Life in Rockburn, eh?

“It appears to have arrived yesterday, but it's too soon to tell.”

“Ha ha ha ha ha !!!

Do ya think it will have arrived in time for Canada Day?

Yeah.....yeah, too soon to tell.”

“You'll be our sunshine Canada Day, MarkO.

I'll have a longer post here Monday.”

“I just hope I don't bring the jungle heat with me.”

“Any flooding in Rockburn like there is in the Adirondacks? Stay off the trails this weekend.”

“I have a brother-in-law who just headed up there for his annual trip......don't know where.”

“If it floods in Rockburn I'll be too busy loading the animals two by two into the big boat (where ARE those unicorns?).”

“I think the unicorns are hanging out with Sacco and his menagerie.”

“How are the road conditions in the Dacks now?”

“Any turkey hunting going on up there?”

“Good one, Redneck, and so true.

Spring is finally here; the pub is now on summer hours and my blackthorns are in blossom as are the dogwoods and hawthorns in the hedge rows. The trilliums are out and soon the orchards and the lilacs will be in bloom.

My buddy and his cousin both got their turkey - 19 and 20 lbs. Gilles hasn't got one so far.

I'm waiting for the water to go down enough for kayaking and fly fishing.

That's about as crazy as it gets round here.”

“The blackflies are just starting to bite here. It's going to be a bad season I think with all that rain we got. Keep your children and pets indoors!”

“I love this song! We saw this waaaay back in college as part of a Canadian animation festival.”

“Well it's been a while, but internet access is spotty for me in the summer.

As you all prolly know, the Canada/Independance Day week-end is devoted to the Rockburn Rib-Off, a cooking contest among the yahoos (a limited number of women are also invloved.

Three years ago, Chili helped me with pulled pork instructions (cf. somewhere above). This year I made cole slaw, one using white cabbage and mayonnaise and one with red cabbage and vinegar. We had about fifty people with 14 cooking.

No-one will be able to even look at a pork rib until about Christmas when the boys start testing secret recipes and trash talking each other all over again.

MarkO came up from Baltimore to be a judge and a good time was had by all (we think) - people walked home or camped. For once I took pics and will try to post them later this week.

MarkO, Giles (the crazy Frenchman) and I took a three day b'packing jaunt to the Seward Range in the Northwestern Dacks the following week, which was great.

That's about all till I get the pics up.

Take care, eh?”

“Eh!”

“Yup,eh?”

“Fookin' eh !”

“I hope all is well in Rockburn. I haven't heard much about damage north of the boarder.”

“Pretty much just lots of rain and some flooding. Nothing like Vermont, apparently.”

“Glad you're safe”

“I just got word through a number of boards that the Eastern Adirondacks are closed indefinitely. I e-mailed DEC to see if that included the Santanonis that MarkO and I are hoping to do this fall.

Doesn't look good.”

“Everything I've seen about the Adirondacks is it is bad. Think Hurricane Floyd, but worse. There are new slides on Wright and Cascade. Route 73 between 9 and 9N might not be open until winter. Keene Valley is cut off.

The dam on Duck Hole (the trail past Bradley Pond Lean-to goes there) breached and drained the entire pond into Cold River.

I would expect a lot of erosion and a lot blow down.

Hopefully we will have more info as more people are willing and able to venture into the back country.”

“Yeah, it looks bad. DEC replied to my e-mail to say the Santanoni trails are not blocked, but to expect bad blowdowns and washed-out trails.

Pics on VFTT are pretty shocking, especially Marcy Dam, the new slides and Route 73.

Gonna put up a FYAO XII thread now.”

“My daughter texted me yesterday. She had a tumour removed from the top of her femur and a plated pinned on last year. She will be followed for several years to check for necrosis caused by possible damage to the artery.

She has been experiencing some pain and we have all been worried about that. Well, the news is that there is no necrosis and the pain is nerve damage.

We are all breatheing a little easier now.”

“I'm glad she's doing well, Gremlin.”

“Wow! It's been a while, eh?

Life has been pretty crazy and I'm working my way back to some kind of normality (such as I can imagine such a thing).

