Weekend Thread for June 2024

I'm starting this thread a day early because today is May but tomorrow is June :)

My weekend has only one important thing: Edmonton Folk Music Festival tickets go on sale online Saturday at 10 AM, and I have to get ours. The EFMF (August 8-11 this year) is one of the highlights of my summer. I don't even care who is performing - some of my favourite acts are people I've never heard of until I see them at EFMF. Although I have to admit, I'm looking forward to Blue Rodeo and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss.

It's "past tense" in that I saw it last week, but got to see The Violent Femmes Live! My wife and I were so excited to get to see them after all these years. My kids had no idea who they were. In that moment, I felt really old :(

Not much on tap. We just took a drive up about an hour to look at a new dock. It's going to be way easier to get in and out in future. Plus they're doing 15% off right now so that's good. Tomorrow looks iffy for weather and hubby is leaving for the week on Sunday afternoon. Maybe the first margaritas of the season though!

>3 Bookmarque: I first read it as "to look at a new duck", and was very curious - wow, did somebody discover a new species? Lol. Well, a new dock and margaritas are good too...

it could have just been a regular baby duck, but an hours drive seems a little excessive. It would have to be an exceptionally cute baby duck.

Jealous of the music events, but i will get to a couple myself this month i hope. One of my favourite bands is touring and i have ticket to their last show :)

Today is my first day off in a while, it's a cold and wet weekend so staying cosy at home, chillin and listening to music. About to put a lamb roast on for lunch. First official day of winter!

I have so many things I need to get into the ground or into pots & planters. I will be covered in dirt all weekend.

Visiting baby grandson (and his parents) this weekend. We had a beautiful drive here, through the mountains along a river, wildflowers, rain showers. Then a sweet little 8 month old here to greet us when we arrived (and his parents).

>7 MrsLee: Sounds delightful, I wish you a wonderful weekend :)

Not a duck...a dock. But hopefully I'll see some while sitting on the other later this summer.

Theoretically, at least, a weekend of weeding the book collection, writing and participation in a book group discussion. How much we actually get done is another thing entirely (the spouse is however taking bets...)

I’m at my mom’s this weekend. So a weekend of running her around for errands and cleaning her house a bit. I’ll be able to work on my temperature blanket while we sit and watch her tv shows.

>10 jillmwo:
weeding the book collection
Such negativity from one so steeped in the biblioverse.

Folk Fest tickets acquired. I now have the rest of the day to relax, but Sunday has got job interviews in it (as interviewer, not interviewee) for the hort society's website redesign.

Yesterday I went to a concert with a friend. I seem to be going to a lot of concerts this year, not that I am complaining. We were treated to Mozart and Stravinsky this time (a fun combination). Afterwards we had dinner at a nice seafood place :)

This morning the little one woke up with a running nose. So we stayed put and did lots and lots of household stuff, it was very satisfying ;)

Went kayaking for about 5 hours today and came across a pair of Eastern Kingbirds keeping watch over a nest that is very out in the open. I think this is the female -

naw, no bow or eyelashes.

>16 MrAndrew: Ha! True. I would have spotted those dead give-aways!

I'm in Mexico for my husband's dental work. Hopefully the last time. It's definitely another country, and such a charming one.

We had a public holiday on Thursday. My employer is being nice, so I am having a four-day weekend. Yay.

So, on Thursday I took a long beautiful summer walk together with my boy and my mom. We had a wonderful time.

Yesterday I had errands to run, municipal officials to meet and papers to fill in. It wasn't very entertaining, but it went well. Afterwards I went to the library, and found The Stranger Times. This was a BB from several of you, and you probably know who you are ;) It was a good one - I started the book yesterday, and I am now on page 304 of 439. Fun, fun fun :)

Today we've done some chores and enjoyed being lazy. I've also made a banana cake and have orange jam on the way ;)

>19 Alexandra_book_life: Another subscriber to The Stranger Times! Join the club :)

I have a quiet weekend. My husband and some of his running friends are running the Banff-Jasper relay. He left yesterday and won't be back until Sunday afternoon or evening.

