Canadian-Traveler

Giving A Helping Hand Hopefully, everyone has recovered from the last two days of history lessons. At least I did. Got myself back into work mood today. After all the weather had improved and the fog was gone. That happens when the warmer Southern winds cease and let the Northern breezes take over. We notice it right away as our furnace refuses to shut off. Yeah it runs and runs and runs….you get the idea, until I turn down the thermostat, and grab the jacket instead. You guessed it: We got the first power bill after our return. Yikes, we ran up 608kwh for 5 days of being here. Now try to figure out what that winter would have cost us. I say only “Arm and a Leg”. We need some warmer air over here! Well, I’m straying here. Yes it was back to work today.  We started with helping out in the ditches. Ditches?  The Rural Community of Campobello (isn’t that a lovely word?) had this year’s spring clean up. In the ditches. We had signed up to clean about half a mile of community road. After picking up garbage bags from the Community office we went about it. Somebody out here drinks one hell of a lot of Bud Light and thinks it is perfectly alright to throw the empty cans out the car window. If I ever gonna see the person do it I’m gonna whack her. Pig! But there were also wrappers, Styrofoam plates, all kinds of plastic, Vodka bottles and pill containers, There were glass shards and lottery tickets, and large plastic bags which had to be pulled out of the mud. That half mile of road resulted in 5 filled black garbage bags. If I’d be the mayor here I’d hire a cleaning crew and levy the costs on the taxes. That might result in some self education. Getting home we felt exhausted. A second breakfast healed all wounds and then it was back to the works again. But this time I grabbed the weed-whacker and took up fight with our wild and out-of-control raspberry patch again. I whacked and whacked, then raked and raked, piling up high the vines and the brush. Finally there were these tree stumps. Last time I had success by using the willy-nilly Jeep and a strong rope. It worked also this time and I think Bea shot a picture of me pulling out the suckers. At the very last, or what I thought would be the last for today, I put the rope around a big concrete block which would be a nuisance to get the mower around every time, once grass would actually grow there. I put the Jeep into first gear and pulled. When i came to the rope’s end the front wheels started spinning. Backing up I tried it once more with a bit more speed. I noted the jerk of the taut rope and then I felt something coming loose, but it was still hard for Jeepy. So I stopped and went looking. That concrete block had fallen halfway over and exposed its lower part which was more than what stuck up over the ground. I realized that Jeepy would not be able to pull that thing any further without risking that the whole transmission would ricochet out from underneath. I was still looking at it when I noticed Mike was coming over from the neighbour property. Mike is an entrepreneur and does leach fields  and such. For that he has some pretty tough equipment, like a gravel truck, a dozer and a tractor excavator with a front loader. Mike offered to haul that concrete block and a few others which we discovered in the bushes, out and take them away. I thanked him and 2 hours later, when Mike had called it a day with the sewer project, he motored his machines over and started digging. Mike didn’t only haul the concrete blocks out. he dug up all other natural rocks which stuck up and used the bucket of his machine to rake all brush over to one side, compress it and shove it farther out to the side. Mike, who is also a neighbour, saved me several days of work. He is simply a great guy. I think we will invite him and his wife for supper, once the golf course restaurant opens in may. Even with Mike’s helping machinery I feel drained and my back hurts. i walk like I’m 80 years old and I’m just happy to sit in my recliner this evening. So, If you don’t get some fancy pictures today bear with me. Thanks for stopping by!