This is Armistice Day (I think you guys call it Remembrance Day) and I have been visiting schools all dressed up in my Royal Canadian Legion blazer, tie and beret for various school 'celebrations' of the day.

Once again, I have been impressed with the appreciation and the presentations put on by the students. Of course, this being a rural area, just about every family has or knows a soldier who served in Afghanistan over the last ten years.

I sold poppies with my dad and my grandfather starting at the age of seven (oddly the same age I started winter activities such as camping and ski-ing). We would freeze on street corners and stand in the entrance of shops.

My grandfather was already in Canada and joined the Canadian Railway Construction Corps (his army number was 7 - seriously) of the Canadian Expedionary Force and he fell in love with an English girl and took his de-mobilisation money at the war's end to marry her and stay in UK (they moved to Scotland). Both my mother and her sister were born in Dundee. They immigrated in 1925.

Canada entered into WW II on September 10, 1939 and my father, my mother's father (his own father was dead) and his three brothers enlisted the next morning.

One brother was too young to 'fake' it and later worked in munitions and thus was ineleigible for duty. Another brother was an executive in the insurance company that later stored the Crown Jewels in their vaults. He was involved in the planning and was refused on those grounds. He travelled to Halifax and joined the Royal Canadian Navy, but was found out and warned he would spend the war in prison if he tried that again.

My uncle Noman served in the Royal Canadian Regiment (many young friends here serve in that regiment now - some with three tours
in Kandahar Province) and served through North Africa and up the boot of Italy.

My father married my mother on December 7, 1940, a year to the day before Pearl Harbour. It was a Saturday in 1940 and he left Monday morning for Halifax to sail to UK and eventually serve in France (he landed on Juno Beach on D3), Belgium, Netherlands (which he loved - and the Dutch love us) and finally Germany.

He returned in 1946 and I was born in 1948.

They do not grow old,
As we who are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years contemn,
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember them.

Binyon, Laurence: For the Fallen (exerpt)”

“Wow, it's been a while.

Not much happens in Rockburn, except Giles, the crazy Frenchman, tried to commit suicide this spring by jumping in the Châteauguay River in full spate. Both he and the SQ (SQ=state police) officer are lucky to be alive.

My daughter flew down from Toronto to say adieu to us all. She is moving to the West Coast (British Columbia) and is Regional Vice President of a pet store chain - no dogs or cats (no puppy mills), just high-end pet products. She got he MFA in Documentary Film and instead of working at McDonald's actually got a Production Assistant position at a Doc. film company. She hated it.

She had kept working for a previous boss doing graphics (grafix) for his chain and he hired her to go out west to open four shops. Her boyfriend is an illustrator and works on the 'net and will go out with her.

They are both thrilled and have rented a vacation property in Powell River until they can find more permanent accomodation.

I am a little troubled about them being so far away, but they have their life to build. Also, it will be a great road trip. I took them backpacking in Kananaskis when she was seven and my son was nine. It froze all three nights (July 7 to 9) and we saw a grizzly with her cub.

Her birthday is coming up and we went to MEC (www.mec.ca) initially to look for sunglasses. We got her an MSR Base 2 cookset , along with two MSR bowls that fit in and two GSI cutlery sets. Back home we checked that they all fit inside, along with an MSR stove (I have the Whisperlite and I bought her the Simmerlite).

Some years ago she broke off with her boyfriend and lost half her backpacking gear and that gave me a list of stuff to give her at Christmas, et c.

Saturday (it's the Queen's Official Birthday here - your Memorial Day) my buddy Paul (the one who stole the pig at the Ormstown Fair) had fiteen hundred apple trees to plant and his two guys weren't available. Bob (his cousin and my buddy) and I gave him a day. I wanted to either fly fish or kayak yesterday, but my arms wouldn't do it.

It's rainig to-day, but we'll get the rest of the trees in to-morrow.”

“Your daughter's got an amazing opportunity there! Good luck helping to plant the rest of those trees. That's a cool thing to do. Glad you're hanging in there!”