind myself to clean it.

rainstorm from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

We've a storm arriving on Saturday, so Wednesday I took the ladder out, set it up, but had to rest. Back at it, up I went. There wasn't much debris, but the Catalpa tree leaves sure blocked it. I chopped off some of the end of the branches. I'll cut off some more limbs, as they'll fall in there again, once Autumn arrives. 

I sat myself back down, and had a bit of a coughing spell afterwards. This danged disease. 

After I was done, I noticed my supervisor sitting on top of the air conditioner (Cinnamon). Joe's not allowed outside when I'm climbing the ladder. He makes me nervous! I do tell him I'm going up, and report back when I'm done!

😷We continue to recover from our COVID symptoms. Our semi-local hospital, Smiths Falls, has put out a mask mandate due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the surgical ward. Of course, we don't know how many cases we have in our health unit, since our Premier shut all that tracking down. We used the data to gauge our risk and public activities. He is busy trying to privatize healthcare in a country where universal healthcare is a priority.

I went for a bit of me time, a pedicure. I wore an N95 mask. The esthetician told me she'd had COVID twice. Since she has asthma, it took her a long time to recover. I think she said 6 weeks. I'm coming at 31 days. Since I usually get viral-induced asthma, I was not surprised that I coughed after coming home. Thank goodness for the puffer. I cancelled my haircut that I'd booked for today. 

We'd some leftover turkey breast, and I made tacos for dinner. Joe helped me. Then we went back to watching Grantchester. My cough settled down.

Backyard, ivy, wood pewee

Day by day, we are recovering. Thankfully. I seem to be coughing about 4 hours into sleep. I use the puffer and get another 4 hours. 

The lawn was getting rather frowsy. I did the back yard with the lawn tractor. We were expecting Tropical Storm Betty, and I thought I'd give it a go. There isn't any effort involved, so my lungs didn't suffer greatly. It was pretty shaggy. 

August is an interesting season. The vine is making its way up the house. Oct. 20, 2021, vs. August, 2024. I think it is a Hydrangea Vine. Vines are not good for bricks and mortar. (It gets into the mortar and erodes it.) Cedar planks? Dunno.

I don't feed the hummingbirds now, since there are lots of flowers in bloom, including wildflowers. Bugloss, brown-eyed Susans, woodland sunflower. I was looking out front at the hanging basket and spotted a doe.

I've been looking in my files, trying to see if I actually had a photo of a Wood Pewee, since Merlin told me we had one. They've nested and babies have fledge. No more lovely songs. This popped up in a sparrow search! (AI, indeed!) May 24, 2019, at 8 a.m.

🔥🚒Out west, people will find out they can get back into their homes in Jasper. About 5000 were evacuated.

🌧 We had rain (61mm/2.5"), but living in a wetland, it drains away from the house. The cities did not fare as well. There was a big effect from the remnants of Hurricane Debby in Ottawa. Montreal, in spots, had over 200mm (7.9"). How can that much rain travel so far?! How can the clouds carry it all? 

Our Volunteer Firefighters from District 6 have been working diligently to help residents with the flooding in Dunrobin, Carp & West Carleton.

They responded to 20+ calls for flooded basements with extra pumps on board our trucks, culverts cleaned out & electrical safety checks… pic.twitter.com/VlUf07j1MZ

— Ottawa Fire Services (@OttFire) August 10, 2024

STORM UPDATE | Heavy rain in Gatineau Park

⚠ For safety reasons, please note the following:
🚌 Shuttle service is cancelled this weekend
❌ The parkway network is closed to all visitors until further notice
🅿 Parking lot closures in effect: P10, Dunlop, P11, P12, P13#ottnews pic.twitter.com/7ZsfHTcHXn

— Gatineau Park (@NCC_GatPark) August 10, 2024

Cool mornings, are you ready?

😷 Our COVID symptoms lessen each day. We are still tired. I did a bit of weeding yesterday without coughing my brains out. I still need the puffer. My prescription ran out, and I am using Joe's, which expired in January. I am going to have to argue with the pharmacy to see if I can get a new one. My health insurance won't pay for one until Aug. 16th. Desperate times... 

🐾 Fred Groundhog

Here we are, Aug. 8th. This morning it was 12 ℃., and Fred groundhog has disappeared. I haven't seen him in a few days (perhaps a week), with the cooler August mornings. In 2023, my last recorded sighting of him was Aug. 21st. I imagine that he has to go work on his winter house. Autumn is approaching! See you next year, Fred! He's left early this year. I'm not sure what he knows that we don't know. Maybe an early Fall, after an early spring? 

 My bell fell over. I need to trim off the bottom, which is rotten and uneven. (Non-mental note.) Here is my precious rehomed Daisy, back in 2017, inspecting the bell. She kept attacking Nutmeg.

 

This is Dogwood I transplanted from beside the driveway. It needed more sun. Last year ,the doe trimmed it! Finally, this year, it seems to be thriving inside the deer fence.

Taking some quiet time to read my book on the back deck – a tussock moth caterpillar distracted me.

I uncovered the BBQ to replace the propane tank. It looks like someone was building a nest! Speaking of getting ready for winter. It's been propaneless and idle since July 13th. This is our COVID BBQ, too big for the two of us, but it was the only one that was preassembled. There was no staff available to assemble a smaller one. 

I cooked these for lunches, and to supplement the pasta dish JB got for me at Boston Pizza. They never have enough stuff with the pasta. 

I worked my way through all these Daniel Kalla books whilst home sick. Ruth Ware's One Perfect Couple is fantastic. 

The monarch caterpillars!

😷What a week it's been for many people. We are holding our own. We are still recovering from COVID. Slowly. Dr. Brian Goldman is warning us:

The new #Covid KP3 subvariant is spreading like wildfire. You may want to consider masking for larger gatherings indoors. Some hospitals have returned to required masking. My anecdotal sense is that KP3 is much more than "a cold."

🔨 I was about to suggest to daughter Caitlin, in Ottawa, that they'd had two incidents (toilet issues), and a third was likely on the way. Wrong! They had more than this. 

Here are their tale of woes: backed up drain, the heat pump kept frosting up so they couldn't use the AC continuously, toilet glugging, dryer vent blocked (that involved cutting open the wall), and dishwasher drain plugged. I was tired just reading her list!

🛠  🏠  🔦  🔩

🦇Baths or moths?

I found a 📹video of bats in the dark on the Facebook Trailcam group. This tells me that my videos are of large moths! Not bats. You can see the bat outline.

A couple of years ago this poor bat was stuck in a used plastic container and couldn't fly out. It wasn't amused! I flipped up the lid, launching it into the air, and off it went.

This poor bat was circling our bedroom ceiling fan. Again, this is the bat shape I should have been looking for.

I like putting a mystery to bed. 

sphynx moths from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

🐛Yippee! I found two monarch caterpillars. This is a good sign. There must be more, but the pumpkins are crowding the milkweed. They can co-exist! I gave them a good water Sunday. Monday, it poured! 

 

Aug. 1st

Aug. 5th  – peek-a-boo!

July storm from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.