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Two Roma tomato plants in 5 gal buckets, just transplanted yesterday from store bought started plants that each already have one flower. In the foreground, a pepper plant that still needs to be repotted. The photo was taken at 9h50 today.

While the large sun lit area in the foreground will eventually move off the balcony, the strip of sunlit balcony that the three plants are in will persist until between 15h and 16h. That strip of sunlight is caused by the balcony wall in view and from the balcony above as well.

Turnip, not putrid

Not all of the items on my list of things to do on weekends are made up of containers of white rice.

Categorically made of hemp and arm-lengthed dust, the laboratory made only a handful of mistakes, all of which were minimal, had no effect on the experiment and could easily be overcome by alternate plans that had been pre-prepared.

In the world of politics, someone voted for something.

In the world of sports, someone scored while another team lost.

In the world of electricity, someone got shocked.

October is a month that has in it a number of days that matches at least one or two other months of the year.

On the October 2019 Hema-Quebec calendar there was a photo of Laury, a volunteer. In the photo she was quite pretty and had a smirk that gave me the impression she knew something about me, thought it was kind of funny, but hadn't yet decided if she would share it with me.

I never got the chance to ask her what she was thinking about.

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Having moved back to where I grew up I now have renewed access to this beach, about a 10min walk from where I am living. It is the Ottawa river, very close to where it joins the St. Lawrence river. Fall has just begun so I don't plan on spending much time there at present, but maybe next summer I'll go periodically.

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If I walk to the train station adjacent to my apartment building complex and pass through the pedestrian tunnel underneath it, I have about 400m of a straight line on a road to gain access to the shore of Lac. St. Louis. At this point of the shore it is a narrow strip of what I assume is public land, but it is not developed and not easily accessed. Here is the view from Lakeshore road. At about the very center of this first photo there is the slightest evidence of a trampling of the vegetation as an access down to the water.

From the bottom of that trampled path looking up, there is the slimmest of paths through the vegetation:

I had planned to put down paving stones and get a bench or chairs but on this trip when I went two days ago I found someone else had had the same idea and had left two benches and two stacked chairs.

On this pleasant late afternoon this is what the lake looks like:

It is nice that there is this oasis down there that is easily accessible. 

books that make it to the

Today is the third day of an early heat spell with temperatures reaching 32-34C and high humidity each day, storms and rain are looking to break this up this evening.

Today is the summer solstice, so from this day going forward the days will get shorter again.

To avoid the heat of the daytime I went for a run exceedingly early today; leaving my apartment at 4h40. The sun was just rising as I got home from the run. I may start to feel sleepy in the mid-afternoon, but fortunately I still get paid the same at my job irrespective of how sleepy I feel.

I forgot to post yesterday about having begun yet another trip around the Sun; oh well, if yesterday was day zero, today is day one on my subsequent circumsolar voyage.

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From my Google Pixel 7 Pro.

It was a clear blue sky, and as usual, when I think about our Sun I was amazed. The Sun is almost wholly made of the universe's lightest element, Hydrogen. However, the Sun is 99.86% of the mass of our Solar System. That sun of ours is one big dense ball of Hydrogen.

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Yes, so Quebec Strawberries are in. I went to my local grocery story last week and found that they were selling 750ml baskets for 5.99$. This is double the price I paid the last time I made jam with these strawberries. Fortunately, this weekend I found they had lowered the price to 2.25$ per 750ml basket.

So the recipe calls for white sugar, brown sugar, lemon juice, and, well; the strawberries (mashed).

I have this food chopper, so after cleaning and removing the green from the strawberries, I would put 4-7 of them inside the food chopper, bang down on the handle witch lowers the blades and rotates the blades on the way up, doing this 12 times. Once mashed like this I put it in the measuring cup to the left.

Putting the sugars, lemon juice and mashed strawberries into this pot I needed to cook it at low heat until the sugars got absorbed, and then raise it to high temperature to have it boil and reach 105C.

Meanwhile I have washed and put into boiling water some 250ml mason jars. Those jars have boiled for at least five minutes. I take the jar out of the boiling water, empty it of water and then put the boiled jam into it; there is enough jam per recipe to do three jars. Once the lids and screw tops are put on to gentle hand tightness they go back into the boiling water for 10 minutes.

Here you can see the first batch is a little darker than the second batch - this is because as I was preparing the strawberries for the second batch, I lost track of the first one and it may have overcooked. I will know how they taste once I open them up for consumption. They are to cool down for 24 hours, so tomorrow I will test that they have all sealed properly and then put them into storage.

