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His name is George but I call him the shoveling man. He is in his early eighties, has had a heart attack but has the energy of a much younger man. His wife has to call him in when he is shoveling snow.

Recently, Jan 17/2020, we had one of the worst blizzards in history, with a snowfall exceeding 70 cms and winds gusting to 125 kms. I have seen a lot of storms, over my 71 years but this was the worst. It is so bad that The Premier has asked that the military be sent in to help. There is a state of emergency.

George had his shovel ready. I had been out since 6:30am with the snow blower, however; the snow was too deep in places,  The shoveling man came out at about 7:00 and was still shoveling at 11:00am. Finally, I had to tell him to take a break. Well I was getting tired and it would be embrassing for me to go inside and leave him with his shovel.

Snow Shovelling man Song

I have never seen anybody as neat as George in shoveling a driveway, He has to get down to the pavement.  His method of shoveling is completely different then the way that I shovel. He is very methodical and never appears to be in a rush. As mentioned earlier, he had a heart attack and I’m a little nervous when he doesn’t take a break. I’m amazed at the amount of snow that he can move.

George spent most of his working life as a fisherman, He hauled cod traps, lobster pots and hand lined for cod. He built houses and was able to, when he was younger, complete a house from start to finish.  I guess this is where he learned to work at a certain pace. There have been a few occasions where he has helped me with a few projects and although he never rushed, he was able to complete projects on time.

I have learned a lot from this man and it’s always a pleasure to work with him. It has begun to snow again so I guess George is getting ready for another few hours of shoveling.

Here are a few tips from my experience with George.

Take your time

Don’t lift more then you should.

Get a shovel that you feel comfortable handling.. George uses a lighweight hard plastic shovel.

I have notice that George pushes the snow and only lifts an amount that doesn’t put stress on his body.

Check this website for some good tips on shovelling snow. Braceability.

Do you think better early in the morning or at night? For me, it’s early in the morning. I usually wake at 5:00- 5:30 and am wide awake. I don’t need tea or coffee to wake up.

I have friends and relatives who are not morning people or as they say. “I don’t do mornings.

Today I came across an article, “are you an owl or a lark?” It’s an interesting read.

The link to Are You An owl Or A  Lark

Over the past few years I have noticed that grey color cars are more often the color that I miss when pulling into traffic or merging. I decided to check to see if there were any studies done on traffic accidents and vehicle colors.

According to one source the following colors are more prone to accidents

Black

Grey

Blue

Red

Green

I was very surprised that red was one of the worst colors.

The following car colors have the least accidents. What surprised me was that, percentage wise, white had the least accidents . Then I decided to do a further check and white was more accident prone.  Info here

White

Yellow

Orange

Gold

A link for more detailed info

Here is a link to another source and they say that white is the safest color. Link 

I presently drive a white van and as mentioned above I have problems picking up various shades of grey.

Have you ever crawled through alders and brush searching for hub caps? When we were children, we would walk for miles on a saturday, scouring the sides of the dirt roads searching for them.  Beer and pop bottles were a bonus find.

I believe this is a 52 chev hubcap

As mentioned above, the roads in our towns and communities were dirt, made from gravel or soil. The nearest paved road was over two hundred miles away. The roads were either dusty, full of pot holes or muddy. It would take quite the knock to loosen a hubcap but it did happen.

Most people knew the type of car or truck that a person owned so it wasn’t that difficult to find the owner. I don’t recall the dollar value of a found hub cap but it must have been only pennies.

My friends and I would would walk both sides of the road in search of those elusive caps. It’s surprising the distance that some of them would travel after breaking loose from the car or truck.  Some would be found deep in the woods or out on the marsh or barrens. I can only imagine the speed that some people drove on those roads. When a hub cap broke loose, at a high speed, it just keep rolling, either down the road or out into the woods.

There were three adult brothers who made some extra cash by selling hub caps. They had a sign put up, outside their house, ” hub caps for sale.” Those brothers were characters and were well known by most people in the area where we lived.

They were, lost and found, hub cap entrepreneurs. They would set up their find on the side off the main highway.  Their wares would be hanging from sticks, from tree branches or lying on the ground. It didn’t matter to them whether it was a chev, a ford, dodge or some other make of vehicle. If the cap fit they would try and sell it to the potential customer.

