It’s the simple pleasures.

It is usually the simple things in life that make all the agro seem worthwhile.


Things like an all sorts pizza, a breakfast of pancakes and home made red berry jam [something I cant seem to get enough off latterly]

or filling advent stockings [Fran’s favorite].

The stockings here are just for close family, not a lot by Nain standards.
Guess it is easy to pick out which belong to the two GG kids, that large red one is a mystery, big ol kid that one.

The Northern Ranger made her last arrival yesterday; it was a beautiful calm day too. I have never seen freight come of the old girl so fast, not sure if the crew was on Viagra or that the freight was on the top level of the hold [she stops at all points south].

Another bit of snow falling this morning, light stuff, just enough to cover all that icy stuff, the wind is supposed to pick up later though.

Ugly out there boy.

These pictures do not accurately depict the true iciness of the scene out there this morning, but they are all I have, light freezing drizzle is just the pits.

With the temperatures rising maybe it will melt off, I just hate having to walk on that icy stuff.

Still it could be worse, HV-GB has it bad I hear, then there was the big ice storm that brought most of the east coast of north America to a stop several years back.

It is said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Well I’m in the mood for some low wit.

Maybe this guy could be recruited by the NG as there chairman of their alcohol and drug committee?

There is an old adage that says “if you cant say anything nice then don’t say anything at all”.

Boy that is hard given the circumstances.

If there is any justice in the world then 7 members of the assembly have a lot of explaining to do.

Seems the arse dropped out of the temperature range unexpectedly, -17 at the house early, -13 official with a wind chill of -21. No wonder the bones is aching.

I have not completed the snow removal in front of the house yet, sidetracked with assisting in the instillation of a new 50 watt transmitter for OKS.
By new I mean a 1980’s vintage that is refurbished, this now replaces the much older 1960 vintage 40 watt job which is now on standby.
It’s not sure how much long either or will last, so hope some one is looking at something more reliable.

What’s so hard about the name names Nain, Labrador, Newfoundland and Labrador when it comes to shipping companies?
Some people staffing these entities seem to be dysfunctional when it comes to general geography, you would think they would receive some basic general training to perform the job functions a lot better.

Three orders we have made of late have been miss directed or dropped off at the wrong location.

One was a Sears order Fran made, she asked for drop off at the Sears Catalogue store in HV-GB. We received notice it was ready for pick up at the Churchill Falls Sears catalogue store.

Then there is an order I made from Lee Valley in Ottawa. I just checked the tracking number on the Canada Post tracking site. It went to Dieppe NB before being brought back to Quebec City.

When I ordered the back up generator it was shipped by UPS to St. John’s NL before being back tracked into Labrador. Mind you it did do a speedy run from St. John’s into Goose Bay.

The Monday after.

So Saturday nights and Sundays event was a little above the ‘minor’ but still way below a Major storm. T’was the wind that usually does it.

I spent part of the early morning attaching some of the larger snow drifts at the back and south side of the house, the north side was clear.
Then the wind came up again [NE] so I decided the exertions would be wasted until things calmed down.

When I came back into the house Fran was going through a cook book, this took me back but I calmly asked “what you going to cook up”?

“You are going to make some advent cookies” was the reply. Nice to have the lines of authority down pat to avoid any confusions.

Early afternoon we decided to take a walk down town. This was sort of a mistake for several reasons.
One was that the snow had not had a chance to settle so it was like walking along the high side of a very sandy beach.
Second were some of the idiot ski doo operators who treat the town’s roads as some sort of ego building race track. One woman in particular is a real over abuser; she has been for some years.
These idiots’ antics are some what minamized by the sensible drivers, happily in the majority.

That said you had to have your wits about you with all this motorized traffic sharing the same space as pedestrian traffic. Plus I had an over active dog on the leash, Siutik was in a very playful mood, and there were an overabundance of loose dogs on the roam for her to play with.

Any way; one side of the roof has been trussed out on the Northern store. With trusses that close it should hold a big snow load. [Take note of the calm around the right side of the hill in the background].

At the dock several people were de snowing one speed boat, several other boats awaited there owners attention.

While at the dock the relative calm was replaced by sudden gusts of wind accompanied by light sleet coming in from the south. The winds picked up quite a bit as can be seen in the last two pictures. Things calm down somewhat later.

Mini storm II.

Siutik out for an early morning pee pee. She loves to play in the snow but not before dawn.

The wind again makes it look like more snow than actual. Only around 0 degrees with -9 chill.

