Perhaps It Is

I am a terrible typist (keyboardist?). While I don’t exactly keep track of my mistakes, one recurring one that I have noticed recently is monirng when I mean monring oops, I mean morning. (I couldn’t type morning correctly even when I was paying attention. I assure you that it was unintentional.) 

The trouble is that spellcheck doesn’t know what to do with monirng so I have to sort it out myself. Life is hard. lol 

Speaking of hard, do you know what I had to do to type lol and not Lol, above? Well, I had to type lol before adding the period, and then go back add the period afterward because the tablet otherwise capitalizes the first letter after a period. To repeat: life is hard. Lol. (Oops I typed that lol after the period. Lol — oops again.)

Why am I obsessed with morning this moring (see, I mistyped it again , and not on purpose, I tell ya)? It’s because I was writing good morning to several bloggers early on Monday after I got up at 3:20 (old time) for the posts fly up up from everyone on a Monday morning. Don’t worry, you’re not in a time warp. I just know that I have several posts already scheduled ahead of time, so you won’t see this one until Thursday.

Another frequent typo is from or form. It seems that whichever of those two words I type, I will reverse the o and r. When i want from, I seem to type form and vise versa.  (Now, why won’t spellcheck automatically capitalize a single i? When is a naked i not supposed to be capitalized?)

I make many many typos, but morning and from/form are frequent ones that I have noticed. Sometimes, when I go back and reread comments that I make on other people’s blog, I cringe at the typos that I have made and then missed. It makes it look as though dementia is setting in . . . . and perhaps it is.

Looking Up and Around

After coffee in the car, we headed downtown and walked around, just a bit, for there was a wee nip in the air.

We have a new bridge. It was under construction in all of 2022. The closure was not a boon to downtown merchants, which was too bad after two years of the pandemic. Nevertheless, it had to be done. Come better weather, I will likely take more pictures of and around the bridge, but this will have to do for now. This photo looks downstream toward the trail bridge that you have seen in other photos. The water was very blue that day, so I wanted to get at least one photo. They built a little extension or platform on both sides of the bridge, for people to loiter, get a closer look, and maybe take a picture.

From about the same spot, I turned the camera right toward townhall. How many photos have I taken of this building? How many more will I take?

I continued my looking-up theme and took two photos of 1888 Taylor. I don't know who Taylor was.

Before we retreated to our friendly vehicle, Sue had me pose with some leftovers from Christmas outside the Chamber of Commerce house, which was once a very early residence of a leading family. She is doing a scarlet theme this week, and so . . .

Almost back to our Honda, on the edge of the parking lot, I decided to take just one more photo — of a Mustang parked in a little alcove under the stairs of a two-storey building.

There were no great photos to be had that day, but sometimes it is enough just to point and click: especially now as a long winter begins to show signs of drawing to a close — at least on some days. 

Coffee Time Again

It's not hugely noticeable yet, especially this morning, but winter is on the wane. Assuming clear skies, the day are brighter and longer. And although the snow pile out front still reaches 7', for the most part, the streets and sidewalks are bare (but not this morning). 

Of course, winter isn't done with us. It will come back, most likely several times, kicking down the door and shouting, "And another thing . . ."

What I am getting around to telling you is that the brightness of the day beckoned us outside on Saturday.

Yes, it was once again time for coffee in the car by the river.

Don't we look pleased with ourselves?

I got out of the car for a few minutes to take this photo through a gap in the snowbank at the edge of the parking lot toward the abandoned Hawthorn factory in the background.

Then there is the tree — a tree for all seasons. With a snowbank between me and it, I was going to give it a miss this time around. But when I saw tracks leading to it, I reconsidered.

Despite the brightness, it was windy and cool, but we headed downtown anyway for a little stroll. That is for tomorrow me mateys.

Tidbits

After a week off from playing Sudoku, I wasn’t seeing grid lines, so I played again. It was an expert-level game, so it took me 21 minutes. When I was finished, I looked up at the blank wall, and I could see grid lines.  After a few minutes, they didn’t look too strong, and sometime later, they were gone. I don't know what to make of this.

