Sunday, October 4, 2015

September 27 to October 3, 2015

Sunday ; Raining in the morning, sunny and warm in the afternoon.

This morning we left the Wal-Mart parking lot where we had parked overnight and returned to Joanne's sister's home to pick up Bo who had had spent overnight there. Then we headed north out of the city to the City of Winnipeg's Sewage Treatment Plant where we dumped our waste holding tanks before heading east of Winnipeg to my sister's home in Lorette. Today my sister hosted the "day after the wedding" party attended by the bride's family, the groom's family, and the wedding party.

We spent the lovely warm afternoon visiting and ... well, you know ... eating ! It's what my family does best ! Especially when my sister is the hostess ! HA HA HA ! Late in the afternoon we returned to Winnipeg, and Joanne's sister's home.

I am SO glad that the wedding and day after party are over ! < whispering > I really don't like coming to Winnipeg, and I really don't like family "events".

After having supper we joined Lorraine, her daughters, and some of her in-laws in the backyard for a bonfire in celebration of her nephew's 13th birthday. Shortly after 9 PM we walked across the rear laneway to the Churchill Drive riverfront parkway to view the Blood Moon total lunar eclipse. Very interesting phenomenon !

Monday ; Sunny but chilly.

This morning we took the three dogs for a walk on the nearby riverfront parkway. Dogs and we were all enjoying the pleasant fall sunshine, when all of a sudden ... I noticed Macie the Bichon Frise was chewing. HEY ... MACIE ... LEAVE IT ! That command resulted in her chewing faster. I reached down, grabbed her face, and wrestled her mouth open. SO ... she began to swallow ! Hard ! DAMN DOG !  I stuck my too large finger into her too small mouth, pushed way down into her throat and ... felt something. Macie was swallowing as hard as she could. With considerable difficulty I managed to wrestle the something out of her throat. OH MACIE ! ! ! A MOUSE ? ! ? BAD DOG ! ! !

This afternoon we went to run some errands. We drove to Superstore in St. Vital where I refilled Lanoire with diesel while Joanne went inside the store to buy some groceries. From there we drove a long way to where a propane supply business was supposed to be located, but ... it had moved ! I wasn't pleased ! I decided that refilling the camper's empty propane tank can wait until Wednesday when we go to my sister's in Lorette. We returned to Joanne's sister's home where we are "boondocking" on the front street.

Joanne went out for dinner with her cousins. I had dinner with Lorraine and the girls. Well ... actually ... the nieces ate dinner in front of the TV while I sat at the kitchen table with Lorraine. Immediately after quickly eating dinner Lorraine rushed off to a work event. After dinner the nieces and I took the three dogs for a long walk. Afterwards Madeleine and I baked some cookies. Then I worked on the slightly arduous task of removing the laptop screen from my sister's laptop ... now my "spare" ... and installing it onto my laptop. WOO-HOO ! My laptop once again is complete and functional.

Tuesday ; Still sunny and cold.

We had a somewhat lazy day. We puttered around with some chores. Joanne did some supper preparation tasks. We took the three dogs for a very long walk on the Churchill Drive riverfront parkway. I did some computer work, including some update and enhancement work on the laptop computer that my sister gave ( back ) to me. I'm hoping that it may be possible to convince her to continue using it, even though I have removed its screen. It works quite well configured to a desktop monitor screen.

This evening's dinner included Lorraine's "boyfriend" ( I don't know what the politically correct terminology is for a dating couple of their vintage ) and his developmentally disabled twenty year old daughter. Over dinner my big surprise was revealed to Joanne. Her sister, nieces and I are participating in this weekend's "Run For The Cure" in support of breast cancer, in Joanne's honour.

Just before dinner was served I was in the backyard with Bo and Macie the Bichon Frise when I witnessed an escaped dog drama taking place on the riverfront parkway.
I quickly rushed over there, and am quite proud to say that with at least a dozen or so other people ( read that as "bumbling idiots" ) involved in attempting to capture the running scared dog ... it was yours truly who caught him and held him for his owner. Well done, Daniel !

Wednesday ; A mix of sun and clouds, cool, a bit windy.

We took care of morning chores then took the three dogs for a walk along the riverfront parkway before we departed Joanne's sister's house. We drove to Winnipeg's Perimeter Highway 100 and found our way to Winnipeg's sewage treatment plant where we dumped our waste holding tanks. We drove a bit north of Winnipeg on Lagimodiere Blvd. / Hwy. 59 to the nearby village of Grande Pointe where we refilled both of the truck camper's propane tanks at Caledon Propane.

We drove back to Winnipeg on Hwy. 59, then onto the Perimeter Highway 100 and Trans-Canada Highway 1 east a few miles to Lorette where my sister lives. We spent the afternoon and evening visiting with my sister and brother-in-law. In the afternoon we sat around a campfire in their back yard. In the evening ... she fed us a huge supper of fresh Lake Winnipeg Pickerel and Pickerel Cheeks. Gee, she feeds us well. That's her "thing". HA HA HA !

Thursday ; Cloudy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, mild.

This morning my brother-in-law drove me to the cheese factory in the nearby village of New Bothwell so I could buy some fresh cheese curds for the supper I asked my sister to prepare tonight. This afternoon he helped me with three jobs that I had to do on the truck and camper. First he helped me with a minor brake line repair I needed to do on the truck. Then he helped me remove and remount the WAVE infrared radiant catalytic heater in the camper. Lastly, we spent much of the afternoon removing the camper's water pump and installing a new one. By the time we were finished those jobs it was late afternoon. We retired to the back yard to drink beer around a campfire. Retirement has its privileges ! Thank you very much for all your help, Bud.

As I requested, my sister prepared poutine for supper, a French Canadian specialty dish ; French fries covered with fresh cheese curds and hot gravy. MMMMM ! Hard on the arteries, but ... worth it occasionally. HA HA HA ! Joanne and I provided a bottle of apple cider from Cawston, the tiny village adjacent to Keremeos, the tiny village we live near in B.C. The Cawston non-alcoholic apple cider went perfectly with the poutine. Thank you very much for the poutine for supper, and the borscht for lunch, Sharon.

Friday ; Sunny and mild.

This morning the we all piled into our truck ( including my sister and brother-in-law ) and headed east on Trans-Canada Hwy. 1 about an hour or so to Sandilands Provincial Forest for some wild mushroom hunting. We traipsed around the woods in two different locations looking for a particular type of wild mushroom we know by its "ethnic" name, identified in our mushroom hunting book as "honey mushrooms". We found ... one ! But we found many other types of mushrooms that we collected, then attempted to identify using both our wild mushroom identification book and also my sister's. We were able to identify a few, but not most. We had a picnic lunch then drove back to my sister's home in Lorette.

This evening we drove into Winnipeg to meet our friend Shirley whom we've known since high school and her husband Darcy whom we've known since shortly after high school. So ... friends for more than forty years ! We had dinner with them in a restaurant ( thank you for treating us to dinner, Darcy ) then spent the evening chatting.

Saturday ; Sunny and cool.

My sister and brother-in-law were away from home for most of the day, so we spent much of the day alone at their home taking care of routine chores. Joanne did laundry.
I did some month end accounting, bank account reconciliations, investment updates, etc.

Late in the afternoon we headed to Winnipeg to shop at Wal-Mart ( in violation of our "no Wal-Martin' on weekends" rule ) before heading to Joanne's sister's for supper and an evening of chatting.

DSK

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