So the ol joints will get a bit of a work out later today then.

Cooking with ricotta.

Subsequent to the lasagna that the Ingutuks gobbled up I knocked up a zucchini and ricotta

frittata and last night a penne and swirly thing with ricotta. Variety is nice but for next week may revert back to the good ol country food and good ol meat and potato.







The roads were busy yesterday with a bulldozer and a large loader clearing the snow from them.



All fine and dandy but looks like they will have to do it all again, Brian Snodden of Here & Now seemed to miss this warning last night.


Now I understand southern folk’s penchant for complaining about road snow clearing and driveways.
Not that most of us have driveways as such, but to get from the road to our homes [and visa versa] we still have to get over the mounds of snow that the “clearing” creates.

Which brings me to the catch twenty two of clearing the roads of snow?

I understand they have to be done while the boats are still running. But while the snow is being removed from the road surface this allows the frost to get into the ground, eventually going deeper and deeper heading down to the water and sewer lines.

We all remember last year’s horror show of broken and frozen lines, especially the people working on repairing them.

Like I said, catch twenty two.

Harking back to Wednesday evenings meeting with Hydro official; here is an interview that Sarah Erickson did this morning.

Mini storm.

The first decent storm of the season has been and almost gone. Winds up to 82 K last night, not a lot of snow but it looks like a lot in places where the wind deposited it, around our house there are lots of little places to deposit it.

As usual this sort of storm inconveniences people bringing things up from the dock, luck had it that the Aston was in on Wednesday.
Chaos as usual down at the dock and lay down area. Only one fork lift was in operation, it has those tiny hard wheels that don’t go too good in snow and slush. Of course there were no chains to put on the wheels; several pallets of drinks were tumbled onto the ground as the little machine that tries slipped and skidded all over the place. Some things never change and while we have to deal with the Woodward group they never will.

The public meeting with N&L Hydro last evening was reasonably well attended, about 27 or so from the community, though several of those were staff of either the NICG or NG or local media, still not bad.

I was disappointed that only one person from Hydro [Bill Nippard the area Manager] was in attendance but more on that later.

Bill gave an overview of the history of the new plant [built 2002 in response to community concerns], what happened to cause the fire [ruptured fuel line] and an update on what is happening at the plant at the moment.
Bill gave thanks to the local Volunteer Fire Brigade whose actions saved the whole kit and caboodle from being destroyed.

After Bills overview presentation many questions came from the community. Most centered on the three back up generators and questioned why the units were not in ready to use condition on arrival.
Bill explained Hydros point of view, the urgency, time of year, unavailability of suitable new units. One new unit was available in Arizona but this was put dismissed due to length of delivery time.

So we ended up with back up for back up units from two other plants, they are old but there hours of operation are not that high, last overhaul was about two years ago.

Bill explained the reasons for the outages since the back ups were put on line, mistakes were made in connecting to the substation causing on outage on 10 November for 55 hours for some.

Three Hydro engineering disciplines have to inspect the whole situation at the plant, this process is taking time and won’t be completed for another several weeks when a report will be submitted to regional Hydro for them to take any action and make any corrections. Most were puzzled with this scenario.

A new 1250 KW unit is on order and will be delivered by September 2009; the original three units are 850 KW.

Meantime work on the two damaged units will proceed one at a time. Extensive wring and structural damage will also me addressed simultaneously.

All this is supposed to be taking place in conjunction with getting all the bugs out of the three mobiles, preventative maintance work is still be carried out on these. One unit is waiting on a gasket for the water pump.

As to personal, this will go from a computer controlled plant with a staff of two to three to a manual controlled plant with four attendance working shifts.
Also promised are three trade’s people, one mechanic, one electrician and one lineman who will be stationed in Nain for the duration of the re build.

To summarize and in my view:

Regional Hydro initially responded very quickly after the fire. On the ground work force did a great job under difficult circumstances.
Some in the community saw this as reassuring, this broke down when more outages occurred. Mistakes were made and oversight was not forthcoming putting extra pressure on the folks on the ground.

I feel Corporate Hydro has not responded to the situation in an adequate way. They have not acted in a way to indicate to the community that Corporate Hydro takes the situation seriously.

Most of the community, including me, would take this as meaning that it falls back to the same mentality many have: it is Northern Labrador, remote, and we don’t have to deal with things there as we would if it was in a more central location.

The community has to be more pro active, and less polite, to tell them that the situation is serious, it is adding undue financial and psychological pressures to the people and we want to be treated the same way others are treated.

