Alan Skeoch

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  • EPISODE 396 DAMAGED 15 FOOT ROWBOAT….LOVED BY HEMINGWAY, COLERIDGE, STEINBECK…SKEOCHS

    EPISODE 396     DAMAGED 15 FOOT ROWBOAT…LOVED BY HEMINGWAY, COLERIDGE, STEINBECK…SKEOCH.


    alan skeoch
    July 2021



    This ROWBOAT  has seen better days.  Someone even set it on fire
      Badly damaged.  My problem is
    I would like to make the best of the hull…oil stain perhaps.  I need advice.

    step 1)  today I belt sanded the burned places.  Lots of black charred wood 
    removed.   Quite a mess but the fire only damaged the first quarter inch of the hull.

    step 2)  wash the hull perhaps using a commercial cleaner.

    step 3)  HELP?   OIL STAIN? SEMI TRANSPARENT STAIN?  SOLID COLOUR?
    The boat will never touch water again.  I would just like to restore it enough to
    be a good prop for movie people.   Boats like this are not easy to find.

    step 4:  Putting the boat outside for the winter months…actually spring, summer, fall and winter months
    …so it will need a generous amount of whatever seems best.

    Why?  Why not keep it inside a barn?  That’s a good idea but I have stretched 
    Andrew and Nick’s patience to the breaking point.  “You know dad, the boat will
    have to sit outside in the weather.”    He said it nicely but there was a ‘no debate’ tone
    to his voice.   

    Keep in mind I have already filled the big barn with my sets and prop…and some spilled over
    to the stable…then the paint shop and now the machinery barn.  Everyone has their limits.

    I need your advice … a good (and cheap if possible) all weather wood stain that will cover
    up bad spots on the hull.   So bad that after spending the day belt sanding and scraping
    the charcoal  from the surface of the hulll that I looked like a chimney sweeper from
    Victorian England.   Too big to go down a chimney with a brush.  In victorian times
    the job was reserved for skinny kids with the rubbery bones from ricketts due to the fact
    those little Dickensian street kids rarely sat in the sunshine.    I am not skinny nor am I
    interested in cleaning chimneys.

    All I want to do is create a FAKE boat.   Suggest a colour and a stain that will make
    my boat look good…in all kinds of weather.


    CONVERSATION THAT IS ONLY IN MY MND

    “Andrew, this boat is worth storing in your house let alone your machine shed.”
    “I know Dad…but we need space for Bob Cats, trucks, tree planters, cement mixers…lots of things.”
    “Agree…but still a little space for imagination…my imagination…I see this old rowboat
    floating in places of global importance.   Great writers have written about this kind of rowboat..
    Hemingway, Coleridge, Steinbeck…”

    “OK, Dad, we will see what we can do…after you get the charcoal cut way and penetrating oil applied.”

    “Andrew, take a look at the possible movie scenes below…all would feature this rowboat.

    “Enough, Dad…more than enough.  We will rescue the boat for the sake of future generations
    and the film industry.”


    Hemingway’s story…The Old Man and the Sea…if filmed again would find my
    old rowboat ideal


    Dunkirk in World War Two…my rowboat fits perfectly…either abandoned or
    carrying 5 or 6 men to offshore rescue ships.   All that is necessary is imagination




    Coleridge must have seen a boat like mine before he wrote his famous poem.  “Alone, Alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide seas….”




    Or adrift with the flotsam and jetsam of Steinbeck’s novel, Cannery Row.


    Or..Here is the real thing…an abandoned rowboat among the shoreline grasses of Prince Edward Island.

  • Fwd: EPISODE 394 CHOKECHERRIES.. LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF LEAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISON TO CATTLE AND HORSES…CYANIDE



    EPISODE 394    LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF LEAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISONOUS
                              (I did not know they were poison until yesterday July 21, 2021…some 70 years later)

    alan skeoch
    July 21, 2021

    I was photographing the combine as it disappeared on a distant slope.  Something odd! In the foreground! Trggering memories.

    “GRAB A HANDFULL OF THE BERRIES AS I SWNG THE TRACTOR AND WAGON”, said Angus.


