EAGLEVILLE B.C.

 POST # 492

The caption reads in part, "Dynamic Duo: PBQ News reader Earl Geddes shares this fantastic shot. "Caught these two bald eagles practising their landings at Deep Bay.  They seem to be urging each other on as they make the landing," he said.  

I am very fortunate to be living for the moment in "Eagleville, BC", otherwise known as Nanoose Bay.  Granted, I didn't personally see the two eagles featured on the front page of the local newspaper, however on most days, I see an eagle or two.  In fact, a couple of days ago,  I counted six of these beautiful birds soaring above the property I am currently house sitting with Doug the dog.

After a bit of time trying to align the ipod camera lens with my binocular lens, I managed to take the above photo.  This particular eagle was perched in the tree directly across the street.  There it remained until dark, which was probably the better part of two hours.

I suppose I could spend the entire day, just sitting and staring out the front window, as there is more than enough bird life to keep me amused, however Doug has different ideas.  One of those ideas is for me to take him to one of the local parks near the beach, so that we can go for our daily walk.  He's a hand full to be sure, but we seem to have managed so far.  One of the places that we do go, has some magnificent old trees, and I do love walking amongst these giants.  Similar to staring up at the stars in the night sky, I gaze at these majestic works of nature, and once again, I feel very insignificant in the greater scheme of things in the universe.

After we return home, have a couple of games of chase the ball in the front room, followed by Doug's evening meal, it's time for the old bonehead to relax, and contemplate tomorrow, which will be almost an exact repeat from today, however he never seems to tire of the routine.  And neither do I for that matter.

And finally, just a small follow up to last week's blog post where I mentioned my lost house sit opportunity.  The very next day I came across this graph, and I suppose I could have sent it along to the owner who declined my offer to house sit due to my vaccination status, but what would be the point?  She had obviously made up her mind, and I doubt that this new information would have changed it.  But in the interest of anyone else, here it is.  It would appear that I am at much less risk of catching Covid than people who are vaccinated.  

So I would like to think that this will be the last information that I'll post regarding Covid, but I think I already said that sometime last year.  So who knows?

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

SETTLED IN & ANOTHER HOUSE SIT REJECTION

 POST # 491

                                                                        HAPPY DO(U)G

Like with any other house/pet sit, it takes a few days to get settled in.  With Doug, that has now been accomplished.  It only took him a few days to train me on how he expects to be treated, and I am a quick learner.  He's got me wrapped around his front paws, when it comes to issuing treats.  My guess is that he is taking full advantage of me, and he's probably getting more treats than usual.  For my part, I have tried to compensate the extra treats, with extra walks.  He seems to be very happy so far, with the way things are going, as can be seen in the above photo.  That was taken on our walk in one of the local parks.  He has plenty of new things to smell, and there is always another bonehead or two to say hello to along the way.

I've had the good fortune of having mostly sunny days since I arrived, which is a welcome change to what has seemed an endless parade of grey, rainy days of late.  Eager to take advantage of this new found object in the sky, we have found a superb location in the backyard, to just sit, and hang out together.  Sunshine, a  faithful bonehead, and the tranquillity of our location interrupted only by the pleasant sounds of  barking sea lions, is all that is needed to enjoy each and every passing moment. 

After another fun-filled day of walks, wrestling with chew toys, and general playing around, it's time to rest.  Doug finds one of his favourite locations to stretch out and dream about the wonderful day that he has just experienced with the house sitter.  

Over the past two years, the house sitting service that I have been a member of, has had very few opportunities.  There is no prize for guessing why that is.  So shortly after my arrival here, I decided to join a second house sit service to broaden my chances of success.  Within only a couple of days, the first opportunity was presented to me.  A retired person from Nanaimo was looking for a cat sitter for just over a week.  Normally, I wouldn't apply for such a short term, but nowadays, I'll take whatever I can get, so I responded to her ad, and set up a meeting with her at the local Tim Hortons.  We seemed to hit it off right from the get go.  I drove back to her place to meet Felix the furball, aka His Highness, and he too seemed to be happy with his potential carer.  On the drive back here, I was quite confident that I had successfully secured another house sit.

The next morning there was an email from her which asked only two questions.  Are you a non-smoker and are you vaccinated?  I replied right away.  Yes, I am a non-smoker, and no I am not vaccinated.  I explained to her my reasons why, stating that I wasn't comfortable having an experimental drug injected into my body.  I also mentioned to her, that it appears now that the countries that have the greatest amount of cases, are the same countries that have the highest vaccination rates.  I doubt that she was aware of this fact.  I also said that I would accept whatever decision she came up with, and then I sent off the email.  What have I heard back?  Crickets!!!  So another potential house sit goes down the drain.  A while ago, I might have been disappointed about this, but now I find it almost amusing.  Why?  Because we now know for sure, that even if you're vaccinated, you can still catch Covid, and you can still pass it on to someone else.  So whether you're vaccinated or not seems irrelevant at this point in time.  This one fact alone, should be enough to cancel all of these mandates, so that we can get on with our lives, but with what's been going on in Ottawa lately, it seems like these mandates have nothing at all to do with a virus.  

Just yesterday a second house sit opportunity showed up in my in box, and of course I replied.  This morning the person had gotten back to me requesting some references, which I promptly sent off.  So far at least the vaccination question hasn't come up.  If it does, I'll send off a similar response.  Whether I get a reply, or crickets, only time will tell.

In the meantime, I am more than happy to spend time with Doug.  He makes no judgement regarding my vaccine status.  As long as the treats keep coming, at least Doug is on my side.