I also just realized the public library is having one of their regular book sales. I was going to put up a poll - should I go or not? But that's silly because we all know a) you'd all tell me to go and b) I'd go no matter what the vote said.

I had a busy week of trips to doctor's office, the bank, etc. I did get the freelance assignment for the month out of the way so theoretically I am free this weekend to do something fun. (Haven't figured out what that might be.) The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow (Sunday) so we may decide to join a community picnic.

>19 Alexandra_book_life:
I am glad to hear you are enjoying The Stranger Times.

I'm just back from the library book sale. I got a little wet as it started raining as I was walking back from the station, but I'm so happy to not have to water the garden that I don't care.

I bought two books: The Bartered Brides by Mercedes Lackey, and Ptarmageddon by Karen Dudley. I adore the second title. I'd have bought it anyway as I like the series, but that just capped it.

I had a good laugh at the sale - one of the books in the "special" section where they put the "expensive" books was Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition, AKA AACR2. I used it for most of my career as a cataloguer, and I loved it but it's obsolete (replaced by RDA) and nostalgia wasn't enough to get me to actually buy it.

It has cooled down to the high 90s here, after a week in the hundreds. We are laying around with iced drinks doing not much of anything. I read a little, close my eyes for a bit, then read a little more. Started a jigsaw puzzle last night. So much excitement I don't know if I can take it.

>24 MrsLee: I didn’t know it was getting that hot down there already. It was 90 here yesterday.

I did an 9 mile run with my friend then went to the Handmade Market downtown with The Husband. Then lunch, a stop at a local bookstore and now home. I’ll spend the evening reading on the porch.

>20 tardis:: c) get out of my way, and nobody gets hurt.

>23 tardis: I am snorting. AACR2 as a book sale "treasure". I have to wonder who thought such a reference work might be picked up (even if it was only priced at a dollar or so).

I took the ferry to Connecticut for the weekend. My son's rock band was performing at a charity event and I got to sit outside in gorgeous sunshine and watch them. I'm looking forward to a long recouperative sleep tonight.

Edited for typos.

>27 jillmwo: Yeah, that was the main part of my amusement and what I said to the woman supervising the "treasures" table. Only a librarian or library technician would even know what it was, and why would they want it? It's not current practice. She said the person who runs the sale insisted on putting it there. Probably their own nostalgia at work, rather than their common sense.

It was $3.00 and looked hardly used. My copies were always heavily annotated and full of stickies to mark frequently used pages.

>29 tardis:
Perhaps it was less nostalgia and more sense of humour. :-)

Made it home from Mexico yesterday. Man, was it hot! When we got into the car to start the drive home it was 111! I was never so happy to experience June Gloom. But my husband finally has his new choppers installed. It took 4 trips and too much money, but he's happy with the results.

Spent all day today recuperating, which for me means crocheting a lot. Back to the grind tomorrow!

>28 clamairy: i must know the name of the band. Clamson and the clammettes? Clamageddon?

>32 MrAndrew:
I believe it is The Great Clamour!

>32 MrAndrew: & >33 pgmcc: It's 'Dogs Flippin' Burgers.'
They play what they call Dad Rock.

>34 clamairy: OK, that's a fun name, but I really love The Great Clamour, too. Perhaps you could start your own band?

>35 MrsLee: In full agreement with you.

I had a good weekend - Went to the Friday knitting at the library, then I was invited to a graduation dinner for my neighbours' youngest. He also turned 19 the same day. It was a small group, but nice. He finished up his grade 12 at a small alternative school on the reserve, and there were only 6 graduates.