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The kids are on March Break. It didn’t look to promising for this week when they both contracted the dreaded C last week: first Danica and then Jonathan. Fortunately, Danica was testing negative by Friday, but Jonathan had to miss the year-end, hockey tournament in Kingston. Too bad, for this is an event that the boys really look forward to as they get a weekend together in a hotel. Danica is free and clear and is on an overnight shopping trip with her stepmom and stepsisters across the border in Watertown, NYS. JJ will also soon be able to resume normal life.

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I will have my follow-up  appointment with the urologist tomorrow. All has been calm for a week and a half, so I think the clotting episodes are all over. I did pass quite a few clots just over a week ago, which was a whole month after the surgery, but I trust that is the end of that. It’s an early morning out-of-town appointment. Maybe we should have a celebratory breakfast when we get back to town. 

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I plan to update the doctor on the problems we had trying to access home care. For both removals of the catheters, he was sure that home care would come to the house. They did not do this on either occasion, and on the first occasion, they seemed to lose track of me completely. This will not be to complain but just to make him aware of the situation.

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Meanwhile, I have a lot of grocery store points accumulated. This week, if I redeem $180, they will give me $36 back in points. Seems like a plan. Afterward, I will still have about $300 to redeem. I don't like points to accumulate too much, for I remember when I had $3600 in points to spend on a new Ford. I got a notice that I had to use them within a few months. I wasn't ready to purchase a new car then, so I lost the points. Needless to say, I have never been anxious, since then, to purchase a Ford product.

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It should not be too difficult to spend $180, for I spent $200 on groceries, twice in the past two weeks. Prices are crazy. I shop for only the two of us, so I don't know how the family of 6 across the street manages. When Sue and I first married, we would live on ~$100 for a month. She was shocked back then when I predicted that some day we would pay $1 for a loaf of bread. I don't think she believed me, but I am here to tell you that regular, white Wonder bread is priced at $3.99 at my store.

Guess the Maple Museum Photos

There is a little, private museum at the Wheelers Sugar Camp. Because we have been in there scads of times, I figured there was nothing new to photograph, so I attached my macro lens and sauntered abut shooting this and that.

Do you know what we're seeing here?

If you guessed, old wooden sap buckets, go the head of the class. 

Here is another bit of texture. I can't remember if it was a sap bucket or something else.

Nothing to guess here, but I like the shots. There is a railing around some of the exhibits; it is supported by rope in some areas.

A final whatzzit for you. Can you guess?

I think someone in the back row guessed snowshoe, and that is correct. Obviously, a very small bit of one.

On the Boil

After our fine breakfast of pancakes, french toast and sausages, all doused heavily with maple syrup, we took a gander around the boiler room. Despite the earliness of the season, the previous day must have been a good one for the sap flow, for it had been sunny and temperatures had risen above freezing. Whatever the case, one of the boilers was hard at work.

But first, I took a picture of Sue doing her project thing, which was to shoot through things.

I was keen to photograph the steam being emitted from the boiler. I took two photos: one of the whole scene and one more focused on the boiler.

At the time, I thought that I would prefer the closer photo, but in the end, I find myself favouring the wider photo. I guess it shouldn't surprise me, for I often prefer the more contextual photos.

Spring at the Sugar Shack

As most of you know by now, we head to the sugar shack twice in most years: once in spring and once in autumn. We don't usually make our spring trip this early, for it isn't really spring yet, but the sap is beginning to flow. More importantly, Sue desired a trip there to do something or other with her photo project.

So off we went on a 45-minute drive to Wheelers near McDonalds Corners in the hinterland of Lanark County. It so happened that Tuesday was the first day of their spring session, and there were lots of visitors, and more than it shows in this photo, for most of those tables filled up quickly.

As we sipped our coffee, Sue took our predictable selfie, featuring the jar of maple syrup that was waiting for breakfast to be delivered.

We both ordered The Canadian entrée, which consists of . . .  well never mind . . . you can see for yourself.

It was time to pour the golden nectar.

We were then ready to put away the phone and to start devouring the yummy comestibles. 

Now doesn't that look good?