Six months ago I recorded that we would have the possibility of rain from June 14 to 20. That has not turned out to be totally true. We have had some showers. Some days the sun shone. This was a week of weather that if you had your coat on, you were too hot. If you had your coat off, you were too cold. We are also at the longest days of the year. It is disheartening when you see the days getting shorter.
I hesitate to even mention it but I have no hoar frost rain marked for next week or until the end of the month.
In this area, if you had your crop in early, with the showers lottery that is going on, there are some beautiful crops coming. Some of the wheat has filled in and turned that dark rich green color that I know is a big crop coming. This showers weather has the canola leafing out and quickly making a canopy that covers the ground. That is if it had germinated the first time and didn’t get killed by frost. There are a lot of fields that will be a dog’s breakfast come harvest as hollows are germinated and growing rapidly while the hill tops are just germinated now. The dilemma will be, which crop do you swath?
On the home front, the crew has been installing windows in the house. We have three new basement windows with sliders we never had before, which should be good for ventilating the basement. The big picture window has been replaced by three smaller ones. We tried to salvage the glass as I had thoughts of using it for a green house. The six by six pane was brittle. We had four people lifting and it cracked as we were taking it out. It cracked again later, just lying on a pallet on our flatbed. Spears of glass would come popping out with no one around. It was an unusual phenomenon to behold. The 12-foot picture window has been replaced by three windows 39 inches wide and we had to frame in two 15-inch fill ins. It worked out well, I think. The new window frames are white laminate and have 15-inch sliders on the bottom. I can tell you there is real air movement when they are open.
The crew also replaced three bedroom windows. We carefully measured and ordered the windows to fit the hole. The crew had to add a treated two by six on both sides and a three-eighths strip of treated plywood on the top and bottom. Fits like a glove now. So much for perfect measure. These windows are also white laminate with a slider. I am hoping these will last as long as the other ones and if it is another 25 years, I wouldn’t be here to change them again.
The only thing left is the siding. We bought X-90 siding last time that was guaranteed for 90 years. Today, 35 years later, the siding looks like the chickens have been pecking it. Small chunks of the coating have fallen off. The company that made it has disappeared in the sands of time. So much for the 90-year guarantee. I have put tin on the roof with the thought I never want to fix a leaky roof again. I would like to put tin on the walls, too, but the better half says no, that would make it look like a shop. We are at an impasse as I refuse to put fibreglass siding on that will burn up at the drop of a hat if there is a fire nearby.
One of the things I have done this spring is use Kijiji to sell my farm equipment. I was not happy with the auction of my equipment five years ago. I swore I would never hold another auction sale. I decided I would sell the machinery rather than have it sit in the yard. I put ads on Kijiji and on the third phone call I sold my Ford TW-30 tractor to Kamloops. My 25-foot John Deere disc went to Hardisty, Alta. I received six phone calls on the disc. I had two Morris cultivators, a five series that I had spikes on and a seven series that I had big shovels on. I also had a 60-foot harrow bar, tine harrows. A guy from just across the river bought all three of them. I had a Tyler high clearance sprayer that two brothers from Borden came and bought. The last thing to leave was my 80-foot Flexicoil pull type. A man sent me a cheque and bought it. He was here yesterday. He loaded the tank on backwards. Then after much troubles we loaded the booms on backwards. It was his sprayer. We loaded it like he wanted. He lives an hour west of Edmonton. I had 12 phone calls on that old sprayer. The 43-foot Ezee-on airseeder did not sell yet. I had one man come and look at it and told me he had to go home and talk it over with his wife. I may have offended him as when he told me that I said to him you came all the way over here to look at it, why didn’t you wear your big boy pants? Oh well.
Joke of the week: Mother — “Get up Larry, you are going to be late for school.” Larry — “I don’t want to go, all the students and teachers hate me.” Mother — “Get up, you have to go to school.” Larry — “Tell me one reason I have to go to school.” Mother — “You are 35 years old, you’re living in my basement and you are the principal. Now get up.”