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

DOUG 2.0

 POST #490

                                                                           DOUG

So it's time for round two, with Doug.  Three years have gone by since we last spent time together, and we both seem to have put on a few pounds.  That's a sign of a good pet sitter showing empathy towards the bonehead he is caring for at the moment.  I didn't want Doug to feel like he's the only one who has gained weight in the past three years.  In a reciprocal sign of empathy from Doug, he has recently injured his right front leg, as if he knows that I too, occasionally favour my own right leg.  

Earlier this morning, I happened to be looking at a house sit ad, which was for a single cat located in Vancouver.  While doing so, Doug was settled in on his favourite bed in front of the living room window, and it appeared that he was having a morning nap.

Most house sitting ads have a selection of photos included, and this one was no different.  I quickly scrolled through to have a look.  Plenty of photos of the house, but not one photo of the cat.  It always amazes me when people who are looking for a pet sitter, don't include the most important photo, the one of their pet.

In any event, after viewing all of the photos, and seeing no cat, I said out loud, "Where's the cat?"  And that's all it took for Doug to be up and barking and running around the house, looking for the offending furball.  I had to laugh.  I guess I will need to be more careful with the words I say from now on.  Doug seemed to be rather disappointed with the fact that there was no cat to be seen, inside or out.

Because of his leg injury, poor Doug has been confined mostly to the house and the yard, although I have taken him out for a very short walk in the evening.  The leg seems better since my arrival, so things appear to be going in the right direction.  In the meantime, Doug tries to make the best out of a bad situation.  His preferred plan is to spend as much time as possible sleeping.  He has plenty of choice locations around the house.  The couch is one of is favourite spots.

But being the good watch dog that he is, Doug spends some of his time keeping an eye on things around the neighbourhood.  Nothing gets past him.

I'll be here until mid-March, so there is plenty of time to spend with Doug.  Hopefully his leg will improve enough, so that we can head to the beach, which is one of his choice locations.

Here is a link to the first post I wrote when I took care of Doug three years ago.  It includes a short video.

https://wherespaulnow.blogspot.com/2019/02/doug.html

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer

PS:  Hi to Jim and Martha, and thanks for taking care of your neighbour.

RUNNING BACK TO SASKATOON

 POST # 489

        MY CURRENT DAYTIME VIEW

In my final post for January, I mentioned the year 1967, and the fact that at that time I was a mere 12 years old.  Well, believe it or not, I'm going to do it once again.  Here's the story.

1967 was my final year of Peewee ice hockey, prior to moving up to the Bantam league the following year.  Back then, at least in my neighbourhood in Calgary, there were plenty of kids to choose from when it came to putting together a hockey team.  Our Peewee team was no exception.  I had grown up with these neighbourhood kids, and at the time I was friends with them even when we weren't on the ice.  One day, I was in the community centre that was next to the ice rinks, having just come in for a break.  Before I knew it I became cornered in the change room, by a group of other kids, trying to get me to sign a piece of paper (contract), to move over to another Peewee team.  Why would I want to do that, I asked?  After all, my friends and my favourite coach were all with the team I currently was playing for.  In spite of my protest, they continued to pressure me to sign the contract.  They went so far as blocking me from leaving the change room until they had my signature.  My gut instinct was screaming, "don't do it Paul" but their pressure was relentless.  Eventually I caved, and signed the paper, and as a result, I ended up on a new team, with a new coach, and I was very unhappy about the whole affair.  Some time later, I went up to my old coach, and asked if I could come back to the team that I loved to play for.  He told me that he couldn't help, because I had signed away my rights weeks earlier.  This may be the very first time that I was coerced into doing something that I didn't want to do.  Looking back on it now, I probably learned a very valuable lesson that day.  Don't let peer pressure force me into doing something that I feel isn't right for me.

Then in the year 2012, I was once again faced with trusting my gut instinct, and yet again I didn't listen.  As readers of this blog would be aware, that was the year that I tumbled down a mountainside, and probably came pretty close to killing myself.  Fortunately I "only" ended up with breaking one leg in five places.  I got lucky.

Now fast forward to today, and to the title of this post.  Anyone who has been reading this blog for the past two years, knows that I have never bought into the Covid narrative.  As far back as the summer of 2020, I was having my doubts about the story that had/has been blasted at all of us over this time period.  Now, here in February 2022, it seems to be more than obvious that the truth is finally emerging.  Of course, if you are only listening to the legacy media, you would have no indication of that fact.  

Here in Canada, for the past week or more, truckers have decided to take things into their own hands and drive to Ottawa to tell the Prime Minister, "enough is enough."  Get rid of these mandates.  Like any good leader, he ran away to the woods to hide.  That, in and of itself is quite telling.

A few days ago, the Premier of Saskatchewan made an announcement that the mandates were going to be coming to an end in that province.  I don't have much faith in politicians, but maybe he will actually be true to his word.   Wouldn't that be a refreshing change.  And if that is the case, then it looks like Saskatchewan will be the first domino to fall across the country regarding ending the mandates.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  Here are a few words I recently came across describing politicians in general and I quote, "they are people with weak personalities, and well trained rhetorical skills."  I think that sums it up quite well.

So at long last, the reader may finally understand my reason for today's blog title.  Perhaps there is going to be a major influx of people into Saskatchewan as a result of the Premier's announcement.  Aside from being an appropriate title, it was a great hit song back in the day, by the Canadian band,  The Guess Who.  They came out with that tune back on May 22nd, 1972, almost fifty years ago.  For rock fans, here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoUTZ3ccP70

To close today's post, I'll add one more link to about a ten minute speech by RCMP Corporal Daniel Bulford who resigned from the force late last year.  To find out why he resigned, you'll have to take the time to listen, however, I think that it is a worthwhile use of your precious time. 

https://www.bitchute.com/video/m8RPBZiJJFVx/

                                                        MY CURRENT NIGHTTIME VIEW

                                                 A photo in the Calgary Herald in 1964

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer