Every Child Matters

 I hope that you all took a moment today to think about Truth and Reconciliation.  I did.

Wore my Every Child Matters hat and shirt to the greenhouse and proudly showed it off as I cut the grass for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Saw a few (not many) other folks wearing orange today.  Felt good.

It is hard to fathom the mind set of the people who perpetrated the racial genocide in the residential schools.  If it had been publicized would there have been any reaction in those days?  Probably not - there's still not a lot of time spent thinking about it.  We privileged white folk are pretty complacent about what is done to those of other races.

Barbara and Jo-Ann's grandfather had his Oneida Indian status taken away as a "reward" for his service in the Canadian military during the war.  The girls had to fight long and hard to get status back for themselves and for Yancy and Rowan.

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The Blue Jays lost their game today, but snuck into the playoff picture when Seattle lost to Tampa Bay.  Hope they do well going forward.

But, they did do a good job of recognizing Every Child Matters.

The anthem was sung in three languages by this officer.

And all of the broadcasters were properly attired.

And there were quite a few orange shirts in the crowd.

Well done!

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Pat's donations to the foodbank, resulting from bottle refunds, now total over $800!  Mardi and I had a drink to celebrate 😎.  More empties coming Pat!

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Stay well and laugh a lot.

Heroines

 This building has some good people in it, and two of the best are in Mardi's swim group.

Elizabeth collects pop can tabs.  She turns them in to the March of Dimes for wheel chair credits and the result is that she is working on her third wheel chair, which the charity gives to needy individuals.

Pat is another one.  She has decided to collect empty alcohol containers for return (Mardi and I are faithful contributors)  and, so far, has been able to donate over $500 to the food bank.

Mardi is working on heroine status too.  She's started dumpster diving to help her friends with their projects 😁.

Very well done ladies!

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Started driving this week.  Free at last!  By the end of this week I'll be able to get back to work at the greenhouse.  For now, I'm just watering the front garden to take a bit of pressure off Sean who is in charge while his parents are gallivanting across Europe.

When I visited the optometrist the other day to donate my glasses I booked an eye appointment.  Their policy is to wait for five weeks after cataract surgery to make sure that everything has settled down.  They will then provide a prescription for reading glasses - five weeks too late.  

I can deal with the computer since I have a touch screen and can easily enlarge the print.  And the Sudoku book has big print so that's OK too.  But any other close work and I'm lost.  So, I picked up a pair of Foster Grant multifocal reading glasses from WalMart for $38.  Seem to work well.  And the $1.25 pair from Dollarama will do just fine as backups.

We'll see what the optometrist says in due time.

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Last night's Blue Jays game was one of the best ever.  George Springer had an inside the park home run, got an outfield assist by a great throw to second base for an out, and made an impossible flying catch for another out.

Frustrating at times, but the team is worth watching.  And so far, they're still in wildcard position for the playoffs.

Stay well folks and enjoy the fall weather.

20/20

 The eyes are in sync today.  It's the fourth day since the second operation and both are working well.  First time in 80 years that I haven't needed either glasses or contact lenses.  It's interesting that, although I haven't worn contacts for over 20 years, I do get the feeling that I should be taking the contacts out when I head for bed.

In any event, we headed to the Optometrist and made an appointment for a checkup, and donated my two old pairs of glasses (and two pair of Mardi's) to the Lions Club project.

Next, we headed to the Driver Test location on Kenora to get my Driver's License updated.  Don't need that "corrective lenses required" notation any longer.  Just took a few minutes for a vision check - new license will arrive in a few days.

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Then, it was on to Trillium Hill.  Still not cleared to drive the mower, but I decided that watering the plants in the front garden was OK.

Headed back to the greenhouse to discover that Trillium Hill is now featuring cut flowers and, since Sean insisted 😏, I bought my love some Gladioli.

If I didn't still need her to get me around, I would have instead bought her one of these lovely warty pumpkins (so she'd keep me in her thoughts)!

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Blue Jays are looking like a team that wants to get to the playoffs.  Nice victory tonight over Tampa Bay.

Stay well and enjoy the fall weather.

A Foggy Day In London Town

 A bit of a change with the second eye operation.  I now have my new left eye but, post operation, it was like looking through a heavy plastic sheet.  I could make out colour and shape, but no detail.  The eye was a bit swollen apparently.

Now, day two, it's at the fog stage.  Things are starting to come into focus, but still not clear detail.

If the left eye now follows the trajectory of the right one, over the next couple of days things should sort themselves out. 

And a week from now I will regain some of my independence.  By then, it will have been a month since I had to quit driving and depend on Mardi for my mobility.  I have the feeling that she's looking forward to that date too!

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A lot of attention being given to the Manitoba government's refusal to dig into the landfill to search for missing Indigenous women.  A huge cost and no guarantee of success is their rationale.

But, it makes you wonder.  If it involved missing white women?  If one of them was a politician's wife?

Seems to me that they know the rough dates that the women went missing.  And they should also know where the landfill boundary was at those times.  Maybe not so much cost after all.

Or, simply shut the place down, declare it a cemetery, erect monuments to the women, and signs explaining why nothing appropriate was done.

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Interesting timing on Trudeau's claim that the Indian government was implicit in the killing of the terrorist living in Canada.

Do you suppose he's trying to take attention away from his floundering support?

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Stuck indoors today and nothing exciting is likely to happen so I'll publish early.

Stay well.

