Sheilajeanne

Ooh, those northern lights are gorgeous! I don't get to see them very often this far south, though I belong to a group that follows them and tells you if they are likely to be visible. Every time recently that I've been told there was a good chance of seeing them, and I went out looking...NOTHING! Nada, zip... Last time I went looking, there was a lovely clear sky, and I could see the stars really well. I even tried taking some photos as often a camera will pick them up when the naked eye can't. Nothing on the camera, either. Drove to another location. Nope. Drove back towards town and it clouded over and started to rain. I gave up and went home to watch TV. When I logged back into FacePlant after watching TV for an hour, someone had posted pictures of the lights less than 10 miles from where I'd been looking, and about half an hour later than I'd been out. Some days -er, nights - you just can't win... Since weed became legal in Canada, I've had zero interest in it. I used to take the odd puff back in my university days, but it was so weak back then (probably home-grown stuff) that I really didn't get a high from it. The reason I don't smoke now is I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, and the chemo and radiation damaged my lungs. I can't walk farther than about 50 ft. without stopping to gasp for breath. So, I don't want to take anything into my lungs that might possibly make things worse. Of course, there's also edibles, but [shrug] for some reason, I'm just not interested in those, either. This is what I most often see when it's a good night for viewing the aurora:

It's great if you can quit! I've lost too many people to smoking. My husband died from bladder cancer - 97% of bladder cancer victims are smokers or ex-smokers. He quit many years before I even met him, but apparently it wasn't soon enough. My only bad habit is beer, and the occasional glass of wine. Oh, and gotta have my morning starter fluid!

That's great you now have somewhere to sell your stuff!

Jesus walks into a bar and sees a man sitting alone with a glass of water. Jesus asks him, "My son, are you a believer?" The man shakes his head, "No." With a wave of his hands, Jesus changes the drink to a glass of wine. "Well my son, do you believe now?" The man frowns and again shakes his head. The next day Jesus comes into the bar and sees the same man. "My son, are you a believer yet?" The man shakes his head, "No." Jesus waves his hands and the glass is changed to wine. "Well my son, now you surely believe?" The man frowns and again shakes his head in frustration. On the third day Jesus enters the bar and approaches the same guy. He asks, "My son, are you a believer yet?" The man looks up and in a thick Russian accent says, "If I say I believe, will you please leave my vodka alone today?"

Cool! And like your vintage cast iron, too. I could never get the hang of conditioning mine so things didn't stick.

Soo, it rained heavily last night, and currently the temperature is 10 C/50 F! We have both a rainfall advisory, due to all the rain and melting, and a fog advisory. Last time we got significant fog, there was a huge pileup on the 401 east of Toronto. Be careful out there! Yesterday the township was cleaning out the catch basins in town to prepare for this. Very happy to have some springlike temperatures, though I may want to invest in a pair of rubber boots!

I'm very glad we haven't gotten so much that that's been a problem! Mainly because my street has ditches rather than storm water drains, so the plow pushes the snow into the ditches. The main street has drains, so you have to be a bit more careful pulling out, but it's certainly nowhere near as bad as Barrie.

OMG, I just noticed the first comment on the post about Barrie! Too funny.... Photo I took this morning of a snow bank in the City of Barrie. If you look closely, you will identify distinct Human Eras in the 2026 winter season. The bottom layer is the “I’ll shovel later” period The middle layer is the “It will melt tomorrow” period and the top layer is the “Why do we live in Barrie" period. Local scientists say that by April they expect to uncover a perfectly preserved Tim Hortons cup and declare it a historic artifact.

Yup, that's a game we play in Ontario during snow storms: "Where's the road?"

The board has a message function - look for the envelope on the top right of the board. I'll send you a message and you can message me back. The board has no restrictions on sharing stuff like this. I'm actually surprised you have to pay for the books now.

As I've previously mentioned, my part of Ontario has had a tremendous amount of snow this winter. Recently, I had to make a trip to Midland to check out a chair I wanted to buy. As I was going through two of the smaller towns on my way there, this is very similar to what I saw, though this picture was taken in Barrie, Ontario: It reminds me of the strata in sedimentary rock! We didn't see this in my town. The plows cover up the layers as they pass by. Barrie got so much snow they had to do a 'snow lift'. The snow banks left by the plows narrowed the roads to the point where they had to be removed and loaded into dump trucks, which took them to a snow storage site. This method left the layers from the different storms exposed. Yeah, it's been quite the winter... Barrie got over 12 feet of snow. (see second photo)! One bit of good news, and a sure sign spring is coming. The county put the half-loading signs up on the roads this week!

Darren, the books in the Leathercraft Library could be downloaded for free a couple of years ago. I have the Leathercraft Tools book plus some basic leathercraft instruction books in my computer as PDFs Shoot me your e-mail and I will be quite happy to share!

An old joke but a goodie...

Chuck, this water is filtered to remove all chemicals by reverse osmosis. So, there is NO chlorine, and the calcium and other chemicals that make your tap water hard are also removed. I know this for a fact, as the water cooler doesn't get mineral deposits in it the way my teakettle, cookware and other items do. Believe me, it tastes and smells a LOT better than the tap water!

When I moved to this town, I'd been on well water for quite a few years. The smell of the chlorine in the water here just turned my stomach. I bought a water cooler, and at first was using spring water. Then, I found the Home Hardware store sold water without any chemicals in it and it was only .98 cents to fill a 5 gallon/18 l. jug! You could also clean your jug at the time you refilled it! Someone told me that the water I was getting from them was exactly the same as what the Coca-Cola company sells under the Dasani brand name, charging $1.98 for half a liter! (That's half a quart, for you non-metric folks.) Bottled water has to be the world's biggest ripoff, unless you're travelling somewhere where the local water isn't safe to drink.