DON'T YOU HATE IT WHEN...

    Don't you hate it when you have a container and you can't get all of the material out?

    I was reminded of that this morning. My nutella was just about gone. I took a scraper to get most of the nutella out. Well the bottom was such a funny shape that lots of nutella was left in the jar. I know that the nutella jar has a large flat side so that the name can be large and recognizable, but  why did the bottom have to have a weird shape.



   Another container that I really dislike is a jar of applesauce. The sides of the jar are ridged. No matter how hard you try, much applesauce is left in the container.

    Why can't somebody design a jar that would make it very easy to get all the material out?

   How about you. Is not being able to easily get out the last material a concern or does it just not matter?

BIRDERS HAVE GONE HIGH TECH

      About ten years ago I took over a bird watching group that had fallen apart. No one wanted to organize anymore. I spent much of my time wandering around the area bird watching or watching many other things. So I said to myself, " It's my time to lead a bird watching group." My first session brought out only one person. Things improved after that. I soon learned how to publicize things. We had bird watching activities on our web site.

     There are quite a few excellent birding areas within the city. We go out of town to visit half a dozen sites. One of them is the Ellis bird Farm.

    When I started the only thing people brought with them were binoculars. I carried a bird book in my backpack. We had fun but didn't find a lot of birds.



    Tony is checking on his bird app.


    As time went on a few people showed up with some high end cameras. They also turned out to be excellent photographers. Now we usually got a few excellent photos of the bird that was hard to see and just a quickly flew away. So there we were with a photo. We could look at the bird as long as we wanted. We had evidence and took as much time as needed to make an identification.

   Then people started showing up with an app on their phone which was better than a bird book. One could see several photos, watch the bird fly and listen to a call.

    So in ten years bird watching changed a great deal. Bird watching is still fun, maybe more fun, as we get to identify more birds.

    Now covid -19 has prevented us from going out as a group. Birders are bad for getting in a close group to look at pictures in order to identify what was seen. So what to do about bird watching. Well, one of our birders suggested that people go out on their own and report their sightings and photos to our facebook page. It was a roaring success. People went to different areas and reported many sightings. It's a good way to watch birds but since birders are such a social group we are just waiting to go back out as a group.



    Notice Ariane in the middle looking at photos . Then there's someone behind ariane with a humungous lens.

   

    This is one of my favorites. some wise guy said there's a bird. I wonder what it is. In about a minute Gary told us it's flight # and its going from Germany to LA. 

THE RELUCTANT HANDYMAN DOES IT AGAIN.

      I have written about my experiences at being a reluctant handyman. I don't like mechanical things. I'm not good at mechanical things. I still don't know which way to turn the wrench and I never will. I just experiment and if the nut moves Ok it's going to come off . If the nut doesn't move well then I'm turning the wrong direction.

    Well, my latest experience  was to  change the motor on my central vacuum system.

    When the vacuum quits running the first thing to discover is why it won't run. I leave the diagnosis up to the micro manager. She found out that the motor had to be replaced. Then comes the shopping to get a motor.

    Now we're in business. Take the machine apart and instal the new motor. Well not so fast. Be careful when taking things apart so that you know how to put it back together. I took a couple of wires off that I didn't have to. There is a hood over the motor that has to be taken off so that you can get at the motor . Inside the hood are three wires that have to be taken off. I made sure that I labeled the wires and where they should be reconnected. Oh and don't forget to take the exhaust pipe off the motor. And don't forget to turn the power off. Oops that should have been done a few steps ago.

   Now I found out that I was missing two parts. I needed a gasket to go  on top of the motor and a clip to go on an electrical wire.

   The whole machine is very dirty as carbon comes off the motor so there was some cleaning , lots of cleaning. Those first two wires I took off? I had a tough time to get them back on. They were in behind and at eye level. You couldn't look on the top of them.

    Well after a few checks and lots of cleaning, the Micro Manager says, "Let's see if it works" Well what do you know. It was fixed.

    Why do I go through this torture? Tradesmen are so awful that we will do many things to avoid them. At one time I had an excellent plumber but my experience is not the same with other tradesmen.

    Also , today Buttons at Buttons Thoughts wrote about all the good things about being a handyman. I enjoyed her post.

 

MORE OF WHAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT.

    The covid -19 virus has us pinned down because we don't know much about it. Covid - 19 isn't telling us much about itself. We know it can be deadly as the death rate tells us. We know that it spreads rapidly.

    There are many things that are not known. Why do cases go from  death, severe and then people who do not realize they had the virus?

   There is much debate over the use of masks. There has been change over whether masks should be used or not. 

   Does having covid - 19 give you immunity from being sick again?

    How long is the virus active when it's out of the body.? Is the virus killed by frost, heat or sunlight?

    Then there are those who have wild theories about treatment and cure. One famous suggestion is a few shots of antiseptic.!!!  Others think let the kids get the virus . It won't hurt them. Others say let the old people get the virus. They're a drain on the system anyway! Some strange concoctions have been suggested for treatment and cure. 

    I read yesterday that they are adding 6 more symptoms for covid 19.

