GRAY NOVEMBER SKIES

      We usually think as November being dull and cloudy. The days are short. Today the sun rose at 8:19 and set at 4:27. That meant 8 hours and 8 minutes of sun. 

     However , there is one bright spot on the horizon. 

    When driving at these times the sun is so low all day that it just nicely shines in your car windows no matter what time of day it is. So in the morning if you are going east you look almost directly into the sun. At noon the sun is brighter but is still shines directly in the car windows, Same thing going west in the afternoon. 

    So November days may be dull with weak sun as it's on an angle that  is going through much of the atmosphere. But since the rays are low they hit you in the eye.

     Well, it could be  worse. Sunrise in Inuvik today is 12:34 and sunset 2:48 for 2 hours and 14 minutes of sun. 

     Here's two shots of the same thing from Nov. 19

PHOTOS

    I'm not a photographer. Don't argue with me on that one. I take photos. That is all. 

    However, the other day I came across something that was interesting and took a photo. 

    So here's the photo and then I'll tell you what my problem is. 

    I was standing on a little footbridge and looked into a little pond on the creek and I saw  crystal clear reflection , You can see ice on the edge of the pond. 

    Then I looked around for some perspective. Normally you would open things up and show the trees on the bank and the reflections together. 

   Well that wouldn't work. I was on a foot bridge . The image was quite far down . the tree was on a high bank. Even if I did take the bridge railing off I couldn't get the whole image. 

   So I'll have to be content with a pretty image and complete lack of perspective. 

   I went to the other side of the bridge and there was the typical reflection photo. So you see the trees and reflection in the same photo.

    This came out of my walk on Nov. 19. 

BRUSH ALONG THE CREEK

       This is not meant to be a post with pretty photos. 

       I quite often walk the path along this creek about 1 km from my house. The banks are steep and the land has never been developed. 

      Native species are  there but there are many invasives.

     Put that together with all the different soil types and you have a variety of scrubby  vegetation. So in these photos it shows areas with vegetation which struggles with poor conditions. 

       The second photo is just a poor photo. I swear that the other photos were in better focus in the camera . However it was a very gray day. 

THE GRAMMAR POLICE

      The grammar police visited my post A Memory. 

      Have you ever had grammar police visit your blog? 

     This visit was more of a raid as they went a little further than just grammar. 

     I had tried to say that Mr Pudding from Yorkshire Pudding had been to his favorite pub for quiz night. Question # 12 gave me a good memory for my post. I was chastised because  I hadn't explained "Mr Pudding" or "Yorkshire Pudding" In fact, they thought that so much was missing that I may have had a TIA. Well part of this is their problem but I admit that it was a  sloppy paragraph. 

   There were further omissions and out right mistakes. I confess to some very poor editing. I was in a hurry. 

   So this would bring up a question for bloggers. How much should we concern ourselves with grammar? Are bloggers supposed to work to rule? Is it necessary to have completely correct grammar? I'm sure everybody has their own opinions. What makes up a good blog? Does it take correct grammar to have a good blog? 

    When you read my blog I think you see that I am somewhat informal. That's me. I'm that kind of person.

    When I read your blogs, which are all good, I see different styles. People can write the way they talk and it makes for an interesting blog. 

     With so much variety blogging is very interesting. 

      So since I have confessed to some errors, will the grammar police wonder what I'm talking about or will bloggers wonder what grammar police are? There seems to be something wrong with my last sentence but I don't know what it is. 

     

PLEASANT FALL WEATHER

     On Oct. 23 we had a heavy snowfall. I predicted  that it would be our winter snow and not melt until the spring.

    Well, 99% of it is gone. We've had beautiful weather and the snow has melted. Temperatures have been well above average. 

   This would be what my Dad would call an open fall. 

                                      This was Oct 23

       Today NOV 19.This is the most snow I could find.

                 Today Nov 19. Sea any snow here?

A MEMORY

      Mr. Pudding from Yorkshire pudding was at a quiz night when # 12 was. What does the term weenie mean in North America.

     He didn't get it but it reminded me of a story revolving around a weenie roast. In my day the weenie roast was common and happened many times quite by accident.

    So in my days in Inuvik the Mackenzie river was he center of many things. It was spring...the beginning of June. The ice hadn't gone out on the Mackenzie river. But there was a rumor that is was going out this night. We had never seen the ice go out so about ten of us decided we would go down and wait for the ice to go out. And why not take a package of wieners and some buns and have a weenie roast while we waited. It was a mixed group of friends. The midnight sun was bright . We found some firewood...there was lots of it and built a fire and waited. 

    About 2:00 AM we decided the ice wasn't going out and  slowly went home. We all had to be at work in the morning. 

   Now the Mackenzie River divides into many channels but there is a main channel. Being white men who knew everything we had been taken in by some aboriginals who assured us the river would break up. The break up on the channel we were at would be great but not spectacular. 

    The main channel of the river is where the excitement takes place. There are enormous blocks of ice flying around and and enormous flow of water. 

    Any river that flows from south to north has a gigantic spring break up. It's warmer in the south and there's much melting. In the north the ice is still solid but the huge flow of water breaks up on the river. The ice is about 4 or 5 feet think. 