Saturday we had a non-book book club meeting, just a social thing to celebrate everyone being back after the big evacuation. Usually the host takes care of all the food, but this time she asked for contributions. I wanted to make a tapenade that needs fresh basil, but none was available in town. I had some frozen basil pesto, so I added that to replace not only the basil, but Parmesan, garlic, and olive oil in the recipe. I wasn't sure how it would work, but it came out well. Other ingredients in the recipe are black olives, sundried tomatoes, and capers, but I skip the anchovies. It's very good on slices of baguette, which I also had a hard time finding.

Sunday was pretty relaxed - knit, walk the dog, visit friends, cut the grass. I got a battery lawn mower this year, and am really liking it. Unfortunately it won't quite cut the whole lawn on one charge. Spare batteries are expensive, but I will keep an eye out for a sale.

The fire closest to town is now listed as "Under Control" so the evacuation alert has been rescinded. In the end, only 4 houses were lost, one not occupied, plus several outbuildings on a few more properties. Considering at one point it looked like the fire would sweep right through town, I think we came off pretty well.

Oh, and on Friday I had a call from the town about a prize I won at the trade show the weekend before the fire. When I went to pick it up, it was a wildfire protection kit, with sprinklers and hose to mount on the house. It is just like the ones we were using, so I know exactly how to best use it, although I hope I won't need it. I think the kit retails for around $200, so it's a pretty nice prize, if a bit late.

>37 NorthernStar: I skip the anchovies .... Shame! Back in the day I sometimes used to make tapenade for Saturday lunch. Five hundred grams of kalamata olives, capers, definitely anchovies, garlic, herbs, and a good deal of olive oil. Felicity Cloake's recipe is essentially what I used. We ate it with the Italian bread from a small local bakery. Me, the then Mrs Haydn, and four small children. There was never any left over.

>37 NorthernStar: I'm glad you didn't need that prize before you got it, and I hope you never need it, but what a nice prise to receive.

>38 haydninvienna: I am the only anchovy fan in this house. The tapenade sounds great. I may have to make some form of it, since I can make my own baguettes now.

>37 NorthernStar: That's a cool prize, but as others said I hope you never need it. I hope none of us ever need it.

>33 pgmcc: That would have been perfect if he had become a stage magician, instead of a muso.

>23 tardis:: My first real library job was at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Ellis Library in 1980-82...I was a part of the "AACR2 Implementation Task Force". I pulled cards from the card catalog, physically changed them to the AACR2 subject heading, and then refiled them back in the card catalog. Many times, that meant that I had to shift hundreds of cards. As you can imagine in a Missouri library, there were hundreds of entries for "Clemons, Samuel" that had to be moved to "Twain, Mark". I was a lowly library assistant; the Librarian decided upon the actual changes. Myself and a student worker made the physical changes using LOTS of White-Out and a typewriter, and then moving the cards in the card catalog (which encompassed a huge room in the library.)

>37 NorthernStar:
Congratulations on the prize, but as others have said, I hope it never needs to be used.

>41 MrAndrew:
Very true.

>37 NorthernStar: It's a great prize! And just like everyone else, I hope you will not be needing it.

Tomorrow I am going to meet my daughter and we will spend a long weekend in Monterey, CA. Just the two of us. Aside from the pleasure of being with my daughter, I am looking forward to the beauty of Monterey. We have no definite plans, other than a hotel reservation. We might go to the aquarium, or we might explore beaches or the town. Will probably go on some scenic drives and do some quiet reading and resting.

I will be taking Old Indian Trails with me, and since I am close to finishing that, thought I would take Sweet Sunday, by John Steinbeck, since it begins in Monterey and Steinbeck loved and lived there.

Monterey is a wonderful place and I hope you have a great time with your kid. You can find Doc's lab from Cannery row just next to the Intercontinental on the Aquarium side. It's basically an alley that leads to the bay. Signs and a walkway are there and you end up on the hotel back porch so to speak, but it's fun. There's a great place for breakfast just over the in Pacific Grove (I think it's called Toasties) and I love the Bistro Moulin for dinner. Fabulous!

My weekend will include a community garden work bee on Saturday morning, and, at some point, a meeting with the other two people on the website redesign team for the Horticultural Society.

