Alan Skeoch

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  • EPISODE 320 STONEHOOKING WAS A BRUTAL PROFESSION

    EPISODE  320    STONEHOOKING WAS A BRUTAL PROFESSION


    alan skeoch
    april 2021

    heritagemississauga.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Port-Credit-Harbour-Scene-Stonehooker-in-harbour-1908-Harold-Hare-Image-300×204.jpg 300w, heritagemississauga.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Port-Credit-Harbour-Scene-Stonehooker-in-harbour-1908-Harold-Hare-Image-768×523.jpg 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 917px) 100vw, 917px” apple-inline=”yes” id=”55A3C3F0-5013-4CF8-AC66-CE82DC863BC7″ src=”https://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Port-Credit-Harbour-Scene-Stonehooker-in-harbour-1908-Harold-Hare-Image.jpeg”>




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    Stonehooking was a brutal profession.   Today, now that the stonehookers are gone
    and their ships are rotting hulks at the bottom of Lake Ontario or ground into sawdust or
    charcoal by the passage of time and neglect, there is a tendency to romanticize what
    was near the  bottom of occupations Canadians  chose in the 19th and early 20th century.
    Just imagine spending your work day wading in water lifting slabs of stone with crowbar
    and a hooked rake…piling the stone on a small flat bottomed scow…transferring tons
    of stone to a schooner…sailing to Toronto three times a week with 9 to 18 tons of stone
    …piling the stone on a rotting pier with raw sewage bubbling up…then getting $10 to $15
    …and  sailing back to Port Credit with a return load of horse manure.  Toronto was a city
    with thousands of horses on the streets in 1900.  

    PORT CREDIT HARBOUR AROUND 1899-1905
    (SOURCE Schooner Days 112, Nov. 4, 1933, Port Credit’ Stonehookers)

    WHAT DID MOST STONEHOOKERS LOOK LIKE?

    The scow model was used all over the Great Lakes, sometimes in vessels of considerable size, but Port Credit scows were a peculiar variant, and the best of them were so designed that they could carry their whole load on deck. This effected a great saving in handling of cargo.
    One of the best examples of such a model was the scow Coronet, designed and built by Capt. John Miller, for many years lighthouse keeper at Port Credit. She was 53 feet long and 17 feet beam and four feet deep in the hold; drew 18 inches of water light, with her centerboard up; carried thirty tons of stone on deck, with nothing in the hold but stone-chips for ballast. She sailed and sailed well in this trim, although the load brought her deck within eight inches of the water amidships. She was about three feet higher at each end. Her rig was large, the mainboom projecting outboard for 17 feet, half its length. Her topmasts were long, over thirty feet, and her lower masts comparatively short, so that when she clewed up her topsails it was equivalent to reefing ordinary lower sails. She sank off Port Credit in 1899, when owned by a Bronte 

    At the other extreme was the smaller schooner, Ann Brown, built in Toronto about 1836 and owned in Port Credit for a half century by Abram Block, senior, and, in turn, Abram Block, junior, Justice of the Peace, who died this summer in his 83rd year. The Ann Brown was not a scow nor a centreboarder. She was a surviving example of the old “standing keel.” She was 36 feet long and 11 feet beam and 6 feet deep in the hold. She drew 6 feet of water when loaded, and carried slightly over twenty tons of stone, most of it in the hold. Tiny as she was she had made voyages as far east as Kingston as as far west as Manitoulin Island, for she was built for the fur-trade with the Indians of the Georgian Bay. She was sailed for many years by Thomas Block, a brother of Abram Block, J.P., and survived until 1904. In her early days she had a square topsail and topgallantsail, although the yards for these sails were so short they could be used for pike-poles. 

    HOW DID A STONEHOOKER GET ITS LOAD OF STONE?