    So this is a weenie roast I'll remember and I never got to see the river break break up. 

CLOTHES DRYER QUITS.

     Today my clothes dryer did some funny things which made it so that it didn't work. The timer would go from 29 to one and quit. One time it went from 41 to 34. Skipped 34 to 9. skipped 3 and 4 and went to 0. Needless to say we didn't get many clothes dried. 

     We got this dryer in March of 23 so I hope there's still some warranty on it. With all the computer boards on everything these days you really don't know what the problem is. 

     Now on the farm my mother had the same clothes dryer for 35 years. It did not have a warranty. It broke a few times but was working again in a few minutes. All you had to do was tie the wire together again. Mother's clothes dryer was outside made of wires set around a pulley at each end. Mother took her clothes basket out side and pinned the clothes to the wire. As she needed more space to hang clothes she used the pulley to move the clothes already on the line. 

    It didn't take long and the clothes were dry and fresh smelling.

    Winter weather made this clothes drier very painful to use. Working with wet hands in freezing weather was painful. The clothes would dry a bit and then she'd bring them in as they were frozen stiff. She's hang them in the house until they were dry. 

    So I'm wondering if I should put a couple of posts in the yard, buy a couple of pulleys and some wire and dry my clothes outside? 

AWESOME WEATHER HERE

     Today was just a super day for mid November. 

     We had heavy snowfall on Oct. 23. I thought ,"This is it. We have snow all winter."

      Surprise, Surprise. We've had mild weather since about Oct. 25. Today most of our snow is gone. 

     We've had a super day with a high of plus 10 C (50 F). 

     The average high for the month of November is 0 C (32 F) so at 10 C we're well above the average high.

    It was chinooking today so it was windy and warm. I did not get a photo of the chinook arch.

    The forecast for the next seven days is great with highs above freezing all the time.

    In spite of such pleasant weather , I put up my Christmas lights today. So to make my kids happy, I did not climb the ladder (very high) as I put the lights low down on the house.

    And I walked at 8 PM and it was most pleasant. 

THE WELL IS A BIT DRY

      I have been struggling to post this last week. 

      I have some excuses though!

      The Micro Manager has a torn rotator cuff that she's left far too long to get some treatment. Those lucky people who have experienced torn rotator cuff know that it is painful and just plane miserable. The Micro Manager is experiencing a lot of pain so I've had to do more of the work.

     I'm also trying to launch two other projects to keep me busy during the winter but if I don't get at them winter will be over. I've started a family history. I want other members of the family to contribute. That's going to be a challenge. 

    I also want to pull posts out of Hiawatha house and put them into a separate blog which will work into a biography. So If anybody knows a fast, dirty and simple way to pull posts out of a blog and place them in another blog let me know. 

    So I've set out some challenges and work for me.

    If you're going to blog , you have to be able to think about subjects to write about. I haven't been doing that . 

RODEO

       Thursday evening I went to a rodeo.

       How did I get to a rodeo? A company that I am a customer of, always treats their clients to a roast beef dinner. So there we are once a year at a fine dinner and with tokens in our pockets for drinks. They also gave us rodeo tickets so that's how I got to the rodeo.

        We have the Canadian Finals Rodeo here so it shows off the best talent on the rodeo circuit. Only the top ten in each category get to enter and compete in this rodeo. These performers have competed for the last year at rodeos and these were the best. 

      At this time of year rodeos are in arenas. 

     Now I don't go to rodeos anymore. I used to go once in a while but they were to summer events. I prefer the summer outdoor rodeo. I also like the chuck wagon races and you can't have those in an arena.

     Now I got to the rodeo a little late. The lights in the stands were dim. I couldn't find my seat. You just couldn't see the signage. Oh yes, you needed an magnifying glass to read the info on the ticket stub. Finally I ran into an usher.  I had seats in the wheelchair section and she had to get us chairs. 

     Okay, my second gripe is that they have the sound system turned up to about a 1000 decibels. With hearing aids, I hear very little. Just noise!

     After all that I had fun although I didn't stay for the whole show . 

I'M SO OLD THAT...

       I'm so old that they didn't lock things when I was a kid. 

     A couple of things I mentioned in my last post reminded me of what it was like when I was a kid in the 40's and 50's. When I mentioned pushing cars around at Halloween I suddenly remembered some things about cars and houses.

      When I was a kid in the 40's to 60's , we did not lock anything. In fact we left the keys in the car ignition. That's the kind of world we lived in. The really old cars did not have keys. They had a toggle switch with off and on. Some people modified things so that they didn't need a key to start the car. They were more worried about losing keys than cars to theft. 

    So we could have driven the cars around instead of pushing them. All we did was put the car gears in neutral and three or four kids could move the car. One kid had to steer. 

    Houses were not locked on farms or in the villages and small towns. When Mom and Dad went away one time, they decided to lock the house. The problem was they couldn't find the key so the house was left unlocked. 

    When I first came to this city in 1969, I did not lock my house door or my car. Shortly after that I started locking both but was not that rigorous about it. I learned that I was in the city and it was different. Somehow time had moved on so that most cars and houses were locked.