Plus reading, drinking tea, pulling weeds in my garden, etc., etc.

>47 Bookmarque: Thanks for the recommendations. :)

Happy to help MrsL. We used to go to Monterey every couple of years so I know it pretty well.

Today I'm heading to paddle my favorite place to explore - the Spirit river! It was so low last year that I didn't go there at all so seeing the water levels back to normal is so great to see. Hubby will come home this afternoon and we'll just hang together for the weekend. He's not feeling so great (has a cold), so it will be low key I'm sure, but as we haven't seen each other in a few days, it will be nice to be together again. He's home next week so can recuperate from being on the road.

My youngest granddaughter Sarah(10 yrs old) is visiting from Texas. Her sister Charlotte and mom are in Spain--Charlotte plays the viola in the Ft. Worth Youth Symphony and they are touring there. So I invited Sarah to spend a week with us --Missouri may not be Spain, but we've had fun. She's gone to the swimming pool, we've shopped, and yesterday went to the St. Louis Zoo. Today we will be going to the Gateway Arch, and tomorrow Grandpa is taking her to the local wrestling match with cousins Doug and Andy. It amuses me that that there shows the great differences between the girls--one who plays classical music and has her sights set on Julliard, and the other one who likes to watch wrestling.

Not really to do with the upcoming weekend (because the Summer Solstice occurs on Thursday of this week) but this gifted article from the Washington Post explains some interesting elements about the Solstice. https://wapo.st/3z3H5OW

My weekend just got rearranged. I signed up for a two-day drypoint printmaking class but it seems that nobody else did so it has been postponed until the first weekend in August to see if they get more registrants. This is not a problem - an old friend is in town, and there might be a get-together at a pub (we did dim sum this morning) and I've got lots of work to do on the yard and the website that I'm redesigning.

>52 jillmwo: thanks, that was interesting although "In the Southern Hemisphere, the June solstice is the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year" nuh-uh, no way first day of winter. It's been relatively cold for weeks.

Winter solstice is tomorrow, not really sure if that's a day later than northern hemisphere summer solstice. But, whatever.

No plans this weekend, working a lot again. Went to an awesome gig last weekend though, forgot to mention. Hopefully another one next weekend. Went bowling tonight and continued my trend of getting worse every time i play. At this rate i'll be bumper bowling by August :(

I’m at my mom’s this weekend; the first weekend of summer break! The last week and a half of school was brutal. It was really just babysitting. The last day and a half were added on because of snow days. One high school had 46 kids those days, another had 50. The elementary schools, however, had most of their kids.

I spent the last two days just reading. A great way to start summer. :D

>55 catzteach: Have a Happy Summer! Hope you can recharge your batteries.

This week has been a series of torrential rain storms, some with thunder and lightning. Everywhere is wet and muddy with a knock-on effect on a local annual event that is due to start in 40 minutes about a quarter mile from our place. There is an annual 24 hour car race called Circuit de Dugny. Le Mans is not far from here and I assume that was the initial influence for this race.

The cars taking part are all Renault 4s that have been souped up for racing. The track is unsurfaced and the last time I looked at it, two days ago, it was more suitable for a boat race than a car race. It is going to be a mud spectacular. It will present the drivers and support teams with a whole new set of challenges.

Had it been dry I would have gone up to see the event, but it is so wet and muddy I may just give it a miss.

To counteract what pgmcc is experiencing, we continue under the miserable "heat dome". I can't explain the specifics of the meteorological event, but suffice it to say that the humidity outside is gross and the temps are hitting upper nineties. Then there's the feels-like temperature that puts us in the triple digits.

I have a book group discussion tomorrow (Sunday) but other than that, I think everyone in my part of the world is going to be sheltering from the world.

