Merry Christmas

We don't count how many shovel loads of snow we scooped and tossed to the sides of our daily paths. It's not as definitive as the bags of leaves we accumulate and count with a measured sense of pride in the cool refreshing autumn air. Instead we, as a community, count accumulated snow fall and collectively share the accomplishment of surviving yet another storm, and we take a certain hardy pride in experiencing historical records. The more brutal the storm, the better we feel. Not sure if we'll set a record for snow fall this December...we'll know in one week's time, but I heard a weather forecester suggesting last week that this is not beyond the realm of possibility. I also heard, this week, that Montreal has exceeded its 2008 snow removal budgt of 127.2 million dollars by about 30 million dollars. It's been a good year for snow and a very lucrative year, apparently, for the snow removal trade.

Tonight we'll attend mass at the chapel of Jean de la Mennais. Jerome somehow managed to get tickets for us again despite that fact that he graduated from there last year. He's participating in the ceremony in some undisclosed capacity. Afterwards, we'll gather here at home for a small reveillon. Maybe open a gift or two. Tomorrow, we'll pick up M.Hetu and head over to the Lindsay Memorial where Mme is convalescing after her hip surgery, and we'll gather together for a small family christmas reception in the solarium. After 62 years of married life, this is the first time they have been apart, and they miss each other desperately.

Tonight we'll pray for Mme's rapid recovery, and by the looks of it, she's going to sure that this will happen. We'll also pray for Steve M. who was diagnosed this past week with inoperaple brain tumours. Will ask God to do his best which, as we all know, is a miracle. So, tonight, we'll be praying for a miracle.

Merry Christmas...Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All!

Back from Bremen and 20 more bags

Didn't have a chance to rake last weekend as had to travel to Bremen for a security audit at the BLG terminal on the Weser River with the CTPAT reps of US Customs. By the time I got back, the trees had released almost all their leaves which covered most of the back yard. Raked another 20 bags today which brings the count to 81. Pretty sure that's the biggest yield to date. If the snow holds off for another week, I'll probably be able to get another 1 or 2 of mostly needles from the two scotch pines.

Eastern Standard Time - One of My Pet Peeves

Spring Ahead, Fall Back...clocks went back an hour this morning to mark the end the Daylight Savings Time. It's fairly easy to appreciate that Benjamin Franklin was onto a good idea when he suggested that energy savings might be realized if the work day was skewed by an hour in the Spring time to take advantage of the longer light. But to reset the clocks on an entire continent is absurd. Could we not, instead, change our office and school hours so that clocks stay as they are, and we all simply set our alarms an hour earlier...then we'd also be going home an hour earlier. That's good. What's so complicated about that? As it is, this current practice is nothing more than mass self-deception. We are all tricking ourselves it is 7 o'clock when in fact, it is actually 6 o'clock...but don't tell anybody or they might think that's way too early to get up...We are, collectively, tha stupid except in Saskatchewan who has the earthly sense to move wit nature. Kudo's to Saskatchewan!

Another 15 bags this weekend bringing the count so far to 61 and there are still 4 trees in the back yard with lots of leaves still hanging. Should be mostly fallen within another week or two. This morning the thermometer registered slightly below zero degrees C. There was thin ice on the pond, but temperature rose to abt 5 or 6 degrees by mid-morning which was pleasant for raking. Helene reported snow in the Saguenay region when she visited UQAC in Chicoutimi yesterday. She'S thinking of changing from the Bilogy program at McGill to the Outdoors Studies program at Univeristy of Quebec at Chicoutimi.

Indian Summer

another 7 bags today and another beautiful autumn afternoon for raking. With the 7 bags from last week, total bag count is 46. Front yard is nearly complete, but the tress in the back yard have not yet dropped too many leave. So there'll be plenty of raking left to do and we'll probably be close to 60 bags by the time the snow puts an end to it. We had our first frost last week, which means that this nice weather is probably our Indian summer.

Thanksgiving Bag Count

Another 16 bags this long weekend. Mostly yellow Maple leaves and Scotch Pine needles. Total bags to date = 32. Raking leaves under the enormous maple on the corner reminded me of shovelling snow during a snow fall. No sooner have you finished, then you have to start all over again as the leaves just keep falling like snow flakes. The only way to look at is that the leaves I rake today won't have to be raked next weekend. Beautiful weather for raking though. Perfect Autumn air...fresh clear sunny days...t-shirt weather if you're working. Just like Indian Summer but we haven't had our first frost yet.

Pizza + Autumn Garden Preparations

Early yesterday morning, michele and I drove jerome to St. Jacques le Mineur where he spend the next 5 days helping with the harvesting of a family vineyard there. The vinyard is owned by the parents of one of Jerome's former highschool classmates who invited him to stay with them for his first stage (off campus work experience) of his farm management program at McGill. On the way home, we did some grocery shopping and we picked up the makings for pizza which we out off until today so that Michele would have the opportunity to serve up an excellent chicken parmigiana for last night's summer. So, we decided to serve pizza for lunch today. While Michele did the laundry and ironing, I chopped the toppings while my very reliable and handy Black+Decker bread machine chrurned the dough. I just pulled the pizza from the oven a few moments ago and it sits on the kitchen set for two where Michele and I will cut into it shortly after it has had a chance to cool down a little bit. Katherine is off working at the Univers du Tutu and Helene is off to Dix Trente to help a friend shop for clothes...apparently, he has trouble deciding on his own what he should wear. Will head off into the garden again after our pizza. Last week disposed of 5 large garden bags of garden clippings. Yesterday, I clipped another 3 bags yesterday and expect to get another 2 or 3 this afternoon which will bring this year's count to about 16 bags which is a little less than one-third of my total annual count. The leaves have just started to fall bt not yet to a degree that requires immediate raking. Will finish the clippings first and then get into the leaves next week (Canadian Thanksgiving weekend). Empied the pond and brought the fish into the solarium yesterday..they vigorously resist the transition, but once they've been installed in the warmer cleaner water of the solarium, they appear content enough. Only my two new laurel trees left to bring into the solarium. Once that's done, I can blow the hose lines and put everything away before the frost descends upon us.

Why Not?

About 40 years ago, my elder brother, David, told me that his Philosophy teacher at Loyola College of Montreal (pre-Concordia) had offered a single question to his students for their final exam. As was usual for most final exams at Loyola, the Philosophy students reading this question were sitting in the iceless hokey arena with hundreds of other students from dozens of other disciplines. Row after innumerable row of small wooden desks laid out under the bright spotlights and fans humming and dangling above. As the story goes, most of David's classmates used up the permitted maximum 3 hours to express their answer in writing over pages and pages of the typical 24 page exam booklets. A few students actually asked for a second booklet in order to extend their answer beyond 24 pages of script. The question was, "Why?". One bold and confident student handed in his booklet after sitting the requisite minimum 30 minutes with an answer which was only twice as long as the question. It took up less than half a line of a single page. His answer was, "Why not?". According to David, that student received 75% for his effort. I always admired that fellow whoever he was. So, here I sit on a wet overcast Sunday morning in Brossard Quebec procrastinating on my annual autumnal garden work while starting my very first blog inspired by that bold philosophical nameless legend from my student days..."Why not?". It certainly appears to be a popular past time these days. Not that anyone should care, and not that my submission on blogger.com will have any relevance to the grade I shall ultimately receive at the end of life's final exam, but why not join the stream anyway and see what comes of it.
dc

p.s. mh doesn't know yet that I have started a blog which incorporates her initials. I'll fix that with hopes of gaining her approval failing which this may well be the first and final blog under the dc + mh moniker.