       Every threshing season when we were
    small was a time of hard labour for all generations.  As kids we had various jobs one of which was rearranging ‘stukes’
    of bound bundles of grain on the hay wagon.  This was a bit tricky in that we were armed with pitchforks and had
    to move fast.   We did this labour on the Townsend farm, the Freeman farm and the McEchern farm. All Wellington County
    farms.  Angus McEchern
    always steered to the fencerow occasionally so we could feast while working.

    QUESTION:   WHAT were we eating?   Memories of the past were overtaking.


    DATE, JULY 21, 2021
    I had parked the truck on roadside just to watch the behemoth of a combine busy pounding the heads out of barley
    or winter wheat.   Amazing process as old as our civilized lives on the moving crust of this planet.  Civilized.   it 
    was these tiny grains that changed humans from hunters and wanderers to residents of large cities.  First in ancient
    Sumer and the city of Ur.   Now the site of a bloody never ending war in the middle east.  Because of these tiny grains
    we learned to write and record our tribulations.  Einkorn…a wild grass that has become one of the reasons we have
    populated the earth.

    Thinking like this I watched the great John Deere combine hammer its way down dip in the field of grain.  Like it
    was sinking.   At that moment I noticed something in the foreground that was vaguely familiar.  In the fencerow…reddish
    berries on a spindly branch.

    “Chokecherries!”


    CHOKECHERRIES…AND CYANIDE

    Back in the 1950’s we would gobble up great handfuls of chokecherries every time Angus turned the tractor and grain wagon
    close to the fencerow.  Red berries and dark red really ripe berries.  My first taste was disconcerting.  The berries made
    my mouth pucker…sort of a dry taste that drew saliva.   But sweet at the same time.  Each berry had a hard pit at its
    centre.  My mouth soon filled with the pits as the berry juice trickled down my throat of my stomach.  I spit out piles
    of these pits.  Maybe tried to break them open…but failed.  Thankfully.

    So today I thought I would write an article in praise of chokecherries.  Glad I did.  Sobering and frightening.
    The damn chokecherries are poisonous.   Not the flesh of the berries but everything else. Had we Been able
    to crack open the pits we would have a mouthful of cyanide.  Cyanide!   Deadly poison.  Some pits must have
    slipped down my throat but even the strong acids of my stomach could not break open the pits so they were excreted.
    Killed some children according to one source.  Most of us were lucky in our ignorance.

    Cattle, sheep and horses were not so lucky.   Especially if the pasture fields were overgrazed.  Then livestock might
    turn to the fencerows and began consuming leaves, twigs…even bark..of the chokecherry trees.  All are poisonous.
    leaves, bark, twigs, pits.  Cyanide.   Enough to kill livestock?  Apparently so.   Farmers were urged to remove the chokecherry
    trees and shrubs and it seems some farmers did do that for I no longer see great bunches of chokecherries
    hanging life grapes.  Inviting the picking.  Especially when the berries turned a dark red that was nearly black.

    We would gather six quart baskets of chokecherries and take them home for mom to make chokecherry jelly which
    was great on morning toast.  Loved the stuff.  Marjorie and I made it in the early years of our marriage. We had
    no idea that a cyanide-like poison lurked in those pits that were thrown out in their cheesecloth wrapping.

    We were not alone.  If you have time punch up chokecherries on the internet.  Lots of people sang the praises
    of those wild berries.  Not so much anymore. 





    I bet you get distracted by the combine and do not see the little chokecherry bush in the foreground.



    POST SCRIPT

    Question: I would like your opinion on the edibility of chokecherries (Prunus virginiana). Is it true their berries are poisonous?

    I’m a bit confused, as several websites mention that chokecherries are an excellent food for birds and some even say they can be used to make jams and syrups. But what really bowled me over was a page on the Canadian Poisonous Plants Information System. It states “Children have been poisoned and have died after ingesting large quantities of berries, which contain the seeds. All types of livestock can be poisoned by ingesting the plant material.”

    I was appalled, as when I was young, we used to eat handfuls of chokecherries straight from the tree and we suffered no ill consequences. How is it possible that the berries can be both poisonous and non-poisonous?

    Pierre Nadeau

    Answer: I too used to eat the chokecherries as a boy, in spite of their astringent and none-too-sweet taste.

    The secret is that it’s the pit (seed) that is toxic, not the fruit’s rather meager flesh. All cherries and other species of Prunus have poisonous pits. They contain amygdalin, a product the body converts into cyanide, a deadly poison, after consumption. However, people usually don’t eat cherry pits, not even those as small as the ones found in chokecherries. Instead, we spit them out, and thus suffer no risk of poisoning.