    The stonehooker usually anchored on the lake shore and collected a cargo by sending in a small flat scow, into which loads of stones were gathered from the beach itself or from the bottom, long rakes, with prong-like forks being used for the purpose. Some have thought that these hook-like rakes gave the name to the trade.
    Stonehooking was very wet work, the men sometimes wading the shore waist-deep in water, quarrying the stone loose with crowbars, and lifting it on to the small scow, which was usually decked over and water-tight as a wooden bottle.

    SMALL FLAT BOTTOMED  SCOWS — AND PARENT LARGER SCHOONERS AND SCOWS TO CARRY 9  TONS OF STONE

    heritagemississauga.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Sailors-Port-Credit-Harbour-with-stonehooking-scow-undated-300×234.jpg 300w” sizes=”(max-width: 641px) 100vw, 641px” apple-inline=”yes” id=”03FF66DA-2E12-4EA4-87C4-8387A4160897″ src=”https://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Sailors-Port-Credit-Harbour-with-stonehooking-scow-undated.jpeg”>



    When the scow was loaded it was poled or sculled out to the parent stonehooker, and its cargo transferred to her deck and hold. These small scows could carry about a third of a toise, or three tons deadweight. It took from ten to forty scowloads to give the stonehooker her full cargo. Gravel was loaded in the same way, except that it was shoveled from the beach to the deck of the scow, and not gathered with rakes.

    The first vessels engaged in the trade were the small coasters, some scows and some schooner-built, which had been in the grain, lumber and cordwood trade while this was profitable for small vessels. It was soon found that the scows were particularly well fitted for carrying stone, and the specialized scow model resulted. 

    WHY  WAS  SO MUCH STONE NEEDED?

    Stonehooking flourished through the decades while great harbors were being constructed on Lake Ontario, and stone was needed to fill the timber cribs; and while cities were growing and needed building stone for walls, flat stones for sidewalks, cobble stones for pavements, and crushed stone for macadamized roadways

    WHY WERE STONEHOOKERS SO  SECRETIVE ABOUT THEIR TRADE?




    heritagemississauga.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Port-Credit-Harbour-Stonehooker-Lillian-and-Harbour-Dredge-c1900-300×215.jpg 300w, heritagemississauga.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Port-Credit-Harbour-Stonehooker-Lillian-and-Harbour-Dredge-c1900-768×550.jpg 768w” sizes=”(max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px” apple-inline=”yes” id=”0119E144-75E4-407C-870C-9869727AB6B1″ src=”https://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Port-Credit-Harbour-Stonehooker-Lillian-and-Harbour-Dredge-c1900-1.jpeg”>


    It cannot be said that all stonehookers hailed from Port Credit, but all used that harbor, and many of them were owned there. Surprisingly few showed “of Port Credit” on their sterns; partly for the reason that the stonehookers were engaged in warfare with the lakeshore farmers, until the third or fourth generation. The farmers objected to the stone being carried from their beaches, over which they claimed riparian rights.
    At one time what was called the “three-rod law” prevailed for the protection of beaches in Halton, Peel and York counties; stonehookers were not allowed to remove stone, sand or gravel from within three perches or 49 1/2 feet, of the water’s edge.
    Conditions being such, stonehooker mariners had no great desire to display, for the convenience for prosecutors, the name of the port where they could be found. Many Port Credit stonehookers were registered in Toronto, and had “of Toronto” following their names on the sternboards. Others were “of Hamilton” or “of Oakville.” In some cases stonehookers actually built in Port Credit to appear on the marine registry as having been built in Toronto, where the registration was made.

    HOW BIG WAS  A STONEHOOKERS CREW?

    Stonehookers, even up to a hundred tons burden, were usually sailed by a crew of two; sometimes single-handed. Occasionally three or four went in vessel, especially in the early days, when wages were low. Profits were small then, for stone sold for $5 a toise, and three trips a week for a two-toise hooker, with her crew of two men, was considered very good work. On this account few steam vessels ever appeared in stonehooking; there were only three, the steam barge Chub of Bronte, the Gordon Jerry, a covered scow-brigantine from Port Dover, and the steam scow Maybird of Toronto

    HOW WAS THE STONE CARGO PRICED?

