Sep 19 - rocking and raining

Is that the definition of R&R ?

Yesterday a.m. I did the rocking, working on the rock wall. I drilled a few holes and inserted some rebar, putting mortar into those so that they are secure. I piled a couple more rocks but mostly brought rocks down from elsewhere in the property where David and Sandy had built up a collection a few years ago of rocks from the end of the road that had been part of our basement blasting. Oh how I wish that we'd have saved more of those !

So I now have a large pile of rocks that haven't been added to the rock wall because I need to do some concrete work before I go any further. Before that, I need to go into town and buy cement. I have plenty of gravel to mix, but need the cement.

The rain was slow to start but once it did, we got a dumping. Not enough came down to disturb the earth wall, however, so I'm still ok to finish the rocks before the snow and ice would push it down the slope.

I decided to do some backing up, since I had been having some problems with the one external SATA disk and ran into a brick wall -- couldn't get through a disk check. So ... I booted from the other external and restored from the Sunday night backup (nice) and the backup that I'd done of "my docs" before I started that effort. Nothing was lost. I don't know whether I'll try and reformat that disk or not, perhaps there are just some bad sectors or perhaps it's past resuscitation. Having backups is definitely a good thing !

We had stuffed rainbow trout for dinner and green beans. I made bread, but then I'm always making bread. This time, however, I added some quartered olives to see what that does for me. The bread looks good, so the extra salt didn't stop it from rising adequately. I'll know when I have lunch.

Today is supposed to be warm and sunny, or at least that was yesterday's forecast for today. With that in mind, I expect to go biking. I won't get too many more warm and sunny days before heading to Florida.

Oh -- worth mentioning -- Glen Steen, a fellow cyclist, was hurt in an accident while I was in France. He'd apparently hit something or at least come to a sudden stop on a bike path, in the dark, and went over the bars. He was awake and aware but unable to move for two hours until someone came to investigate his light. That was better than he expected, since he'd figured 12 hours. He has spinal cord injuries and it's not certain that he'll recover 100%. He has a blog -- www.glensroadtorecovery.blogspot.com as well as a facebook page. It's scary. Right now he's classed as a paraplegic with more movement on his right side than his left, but that should get better over time and with physio ... the real question is how much better.

Glen was originally treated in Toronto Western Hospital and has now been moved to London Ontario, since he lives in Tillsonburg. That certainly makes it easier for his wife and daughter, who have been spending most of their time with him. His daughter does the blog-writing, because Glen's not quite up to that yet, but his personality comes through loud and clear, so he's doing the dictating.

Onward ? Life goes on -- with our contribution or in spite of it, with us or without us.