I may do another six jars again tomorrow if I can see that the strawberries are still on sale and available. If I do do it, I will prepare all of the strawberries in advance of the cooking, so that I don't end up with an over cooked batch.

Preserved like this the jam is supposed to be safe for consumption for as long as a year, however, at the rate I eat PB&J sandwiches, they are consumed well before the year is up.

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Mallards on their way from one standing water puddle to another; these standing water puddles can be as deep as 10" at their deepest point and exist due to the plentiful spring rain. In a week or less the standing puddles will disappear as they both seep into the ground and evaporate into the air and so these ducks will also disappear. I do not know where they go.

A crow, on a line outside my third floor apartment's bedroom window, more or less looking in on me. Often I see crows perching at the absolute highest point of trees making them easy to see; less often do I see them perch at lower levels like this spot.

A red-winged black bird. My sister told me years ago that these, though found in many places, can particularly be found adjacent to anywhere there are train tracks, which is exactly where I found this one. On my walk from my apartment to the Plaza where I do any kind of shopping I often see at least one of these specific birds, usually more than one.

who could have asked the question

This morning I walked from my apartment to the 485 bus stop and on the way saw this:

Not the clearest rainbow, but there was heavy rain falling in the midst of it. It had been raining heavily the previous day and when this happens and the ground gets saturated, this leaves no room for worms to breath and so as I was walking I found hundreds of worms out on the sidewalk pretty much everywhere I walked.

The 485 bus takes me to Hema-Quebec where I went for my bi-weekly plasma donation. Today the nurse who worked with me was named Anne-Frederique; a particularly uncommon name. She had a sunny disposition and after her busy part of the session and my donation is simply flowing I told her that having her bright cheery way of being was very pleasant for me and made me happy. She blushed a little and was gracious.

My readings (taken early on in the process) looked good today.

After my donation was done, just outside of the Hema-Quebec site I found this guy:

I took a video of him squirming along as he was actively moving at the time I approached him (her?) but the video didn't load to this blog. There were probably millions of worms out of the ground across the region given how many I saw in the distances I walked.

I caught the 201 bus home and was fortunate that the transit fare reader recognized this as a transfer rather than a new ride and so I wasn't charged an extra transit fee.

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On Monday this past week there was a total solar eclipse that passed through a swath of eastern North America including right over where I live. Where I live was on the northern edge of totality and so the duration was but a minute; the center of it that had about 3.5 minutes was in Sherbrooke at my latitude.

The above is the photo I took of it at the time that the moon was completely covering the sun; of course, my mobile device can take good photos, but not of something like this.

I did not have eclipse glasses and so I just looked at my surroundings as the available light got dimmer. At the same time I found a website that showed for my location a continuous video feed of what the eclipse looks like had I been wearing the eclipse glasses, so I kept an eye on that and just made sure to be out on my balcony at a minute or two before totality. It was impressive to see the totality in person being safe to look at it. I did manage to see one or two other celestial bodies while it was at the peak of darkness, probably Venus and/or Jupiter. As I was witnessing this from my balcony which is from the third and highest floor of my apartment building I had a clear view of the distance where I could see that it was brighter due to the edge of totality not being too far from me. Had I been in the center of the eclipse where there was 3.5 minutes it would have been darker.

I regret a little not having made a plan to have gone to one of the many gathering places where hundreds or thousands of others were together to experience this. Even if I just sat among them not speaking or interacting with anyone it would have been a more memorable experience. We are in our peak period of my job and so I couldn't get the time off.

I have read about people who are 'eclipse chasers' who go to that center of totality at any total solar eclipse irrespective of where in the world they take place. It does not interest me to do this with perhaps one small exception. On August 12, 2026 there is a total solar eclipse that part of which passes through Spain, with an edge passing over Valencia, where my brother lives. If he and his wife still live there at that time, perhaps I will split the cost with them to travel a little further away where the eclipse is of a longer duration than it would be in Valencia.

unrelated to the trip to

Friday morning I walked to Hema-Quebec for a plasma donation; the nurse in training that took my details was practically disbelievingly uncertain that my walk of 70 minutes is something she could/would do. Everything went smoothly up to and including when they put the needle into my arm and the machine that does the apheresis kicks in. Perhaps two minutes later one of the discs that spins which helps to push the blood that has come out of me into the spinning cannister ceased spinning. I alerted them to this and soon enough three of the nurses were there to try to see what could be done; they had to undo the Allen key screw, pull the disc out, put the plastic tube in place and try to put the disc back only it was being finicky, so then another nurse took over. Once that was settled the machine was beeping as there was a problem that given the amount of time that had passed and no plasma had been extracted that it perceived a problem. The instructor nurse figured it out - to first do a return cycle back into me, and then start anew as if it was at the very start, and this worked. I completed the donation as expected with no problems, and then walked back home.