    As mentioned the stone  was sold at 5$ per ‘noise’ each of which weighed 9 tons.  Small stonehookers could carry two toise. Three trips a week for
    a two person crew.   $30 a week or $15 per man.  Casual labourers might be taken to Toronto as well or hired where the ships were unloaded … 75 cents a day.

    WHAT WAS COST OF LIVING IN 1900 AND THEN 1913 –

    • In 1900, shoppers could buy a 5-pound bag of flour for 12 cents. Round steak was 13 cents a pound, and bacon was a penny more. Eggs were 21 cents per dozen, milk sold for 14 cents per half gallon and butter cost 26 cents per pound.

      Between 1913 and 2021: Food experienced an average inflation rate of 3.11% per year. This rate of change indicates significant inflation. In other words, food costing $20 in the year 1913 would cost $546.95 in 2021 for an equivalent purchase.


    THE CASH INCENTIVE: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN TERMS  OF LABOUR?

    To earn $15 each man had to hoist 9 tons of stone from the Lake Ontario shore or shallow water.  Then transfer 9 tons of stone from the small skiffs to
    the parent stonehooker.   Easier to load s scow which was deck loaded  than a schooner which was hold loaded.  Then unload the ship on the Toronto
    dock ad piked in 9 ton units of stone…i.e. the Toise.  There were many larger stonehookers capable of carrying several noise of stone.

    WAS PORT CREDIT HARBOUR AND SHIP BUILDING EXCLUSIEVELY FOR STONEHOOKERS?

    While much  of the harbour was  used by stonehooers there were also commercial fishing boats and a ship building industry.
    Besides the stonehookers mention, several larger sailing vessels were built and owned in Port Credit, such as the schooners Maggie Hunter, Minnie Blakely, Margaret, Caledonia, and the brigantine Credit Chief and British Queen

    DANGEROUS TIMES: THE PINTA DISASTER


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    The Pinta, commonly known as the “Pinty,” was a scow, built for S. H. Cotton at Port Nelson in 1869, She was 58 feet on deck, 14 feet 4 inches beam, and 4 feet 8 inches deep, … Her end was tragic. Coming down from Oakville one cold morning, with a nor’west wind hoofing her along, she tried to go about and stand in for the land off Marigold’s Point, the wind following its usual practice at that point by hauling to the north.

    The Pinta had a big barndoor centreboard. The box was open slotted and came above the deck. The board was new and buoyant. It should have been ballasted until it was sufficiently waterlogged to sink of its own weight. When the snow squall struck the Pinta she luffed and got in irons, and as she lost way her board rose so high in the box that it caught the foreboom and would not let the foresail come over. That doomed her. A second puff caught her canvas aback and rolled her over. Men who were shingling a barn on Marigold’s Point saw her in trouble. She was blotted out by the snow flurry. When it disappeared she had disappeared too.
    “She was loaded too deep, ” said Captain Block. “I guess her hatches just filled when she tried to go about.” All hands were lost, although one man managed to get into the scow towing astern. The offshore wind carried him across the lake and the scow was picked up on the beach at Winona, his frozen body jammed under the thwarts.
    From Port Credit harbor, a tug was seen going up the lake in a futile attempt to render assistance. It was the Mixer, a Toronto boat owned by Frank Jackman. And Port Credit
    sailors still curse the well meant action of the men on Marigold’s Point, who saw the disaster and hastened word to Toronto, when the schooner Morning Star, sound and almost new, with Abe Block and half a dozen others right there to handle her, lay at the dock in Port Credit ready to put out at a minute’s notice hours nearer the disaster in those pre-telephone times.
    It was not until next day that word of the foundering of the “Pinty” reached Port Credit. The victims of the tragedy were William and Joseph Quinn of Oakville, brothers of the owner, Capt. James Quinn, and Bus Howell. Capt. Jas. Quinn and Capt. Mark Blow had left the Pinta some time before her fatal voyage. Oakville sailors had begged the younger mariners not to make a start, for the north wind threatened snow before they left.
    Twenty years later, in 1902, the Wood Duck sailed over the sunken wreck of the Pinta off Marigold’s Point. Her fatal centreboard box was still discernible down in the clear green water amid the remains 