>55 catzteach: Have a wonderful summer! I'm sending you relaxing vibes, I hope you will have a good rest. Two days of reading sounds like a great start :)

Pouring rain all day today. On the whole the beginning of summer has been rainy and cold. Bah. As if it isn't already short enough. We often call summer the nicest month in Northern Wisconsin. Anyway...spending the day reading and just putting together a batch of potato salad. If tomorrow turns out to be actually nice, I'll probably hang out on the dock for a while.

We are HOT here. Triple digit hot, but not so much humidity as jillmwo has.

This morning I prepped and cooked veggies to get us through a couple days, cooked a pineapple and ham pizza, made a three-bean salad. All set.

Then my daughter-in-law asked if they could come for dinner tomorrow because her garden is producing veggies for salad. Of course the answer is yes! So I will grill some hamburgers on my indoor cast iron grill tomorrow to go with the salad. Other than that, we sit on front of the fan and nap, read or play on our phones/computers.

Well, the weather has cleared up and we can hear the roar of the Renault 4s in their 24 hour race. They myst have delayed the start as the noise was not there until several hours after the scheduled start time. We will have the roar of souped up car engines all through the night. At least some people are having fun. I am glad it went ahead. It is very disappointing to organise a big annual event and then have to cancel it.

>56 MrsLee: And >59 Alexandra_book_life: Thanks!

Oregon is hot, too. Bend was in the 80s by 9:00 this morning. Where I’m at, it is a bit cooler, but humid. Well, more humid than where I live. Not humid for where some of you live. :)

My mom’s cat is hilarious! She’s only a year old. We just got back from running errands. She got into the cherries that were on the counter. We know this because we found some in the bedroom. :)

A heat dome sounds like something from a Simpsons movie.

I thought I was going to have an empty weekend, but stuff keeps coming up. Saturday I went with older son's girlfriend to a local peony garden - just a guy who loves peonies and has his entire front yard filled with so many different kinds. It's amazing. He also cross-breeds them, too. He welcomes people to just show up and view the front garden. If he's there, people can even wander through it.

Later today (Sunday) I'm goig to an Open Garden, which is a fellow horticultural society member welcoming people to stop by and view her garden. Very informal. Later, my husband and I are meeting friends at a local pub. One of the friends is visiting from Arizona, so we're getting as many people together as we can to catch up and hash over old times.

>64 MrAndrew: I swear I had never heard of such a thing before this summer. I may not have been paying attention properly, but it was a new "thing" insofar as I was concerned.

Experts say it’s helpful to think of a heat dome as what’s happening up in the atmosphere. A heat wave is how the hot temperatures affect people on the ground, said Ken Kunkel, a research professor of atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University.

When a high-pressure system develops in the upper atmosphere, it causes the air below it to sink and compress. That raises temperatures in the lower atmosphere.

Because hot air expands, it creates a bulging dome.

The boundaries of this week’s heat dome are not well-defined, Kunkel said, but the National Weather Service has said the most extreme heat is expected in the Ohio Valley and the Northeast regions.

Quote swiped from news coverage here: https://www.nj.com/weather/2024/06/what-is-a-heat-dome-heres-why-nj-and-many-oth...

>64 MrAndrew:
Or from a John Wyndham novel.

>66 jillmwo:
It is obviously aliens.

>67 pgmcc: you think there will be a cluster of unexplained pregnancies affecting people trapped under the heat dome?

>66 jillmwo: as far as I have learned in school, it is not a new phenomenon exactly, but I have usually seen the term 'heat dome' used to describe the effects around a smaller area, such as a city where pavement and buildings contribute to the ambient temperatures. It does seem fairly recent that this term is now applied to these widespread phenomena that are occurring over huge areas. I don't know how much of that is chalked up to the switch from El Nino to La Nina patterns that we are in the midst of.

>69 MrAndrew:
One never knows. Stranger things have happened.

>70 Darth-Heather:
Perhaps they should refer to these large scale heat domes as mega heat domes. We could then have a divisive debate on the differences between heat domes and mega heat domes; just where is the dividing line?

