Month: October 2019

A tree for Achilles.

You may remember that we let go of Achilles, aka Chili Dog, earlier this year.

Our vet clinic is in a network which gives people who let go of a pet, buy and plant a tree in the pets’ memory. So there’s been an informal ceremony every October since the year 2000. The municipality generously allows this to happen in a public park. We’ve planted trees for BoJo, Kendal, and Stella. So of course we bought a tree for Achilles. I put in a request for specific species, a Red Oak (Quercus rubra), which is native to both Texas (where he and I came from) and Ontario.

The ceremony was today and it’s a fine October day – mostly sunny, cool, and breezy. I was very, very pleased to find a healthy Red Oak sapling tagged with Chili’s name. So we planted it. It was no trouble at all, just like Achilles was. It’s near Stella’s and Kendal’s trees.

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I may not live long enough to sit in its shade. That’s fine.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. -Greek proverb

Cheese.

Pine River Cheese, a co-op that’s been active for decades, is closing. It’s regrettable that yet another locally owned and operated business closes its doors, and a rural community loses jobs.

Faye first took me there on a day when I had a plane to catch and was nervously watching the clock (I caught my plane.) They make (er, made) good cheese. Very good cheese.

I was recently in the neighbourhood and stocked up.

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We will freeze what we can’t use soon. When we thaw and eat that cheese Faye and I will look at one another, nod, and perhaps talk about how another wonderful bit of rural Ontario is gone.

Neared the end.

As we neared the end of this years commercial tomato harvest, one of the last untouched tomato fields was opened up by this combination of a tractor/harvester (harvester obscured) and tractor/dump wagon combination.

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