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Issue #1225
Including:

Gale
Carol
Gary
Doug

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From Gale

The Saga of Fred the Rat

It all started a few weeks ago when we noticed a hole chewed in our bag of bird seed. We assumed it was a mouse. That is a fairly common occurrence in an older house, especially in the fall, so we always have mouse traps with peanut butter set up on the "executive balcony" (the space over the door in the furnace room). We put the bird seed in a safe place thinking the mouse would go for the peanut butter. He didn't so we stuck a few seeds in the trap. But, somehow, he ate the seeds without tripping the trap. We thought he just got lucky but, when we tried again, seeds gone, still no mouse. We figured then it must be a creature bigger than a mouse - Fred the Rat !

We started finding little piles of food around the house, often in comfy places, but we thought we had any food sources put away. Eventually, we identified the food scraps as bits and pieces from the gingerbread house that Quinn and I had made last year which we had carefully wrapped and stored with the Christmas decorations. Sure enough, it was the house so we had to throw it away (sad face). Now maybe we'll catch Fred. Meanwhile, we would spot Fred scampering across the floors not much in fear of us. In fact, he became so relaxed that he curled around Dave's head to have a little nap with him. If that had been me, you would have heard the scream all the way to Squamidian land !

Our next option was to get a cage to trap Fred. We set it up with a fine gourmet rat meal which he enjoyed but was too light to trip the trap. So Dave did a little magic with a hacksaw to make it more sensitive and we set up another feast. Fred ignored it for a few days which seemed odd but we realize now that he must have been sickly because, at that point, he joined us on the couch, squeaked good-bye and rolled over dead. Relief he's gone and we can get back to normal but, in a weird way, we kind of miss Fred.

Gale

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From Carol

Most of us are retired and often haven’t done anything we feel worthy of sharing. Doug has his music and the gondola to get dressed for. Sus has her chickens and large property to get her dreaded and going in the morning. Truth be told if I don’t need to leave the house I often stay in my comfy PJs. Right now my neighbour is away so I’m walking her dog twice a day, enjoying it but not wanting a dog of my own. If you remember Russ and Greg often had uneventful weeks but still came up with something interesting to write about, sometimes the past, sometimes about an event from the paper. Around Halloween Sus mentioned her dad used to paint their faces before they went trick or treating. I never knew this about Howard but considering what an artist he was I am not surprised. All of this is leading up to a challenge to all the readers who feel they have nothing to contribute to. I challenge each of you to write something funny about your father or a father figure. I will start out. When Jackie was a baby was sitting at my parent’s table talking to mom about birthday control. Dad came in and when he realized what we were discussing he said (rather belligerently) “ she doesn’t need to know any of that, she has 2 kids, she can just stop”. I didn’t have the nerve to say he didn’t stop until 5 kids. Now it is your turn, how many of you will send something in to be included in next week’s Squid about your father? Maybe you will even include a writing challenge for the next time. Have a great week.

Carol

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From Gary

Hello fellow Squamidians. I can’t believe how fast time flies. Tim got 1 lung transplant. Apparently it was very successful. The long healing process has begun.🙏❤️. We had snow last weekend. It turned cold so the end of the driveway was like cement. Thanks Tim and Heidi for that wonderful snowblower. Sunny and 10 so I’m doing outside chores today. Take care and stay safe everyone.

Gary

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From Doug

I did something this week that I haven’t done in probably 15 years or so, I replaced the strings on my electric base guitar. I know that anyone who knows anything about stringed instruments will have a conniption over that. I can’t blame them. Heck, I change the strings on my acoustic guitars very regularly. But, I don’t play the base very often. Years ago I played it regularly but not anymore. Now-a-days it just gets played when I add some bottom end to a recording project I might be working on.

I started to think that perhaps the old strings were dead, virtually soundless, as I couldn’t get much response from that instrument when trying to add the base tracks in my recordings, for quite a while now. (In my defense I’ve had a lot on my mind for the last couple of years). I went on line to L&M’s website to look up base strings and as I puzzled over the bewildering array of choices, I started to wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, I might have a set of strings in my music supply box where I’ve got a dozen or so sets of acoustic strings. Low and behold, there was a set of ‘brand new, never been opened’ strings. No idea how long I’ve had them, probably that same 15 years. So, off came the old set, on went the new.

By the way, that old base guitar of mine is OLDER that Ryan. I used to play it in the little country band I was in back in the 70’s and 80’s. Now, given my track record of changing base guitar strings, and given my vintage, this new set of strings will probably be around longer than I will be. And while happily, the new strings greatly increase the playability of the guitar, sadly, they do not increase my ability to play it. But happily, they sure do make a difference when trying to lay down a base track in a recording.

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Every year at this time the gondola closes for annual maintenance. While obviously inconvenient, it is a necessary thing for them to do. For safety reasons the lift system and related machinery must be in top condition. To that end each and every nut and bolt and bearing must be inspected. Every bogie wheel and pulley must be inspected. Certain parts that have a known wear rate must be replaced and so on. In the early years they would close for the whole month of November. As time went on they found that some of the required maintenance could be done ahead of time and therefore they could reduce the amount of down-time. So now they are able to get all the repairs, replacements, and inspections done in just under 2 weeks. They intend to reopen on the 25^th.

As well as doing the maintenance, they make use of the fact that there are no customers in the way to do various renovations and improvements to the lodge and other structures. Mind you, improvements are only improvements if you like what they did. If you don’t then you scratch your head and wonder what the heck they were thinking. Thats happened a few times for me so it will be interesting to see what they do or don’t do this time. I can’t help but wonder if our ‘corner’ will still be there and if our comfortable chairs will still be there, waiting for us. What will be there is the wood burning stove. Actually its been there all summer but just not in use. They took away the safety barrier for the summer so the fire could not be lit. I can understand that. Face it, some dumber than soup tourist would have leaned on the hot stove and then sued for damages. Or some such thing.

The physical stove itself was left in place this past summer partially due to my argument that many visitors have never seen a ‘real’ wood-burning stove and it is part of the ambiance of a mountain lodge. The general manager had agreed with me and the stove stayed, just not used, over the summer. Tourists took pictures of it anyway, so there you go. The food and beverage manager had wanted it out of there so he could squeeze in a couple of more seating spots. Go figure. Anyway, I had won that round. Once they reopen in a couple of weeks I’ll be able to let you know what they have done, or not done, and so on.

Doug

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Have a Good One
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