There have been many stories told about this trio. One was that as one of them was speaking to a potential customer, another of the brothers would sneak to the other side of the vehicle. He would pry off a hub cap and place it with their stockpile.  Then another of them would search through the pile and find the cap that the customer was looking for. It’s a believable story having known those brothers.

We have an older friend who combs the highways, around our suburban area. for recyclables. I don’t know if he makes any money doing this but every now and then he will pick up a wheel cover or for us older generation, a hubcap. We live in an area where the paved roads get filled with pot holes, in the spring, after the frost goes out of the ground. You hit one of those pot holes and you will either damage your front end, get a flat tire or lose a wheel cover.

I notice that one of the wheel covers on my van is broken..I wonder!

Bacon, either you love or you hate it or because of religious reasons, you don’t eat it at all. Other’s may not eat bacon  because of their conviction of animal cruelty or they don’t like the smell of bacon being cooked. For whatever reason, I respect their freedom to choose. Well, I like bacon!

I have tried many flavors and many suppliers. Schneiders is one of my favorites.  There are only two of us in the household now, so we usually cut the package in thirds and make three meals. Those are frozen in freezer bags

Today, I cooked bacon and eggs for both of us, although my wife only wanted bacon.  The following are photos of how I cook the bacon. We have been using The Gotham Steel frying pan and compared to other pans, that we have used over the years, this is one of the best.  We can control the crispiness  of the bacon and the eggs don’t stick to the pan. Also, when you are finished cooking, it’s easy to clean the pan.

This is how we like our bacon cooked. To remove most of the grease,I put the cooked bacon on a paper towel and wrap the towel around the bacon. This gets rid of most of the grease.

I pour the access grease, that’s left in the pan, in a mason jar. In the fall, winter and spring I lay the bottle outside for the grease to solidify. It goes in the refrigerator in the summer. This is how much grease came out of 1/3 lb of bacon. The right photo is the solidified grease. Usually I scrape the hardened grease, from the bottle and place it in the garbage. Some times , I keep it for frying eggs or sausages.

There is just a film left in the pan to fry the egg or eggs. Today, there was only one egg  to fry. I only added pepper as there was enough salt in the bacon fat. Toasted homemade bread and pieces of orange is enough for this breakfast meal. When we have family or friends for breakfast, we will have peaches, yogurt  and pancakes with the bacon and eggs.

Yes, we like Purity crackers or Purity Cream Crisps. Lately, we have been buying the crisps as there are too many crackers, in a box and they become stale. The stale crackers are used as a base for onion pies. It may seem strange but we use homemade partridge berry jam on our toast and bought raspberry jam on the crackers.

Clean up is easy as most of the grease has already been removed from the pan. Just a matter of wiping clean with a paper towel and if you like you can use a few spoonfuls of boiling water and then wipe clean.

Any left over bacon, if there is any, is used to make a tomato, lettuce and bacon sandwich.

What’s for breakfast at your house??

Heh, Gord, do you like bacon and eggs??

Why was the meat packer arrested? For bringing home the bacon.

What do you get when you cross a pig and a chicken? The best bacon-and-eggs of your life.

Why did the pig kill the farmer? To save his own bacon.

 Safe and Secure

Labrador websites and blogs.

Transportation

Labrador Marine Ferry Service

The following is a photo I took of our snack of home made bread with molasses. My wife usually makes bread, once a month and I always look forward to a slice of fresh bread and molasses.

I recall as a child my parents and others talking about the crust man. If we didn’t eat our crust, the crust man would come and take us. This is a ditty that my father-in-law would sing to the grand-children.  “If you don’t eat your crust, they’ll come back at night and dance around your head on your pillow singing ‘we are the crust that you did not eat, that you did not eat.”

Here are a few comments from some friends who remember the crust man stories from their childhood.

Geraldine: “I was scared to death of the crust man.”

Amy:  “I used to have nightmares about that dude!”

Courtney: “It’s a wonder we went to sleep at night:”

I ate my crust and my favorite slice of bread is the heel, the heel tap or the crust.