My ten cents worth.

I try to deal with some of the points that Anonymous commented on below.


Anonymous said...
I believe our future as far as transportation on the Labrador Coast goes is have a South Coast transportation system and a North Coast Transportation system, and everything that is done from now on should be aimed at improving the transportation to/within those two systems.Isolated communities Rigolet South should be supplied out of Cartwright. Isolated communities Rigolet North should be supplied from Lewisporte. F@#& Happy Valley-Goose Bay and its pricer gouging suppliers as a supply Center for the North Coast. HV-GB is too far out of the way and only adds more time and bother as far as supplying the Coast goes, especially when it has to be utilized in conjunction with Cartwright. Let HV-GB keep its hub as the airline Center for North and part of the South Coast. And it can have a future as the place for travellers to top up their gas tank when enroute over the TLH. That's all the deserve. And that's enough for them.

I cant speak to what would be better for the south coast, as to the North Coast, well it sure gets complicated with so many players wanting input.

I think what should happen is an open debate as to what is going to happen once the TLH connection to the south is completed. The emphasis should be on what the North Coast wants verses what HV-GB or Lewisport want.

In my years of taking an interest in shipping/transport issues it seems that the established view of most is to keep the connection with the Island going. Reasons for this vary from long term relationships with suppliers, it is cheaper to ship by sea than by road, larger suppliers on the Island lead to cheaper prices than in HV-GB, more reliability with Island suppliers are just a few.

One train of though I have heard is that the shipping port from Newfoundland should be closer to St. John’s, after all, with the closure of Atlantic grocery in Lewisport that is where most of the suppliers are located.

One thing that has not happened to any great extent is; when the TLH connection was completed from HV-GB to Western Labrador it was thought [by government] that retailers would switch to wholesalers in Quebec or Ontario and more goods would be trucked in to HV-GB. Government rationalized that it was cheaper to ship by truck than by sea. This hypothesis has since been blown out of the water. Or off the road may be a better analogy.
Another reason for not going that route could be finding suppliers who have the goods that traditionally are sold on the coast. Many goods are manufactured on the Island exclusively.
Another is finding a supplier who would be bothered dealing in such a small market and to give credit on the goods purchased.

I worry, and I know others do too, that a strong lobby will insist on trucking goods from the Island into HV-GB for transshipment by sea. That would raise our prices through the roof, unless the trucking was subsidized.

I think it would be hard to eliminate HV-GB completely as a shipping point; people do quite a lot of shopping there. In some instances retailers are forced to buy things like pop and beer out of HV-GB.

The configuration of the shipping is the single most important issue in the short to long term. It will dictate how much people pay at the check out, so people should have a voice.

Meeting of the public.

Nain Inuit Community Government is advertising a meeting, open to the public, with N&L Hydro Officials on Wednesday the 19th November 2008.

The meeting will be in the Nunatsiavut Board room [I presume this to be the NG board room].

All people with any concerns Hydro related are encouraged to attend.

Time is good to some.

A friend sent this photograph yesterday without any comment.


The picture was taken in Hopedale in August 1954 by Richard Gammon an American serviceman working at the base there.

More pictures can be seen here for anyone interested.

It took six days

in the making, but the end result was worth the time and effort.

I have been procrastinating for some time about getting a starter going for sourdough bread. Some one mentioned that they had never tried it but were interesting in doing so, so there it is at right, a light and tasty rye sourdough.

The Ingutuks seemed to like it too, as well as the lasagnas I cooked up yesterday.

After a nice start to the weather yesterday it turned meh around 10, light rain and + temperatures since, come tomorrow and it's forecast - temperature's we will be sliding all over the place.

But this is

Labrador II.

Subsequent to finishing the last post I went back to bed for a snooze.

I was rudely awakened by silence in the house and the dim cloud laden light of dawn beaming through the window.
Something is amiss thinks I in my groggy half a wake state. Seconds later I realize WTF is going on.
The 57 Chevy has broken down again, or whatever vintage and make and model the Hydro PR person used as an analogy to the back up generators they sent up here.

It was about 7.20, not sure of the exact break down but it would be around 7 to 7.20.

It is now 8.20 as I write this, so we don’t know if this was a planed outage or they have found more rust on the Chevy.

Hark, me thinks I hear the sound of a radio………………why it is a radio, the one in the bedroom, so that means the power has been restored, oh joys and praise Yahweh.