    Cattle and other livestock eat chokecherries whole and can become poisoned if they swallow too many. Note that the text you found on the web specifies in the text that the children who died had swallowed the seeds.


  • EPISODE 394 LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF LEAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISON TO CATTLE AND HORSES

    EPISODE 384 LOVED TO EAT THEM EVEN IF EAVES, BARK, TWIGS, PITS WERE POISONOUS (I did not know they were poison until yesterday…70 years later)
    alan skeoch July 21, 2021
    Today my story will be late…i.e. evening.
    Why? Big load returning from a movie set. But let me send this teaser. Every threshing season when we were small was a time of hard labour for all generations. As kids we had various jobs one of which was rearranging ‘stukes’ of bound bundles of grain on the hay wagon. This was a bit tricky in that we were armed with pitchforks and had to move fast. We did this labour on the Townsend farm, the Freeman farm and the McEchern farm. All Wellington County farms. Angus McEchern always steered to the fencerow occasionally so we could feast while working.
    QUESTION: WHAT were we eating? Full story coming.

  • EPISODE 393 BACK TO SQUARE BAILS…DID YOU NOTICE? JULY 20, 2021


    EPISODE 393    BACK TO SQUARE BAILS…DID YOU NOTICE ?

    alan skeoch
    july 20 2021


    SUDDENLY MACHINES RATTLED THE SILENCE OF A COUNTRY ROAD

    The nice thing about an empty road is the chance to look around as I’m driving.  Today there was more action
    in the grain field than on the road…so I slowed down, stopped, slipped into reverse and backed up

    Something a little surprising was happening…took me a few minutes to figure it out.
    SO I backed up and recorded the movement.  A whole lot of machinery…new.   And
    operated by one man.

    But that was not the point…there was something else at work in my brain.

    And it seemed I was not alone.   There was a white half ton truck nearby.  The driver must have been as fascinated
    as I was.  Too fascinated for he ended up in deep trouble as you will see at the end of this story.






    Coming straight down the windrow of loose straw after the combine had got the good stuff…winter wheat or barley.






    Massey Ferguson tractor…once made in Toronto but no longer so.


    AHAH!  This is a new version of an old machine.   Back to square bails with a difference.   No need for a stacker…one man’s job
    is gone with this self stacker…when the load is full it is plopped down in the field for a tractor with a front end pick up.

    Years ago we were the loaders.  The bailer would shoot the bound bails at us and we had to stack them 
    quickly on the wagon.   As I  remember there were three of us doing the job.  We had to move fast.  Occasionally someone
    would grab the bail by one string…snap the twine and a shower of loose straw would wreck our system.  “Push the bastard off…I mean
    the broken bail…not you guys.”

    The big round bailers are still working most fields.  Problem with them is storage…wrapped in heavy plastic tarps….hundreds of 
    these sheets of plastic.  Terrible waste.  “Why not store the round bails in the barns..most of which are empty?”

    Simple answer…round bails roll….push out the barns support beams. And the round bails are hard to get in and out
    of Ontario bank barns.   Have you ever tried to lift a round bail?  Can’t be done.  Square bails are human friendly …can be lifted. Round bails are
    inhuman…cannot be lifted.    


    So the whole job of bailing straw can now be done by one man…or woman.








    Just a bit farther down the fifth line I met a guy who also must
    have been rubber necking his way north on this bright summer day.
    Seems he missed the road perhaps while watching the combine at work.
    But I do not know how he could miss the road…just guessing he was rubber 
    necking.

  • EPISODE 392 JUST IN CASE YOU ARE INTERESTED…TABLES ( sort of tables )

    EPISODE 392     JUST IN CASE YOU ARE INTERESTED…


    alan skeoch
    July 20. 2021

    The phone rang early this morning.
    “Alan, I have some tables you might want to purchase.”
    “What kind?
    “I will send a picture.”

    And so she did.  I am not interested but maybe someone
    who gets my episodes might have room for them in an apartment
    or condo…or maybe in their five ton truck.

    If so, let me know…I will forward the info.

    alan

    P.S.  Just a thought.  Old man Trump has not quite finished his
    border wall…maybe these would help if covered with barbed wire.

    IMG_1144.JPG