I can remember about 5 years ago listening to so-called professional weather prognosticators tell us that the reason we were in an extended drought was clearly because of global warming. Its no longer politically correct to refer to it as global warming – the international socialists have changed the terminology to “climate warming” - but the drought also appears to be over.
The picture above is just inside the gate at Dyer Straits campground which is our preferred hangout when we are in Regina. It was wet enough when we were here 2 weeks ago that we were careful about picking our spot. They have what are locally referred to as “frost boils”. I’m not sure what the correct soil physics terminology would be, perhaps “plasticity limit” is the correct term. Whatever the terminology, what happens in practice is that when you have the wrong type of clay with a relatively high water table, then relatively little traffic over the surface will cause the water to wick upwards to the surface. Once the water gets up close to the surface then the ground literally erupts in gooey mud holes with no bottom. The situation tends to be worst in spring while the ground water is trapped between the surface and the frost line but with enough rainfall it can occur at any time. The tracks above were made earlier this week when a truck arrived to pick up the park model below.
Eventually it took a grader and a payloader to extricate all the various stuck equipment. And they gave up entirely on removing the park model. Corb Lund says “the Dodge got stuck in the tractor rut which eventually pulled out the Ford” and it sounds like it was one of those days. So we were very careful in our site selection and with Lorne’s advice eventually got settled in a water/electric-only site close to the front of the yard.
Yesterday we finished up the brake work and got away a little after 10:00 in the morning. By the time we had stopped at Millsap’s to fuel up and I had paid Homer Simpson for the last fuel we used it was getting close to lunchtime so we stopped behind Damar in Melfort. Last night we parked on the street in south Regina where the province very kindly provides free wifi access. I believe it is targeted at student residences but whatever the reason, it was pretty nice to have internet access on the side of a street in Regina.
This morning we slept in, had pancakes & bacon & eggs for brunch and then headed over to Wascana to visit father. We saw him last night when we got in and met one of Diane Neale’s employees who was visiting him at the same time. He looks really good – the new surroundings have been so good for him. Apparently he is trying to get out of bed on his own fairly regularly now but that is a good sign. He had grown so lethargic at Dove House that he no longer bothered to try getting up on his own.
Wascana has a couple of systems in place to ensure he doesn’t get away from them. I inadvertently tested the bed sensor last night when I sat down on the edge of the bed and then got up. Immediately there was a loud screeching noise which was quickly followed by a nurse checking to see what was going on.
Tomorrow we have a wheelchair cab lined up to take him to church. He has about as much interest in the religious part of attending church as I do – in other words not much – but he really enjoys the fellowship. Its been a long time since he was able to attend so he will no doubt get a lot of attention. And clearly we’ll have to stay for coffee. I hope they have cookies.
No comments:
Post a Comment