Juanita’s cataract surgery for the second eye was in North Battleford on the third, a Wednesday. We drove down and back the same day. Travel is simpler when you’re not dodging blizzards. We had planned to go to Edmonton on the Friday so we could attend the annual UA picnic with the grandkids. The picnic was cancelled. There had been so much rain that the city closed the park where it was to be held. We travelled to Edmonton on the Saturday instead.
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Nick and Rebekah flew out from Edmonton to Jamaica Saturday night. Ezekial dropped them off at the airport. I would pick them up early Saturday morning on the twentieth. In between we were responsible for looking after the five kids. Well, four kids, mostly. Ezekial went to work on weekdays. Also, Aunt Debbie took a bunch of accumulated vacation time off and did most of the heavy lifting of keeping the young’uns occupied with letterboxing, geocaching, swim lessons and evening soccer games, most evenings. One evening we all went to an arcade to plan pinball and other arcade games including some classics like Qbert and Space Invaders.
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On the 12th Juanita and I drove to Battleford for the follow-up appointment to the cataract surgery. We drove home rather than back to Meadow Lake. Debbie and the kids followed the next day after their soccer games. We had all planned to stay over the weekend and head back to their home on the Tuesday, but somebody changed the soccer schedule cutting the Meadow Lake visit short.
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Early in the month, while we were sitting inside digesting supper there was a crash outside. A bear had pulled the barbeque off the deck. It must smell good enough to eat. I stuck an arm out the front door and blew an air horn. The bear skedaddled. When I went up stairs and out on the upper deck I could see the bear had only run as far as the pond and was nosing around in the bushes there. A shot from a bear banger that landed close to the bear convinced it to keep on running.
When we returned home after the cataract follow-up appointment the barbeque was laying on the ground next to the deck again. Probably the same bear. A good as the barbeque might smell there is nothing worth munching on so it was chewed on. We righted it and put back on the deck again. Presumably the bear had learned it is not worth the effort to pull off the deck.
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On the way south last fall I installed a dash cam, but not the rear cam that came with it. One day while the kids were busy in Edmonton I installed the rear camera, added a higher capacity SD card and changed from the default settings. It wasn’t a huge job but there always seemed to be something better to do in Texas. Around home there are so many tasks calling for attention I tend to go into reset and just read light fiction or doom scroll.
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Debbie returned to Meadow Lake toward the end of the second week of “us” minding the kids. Juanita and I took them to a Farmer’s Market that was celebrating a birthday with free cake and a bouncy castle. The bouncy castle was small. We cut that short so other people’s toddler’s were not intimidated. Then we walked around the lake in Jackie Parker Park before going for Dim Sum at Blu Café Dim Sum. The couple of days on our own with the kids suggested we would have survived but would have had to work at it. There's a reason we cease to be fertile as we age.
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Back home we caught up on mowing and other chores. One evening we went to Debbie and Ernie’s for supper. After eating we walked to the fence line and admired the snakes laying there catching the evening sun.
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