The Crust Man (Poem)

I sat at the table and hungrily ate,
But the crust of my bread still remained on the plate.

 

We very seldom hear of  anybody seeing or hearing fairies today.  When I was young and living in Creston South my parents and grandparents would tell stories about fairies.

There is one story that I recall about my Grandmother Wiscombe. Her and a friend were picking berries about a mile from Creston. When it was time to go home, I believe it was my grandmother, starting walking in the opposite direction.  Her friend called out to her but she kept on walking.  The friend ran after her and when she caught up to her she said, “can you hear the fairies playing and the bells.” Her friend heard nothing and eventually she was able to get my grandmother to turn and head for home.

Our parents would always tell us to watch out for the fairies. I would suggest there are many such stories that have been told, in many communities, through Newfoundland Labrador.

The most famous fairy is the tooth fairy. When a child loses a tooth, it is placed under a pillow and the tooth fairy comes at night, takes the tooth and leaves money. The value of a tooth  has gone up with inflation.

Then there is Cinderella’s fairy godmother. That’s one story that even fascinated the boys.

Links to Stories

A Fairy Abduction Story

The French Fairy Tales In Newfoundland

Away With The Fairies

It’s been extremely windy here in Newfoundland and the forecast for the next few days, is gale force winds. I recall fishermen saying it’s blowing a gale.

Many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are familiar with the devastating damages and loss of life caused by those extreme winds. Some of us have first hand experience and respect it’s power.

Those are a few pictures that I took today down at the end of Cherry Lane. The wind was gusting up to 100 kmh or higher.from the west. It was a mixed bag of weather as one minute the sun was shining and then we had rain and wet snow flurries.

That’s Kelly’s Is in the background. I would not want to be out there today. When I was sixteen, I spent a summer as a mate on a tuna boat. I recall one day we were steaming from Cape St Francis to Long Pond after a day sport tuna fishing. The wind was blowing down the bay. It was a rough ride coming up the bay. The bow of the boat would dig into the waves and throw water back over the bridge. You had to hold on so as not to be knocked around on the deck.

A number of years ago  a relative and I were turr hunting and as we went around the eastern end of kelly’s Island the wind changed direction. We were met with high winds and waves similar to what’s in the photo.  My relative was able to turn the boat and get back into the shelter of the island. We did make a decision to cross over to Long Pond.  It was a little nerve wrecking, however; my relative was good at reading the water and the waves.

Looking down the shoreline towards Manuel’s Head.

 

My sister put up, on Facebook, an old photo from from 1966. It was a photo of the Queen Elizabeth Regional High School Volleyball Team.
This is the photo

The photo brought back many memories of my time in high school especially the many sporting activities that I was part of. I loved team sport and through much practice, I became pretty good at most sports. Basketball was one exception. I spent too much time being called for traveling so I dropped basketball. Many players on the volleyball team also played basketball.

The date 1966 was what really reminded me of  an important time in Newfoundland’s history. It was what made me think about the topic come home year newfoundland. The year 1965 was when The Trans Canada Highway was finished across Newfoundland. In my opinion that is when we really started to feel Canadian.

The then Premier, Joey Smallwood decided that with the Trans Canada finished we should have a Come  Home Year in 1966. There was a lot of planning and promoting leading up to the start of Come Home Year.

We were all excited. For me and my family, we would be meeting relatives that we never knew existed.

I recall cousins from the Boston area. They were fun to have around. One memory of their visit was a trip to Bellevue Beach. The caplin were in and my aunt, who was rather big decided to go for a swim with the caplin. She looked like a whale with her long black dress floating on the water. The caplin scattered but I still have a vivid picture of that event.

Another memory from those celebrations were the many out of province license plates that were around.  We would play games trying to guess which province or state plate, the next car going pass, would have. Ontario plates were in the majority as many Newfoundlanders had moved to Ontario for work.

My parents had plans for us to go to Ontario, when we moved in to the St John’s area from Creston PB back in 1957, however; my father found steady employment in St john’s and area as a carpenter.

I consider myself a Canadian with Newfoundland Labrador my home.

Do you have memories from the 1966 come home year Newfoundland  Labrador celebrations?