Sep 22 - the REAL end of summer

George got me looking into this -- according to Wikipedia, the equinox is at 9:04 a.m. today, September 23rd. Looking at the Doppler, that appears to be about when the rain will hit us, i.e. "fall". Ha.

All we got yesterday was a tiny sprinkle, no rain per se. I went out early picking rocks, driving the 4-wheeler along 522 and stopping by the roadside whenever I saw loose rocks up-slope, not on the roadbed. Of course there's a lot of rock, but it's bedrock, cut when they built the road and either not loose or the smallest moveable chunk weighs several hundred pounds or tons (tonnes in metric).

At one point I was up the sloping rock and an OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) SUV cruiser stopped. "Picking rocks" ... "yup" ... "have a good one". I imagine that the query would have been different had I been picking rocks from the roadbed itself.

Back home, I unloaded the trailer-full of rocks and got out the cement and the mixer. For the next few hours I made concrete, filling in the area that I'd prepped the day before. If I recall, I did 4.5, should have been 5, pours. I say "should have been five", because I put too much water in the mixer for the first two pours and ended up with water slopping out as I added gravel and cement to get the correct consistency.

That used up the cement that I had on hand, so I put everything away and went in for lunch. That also coincided with when we got the slight sprinkle of rain, so timing seemed perfect. After lunch, I hauled the aforementioned rock from the driveway down to the rock wall and continued to work on my jigsaw puzzle. I seem to have enough rock, at this point, to finish the job. I could always go higher ...

I went over kibitzed with Jason and Kyle, who were finishing the wiring for their garage and then went into town (Loring), picking up more cement, visiting the ATM and picking up my Small Game hunting license and the Migratory Game Bird license. Alex will be here Oct 1st weekend, or at least that's the plan, and we're going to do some hunting (not the same as catching, you understand). David will be here on Thanksgiving weekend and I'll hunt then too.

The ATM in Port Loring is in a small out-building at someone's house. It's just a small shed ... this is big-time !

The Ontario non-resident Small Game license is expensive -- $110 -- and I get that at Buchanan's. The resident license is much less expensive, but I'm not a resident. The Migratory Game Bird license is a Canada-wide thing and must be accompanied by the Provincial license -- it's only $19 and you get that at the Post Office. The MGB license makes no distinction between resident and non-resident. Of course I went to the General Store post office (Loring), but come to think of it, I could have gotten that at the Post Office in Buchanan's (Port Loring). However, I needed to go to the post office / General Store anyway, to get our mail (none) and pick up a newspaper.

The Toronto Star is supposed to arrive between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., which is later than it used to be. It was just before 5 p.m. when I was there and it still hadn't arrived. I asked the fellow at the cash (the postmaster, forget his name), whether the papers would arrive before they closed ... and he said that he had no comment, that it was a losing proposition to comment. I bought a paper anyway -- the prior day's paper -- since Sandy had brought home a paper the previous day but that too was the prior day, so we're running one day behind.

Life is slow up north :).

Dennis and Raylene Scott (across the lake from us) arrived sometime late yesterday because I could hear the generator. Their big light wasn't on though and because I'd heard from Jim that they were having generator problems, I called them on the telephone to see if everything was ok. I could see a faint light. Raylene said that parts were on order for their generator and they had brought along a small unit, and were expecting to close up this weekend.

Today, Friday, Kim and Gavin are driving up for the weekend, so they will arrive sometime late today. Jim and Bonnie are still away, presumably in Sault Ste. Marie because their brother-in-law was quite ill and being in his 80's, not expected to last long. They took separate cars, so I'm expecting Jim back before Bonnie. Stan and Kathy (Cathy?) had been in but are now gone.

That's all the news on the lake ...

With rain forecast for today and tomorrow, I might not get any more work done on the rock wall, other than rock placement. Yesterday, in addition to the concrete pour and more placement, I drilled into the bedrock, holding rocks in place with rebar. The 12" galvanized rebar pieces that were leftover from our house building require a 3/4" hole, which is slow going. The rebar that I bought from Home Depot only needs a 1/2" hole so after a long drill with the now-worn 3/4" bit, I switched to 1/2" and cut rebar pieces to fit the depth of the rock and hole beneath. The reciprocating saw works well cutting the smaller rebar.

Sunday looks like my next opportunity for a bike ride, based on the weather forecast. Somewhere in there I'll finish up the rock wall but my next priority, assuming a dry day, will be some leg-exercise. I'm getting plenty of upper body exercise on the rock wall, but that's almost complete.

Onward !