But this is

Labrador! Buddy from the wharfingers office called around super time last evening. [I’ve had freight come in on the boat off and on all year and never received a call to date].

So buddy says “the Northern Ranger will be in at 2 in the morning, you have two pieces of freight on it”.
Oh, say I, can you put them in the shed and I will get them later in the day. “Only if we have room” says buddy very un enthusiastically. Well see if you can fit them in, there only small, give me a call if you need me to pick them up say I. “OK” says buddy un enthusiastically.

So that is why I’m about to head down to the dock at 3 in the morning, the bloody boat better be there and my freight off or near to being off.

LATER:

Well the bloody boat was there, she arrived 1.30. So I was back home at 4, not too bad eh?

Pity the ones with multiple pallets of freight, having to organize people to help off load from the trucks etc.

Still the conditions were not as bad what I have seen in the past, +1 or so, roads are mainly dry, bit slushy and slippery at the lay down area.

Word is that the Ranger is heading back to pick up another load. I wonder when this crowd will join the 21st century and up grade their freight tracking system. Freight taken to Lewisport in September should be here by now, but it is not. No way that it can be tracked either, just that it has been accepted and is on the way somewhere.

Then there are split loads of freight. Example would be 17 pallets of freight accepted at Goose Bay dock. The most efficient way would be to load them onto a container and ship them up on the freight boat via Cartwright [sorry, that is the most efficient we have] you would think. But no, 6 pallets arrive on the Ranger [taken out of the container], 11 are still either in Goose Bay, on there way to Cartwright for transfer to the Aston or some other scenario, no one knows until they arrive in Nain.

Darn, just when we have a little covering of snow down we have this on the way, more slush and yuckyness.

Meantime down under some have taken stiff measures to combat the downturn in tourism due to the growing world recession. Maybe they could boost business by free hand outs.

Meantime back closer to home we have the haves heading back to have nots even before the big party.

Meantime much closer to home.

This new initiative should warm the cockles of our hearts up here. Though having an antiquated understaffed system in place seems to add more to the cost and greenhouse gas omissions.

Our shopping list for yesterday.

Started shopping late, power outage you know, items on the list:

1. Gas for the generator. 2. Lamp oil for the lamp. 3. White gas [camp fuel] for the Coleman stove and the Coleman easy light lamp. 4. Boxes of emergency candles. 5. Matches, to start items 2 to 4.

Sounds like a list for someone going off camping or to their cabin, but no, these are essentials for the average home here in Nain in these Hydro uncertain days.

Next on the list I think I will Google how to “cook a roast turkey and all the vegetables on a Coleman stove”.

Also while doing the rounds I got the impression that more and more people are thinking [very seriously] of investing in a back up generator.
For someone with a store I would think it essential, for homes as well, but I do understand monetary considerations come into play.
For people with one or two or more household incomes then there is not excuse {unless you have a wood stove]. For people on fixed incomes or EI or social assistance, then cost would be a major concern.
I know I gave it some serious thought before buying ours, to date I have no regrets, and it’s only November and three months since the fire at the Hydro plant.

Maybe there should be a push to speed up the delivery of alternatives to diesel plants?

Sorry, I miss spoke,

status quo has not been revisited, not by a long shot.

7..20 this morning I was making a cup of tea, had some bread in the toaster, next thing the lights went out and the toaster popped up, frightened the bejasus out of me.

I then became really angry.

I am still angry but focused, I have since found out that all the town did not receive power yesterday. It came on in dribs and drabs, some did not get it at all, some got it on this morning then lost it again.
We had ours back at 9.20, parts of the town that had power earlier are now without, total chaos reigns.

No fault of the guys on the ground, this whole issue goes back to the years that Hydro cut back on staff, realigned staff, dumbed down on the equipment that went into the new plant 9 years ago.
It is all coming back to haunt Hydro, not to mention the 1300 residents of Nain, penny wise pound foolish I think the saying goes.

Status quo revisited.

Power was re stalled at 4.17 in the PM our way, the area down the road a bit, around NG office and the hotel, had to wait a little longer, 33 hours and change for us.

Not that people are doing hand stands and yelling halleluiah, not by a long shot. I don’t think it presumptuous of me in saying that most people are darn right pessimistic about the upcoming winter and what fates await vis a vis the hydro service.

There were several anecdotal accounts of what caused the latest outage, “sparks spraying all over the place” was one, and another had “the sky lit up like it was daylight”.

This was the area of the “sparks”, newly installed, mind you old equipment.

Bit later again.

Some outdoor scenes and one from inside last evening.