Satisfaction Revisited

Completed cleaning up the front gardens today.  Now I just need to get the lawns cut before Monday morning when I get my new eye.  Can't wait - the first cataract operation was a fantastic success.

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A couple more pictures to show why I get so much satisfaction from the work that I do at the greenhouse.

In the picture below, the Juniper that stretches from the rock on the right to the left of the picture began it's life as one of several plants in a 12 inch planter.  At the end of the season the planter was unsold and the Juniper was all that was still alive in it and it was about the size of a saucer.

As you can see it has grown a lot since then!

And in the picture below, there is a Chestnut tree in the foreground that squirrels planted in Mardi's garden on Gateshead.

Behind it, two Oaks that squirrels planted along the greenhouse driveway under the Pines.

All of these were shorter than a foot tall when I transplanted them.

Watching all of them grow has been, for me, like watching your kids mature and thrive.  Very satisfying!

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Speaking of kids maturing and thriving, we had a nice visit with Kathryn and Anna tonight.

First off, we had dinner at the Banana Leaf Restaurant.

Then, back to our place where Anna crushed us at the dice game.

😢

Next week Kathryn, her mother and her siblings, head to Europe for a river cruise - plus.  Have a great trip kids!

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Stay well folks!

Satisfaction

 Money is not an issue Jim.  There are three other reasons that I do what I do.

1 - The satisfaction of seeing the results of my work, including watching Charlie Brown trees grow into something special.  

This one started out four feet tall with five spindly branches.

This whole area started out as a pile of rubble.

2 - Spending time with four of my grandkids, including Sean who is now my boss.

 😅

3 - Staying in decent health and not driving Mardi to drink by being a couch potato (oops, too late for that - yes, I'll have one too dear).

😉

Don't tell Sue or David, but if he stopped paying me I'd still show up for garden duty, heart and eyes be damned.  (Sue, if you're reading this, credit poetic license please.)

Life is good my friend!  Even though I'm spending half my time with one eye closed (eight days to go).

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This afternoon we attended the annual Shoreliner BBQ.

Burgers were great, and the desserts were awesome.

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Left the BBQ in time to watch the final innings of the Blue Jays game.  If you saw the inning where Espinal hit a squeeze bunt to score Varsho, who was pinch running for the lumbering freight, Kirk, you saw some special baseball.  

Suddenly, the Jays look like the team we thought they were, and they're back in the playoff hunt.  Hope that they can keep it up.

Stay well folks.

Dobbin

 As predicted, Dobbin was anxious to get back into harness.  So anxious that he spent an hour getting soaked cutting grass in the rain.  Felt good!

Also enjoyed a coffee break chat with Sean.  Nice way to spend time!

 Hopefully, better weather conditions will come to allow the rest of the grass cutting. Still an hour and a half left to finish.

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While I was sitting around I decided to do some market research.  Mardi and I had stopped at Home Depot yesterday and while there I noticed the prices on their Mums.

Would you rather pay $14.99 for the 12 inch Mum planters with Purple Fountain Grass like these at Trillium Hill.........................

.....or $36.99 for these at Home Depot?

Or, $11.99 for these at Trillium Hill..........

...........compared to $17.98 for these overripe ones at Home Depot?

Crazy!

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The Bar-B-Que at the Shoreliner, scheduled for this afternoon, was postponed until tomorrow due to the rain.  Allowed us to watch the Blue Jays, who played a good game today.  Hopefully they keep up the pace.

Stay well.

A Good Day

 Got a clean bill of health from the heart doctor today.  As the doctor put it, "your post and tube wiring is back in good shape".  For an old guy, that's pretty good news.  

Scheduled back in for a wiring check next July.

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Tonight we headed to the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover to see "Opry Gold".

A real toe tapping evening!  They told the history of the Grand Old Opry with their songs and stories.  Excellent musicians.

The show continues in Port Dover until the 16th and moves to the Roselawn Theatre in Port Colborne from September 20 - 24.

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Tomorrow will be a lawn cutting day.  Can't wait to get back in harness.

Stay well.

Garden Club

 My right eye is excellent.  Clear and focused.  

But, the left eye is fuzzy and, it's hard to describe the feeling, but using both eyes makes vision "uncomfortable".  So Sean gave me a short term fix.  My pirate phase.

You're looking at the long distance arrangement.  For working on the computer I have to block the good right eye and wear my old glasses.

Just eleven more days before the left eye gets the fix.  Can't wait.

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We've started a garden club here at the Shoreliner and on Wednesday I took the ladies for a tour of the Mums at Trillium Hill (Mardi drove).

Today we made our first purchase.  Set up four individual planters, and then the ladies added some six inch plants to a couple of bigger planters.

Next up, the club will be getting some planters near the entrance prepared for winter/Christmas display.

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Tomorrow, Mardi takes me to a follow-up appointment with the heart doctor.  Kind of forgot about that stent issue with the eye thing going on.  At this point everything seems OK there too.  Of course I've basically been a drone because of the eyes and haven't done any heavy lifting.  We'll see what the man says.

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Stay well.  I intend to.

 

Hit And Miss

 Escaped again!  Today the boss took me for a nice visit with our friend Barb Gallina in Dundas.

Barb is recovering from a recent operation and is doing very well.

Enjoyed the day!

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But tonight was a different story.  Jays blew the game against the lowly Colorado Rockies.  I won't be surprised if they miss out on the playoffs this year.  Sad display.  

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Stay well.  Enjoy the holiday.