08 July 2012
Of Manly Men and Manly Man Things
08/07/12 05:44
It has been a manly week full of manly things. The Calgary Stampede began. The Calgary Stampede is two weeks of roping otherwise docile animals, men riding other animals that really, really don’t want them to, and chuck wagon races, an event designed to harm as many of the participants as possible. Think of it as the NHL with bigger hats. As this is the 100th Calgary Stampede there is even 24 hour coverage of the event. I believe TPTV (Testosterone Poisoning Television) got the contract.
South of the border was the most manly of holidays, the 4th of July. I mean what else can you say about a holiday dedicated to cooking meat over fire and blowing stuff up? The best line of the week though was on the CBC. Referring to the (ongoing) power outages on the east coast they said “And parts of New England are partying like it’s 1799”. I really love the CBC.
I’ve been engaged in manly endeavours as well. First farming. Strawberries are in full production, we’ve frozen a couple of gallons so far. The lettuce is producing enough for a salad or two every day. The cherries are coming in. The raspberries are loaded and we’ve started picking them. In another week it likely will be all we can do to stay ahead of the flood. Looks like the tomatoes are doing very well. Now that the rains have broken and we’ve had a couple of days of sun they are growing like weeds. But then so are the weeds. The peppers don’t seem to be doing as well though. They are a little pale and haven’t grown much. I’m hoping that with the sun they will perk up though I’ve noticed black streaks on the leaves so they might have a fungus or something. The potatoes are doing exceedingly well and have nearly filled the raised bed. The zucchini is beginning to take off. I think it and the cucumber will grow very quickly if the hot sun holds. Then there’s the peas that are climbing up the trellis. No pods yet but lots of flowers. Yup it looks like we’ll have a good harvest. Oh I almost forgot the apple trees are so loaded Marsha is looking into calling a local volunteer group to pick them. They pick all the fruit, give us a third (which is really all we could possibly use), then donate the rest to food shelves. It’s a nice idea.
This weekend I was also engaged in that most manly of endeavours: busting stuff up. On the side of the garage the previous owners had installed a really nasty garden shed thing. It was terrible. Badly put together, ratty rusty corrugated steel roof, the wafer board behind it was painted but not really protected. Worst yet I’ve seen evidence that there HAD been siding on this wall, which was removed to install the shed. They didn’t even put proper flashing around it so in the rain it actually didn’t protect the side of the house at all. Our plan is to replace the shed with proper siding so step one was to take down the shed. Now some men would use a saw’s all. Tough men would use a chainsaw. I, however was feeling particularly primal this week so I beat on it with just a sledge hammer and iron crowbar. It took me an hour and made a lot of noise but the shed is in pieces and the wall is ready for siding. Now, as soon as I take even more aspirin, I just have to find somebody to haul the fragments of the shed away. I don’t have a pickup truck any more and somehow the sports car just won’t cut it. (It did occur to me that it would be be particularly manly if I were to buy a saws-all and convert the Honda into an El Camino sort of thing, but fortunately Marsha stopped me).
However, the most manly thing I did this week was at work. I was dismantling a computer and had to remove one of the components. It was being stubborn and I was struggling with it until all of a sudden it let go and I caught it full in the face. As a result I spent the next hour staring at the ceiling trying to get the bleeding to stop. Fortunately it did and it was the end of the day anyway so once it stopped I headed home. Yes the most manly thing I did all week was to smack myself in the face with a pair of pliers and bleed all over my shirt. I was so proud.
Let’s hope that with Marsha’s help next week will be a bit more normal. One thing about that though. Come August I’ll have to work really hard to not do anythingmanly, er…, stupid. Marsha will be in Minnesota from the 10th to the 29th and I’ll have to try to not let the cats starve or the garden dry out, or accidentally flip the house over, or decide to covert the Honda car into two Honda motorcycles or something. It’s going to be a long month.
PIX: The garden shed before and after. The shed is gone along with the weird guy. Then the rose Marsha picked up and will plant this week, some little succulents that I believe are actually aliens, and a Clamato that's growing next to the shed {Edit: it's called a Clematis, Marsha.]. Lastly, Momiji enjoying the sunshine.
South of the border was the most manly of holidays, the 4th of July. I mean what else can you say about a holiday dedicated to cooking meat over fire and blowing stuff up? The best line of the week though was on the CBC. Referring to the (ongoing) power outages on the east coast they said “And parts of New England are partying like it’s 1799”. I really love the CBC.
I’ve been engaged in manly endeavours as well. First farming. Strawberries are in full production, we’ve frozen a couple of gallons so far. The lettuce is producing enough for a salad or two every day. The cherries are coming in. The raspberries are loaded and we’ve started picking them. In another week it likely will be all we can do to stay ahead of the flood. Looks like the tomatoes are doing very well. Now that the rains have broken and we’ve had a couple of days of sun they are growing like weeds. But then so are the weeds. The peppers don’t seem to be doing as well though. They are a little pale and haven’t grown much. I’m hoping that with the sun they will perk up though I’ve noticed black streaks on the leaves so they might have a fungus or something. The potatoes are doing exceedingly well and have nearly filled the raised bed. The zucchini is beginning to take off. I think it and the cucumber will grow very quickly if the hot sun holds. Then there’s the peas that are climbing up the trellis. No pods yet but lots of flowers. Yup it looks like we’ll have a good harvest. Oh I almost forgot the apple trees are so loaded Marsha is looking into calling a local volunteer group to pick them. They pick all the fruit, give us a third (which is really all we could possibly use), then donate the rest to food shelves. It’s a nice idea.
This weekend I was also engaged in that most manly of endeavours: busting stuff up. On the side of the garage the previous owners had installed a really nasty garden shed thing. It was terrible. Badly put together, ratty rusty corrugated steel roof, the wafer board behind it was painted but not really protected. Worst yet I’ve seen evidence that there HAD been siding on this wall, which was removed to install the shed. They didn’t even put proper flashing around it so in the rain it actually didn’t protect the side of the house at all. Our plan is to replace the shed with proper siding so step one was to take down the shed. Now some men would use a saw’s all. Tough men would use a chainsaw. I, however was feeling particularly primal this week so I beat on it with just a sledge hammer and iron crowbar. It took me an hour and made a lot of noise but the shed is in pieces and the wall is ready for siding. Now, as soon as I take even more aspirin, I just have to find somebody to haul the fragments of the shed away. I don’t have a pickup truck any more and somehow the sports car just won’t cut it. (It did occur to me that it would be be particularly manly if I were to buy a saws-all and convert the Honda into an El Camino sort of thing, but fortunately Marsha stopped me).
However, the most manly thing I did this week was at work. I was dismantling a computer and had to remove one of the components. It was being stubborn and I was struggling with it until all of a sudden it let go and I caught it full in the face. As a result I spent the next hour staring at the ceiling trying to get the bleeding to stop. Fortunately it did and it was the end of the day anyway so once it stopped I headed home. Yes the most manly thing I did all week was to smack myself in the face with a pair of pliers and bleed all over my shirt. I was so proud.
Let’s hope that with Marsha’s help next week will be a bit more normal. One thing about that though. Come August I’ll have to work really hard to not do anything
PIX: The garden shed before and after. The shed is gone along with the weird guy. Then the rose Marsha picked up and will plant this week, some little succulents that I believe are actually aliens, and a Clamato that's growing next to the shed {Edit: it's called a Clematis, Marsha.]. Lastly, Momiji enjoying the sunshine.