So I gota plug the fridge in now for it's stint at the power, still mild out [relatively speaking], supposed to get down to -6 by Wednesday, I'm sure the power will be back on soon!

Later, like about 10.45.

At right is last nights one fry pan meal.

At left is coffee on the boil this morning.

Still waiting some news on when the power will be restored.

Was talking to some folks staying at the hotel, not very happy campers for sure. Then you have to feel for the staff too.

Rod over at the gas station kindly opened up so I could get 5 gallons of gas for the generator, sort of eats it up when she is going most of the day.

So now it’s a bit after after six on Tuesday morning,

we still do not have power, "more serious than they thought” is the word going around, well they got one thing right didnthey?

Funny thing is 2/3 of the town has power, at least since yesterday afternoon.

From BigLand on Middle Path Road down to the airstrip and over cross the brook up to the power plant all is lit up.

From the the Sportsplex west on Middle Path Road and Sandbanks Road up into the newer areas are all in the dark.

Over at the plant it looks like one unit in the damaged plant is operating, the three mobile emergency units are down.
We are waiting on a line crew to get in, clear up weather.

On the personal front; the emergency generator I purchased has been a god send, power cords running all over the place and I have to switch appliances around, but we are better off than the majority of the ones without power.

Yesterday I did a Greek theme super, sort of.

I marinated some chicken [kotopoula] in a dry rub then some garlic and pepper concoction. Marinated some lamb and put them arnakisoavlos] and had some sausage [loukanika] that did not need spicing up, very hot Italian, must remember to buy mold next time.

I did a sort of rice dish [plafi]. I marinated some finely chopped vegetables in a ginger kiwi marinade, it was hot too but it tempered down when added to the rice.
I sautéed the vegetables, added a bit of beer and then added the cooked basmati rice just before serving, it turned out quite well according to all who partook.

It has been snowing for quite some time now, started light yesterday and this morning it is getting heavier.

I am not sure when I well get to post this as the bloody hydro went out at around 7 this morning, it is now 9.30.

I hooked the computer up to the generator, after boiling the kettle and having some toast.
I can’t connect to the internet as the local remote computer seems to be down too.

Me thinks it is time Hydro to have a sit down with the community and explain what the hell is going on.
By community I mean a public meeting. What can we expect come the colder months, if they are having troubles this time of year then it does not bode well for temperatures in the -20 range.

A light repast.

Took a break from baking bread and cookies to knock up this quick pizza for super.

Nice fresh ingredients added as follows:

Thin crust whole-wheat dough rolled really thin.
Some olive oil and herbs and garlic.
Left over meat from last nights pork ribs.
Peppers.
Cherry tomatoes, sliced.
Sliced onions.
Portobello mushrooms.

The first photo is before baking and before adding three cheeses, cheddar, swiss and camembert.

Eat your heart out DD and EM.

This time of year is a bit on the blargh side up this way. The hills have no color except brownish and green. There is white interspersed amongst the blargh, the temperatures are about – 4 to -5, the wind tends to blow a lot giving chills in the – 10 to 12 range.
It is sort of in between, too warm for winter wear and too cold for fall wear.

The new Northern store has its floor joists down and now they are putting insulation and the plywood down.

Over at the new Nunatsiavut building things are on the go sort of. As mentioned before the sub contractor left the job and town. The contractor brought in two guys and there is one local there at moment. The bottom walls are going up slowly.
I noticed some guys who were working with the sub contractor on this job now over at the Northern job.
Wonder what shtick is gong on here eh. Story behind story but no one is saying if anyone really knows.

I have been busy slaving over the tandoor the later part of week, almost got it beat, have not had much of a chance for any long excursions outside, Siutik is not pleased, needs to run.

He said she said.

Or more precisely, he said he said.

An Air Labrador spokesperson is refuting the claim by Innu Mikun [IM] that it was an Air Labrador plane that hit the IM plane from behind in the recent Natuashish incident.

Air Labrador is claiming it has eye witness to the incident, and that the horizontal stabilizer on the Air Labrador plane was damaged in the incident indicating it was the IM plane that hit Air Labrador from below.

Let’s hope that the Transportation Safety Board decides to do full investigation here. Just because no one was hurt or killed and the remoteness of the location does not abdicate them there duty to find out what went wrong.
Air Labrador spokesperson says they want a full investigation.

The passengers, and no doubt the pilots, are traumatized, truth and openness is needed here.

