September 12^th, 2004:

More cool, damp, overcast weather, though we haven’t had a hard frost lately, that I know of. One can drive all day and not see any sign of farming activity, though it’s almost the middle of September. Bernard Hayunga told me that on a recent trip home from Alberta, they saw two combines working - one on barley and the other was too far away to see what was being combined. We went to Foam Lake on Friday and saw one swather working, in canola.

When Brobergs owned the Tacklebox back in the early ‘80s, little Colin, who was four or five, used to play on the dock all day. His parents would dress him up in a life jacket first thing in the morning, because he was always falling off the dock. Colin had difficulty pronouncing the letter “c”, and if asked would tell you his name was Tolin. Merv had fun with him; he would say, “Hi, Tolin!” and Colin would snap back, “My name not Tolin. It’s Tolin!” So, of course, Merv would say, “That’s what I said - Tolin!” and the fight would be on. This went on pretty well every day. 

Merv saw Colin again at Glen’s funeral and by this time, Colin was about six foot four and three hundred pounds. He sidled up to Merv, looked down at him, and said, “My name’s Colin!”

On foggy Thursday morning, the CKBI Television tower was demolished. Alex Dunlop and I walked up there after the fact to view the mess. It was hard for me to figure out directions in the fog but it looks as if the plan was to drop the tower to the southwest, and that is the way the bottom half went. However, the top half had a mind of its own and buckled to the north. The very top of the tower landed on a big receiving dish just a few feet from the building housing the equipment. The dish, of course, was demolished. One of the men there opined that it was better the dish than the building. The grapevine tells me the plan is to rebuild the tower eighty feet taller, and hopefully to have it in operation in November.

That tower was built in the spring of 1962. Merv Miller worked on it, though he said he stayed on the ground. They spent six weeks building the tower without anyone suffering so much as a scratch. Then when they were done, they loaded the winch on a half-ton. One of the high-riggers was in the truck box; he mis-stepped, fell out of the box, and broke his leg!

Jenny, Laurie, Doreen & I went to Kuroki on Thursday afternoon and had High Tea at The Old House Cafe. It was wonderful! All the sandwiches and goodies were fresh and there was a great assortment. We pigged out, needless to say. Much better than the Empress Hotel, plus a warm, friendly atmosphere and a fraction of the price. We heartily recommend it, but do it quickly - the girls close for the season September 30^th. Appointments are necessary, and they need a couple of days notice because everything is prepared for the event.

Jim Steadman gave me a hand to take our pontoon boat out of the water last week. We took it to Porcupine Plain and cleaned it up at the carwash, then parked it outside our cottage with a “For Sale” sign on it. We burned a grand total of one tank of fuel all summer so feel someone else can likely make a lot better use of it.

I took the dock out this morning; at least, I took it apart and pulled the sections onto the shore. It didn‘t take an hour but the water is not warm! However, I didn’t have to get wet much above my knees. I’ll wait until I have some help to pull them up the rest of the way. The sections are very heavy and the base is broad, necessary to hold the pontoon boat in heavy weather.