:-)

>72 pgmcc: The weather media would love that! They are always trying to exaggerate the seriousness of the weather events these days.

Only exciting happening for us for the weekend was that we got our disability parking permit. We should have had one in England, but the Cherwell District Council website was so opaque about the process (you need 2 pieces of medical evidence, but no suggestion as to what be acceptable except that a doctor's certificate is not) so I gave up. Here, I asked our doctor and he just said Print the form and I'll fill in the certificate part and sign it. Did that, took it to the Transport Department office nearest us with the intention of asking if there was anything else we needed, but they accepted the application on the spot, I paid a small fee and we had the permit in the mail a week later. We have now used it (it's legal to use it only when Mrs H is being transported, but that's fine).

I had a lovely weekend. On Saturday we went to a day-long Solstice celebration with some of our pagan friends. Then Sunday it was brunch with the girls, errands, etc. I made some yummy chicken cacciatore just because. It was nice.

>75 littlegeek: it sounds lovely!

Chicken cacciotore is such a yummy dish :)

Had a nice weekend - Friday was knitting at the library, followed by book club meeting. I had actually read both books we talked about (for a change). We had the author of one there for the discussion. She is a pretty neat local lady who wrote an autobiographical book called 'Lies, Fries, and Really Cute Guys' - none catalogued here but this is it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Lies-Fries-Really-Cute-Guys/dp/B09MYL7T4X
The other book was The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - not my favourite sort of book, but ok.
Saturday was quiet, but I finished the sweater I was working on.
Sunday there was a free lunch put on by the local Sikh temple for Vaisakhi. I went with friends and it was lovely food and I saw lots of people I knew there. It started raining just as it was ending, so my afternoon dog walk was wet. In the evening I met friends for dinner and a drink to celebrate the solstice, even if it was a few days late.

All in all a very nice weekend.

Well, it's the last weekend in June and Monday is Canada Day, so that means FIREWORKS! It's not dark enough to set off the fireworks until 11 pm. I haven't decided yet if I'll walk over to view them or not. It's at least a 30 minute walk each way, and my husband will not want to go with me because it's past his bedtime. I do love fireworks, though.

Other than that, there's nothing else special happening and a three-day weekend is kind of meaningless when one is retired. I expect I'll read, work on the Hort Society's website rebuild, and garden. Lots of weeding to do!

Not much on for this weekend. Hubby coming home as he's been gone since Tuesday at the crack of dawn. We'll sit on the new dock maybe. Sunday I have a field trip with the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin all about dragonflies & damselflies along the Wolf River. Should be good weather for it.

And speaking of dragonflies, here are a pair of Dot-tailed White Faces doing their best to repopulate the species -



Took that yesterday in a backwater. Not sure if the little rusty dots are eggs or sperm packets, but I was surprised to see them when I got it into the computer. The reflection is a bonus!

I love dragonflies!

This weekend should be fairly uneventful for us, probably just run a few errands. Sunday we have our Cookbook Book Club dinner. I will be making a Pear Cardamom Cobbler. The cookbook is The Oregon Farm Table Cookbook. All the recipes have ingredients found grown in Oregon. The author will be there as she is local. Should be fun!

>79 Bookmarque: Great picture of the copulating dragonflies. I have dozens of damselflies at the same activity here, and they, and some dragonflies, are working hard at laying eggs.



Quite shameless public display by the damselflies.

We are sadly shutting down our church this Sunday. Tomorow we will have a music service, and Sunday our final worship service followed by a BBQ dinner. Former members and pastors have been invited. It's very sad, as the church has a nearly 250 year history. The building is over 100 years old, sitting on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It sits on the site near the first Protestant sermon west of the Mississippi. The Rev John Clark preached from a boat in the Mississippi because Protestantism was illegal at the time, as it was Louisiana Territory, owned by the French. At one time, it was on the main street of a thriving community; unfortunately it was thriving due to lead mining/smelting industry. The smelter contaminated the land; most of the homes were condemned by the EPA and bought out by the lead company in the 1990s. The church is the last building on this street. We have only about 20 active members. The land will likely be bought by the new Port Authority which sits directly beneath the building. So I'll be attending both services, and Mr.RetiredLibrarian will become Mr.RetiredPreacher.