Afternoon edition: CBC On the Go is reporting that the Transportation Safety Board has announced it will do a full review of the incident at Natuashish.
There is a photo here of the only plane, Innu Mikun, to receive any damage of note.

Awful.

I dunno about anyone else, but I think this photo of the Queen of England is more flattering than all those pictures of her in those silly bloody hats.

Queen was at a big opening do at the London School of Economics. Queen was not amused that some one had not noticed the big world financial meltdown before it happened. 'If these things were so large, how come everyone missed them? Why did nobody notice it'?" Queen asked.

Some big nob replied "at every stage, someone was relying on somebody else and everyone thought they were doing the right thing".

To which the queen replied: "Awful."

Awful inbloodydeed. Me thinks the Queens assets may have taken a big hit in the last little while.

Wonder what she would look like in a burkha?

Whew.

The collective sigh of relief from around the world sure has a warm feeling about it.
It may be a brief tend but it sure gives one reason for hope for the future.

A lot more so than the recent election results in Canada, not to mention all the hyperbole bullshit about NL now being a have province, if we had to rely on the Williams government hyperbole and rhetoric for warmth we would freeze our arses off in no time.

On a clear day

shit can happen.

Two twin otters and their crews and passengers had a close call in Natuashish this morning.

An Innu Mikun plane with two crew and 10 passengers was on a landing approach when it was [allegedly] struck from behind by an Air Labrador twin otter cargo plane. Only 2 crew were aboard the cargo plane.

Word is that all are personnel are OK except for being a little shaken up, no doubt indeed.

Both planes are still on the ground in Natuashish, both airlines are sending back up planes and repair/inspection crews, Transport Canada will be doing a review of the incident.

Lamb withdrawal?

Over the past number of years we have been availing of a couple of ‘local lambs’ in our winter food order.
By local I mean from the St.John’s area, we would substitute lamb for some other not needed meats.
The meats, especially the beef, we received in the winter order were of high quility, the service was great, and the lamb was of very good quility.
Then the ownership of the company changed. I gave the new operation a couple of years but it is not the same overall, [except the lamb] so this year we did not place an order out of St. John’s.

So we are on the last of the past years lamb, had the last hind leg this weekend.

We had half of the leg with baked vegetables and the essential mint sauce on Sunday.

Last night I did my second favorite lamb recipe, a modified version of “Leon Lianides’s leg of Lamb with Orzo. This recipe is from the cook book “Beard on Pasta" by James Beard.

So I just have some cold lamb to finish off, plus a couple of front leg roasts in the freezer, then it is into lamb withdrawal.

Well maybe not as drastic as that, fortunately one of the local store owners has a penchant for lamb too, they have some NZ lamb in their freezer section, I noticed front legs but no hind legs, will have to check on that.

In the picture I have a good sprinkling of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese. Ideally feta cheese goes best with this meal; alas the feta ran out last week, will have to get on to Bigland to get some more in.

Well it looks like buddy is something more than just a straw man judging by the sightings. He seems to have the ability to morph, or transport, into several different locals in a short space of time.
Myself, I think that if he has been able to free himself from the evil clutches of his abductors then he is more than likely headed towards North West River where one of his creators resides.

The weekend was sort of on the bleak colder side, and windy. Felt it more because of the milder days prior, or perhaps it is the joints that don’t take to abrupt changes any more. Whatever, today started out with light snow but now it is quite nice out.

Stolen/gone missing.

When egressing the front door this morning I noticed something missing, only the chair and rope was still there.

Buddy is in the center of the picture at right.

Buddy is about 5 feet tall, has a white complexion, not much hair on his head, wearing black & yellow sweater, blue and white check scarf, black track pants and has gloves on his hands and is shoeless.

Anyone spotting buddy should not be in fear, he looks fearfull but is quite harmless, call 555 555 for an assistant to come pick him up.

To whoever took buddy, your an asshole.

Halloween,

scary boy.

Just 8 of the little [and not so little] visitors we had last night. Ran out of stuff to give after 125 so locked the door.

Siutik greeted all with her usual friendly niff and a lick, except for the fury monster, who she barked at. Not sure if she was not sure about it or that she new who was under it.

From a temporary perspective.

This collage shows the two temporary Northern stores; left is the food store, bottom right the dry goods across the brook.

Top right shows the three temporary generators in front of the damaged permanent plant. The two blue units are now on line, that must explain the power spike and short outage last Wednesday.

I am beginning to dislike the term perspective, it seems it is the latest overused and abused word from a Danny Williams Government perspective.