   One thing the experts say is that we could have this monster for two years until a vaccine is developed. 

    One thing for sure, is that in the 5 months since the virus has been named not much has been learned about it. 

   In the meantime we do have things we can do to protect ourselves. I applaud those people who sew their own masks. We can stay in and wash often with soap. We can stay away from others. I have to admit that I sinned mightily this week when a person I hadn't seen for 10 years stopped by while I was in the yard. We were so happy to see each other that we shook hands! 

    Keep healthy. We'll make it through this.

AN AMAZING LIFE

    My last post was to set the situation for this post or was this story setting the last post? Well, I don't know but they are related.

    My last post told about a very cruel story where Inuit were moved to a very inhospitable area against their will.

    One of the children in that move in 1953 died a few weeks ago at age 78.

   Markoosie Patsauq was  12 years old when his family was taken to Resolute Bay by the C.D. Howe icebreaker.

     The next year when the icebreaker came back and did a health check they found that Markoosie had tuberculosis. Markoosie was taken to Manitoba Canada which was 2766 km from Resolute Bay. So a year after one drastic change Markoosie experienced another change. Markoosie went to school and learned English while being treated for TB.

    Now they didn't send Markoosie back to Resolute but instead sent him to highschool in Yellowknife NWT which was 2794 km from Manitoba. After highschool Markoosie was the first Inuk to get a pilot's licence and did bush flying up and down the eastern coast of Hudson Bay.

    What did Markoosie do after flying? He was the first Inuk to write  novel! Harpoon of the Hunter was first written in syllabics . It was translated into English and several other languages. It's never been out of print.

     That's a major accomplishment by someone who had many challenges to face in life.

    I'm looking forward to finding Markoosie's story.

CRAZEE WHITEMAN

      "Crazy white man" was a term that was tossed around freely in the Mackenzie Delta when I was there in the mid 60's. It was thrown back and forth . White people used the phrase as well as aboriginal and when both groups were together. I'm sure that crazy white man was used in other circles in  hatred.

     I have no idea of the origin of the term but there were many situations that could have brought up it's origin. There would be a long history . European explorers came first, then whalers, missionaries, traders and government. All of them showed examples of not knowing how to cope and taking advantage of the original people.

   One example of crazy will stay in my memory forever. I was not involved in this incident but have read and heard much about it. The Canadian government decided in the early fifties that Inuit in northern Quebec would be better off if they relocated some of them. The government decided that game was becoming scarce in the area and that relocation of some families from Port Harrison ,Quebec, would ease the situation on game. 

     So they choose 10- 12 families and moved them to Resolute Bay. These people were moved against their will. They were dropped off in Resolute Bay by  ice breaker at the end of September with tents and a supply of food to get them started. Resolute Bay is one of the coldest locations in the Arctic. There is little game there. The modern Inuit had never been that far north.

     These people suffered great hardship.

     The real reason these people were moved was to be land inhabitants to claim sovereignty to the Arctic Islands. The early fifties was at the time of the cold war and Canada didn't want to find Russians inhabiting arctic islands. The Inuit called themselves human flagpoles.

   I'm sure you would agree that this was a completely loony and heartless move by the Canadian government and it would deserve the term crazy whiteman.

   Now there are countless more examples of what white people did to earn the label "crazy whiteman".

 

SOME NIGHTS YOU NEVER FORGET

    Some things that happen to you, you never forget.

    Here goes.

    Many of you know that I spent five years in the Arctic and enjoyed it. I was very adventurous, young and full of mischief. I had many experiences that I would never have had if I didn't have those characteristics. Now since I'm 80 most of the adventurous side of me is gone.

    I had a friend who always wanted to go goose shooting. We rented a small airplane and were dropped off somewhere in the Mackenzie delta. Other friends came with us. We had a lot of supplies. Rum was one of the main supplies. Needless to say we didn't shoot any geese or even scare a goose.

    One of the hunting trips was to Richard's Island in late September of 1965. Richard's Island is a very large island on the Mackenzie delta. In the mid fifties a very large dew line site was built there. By the time I got there the site had been closed and most of it destroyed.



    We found a good place to camp in some willows on the beach. We had one small tent for three. Four of us were on the trip. We took an aboriginal with us so this would be a serious and successful goose hunt. George, the aboriginal, said he would sleep outside the tent. So I thought if he can sleep outside the tent so can I. Well you guessed it . I was so cold I got very little sleep.

    But another thing was a cause for lack of sleep.

    One of us brought a transistor radio. We couldn't even get the local station let alone any other station. But with radio reception in the north strange things can happen. Whoever had the radio didn't realize it was still on. All night a California station would come in and out. Sometime the station would be on for half an hour. Now the content of that station is what's stayed with me for a lifetime. Most of the station's broadcast was taken up by a right wing commentator. I listened to this guy go on and on. I believe it may have been John Birch or had something to do with John Birch. I was not familiar at all with right wing ideology

    So being very , very cold and listening to a transistor radio I spent one of the more uncomfortable nights in my life.

   Did we get any geese? Of course not.