Tomorrow we are planning to go to the local arboretum at the university. And on Sunday it's a BBQ with some visiting friends. Lovely Summer weekend.

>82 theretiredlibrarian: I am so sorry for the sense of loss that you must be experiencing. The past slips away and so often one's present moment doesn't really provide any sense of how to move forward.

I am spending the weekend with more activity having to do with financial planning. We're doing left over cold chicken salad for dinner. I can't claim any excitement. (Although I did read the first chapter in Judy Dench's memoir, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, and may need to re-watch some version of MacBeth as a result.)

The weather is supposed to be hot and humid this weekend.

>82 theretiredlibrarian: I am sorry to hear that. I hope its history has been well documented so that although it is gone, there will still be a record.

My friend took me to the Lassen National Park yesterday. What a beautiful break from the mundane and the heat. This is the second weekend it was open this season and there were not the usual crowds. We drove slowly through, stopping many places along the way to take pictures. We both saw our first in-the-wild bear! A small, blonde, black bear. Crossed the road in front of our car, climbed the bank and moneyed along the road, providing photo opportunity. I did the best I could with my phone, perhaps later, when I'm on my computer, I can add a photo to my thread. More than half of the park was burned in 2019. It is sad, and yet the recovery and even the burnt areas provide their own kind of melancholy beauty.

There were still many wildflowers blooming. I stood by a stream to listen to the chuckling water, and in the trees to hear them whispering in the breeze. Very restful.

This weekend I am working on getting my potted plants ready to survive the next ten days or more of temperatures in the 110s F and above.

I've had a busy week, and am hoping for a quieter weekend. Had a relaxing Friday night, but was woken in the night for a fire call. An arsonist set fire to a heavy equipment tire near the business they have been targeting. Sigh.

Today I met a friend to finish up the work we (a bigger group) started earlier in the week on the ski trails. We had a little bit of deadfall to clear up, and a lot of small trees and bushes across the trails, mostly thanks to an April snowfall. The town had a crew mowing in there today, so the trails are in great shape for walking now.

I need to cut the grass, change the oil in my truck, clean the house, and pack for a camping trip next week, but it's too hot right now (over 30° in the shade). Tomorrow I am hoping to get together with a friend and work on my to do list.

Monday is the Canada Day parade. I am supposed to be driving one of the museum vehicles, but I'm not sure which one yet.

Had a power outage for about 1.5 hrs this afternoon. Thought I’d go to store while power was out, but then remembered I’d need a step ladder to reach the thing that needs to be flipped to manually open garage door to get car out and decided to wait it out at home. Just as well since it rained around that time as well.

The wildlife has been pretty active in my yard. We live on 9.5 wooded acres in a suburb. I have trail cams set up to watch the wildlife. These are cheap cams I manually check. Captured a coyote with a fawn a few weeks ago. A few nights ago two coyotes were fighting in a creek that flows across my property. Last night I captured a coyote carrying away another coyote. I presume the victor killed the other over territory and maybe also sniffing around its food stash. Finally, got a red shouldered hawk with what looked like a robin and a cooper’s hawk with a chipmunk. The predators are certainly doing well this week.

>MrsLee: How cool to see a bear up close! We've had bear sightings nearby, and also one young one has been roaming the suburbs of St. Louis. Conservation people are tracking him, and he seems to be making his way back into the woods. When I was a teen, bears were pretty much unheard of in Missouri. Two years ago, there were enough that the state added a bear hunting license--a lottery system to get one. MrRetired got a tag the first year, but was unable to find anything but scat.

We also have had a sighting of an alligator in the town park pond. I can tell you that is very unusual in the Ozarks! Likely someone released a pet; Conservation department is also looking into this.