    THE REINDEER WAS THE ‘SWEETHEART OF THE STONEHOOKERS”
    (IMAGINE:  44 foot planks cut from local white pine trees)




    But the Reindeer was the sweetheart of the stonehookers. She was not so when she was bought from Billy Bond, of Oakville, and brought to Port Credit, under the name Ida May, but she was rebuilt by Captain Mark Blower and Captain Block. She was “getting tender,” so they went over her from stem to stern.
    When she entered the water again her sides had been widened, and she had a beautiful spoon bow and springy sheer that were not there before. The remarkable thing, however, was her new planking. Forty-four feet in length was the boat, and the planks ran all the way in one piece. Beautiful 44-foot lengths of clear pine they were. Captain Abe wanted to rechristen her “Buttress” on that account, but Captain Mark preferred Reindeer, and Reindeer it was.
    The job of getting pine planks 44 feet in length can be imagined, but Captain Abe dismisses it casually. The operation, as explained by him, consisted of picking the tree you wanted, felling and trimming it, and hauling it to the slip. Then you hauled it upright with the aid of a three-legged derrick, marked it off into planks, and let brawny arms and a whipsaw do the rest, cutting clean from top to bottom. Clear planks 50 and 60 feet in length were not out of the way, says Captain Abe.
    With the Olympia and the Coral, the Reindeer ended her days laid up in the Credits and after the Great War was finally broken up by order of the village council.





    Alan Skeoch

    Credit:  Snider,  Schooner Days, 48 and 112,  1933

  • EPISODE 319; AUSTRALIAN FIRE RECOVERY ….AND OUR SEARCH FOR THE SUNSHINE HEADER HARVESTER LONG AGO





    EPISODE 319    AUSTRALIAN fire recovery  2021… AND the search for the Sunshine Header Harvester 1990


    alan skeoch
    April 2021

    THis Episode 319 is dedicated to David Skeoch who sent a note that brought
    back memories and also made us feel relieved that some parts of Australia are
    recovering from the fires.

    UNUSUAL NAME LEADS TO AN INTERESTING TRAIL


    Two years ago for no particular reason I wondered if there was  anyone on planet
    earth with the same name as mine?   Our surname is unusual…not like Smith or Taylor or Newman…so
    I just did a little digging prompted by a strange fact that some of my emails went astray.

    Guess what?   i found two other Alan Skeoch’s…two  with my name and exact spelling of Alan.
    One was an American dentist who died.  But the other was  an Australian bush pilot … a young man.
    We communicated.   His father, David, and  I send notes back and forth regularly.  Strange world!

    Today David sent this picture of his farm in a  heavily wooded  part of Australia…New South Wales…
    where the fires were quite  devastating.   Recovery is on its way.  He even speaks of many platypus
    creatures rebounding.   In these days of Covid 19 when all around seems dreary and  our self-isolation
    is harder and  harder to accept,  these pictures of Australia will be uplifting.  Enlarge picture to full
    screen.  Beautiful.





    The Corang River, in which we have Macquarie Perch and lots of wildlife such as Platypus.


    Hi Alan,
    Feel free to send to whom you wish!  The location is Oallen NSW and it’s the Corang River.  Hope to see you here one day!
    Kind regards 
    David. 

    Note the spider…How did that creature avoid death by fire?   The fires just got to the edge of David’s wilderness property.  



    OUR SEARCH FOR THE AUSTRALIAN HEADER HARVESTER, 

    David’s note brings back memories of the time Marjorie, Andrew and I visited Australia in search of the famous Australian Header Harvester, an invention
    whose principles can  be traced back to the vast CARTHAGINIAN grain fields of North Africa in Roman times.  We drove into the Blue Mountains of New South Wales
    driving blind which is always an exciting way to make discoveries.  FOOUND the header harvester in a tiny village bar …then An Australian farmer took us out in the
     blackness of night over his fields and Eucalyptus
    groves just to show us a tiny stream where a platypus lived under a small farm bridge.  His truck had ‘Roo bars’…I bet you do not know what that means.