On the walk there and back I counted exactly zero squirrels which seemed to me at the time to be very peculiar. I did, however, hear and see a large number of birds of quite a variety, including crows, sea gulls, robins, cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, mourning doves, Canada geese (high over head), red-winged black birds and I got reasonably close to a mostly black bird that had bits of blue and green only in the upper part of its wing. Of all of these the robins were the most audacious, often on the suburban lawns not far from the road and not scurrying away at my distantly perceived arrival.

Saturday I was hoping to watch the Miami Open Women's Singles Final between Elena Rybakina and Danielle Collins. I was about as disappointed as I ever get that TSN did not show it. The women's singles semi-finals, quarter-finals and earlier rounds were all shown, so why not the final? 

Saturday night was the Easter Vigil mass at my church, a long and complicated celebration. This morning was Easter Sunday mass and there were a lot of unfamiliar C&Es there. 

When I got home I found this guy hanging out on the upper part of the side of my kitchen sink:

I do not know what kind of bug this is; but it has been hanging out in my kitchen for the last few days, mostly in positions that didn't bother me.

Shortly I will be leaving to go to my mother-in-law's house to watch the Miami Open Men's Singles Final between Jannik Sinner and Grigor Dimitrov; the former Italian the latter, you guessed it, Bulgarian. I made certain with her over the phone that she was able to get it on her TV as I know that I can get it on mine as TSN is gladly showing much more men's tennis than women's.

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It has taken 18520 days for me to receive my first and I hope last dog bite. As I do not own a car I am often walking to get to and from wherever it is I am going. On the walk home from church this morning I passed a man walking his dog; this is not an uncommon occurrence as many people are walking their dog at all hours and so often I cross them. The dog looked tame enough as I passed, but the leash was loose and as I passed, the dog attacked me and bit the back of my left leg, fortunately only once.

Soon after taking the photo I washed that part of me with soap; it is still irritating at the moment but I expect that to diminish over time,

There have been news stories across North America over the last decade of the occasional attack that is far more devastating, with people having their faces mauled, or arms broken open, or neck torn at. I am glad that this is all that happened, and can remotely sympathize with those others who were very much more damaged.

I do not know if there is a protocol for me to have dealt with that dog owner in that moment, but as I am conflict averse, I just continued on my walk home.

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At my church's bazaar in October it was discovered that full cake or pie sold better in terms of demand and higher price. For that event I had baked some cupcakes. Our church is having another bake sale this weekend. Yesterday morning I went to buy the ingredients:

As I was walking to the grocery store (this was on Friday morning) it occurred to me only then that I have no cake carrier of any kind in order to transport the cake from my apartment to the church and for the person buying it to get it from the church to their home. The grocery store had nothing so I ordered some cake boxes from Amazon for next day delivery. Uncertain whether or not these boxes would arrive in time for the 16h mass today played a role in what happened next.

We had another event at our church this morning for which I was volunteering and left over in the kitchen were two of these from the bazaar:

Since it was flagged for future use I decided I would take one in case the cake boxes hadn't arrived yet; and when I got home, they still hadn't arrived. So I went ahead with my plan. First was to make the cake batter with water, vegetable oil, eggs and of course the cake mix and pour it into the two baking pans:

Then to bake them; after the baking, one had ended up being bigger than the other. I only eye-balled it to see about getting the two the same; ideally the difference wouldn't be so significant.

After I let them cool down a little I moved them to two cutting boards and chopped off at least some of the mound that results when baking in the oven, to make the two layers reasonably flat.

I watched a yTube video to give me some tips, one of which was to put four rectangular sheets of parchment paper beneath so that when iced, the tray holding the cake can be kept clean. Doing this, however, made it difficult to center the cake on the circular cake tray. Another tip was to put it upside down, so that the bottom side as it was in the oven which is smooth and flat, becomes the top side to do the icing.

Start with a dollop in the center and spread it out, when more is needed, put another dollop close to the center but on the side of the circle where it is needed.

It wasn't smoothed out particularly well and there are crumbs embedded, this will be buried, however, between the two layers.

Then, as before, flip over the second layer. In this one it can be seen that some of the 'bottom' of that part of the cake got stuck to the baking pan.

Now the top is iced.

Now the sides are iced.

I tried to smooth it out as best I could. The lady on the yTube video made this part look so easy.

And then I took the parchment paper away from the sides and it is clear that I didn't not center the cake particularly well.

