Crumbly Acres Sidewalk!

Crumbly Acres December weather was more snowy than in the past few years. It's the sudden change from rain to snow that causes issues. We have the infrastructure for both snowy and icy weather events. If only we all used what is available. 

 

We knew we'd be getting ice rain last week. This is what Joe Brian brought me: 

I worked on the sidewalk after the storm. A layer of ice was treacherous, so I scattered some Alaskan Pet Friendly Ice Melter ('safe for paws and concrete') JB had brought home. 
I used the entire container! But it worked. You can see the pellets melt a circle around itself.

"Pet friendly' it says, but the squirrels and birds were going near it. I hope they didn't eat any. It sure looks like food. 

We had about a cm of snow on top of the ice and pellets. That helped with walking.

You may well 🤣laugh, but I spent a half hour looking for this tool↓. It was my dad's and I've used it a lot. I'd forgotten I spray painted it red! Poor Joe looked for me, too. BUT I FINALLY FOUND IT! The ice was brittle and just snapped when I banged it. Whew!

That looks much better.

These are my snappy boots. They have cleats they you flip on or off on a hinge. I bought them in 2020, on sale 50% off, last pair size 9 for $90. I cannot tell you how many times they have saved me!

This year I had to glue them, as the red shoe was pulling out of the black sole. So far, so good! I've had some clients with icy sidewalks, and they are terrific. I've had 41 clients since 2009 when I began to volunteer and do respite. If only I could put these on the car, I'd be set!

 

What did we wake up to Jan. 1st? Another 6.5 cm snow.

We went back at it. It seems as if Joe's Rotator Cuff injury is finally better.

It's not so bad when the sun comes out!

My trusty snow blower was no match for the end of the driveway. It is frozen solid.

I toodled on down, past the trailcam. 

Whoopsie! Someone blew snow on it. You can see the deer tracks around it.

That was the last photo the camera took↑. I'll have to take it in for repairs. SIGH. It's the lens at fault, as the other lens works for the camera. 

It was a lovely day

JB is feeling better, although not 100%. He's been faithfully doing his rotator cuff exercises. Can you see him doing a walk?



I went ditch diving. I just did a small section. It took an hour. I'll do another section. My mistake? Going out too early. It was such a lovely day, I did have to wrestle some pieces of garbage out of the ice in the ditch. I have my garbage picker-upper, which helped.



The county provides bags, donated by Tim Horton's, oh the irony! I've been doing this for years, and it's a shame to treat our beautiful world this way.

The traffic is awful, people are going so fast. I was happy down in the ditch. I shoved my bags into my jacket pocket, and tried to stay off of the shoulders.

No ditch diving today. We've rain coming in. Or snow. Who knows?

Cinnamon found (I think) a red squirrel in there!

Clip0 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Cinnamon snagged himself another friend. It was his second.

 
Cinnamon from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

All the animals have been happier in spring, rolling in the dirt.

happy cats from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Life and mystery birds

Lots to amuse us. Grampa continues his wall exercises for his torn rotator cuff. I usually count aloud, to try throw him off his count. (What do we have but time?!) Now, I just walk by and he giggles.

We rented some movies to pass the time. We were watching The Kitchen, a pretty vulgar, in parts gruesome, movie with Melissa McCarthy. It was about mobster wives back in the 70s. McCarthy's character was sitting counting money aloud, complained she lost count. Another female lead,   Elisabeth Moss, start spewing random numbers, as I do. We looked at one another and hooted!

COVID–19

COVID–19 reports are better than expected in Canada, although intel tells us that the Canadian government knew about it in January. I think we all expected it wouldn't be as bad as this. It wasn't until March that the kids cancelled their April trip to Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. People, media, somebody, has been demanding forecasts of cases, which include best and worst case scenarios.

Quebec has had horrid issues with long-term care (LTC), although it's all over both provinces in LTC and retirement homes. Workers (primarily personal support workers paid $15/hour) aren't getting PPE, although most have gloves and cheap masks. They don't protect the eyes, and the PSWs go from home-to-home.  

Quebec coroner’s office launches investigation into Montreal long-term-care home, where 31 seniors have died since March 13

B.C. and Alberta have been flattening the curve. Yukon and the NWT are trying hard to keep stupid white people away. 

Ontario and Quebec, not so much. They are still triaging testing, so not everyone has been tested who could have been. They are limiting it to healthcare workers, and people with symptoms. Quebec should have far fewer cases, according to the population. 

Science is really important. It's easier in some countries rather than others. Ours is so large, with very unique provinces and territories. Most of our populations live near the US/Canadian borders.

Iceland's population is about 364,000. The Netherlands is about 17 million. Ontario is about 15 million, so you can see the difference.