    Partial  success  when we did find the Header Harvester reproduced on a beer can graphic as well as the real thing placed for all to see in Sydney.  The Australians
    were wonderful once they knew we were interested.    Massey Harris of
    Canada bought the patents and made a modern model of the harvester.  

    NOTE TO DAVID SKEOCH:  We never found a header harvester on an Australian farm.  Perhaps you have.  Is the image still on the beer cans?

    Australian FARMER, Tom Bailey, bought an old Number 6, Sunshine header harvester for $300.  I bought the image on a couple of beer cans for $3 or so.
    Some readers might wonder why we flew all the way to Australia just to find the machine.  It was the beer that drew me
    and perhaps our youngest son Andrew but not Marjorie.











    1935 Model of the Sunshine Header Harvester…the ancient Carthaginian model had the same kind of clipping blades  as
    I seem to remember.


    We visited Australia around 1990.   Sad to say I could not find the beer can in 2018 which does not mean it no longer exists.  Maybe David Skeoch can
    do a little research.  

    alan skeoch
    april 2021

    Post Script:  The end result of our global wandering was a 300 page MA thesis titled  ‘Technology and Change in Agriculture from 1850 to 1891’, University of
    Toronto,..It never made the best seller list.

  • EPISODE 318 stonehooking….schooner days..thE LITHOPHONE…WALTER NAISH…ANCHOR NNOT ATTACHED…ICE JAM BREAKS…POT CREDIT MEN TRY TO FND THE LITHOPHONE




    EPISODE 318:   THE STORY OF ONE STONEHOOKER CALLED THE LITHOPHONE


    alan skeoch
    April 2021


    Port Credit's Stone Hookers: Schooner Days CXII (112)
    Picture:  Stonehookers anchored  in Port Credit harbour on a Sunday.  So many
    of them that it was possible to cross the harbour jumping from ship to ship.
    Stonehookers were rarely registered as Port Credit ships…most were registered
    in Toronto.  Why?   Because there was a sneaky side to stonehooking.  More later.



    When Lorne Joyce told me the story of the stonehooker called the Lithophone I hustled
    directly home with my notes.   While there were many stonehookers anchored in Port Credit
    harbour between 1850 and  1920, the story of the Lithophone is pre-emient in my mind
    because its adventures were wrapped[ in the lives of the men who did the stonehooking.



    EPISODE  318:   THE LITHOPHONE, 1899…WALTER NAISH’S STONEHOOKER   

                          alan skeoch
                          april, 2021

    What is a stonehooker?   Residents of  Port Credit today might assume a stonehooker is a brand  of beer.  And they would  be correct in doing
    so because a new brewery in Port Credit takes the name Stonehooker on its mast head.  Old  timers know differently. Stonehookers
    were small schooners and scows whose owners picked stones for a living.  A very tough way to support a family.  More of that later.
    This  is a story about one stonehooker…the Lithophone. 


                          There is an element of dark humour in this  story about a stonehooker called the Lithophone.  Dark humour because several men of stonehooking days risked  their lives to recover the Lithophone

                          one late winter day when the Credit River Ice suddenly broke up and the slabs raced  for the open  lake…along with the empty Lithophone.   Lorne Joyce told  me this story and the story is also
                          detailed in Snider’s Schooner Days columns in the Toronto Telegram.  So it must be true.

       Organ Bob Joyce, named so because he played the organ in the Baptist church, was  the carpenter who built the Lithophone in 1899, one the fastest and initially sleekest stone hookers on the lake.  A scow model…55 feet long, 17 foot beam with a shallow 4 foot hold.  Designed to hold the slabs of blue shale on deck.

                          slabs on deck  were a lot easier to handle than slabs  in the hold.  A scow was therefore easier on the men in the stonehooking trade than were the old schooners. 