I put the top of the cake carrier on and put it into the fridge to firm it up before heading over to the church to bring it for sale. If it does sell, and if I do get the boxes, I will considering doing this all over again either tonight or early tomorrow as I bought enough of all of the ingredients to make two. I did this in particular because once the icing I bought is opened it is only good for thirty days and so by doing the second cake I will use up more of it without waste.

UPDATE: the cake boxes I ordered arrived at 19h20 and so I baked and iced another one:

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Out my living room window yesterday just after 10h. It has been many years since we had a significant snow fall as our first snow fall of the season. By the end, yesterday, we had received 30cm,

It has been well below zero for today and tomorrow and so many of these trees are maintaining the snow that is being held by them. This coming weekend, however, the weather is reaching far above 0c as compared to the normal this time of year, and will do so for at least three days, so that will turn much of the snow to slush, or melt it altogether.

I read about this place called Naujaat, it has an airport to get to it and is located just about at the Arctic Circle in Nunavut. It is pretty amazing that the sun set there today at 13h15. There is a hotel in this village and so I would have a place to stay. I found through local and commercial airlines it would take four different aircraft and about 4200$ over three days to get there (and back). Alternatively, for 55,000$USD I could charter an airplane that flies direct in about 5.5 hours.

The chartered aircraft from the Jetone site I got the quick quote from says it seats 6-8, so let's say six. If I had 9200$USD that I could dig up and also had five equally wealthy and interested friends, we could book it. Or, I win the lottery and pay for the whole trip.

Mind, what does hiring a private jet to get somewhere (even if it is a turbo prop in the case) do to the environment? There is no train that can get me there.

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About the Beatles latest release as heard on the radio: "this iconic band is ensconced in canon." Few people speak like this.

Two houses up from my parent's house:

It isn't often you see a raised house. My parents told me that for the previous two weeks they were barraged with the noise of an industrial hydraulic rock breaker that was breaking up the bedrock that previously, caused the basement of this house to be of too short a height.

There isn't much more to report at this time.

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What? Two posts in the same day?

For many years, perhaps even a decade or three, I have been curious about cannabis and what effect the consumption of it would have on me. I have never smoked anything of any kind and never wanted to change that, and I have never wanted it so much that I would seek out an illicit supplier. Five years ago, or perhaps more, the sale of cannabis became legal in Canada.

Still I hemmed and hawed and finally a week or so ago bought nanoemulsified THC and CBD spray, two very small sprayers that hold very little, about 15ml each. I have an oatmeal muffin mix that I have used a few times, so decided I would put them together.

I also mix in some maple syrup though that is not called for. I used a kitchen scale to get the weight of each of those two little cylinder containers to see how much I used; 6g of each of the THC spray and the CMD spray.

I ate one of these about ten minutes ago. The SQDC site says that when consuming this way effects could start after about half an hour and could last eight hours.

I can control my dose by eating only one muffin, or two, or even three. Also, I can control the dose by next batch using more or less than 6g of the spray. As my very first ever consumption I am starting with just one today and I will see how the day goes. 

that isn't what it wasn't

So much and yet so little, like a kite flying underwater.

I believe the cicada I heard on Tuesday afternoon (Oct 2) is likely the last one this year.

Today may be the last day I am able to wear shorts and t-shirt comfortably when outdoors, like I did this morning when I went for a 9.6km walk. My work has a Wellness corporate group who has organized that anyone of the ~21000 employees can participate to walk or run and measure steps with the goal of a distance equal to circumnavigating the world twice. I have no way to measure steps, so using a variety of means have calculated the steps I probably do for a specific 5km run, the specific 9.6km walk I did this morning and a handful of other specific routes I take. At the time of this posting I am at around 40k steps since Monday.

That a turnip would be performing on stage, the third most recognized soliloquy that Ernest Hemingway would have considered presenting, would be welcomed with certainty.

During one of my walks recently I encountered a skeleton the height of two people, it was enormous:

The weekend just past I went to visit with my parents, my mom isn't doing so well with the Frontal Temporal Dementia taking its toll on her. In the preceding week, my dad told me, the CLSC Case Manager and he, based on all of the feedback from everyone dealing with my mom, decided to put her on the waiting list to get into a permanent care come. On such a waiting list it could be she goes in the next month or two, or it could take as long as 18 months.

While I was at their house I found this stylish guy:

Also while I was at their house I discovered a 1996 train schedule:

The most notable differences between the schedule then and today's schedule is on weekday nights now there is only one train at 21h15 instead of two (at 20h and 22h45) and today's trains no longer go as far as Rigaud, Hudson is now the last stop.

There is another topic I have to write about, but that will come tomorrow.