Personal grooming

I know they say not to, but I used the electric razor on my hair. It was down over my ears. My right eye is so bad. Having my hair in my face was driving me nuts.

We will manage. Once a week shopping. I'll be happy if cottagers go home. There were parties, we could tell from our local general store. Not in there buying goods, but loading up on booze for the weekend. We've relied on them for odds and sods. Hydro workers are picking up sandwiches, etc., and they just shouldn't take these risks.

It's a warm day, with a front having moved in. Lots of rain! Apparently, high winds will follow. Just what we need, a power outage! OK, gotta live in the present moment.

Josephine showed Grampa how to download on his Kindle. She's been reading books from her library on her iPad. The prices of eBooks on Amazon are atrocious, and they seem to have been raised in the time of COVID–19. The Kindle doesn't work with our library's eBooks. 

I asked about Josee's iPad app. It's called Libby. Caitlin checked, while we were on the phone, and it turns out it worked. I loaded it up for him, and we logged him in. Voila!

I've given up on the chorus frog survey. I'm disappointed, but there was too much driving. The spring peepers continue, as well as the wood frogs. I think I heard a tree frog this morning.

Meantime, ANOTHER mystery bird.

mystery bird from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I've had my fair share of them. Thankfully, I've time to figure them out.

 
mystery bird in the trees from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Consensus is:

mystery bird –purple finch from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

This one was solved by experts, too. I never did see it.

Mystery bird sound - Black-billed Cuckoo from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

GRAMMA CAMP – Week 4.1

Last week, I gave the girls the Bear Talk. I reminded them about protecting themselves: don't run, stand as tall as you can, yell and be fierce.

This week it's the Tick Talk! Josephine thought that funny.

We'll check ourselves. The kittens had one each, and have been given Bravecto, the one for cats. All will be good.

9:52 a.m. I heard voices.

     I called downstairs, "Anyone awake?"
     "Yeah!" said one voice.
     "No!" replied another. Josie is such a card! They were both reading.

They roused themselves enough to make breakfast. Bagels. They waited on the back deck for them to toast.


Isabelle, about to butter her bagel, "Come here, butter. Come hither!"

     "10 o'clock, that an early breakfast for us!" Izzy

Grampa went out to feed the last bucket of winter food to Maggie. You can see her wonky ankle here.



She, and her twins, continue to hang around. I got her on both trailcams!

maggie from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Grampa and I tried to do a Zoom f2f for physiotherapy. It failed miserably. I don't know what went wrong. He ended up having his appointment over the phone. They emailed a link to watch video on how to do his newly assigned exercises for his rotator cuff injury. They phoned later for payment.

Josephine asked if she could go down to switch out the trailcam cards. She was bored. I went with her. There was a red fox on one, but that was all, besides Maggie.

fox from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Josephine's adding to her birding list. Isabelle isn't as interested. No matter!


Isabelle continues to feed the fire. She is great!
Then, the girls went tree climbing...

They'd been reading for awhile, and I suggested they should do some schoolwork. I asked if Jos had been on to the Phase 2 part of OCDSB's program. She said, "Yes, I had an email at 8:30 saying something was posted. That was too early to do schoolwork!"

Isabelle did a page of math. Jos did a brief project, a science project, and Isabelle did something in English.
I asked how I knew if she'd done something and Iz said that she handed it in to her teacher. She said that she didn't "have the resources to do what my French teacher assigned." I wondered if she could get help on the weekend from Momma or Papa (both bilingual) and she said that wouldn't work, as she didn't have to work on the weekend! "It's the WEEKEND!"

I looked outdoors. There was a yearling. If you look closely, on the left near the sidewalk, was Maggie eating tulips or something.



JB offered to go out and chase her off. As if! She just stared at him.



Out I went. Her one leg is in the middle of the daffodils (deer don't typically like daffies) and she stepped over them to get to the tulips. I caught her just in time.



Yes? What?



I don't think these are tulips, but Maggie liked them. GONE!



She left me the crocus!



JB went out for a sit and a walk. Maggie came over. He explained to her that she'd have to leave my garden alone. She wandered off into the forest.

We negotiated dinner. We have chicken legs, leftover meatloaf, and spaghetti planned. Josephine wanted to leave the spaghetti until Thursday, our last dinner for the week, and said it's special.

We had both chicken legs and meatloaf. Grampa and Jos don't like chicken legs. So we're going to have it two days in a row. We had roast potatoes, cooked with the chicken legs, peas and niblets for all. See, we're eating well, Momma!

The girls are getting along really well. They understand the seriousness of our situation, but aren't letting it get to them. They have adjusted really well. We've run Gramma Camps since 2010, and that's a certain amount of normal. Grampa and I have a certain amount of stress with health issues, but they are assuaged as we focus on the girls.