            

      First owned by the Al Hare and then sold to Walter Naish years later.  
     
    By then she must have been badly battered for she was held together by cable and turnbuckles.  It was winter time When Walter got the Lithophone so he got a good anchor…cut a hole in the ice…dropped the anchor overboard and then wound the anchor chain around the windlass.  Walter knew he had to anchor the

                     the Lithophone firmly because 

    Ice Break-up on the Credit River is a sudden event.  Boom, the ice breaks and whoosh out It goes taken any loose things with it.  The ice that year took out the Lithophone as well.  Walter Naish had not attached the anchor chain to the boat…just wound it aroung the windlass … unwound like a spool of thread.
     
    Walt Naish shouted for Al Hare, and Hare hailed Jack Cummings and Jack Cummings got Newman.  They stuffed the Lithophone sails in a little  skiff.
     
     “Give a hand!” they yelled to Al Hare
    “You’ll never catch her in that little thing!,” yelled Al,      
    “Take Newman’s boat!”…The Hecla was a fishboat with two masts and three sails.  
    “No time!”
    So Al Hare took the tiller of the little boat and the men rowed and rowed…almost swamped.
    “Better turn back!”
    “No!” Yelled Walter Naish…he could not afford to lose the Lithophone.
     
    By this time the Lithophone was bobbing around like a barrel in the water. She had been stripped of any weight for the winter and her centerboard was up.  Meanwhile the men were in serious trouble.  Four men, four sails, a hundred pounds of other gear  and water pouring over the front and sides of the skiff.  Waves getting higher and higher.  The Lithphone could not be caught. 


     Then the men saw the Hecla moving fast towards them with Harbourmaster Dan Sharp at the stick.  But Sharp didn’t even see the four men in the skiff.  By this time they had been blown to Long Branch and it was dark.  
    So The men in the skiff beached themselves and walked back to Port Credit from Long Branch over muddy tracks and sodden fields.
     
    Back in Port Credit , people were getting ready for the funeral.  The Hecla reported no sighting of the four men in the skiff.  So Al Hare, Water Naish, Jack

                          Cummings and  Newman were presumed drowned. 

     
    When the four men sloshed their way into Port Credit there was relief.  All was not lost.  Walter Naish  was the biggest loser..lost his anchor, his chains, his Lithphone, his investment , his supper and nearly lost his life.
     
    The Lithophone?  What happened to her?  A week later she was spotted afloat in the lake…decks awash…near the south shore of Lake Ontario.
     
    Could the Lithophone be recovered?  Lew Naish, Walter Naish’s brother, owner of another stonehooker,  the Newsboy,  felt duty bound to do something.  So a crew (Jack Potter, Lew Naish, Walterh Naish, Bil Newman, George Hare, Harry Fowler)  boarded the Hecla, with Al Hare at the helm and headed for Port Dalhousie.  Not a good trip.  Fog and thin ice.  The men had to wrap themselves in the sails and wait out the night.  Open to the sky.
     
    They worked their way along the south shore and finally caught a glimpse of the two masts of the Lithophone sticking out of the water like dead trees.  Awash. Deck cleared of cabin and anything else.  With help of tug Nellie Bly they tried to sail and steam the wreck of the Lithophone to Port Dalhouse harbour. 
     More trouble.   A new man on the tug slipped and fell overboard and under the stern.  He did not come up.  Al Hare got a pike pole and grappled for the body.  Took some time but found him tangled under the stern.  Pulled him loose.  Hauled the unconscious man on deck.  “He’s dead!” , declared all around except for Al Hare who began pumping the man’s chest after others had given up.  Others worked the dead man’s arms….got water out, bubbles from the nostrils…then the man began to roar.  Alive he was carried to a nearby hotel and wanted to buy out the bar for Al and his crew.  All Al wanted was for his name to be kept out of the paper.*
     
    The Lithophone was towed home to Port Credit by the Nellie Bly and resumed stonehooking.  The Lithophone is Still around… somewhere in Port Credit for she ended her years as a stone filled wharf.  
     
    (*Sources, Lorne Joyce and C.H. J. Snider, Schooner  Days,

                            adapted by Alan Skeoch)

    )

                          alan skeoch

                          april 2021

                            Post Script

                           What is the meaning  of the word Lithophone?   The meaning makes some sense.  A  Lithophone is a  musical instrument using stone slabs
                            of various lengths.   A very good  name for a stonehooker  that eventually ended her days among stone slabs in a forgotten wharf  somewhere east of Port Credit.
                      

     

  • EPISODE 317 A NOTE ON OUR PANDEMIC DISASTER: COMPARE APRIL 19 TO MAY 20 — A BETTER DAY WILL ARRIVE

    EPISODE  317    A NOTE ON OUR PANDEMIC DISASTER:  COMPARE APRIL 19 TO MAY 20 — A BETTER DAY WILL ARRIVE

    alan skeoch
    April 19  2021



    Well here we are on April 19, 2021…a  new and longer lockdown, our hospitals urgently appealing for help, our essential workers often infected and desperate for oxygen,
    our stores closed,  our fear magnified, our homes narrowly circumscribed and for some people now alone in a single room for over 
    a year.   These are the worst of times.

    Will the times get better?  The pictures below were all taken today.  They will be repeated a month from now.  I hope in better times (i.e. May 20, 2021).

    This is Episode 317.  Incredible.  If  each episode took one page in a book that would be 317 pages.  If each  episode took 5 pages that would be 1585 pages.   Of course that will never happened
    and  who would read it anyhow    These Episodes have been turned out at nearly 1 per day.  That is my target.   I  missed the target twice as I ended up in the hospital twice for emergency
    surgery for a nasty gall bladder.   I could not write while sedated but I certainly had lots to write about when I got home.  What an experience that was…and my hospitalization was a minuscule event
    when compared with the people admitted with Covid 19.   Matt Galloway interviewed  an IC doctor today who was trying to place an 8 year old child in a temporary home because both her parents
    are now hospitalized in serious condition.  And later another doctor, head of the Medical Association, had the same problem with two other children whose parents had been admitted.  Both families
    in the category of essential workers.  Probably working for minimum wages with no place to turn.  Bad times that none of us every thought could happen.   Treasure each  breath you take and
    think of those two sets of parents.

    Grim!   I usually try to to be upbeat and positive.  And most of these episodes will be that kind.  This is a bad one.



    This little creature sits on our old barn foundation at the farm.  He is not a pleasant garden ornament.  So let’s consider him a visual metaphor.  He is that
    bastard Covid 19.   Can  we beat him?   Can we take all the isolation?  All the privations?  

    I think we can.   


    Imagine a better day.  On May 20 or May  30 if extended we may find a new world around  us.  Green  leaves  on the trees.  Apple blossoms. 
      


    How will these trees  look a month from now?


    This is the grand  ancient elm tree near our farm.  It has survived the Dutch Elm disease.  We can survive Covid 19.  
    The elm is just pushing out its buds right now.



    IMAGINE WHAT THIS WILL LOOK LIKE A MONT FROM NOW.


    Some cheerful things right now.  Forsythia in Full blossom.   Our old manure spreader fully revealed…sadly Marjorie wants me to move it…I have procrastinated.
    Why does Marjorie hate my old manure spreader so much.  I rather like it.


    And  finally, our neighbour Sandra, has  added a bright flag with a rooster beside her egg box.  We bought two
    dozen today at $4 a dozen.  Good times in the midst of bad  times.

    alan  skeoch

  • ALAN…SOMETHING WRONG WITH EPISODE 316

    YOU may nor have received episode 316….for some reason I do not understand…most went through but 8 bounced back.
    The episode deals with the Lemon M. Davis … in its watery grave as found and photographed by two divers in 2007 and 2018
    I do not know how to overcome the problem. try finding it in my blog …alan skeoch.ca
    alan